The best costumes don't always win trophies. In fact, sometimes they're not even condoned, as is the case with the rooster who went to Vegas for Halloween.

I'll never forget where I was the day I heard Lady Gaga crow for the first time. Not the singer, but my chicken, a particularly beautiful little guy with flashy feathers and a gorgeous, larger-than-life swagger.

In day-to-day tourism-free Bali, life is a relatively relaxed mosaic of extended family, food and placating the island's many deities with ceremonies and the endless small offerings or banten that Hinduism Balinese-style demands.