So it’s been a few days since I’ve blogged, lots going on and I moved from a wordpress.com site to wordpress.org, still working the kinks out with some stuff, like the links on the right look like text and descriptions are blending in instead of showing up when you scroll over the links. Details…
Lots has happened in the last few days! Here’s a rundown:
1. I took a trip up to Tanah Lot temple with a couple of women I met via Todd who I met through Dan! Anyway, one of them was a crazy indonesian woman and the other was less crazy but kinda uptight Dutch woman. We took a taxi to the temple, about 8 miles north, but lots of windy roads. Not super exciting, but I got blessed by a priest or something! Of course, for a donation. You splash your face with some sort of holy water and then they put this little salt on your forehead and chest.
2. My plan was to walk to Canggu Beach from the temple after. The women were going on to another temple which I didn’t care about and wanted to check out a new beach. The driver laughed at the idea of me doing that walk. When I got there I saw why he was laughing. There’s cliffs I would have to scale to go south. There were no taxis waiting at the temple, so I had to talk to some people to ask for a ride. First one said 100k. No thanks. The next guy I found said 80k but I manged to get him down to 40k. He took me to Echo Beach, just north of Canguu. Kind of nice, kind of touristy but really laid back (no waves that day).
The driver that took me to Echo Beach was the nicest guy in the world, but said I wouldn’t be able to walk from Echo to Canguu. He was smoking something because it was super easy to do that walk, only about 1km. I met a French Canadian couple along the way and we walked together. They were looking for a guest house in Canguu, but when we got there, they realized it was actually at Echo. Anyway, Canguu beach wasn’t all that special and again, no waves, so, I parted ways with the Frenchies and decided to WALK back home, probably about 10k- in the midday sun. I was on a mission and it felt like the right thing to do. It was amazingly empty for most of the walk, nobody was out at the beach, just walking through the desert! I have a video that I would upload here if I had the bandwidth. Here’s a pic of the W on Kerabokan beach. It really stands out there.
I applied sunscreen 3 times along the walk and by the time I got back home I was soaking wet…but luckily not sunburned.
3. The next day I had a planned bike ride with my new friend Ning. She lives in Kerabokan so I told her I would taxi up there, and she’s got a mountain bike for me to borrow. She was making fun of me because I’m not big on biking in the Bali traffic, and kept saying I’m scared. She rides every day all over the place and is in top shape. Anyway the story was the morning. I walked out of my hotel at 7am and the usual 10,000 taxis were no where to be seen this early! But, there was a girl on a scooter waving at me, so I walked over and she asked if I wanted a ride. Yes, and I told her where I was going and she said yes, 20,000 ($2 US). Great deal! So I hopped on the back of her bike and we take off.
“You want massage?” she says.
No, I just want to meet my friend, I’m okay.
Her- “I show you good time!” as she starts moving her hips.
Me- “No thanks, just want to get there”.
Her- “We have time, I go fast, you want? How bout hand job?”
At this point, I’m laughing! I can’t believe I’m getting a ride on a scooter with a prostitute! Anyway she continued selling me her services all the way up. But, she got me there despite getting a bit lost and asked me to pay her before we got there (I guess she was worried about people seeing the transaction). She told me to get a massage later. I gave her my phone and “Lela” put her number in. Really funny, strange, interesting all at the same time.
The bike ride was fun. We biked in not too bad of traffic to this health breakfast place. Then biked up to Canguu on roads through rice fields, took some photos along the way and came back. It think I slowed Ning down quite a bit. Here’s one of us with this goofy cow on the side of the road that we had some village guy take:
Last night, I went out to dinner with the Dan and Elisa crew at this really good (and expensive) ribs place. The girls wanted to go to this dance club after which is near my hotel, so I played along and danced til 3a.m.! Not my usual thing, and I got made fun of a lot because of my white boy dance skills and fading fast at around 2, but it was an interesting place-with 4 levels, lots of locals and some tourists. No cover charge!
I’m now in a cafe next to my hotel, and getting ready to head to the airport to catch my flight to Singapore. So far, I have no plan but I have a hotel the first night and possibly a couch after that, and meeting another couch surfer who’s going to show me the city/country a bit.
That’s in for Bali! I’m stoked about all my experiences and all the people I met…I will be back someday for sure! I’m really looking forward to Singapore and Malaysia next week.
Oh yeah, Happy Easter! It’s a 4-day weekend here I think.
