Bali, Indonesia

Preface Note:  For the first 27 years of my life, if my memory serves me correctly, the first reference to Bali was when I heard the Sting lyrics “Along the fields of Bali”   I had imagined swaying rice fields, clear skies, and peace.  All that came crashing down when the night before we arrived there, I realized for the first time, he’s saying “Along the fields of barley”!!!!!   Who gives a crap about barley Sting!!!  SING ABOUT BALI!


Fields of Gold by Sting! Tell me you don't hear him say Bali!

We landed in Bali at around 7:00 PM local time on Thursday March 8^th.  We walked off the plane and were greeted with a slap in the face by the Indonesian humidity before making our way towards the taxi vendors.  I was immediately met once again by an army of taxi drivers pushing and shoving each other to get the opportunity to sucker the two Americans into paying much more than they actually charged for a ride to the hotel we had pre-booked.  The guy started at $400,000 Rupiah, roughly $36 US before we haggled him down to $200,000.  A fair price as it was roughly a 15 or so minute cab ride (I soon realized it was 4x times too much, they won again!).

I arrived at “The Island Hotel Bali” on recommendation from Trip Advisor, Lonely Planet, and Hostel World whom had all given the place stellar reviews.  The price was roughly $55 US a night split between Caleb and I, a little on the high end but the place was clean, beds were nice, great pool, located in the heart of the action in Kuta/Legion, free breakfast everyday and a free 1-hour massage came with the package as well.

Caleb and I settled into our room, got cleaned up and decided to take a walk through the busy streets to find something to eat.  After settling on a Hawker Stall (roadside cart serving food), we approached a couple locals and asked where the hot spot was, negotiated a price for a seat on the back of a couple of their mopeds and sped off into the night in search of a club called Bounty in Kuta.  10 minutes of bobbing and weaving through traffic later, we pulled up outside the club and walked in, planning on having a few drinks to check it out, nothing too crazy.  The place was enormous, one of the bigger bars I’ve been too outside of South Padre Island or Ibiza.  The bar, broken up into a variety of themed rooms and levels, was all together the size of a large Safeway, it easily could fit over a thousand people.  We grabbed a few drinks from a cocktail waitress that she poured into brightly colored water bottles and meandered through the complex.  At one point, I noticed a few people sitting at a table well placed at the front of the bar.  I approached a girl seated there and asked if I could join her and her friends to which she warmly obliged.  I was then introduced to her boyfriend (Piss!) and a couple others around.  Cara and Nathan were from Melbourne, Australia, as were nearly everyone in the bar.  There are direct flights from multiple cities in Australia and from speaking with them, this is their equivalent to Cancun for us.  Cheap and easy to get to.

These two were a blast and also enjoyed the ancient art form of social drinking which Caleb and I are both very passionate about as well.   We all talked and laughed for hours, watched people flail around in a giant McPlayplace sized foam pit and danced on stage to some live music until calling it a night late in the morning just as we watched Nathan, lit up from trying to hang with the Americans, dance shirtless by himself on stage much to his girlfriend’s displeasure.

In the process of leaving, I somehow lost Caleb.  I wasn’t too worried as I was confident he was coherent enough to at least tell a taxi the name of our hotel.  I walked outside the bar and hailed a driver, negotiated a fair deal (hopefully) and asked him if he knew where my hotel was as the only negative comment I had heard about the place was that it was difficult to find.  He assured me that he knew exactly where it was located after I repeated the name of the hotel half a dozen times slowly since that’s how you communicate when you don’t speak someone’s language.  I was obviously not in the absolute clearest of mindsets as he began driving through these side streets and cutbacks.  I couldn’t recognize any of the buildings that we were passing but again, he assured me he knew where we were going. 30-Minutes later we arrive at the Sun Island Hotel, and I asked him, is “The Island Hotel” spelled “The Sun Island Hotel”?  I tell him it’s the wrong place and he says now he knows where it is.  Another 20 minutes goes by and he stops at a hotel to ask what I’m assuming is a friend directions.  Everyone knows this point in the evening after partying, you’re tired, exhausted, you just want your bed, perhaps a cheeseburger at Dick’s, that’s it.  He runs back the car, me reiterating I’m not paying him any extra and takes me to this alley that looks familiar as the passage to my hotel.  He drops me off and says its 100 meters away.  After 100 meter’s I realize IT’S NOT THE RIGHT F’ING HOTEL!!!

