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| Monkey Temple near Uluwatu |
After the Kiwi boys’ James & Joel
found us randomly by our pool. We
thought that our next move in Kuta, should literally be to move. We walked down with the guys towards the
Poppies’ streets near their “hostel”.
These 2 streets are right in the center of downtown Kuta. We chose to walk down “Poppies II” based on a
tip the Kiwi guys heard the night before.
Since they had been there for a few
nights, they had already made a few friends with some locals and other
travellers who gave them suggestions.
Suggestions ranging from where to eat and party, to where we should
stay, the place we chose to stay was called the “Gora Beach Inn” for only
$25/night.
At the first sight of Gora, I was not
convinced that the Aussies James & Joel met had been completely truthful
with them. There is a running feud
between the Kiwis and Aussies, so just on appearance alone I thought that maybe
a joke had been played on these guys.
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| Gora Beach Inn on Poppies II |
I thought this because the front of Gora
was their carport…we learned after going through that it kept getting better and
more scenic the further we went on.
“Hostel” is a loose term in
Indonesia. They are “hostel” prices
luckily, but we quickly learned that one can easily pay these prices for better
accommodations as well. They are
actually resorts. Once we made it past
the carport, the resort really opened up and truly got more comforting and
likeable.
When we first walked back, we saw an
entire pool full of hot girls and understandably half-naked gentlemen (if
that’s what you’re into). The “tip” that
our Kiwi buddies received was that this was the place that all the “surfing
Aussies who liked to party” stayed. Good
enough for us. We booked in there for
our remaining 4 days in Kuta.
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| Where did all the naked people go? |
Honestly though, the Aussies weren’t
that cool. Not to classify all of them
in a category together but I’m glad that I had already lived in Australia for a
little while and met some before I went to Kuta. If I would have met those Aussies and thought
that was what all Aussies were like, I probably would have stayed away from
Australia.
They were just punks to be honest. Typical surfer, too cool for school types
with their singlets and flat brimmed hats, just not my type of people. Disrespecting the locals, and treating
Indonesia like their own personal play house.
They're on vacation, so they don’t care and they definitely don’t
appreciate other cultures. I talked to
some of my Aussie friends about this when I got back and these “bogans” were
stereotypically typical.
Since everything was already laid out
for Cheese and I, we decided to go to
the beach and chill out for a little while.
What we didn’t realize was our interesting and almost celebrity-like
status once we arrived.
It’s a very simplistic life in Indo, not
all by choice exactly, but it’s still very simple. Sunset is about the time all the tourists get
off the beach, so the other locals come to join the other Balinese who do their
work on the beach.
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| Not too shabby for a "hostel" |
I think it’s because the locals who work
on the beach actually stay there…as in, live on the beach. Literally.
So “after work”, you normally go to your friends place…or maybe a nice
spot to grab a beer for Happy Hour maybe…well, these people have friends who
work on the beach with coolers of beer…whatever beer that isn’t sold can be sold
(Happy Hour-ish) to their friends at a discounted price and everyone watches
the sunset.
The guys who work on the beach start at
6 or 7 in the morning and stay working until the sun goes down. Then some of them go to their houses or wherever
they live, while others camp out on the beach, every night. It’s wild.
I also couldn’t decide if it was sad or
not. It’s really cool to an extent, but
you can’t possibly “want” to camp out on the beach every night and then work
there too. Then again, the weather is
mostly perfect so it’s not as if it’s too miserable out there. But coming from a guy who has slept on his share
of sand and camped on beaches, shit gets old really quick.
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| Good times with great people |
Work for the beach locals involves
anything from surf board rentals/lessons, bike hire, beverages of any kind, etc
etc. They each have their own section of
the beach. They also work together, so
if they don’t have something you want, they’ll go get it for you from one of
their friends along the beach. They set
chairs up around their own shaded area and try to talk tourists into coming to
their station to hang out with them and their friends.
It was annoying at first, kind of like
the airport zombies we encountered where they just wouldn’t leave you alone and
God help you if you stop moving. If you
stand still, they all swarm to you like hungry lions on a wildebeest.
We go into it eventually. They are a lot of fun, they’re just trying to
make some money. In their line of
business, if they don’t do that to you, they won’t sell and if they don’t
sell…then they don’t make ANYTHING. It’s
not exactly an hourly wage, so you need to gain a certain understanding of their
lifestyle to appreciate it.
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| Celebrity status |
On this particular sunset the beach was
completely full of Indonesian people who wanted to take our picture and take
pictures with us, for what reason? We
still have no idea why!
I like to say that it was because Joel
is such a sexy man beast and my beard was by far beyond anything they have ever
seen on another person’s face…but what do I know? So we pose for them naturally and say “Hello”,
we throw the Frisbee around and have what I’ll describe as an interesting time
on the beach.
