GOIN' NUTS IN BALI

If you're wondering about that promise on which I failed to deliver about keeping the blog updated, its because things were insane in the lead up to my trip to Bali for the United Nations climate change conference, and has remain so since I got here. Great help, of course, is the fact that I have no internet access from my hotel room (as should be the case at all vacation destinations), which truly limits free time to blog in between trying to file stories. Anyways, as bureacrats argue about what they are going to do - not do - to save the planet, I - along with 10,000 plus other delegates and media at the conference have involuntarily found a innovative way to lowering our own carbon footprint at the event - starvation. The venue is completely void of any kind of affordable dining options (unless you make serious moolah... which I don't) which means choosing to go green (read: hungry) instead of going broke. The Bali International Convention Centre’s snack bars - supplied by the adjoining Westin Hotel sell basic sandwiches at close to $16 each, and canned drinks at about $4. Multiply that by two meals a day and 12 days, and thats close to $500 on food alone. *Groan*. Godsent has been the Indonesian Pavillion next door, which, has increased its traffic tremendously by offering coffee, tea, water and limited (read: I have manage to snag two cups in nine days) numbers of cup noodles to media for free. The crew at the hotel have also been sweet enough to look the other way while I stuff prepacked muesli into my backpack during breakfast.... But short of that, food is sort of a non-option. The things environment reporters end up doing for the planet.... More soon.. XXX Art