Bali, Indonesia 2-10-2010

I arrived to Bali and immediately met up with my friend Dan a hostel we had agreed on. Dan and I go back to freshman year at UF when we had a few classes together in BCN and when he first discovered I was going to travel to Bali (in April of 2009), he was coming! I set my bags down and Dan and I checked out the beach and the bars Kuta and Poppies 1 (the street we were on). The side streets here are packed with Balinese vendors selling tourist clothes and suveniers from their shops. If you need shirts, shorts, sunglasses, shoes, towels, hats, jewelery, or key chains, this is the place for you!

In the morning we rented motorbikes and rode around the south west part of the island to Uluwatu, Dream Beach, and Surf Point. We didn’t find any waves, but we did see a whole clan of monkeys camping out under a tree on a mountain top. 

At one point on the ride Dan and I were riding our motorbikes down a sleep rocky/dirt gravel road and I was slowing down while holding my back brake, bad idea, and I fell over movie style in slow motion. Luckily the bike was okay and I only suffered a few minor scratches. After 4 years on a scooter in University and numerous road trips) on motorbikes (some over 140km in SE Asia), the first time I fall over is when I'm going 1 mph! (well, I guess better that than something more serious).

Back in Kuta we had dinner and then headed to the beach one block away from our guesthouse to surf at sunset. This sunset surf goes down as one of my favorite and I’m determined to one day live on the west coast somewhere with surf so I can spend my evenings watching the sun set from my surfboard.

We left in the morning for Ubud and stayed at gorgeous temple like guesthouse called Sonia’s. We rented motorbikes from the guesthouse ($4 per day), ate dinner at a place called Happy Buddha (which is an organic cafe that was recommended to me), walked around the markets at night, drank a smoothie to-go (which means a smoothie in plastic bag with a straw poking out the top), and then watched a traditional Balinese dance performance. Dan and I arrived to the show right after they had started and were instructed to sit directly in front of the stage. Front row baby!

A beautiful breakfast of fresh fruit, eggs, crepes, toast, and tea awaited our doorstep in the morning. After brekky, Dan and I rode our motorbikes to a place called the Monkey Forest. The area was completely packed with monkeys and I bought some bananas to feed them. When I fed the first cute monkey,  he climbed up onto my shoulder and left me with a souvenier of smudged monkey poo on my shoulder, thanks little guy.

Another monkey jumped onto Dan’s back when we wasn’t looking and Dan couldn’t get him off! The monkey bit Dan’s sunglasses string and tore at his shirt but eventually the monkey scattered off.

I hid the bananas in my purse and would sneak out yellow treats every once in a while without them noticing. But once a big monkey got curious and started pulling at and searching into my bag! Luckily, I escaped.

After the monkeys, Dan and I rode around in search of Ketut Liyer, the medicine man from the book “Eat, Pray, Love” I read a couple months ago. In the book, Ketitut is said to be a great, gifted medicine man and helps others while only expecting a small donation of a few dollars in return. Ketitut gave me and Dan the EXACT same palm reading as each other and we were sitting side by side! He then had the audacity to charge us 500,000 rupiahs ($50 US)!! This is equivalent to someone charging $500 in the US for a 10 minute meeting (BS medicine man). But, you can’t really blame him.. he came from nothing, now is famous from the book, and has about 20 visitors a day from all over the world who come to meet him and get a reading. Good on it for capitalizing on his fame.

In the morning Dan and I took out our motorbikes and discovered some rice terraces nearby. We drank from coconuts and then headed home to pack up our bags for our van ride to Tulamben (a city known for great drive sites).

In Tulamben we checked into a nice guesthouse on the water and negotiated for a room and diving trips. Wound up costing us $20 a dive and $8 for the room, not too bad. We walked around the town of one street and 8 stores, and then watched a movie on my laptop before going to sleep.

In the morning we went diving, first to a wreck drive named the USS Liberty wreck. We saw heaps of fish, huge barracuda, swam inside the vessel, saw the captain’s wheel, it was gorgeous. We had a lunch break and then got back in the water to dive a drop-off/wall which was pretty good as well. They were both shore dives and it was great to wade into deep water and be able to just swim to a stellar dive spot not so far away. We took pictures during the dives and a recorded a couple videos too.

Dinner and a movie followed and in the morning we left for Sinor, a stopover city we’d have to stay in before taking a boat to Nusa Lembongan (a place known for its beauty, snorkeling, diving, and surf).

Sinor was cool, small place, nice shops and retail markets throughout, occupied by local craftsmen/women. I bought a green-turquoise ring from a couple Balinese ladies selling jewelry (who hadn’t made a sale all day), and then Dan and I had AMAZING massages that cost us $4 for an hour! This massage goes down as the best I’ve ever had in my life and if possible, one day I will go back to Sinor, and pay that masseuse to massage me every day for the rest of my life.

Dan and I both had gado-gado for dinner (steamed veggies with a peanut sauce dressing) from an organic restaurant, but Dan got sick from the food and suffered all night from food-poisoning. We attributed my iron stomach to my bouts with food poisoning in Cambodia and other stange foods and bacteria I’ve had throughout my months in SE Asia.

Luckily Dan felt better in the morning and we hopped into a van (smaller version of jeepneys) to take us to the shore, where the long tail boats awaited. We had bought our boat tickets the day before and were ready for some big surf in Nusa Lembongan. As we were waiting to depart I realized I didn’t have my phone on me! I called our guesthouse owner, she found my phone on my bed and held it for me as I raced there on the back of someone’s motorbike to pick it up. I was back just in time to buy some grilled corn on the cobb from a lady on the beach and then we boarded the boat and relaxed for the next couple of hours riding to Nusa Lembongan.