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| What a nice environment for cattle, green pastures and plenty of shade situated on a beachfront property. |
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| Family gatherings on the beach amidst the garbage that rolls with the tide with garbage left behind by locals and visitors. Bali has yet to adopt the idea of keeping its island and beaches less littered. However, much of the beach waste is the result of that left at sea by others. |
Without English-language television channels in Bali, the only way we could keep up with the world’s news was through the Internet. With the slow WiFi in the region, it was difficult, but we managed to read the main news every day.
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| These cattle seem to be slightly larger in Bali than in many less developed countries. |
This morning, while researching online for information about terroristic attacks in Bali to date in 2016, we were shocked to see their was new bomb blast a few nights ago, in two areas in Bali, one at a resort in Kuta, the town where we’ve stayed overnight in a hotel on two previous occasions with one more booking upcoming on October 29th before flying to Sydney. The second attack occurred on Jimbaran Beach, south of Kuta.
Watch this story here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-364053/Several-dead-new-Bali-bomb-blasts.html
It certainly makes us think. But then again, how do we feel about visiting a mall in Minnesota next summer where we’ve planned to go to purchase new clothing to replace the old and fast wearing clothing we have with us now.
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| The small town’s business sections are jammed with temples, mosques, restaurants and shops. |
In addition, we had considered visiting a shopping center in Australia during our next 33-night cruise when our ship arrives.
port at various cities. We were hoping to buy some articles to get through the next few months. Should we give it a second thought? Australia has been the victim of a number of terrorist attacks in recent years.
I will not go into the specifics of these attacks. We have no doubt, if you look at local or global news, you’ve seen the stories repeated over and over again. We believe it is very important to be informed, but fear is only used to avoid the areas most at risk when possible.
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| We crossed a number of river bridges as shown here. |
Having read the American attacks, we are worried about the safety of our family. Will our adult children listen if we tell them not to go into public places? No, not at all. Their lives often revolve around visiting crowded places with their families on regular occasions, ball games, parks, zoos, shopping centres, restaurants, theme parks, public buildings and so on.
We wonder whether one of us should temper the quality of our lives by becoming quasi-hermits, avoiding all high-risk places. It’s entirely unrealistic, even for us, where we have considerable control over what we do and what we do.
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| Although the beaches are often littered with debris, the scenes are still lovely. We never grow weary of the blue waters. |
In the process of continuing with our world travels as we fully intend, we surely can’t avoid airports which pose a high risk, although, we’ve made a concerted effort to avoid certain public transportation when possible such as train stations, buses and heavily populated venues in risky areas.
Who identifies what constitutes a high-risk sector? All the research in the world can’t cover the possible discovery of new locations where horrific incidents continually occur, unanticipated and often considered unlikely.
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| Private oceanfront property, an excellent lot. |
As we have said many times, no place in the world is safe from risk, whether it is terrorist attacks, accidents or natural disasters. We try not to live in fear, as we are certain is the case for most of you who live in seemingly innocuous areas. Essentially, an innocuous area does not exist.
One could live on a remote island in one of the most remote areas of the world and still not be entirely safe. A crazy and unstable individual with any type of weapon could attack the unsuspecting, the unprepared and the defensive evil, ill equipped to defend themselves and those they love.
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| There are some scattered parks along the oceanfront promenade. |
Nature can be the ultimate beast when more lives are lost each year due to horrific weather and natural disasters than terrorist attacks all over the world. Even the state of our personal health is at risk at any time.
moment. Only we have a modicum of control in ensuring our personal safety in that area through living as healthy a lifestyle as possible and proceeding in our daily activities with sensibility.
No, an 80-year-old man who has knee problems should not climb a ladder to change a lightbulb. Nor should an 65 year old retiree start riding a motorbike in Bali on the harrowing roads when they’ve never done so in the past.
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| Numerous mosques and temples are easily reachable from Denspasar. |
We choose to live on the cautious side with health and safety our first consideration while still striving to fulfill our dreams by witnessing what we’d never imagined possible, by experiencing the nuances of daily life for others in our midst and for embracing the beauty, not the ugly, of the world around us.
Stay safe, living life to the fullest.
Photo from one year ago today, September 19, 2015:
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| Fiji’s coral reef is second to none in the world and a favorite location for scuba divers. For more details and photos, please click here. |