So there I was, 3 in the morning, an hour into what should’ve been a 10 minute drive, tired, loaded, zero cash in my pocket as I just gave what’s left to the driver, lost, and now I’m being accosted by drug dealers and prostitutes trying to get more out of me.   I walked till I saw a group of local guys and girls on mopeds on a street corner drinking.  I asked them if they knew where my hotel was and they began conversing in a different language.  For all I knew they could’ve been talking about how to rob and kill me but I could’ve cared less.  One guy assured me he did, said he’d take me there for $5 so I told him I’d pay him 3x that amount if he’d actually get me there since I’d have to run to my room, grab my debit card and swing by an ATM before paying him.  He agreed. 

I jumped on the back of his moped, folded my hands on my lap and told him not to get into a wreck as I was going to try and take a nap while he drove like a maniac.  30-minutes later I arrivde at the hotel, THE SUN ISLAND HOTEL!!!!!!!!  I just start laughing thinking “Of course he can’t find it”.  I once again tell them it’s the wrong place and now he says he knows exactly where it is.  Another 20 minutes rolls by and we finally make it to my hotel and I’m overjoyed!  Finally!  I run inside, grab my card and tell him to take me to an ATM.  He comes out of the alley, makes a left, drives literally, 200 yards and there, across from the ATM is all of his friends exactly where I’d found them an hour before!  I had literally only been a block away the whole time.  Oh well, I was there, I laughed with him and his friends, shared another beer with them before he drove me back to my place for the final time, my bed eagerly calling my name.

I woke up late the next afternoon feeling terrible and decided the right course of action was spending my day lounging by the pool.  I checked my email at one point and was surprised to find a message from one of my favorite group of girls, the Norwegians!  They had just flown into Bali from Manila, Philippines, and asked if I were in town.   I quick Google check to of their hotel revealed they were only a 10 minute walk away.  I sent them a message saying we should meet up at some point during the night and we set up a time and place.  I’m amazed I’ve run into them in three separate countries.

After recovering for the duration of the day, Caleb and I headed off to a bar called “The SkyGarden” to meet up with our Norwegian friends.  It was wonderful as always to see them and hear what they’d been up to since the last time we’d been together.  They told us about traveling through the Philippines and had a ton of great things to say about the place.  We imbibed the night away together, dancing, laughing, singing a quartet cover of Wonderwall by Oasis much to the liking of this 50 year old man dancing in front of the stage we were on.  After being disappointed by the lack of rush from record companies offering to sign our newly formed group, we partied more till the bar finally closed at 4am.  Fantastic evening!

I woke up the next morning around 9am and got everyone moving.  Caleb and I planned on renting motorcycles again and I didn’t want to waste the day away.  We walked down the street, speaking with multiple motorcycle vendors until I found one that agreed on the price I was prepared to pay for a 24 rental.  $4 each later and we were zipping off on our mopeds aimed for the cultural center of Bali called Ubud some 35 miles away.  Driving a car let alone a motorcycle is inherently dangerous in most of the places we’ve visited but this place added a new level of what I like to call “excitement”.  The traffic in Bali flows at a very high rate of speed, there are lines painted on the road but they might as well not be there as no one abides by them.  Motorcycles outnumber cars significantly and everyone is in a constant state of weaving throughout the traffic, in between cars, passing into oncoming lanes, etc. 

Lookin' stylish on my pink moped!

What I have learned from traveling with Caleb is that he provides me with a voice of reason, a balance.  I’ll be full speed zipping through lanes of traffic following the locals, narrowly getting clipped by other cars and at the next stop sign he’ll be the one to politely tell me “You’re a God Damn idiot” which is needed once in a while.

We were about fifteen minutes into the ride, cruising at 50 MPH when a guy riding next to me looked over and asked where I was from.  I’ve noticed it’s not uncommon for people to strike up conversation while riding inches from each other on the freeways here.  I told him where I was from, what we were doing, all the while trying to avoid a pileup.  He said he lived in Ubud and told us he’d show us the way, as we weren’t exactly sure how to get there.  As we got closer he asked if we’d like to see a waterfall that was nearby, we obliged and he led us on this path overlooking endless rice fields and green jungle before stopping at the waterfall location.  We jumped off the bikes, took a quick walk before sitting down and finally getting a chance to talk to the guy while overlooking the spectacular view.

His name was Kioke and he’d lived in Bali his entire life.  I didn’t ask his age but the presence of gray hair and a wrinkled face made me assume he was in his early 40’s.  I asked him how often he picked up random white guys on mopeds while riding on the freeway to rob them and he laughed replying “Not very much”.  Spectacular.  We told him we wanted to see Monkey Forest in Ubud but that was pretty much the extent of our plans.  He asked if we were open to seeing other things while we were there to which of course we said “Absolutely”.  After snapping a few photos at the waterfall, we jumped on the bikes and headed to his family’s tea and coffee plantation less than 10 minutes away.  I found out that the reason he had been coming from our direction is he makes multiple deliveries a week to a hotel that buys from them.  The plantation was small, maybe 20 acres from what I could see but aside from the tea and coffee, they grew an assortment of vegetables, spices, and fruits.

