After a layover in Singapore we arrive in Bali at about 10 pm. We are exhausted but its instant madness with about 30 taxi drivers grabbing our bags and trying to get us into 30 different cars. We fend them off and grab one candidate and get a ride to a hotel we had reserved in Kuta. It’s a got a beautiful garden in the courtyard and a huge swimming pool. The room is also super clean with A.C. (the weather here today is like living in an arm pit so A.C. is huge).
The next morning we head out to Kuta Beach to check out the scene. When we heard Bali is a paradise we imagined something a lot different. Kuta is disgusting. The beaches are full of trash; you wade out into the water only to have garbage bags wrap around your ankles, you get bombarded by locals asking you to buy things, and there are hammered 20 year olds everywhere. Trash, we find out, is relatively new to the island. Plastic bags and bottles were introduced to Bali as recently as 15 years ago. Just like in the 50’s in the United States when you would have a picnic in the park then simply shake off your blanket of trash into the lawn and head home. There is the same sort of mentality here. People just aren’t sure what to do with it so they either burn it (We’ve seen plenty of piles of just plastic bottles burning on the side of the road), or just toss it into the river where it will float out to the ocean. We grab a beer trying not to hyperventilate on this huge bummer of a place. Tim, a guy from Arizona, strikes up a conversation with us. He assures us this shithole area is only Kuta, and not a good representation of the rest of Bali. I turn around to see if Hilary is hearing this good news and I have to suppress a laugh. While Tim and I have been talking Hilary has been swarmed with woman trying to give her massages, pedicures, and sell her bracelets all at the same time.
We go back to the hotel and get on facebook and start chatting with Dustin Ederer, (who funnily enough was in Dustin’s and Bryan’s grade and has an older brother named Brendan Ederer). He lets us know he and his roommate run their house as a sort of hostel and we could stay there for about 12 US doll hairs a night. We check out his place and it’s huge! It’s basically a two story duplex with two of everything (bathrooms, kitchens, 2x rooms). We can even leave our huge backpacking backpacks there while we travel around the island on day trips. Matt, Dustin’s Hawaiian native roommate, sets us up with a scooter rental for the month. We are a little worried about this because we’ve heard horror stories about 3 Australian’s dying daily from motor bike accidents on Bali alone, and the way we have seen people drive so far we believe it. There are basically no laws and the police pull people over at their own discretion for bribes. We actually get the hang of it pretty fast and its ridiculously fun. If there are cars piled in front of you, you weave through traffic like a game of frogger or hop on the sidewalk to pass as many cars before traffic starts moving again. Everyone is constantly honking and it’s not in a “move it asshole!” kind of way. It’s more of a notice saying, “hey I’m coming up from behind and passing you, so be aware of where I’m at”. It saves a ton of money on taxi’s and we are able to go anywhere we want at a moment’s notice. Gas is ridiculously cheap as well. We drive every day and spend about $2 a week. Although one week, driving cost us $20 as we hit a police check point coming home from surfing. About 20 officers had 30-40 motorcyclists on the side of the road and were hassling everyone for cash. One pulled Hilary and I aside and said “Listen you guys don’t have international driving licenses and I could give you an expensive ticket where you will spend hours in Denpasar (the very hectic capitol) trying to pay it. Or you could fork over 250,000 Rupiah now.” Luckily, Hilary separated our cash a minute before so we showed him we only had 200,000Rp (we had just pulled out the max amount of US $200 at the atm). After talking to Dustin about this he told us that it’s a scare tactic to give you a ticket because they never do. It takes too much of their time to deal with having to go to court for a ticket so they just threaten people. They take as much money they can get off you and then move onto the next person. Mind you, they take you over into dark corners or alleys to threaten and hassle you and the reason for these corrupt checkpoints is usually because they have their Hindu ceremony coming up and everyone needs money to buy goods to offer for ceremony.
Most of our time in Bali is spent sightseeing or at the beach. In Seminyak (where we’re staying at Dustin’s) we drink beers in beanbag chairs watching hilarious Indonesian 90’s cover bands sing “Wonder Wall” and even flow with their best impression of a 90’s croon. In Uluwatu (Southern Bali) we surf one of the world’s best surf breaks. You walk down these zigzag steps that work down to the beach that have been built in the last 15 years to accommodate the surf culture. Then you walk through a beach cave and BOOM! a beautiful break is in front of you. The only problem is that there is about 100 yards of ankle deep water over live coral you have to walk over to get there. We see the locals walking over it barefoot just fine so we follow. About 50 yards in we are in serious pain. The locals never wear shoes and basically have rubber soles and all the white dudes, we come to find out, wear booties. We slowly make it out with some bloody feet but are rewarded with some of the longest left hand breaks of our lives. I even get a barrel! However. every wave sends you into the reefs where you try and keep your body as flat as possible or risk dragging your body against razor sharp reef. We leave and both our feet are cut up pretty good. We even pull a pretty good sized chunk or coral out of Hilary’s foot the next day. We also surf Canguu’s and get some good surf, but really it’s all about watching the locals who effortlessly sport aerial moves like the pros.
