Om shanti shanti shanti om (Bali)

I had a lot of bad luck in Indonesia. If you want to skip that part than scroll down to: The nice things.

When planning this trip (I mean; all my stops on the way to New Zealand) I thought Bali sounds interesting and it’s probably similar to Thailand. I’ve been in Thailand a few times before, so I thought I could handle Bali on my own :-).

Keeping in mind all the scams I’ve ever heard about, I tried to find a taxi at the airport. In Singapore I read a little bit about Bali. The advice I found was to get a taxi-driver from the official airport-service and that sounded logic to me. So I ignored all the drivers offering “special” prices “only for me” and I went to the official desk. I called my hotel the day before so I knew the price should have been about 250.000 IDR (+/-17€) to drive to Ubud, my first stop in Bali. I made a huge mistake there when waiting in line for the official taxi drivers another guy started talking to me and asked where I was going. He offered to bring me there for 500.000 IDR. Of course I said it was too expensive but than the guy started talking to the “official guy” and I think they made some kind of deal because when it was my turn the price to my hotel seemed to be 350.000 IDR. I knew nothing about Indonesia so at that point I thought, f*ck it, let’s do this. It’s not the price I was hoping for but okay.

All of the sudden 2 guys grabbed my bags (which I didn’t want) and started carrying them to the taxi. I can carry them alone, so 2 guys was definitely not necessary. When arriving at the taxi one of the guys asked for tipping. I thought: What the ****. I didn’t ask for this! So I told him I didn’t have any small money. He saw me paying for the taxi so he knew I had a lot of “blue notes” (50.000 IDR) so he said: Just give me a blue one. So I gave him one blue one, since I didn’t want any discussion and I didn’t have anything smaller. Of course the other guy asked for the same thing, showing his hand. At that point I started boiling inside because I knew I was being scammed. So I gave that guy a blue one too. Meaning, I paid those two guys at the airport 6,8€ for carrying my bags not even 50meter. You’d be angry too, right? So I learned a lesson there, I’ll definitely do this different next time. In Indonesia you can have dinner and a drink in a very fine restaurant for that price.

I thought, just bring me to the hotel now and than I can forget about it. The driver told me the ride was going to take about 1,5 hours for 30km. There’s no highway and there’s always a lot of traffic. I knew I was going to a country where taxi-drivers aren’t that trustworthy so I downloaded the way to my hotel on Google Maps before getting that taxi. The taxi driver didn’t know about that. I thought I shouldn’t “show all my cards” yet. I let him drive and in the back of the car I followed the road on my map. Smart girl, hé? Haha.

I noticed the driver was zigzagging on the road. At first I thought this might be something local but when he started yawning and hitting himself I figured he must be tired. Later, in the front mirror of the car I could see my driver was pretty much driving with his eyes closed and when he fell asleep at the first red light and people started honking… I was sure. The further we got, the more terrified I felt. I felt so scared of having a car accident that I texted my dad to tell him I was in a taxi on the way to Ubud with the driver falling asleep. I would never text my parents all the way from Indonesia unless I thought something might really go wrong.

When arriving in the neighborhood of my hotel the taxi driver told me he didn’t really know where the hotel was. It was dark at that time so I was very happy to show him the Google maps. He was surprised. All of the sudden he DID know where my hotel was. I think I missed an extra scam there :-). He dropped me pretty close to my hotel and said the next road was one way so that he would have to drive a very long time to get there. I thought, never mind, I’ll walk. The faster I can get out of this horrible ride, the better. So I walked and found the hotel.

When getting out of the taxi I told the driver: Hey man, you look very tired, I think you should sleep. You know what he said? “Yeah, I know, I'll get a coffee right now”. I thought: You “stupido”, coffee isn't the solution here.

My hotel was located in a small dark alley. After figuring out where to check in, they guided me to my room.

YOU: Yes, you can relax now, you made it. ME: Well… not really

I saw the sheets on the bed and they had huge yellow and dark brown stains. I don’t know what happened there and how housekeeping “didn’t see that” but I thought: Shit, I really don’t want to sleep here. The room smelled really moldy, there was definitely “water in the walls”. The bathroom didn’t seem very clean either but it was dark and I didn’t know the neighborhood. I asked the guy from the hotel if it was possible to change the sheets because they were definitely not clean. He came to have a look and agreed. He said it wasn’t possible to change them at that time because all the sheets were in laundry but tomorrow he’d fix it. I thought: Great. Argh. Luckily I had my sleeping bag.

If that wasn’t enough, the bar next door was playing loud music and I couldn’t sleep.

