First, some language tips:
Hello = Penyeh buht (although no one ever responded to this as if I had said 'hello')
Thank you = Terima casi (sounds more like "Drima casi")
And just for fun, my Balinese name would be Ni- Madeh (meaning "female, second born")
I wanted to return to India this year but I decided after last year's very challenging trip that I wouldn't go back without a guy to hold my hand and deter the local men's ogling (or at least the blatant come-ons). But when I couldn't find a suitable male travel partner to accompany me I scrapped the plan. I'd have needed at least six weeks in India to visit the places I wanted to see this time, and I knew that it still wouldn't have been enough and I'd probably have to do a longer trip at some point in the future. And anyway, I wanted to get back to mi Buenos Aires querido, sooner and start looking for work before the school year starts in March. I'm not one to choose a routine life over my usual living-out-of-a-suitcase style, but BA is worth prioritizing for. What can I say, I've found a place that has made me want to be a one-city girl.
So I swapped out six weeks in India with two weeks in Bali. I'd always wanted to go and see what all the fuss was about, despite the fact that I'm not as drawn to beach destinations. A reputation for natural beauty and the unique Balinese Hindu culture was enough to pique my interest. But, alas...
Bali, for me, was not really a place worth blogging about. I really don't have much to say about my experience there. This is what I feared most when I started this (and last year's) blog. I worried that I would just go around sightseeing and then come back to report: "It's so beautiful! I'm having so much fun!" Well, it was beautiful. But I didn't have that much fun. Nothing life-changing or paradigm-shifting happened. Except maybe the profound realization that I really don't like tropical beach paradise destinations.
Say what?! Am I spoiled? Have I been exposed to too many amazing places in the world to appreciate and know a good thing when I see it? Was I missing the magic that everyone else finds? I... guess so. I mean, it was very pretty. But something was off. The commercialism, the crazy drivers, the fact that I went at the height of wet season and it rained half the time... well, that was mostly my fault for poor planning, but it didn't help.
I didn't realize it was wet season. Everywhere else in South East Asia (well, Indochina- Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam) is dry and relatively cool from November to February, and unbearably hot and humid (for me anyway) the remaining eight months of the year. Turns out when you cross that invisible equatorial line, the dry/wet season is reversed! Did I even realize I was going south of the equator? I don't think so. My friend Stephen broke the news when I asked him for some advice. But he assured me that it only rained every afternoon from 4PM, so with some careful planning and a good alarm clock, I could do activities in the morning and then relax in the afternoon and work on my blog. And that's what I did most days. Except the days where the rain started at 3PM. Or 2PM. Or 9AM. And then I just stayed inside all day. Because this is not rain like a slight drizzle, bust out the umbrella, get on with your holiday. It's a torrential downpour that floods the streets and brings to a grinding halt all desires to seize the day.
But I partially made up for it by giving myself two full weeks and two extra days on top of that. Days of contingency! as I like to say. I spent the first ten days in Ubud, a sleepy but beautiful area with a group of villages near the center of the island. Ubud is famous for it's thriving arts scene and a certain woman who found herself there after a mid-life crisis. (Side note: I spent a lot of time wandering around searching for Javier Bardem.) (Side side note: Kidding.)
The first sunny morning, I went out to explore the town and go to the famous "Enchanted Monkey Forest" that is the highlight of any visit to Ubud. To get there, I walked down the main drag in town which is unofficially called "Monkey Forest Road." It was at the entrance to the Monkey Forest that I had one of my more profound realizations: monkeys suck. Monkeys are not your friends. They want bananas, and if you don't have any, they will steal your glasses or camera in a desperate attempt at banana extortion. And if you hide your glasses and hold on tight to your camera, they will just try to freak you out. I had only stepped a few meters passed the entrance when a monkey grabbed my waist from behind and swung from me like I was a tree. I jumped up and down screaming, he finally let go, and I ran back to the entrance desperate for a large stick with which to protect myself. They refused me and so I kindly said, "Fuck this" and left the Monkey Forest, which seemed otherwise like a very nice place to spend some time exploring. Oh well. I hadn't yet read the section in the Lonely Planet that says that when a monkey jumps on you, you should give it free reign, not freak out, and just let it do its thing. But they could be rabid!!!
After a few days of avoiding the persistent rain, I finally booked a day tour to the Kintimani region to see some attractions outside of Ubud. On the tour were two British girls who had just spent two weeks sitting around a hotel pool and getting drunk in Kuta. Ugh! How I judged them. Kuta is the Phuket of Bali, the trashy part of the island (both literally and figuratively) that is filthy dirty and full of the most aggressive touts and the stupidest Australian kids, on holiday without their parents for the first time in their lives (you can visualize this, right?). It's full of bars and nightclubs and it's where the terrorist bombings of 2002 took place. I vowed never to visit. These girls actually agreed with me on every point, but had been there for most of their trip nonetheless. I started to think our tour guide might be from Kuta when he started enquiring about my 'girlfriend' (he really meant 'boyfriend' but I went along with the girlfriend questions). "Do you have a girlfriend?" "Umm...yes." "Where is your girlfriend?" "She's in Argentina." "How long have you been with your girlfriend?" "Hmmm... I've been dating her for about two years now." Wow, how the time has flown!.... At one point on the day tour we got stopped at a police checkpoint, where they motioned us to pull over to the side of the road and the driver told us it was a "customs checkpoint". We all looked at each other with confusion, none of us brought our passports with us. He opened the door, slipped the cop 40,000 rupiah (about $4.50US) and drove off, muttering something about "Bali police very bad."
