Indonesia

As our plane landed on the beautiful island of Bali, we saw the most amazing sunset in the horizon. We took a taxi to the beautiful Vilarisi hotel. We had a nice, clean room with a balcony that looked out over the pool area. We were about a 10minute walk from Legian and Kuta beach. Our first day on Kuta beach was gross-there was trash and dead fish in the water so throughout the week we didn't go swimming. Kuta is definitely a surfer-not swimmers- beach. We ended up spending time laying out on the beach and going back to the hotel to swim in the pool.
Our second day on Kuta we rented a car and tour guide for $50 to take us to Ubud, a group of villages in the center of Bali. In Ubud we went to the sacred monkey forest, simply a forest area where the monkeys roam free around the tourists. Outside you can buy bananas for 15,000 Rupiah-definitely recommend buying them hahaha. I walked into the forest with a bunch of bananas and was immediately harassed by monkeys. They crawled up my clothes, onto my shoulders, hanging off my arms, even had one on my head for a bit. It was a great, fun memory haha.

After the monkey forest we went to the Ubud palace and the traditional markets. I don't really know any details of the Ubud Palace, but it was a small area with traditional Indonesian structures.

After Ubud we drove the rice padis and took some pictures. It was a neat site-rice padis up and down the hills with palm trees everywhere and the light reflecting off the water in the fields. It was really pretty.

Our last stop of the night was Tanah Lot temple, the Temple of the Sea. The temple buildings were spread out over the cliffs and rock formations in the sea. Before high tide you could go down to the shore and see both the "Holy Snake" and the "Holy Fountain" which were in small caves. Once the tide started coming in everyone climbed back up to the mainland to watch the sunset. We found a seat at a cafe on the edge of the island, you could see the shore below the cliff we were sitting on, the temple on the rock out in the sea and the sun setting behind it. It is a must see for any visitors to Bali!

The rest of our days on the island were spent sitting out on the beach, shopping (wonderful markets!!!), and eating western food! On Kuta I recommend The Balcony, Flapjacks (amazing smoothies!), and Chi-Chi's. ^_^ I love that I had to go to Indonesia to get real, good western food...
New Years was spent on the beach. Thousands of people bought fireworks and were setting them off on the beach. There was no real countdown so everyone kinda did their own at any point within 5 minutes of midnight. 
Security was tight that day, when we went to dinner at a western sports bar we had our bags checked by security guarding the door. We later found out that there had been a terrorist threat against westerners.Obviously, the threat was not acted on.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/bali-new-year-terrorist-attack-warning/story-e6freuy9-1225815100004

photos for Malaysia and Indonesia here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/aeihrig