When you get to the airport in Indonesia, you have to get an 'on arrival visa' in order to enter the country for any reason. This my friends, takes longer than standing in line at the polls on Election Day. For three hours we stood there, wondering why the hell stamping a passport was taking so damn long. The only redeeming qualities were that we had finally arrived in Bali, and we were standing behind what my friend and I nicknamed, "The Good-looking Couple". This couple had been on our flight from Malaysia to Bali, and were so incredibly good looking they gave Brangelina a run for their money. They were tall, tan, and Spanish. What's not to love about that?
Anyway, after getting through the line we went outside to a huge crowd of Balinese men holding up signs with names of tour groups, hostels, hotels etc. Finally I found my name, and we followed the guy over to his car. The drive to our cottage hostel took almost two hours. During those two hours I may or may not have shit my pants a number of times due to the fear of losing my life with the amount of insanity that goes on at any given moment on a Balinese "highway". There were dogs, cats, chickens, motorcycles packed 4 people deep, trucks playing chicken until the last second swerve, and half gravel half cement roads. It was absolutely insane, the craziest road I have ever been on.
We finally arrived at our hostel, were shown to our own little cottage, dropped our bags and then proceeded to hunt for food. We ate a delicious meal of vegetable and chicken curry, and headed back to sleep around 9:30 exhausted from traveling for almost 48 hours. Of course going to bed at 9:30 prompts early wake up, even for me. We awoke at 8 am, had breakfast and headed to the beach.
For the next few days this is basically what we did. There was a little back patio right on the beach side to our hostel, where we would eat breakfasts that consisted of delicious banana pancakes, fresh fruit, and strong Balinese coffee. We lounged at the beach most of the days, sometimes taking breaks to explore the town a bit. We came across a group of Australians who owned a hostel down the road from ours, and they decided to take us under their wings a little bit. They gave us advice about what to do, what to see, which taxis to take, and buses that won't rip us off.
One day the Australian owner (who was married to a Balinese woman and had two Balinese step sons) offered his sons taxi service to take us to the neighboring town for the ATM and down to the white sand beaches afterward. The moped ride was my favorite part of the trip by far. The scenery was absolutely amazing. They took us through rice fields, palm trees, typical Balinese towns, and even a monkey forest. It was really cool. Of course when we arrived at the ATM it didn't work, and in turn I had to basically ration off the rest of my money on the trip for food. But once we got down to the white sand beach it didn't really matter anymore.
Another highlight of the trip was a tiny village where we were able to see a lot of the local life. Most women were sitting around weaving blankets or painting. The men were tending to the chickens or lighting fresh incense. There was a small school up there too, and the children were dressed in cute little uniforms.
The trip was really great. It was a short trip, but definitely worth the money and the travel. I had some pretty cool moments there, with people from all different nationalities. I think the best moment I had was with a young, local, Balinese girl. I had separated one night from my friend, and walked pretty far down the beach to try to catch the sunset. I walked really far out on the rocks, and sat down waiting for the sun to go down. The weather was getting quite cloudy, but it was still stunning. The girl was sitting close by with her boyfriend. All of the sudden she just plops down right next to me, a smile from ear to ear, and says "Hello". I said hello and we chatted for a few moments. Her English was not great, and it was a bit hard to understand. But I did manage to understand she wanted to try and practice her English. She was incredibly sweet, and it was a blessing to have her be so nice to me. Sometimes when you travel you just get into the mind set that everyone is trying to sell something to you, rip you off, smuggle something off of you. It was refreshing to sit with this local girl, and just have her be interested in where I was from and why the hell I was sitting on the middle of a rock on the North shore of Bali. It's little things like this that make the layovers, delays, visas and all the other shit you have to go to when traveling worth it.
And alas, now I am sitting back in Korea where it is humid as hell outside, wondering where I will plan my next adventure.
Life is good when all you have to worry about is where you'll travel to next eh?
1 comment:
Kathryn Ann, WOW, those pictures are beautiful, and i'm TOTALLY jealous...
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