Bali, Indonesia - March 2001
This was a business trip. At the time I was working in the PR industry and a client, Philips, called in a panic to ask if I had a valid passport. After giving the right answer I was asked if I would play nursemaid to three journalists in Bali. There is only one answer to that type of question. The journalists in question learnt that my version of playing nursemaid took place in a pub or around a pool table.  We had a lot of fun and actually also managed to squeeze in just a little bit of site seeing. We didn't take a camera with at night-time ;-)
My charges: from left to right: Dean, Peter and Joel.	Bali is predominately a Hindu country just about every house has a shrine. Few are this elaborate. You also see many motorcycles, often two- or three-up and moving at a rapid rate of knots.
One of the places I did take the camera was the sacred monkey forest in Padangtegal (baliforfamilies.com/monkeyforest.htm). Click on the image if you want to read the text. (It's around 1mb if you're interested).	The forest is located in a small but deep valley so you enter on a descending path. Not having a guide with us we aren't quite sure what this structure is but I call it the lunch deck - primarily because people seemed to take their midday meal there.
Again, in the absence of a guide we had to guess. We called this the small temple - which we felt was a fairly safe assumption given what we had seen in Bali up until then.	Like elsewhere in Bali, the architecture is amazing. We couldn't determine the significance of this bridge but the detail is amazing. And as you can see from the algae it's very damp and humid there.
This was a photo opportunity too good to miss. BTW, I don't think it is people they are looking out for - we managed to get quite close. It's probably the other monkeys they're keeping a wary on.	This was another family group sitting on the wall in front of the main temple. The wall over looks a courtyard that carries a lot of foot traffic, which raises an interesting question: do people go there to see the monkeys or to be seen by the monkeys?

The forrest has a deep gorge running through it with a stream at the bottom. We believe this is the Holy Bathing temple, down a long flight of stairs in the very depths of the valley. I didn't see anybody bathing there but I didn't go too close.	Did I forget to mention there are monkeys there? They are called Balinese or long tailed macaques and, believe me, they are everywhere.	This fella had found himself a grandstand seat and wasn't moving for anybody ... well, that was the idea anyway. A few minutes later a bigger monkey chased him away and took up the position ...
Bali is seemingly made up of hundreds of territories, much like the suburbs and counties found in the rest of the world. The big difference, however, is that the boundaries are marked by "gate pillars" - naturally all of them are not quite as ornate as this pair.		Another temple not too far from the hotel. Checked cloth is draped around the alter and on each pillar. There is probably an offering up there too.