The next morning a “banana pancake breakfast” was delivered in front of my door and the sheets were being changed. At that moment I was still looking on Agoda.com and booking.com to change the hotel because I really didn’t feel comfortable.

To my surprise the breakfast tasted really good!!

I thought to myself, Mel, get your shit together, go and explore the neighborhood, try to make the best of this day and see what happens. So I did. I didn’t really have a plan I just wandered around.

The guy at the hotel had told me about the monkey forest. ME: Are the monkeys dangerous?

THE GUY: Yes, there are monkeys. ME: Are they dangerous? THE GUY: Yes, many monkeys. ME: Do you know what dangerous means? Are the monkeys kind? THE GUY: Yes, they are kind.

A bit skeptic about this information, I went to the monkey forest. It is a very touristic place. You can buy bananas; of course it’s only aloud to feed the monkeys bananas from the park (way more expensive than anywhere else). If you hold the banana up, the monkey will climb on you and you can take pictures.

I once visited the zoo in Thailand. You can feed hippo’s and crocodiles. There are signs mentioning you should be careful with your hands. Just like in Thailand, I didn't feel at ease when the guy at the hotel said the monkeys are kind. I wasn’t very eager to get those monkeys climbing on me.

When I sat down for a little moment, one monkey came and tried to open my purse. I didn’t want that and my first reaction was to stand up again. After giving me this face:

We both went away slowly and I decided to get out of there.

It was really hot in the monkey forest so I was up for a drink. I went to the first shop I could find and I saw a girl (about my age) with lots of bite wounds on her arm! Some of those wounds were turning blue as well. It didn’t look good, really. I was very happy to get out of there without monkey bites-marks… or rabies.

So far, Indonesia wasn’t really the thing I hoped for.

When you walk down the streets of Ubud, many guys next to the road ask you if you need a taxi or transport or a motorbike.

ME walking 5 meter

A GUY: Miss, transpoooooort?

ME walking 5 meter

A GUY: Miiiiissss, motorbike? ME walking 5 meter

A WOMAN: Sarong? Sarong? Sarong?

ME walking 5 meter

A GUY: Taxi, mister? ME…. Pausing for a while. Thinking; Hey dude, do I look like a mister to you? ME walking 5 meter

A WOMAN: Missss, masaaaasj? ME thinking: met saus? Of zonder saus? (Dutch meaning: With sauce of without sauce?)

ME walking 5 meter

ANOTHER GUY: Miss, transpooooooooort?

Argh.

If you want to visit Indonesia than please do because there are so many nice and interesting places! But if you want to relax and not be bothered with the above, than you should perhaps avoid Ubud.

There’s another strange thing going on in Indonesia. People driving their car or motorbike are honking all the time. At first I didn’t get it but usually it means: Careful, I’ll try to pass you, go to the side. Or: Hey tourist, do you need a ride? The rules of the strongest count here. Meaning the car is “stronger” than the motorbike and the motorbike is “stronger” than the pedestrian. If you’re a pedestrian you better get out of the way. I never really saw anybody riding a bicycle. This is what the sideways looks like. It can be rather challenging at night.

I decided to check out the pamphlets that the girls of the massage-shops were handing out. A pedicure for 60.000 IDR (+/-4€) sounded interesting and that’s when I started to see the nice things around me. The lady that did the pedicure was very gentle and kind. I noticed a lot of trash in the streets and many things weren’t maintained, as I’d love to see it. So I figured I had to lower my expectations and than everything would be fine.

At the first “OK-looking” restaurant I stopped and had dinner. After my adventure in Hong Kong it turned out that “nasi goreng” wasn’t Chinese at all and one of my friends said it was Indonesian. Of course, I tried it again. This time I got what I expected. The only tiny difference was that this nasi goreng was spicy and in the Chinese restaurants in Belgium, nasi goreng usually isn’t spicy. If you’re not into spicy, than check with the waiter before ordering ;-)

There are a few active volcanoes in Bali, one of them is named Mount Batur. I decided to join a tourist activity for a downhill mountain bike ride. I hoped this way I could see much more of the surroundings than with the other option (trekking at night and seeing the sunrise).

I was wrong :-). The roads aren’t that good so most of the time I was looking at the road trying not to fall. But we did make some stops and the views are indeed amazing!

The guide explained a lot about the culture and how every town has it’s own temple. Also every “group” has his temple, for example the temple of market traders. Also every family has it’s own family temple. He told us that everybody is supposed to go to the temple 3 times per day but usually they go only once.

