Mar 11, 2005 - Day 248 in Kuta, Bali, Indonesia

Charles writes: We stayed in Kuta in the morning as things were slowly opening up after the holiday. There was a market on the beach we visited. There were a lot of gambling booths, where dice games or spinning wheels were flying with people placing bets to win money or cigarettes. (The first photo is of me betting a little money on a dice game with some kids.) We had heard that they were setting the floats on fire on the beach in the afternoon and imagined this would be quite a site. Packs of kids and teens were tearing pieces off the floats, and in some cases ripping them apart. After waiting quite a while to see the floats set a blaze, we decided to take off and took a taxi to Ubud around 7pm. Ubud is in the interior of the island and offers a different slice of life in Bali. The photos are of the floats on the beach, where they were supposed to be set a blaze. You can see the craftsmanship and detail of the floats in the daylight.