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Asia » Indonesia » Bali » Padangbai
July 31st 2011
Published: August 30th 2011
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July 31



Right now I am on the "white beach" in Pandaganbai waiting for the sun to come out from behind the clouds. Today we havent done much besides the "goodbye breakfast" and come here - and there isn't much here besides a few streets with funky restaurants and hostels. I don't think ive ever been in a town this small actually, but it's low key and relaxing. I was really hoping to do some shopping while I was here because we haven't really bought anything on this trip in anticipation of buying in Bali, and now there's hardly anything off interest in the stores 😞 but maybe tomorrow in Legion (where we're going continuing on to).

Okay i just took a 5 minute break to go into the water - wow! That was the roughest water I've ever been in! It probably didn't help that I had one hand on my top and another on the bottoms so they wouldn't come off lol but the waves were huge!! And one after the other, relentless, and so fast!!! I'm literally out of breath haha But I'm glad I went in at least, now I know.

Although the beach and the town is a lot smaller than I'd like it to be, I have to say that it is really cool because theres bamboo shacks to have lunch at, and the sand is super white and the water is deep, pure blue.

Yesterday we went white water rafting!! At first we were a bit nervous because we had been warned that we shouldn't do it because it's dangerous, and I'm really not that strong and didn't want to hold them back or anything - but it was great 😊 The dangers ended up being that the water level was way too low, it wasn't even on the charts. This meant that at every single rapid instead of gliding over the raft got caught on a rock. Every single rapid it seemed like, we'd paddle towards it, it'd get caught, and then we'd swing 180 degrees around so we were backwards leaning back. This meant a lot of bumping into each other. At one point we were backwards and caught on a rock, so we all had to lean to the back of the raft to try and tip it over. When we were all laying on each other, practically vertical in the air we still couldnt get ourselves over! Then we all had to move even farther back, so 6 people literally all on top of each other, flapping up and down to try and get the raft unhooked... We were almost completely upside down and it must had been a stroke of nature that we didnt topple over completely!! But this happened dozens of times and we didn't fall out or turn over at all 😊 there was like no communication throughout the whole shebang, so we didn't realize we could bring our cameras to take pictured and left in the car. If I could have taken pictures though, the three of us would have sheepish grins of accomplishment on our faces. There were also tons of carvings on the side of the canyon of women with long hair and people weaving in and out of each other - very Balinese. I asked the guide and he said they're from the 1600s, which is the intension for the look, but I think I saw a sign that said it was from the 80s...


Half way through that last paragraph my batt died. Now I'm on the beach in Legion trying to ignore the sand flying in the air and getting stuck in my ear... The sand is flowing everywhere so I might have to abandon ship at some point because I'm screwed if this thing gets sand in it and breaks 😞!

Okay i splurged on a lawn chair..

After rafting we met my mom for lunch. Then my mom and I went for a walk to the botanical gardens, a little bit out of town. On the map it looked like a 20 minute walk, so I figures it was a good thing to do. My mom had wanted to do a bike tour, which did sound good, but I was so wiped from rafting (and it was a 20 minute hike up really steep stairs to get back from the river) that the walk sounded better. The "city" of Ubud itself is almost repulsive a bit. There's so many tourists that aren't the backpacker kind and actually dress up and wear nice clothes and boutiques selling everything wayyyy overpriced. On the one hand they totally cashed in on Eat pray Love, and thats their right. On the other hand there's no denying it's lost all of it's charm, and is concrete plastic all the way. When we took the walk however, we walked into everyday life, boys and girls on bicycles riding the streets together laughing and eating ices, how summer "should be." each house was like a piece of art - or more accurately, a temple. The doorways were beautifully carved and had two gargoyle-like statues in front of Balinese styled Hindu gods. When one looks through the doorways there is a whole complex of small houses/shacks with every sign of middle class life; laundry hanging out to dry, toys for the kids scattered around, chickens quaking...etc. It was such a relief after the tourist-drowning city of Ubud. The afternoon ended up being a perfect example of maps not being drawn to scale, and helpful Indonesians not wanting to give disappointing news. If we had 1,000 rp for every time we asked someone if the botanical gardens were just up ahead, and they replied "not more than 500 meters"...! An hour and a half later, after a BEAUTIFUL walk through the rice fields and temple- houses, we got to the gardens! My mom didn't want to go in the gardens though, she wanted to see the herons she had read about which were supposed to be in the vicinity. "right around the corner" ended up being another half hour walk past a local soccer game and up a mini hill. Ahhhh the herons!! Perhaps, the most anticlimactic thing ive ever seen.

We payed the 10,000 rp entrance fee and walked hurriedly up the hill to see the herons. We ran into a motorbiker family - died black greasy hair, tattoos and everything - looking up at the sky in the middle of the road. Sure enough there were about 2 dozen white herons perched on the tree above. Wow... It was 5:30 at this point, and the group was meeting up at 7 to go out for a last final dinner. If we walked back we'd miss them for sure. My mom and I decided to splurge on a cab back and began bargaining. The man wanted 40,000 rp (~$4) and we knew it should be 30,000 rp (~$3). then before I knew what she was doing, she flagged down a passing car and asked if they were driving in the direction of Ubud. They were driving half way, and we hopped in. The couple turned out to be incredibly nice and drove us all the way back after we stopped at their place so they could check in to their villa. From France, they were both in their 30s, the husband was a fat (incredibly wealthy) business man who seems like one of those very happy guys who likes to be generous and spread his wealth around and help people a lot. His wife must have been a model becuause she was gorgeous, with long red painted fingernails, everything done up in a tastefully holiday Cotten pants style, and chain smoked. My mom spoke to them in French the whole time and I was very content listening to the foreign romance language in the car and looking out the window. We got back at 6:30 with a half hour to spare for my mom and I to hope in and out of the shower and get dressed.

