The memories I have of my first trip to Bali consist of things like: that smell, gamelon music, geckos, timeshare hawkers ... Ah, memories ... 2001: A Bali Odyssey.

Oh, hang on, everyone else is talking about decades old memories! Those I also have but they are all second-hand. My mother first visited Bali in 1975 or 76. She went for a month with friends who were already Bali-regulars. One of her first letters asked us to give her a list of music we'd like her to buy, as cassettes were cheap. My sisters and I shot off an aerogram full of Want Lists.

When they came back the friends were telling me that next time my mother goes to Bali I should also go. Her next trip was 2 or 3 years later, but I didn't go. If that trip was in 1978 I didn't go as I was doing VCE (or whatever it was called back then.) If the trip was in 1979 it was because at the end of the year I was going to North America for four months.

In the early 80s my youngest sister travelled to Bali, and my other sister and my father a couple of years later. By the time I first travelled to Bali my mother would have been then 15-20 times, my father about 10-15, and my sisters two or three times each. I do enjoy hearing their (and your) stories of what Bali was like back then, looking at the old photos, etc.