He gave us a tour of the place, explaining how each type of plant was grown and cultivated.  He showed us a type of fruit called Durian.  I had seen the volleyball sized spikey fruit on roadsides throughout our travels but never bothered to taste it.  Kioke told us that when you cut it open, there’s a strong odor that some people like less than others.  Caleb and I bought one and instructed a person near us with a machete to chop it open.  She sliced it in one hit and handed me half of it.  I put my face in the fruit and took a huge whiff before nearly passing out unconscious.  The smell was worse than anything I’d ever smelled and it was extremely powerful.  It made me want to transport back to my youth and burry my face in the dead, rotten Dungeness crabs I used to handle back at my job in high school.  The smell was a mix between a loaded baby diaper sitting on Arizona asphalt for 3 hours and rotting flesh.  I gagged, my mouth began producing unimaginable amounts of saliva in my bodies anticipation of the violent vomiting sure to follow.  I managed to reel it back in, getting myself in check before handing it over to Caleb and watch him react similarly to my amusement.  The fruit inside was allegedly supposed to contradict the strong odor and be quite delicious.  I ate it.  Gagged more and finally accepted that they must’ve fed me excrement.  It was awful.  Don’t EVER try this stuff.

Our next stop carried on with the theme of “shit” that we’d be introduced to.  Kopi Luwak is the world’s most expensive coffee costing up to $160 US per pound.  The reason for its high expense is due to its extremely low production.  The reason for its extremely low production is that fact that it’s produced from the bowels of an Asian Palm Civet, an animal similar to a mongoose.  The Civet eats the raw coffee bean and after the bean passes through its digestive track its boiled to remove all the excess poo before being roasted in a large metal pan then crushed by hand as seen in the images below.

Our guide asked us if we’d ever tried “Shit Coffee” as he called it before.  I told him if they didn’t sell it at Starbucks or it didn’t come in a K-Cup, I probably hadn’t.   We said what the hell and ponied up a few bucks to have them whip us up a hot pot of coffee produced from the little furry guy sitting behind us.  Deep down, I knew he was thinking, “These guys are idiots!”

After sampling some teas and trying a hand rolled cigar made from the tobacco on his property, we jumped back on our motorcycles and headed to the Monkey Forest.  20-minutes later we arrived at the 27-acre reserve home to over 340 Crab-eating Macaque monkeys.  At the entryway, Kioke told us to buy some bananas to feed the monkeys, so we snagged a few bundles.  We walked a few minutes into the forest before seeing monkeys in every direction.  Large adults all the way down to infants holding onto their mothers, it was truly a sight to see.  He instructed us to hold a banana over our head and when we did, the monkeys came running.  They’d jump from the ground onto my shirt and climb on top of my shoulders to get the bananas.  I left Caleb in charge of holding onto the large sacks of bananas which lasted only a few minutes before the large monkeys ripped the whole bag away from him and fled into the forest.  A ton of pictures, a couple of bites and a shoulder full of monkey piss later, we headed back to our bikes to head out to the next place.  Good thing I got that rabies shot!  Oh wait…….

Just chillin!

They're in love!

Mom and her baby

Fascinated by my sandal!

Kioke asked what else I wanted to do and I told him I’d like to check out a local art gallery and he knew just the one.  We pulled up to an old, large Balinese temple that had been partially converted into a place where local artists came to paint.  It was incredible.  Some of the paintings took artists over 6 months to complete and were so detail oriented I couldn’t fathom how they could’ve been created.  I hadn’t planned on purchasing anything but some of the pieces and the stories behind them from the actual artists were too hard to pass up.  After looking for quite sometime, I finally settled on two wonderful pieces, negotiated an agreeable price and winced as they swiped my Visa through the machine.  Not to be outdone, Caleb one-upped my two purchases and bought five paintings, making me not feel as bad.  Kioke seemed generally pleased, as I’m sure the kickback this place was going to give him equaled two months wages.  He deserved every bit of it.  FedEx two day international shipping and those babies were sitting back in Seattle before I even finished writing this post.  We gave our best to Kioke and gave him an extra tip since he took us places and enabled us to do things we were sure not to have done without his guidance. 

An hour later and we were back at our hotel getting cleaned up to meet for a dinner date with the Norwegians at a local Irish restaurant.  Even though it was Saturday night, the four of us were dog tired from not only the night before, but also the long day we’d also just had.  We called the night early and headed to bed for a solid nights rest.

