Bali

Navigating the streets/alleys/sidewalks, whatever you want to call them is like walking through a mine field. They aren’t roads, but are driven on like they are. Most streets…again I say that loosely are about 8-10 feet wide and double as pedestrian walkways and for use of cars and motor bikes. It was always interesting when 2 cars were coming from opposite directions met, and what they had to do to pass through. It usually resulted in one of them all but pulling into one of the shops so the other one could squeeze by with only inches to spare. Not only do you have to keep your head on a swivel because of all the motor bikes going in every direction, but any type of sidewalk repair that’s going on leaves behind a hole about 3 feet deep, and 3 feet across while it’s being worked on. They also like to patch things other holes with spare concrete blocks, pieces of wood, metal, really anything that looks like it might be sturdy enough. It made it especially fun after having a few drinks. If you were to find something like this in the states there would be a lawsuit filed within the amount of time it’ll take you to finish reading this entry. One thing that I really liked about the motor bikes is some have 2 large hook looking things sticking off the side where you can strap a surfboard on the side of the motor bike and go to the beach. Kuta Beach in Bali where we’ve been staying is considered one of the hot spots for surfing in throughout the world.

Tomorrow will be our last day in Bali before heading north to Singapore. We’ll actually be crossing back into the northern hemisphere again, so my first time in several weeks, even if only a stones throw away from the equator. The Bali portion of our trip came at a good time since we were running around seeing so much in Australia it was refreshing to just kick back, soak up the sun and relax on the beach. After the surf session tomorrow it will be our third time that we’ve gone out to do it. Once you get a handle on the fundamentals of surfing it is a great feeling to catch a good wave and just ride it. We met a guy name Yanto one of our first days here, and let me tell you he is living the dream. He’s got a little “bar” right on the beach which basically consist of a couple big coolers, some lawn chairs, and an umbrella. He also has a bunch of surfboards to rent out and so we go to him to both grab some Bintangs (the Indonesian beer) and rent a board for a couple of hours. We went surfing late in the afternoon our second time and stayed on the beach to watch one of the most perfect sunsets.

We made it up to Ubud on the island of Bali earlier today to go to the Monkey Forest Sanctuary which is some paths through part of the forest that are populated with monkeys. Jonathon and I were both surprised at the number of monkeys that were there and how they were just roaming about around all the visitors. It wasn’t like a zoo or anything, they were in the wild, and just highly concentrated in this area. The highlight of the monkeys (although probably not for the victim) was when one jumped on a girls back causing her to drop her camera. Within seconds another monkey came from behind and scooped it up and took off running. About an hour later we saw one of the guides and the same girl trying to entice the monkey that took it with bananas as he was still holding onto her camera. I’m not sure if they were successful or not, but it was quite comical, and the monkey was trying to see what he needed to do to eat it like it was some type of food.

A perfect example of how truly small the world is happened after our first attempt at surfing was over. We got back to Yanto’s bar to return the boards and got some beers to try and rinse the saltwater taste out of our mouths, the sand out of our ears, remove the seaweed that was wrapped around us, etc. This of course was caused by all the wipeouts…again it was my first time. There was a couple at Yanto’s bar as well which we stuck up a conversation with. They just had thier wedding here in Bali and were staying for the honeymoon. Come to find out that they are both from Melbourne and Jonathon actually went to primary school with the lady. They were only 1 year apart and didn’t know each other, but knew a lot of the same people. It would be the equivalent of me vacationing somewhere in the Caribbean and just happening to bump into someone on the beach that I went to elementary or middle school with.

We’ve met some really cool and interesting people so far in our travels, and might end up meeting up with a few of them as our trips will overlap by a week or so in New Zealand. One thing that I’ve found interesting, and kind of exciting is that when asked by different Indonesian people where I’m from and I reply America, they mention that I’m only the 2nd or 3rd American they’ve ever met. I know Indonesia isn’t particularly close to the US, but it was still something very different for me to be this far removed from my home and be reminded of it by others. I have more pictures to post related to this story but it takes about 5 minutes per picture to upload, and I'm running out of time online, so I'll add some more soon!