We went back to the hostel and began
drinking by the pool. Our Kiwi buddies
were giving us the lowdown (you’re also reading the LOWDOWN…clever) on what to
do in the area. This pretty much
relegates around the Sky Garden, which was conveniently located right across
from the street we stayed on.
They serve free drinks to all tourists
there from 9-10, there are 6 different levels and it’s pretty much packed every
night. The drinks are not good by any
means, but they are free and they don’t care how many you grab nor the amount
of times you stumble back up to them. Just
your basic watered down vodka mixed with various juice/soda…very terrible, also
very effective.
On the main strip in Kuta at night they
have scantily clad girls handing out vouchers for free drinks to whatever venue
they work for. They are the same kind of
drinks everywhere, you only get one…but if you play your cards right, you can
drink for free for at least a few hours hoping around from venue to venue.
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| Joel, Yours truly, Mr. McGee, and James |
Sky Garden was pretty cool except I’ve
never struck out so many times in my whole life…I was 0 for the century at this
place. All the places actually and it
became sort of a game for me, my beard was apparently not as “becoming” as I
thought. I did get a lot of positive
comments…from dudes…not exactly what I was going for. But I was stuck without a shaver so I couldn’t
shave until I went back to Australia.
With that in mind, since I already knew
I wasn’t going to get any play it opened me up to freely say whatever came into
my head…not that I don’t already do that but without anything to lose I even
became surprised with the amount of toxic conversation that kept spraying from
my mouth.
I got turned down by everyone. Russians, Italians, Frenchies, lesbians…you
name it, I had a run and so did they…away from me.
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| James' sweaty drunken dancing |
The Kiwi guys had a nice thing going with 2
Dutch girls they met. So we all got
together and since the girls lived there and spoke Balinese, we got to do a lot
of cool stuff for cheap.
That’s how the first couple of nights
went. Same story each over those next
few nights with the venue hoping for free drinks, the Garden with their free
drinks and hasheesh hookas, sprinkle in a few random travellers and 8 hot Canadian
neighbors and of course…my constant rejection.
For instance, I talked with these 2
German chicks that stayed at our hostel for a while one night, mainly because
of the potential I saw by the pool that afternoon. They came out with us and I thought things
were going well.
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| Sky Garden set up on the roof |
Cheese and I went off and sat with them
alone for a little while. Except the
little weasel squeezed in beside the hotter blonde one, crafty bastard that he
is. Oh well, the brunette was cute so I
went along with it…not a bad consolation prize I told myself. Even though the blonde was BY FAR hotter, but
I’m a good sport so instead of competing I let Cheesey Mo have his day.
Unfortunately it didn’t work out for
either one of us. The blonde had too
much to drink and went home sick, so Cheese, the brunette and I all went back
and found the Kiwis and the Dutchies.
We were all drinking and having a good
time. Until the brunette decided to
mention that she had a boyfriend and wasn’t interested in being anything other
friends with me…which SUCKED…because I didn’t even want her! How does this happen!? I knew I should have squeezed in with the
blonde…damn you hindsight!
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| Dancing with Canucks |
The friends thing was fine with me, until
I explained to her my position on the situation. That basically if I had known that going in,
I would have went and found some other girl to chat with and not spent so much
time putting in work with her….she didn’t understand or appreciate it. I tried to explain it to her in a kind way
that said we CAN BE FRIENDS but she wasn’t happy.
It is simple math, at least to me. “You’re not going to do anything with me so
if I knew that I would have went and found someone who would…we can still be
friends of course…but I wouldn’t have spent that amount of time with you.”
She wanted to know if that information changed
my decision in watching a German soccer match with her at 4am…since I already
said that I would before I knew I was in the dreaded “friend zone”.
I told her no, which was a complete lie,
so I still went to be nice…I just left at halftime after I decided that my
presence there was unnecessary, or pointless more like it. Needless to say, she changed her mind about
the whole friends/Facebook situation.
The next day we woke up early because
the Kiwi guys were very active and apparently don’t experience hangovers in
their country. It’s a good thing they
were with us though, otherwise we may have stayed in bed or at the hostel by
the pool.
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| Hangin' out at Jeki's |
We went to the beach to find one of the
Dutch girls’ friends. His name was Jeki
and he had his own beach setup as I covered before. He gave us a good price on surf lessons and
we spent the whole day out there with him.
I had been surfing before. Well, more like paddling in the water and
falling into it with a board strapped to my foot. So I was excited to get some actual
LESSONS. It was a lot of work but I
finally got to the point where I could get up consistently. Some of the other didn’t fare so well but it
was a good time had by all.
Jeki also hooked us up with his brother
who worked for a speed boat company. It’s
nice to get in with the locals on things such as this because usually it cost
$660,000 Rp ($66) for one way to the island of Gili Trawagan. We paid that price for the roundtrip with an
open return date. We found out later
that we did still overpay a bit, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been if
we went and got them somewhere else.