Sunday morning we woke up and eased into the day. We knew all along that we had wanted to do some diving, as Bali is world renowned for some of its dive sites.  We rented the motorcycles for another day and headed 30 miles south to an area called Nusa Dua where we had been told most of the dive shops operated from.

As a quick note, we had heard from Kioke that the police in Indonesia were much more corrupt that that of some of the other places we’d previously visited due to the poor nature of the country and their wages which can be as low as $3 a day and he’d advised us to just try to avoid them as they try to find any excuse to extort you.  Halfway to our destination, me ahead of Caleb on my motorbike by about 30 yards, a police officer in uniform came running out into the third lane of traffic at an intersection I was about to cross at 20+MPH pointing directly at me.  As I got closer, I saw him vigorously signaling me to pull over into a side area.  I looked back at Caleb, then back to the police man and in a moment of thought that many might call ill-advised, I said to myself “I’m gonna make you earn it” and hit the throttle.  I accelerated, bobbing and weaving through traffic for a little over a mile before noticing an alley on the side of supermarket.  I veered in behind it and waited for a few minutes.  I slowly pulled back out to the side of the road and waited to see if Caleb would come.  My instinct said he would’ve pulled over if instructed to and 5 minutes later I saw him come zooming down the road and signaled him in.  He pulled up shaking his head in disbelief as a laughed to myself.   He asked if the guy had caught me as apparently when I went past, another guy on a motorcycle shot out in pursuit.  I said no and listened as he explained about the fine he had to pay because he didn’t have an “International Motorcycle Permit”.  His choice, according to the policeman was go to court or pay him money.  He chose option two and went on his way.

Freedommmmmmm!!!

I’ll admit, while looking back it was quite foolish, although I can’t help but cherish the victory.  America 1.  Indonesia 0.

We got back on the road and soon made it to Nusa Dua which we discovered wasn’t the place with all the dive shops like we’d heard.  It did have a nice place to walk around which included a natural blowhole created by ocean waves hitting a little inlet in the lava created shoreline.

We drove through the sketchy commercial fishing port of Benoa Harbor, snapped a few photos before meandering new roads all the way home trying to avoid another police encounter.  Once back, we hopped online and realized we’d been close to the dive shops the whole time, frustrating.  The next morning, we got up early and headed for a place called Jet Set Marine.  It’s not only ranked the top dive shop and watersports company in Bali, but also one of the top things to do IN Bali according to Trip Advisor.  Soon after arriving, we were greeted by an American woman name Rhonda who owned the place.  She had worked for a corporate company in Oklahoma for nearly 30 years before marrying a Balinese man and opening up this business with him.  She ran the marketing side of the business while he was able to take care of all the local staffing.  She was very helpful and informative which lead us to book a dive for that day and two for the next.  We jumped on a private boat with a driver and a dive instructor and headed out to a dive site 15 minutes away.  We were down for about an hour and we’re able to see tons of incredible fish, stingrays, corals, and even some large eels.  Great dive!  Once back on shore, we grabbed a bite to eat and a few beers from the restaurant at the complex and lounged in their pool for a while before heading back to our hotel for the evening. 

The next morning, we had to meet in front of our hotel for the day’s journey to the dive site.  Our driver, a dive master and a nice SUV greeted us on the street.   The total cost for private transportation 2.5 hours away, 2 dives, lunch and transportation back was less than $100 US, phenomenal deal.

The dive took place at a wreck called the USAT Liberty.  It was a 411 ft. World War II transport ship operated by the US army that had been torpedoed by the Japanese.  Another US destroyer attempted to tow the badly damaged ship to a port for repairs.  When the ship started taking on heavy water off the coast of Bali, they beached it.  The ship lay there for twenty-one years from 1942 till 1963 when violent tremors from a nearby volcanic eruption shook the ship from the beach to below the waters surface.  After nearly fifty years of being underwater, the ship has turned into an artificial reef.  Countless species of fish and plant life call her home, which makes for an incredible dive site.  Caleb and I dove two separate times that day before catching the ride home to our hotel.

Bali was an incredible place and the week spent there was amazing.  I had played it up so much in my head because of hearing about it so much growing up that I think my expectations were unachievable.  We definitely saw much better beaches in Thailand.  The relentless badger from people trying to sell you everything from Cocaine, Speed, and Viagra (I got offered Viagra so much I started questioning myself) to nick knack crap and “women of the night” was tiresome.  Our favorite part by far was getting out of the party, hustle and bustle scene and heading to the highlands in the middle to experience more of the actual culture.  It’s a fantastic island that offers everything from an outrageous nightlife, to calming hikes around the volcanic mountains, to getting lost in a small village hidden amongst endless rice fields.

We headed for the airport early in the morning of Wednesday, March 14^th in search of a new destination, wonder where we’ll end up!!!