After dinner we went to the 5th reggae bar of the trip, and when the music got too loud we picked beers up at the supermarket and hung out by the pool drinking and talking all night. Around 2 in the morning before we went to bed the three of us set off a bunch of fireworks we bought in the beginning of this trip. It was a perfect way to end the trip. Yesterday morning we had "goodbye breakfast" and at 9am the Swiss couple, Mikey, my mom and I got in the van and drove off to Padang Bai.

I don't know if I've ever been in a smaller town...but it was nice, for divers. It was about 3 streets, and there are 3 small beaches. One for snorkeling, but no actual beach, one black sand beach, and the nicest the white sand beach. We has lunch with the Swiss couple and Mikey at a little shack on the beach which was nice, and then we all layer out on the beach.

We all went to dinner together, and then for drinks at this lounge cafe and played the card game Wist and then my mom went back and the four of us went to our 6th reggae bar of the trip!

Did I mention this is one of the nicest hotels I've ever stayed at?! $40 a night, and the bungalows are secluded with bamboo poles for walls and the bathroom and showers are outside! I took a hot bath for the first time in yearsssss! It was may be the highlight of my day.

So thursday the 28th we drove from Lovina to Ubud, via tirtaganga. At tirtaganga we stopped for lunch and then Mikey, the swiss couple and us went for an unguided walk through the rice fields. We could have hired a guide, not gotten lost, and probably learned a lot more, but I think we were all tried of being sold guided tours so we opted to explore the old fashion way. Mikey bribed the farmers with cigarettes and I decided pretty quickly that walking through the mud barefoot (like the farmers do) was the way to go. Walking through rice fields is the best because you're 100% surrounded by terraces of grass, and rice grass is always the brightest green I've ever seen. Then we found our way to the water palace, which is really only a palace for symbolic purposes. There were lots of tall, colorful, scary looking statues, temples and fountains and pools with elephant fish in them - overall very aesthetically pleasing. It also served as a public pool which I think is really cool. Also en route to Lovina, we stopped at the bat caves temple. We walk really hurriedly because we can see there is a huge festival going on, and when we're about to enter a man comes up to us and tells us that the caves are closed for a funeral, but that we can watch the festival. He hands us a silk tie to tie around our waist, and we wall through the gates, looking at the parade coming out of the temple. There was a huge gamgalen band which actually sounded really good for the first time, and tons of women with baskets of offerings balancing on their heads. The men all wore sarongs and the traditional hat, and the women wore sarongs, and a see through lace shirt with either a black bra or corsset underneath. Young and old men/women all wore the same thing. I was surprised that the women's tops were see through, and it just showed the dichotomy between the Java and Bali islands of Indonesia. All these people proceeded to the beach where they sat in rows and prayed in sync to an old man on a microphone.
after we saw the funeral ceremony, we saw these kids like 10 years old completely done up in makeup to look like human dolls. They were getting ready for a "traditional Balinese performance" or something. It reminded me of my backstage days, watching them all help each other out with their outfits, and lots of standing around, trying to distract themselves from their nerves. The makeup was so dramatic, with red red lips, and huge blue eye makeup, black painted side burns on the boys, purple btwn their eyes and noes, and yellow on the outsides. Mom thought that the kids all had bad attitudes because they didn't smile in any of the pictures, but I wonder if that was just a manifestation of their makeup. Anyways it wasn't something we planned to see when we got out of the car to see the bat caves but something that just happened to be going on, a surprise, and Ive never seen anything quite like it.

When we arrived in Ubud Mikey my mom and I went to the monkey temples while most of the group rested. Intrepid officially doesn't recommend the monkey temple because the monkeys are known to be violent, but we figured it couldnt be THAT bad. And it wasn't. Granted, we were there around 6ish and the monkeys were well fed at the point. The monkey temple is actually a graveyard too, and there had been a burial that day, with lots of offerings that were all long torn apart and eaten by the monkeys when we got there. We didn't have food with us thank god so the monkeys left us alone. They did hiss and jump on some other tourists that we saw who did have food in their backpacks. One girl had a banana in her shorts and a monkey ran up to her and pulled her shorts down! One boy in our group said when he went he teased the monkey with a banana, and then the monkey bit him, but it didn't leave a mark.

After dinner Andrew Mikey Danielle and I went to a reggae bar for a few hours and ordered different fun cocktails and then shared them all.

August 2



These are some of the biggest waves I've ever seen, and im sitting on the beach right in front of all the surfers, relieved im not out there haha They ride the waves from all the way out at sea all the way to the shore, and do fancy tricks in the air like flips and turns - a free show, I'm delighted.

Last night my mom and i went to Kuta for dinner (and an hour and a half of failed shopping). We walked past the bar/club area, and it was kind of weird watching it soberly. I've probably walked through hundreds of bars and clubs over the years with my mom, so from a sober perspective, and I've only gone in them like 10 times, and those 10 times I have the feeling I've been there 100 times before. I dont know if it's good ive "skipped" the club phase, or sad. I mean its still fun, but just a little repetitive.



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