And Some Other Parts of Bali

Blue waves at Gili Meno

The quality of the beach ranges from stony shore, but great waves at Uluwatu (Ooloo-wahtoo), to sandy but with corals at Gili Meno,

The Indonesian Omnibus

Growly Dog Attacks

Our first impression of Bali is hot, humid, and pressing. We're back in the tropical heat of the equator. In a way, finally! In another way, it's very, very hot.

We take a taxi to the house we rented. It takes a while to figure out if we're actually in the right spot, and when we do realize we're in the correct location, and try to find the house by going through the complex, two growly dogs bark at Dad and me. Loudly. Right at our feet.

Romance For Ever

Bali. The paradise on Earth. The most fantastic travel destination anyone can imagine. Impossible green rice terraces, misty volcanoes, surf beaches, thousand-year old temples, magical sunsets, fabulous food, friendly locals, unique cultural experiences. Romance for ever. I get a question on Facebook: "Is it really beautiful over there?"

My answer: "it's OK."

Bali. 

Bali, Bruises, New Jobs, the Middle Ages, Sprite, Rumpelstiltskin, and Oh, By the Way, Lydia is Awesome.

Let's start in order—Bali.

Bali's pretty cool. Everyone's nice and friendly and proposes marriage to you. They ask for your name and give you theirs, shake your hand and ask where you're from, tell you you're pretty and that they hope to see you again soon. Occasionally, someone will try to sell you something. But they don't compliment you, usually. They just try to sell it to you.


Bruises.

We went surfing and I got bruises on my knees, my hips, my head, my arms, my elbows, my everywheres. Not that you can see them. But they're there. Hiding. Invisible. This is because we went surfing

A day in Ubud

One of the most interesting destinations in Bali is a place called Ubud. It was a small village in the mountains some eighty years ago, but now is counts around 80,000 people and nobody knows where it starts and when it finishes. In the 1920s it became a destination for Western artists and it continues to attract a lot of them. It was hard for me to imagine how we'd have any fun in a place so removed from the beach, but I loved it, it was great. We got here twice, spent more than a week altogether, and we did have a good time. It is a major touristic destination, some would argue that it lacks authenticity, but on the other hand, it is good to see some tourists every now and then.

If you only have a day, here is a suggestion for filling it up. Don't rent a bike, unless

Parts of Bali

Selamat Pagi! (sell-ah-matt pah-ghee) Good morning!

We were supposed to have a vacation here. 

What, vacation from a vacation? 

We are traveling, this is hard work. When we started seven months ago (that long?) we were full of energy, eager to see, to experience, to accumulate sights and smells and sounds, to be free of past habits, only to make new ones. As time passed, we adapted to our new, simple ways, wearing the same clothes day in and out, taking care of them, and ourselves in the same time (you can’t go out in your pajama while your clothes are drying), eating whatever is available, sterilizing our water and learning about what is yet to come. And when we made the plans, we decided to have a vacation here in Bali. After Goa, where 10 days were not enough to gather some energy, we thought to have more time in Bali, two weeks vacation and two for visiting. If only! We hopped around like we couldn’t settle, the beach was nicer on the other side! But in this way we’ve seen more of Bali! And also some other places, that are not on this island, but for the sake of the blog, I’ll put them in Bali too.

How is Bali? Depends on where you stand: in the street it is touristic, in the rice terraces it is in a stopped time, in the dwellings it is traditional.

The gas station on the narrow streets of Kuta.

Nothing Beats Cold Fried Fish For Breakfast

We left Australia a couple of weeks ago, but I still refer quite often to that book, "We of the Never Never". It doesn't help that Ileana is now reading it and she often finds something interesting to share. So it comes easy for me to say this morning "nothing beats cold fried fish for breakfast!" Actually is not bad at all, we get interrupted a moment later, a waiter delivers five plates of dessert, banana fritters with grated cheese and some cookie with nuts and chocolate. We are confused but later learn that we have two breakfasts this morning. The first is an "all you can eat buffet" with eggs, cereals, bread and croissants, plus fried fish, sausages and a couple of sorts of rice and the second "light breakfast" with the above mentioned cookies. I enjoy every moment of it, hoping that they wouldn't kick me out at 10 am. I have no idea what time it is and I don't want to find out. It is 8.10 am (thank you, Maria) and our day is almost over! I would linger in the garden for another hour and then go back to bed.

The Temple of Borobudur, May 2012

I'll Happy Everyday Because You Make Me Fun

I cannot make up these things and I am pretty sure you cannot either. But some smart and educated people who already speak one language well would try to translate their feelings in English and come up with things like this: "I'll happy everyday because you make me fun".

