I moved down to crazy Kuta a few days ago and it’s not bad!!!!
It’s a little crazy and busy but it’s got lots of nice restaurants and it’s a good central place to be.
It’s also not as cheap as I thought it would be. I’m paying 250Rp a night at this budget place…that’s about $27. It’s got A/C and it’s super clean, but it’s a 15 min walk from the beach and there’s nothing special about it. But, I’ve checked a couple other places and that seems to be the going rate here. If I was willing to sweat it out all night with no A/C I could pay $16/night. But my sleep would be terrible. Last night I got 8 SOLID hours with the A/C on full blast all night.
Yesterday I also finally surfed! It was awesome. I only caught 1.5 waves, but being in 85 degree water is such a treat coming from chilly CA! (and better than Costa Rica where it was around 90 degrees in the water when I was there!). I went down to Balangan Beach yesterday with a group I met through Dan and the Dynamite Circle people.
It’s down on the Bukit peninsula, kind of a quirky place to get to, but notorious for a great beach and great waves. It delivered on the beach, the waves, not so much. BUT, I got a taste of it. The group I was with included my friend Elisa from the Dan Andrews’ group, along with Tommy & Vlad (also connected to Dan), & a handful of their friends who were this group of Balinese girls (one of them being Dan’s girlfriend). We cruised down to Ulu Watu for sunset…we didn’t quite make it in time due to the crap roads here, but ended up grabbing a drink on the cliffs over Ulu, then headed over to a Thai restaurant for dinner. Some amazing food! I got my yellow curry pork and it was….enak! (Indonesian for delicious, my 3rd word in this language!)
I have a faster connection now but still struggling with uploading pics (takes a while). 5 more days in Bali, then flying to 1st world Singapore, the one of the freest markets in the world, as long as you don’t chew gum! Going to my friend’s hotel across the street from mine this afternoon to actually swim some laps, tomorrow hoping to surf in the morning and keep getting work done, as hard as that is. 🙂
