For China's National Holiday, we escape to Bali to avoid the 300M+ Chinese travelers swamping every major tourist spot in China. We live luxuriously for 5 days at the Ritz Carlton: stuffing ourselves at the breakfast buffet every morning, hanging out at the multiple pools - including the new infinite pool, making new friends (Australian twins love playing with Kyle and taking him down the waterslide), checking out Ritz's private beach circled by high bluffs and populated by monkeys, and just generally enjoying the beautiful grounds.
We managed to rouse ourselves after a few days of lazing around to visit some friends in a private villa, go to the Elephant Safari Park for a brief ride, walk thru the Monkey Forest and have a mean monkey take the whole bunch of bananas from Kyle's hands (luckily Kyle is wearing his new JetBoy helmet), and tour the Reptile park. Alan held several large (and heavy lizards) and reluctantly - at Kyle's behest - a large python. But the highlight was watching the Kimono Dragon chase down a live chicken and eat it whole, all in less than 10 seconds.
This past year, we have gone to beach resorts Kauai, Hanoi (Vietnam), Penang (Malaysia), Sanya (China), TsingTao (China), but we think Bali is the best. The weather was absolutely perfect, people were genuinely nice, service was generally good, tipping was not expected, prices were as cheap as China for knock-offs and reasonable for high quality restaurants/accommodations, and everyone spoke decent English to get the meaning across.