This particular one is the cover of a drawing book this little young man brought to Gili Meno. He came with his family, I came with mine, we are all together here, a party of twelve. People get scared when they see us. Women, fear in their eyes, asked me on the boat if they are all mine. Eight children? No, just some of them.

I could have tried for ever to get all the children to look at me at once

Fifty Tickets In 24 Hours

Three months after deciding the departure day. Less then five months until we leave we find ourselves closer and closer, sometimes too close. We bought the first tickets for an amazing price, breaking our trip in two, Asia until February 29, then New Zealand and the rest. In March I bought the first leg of our trip. Another great deal, taking us from New York to Osaka. In April I bought another three tickets, from Kochi, in the South tip of India, to Kuala Lumpur, then to Guilin, Hong Kong, Macau and back to Kuala Lumpur on January 27. It was a quick and impulsive decision, but we wanted more time in China, we wanted Hong Kong, we initially wanted to avoid the Chinese New Year. Then we realized that we actually want it in the craziest, busiest, most crowded place we could imagine, so we will be there for it. That wasn't anymore a time to look for cheap tickets, I think I justly assumed that the closer it gets the higher the price so we got the tickets and even reserved 2 rooms in Hong Kong for 3 nights and payed for 2 nights in Macau! Then we took a long break. We bought more things for the road, we bought some books, we read some more and went on with our life. We kept talking about it. We answered some questions, took some decisions, postponed some others. We are stuck (for now) trying to decide how to get from Tokyo to Beijing. Considering that the cheapest one-way direct ticket is more than $2000 (even more for return ticket), I have to come up with an alternative.

People ask me if I am excited. Yeah, maybe, I don't know. I explain that "travel is the saddest pleasure", at least planning for it. This is a quote from Paul Theroux, I will read something by him at some point. It makes sense. With the whole world and "all the time" to see it, we find ourselves constantly making sacrifices, eliminating things, giving up on some dreams. Every yes for a destination involves a no for several others. Deciding to go to China a second time means no Laos, Burma, or Northern Thailand. No Vietnam. Going to Xining means no Chengdu and so on. More days in Tokyo means no to Hiroshima and South Korea. So I explain it sometimes, but I'm not sure if I get my point across and I wouldn't blame them, nice problem to complain about. We set some dates to break our trip in different stages. Then we break it further apart, leaving room for decisions on the road. Anything could change at some point and we just need to know our options. How can we tell if we'll survive India? How long should we stay there? We all are very excited, very eager to discover it and a bit scared. How long should we stay in Nepal? Every extra day there would take a day away from India. So we decided not to decide anything. We'll cross Himalaya on December 3rd and then six weeks later we'll have to catch a flight 2200 km away. That's 1340 miles by air, but it will be much more and much slower by land. We are all confident that we will make it somehow.

Last week I started to hear rumors that AirAsia is having the yearly sale. Tons of tickets for 10 cents for travel from February 6 to June 20, 2012. We had to decide quick on a day to leave Australia, that being one of the most expensive tickets. We did that and starting Monday night I bought 50 tickets in 24 hours. I also worked for 12 of those hours, slept for 4 and else. After getting the Darwin to Bali ticket on May 8, I decided to buy a ticket from Penang to Kuala Lumpur on February 29. Then I had the "great" idea to try to fly from Bali to Yogyakarta, no direct connection, but who cares. I bought tickets from Bali to Jakarta, then return Jakarta - Yogyakarta. After another hour or so, I decided that we really don't want to spend any time in Jakarta so I got tickets to Singapore, one year from today. Initially they were $2.42, but until I made my mind they were gone. Finally I found 4 tickets for that price, and got another one for $25. It was enough for the evening, it was after 2 am. I went to bed still trying to solve some puzzles. Next morning at 7, I bought tickets for Thailand, leave Bangkok to go to Krabi (February 8), return on February 22 to fly to Penang. I went to work and when I got home I bought the tickets from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. Funny, the tickets were listed as 7-8 cents, but the final cost with all the taxes and convenience fees was $215. Still a good price for 5 tickets. At this point Ileana said STOP! I was done anyhow! I got 50 plane tickets for a little over $1500. Average of $30 per flight, that's a decent price especially considering that most of it is in fees. $200 of that is just the luggage cost, for just 2 bags.

Overall an amazing thing, we now have 15 flights bought and still plenty of open dates in our calendar to make our plans as we please. There are some missing links, three more mandatory flights, two optional ones and we are set with the air transport until June 1st. The first 230 days of travel. After we are done in that half of the world, assuming that we want to go on, we will most likely move to Africa. I'll write more before that...