There are two kinds of travel writing – the glowing, and the honest.  You see the glowing stuff all the time, in the guidebooks, the Sunday travel section, and in gauzy memoirs like “Eat, Pray, Love,” “A Year in Provence,” and “Under the Tuscan Sun” (each of which I liked a lot).  The honest approach just isn’t that appealing to most people, and usually doesn’t sell.

The hard truth is that travel is often uncomfortable, boring, inconvenient, exhausting, expensive, infuriating – and sometimes even a little dangerous, at least to your health. But who wants to read about that?

For example, most travel books don’t focus much on the bugs, but they’d be more honest (and useful) if they did.

In Bali we got hundreds of bug bites, all over our bodies.  They itched like mad – I made several bleed. Thirty on my left arm alone.  We never knew for sure whether it was bed bugs, sand fleas or mosquitoes – or some of each. Since Bali is on the equator, all are good candidates.

I’m pretty sure it was bedbugs, which sucks because we were in a pretty nice hotel, and that means there’s always a risk, no matter where you stay. I’m usually a live-and-let-live sort of person – I put spiders and cockroaches outside rather than kill them, but when it comes to bedbugs, I don’t mind saying I hate the little bastards.

This kind of travel is not for everyone. Before we left, we described our itinerary to one friend who said “it makes me tired just thinking about it.”

So, why put yourself through all the aggravation and expense of travel?  For me, it’s all worth it for the occasional “peak experience.” You have to climb the mountain to get the view, and no one bitches and moans more than me during the climb, but the view is forever etched into your soul. It’s worth it.

Like the day we met this tiny old Balinese healer with a sweet face.  He was self-taught, illiterate, and partially crippled. We got to talking and he invited us to his modest home for some “treatment.” I was skeptical, to say the least, figuring he was just another hustler, living off gullible enlightenment-seekers.  He had us lay on a thin, dirty mattress, placed crystals on our chakra points, then started grinding into our toe joints with a plastic cigarette lighter.  In my case it hurt like hell – I started pouring sweat and flopping around like a fish in agony, but when it was over we both felt great.  He diagnosed us both with detail and accuracy – I was really surprised.  When we asked what we owed him, he said leave whatever offering you like at the alter in the corner. When we left, I was thinking about how rarely we meet witch doctors at home,  what a cool experience it was, and how I’ll remain deeply skeptical anyway. Unforgettable.

The travel literature calls Bali paradise, but it’s a lie. Over the years, they have regularly slaughtered each other, like most places. Bali is a good place for exotic adventures and cultural exploration, but not for the classic tropical beach “paradise” experience – for that, head to Tahiti or Hawaii or the Caribbean – the beaches in Bali just can’t compete in terms of quality or cleanliness.

The coral is pretty good, and there are lots of interesting fish, but there’s garbage floating in the water and strewn over the reefs, the visibility is so-so, and there are a lot of stinging jellyfish – not lethal, but plenty annoying, like mosquitos.

Bali is great for exploring the intricate architecture of ancient Indiana Jones-style temples in steaming jungles,

wandering through tropical gardens and lovely old rotting palaces,

and exotic dancing in brilliantly colorful costumes. It’s also great for crafts like batik, cloth, painting, wood and stone carving, jewelry and furniture, and anything relating to the unique Balinese Hinduism that permeates life there.

There are religious offerings scattered everywhere you go – sidewalks, doorways, window sills. The average Balinese spends something like three hours a day on religious ceremony and ritual.  There are parades almost every day. It’s beautiful and fascinating – and probably explains some of the grinding poverty.

The money is the rupiah, and it’s 9400 to the dollar, so the shopping is fun and cheap, once you get used to seeing prices in the millions. The island is about the same size as Hawaii’s Big Island, but instead of 150,000 people like there are here, it’s crammed with 3.5 million, most of them struggling to leave the third world and enter the second. A quarter of them can’t afford the basics like school, so 25% are illiterate and anything based on labor is dirt cheap. Minimum wage is $4 a day around town – less out in the rural areas. Since the two terrorist bombings in ’02 and ’05, tourism is down, which forces many of the people to work the rice paddies just to survive.  Working for food, as they say. And gas for their ubiquitous motor scooters.

Their funeral ceremonies are fun – a big outdoor party where they cremate the departed on a tall platform, encased in a bull-shaped pinata.

We stopped in at my first cockfight, in a wild crowd that felt like the Russian Roulette scenes in the movie “The Deer Hunter.”

Twice we were stopped by well-dressed cops – each time we had to pay a 20,000 rupiah bribe to proceed. It’s only about $2 but, still, corruption sucks. Our driver told us that if he could, he’d like to kill all the cops.

There are some pretty big spiders in the tropics. Mostly benign, but still.

And monkeys, everywhere. Bali isn’t paradise, but then, neither is Hawaii. They’re both fantastic, though.  I just think it’s best to go with your eyes open, armed with accurate information, and bug spray.