Welcome To The Southern Hemisphere

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Ubud

We flew into Indonesia via Jakarta, the capital city, and then almost immediately continued onward to Bali. We were greeted with the cheery sign "Welcome to Indonesia! Death penalty for drug traffickers!". After arriving at the main Bali airport, we oriented ourselves, and moved on to Ubud, a cultural town in the center of the island. Unlike the rest of Indonesia, which is primarily Muslim, Bali is mostly Hindu, and in fact is the largest Hindu enclave outside of India. As a result there were tons of Hindu temples of all sorts of shapes and sizes throughout the island. We stayed at Jati Homestay, Jati being some sort of famous painter from Bali. I perused through his gallery and noticed he loves painting artwork of topless women. When we arrived in the town we realized that the entire place had a blackout. It was fun trying to navigate and find the place under those conditions. We later found out that every week for a few hours the town has a scheduled blackout period for some reason and we just happened to arrive then.

The following day I met a middle aged Australian man named Paul and we hired a driver to take us to Mt Batur in Kintamali, which was a volcano. Being as we were in the Pacific Ring of Fire, and that Indonesia was one of the most volcanically active places on the entire planet, it seemed like the appropriate thing to do. Paul was also extremely fascinated with geology and explained to me many things about volcanic activity, it was like I had my own tour guide. We got a nice view of this extremely active volcano and saw lots of hardened lava all around it. We also headed down to the lake at the bottom and saw some hot springs. On the way back we stopped by rice paddy fields and a coffee plantation where I got to try various Balinese coffee, most of which was amazing, as well as an assortment of exotic fruit, notably Mangosteen and Durian, which smells like garbage on the outside but tastes like heaven. I sent back some of that coffee home for my folks to try.

Ubud also has a famous monkey forest, also with a big Hindu temple at the center. Being a big fan of monkeys I of course had to check it out. It was a beautiful forest but was so humid that I was sweating instantly. Monkeys were abound and you could buy some bananas to feed them. There were shrines throughout and when I arrived at the temple I had to put on a traditional robe to go in. Later I found a cemetery where a bunch of monkeys were lazing around and I sat with them for a bit, and they would grab my fingers and climb on me and sit on my shoulders. Some were pickpockets and would try to see what I had in mine! It's freaky how human the monkeys' hands seemed...

On our final evening in Ubud we were at a bar late night and then on our way home we walked through dark streets to get back to our room. The streets were barren of people but were FULL of stray dogs all snapping and growling. It was pretty stressful making our way through them, and every time we got through a few of them, there would be tons more ahead, seemingly waiting for us. We almost expected to see a giant "boss" dog right before our room. Now I'm not afraid of dogs in general but I AM afraid of the potential for getting rabies. Bali is rife with it and in the last month alone 21 people have died of the horrid virus. For those who don't know, Rabies is transmitted through infected mammal bites or sometimes scratches. This is how the idea of zombies took hold. If bitten by a contaminated animal you have 24 hours to evac to a safe clinic for a series of shots, and failing to do so the virus is 100% fatal in humans. Once symptoms start, even the best health care on the planet can't save you. During a victims final days, they'll often have to be tied down because of spastic convulsions. I REALLY wish I would have gotten the rabies vaccine before coming here and especially with the amount of animals I've touched so far (bats, dogs, monkeys, etc) it'll be a wonder if I make it home in one piece or at the very least remain uninfected. Here's hoping...

Kuta

Billy was getting antsy about being in such a small and culturally rich town devoid of a nightlife scene, so being the compromising individual I am we headed to the southern part of the island to Kuta Beach, which is a party hotspot full of annoying hawkers at every turn and copious amounts of Australian tourists. This is also where the famous Bali bombings in 2002 took place. I'd just like to point out the Australian surfer scene, at least here in Kuta, are probably the biggest lot of douchebags this world has to offer. That being said I have nothing against surfing itself and since I was here for a few days, definitely wanted to give it a shot. Check it out in my blog dedicated to surfing in Bali. It went quite well too. The rest of the time we ate, food was generally cheap because of so much competition which was nice, and walked the endless streets full of shops and tourist traps. I also swam quite a bit and smoked shisha with Billy, whom is becoming quite fond of it.

The clubbing scene here pretty big but is generally full of late teen, early twenty something Aussies as well as local Indonesians, of which the women seem to be almost desperate to latch on to a foreigner and take him for all he's worth. Seems like a running trend in this part of the world (sigh). Billy was getting intimate with one in particular, and actually believed she liked him for who he was, that is until she began asking him how much money he had on him. Red Flag. Keep trying old boy. I did get to try a lot of local Indonesian Beer, although so far I like the offerings of the Philippines better. If I had it my way I'd much rather go to a bar than to some of these clubs filled with lame music, at least by my tastes. But while on the road it's good to be open to most experiences.

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