Bali

Hello and welcome to Indonesia part 2. I wrote most of this in Singapore airport, great to have free internet. Blogger is a pain though when trying to stick pictures in, the only way I can do them is to upload them then gradually pull them down through the file, no way to put them in at the cursor or even to pull and scroll at once. Bah. The bold text refers to the few pics I've put in.

After visiting Mt Bromo I paid for a combined bus/ferry ticket back to Denpasar. When I'd first crossed into Java it was night-time so I couldn't see anything; I was glad to see it in the daytime on the way back as the scenery is amazing all the way. The sun was setting during the ferry trip, and the backdrop of volcanoes, ships and the multi-coloured sky was fantastic.


I made a couple of friends on the bus, an Aussie lad and a girl from Munich. Having a chat really helps survive the trip. The expected time of arrival was about 8pm, of course it turned out to be more like midnight. Luckily the minibus only had six people in it - I'd hate to do that trip in a packed out bus. We didn't want to stay in Denpasar so we paid an extra 20,000 rupiah each (about 1 pound 30) to be taken down to Kuta beach. I was expecting a Ko Pha Ngan kind of affair, a couple of bars and some baungalows, but the place is a lot more developed than that, and a hell of a lot noisier. We hauled our bags around the poppies gangs and finally scored some rooms at the Taman Makar II. Quite a good place actually, not in the LP but it has large rooms, a balcony, breakfast included, a bathtub in the room and a minah bird (or a talking bird at least) in the courtyard. The bird could say "hello", "good morning" and make an ach-choo sneeze noise.

Suffice to say we went out and got hammered that night, and the next. For a country with fairly strict drug laws there was a lot of people selling stuff on the street; Best avoided as a) the stuff will be shite and b) there's probably a copper lurking in the background waiting to fine you. Mostly they were selling Ephinedrine tablets, I think thats something they give to people with heart conditions. Our first meal there was at the street stalls by the Poppies club; my Aussie friend indicated that the area we were in was were the bomb had gone off - so that was why there was a bit of derelict land in between two buildings! Apart from getting wasted, we did a bit of surfing on Kuta beach. For me it was a first, and after half an hour I'd only managed to get up on one knee, get very frustrated and get stuck in a rip-tide - that was quite hairy.

After my friends went their separate ways I spent a couple of days in Ubud, in the centre of Bali. It was good to do yoga everyday and not smoke or drink. There's not much to do there, there's a lot of spas and fairly pricey restaurants (though there's cheap vege food too), and tons of art shops. In fact, from walking around the place, it seems every road leading to Ubud is lined with art/craft/tat shops for about 5 miles. There is a couple of nice rice paddy walks up by the north of the town.

It seems every night in Ubud there is a Hindu festival or ceremony, lots of people parading down the street, with some playing the eerie gamelan music. There are also nightly performances, one of which I attended involved a man wearing a wooden horse kicking over flaming coconut shells. I also visited the botanic gardens which were a nice way to spend an afternoon, virtually in solitude.




One thing about south-east Asia is, the souvenir stalls in the tourist places invariably sell the same things. Its crazy to walk down a street with people saying "You want to buy something" and its the same crap as the place next door. I mean, who would want to buy a wooden dildo? I did get one thing - a wooden demon mask, its extremely ugly and I don't know what the hell I'm going to do with it. I've not seen anywhere selling football shirts for the Asian national teams - that would be a good souvenir. All you get are the English ones!

I finished my Bali tour off by going further up north to Bedugal (there is a nice temple by a lake).

From there I walked over the hills and past some more lakes to the village of Munduk.

I think there is a lot of nice walking possible around Munduk, but I had got a blister on the ball of my left foot so I just sort of hobbled from one end of the town and back. Its basically a strip of houses alongside a road running down a fairly steep hill. There are nice views either side of hills, forests, paddy fields and the ocean is visible in the distance. There are a couple of basic Warungs (restaurants), I got a nice tofu/beansprout/satay dish and my first beer for almost a week. Nice for a stop-off if you just want a quiet place.

Finally I had to charter a Bemo van to get me out of Munduk, which cost about a tenner. It doesn't sound a lot but transport and accomodation were relatively expensive in Indonesia compared to the other SE Asia countries I had visited. I went up to Lovina as a lot of travellers that I had met seemed to be heading there. When I arrived I took a tour (again, just me and the driver - and doing the tourist thing which I'd told myself I wouldn't do anymore). We visited the Gitgit waterfalls, which was nice but you know, its another waterfall (none have topped the Kuang Si by Luang Prabang yet).

Then we went to a buddhist monastery on a hill, which was very tranquil and scenic, I didn't see any monks though so I don't know if its a working place or not (my driver did not understand what I meant by monk!). I think its the only buddhist temple on Bali.

The best thing we did was go to the hot springs, another first for me, bathing in faintly egg-smelling warm water was good fun.

I went to Lovina beach afterwards to watch the sunset. The beach is made up of grey volcanic rock, and I got hassled constantly from vendors; also the bars seemed quite expensive there, and the only other tourists where old Dutch couples or single men. And there was a tropical storm so I missed the sunset and didn't get any sleep - I've never heard thunder so loud, the noise went inside me like the kick of a bass drum when you stand next to the speakers in a club.

And after another night in Kuta (supposed to be quiet, but stayed up til 4AM in Piggys bar on Poppies II, my favourite, live music and open mic with the man Rene) I caught a plane to Singapore, which is were I am now. I've nearly caught up with myself! Oh yes. Next time: Singapore zoo!