For a few days, one can feel like a multi-millionaire in Bali. 100 New Zealand dollars gets you almost a million Indonesian rupiah! Of course I was very excited to visit Bali not to feel like a multi-millionaire but because the history of how Bali came to be is very interesting. In a country that is dominated by Muslims, Bali remains to be a Hindu majority province. Most of the inhabitants are descendants of migrants from other parts of Asia and there has been a long documented history of Hindu rulers for over 700 years. The Dutch colonised in 16th century and then came a long difficult colonial period.
Being just 8 degrees south of the equator, Bali has a fairly even climate all year round. Tourism is now the largest single industry and cruise ships are starting to see the appeal and they have been docking close enough since 2011.