I had a long trip to Bali from Borneo, since I had to fly to KL, then wait 6 hours for my flight to Bali. The long layover was in part due to Air asia's policy to sell each flight segment seperately. So if I bought 2 flights, and the first one was delayed, and I missed the 2nd one, I just lose my money. Therefore, I had to give myself lots of time. Anyway, I arrived at 10 PM, without a hotel booked, but my friend Paul and his wife showed up and pciked me up. Actually, I have known paul from the internet (bridge) for 10 years but we had not met in person before, so even finding him w as uncertain. Luckily he recognized me.... I booked a random place at the airport (it looked good in the brocure, had a nice pool, but generally sucked. the bed was so bad that I had to sleep at the very edge to get any sleep, since the bed sagged badly in the middle.)
As I was still recovering from my illness, I had a mellow day planned. In the morning, I walked to the beach. It felt like getting hit with artilery. Every 5 feet you get hurranged by someone selling something (including 50 0ffers for a massage, and 1 offer for more than that). Halfway to the beach, a women grabs me, puts a bracelet on me, pulls me hard into her shop, and then starts oiling my nails. I objected, and she said that she has to do this, this is her job inb bali to welcome visitors. 5 minutes later she demands 180,000 rupiah ($16) since this was her job. (By comparision a 1 hour massage in about 50,000 rupiah.) I just pulled away and left.
Anyway, I finished the morning with a good massage in front of my hotel and then met paul for lunch. After lunch we took his moped (everyone drives one in bali) back to his place (I am not sure how safe those are, but you often see a father up front, and a mother with her infint in the back crusing in their moped), picked up his wife and kids, put paul's paraglider in the car with the kids bikes and went to a paragliding spot. Paul had arranged for me to do a discount tandem paragliding (350,000 rupiah), and then he was going to go up afterwards. I went up, but was quite nurvious since I still was not feeling well. Well it was great. the view was amazing, and the ride was super smooth. itsl ike you are floating out there. meanwhile on the ground, both kids had accidents on their bikes, and we had to go back home without paul getting to paraglide.
The next day we went out there again with 3 more of pauls' friends. the wind was bad that day, and no one could fly. but again excitement occured on the ground. 2 large dogs attacked a puppy, and bit him in 2 places, and the puppy was dehydrated and bleeding on the ground. we cleaned the wound, and paul's friends took the dog back home to give him milk. Its obviously dangerous on the ground. Luckily it was safe flaoting in the air.
