Traveling Diary: February 2008 Archives

Jason was nice enough to send me some pics during our adventure where my battery had died. So here are a few last pics of my amazing surf adventure.


Balinese does not have the letter 'f'. So whenever I was headed somewhere with my board, the locals would yell 'You go surp-ing?'. (This explains the title of this post).

Yes, generally when someone is walking to the beach with their bathing suit on and a surf board under their arm, they are going surfing.

Here is us pre-surf at Medewi. A long left break on the West coast of Bali.

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.

There is a lot to tell you about my trip to Bali. Thus, I spent a while trying to decide if/how I would break it up and have decided to do it in a somewhat chronological fashion. This first entry will be mainly about my first 11 days there.

To start I'll just say that, as per usual, it was the people I met throughout the time traveling that made my trip memorable. The great surf and gorgeous setting in Bali were simply the backdrop. I had a 15 year old Lonely Planet guide for Indonesia with me (which to my amazement still helped a lot), and was struck with a new word while reading it on my flight. "snapshot friends" are like-minded people you encounter while traveling who have the potential both to change your course and impact you life in a positive way and make traveling memories with you.
Bali gave me a great 3 week vacation; but more importantly, it gave me some of the BEST snapshot friends anyone could ask for. Some of which I wholeheartedly hope to see again soon.

First and foremost, Cat.
I arrived late afternoon to Uluwatu...my expected 'home' for the next few weeks. I was stunned by the surf and beauty and sat there watching the surfers come in as the sun set.

In a mesmerized daze I almost missed my name being called. I looked over and in the distance was a table of people drinking beer. I thought, 'this must be a mirage', but it was real! My next door neighbor whom I had met only hours before was yelling at me to come over and have a beer with 'the gang'. I obviously did not argue and thus began several important relationships. Namely, Catherine, a French Canadian who lives in Bali.


Cat designs jewelry and sells it to Canadian stores but pays a fair wage to the women on Bali who make it for her. Therefore, she is in the process of beginning a fair trade project here. She is so giving and is one of those people I meet who makes me want to be a better person. After spending a few evenings post-surf on the Uluwatu deck drinking beers with her, Catherine offered a room to me in her home for free. And so I lived with her for my first two weeks there. Not bad, eh? (This reminds me, with all the Aussies in Bali, I started saying 'eh?' again. How embarassing!)

In order to pay Cat back, I offered to teach her how to surf. (you know what they say...those who can't do, teach) This was how we transported ourselves and our boards in our search for the perfect wave...or at least one we could stand up on.

I quickly developed a daily routine of eating banana pancakes (for less than 1$CDN), reading, surfing and then watching the sun set with Bintang (the local beer) in hand.



Ulu watu and the area beaches were a great place to surf, and an equally great place to hang out before and after. But every once in a while I left the safety of The Bukit (southern bump of the island where most of the surfing is) and braved the traffic and aweful diesle fumes. Here are a few pics of me being a geek and taking pics of myself while Cat drove us through the chaos.



And this is where you fill up the gas tank. A Bali gas station: Absolute Petrol.