Ubud

So, when I got to Ubud finally after the horrific boat ride and meh-at-best bus ride, I decided it would be smart to follow the three girls that were traveling together from the bus. They were all british and seemed to know where they were going, or at least had a plan of where to stay for the time they would be in Ubud, which Is more than I was able to say for myself. Ubud doesn't have a hostel really like all the other cities I've been staying in. They have hotels and they have homestays, which means you stay in some person's extra room. Instead of taking a taxi [so much regret] they wanted to walk, so I followed. They were okay. one was pretty cool, and the other two kind of weird, but whatever. we walked in the blisteringly hot sun, packs and all, for a half hour in the wrong direction... then a half hour in a different wrong direction... then another half hour finally in the right direction... i don't understand why they didn't ask the locals for more help, but I was just jiving and not too bothered initially. When we finally found the place that they 'had' to stay at [mind you they had no reservations or anything, and we passed about a hundred adeuate looking places on the way] it was not only too expensive, but they had no rooms... We spent a bit more trying to figure out the place right near by, and after getting showed around in the most time consuming of fashions, were told once again that they had no rooms [which onestly makes 0 sense because it's low season in bali]. By this time I was fed up, done, and didn't even want to be with these people anymore. I went my own way and said yes to the first guy on the street offering me a homestay for only 100,000 a night [10bucks]. it was ghetto. pretty random, up some alleyway staircase, but it was private with one massive bed and a bathroom. Figured It'd work. Next move was to do laundry for the first time since leaving New Zealand. I got a good whif of my bag in Gili and knew that it was crucial. I left it downstairs with the lady that owned the art store which is below where I was staying, and she said it would be done by the next day. Next move was to get out to find some internet and figure out what the fuck I was going to be doing on this wee trip. I found a pamphlet in my room that advertiseda biketrip, checked out the site, and called the dude that ran it. Plan for the next day, done. As for Thursday, it was nearing 6pm and as I wandered the streets I saw no one. There were balinesians, old couples, and that's about it. Bars and restaurants were empty, and I was getting a dodgy vibe. Every so often I would see someone who wasn't horribly far away from my age, and alone, and I was trying to muster up the courage to stop them and ask them what was up. Finally, after waiting too long, I saw a chick with crazy colourful dreds walking towards me, and decided it was time. I popped the question 'hi, i know this is probably a little weird, but I just got here and don't know what to do with myself. where is everybody?' she asked if I wanted to get a drink, and a wee wander and stop in a reggae bar later, I had a new friend. Molly, the 29 year old californian here on business as a tattoo filled accountant. We talked for ages, I had some pizza [such a mistake.. the next day was one with a bali belly morning, and it wasn't even good enough to cure my western food cravings. I also tried shem which is like the rice wine  of bali. sweet, good, but couldn't replace bintang as my bali drink of choice. 

We talked for ages and learned all about eachother, and fuck I found an awesome person. Eventually she had to head out for a brief dinner date, so I stayed in the bar with free wifi and chatted up my family [convenient my brother was on a early as bus trip at the time]. The bar was pretty empty for a while, but eventually started filling with a few people, and I got into a long chat with a balinese guy who was a tattoo artist and asked me a million questions about my camera. He was a bit of a close talker so when Molly came back with an additional friend, I stuck to that situation. Introduce new member, jon, the 24 year old bald happiest-guy-i've-ever-met web builder [i think?] from california who left the country on a whim with only $2000 dollars, ages ago. They had just met as well, and the trio became exactly what I had been looking for all day. After chats and drinks and the start of some live reggae music [they have a band there every night], Molly's boss and his friend also joined us, bringing the age range of the crew astonishingly high, but so awesome. Pu Tzu is her boss, and he's such a festival loving hippy, constantly starting new businesses and budding new ideas, acting as a gem dealer whilst in bali and picking up things to sell back in his californain store. The night waged on, but with an early morning wake up I decided it was time to head off. I knew I was close to where I was staying,, but as a small room on top of a random store, I wasn't quite sure where I was going. I walked until I saw something familiar, freaking out about all the stray dogs on the street, two of which who were fighting right near me, and realised I was lost. After a wee wander back and forth, and asking a balinese dude on a motorbike for help [he drove up and down the streets looking for it] I was home.

The next morning I was up and moving at 7 am because It was so goddamn hot in my room [a fan just wasn't quite cutting it] and I got picked up at 8am for my adventure to the mountains and mountainbiking. A nice balinesian man was driving and we went to pick up two more passangers from a nearby hotel, Kim and Eowin, the two late twenties, early thirties girls from Holland. We drove for a little over an hour and sotpped at a coffee place to sample different types of coffees and teas from Bali. We learned about the coffee making process which was pretty cool and were shown a bunch of coffee plants, and then sat down for some fruit and coffee sipping. Everything was delicious, especially the hot chocolate they prepared from cocoa plants there. I decided to add in another $5 to the trip to try the luwok coffee, which was is a crazy weird speciality that's expensive to find anywhere else. This kind of coffee is made from beans that a mongoose has eaten, digested the outer sweet bit of, and then pooped the rest out, fermenting it in their stomachs with their high fruit diets. Then it is cleaned, peeled, and turned into coffee - supposed to be the best coffee ever, and it was pretty goddamn good. We tried some chocolate there as well,, including a chili chocolate that made us all cough a bit, and then were off for the next stop.

