Bali, Indonesia

Bali was not what I expected. I was expecting it to be loud, dirty, overcrowded with traffic but also stunningly beautiful. When I got off the plane the airport was nearly empty, outside the street was quiet. I was expecting throngs of taxi drivers, porters and hotel owners bidding for my patronage. Instead I got a nice quiet bench beside a neatly manicured garden to sit down at. This might not be too bad! Then I went to Kuta.

The popular beach town of Kuta is loud, dirty, overcrowded with traffic and stunning, but not necessarily with beauty. Vendors constantly call out their promises of a good price, a morning price or a good-luck price if you would just take a look at their wares or buy a massage. To call them persistent would be an understatement. Several times they would grab my hand or my arm to pull me into their shop. This is where the motorcycle accident paid off as I would feign immense pain as I clutched my arm and showed my bandages. Apologetically they would let go and leave me alone, embarrassed they had hurt me. Smitten that I'd avoided one hard sell, I would perform the act all over again several times within each block. Crossing the street is not to be taken lightly here as taxis quickly jam together and motorbike drivers weave in and out of the cars. I stayed at a hotel right beside the Bali bomb memorial. I believe it was in 2004 when Muslims from nearby Java planted a bomb in a popular nightclub here killing several people from all over the world.

The Balinese are predominantly Hindu. You can't throw a rock in any direction without it going over at least one shrine or temple. They are everywhere! Next to houses, businesses, rice fields, inside homes and businesses, even taxis and buses! Daily offerings are placed on the shrines usually consisting of rice, flowers, fruit and sometimes money or candy. Incense is also very common. The smell permeates the streets and shops.

There isn't much to do in Kuta other than shop, party and play on the beach. I'm not much of a shopper and I didn't feel like cleaning sand out of my cuts everyday so I decided to leave town and head to the "cultural" town of Ubud. Maybe I'm not up to date on Balinese culture but Ubud is a tourist town. It's nice, there are several art galleries, boutiques, restaurants and who'd have guessed... temples. It's quieter than Kuta and seems to draw a more relaxed, if not older, crowd of tourists.

I stayed a week in Ubud studying the Indonesian language and exploring the area. One day, I rented a motorbike to go visit a temple recommended in my guidebook. Gunung Kawi Tampaksiring is a temple carved out of the sides of a small stream valley. On the way there I passed a valley of terraced rice paddies. It really is a sight to see! After visiting and taking a few pictures I headed north to see what I could see but it started raining! I pulled into a small roadside food stall and tried to wait it out over some mie goreng, noodles with vegetables.
Not long after I finished two other people came in out of the rain. When they drove by I'd hoped they'd stop and that they also spoke English. Success! They stopped and came in to have something to eat and wait out the rain. Olivier is from France and Handa is from Sumatra. They are friends and they are living in Bali now. We had a great time talking about everything from blond jokes to United States politics and whey they heard it was my birthday soon they insisted that they arrange everything and I come to Kuta for the party. Wonderful! They stayed with me in Ubud that night since the rain never stopped and it was getting dark, and left early the next morning.


One of the main sights in Ubud is the Monkey Sanctuary. Being a fan of monkeys I decided to go visit and see the little guys... I no longer like monkeys! I've never seen something so little strike fear into the hearts of more men than I did that day! There are hundreds of monkeys in the forest and many times I found myself surrounded by them. Pretty cool huh? Yeah, until they start fighting and screaming and demanding you give them whatever is in your hands with their fangs showing! I decided to enjoy them from a distance, and watch non-suspecting tourists go through the range of emotions from excitement, nervousness and then fear as the monkeys approached, climbed on them and then started pulling at bags, purses and water bottles. That was a much better way of enjoying the sanctuary!