Bagus!
By Day 12 I was relaxed, surfed up and sunburned. There was really nothing else I could have wanted out of my trip to Bali. However, I was getting a bit restless, and had a week to spare. A cyclone had been traveling towards us and this made for some really strong on-shore winds...which all surfers know are our biggest enemy! The forecast was showing no sign of letting up so I started making plans to go on a little road trip to see the rest of the Island.
I was over at the next door neighbor's mentioning I might head out, and Erwin piped up, saying he had also been wanting to see some of the island. So we rented a car and within hours were setting to head out. With no real plans except to head counter clockwise around Bali, we began packing up our 'G-ride' which we were renting for $9CND/day.
We headed inland first to a gorgeous little town called Ubud. There is a famous Monkey Forest there where we made some friends of the local sort. Their hands are so soft!
If you want to be a tourist, you can buy bananas to feed the monkeys with for an exploitative amount of money. That's not how we rolled though. Instead, I happened to have some water with me, and the monkeys were down with drinking out of my hand.
That pic was taken only moments before the little bugger swatted the entire bottle out of my hand and ran off with it; causing mayhem throughout the entire forest cause every monkey wanted to get their hands on my bottle of water. I don't need DNA matching to tell me we are related to monkeys.
Ubud also had a great market where both Erwin and I spent way too much money. But to us that was, like $100CDN....we didn't even spend $100CND on the car, gas, food, or hotels for the entire trip.
Any normal human being would have been jealous of us, and to our delight, Tami and Jason who had been staying with Erwin saw our excitement as we left and could not resist. They rented a car and headed out the following morning. Thus, beginning our Team World adventure.
Wherever you are in Bali, the locals are constantly asking: What your name? Where you from? Where you go? Where you were? You want transport? etc. Therefore throughout our around-the-island adventure, we were constantly being reminded that we were all from different countries, and I started just telling people we were from 'the world'. We also had a lot of fun quoting great movies like Borat and Team America World Police and thus, we became Team World.
On our way to meet them on the East coast, we passed these incredible rice fields. Bali's main export is rice.
Arriving into Amed as the sun was setting, we found a cheap place to stay ($14CDN for two separate rooms, one for girls, one for boys, on the ocean, which was luxury for us because we all stayed in one room the rest of the trip...budget!) and ventured out for dinner. Apparently Amed doesn't get many 'travelers' (different than stuck up, rich tourists both in budget and appearance) and we were warmly welcomed by the locals that night once the rich, old, well dressed people left.
I was over at the next door neighbor's mentioning I might head out, and Erwin piped up, saying he had also been wanting to see some of the island. So we rented a car and within hours were setting to head out. With no real plans except to head counter clockwise around Bali, we began packing up our 'G-ride' which we were renting for $9CND/day.
We headed inland first to a gorgeous little town called Ubud. There is a famous Monkey Forest there where we made some friends of the local sort. Their hands are so soft!
If you want to be a tourist, you can buy bananas to feed the monkeys with for an exploitative amount of money. That's not how we rolled though. Instead, I happened to have some water with me, and the monkeys were down with drinking out of my hand.
That pic was taken only moments before the little bugger swatted the entire bottle out of my hand and ran off with it; causing mayhem throughout the entire forest cause every monkey wanted to get their hands on my bottle of water. I don't need DNA matching to tell me we are related to monkeys.Ubud also had a great market where both Erwin and I spent way too much money. But to us that was, like $100CDN....we didn't even spend $100CND on the car, gas, food, or hotels for the entire trip.
Any normal human being would have been jealous of us, and to our delight, Tami and Jason who had been staying with Erwin saw our excitement as we left and could not resist. They rented a car and headed out the following morning. Thus, beginning our Team World adventure.
Wherever you are in Bali, the locals are constantly asking: What your name? Where you from? Where you go? Where you were? You want transport? etc. Therefore throughout our around-the-island adventure, we were constantly being reminded that we were all from different countries, and I started just telling people we were from 'the world'. We also had a lot of fun quoting great movies like Borat and Team America World Police and thus, we became Team World.
On our way to meet them on the East coast, we passed these incredible rice fields. Bali's main export is rice.
Arriving into Amed as the sun was setting, we found a cheap place to stay ($14CDN for two separate rooms, one for girls, one for boys, on the ocean, which was luxury for us because we all stayed in one room the rest of the trip...budget!) and ventured out for dinner. Apparently Amed doesn't get many 'travelers' (different than stuck up, rich tourists both in budget and appearance) and we were warmly welcomed by the locals that night once the rich, old, well dressed people left.
Thus Tami and Jason can now properly be introduced (the two other white people in the picture).
Tami is a great combination between Merle and Sara Burgess. She is kind, spiritual and loves animals and nature; but also tough, strong and worldly. She just got out of the American air force and is living off the 4 years of salary traveling around, learning a lot and searching for her purpose.