Next we drove up a wee bit more and got to a really high spot at a breakfast restaurant where we were outside overlooking a gorgeous volcano and landscape. I ordered fried bananas, which were pretty epic, and we all chatted. Then, from the restaurant there were 4 bikes waiting for us, and a new tour guide for the bike tour. It was 90% downhill, and only sometimes really sandy, but mostly pretty easy. The bike I was riding had really shitty breaks so I was kind of nervous racing down hills, and with this being my first time mountain biking, I was pretty retarded and incapable when we were riding on dodgy bits or sand. All was well thoguh and we stopped at a couple of temples and rice patties. We got to see how much work goes into farming rice which was amazing, and even pick some rice off of the bits and peel and eat it [obviously not the same as cooked rice, but whatever]. We also stopped at a traditional house set up and learned how they have 4 different homes, all with different purposes, sort of like the Maori. One home is the honeymoon home, where the people are intended to have sex. Conception in the hindu culture is only appropriate when there's a full moon or half moon, or a few other chosen holidays/days of the year, so the kid is okay. Oh! and I also learned what the little bananaleaf things are. They're offerings that are made and placed out daily for the god. word.

Our guide was telling us that the sleeping room is usually crowded with like 3 generations of people, and it's very hard for poor people in the country. He also said that finding a wife is impossible when you're poor because the women of the country are very materialistic and if he doesn't have a car, he can't meet anyone. He works very hard to support 4 people on his own, and is 27... even though while we were biking he insisted to me that he's 40. People here don't look very old, unless they're super old. They barely have wrinkles and are very small and thin. 3 hours later we were at some dude's house where they prepared a traditional balinese lunch for us. The food was delicious and i had a whole new respect for rice. Pork, chicken, tofu, green beans, and omelette were all there for us to pick at, in various sauces and preparations.We were all a little bummed that neither of the tourguides were eating with us, and kind of felt wierd about them eating something else inside instead, but after we were done eating we chatted with them again over tea. One of the dutch girls was insisting on helping the bike tour guide learn how to read english better, and he also told us a few stories and showed us amazing paintings. After all this, I was dropped back at the homestay where I picked up my laundry [which has the weirdest fake deoderant like smell to it] and then ran back to the reggae bar where I was planning to meet the crew of yesterday. Tomato juice accompanied my wait and the groops gathered with plans of going to eat at some apparently awesome and cheap spot.

To get there we took motorbikes, my first time on one. I sat on the back of Pu Tzu's and Molly on the back of Jon's [she tried to ride one earlier that day but was absolutely terrified and ended up noninjuriously falling off]. It was super fun and kind of scary but the trip was short and the place we got to ended up being pretty epic. I wasn't too hungry so I only got an avocado salad with papaya juice, and ended up sharing shrimp crackers with everyone, which lemonated avocado on shrimp cracker is the greatest food combination. Jon was trying to learn indonesian with a little book he got, and was more just creating reggae songs after random phrases he found, like the one for 'where should we go to eat'. Next we were off to some bar that Pu Tzu's friend had just opened for drinks and chat, wehre the age average was even higher and I spent a while chatting with a 47 year old about tasmania, watching jon watercolor an elephant, the owner have a bit of a feminist rant, and a few babies try beer. Once it was getting late, and I felt the pain of the sunburn from the day set in, we biked back to the place Molly was staying and chilled in the pool briefly before going back to our hub, the reggae bar. The reggae bar was called napi orti, which we thought was funny since it had nappy in the name. but then learned that it just means 'you're welcome'... or something like that. I'm not entirely sure.

The music Friday night was a bit different, not having a reggae feel, and the place more crowded. I was able to convince two irish guys I met in Gili to make there way to the bar as well, and everyone got silly, danced hard, and had an amazing time. We went back to the pool afterwards, even though one of the guys didn't know how to swim [he was tall enough to not be nervous anywhere] and swam around until we were properly cold [a good feeling after sweating balls for so long] and then went off to bed. This morning I woke up and went to Molly's to somehow join in on her hotel's free breakfast and then go to the monkey sanctuary. Pu Tzu came with us and it was seriously one of the coolest weirdest things ever. There were monkeys everywhere, fighting and stealing things from tourists. I took heaps of pictures and had an awesome time listening to Pu Tzu be the announcer for a hilarious monkey battle, and see Molly lose her waterbottle to a charging tiny monkey screaming for it. After I shopped a bit, buying a bintang shirt [the flavor of bali] and a penis keychain [fertility or something, but they're everywhere] and then was off to the airport! In the airport I met an awesome south african guy and we chatted the whole way through the worst airport experiece I've ever had.

 I'll explain. I got there, had to explain all these things to a guy who didn't know what tiger airways was, and then go in for a weird secuirty check. Then I searched far and wide for the place to properly check into my flight, and saw nothing. I asked a couple of guards for tiger airways and they laughed at me, asking if I also wanted lion airways... I didn't understand what was going on or why no one knew the airline, but I was incredibly early and decided the right thing to do would be to sit down for a bit and wait, hoping that check in wasn't open yet. When the flight was two hours away, check in finally opened and I got online. Second in line and it still took 45 minutes [this is when I met the south african dude]. They were incompetant and incredibly slow about everything. Level two of annoying was going to customs where again I had to wait a retardedly long time watching asian travelers jump between lines to find the fastest one, and then deal with an irritating officer. Then we had to go and pay to leave the country [$15 bucks essentially, but what?] After thatbullshit was done, there was a massive walk to the gate, which wasn't even open. I wandered and ate some soup and a cookie and the gate didn't open until 10 minutes before the flight was to take off. Getting in there was again an incredibly stupid an incompetant process, but whatever. I made it to the plane and was off to Singapore!!!