Living here is cheap but definitely not as cheap as the $10 a day lifestyle we read and heard about. Its about $13 for a room (if you’re lucky), $4-5 for each meal, $5 daily scooter rentals, and then paying for whatever fun thing you want to do that day. The rest of the time we kick back at Dustin’s place reading and writing, and watching $1 bootlegged movies you can buy anywhere on the street. I read Stephen King’s “The Shining” while Hilary reads Anthony Kiedis’s “Scar Tissue”. We also hit up cafes for free wifi and cheap tea. We each get sick once, after surfing because of the pollution in the water, but remain healthy besides those boughts. Dustin gets Dengue fever, a rare tropical disease that makes you feel as if your back is broken and causes you to crawl into a fetal position for 10 days. We are definitely wearing mosquito repellent after watching him suffer, however the mosqiotoes are almost immune to repellant and relentlessly sniff us out! The locals, meanwhile, are immune and it’s difficult to find good repellant that doesn’t cause your skin to melt.
It’s our last full day in Bali before we soar over the Indian Ocean to Phuket, Thailand. I have spent our last week in Seminyak ill in bed, so when my sickness subsides, Max and I are ready for one last mini adventure. We’re thankful though that we haven’t gotten even sicker. Apparently, almost every newbie to Bali gets “Bali Belly”, an adjustment illness that resembles food poisoning (Thank you probiotics!). Anyway, we decide that it may be one of Max’s last opportunities to surf for a while (Thailand isn’t a surfer’s paradise) so we might as well get him some waves while I soak in the Vitamin D and some sights. We head to Tanah Lot. From what we can tell online, Tanah Lot is a Hindu water temple that sits on an isolated cliff that looks as if it rose out of the ocean. There are surfers in the water in the photos, so we figure Max will get his chance at some waves. We arrive only to discover a sea of tourists and hawking stands. We have to pay not only to enter but also to park and we’re skeptical as we pull in. After zigzagging like cattle through the merchant market we can see the temple and the waves……that are crashing right on the rocks. A guy walks past us and scoffs at Max and his surfboard. We’re not convinced there isn’t surf to be had, so we walk around some tide pools toward a more southern beach. Walking along I notice a pack of young Balinese boys sticking their fingers in the crevices in the tide pools. Curious, I watch. I see and crab and point, when one in heart printed boxers shows me the little fish they’re catching, not crabs. He then sees Max and runs over to him, yelling “You surf?! You surf?!” Max asks him if there are more waves down further and he points to where we’re headed. Excited we continue, but the boy follows and a few others join him. The boy starts leading us to the shallow pools 50 feet away and starts pointing at the small residual waves crashing on the tide pools. “Ohhhhh….the boy wants to surf the baby waves!” Having seen little boys surfing on makeshift materials, we understand their enthusiasm and can’t help but enjoy it. The boy points at the board then to him, and Max is hesitant to relinquish the board because of the rocks. After all, we are borrowing the board from our host and don’t want to ruin it. I encourage Max to just go out with them to help them steer clear of the jagged rocks. Once the boys realize Max is going to let them go for a ride, they start running into the water, one even stripping down naked and sprinting in after Max. Max props the boys up one at a time and helps them catch waves while they eagerly shout “This one! This one!”. I can’t help but laugh, it’s such a cute scene, the boys splashing and playing, jumping all over Max and looking over at me for cheers and applause when they stand up for 10 seconds of glory! Max tries to high five them on their success, and their smiles fade and they start pointing to his opposite hand. Max was holding up his left hand, aka your wiping hand. They don’t want high fives from your poo hand! It’s so funny to see that immediate association and the reaction on their faces.
After a half hour of fun, it’s time for us to move on. The boys run off back to their tide pools and we continue to have no luck in search of waves. We give up and decide to go walk around the temple. We can’t enter the temple, but at the bottom there’s a fresh water spring coming out of it and we have the opportunity to wash ourselves like the Balinese do before they go in. We wash our hands, then our faces, and take a sip of the holy water and are then blessed by Balinese men with the water and have rice put on our foreheads and flowers in our hair (the rice on the forehead symbolizes that you have been to “Hindu ceremony”, similar to ashes on the forehead from Ash Wednesday). Our frustration melted into complete satisfaction and we scoot home to share one last meal with Dustin.