Jason is a Portuguese-born, English-educated bloke. Him and I have a very similar sense of humor and caught each other saying the same witty things at the same time on may occasions. Needless to say...he is hilarious! Well, I thought so anyways. Jason has this magical energy whereby everywhere we went, he would make local friends. He spoke as much Indonesian as the rest of us (the usual: thank you, hello, goodbye, you're welcome) but somehow people thought he spoke Indonesian. He was constantly yelling "Bagus!" which means great or good.
The following day, after Tammy and I had 2 hour massages for less than 10$, we headed towards Mt. Batur, an active volcano. However, on the way we saw a sign for a waterfall and turned off to check it out. Believe it or not, it was both Tammy and Jason's first waterfall!?!?!?
Some random local decided to follow us up and took this picture of us. I thought of the gayest thing we could do - YMCA - but we took the gayness up a notch by not only doing it backwards, but also Jason didn't get the message in time for the picture and just grabbed Erwin's hand. Ha ha.
That night we stayed in a hotel in a crater at the base of an active volcano. The following morning, we were able to climb up to the top and look over the lake (which is the mouth of the crater) and celebrate with...none other than... beer.
There were steam vents all over. Here is us inside one of them. It takes 7 minutes to cook an egg in them.
Later that day, we headed to Lovina. Unfortunately, mine and Erwin's car basically exploded on the side of the road. So we flagged Tami and Jason down and threw our surf boards on the roof (of course we took them...what if we saw a good surf spot!?!) and got in the back. In Lovina, my batteries died for my camera. So, sorry, no more pics.
We went on a Bintang-fuled search for a holy hotspring in Lovina and then survived the ride form hell to the West coast. I had heard of a surf spot along this coast and the cyclone had passed, so Erwin and I were crossing our fingers for a swell. We got to Medewi at night and the following morning woke up early to some perfect surf!!!!
After an awesome session (ok, maybe it was just so-so for bali standards, but anything is good to us Canadian or Dutch surfers) we had lunch and packed up.
The drive back to Uluwatu was scenic and full of high spirit. I drove and Tami DJ'ed. We rocked out to Wayne's World, Tenacious D, and High Fidelity. It was so awesome to be back in the Western World around people who not only understood my jokes but also had movies memorized to the extent that I had. It made me miss home and especially my friends who are as obsessed with Anchorman as much as I am so much!!!!!
Tami is a great combination between Merle and Sara Burgess. She is kind, spiritual and loves animals and nature; but also tough, strong and worldly. She just got out of the American air force and is living off the 4 years of salary traveling around, learning a lot and searching for her purpose.
Jason is a Portuguese-born, English-educated bloke. Him and I have a very similar sense of humor and caught each other saying the same witty things at the same time on may occasions. Needless to say...he is hilarious! Well, I thought so anyways. Jason has this magical energy whereby everywhere we went, he would make local friends. He spoke as much Indonesian as the rest of us (the usual: thank you, hello, goodbye, you're welcome) but somehow people thought he spoke Indonesian. He was constantly yelling "Bagus!" which means great or good.
The following day, after Tammy and I had 2 hour massages for less than 10$, we headed towards Mt. Batur, an active volcano. However, on the way we saw a sign for a waterfall and turned off to check it out. Believe it or not, it was both Tammy and Jason's first waterfall!?!?!?
Some random local decided to follow us up and took this picture of us. I thought of the gayest thing we could do - YMCA - but we took the gayness up a notch by not only doing it backwards, but also Jason didn't get the message in time for the picture and just grabbed Erwin's hand. Ha ha.That night we stayed in a hotel in a crater at the base of an active volcano. The following morning, we were able to climb up to the top and look over the lake (which is the mouth of the crater) and celebrate with...none other than... beer.There were steam vents all over. Here is us inside one of them. It takes 7 minutes to cook an egg in them.Later that day, we headed to Lovina. Unfortunately, mine and Erwin's car basically exploded on the side of the road. So we flagged Tami and Jason down and threw our surf boards on the roof (of course we took them...what if we saw a good surf spot!?!) and got in the back. In Lovina, my batteries died for my camera. So, sorry, no more pics.We went on a Bintang-fuled search for a holy hotspring in Lovina and then survived the ride form hell to the West coast. I had heard of a surf spot along this coast and the cyclone had passed, so Erwin and I were crossing our fingers for a swell. We got to Medewi at night and the following morning woke up early to some perfect surf!!!!
After an awesome session (ok, maybe it was just so-so for bali standards, but anything is good to us Canadian or Dutch surfers) we had lunch and packed up.
The drive back to Uluwatu was scenic and full of high spirit. I drove and Tami DJ'ed. We rocked out to Wayne's World, Tenacious D, and High Fidelity. It was so awesome to be back in the Western World around people who not only understood my jokes but also had movies memorized to the extent that I had. It made me miss home and especially my friends who are as obsessed with Anchorman as much as I am so much!!!!!
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