Getting to know Bali

We nearly missed our flight to Bali because I was running around trying to spend the last of our Australian change which was about $5. All I could get was a small bag of chips and a lollipop. Tyson and I could both eat for three days on that in Indonesia.

We arrived in Denpasar at around 21:00. We had to pay $70 CAD for something or other at the airport and then apparently there is another $20 to be paid upon departure which is pretty awesome.
We met a group of four fellow Canadians who were escaping the crippling Australian prices for a few weeks in Indonesia. Having been in South America recently we were very familiar with the tactics of locals trying to scam tips. So when the "porters" tried to aggresively "help" us with our bags we (with even more aggression) declined their offer. The poor Canadians on the other hand accepted the help and we passed them a little farther down arguing about tips. I recall seeing one girl had handed over $10 Aus (=$12 CAD) and the local guy still wasn't giving her bags back.

We had the address of a couchsurfing site about twenty minutes from the airport and we were told it should cost no more than 70,000 rp (8,000rp = $1 CAD). So we showed the first of thousands of "TAKSI" drivers the address and he quoted us a whopping 300,000 rp. So we went to the information counter and asked what we should be paying for a cab. They confirmed that 70,000 is what it should cost. So we tried again and we were told 300,000, we walked away and the guy said "no...uh...150,000 guaranteed best price, impossible to find lower" after several more people tried to rip us off, we went with the lesser of all evils and settled on 90,000rp.

So we hopped in the over-priced cab who got completly lost and began swearing. He called our couchsurfing host, got more lost and tried to charge us an extra 20,000 rp for the phone call. In the end he took us to where he thought was close enough to where we needed to be and left without another word. Our host met us on her motorbike and led us home. She is Indonesian and lives in a modest home with her French boyfriend. On our first night we saw small frogs hopping around everywhere, a HUGE spider on the wall, small unknown bugs and cobwebs everywhere. We knew right then that backpacking had once again begun.

This place is very foreign to us. We still haven't even figured out the bathroom, there is a toilet, shower head, a bucket of water and a hose. Not sure what to do with all of it but we are being creative.
We had dinner with our host family off the floor (no dining room tables here) with our hands. We ate sweet potatos, home made bread, salad with tomato and avacodo and (home made) peanut dressing. It was a simple yet satisfying and delicious meal.

The next day we slept until 11am which was not a part of the plan. We woke up, ate bananas, emailed our families and head downtown. It takes nearly twenty minutes to find a big enough gap between the motorbikes and vehicles to run accross the road. There are a few crosswalks around but no one cares. It is NOT a pedestrian friendly place whatsoever and it would be impossible to get around with a wheelchair.
There are many lizards and frogs around and the architecture is crazy different than anything I have ever seen before. What gets us the most, however, is how many people there are here. Indonesia is packed with people. Although very small, it has the fourth largest population in the world, over 255, 000, 000!! Indonesia consists of 17, 508 islands so I do not think we will be able to see all of it in 16 days.

There are temples and holy statues everywhere. In front of every single buiding, shop and home there is a statue of a chair (not sure what that means yet). Also in front of every building there are several small baskets made out of bamboo leaves filled with offerings to the gods. There are cookies, incense, flowers, candies, crackers and even cigarettes in them. The candies and chocolates are unwrapped and I have resisted the urge to steal any yet. These baskets are everywhere, even attached to the front of motorbikes.

We walked for over six hours and sampled many typical foods. We tried Satay which is small skewers of sweet meat with cold rice out of sealed bamboo leaves, we also tried an expensive 7-11 type slurpee that Tyson insisted was necessary for the same price as two local meals. We tried some deep fried rolls that they cut up and top with peanut sauce and jalepenos. We also bought noodles from the store and got ripped off on them because on the next block they were half price. We came home and had dinner with our hosts. They had made sticky rice and a stew with lots of seafood in it. It was spicy and thick, almost like an Indian curry and tasted great.

During our walk around today we definitely felt like three-headed monsters with the way people were looking at us. Everyone was pointing and saying hello. The people are mainly very friendly and have a lot of questions. Where are you from? Where are you going? And then finally they want to take some of your money so they ask transport? Umbrella? What you need? Then finally they wish you happy travels and let you be.

We were so so dirty from the days events that we could not stand it. There was dirt and mud caked all over us in addition to dust and sweat. After a nice long cold shower, we slept well that night.

The next day we also slept in way into the afternoon through the downpour. There is so much flooding here now that to get out of the house we had to use step stools on the grass and walk over top of them while someone in plastic boots placed them down in front of us. We walked through water above our knees and at one point we got stuck sad that someone doubled us on their motorbike. It was quite the ordeal with our extremely heavy bags (thanks to the generosity of the Melbournian family). It torential downpoured on and off throughout the day and we periodically hid under the roof of locals who offered. During our long walk to our next couchsurfing host's house we got thouroughly soaked. It took us over three hours to walk it and by the time we got there, our young male host was already pretty wasted with his other American feinds. They were watching movies and drinking home-brewed beer and talking about girls. So once again I am the only female in a group of five or more guys. Because of the crappy weather we ended up watching five crudley funny movies and making Mr. noodles in a kettle for dinner.

The next morning we woke up at a record 10am after snoozing the alarm five time. We were out of the house by 11am and walked to Kuta, the very touristy area of Bali. Up until this point we had been staying in remote local areas where the people may have never see a foreigner in their whole lives. In Kuta, there are many Australians and North Americans and the stores cater to this type of customer. There are McDonalds, Starbucks, designer clothing stores and fancy restaurants that the locals would never be able to afford to pay for. We tried several local foods throughout the day. We just ordered off the menu blindly because we could not understand the language. Some was good and others not but everything is fairly cheap. We rented a motorbike for a week and within one hour Tyson got a ticket. The cop asked for a bribe and we responded by asking for a warning. We got away with no ticket which was very lucky! We explored some of the island on the bike in the rain and head home to warm up.

After seeing some of the nice resorts today we thought it would be nice to rent a room for a night. Then we remembered that we had ALREADY rented a nice night at a fancy resort in Bali from when we were in Canada! The night was on the 7th of january and we missed it! What a waste! This was pretty disappointing.
So far Bali is dirty, busy, loud, cheap but a rip off for foreigners. However, it also offers dramatic scenery and architecture with beautiful large temples, a culturally rich but friendly population with different religions, and a great time! We are planning to go to Komodo island to see the komodo dragons and to orang atang to see the giant monkeys. We are still negotiating tour prices because they are mainly rip offs until you know your way around.
"If we are not happy and joyous in this season for what season shall we wait"