After 10 days in Ubud I packed up my bag and headed down to Legian, the town just north of Kuta. The area on the Southwest coast of Bali is highly developed and the towns--Kuta, Legian, Seminyak--are so built up and densely packed, you can go from one to the next without realizing you've changed towns (besides noticing the slightly different vibes in each place).
As I wandered around Legian looking for a room, I walked by a restaurant where a young Aussie guy and his travel mate were appearing to have a joyous reunion with an old friend, the local Balinese guy who owned the restaurant. I had already passed by once and asked if they knew of any nearby accommodation within my budget, and on my way back, as they sat on pillows around a low-lying table on the front deck, they asked if I had had any luck searching down a certain gang (alleyway). I said no and one of the Aussie guys said, "You look tired. Take a break and have a beer with us." Well, don't mind if I do!! They were shocked that I had been in Bali for ten days and had not once tried the famously delicious Bintang beer. After all that time by myself in Ubud I had finally come down to the surfers' hangout, quickly and easily met some friendly Aussie blokes and relaxed a little with an ice-cold one.
I think Bali is to the Australians what Hawaii is to the Americans, except slightly more exotic and obviously not an American colony. It's nearby, it's tropical, it has the infrastructure to contain them all, and compared to Australia, which is also full of beautiful beaches and good surf, it is about a thousand times cheaper. These two guys were family friends, one from Sydney, one from Melbourne, and Greg the Melburnian had been to Bali three times already and was taking Nick, the Sydneysider, around for his first trip. After a few Bintangs we were fast friends and I started with the philosophical epiphanies. "This flower came from a seed. Isn't that incredible!!... We all started as seeds! WOW!" Greg, going off my Facebook pseudonym 'Louise Lucha', immediately nicknamed me LL Lou J and many more inside jokes followed... the boys had mosquito bites and I lent them some Tiger Balm, calling it the "bomb balm", which soon became "the BB Bomb D". Anyway, you can see where this is going. My loneliness was cured, until they left for the Gili Islands two days later and I moved down to Kuta to find a room with hot water.
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| Memorial Square- site of the 2002 terrorist attacks :( |
Yes, I sucked up my pride and went to Kuta. Which was surprisingly, not that bad. It wasn't as seedy and disgusting as everyone had made it out to be. The touts and hassles from shopkeepers and "massaaaa(ge)" ladies was not any worse than in Bangkok or many other Southeast Asian hot spots. And of course my constant smile, friendly demeanor and polite refusals went as far here as in any other place. One day I started walking to the beach, which was only five minutes away, but turned around halfway. The clouds were starting to gather and I just wasn't interested or motivated enough. It was in times like these when I asked myself, What am I doing here? I'm just not a beach person. Hanging in all the souvenir shops are t-shirts and tote bags with "I <3 Bali" logos. Every time I saw one I thought, But I don't love Bali. In fact, I mildly dislike it.
I started to think that maybe it's time to hang up my solo-traveler hat. Traveling alone has been great. I've met amazing people, I've had crazy experiences, as I've previously mentioned, there are numerous reasons why I prefer solo travel to going with a companion or larger group. But this trip was different. I felt the same in Myanmar... not very social and just really lonesome. Alone time is great, I'm a huge fan, and I would still travel alone. But now I'm thinking that maybe I should just go places where I have at least a friend or a friend-of-a-friend to visit, or where a Couchsurfing host or network will host me or make itself available if I get bored or lonely.
Walking around Kuta, there are many signs for magic mushrooms. Strange because I thought that hard drugs are illegal in Indonesia, and enforcement is strict, but nevertheless, there are these signs everywhere advertising shops selling shrooms. I thought who in their right mind would do shrooms here? In Kuta of all places? A few days later I met a group of kids from Jakarta having breakfast at my guest house. One of them had a guitar and I asked if I could play a few songs. We started talking and they were nice enough to actually lend me the guitar for the day while they went to Ubud. You would never have known that they were Muslim, besides the fact that the two girls in the group wore headscarves. I saw them the next day and asked what they had done the night before... any parties? Clubbing? "No, just some shopping," they answered. "Oh right, you guys are Muslim. You don't drink." Their response: "No, we only eat mushrooms." (?!?!?!?!?!) Mystery solved.
The six days in Legian went by very slowly, but finally it was time to head back to Bangkok and continue with my journey across the world. The morning of my departure, I woke up to a relentless torrential rainstorm. The courtyard of the guesthouse was flooding, and I had to carry my bags and suitcases one at a time over my head, pant legs rolled up high, to reception across an alley way where I was nearly knee-deep in water. I better be able to get out of here today, I thought. I couldn't deal with another day of internetting and avoiding the beach.
On the way to the airport, the taxi driver told me that the upcoming Monday was Chinese New Year! How serendipitous I found this news, as I was to spend a 36 hour layover in Hong Kong on Monday and Tuesday and catch the celebration from China! What impeccable timing! When I boarded the Air Asia flight, I opened the in-flight magazine and read article after article about the double arrival of 2012 (both Gregorian and in the Lunar Calendar), and the auspiciousness of the Dragon. And when I finally got back to the Green House (my Bangkok guest house) I turned on my iPod to find fifteen new Angry Birds levels, dragon themed, to commemorate the Chinese New Year as well. Those game developers really know their audience!! (i.e. Asians. And me.)
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