To get there, a good option was to go through Bali, and since we used award flights (free flight in business using the stack of United miles I had gathered), we had to arrive in Bali 4 days before our connection to the next towns on the way to the boat.

After a quick online search, and asking some friends, I quickly figured out that spending 4 days in Bali wasn't the worst thing in the world, so that's what we did.

The flight from SFO to Bali (via Taiwan) with EVA Air was really good. Made flying as much of a breeze as it can be:

seabass was on the special order in advance menu, quite tasty

met the definition of lie flat :)

The EVA Business Lounge was quite nice too, even had ice cream :)

After the last flight, we arrived in Bali in pourring rain, to be greated by our guide, see next post.

We arrived in pretty good rain, which only got worse over time for the rest of the day

Everyone seemed to have a tour or a guide waiting for them, we did too

Our guide took us for an evening at the Zoo where we had dinner, saw an animal show, and got to visit the Zoo at night with a flashlight (not forgetting getting to feed an elephant):

After the visit, we got a drum and dance, and fire dancing show:

and that was it for the evening, despite the great flight, we were beat and jetlagged.

Next, Tawan, our guide, came to pick us up. He drove us around Denpasar in the morning and took us to the Bajra Sandhi Monument:

Next, he took us to the near island where we booked our dolphin experience with Bali Dolphin Interaction (beware, there is another one, and apparently it's not as good). Driving around was "interesting", you got to see all kinds of things:

Eventually, we got there. Before I put more pictures, I'll answer the "isn't this mean to inhumane to the dolphins" part. I'm not an expert, but while their enclosures didn't look super big, they were in the ocean (i.e. real water), they are allowed to go swim with one another after their work hours (bite marks and scratches they do to one another confirmed that), and allegedly, they're let out to swim in the ocean on sundays, but they come back for the easy food and the routine they're used to. While I'm not sure if I could believe that, cats and dogs do that happily and come back for food and companionship, so maybe it's possible for dolphins too, at least I hope so.
All that being said, we were split up in groups and had one dolphin to play with for each group. The dolphin is obviously trained to do tricks, but just like a dog that likes go fetch a ball, apparently our dolphin was more than happy to do some of the tricks and bring us back a ball too:

Once our dolphin fun was over, Tawan took us to a place that sells Luwak Coffee, the most expensive coffee in the world, where individual beans are eaten and pooped half digested by a local animal (Luwak). Apparently, it makes coffee better (I wouldn't know because I hate coffee :) ):

Luwak, the choosy animal

Next, we went to the monkey forest, which is both a nice temple, and lost of wild monkeys, which you're not supposed to feed since if they bite you, you can get rabbies, but you can pay a local to feed them for you and make them climb on you:

some tourists fed the monkeys directly, but it wasn't a grand idea. Some do end up bitten.

just what you're not supposed to do

We ended by having dinner close to our new hotel in Ubud, at Indus, with a great view and good food:

breakfast location

Tawan then took us out for a drive:

lots of rice fields

people drying their rice on the side of the road...

We went to Gunung Kawi. On the way down to a temple, lots of stores:

Next door was Tirtha Empul Temple:

offerings

Next, we went to a Volcano Rim, but unfortunately the weather and visibility were poor, so the view was not that great and we ended up not going to the hot springs that were down there, but we still had lunch at the view restaurant that was right there, and the buffet was tasty and quite cheap:

Later on the road, we went fruit hunting for Jennifer :)

On the way back, we went to Penglipuran temple and its street of traditional houses for tourists to see:

Last, but not least, the elephant cave and its surroundings:

On the road, we saw a flock of ducks used to 'clean' a rice field :)

the lizards were having breakfast too :)

the staff kept the ground meticulously

This is not what I usually do, but we had some spare time in the morning :)

We then started our day with the bird park, which I figured would be fun. I was indeed right, on top of having unusual birds, they had some you could interact with (including the big blue parrot that came down from its perch slowly and calmly to bite my finger pretty hard, stupid parrot).

they showed us how cocks fight. Mmmh, ok

this one was super friendly and literally asked me to scratch under its feathers :)

this little guy wanted to clean our ears :)

Next door, they had reptiles, we had a quick look:

Our next plan was to have suckling pig, a local specialty. Yummy piggy was had :)

Next, we got to visit places that had art for sale: wood carvings and paintings:

art indeed

To finish the day, we went to Tanah Lot to see the fesh water source in the middle of the ocean, the temple that hosts it, and the surroundings. Once is supposed to see the sunset there, but it was an utter clusterfsck of people due to a special gathering of motorcrossers that day, as well the regular tourists. It took us almost 45mn just to get out of the parking lot before sunset, never mind what it would have been later... (yeah, we missed sunset, but we were going to be 10 days on a boat, so we'd get many more):

at the lowest tide, you can walk to the fresh water island

fresh water comes out of the small island

they have a secret snake in a cave you're supposed to pet (for a tip)

they have a secret snake in a cave you're supposed to pet (for a tip)

After a long drive back to Ubud (which would have been twice as long, if not more, had we waited for sunset), we got an evening reflexology massage, which did include some severe foot plant manipulations to stimulate nerve endings

And that was the end of our 4th Day in Bali.

A few more pictures of our resort, Ubud by Como, on the way out:

We got up early to visit the Bali Zoo and Saphari Park. Lack of planning and knowledge (and them having a useless website), caused us not to know they had private safari tours in a jeep for 2 where you could hand feed the animals. That would clearly have been the highlight of the visit. Instead, we got the normal group safari tour, which was still good to see animals there.
We didn't sign up in time for an elephant ride that would meet the time we had to leave by, but we got the camel ride instead, which wasn't bad :)

the private jeep we should have been in :)

We went to visit the tigers:

just like our cat, but a tiny bit bigger :)

but eh, it was hard to pass on :)

grooming, just like our cat

Time for our camel ride:

Even if we didn't get to ride one, we did get to feed some elephants before their bath. Their trunk is very very good at probing and tickling you everywhere until you hand out the food :)

Then was time for the elephant show, this zoo's main feature:

Last but not least, we had a quick look at the rest of the place before heading out:

After the Zoo, Tawan drove us towards the airport, but since we had a bit of time left over, we had lunch by the beach, where we hadn't spent any time so far :)

And that was it, the end of our trip in Bali. Next were the flights towards Sorong (via Makassar) to reach Raja Ampat, our ulimate diving destination.

While you should go to that page for more details, I'll put a few pictures here:

For more many pictures of Diving in Raja Ampat on the Waow, go here.