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| Joel & the view |
The day after that we got together with
the Dutch girls and rented mopeds. They
took us to Uluwatu and Padang Padang. It
was pretty scary and fun all at the same time.
There are no rules on the roads in these Asian countries. Everyone just does whatever they want,
whenever they want. It’s really
dangerous being on a bike.
The guy at the shop didn’t want me to
have mine for some strange reason. Can’t
say that I blame him really I guess, since I almost wrecked it the first time
we pulled away from his shop.
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| Sun never sets on a bad-ass |
I had never been on a moped before and I
let it get away from me…so I may have “grazed” the bar next to his shop on my
take off. I thought it was funny, until
I turned around and realized that the owner had chased me down and told me to
bring him his bike back because he didn’t think I was capable of operating it.
“You should bring that back, you’re
going to die” – Angry Little Indonesian Man
“Nah, I’m good” – Silly American
Another interesting thing about Indo is
that there are no gas stations. Only
people on the side of the road with bookshelves full of Absolute Vodka bottles containing
gasoline. These are their “stations”. There are lots of cars but more often than not
people travel on mopeds (it’s so they can go around traffic and pull up onto
the sidewalks, no rules).
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| Cool side of the mountain town, killer waves |
We stopped at this area in Padang Padang
which was on the side of a mountain/cliff.
It was a little inverted town built along the side. So instead of walking around, you walk down
this stone stair well through the town until you reach the beach at the
bottom. They have shops and restaurants
with incredibly bad service but it’s still neat. It was pretty sweet and obviously I didn’t
die on the bike so that was a major plus for me.
It was a major plus for my sister as
well because she was flying in the next day.
Which was actually the day of because she got the dates wrong. She didn’t realize that time-travel was
involved when flying across the world (and she teaches today’s youth!).
It was great because I hadn’t seen her
in about 6 months. We had a chat about
me going to Indo and she said she would come join me for her summer break. Except, she always says that when I tell her
what I’m doing so I didn’t really pay much attention to it but then she bought
the ticket and actually came, so it was really cool. We’re a lot alike in the spontaneous, try to
live for the moment kind of way.
I was really worried about her too
though. I thought the Indo’s would eat
her alive. They’re not actual zombies…they
just act like them. That episode of “South
Park” where the homeless people are looking for change describes it pretty
well.
The problem with Holly is (NOTHING, she’s
f’n awesome in every single way!), but she’s just way too nice sometimes. So instead of ignoring the people like she
should, I was expecting her to stop and talk to them…because she's very kind and naturally giving...but places like Indo where they want your money and try to take advantage these features could only lead to
trouble, or her spending money she didn’t intend to spend. She surprised me though, she handled herself very
well, even to the adorable beggar children that get sent out when all else
fails.
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| She's obviously the shy one |
I was supposed to get her at the airport but since we got the dates screwed up, she was on her own. Holly also has traveled a lot and is completely capable of handing herself on the road. She managed to get herself into a nice
spa by the airport and then I went to pick her up and brought her back to Gora
with Cheese, the Kiwi’s, and myself (sounds like some kind of lunch menu).
She’s also the more conventional one in
the family. She needs to have a
plan. She needs to know what is
happening and when it’s happening, she’s very punctual unlike me who has been
late to everything I’ve ever done, ever.
So I wasn’t sure how she would take to the lifestyle Cheese and I lead
on the road. Where anything goes at any time
and we don’t exactly make plans so much as loose outlines to just figure it out
later.
She was really awesome with that as well
though. She just wanted some time away
from home, a true getaway with no worries involved. So she left it all up to us and we had a
great time.
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| Me & The Sis |
We showed her around and went through
the Sky Garden routine. We rounded up the entire crew…of Canadians,
Kiwis, Sierra and her “friend” McGee, Cheesey Mo and had a blast every night
and most days (when we weren’t hungover), of course Holly & I broke out the “Humpty Dance” in the middle of the
street as I like to do from time to time.
To those who don’t know the “Humpty
Dance” here’s another link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj9_yW8tZxs
And since you don’t know it, you probably would like to know this fun fact, 2pac is one of the background dancers on stage in this video! See if you can spot him, he got his start with Digital Underground. Yes, that 2pac!
And since you don’t know it, you probably would like to know this fun fact, 2pac is one of the background dancers on stage in this video! See if you can spot him, he got his start with Digital Underground. Yes, that 2pac!
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| The Crew with Jeki |
We went back to Jeki’s and hung out on
the beach, we only stayed in Kuta 2 days after she arrived because we were so
excited to travel to the island of Gili Trawangan.
Plus there’s only so much to be done in
Kuta to be honest, I only stayed for 5 days total and if you have ever went to
a vacation by the beach then you’ve probably done everything there is to do.
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| HOOKA |