When you get married in Bali the girl moves out of her family compound and joins her husband’s family compound. Meaning that if you get children but all of them are girls, than nobody might end up taking care of mum, dad and the grandparents. Therefor there can be an exception if you daughter marries a man that has a lot of brothers. So they can, as an exception, keep the bloodline going in the girl’s family compound. Interesting, right?

We also visited a coffee plantation where “Luwak-coffee” is made. It’s the most expensive coffee in the world. Balinese people are very proud of this coffee.

It has an odd recipe: There’s an cat/fox-looking-like-animal called Luwak. The animal eats the coffee-beans growing in the trees and than excretes them again one day and a half later. Yes, the coffee beans are collected from that animal’s poo. They roast the coffee beans again and again and layers are pealed of so the actual coffee bean hasn’t been in contact with the poo of the animal.

Because of this process the beans get a different taste and I have to say it smells pretty good! The process to make this coffee is pretty intense that’s why the coffee is so expensive. If you get the change one day, try this coffee :-). It doesn’t taste like shit ;-)

And if locals advise you to use sunblock, even though it’s cloudy that day, than do so. My legs look ridiculous now.

I was so happy that day that I decided to write a positive review about my gide, Wayan. In the end I didn’t because I figured out that many people in Indonesia are called Wayan, which would have made it very difficult for any tourist to find out which Wayan I was talking about.

In Bali every first born child is called Wayan and every second born child is called Made. So I met a lot of “Wayan’s” and “Made’s” in Indonesia. It’s pretty confusing when there are many of them. I don’t know how they handle this in school.

Here’s a better explanation of this interesting fact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balinese_name

A few days later I also went to a hairdresser. There’s no place in Belgium where I can get descent haircut for 12€ and I figured that –in worst case- my hair would grow back :-). I can give away that I was satisfied with the haircut.

Washing my hair before the haircut was another experience, haha.

The woman said: No warm water, only cold. Okay? I thought: I’m sitting already, there’s no way back. Besides… how bad can this be?

The water was indeed pretty cold. And the woman was quite brutal. She didn’t have the gentle hands like the girl from the pedicure, that’s for sure.

For 12€ I can’t complain :-).

As a matter of fact I saw many strong woman. In Indonesia I saw many woman in construction sites. They carry a huge bunch of tiles on their head. Amazing, really!

One day I went rafting and at the end of the rafting there are these woman again. They deflate the rubber boats, fold them and than carry them on their head all the way up the mountain. They were damn strong. Finnish people would say: They have a lot of sisu!

The rafting itself was a great experience. There are two main rivers in Bali for rafting. One seemed more exiting than the other one so I thought: Give me the challenging one. YOLO.

There are always 4 tourists in a boat and than your guide. In our case the guide’s name was Wayan. What did you expect?

There was a slightly older couple, me and … Barbie. She reminded me of Paris Hilton: She was dressed in pink, had perfect make-up and blond hair. And she had pretty much no brain. As I was sitting next to her, I made a quick risk analysis in my head of things that might occur during this rafting-trip. This is what it looked like:

When walking around in Bali it feels like you’re walking from one temple to another. As a matter of fact… you are. There are so many temples, it’s crazy! I have to admit I like the ones in Thailand a little more because they’re more colorful and shiny.

Another day I subscribed for a Balinese cooking-class. I did this a few times before in Thailand and I always liked it so I was sure this was going to be fun. It was fun! Balinese food seems to be very organic, they mentioned that quite a few times: “We are not using fish sauce like in Thailand or MSG like …” You got the point, right? :-)

The handsome guide picked us up early in the morning and showed us a local market. For once I didn’t see tourists so this was really a local market. In here I wasn’t a “money-target” but just a rare tourist. People were very kind and I saw the strangest fruits and spices. The guide said that we arrived pretty late at the market (9 a clock in the morning). He said usually people come around 3 up to 5 AM! He showed us what Balinese breakfast looks like; It’s a grilled pig. That’s what they eat in the morning (read: middle of the night).

GUIDE: Do you see any prices here? GROUP: Uhm, no… GUIDE: That’s because only locals come here for shopping and if you don’t come often you have to negotiate about the prices. A good thing to do is to ask other people who have already bought the thing you need how much they paid. That way you can get to know the real price.

ME thinking to myself: Ha, funny. That’s exactly what I did when looking for tourist attractions such as rafting, mountain biking and this specific cooking class. Whatever you buy in Bali has probably another price than what they first tell you. Usually the real price is 1/3th of the first price. I bet locals get things even cheaper. The guide from mountain biking bought an ice cream for us. I told him that I could pay but he insisted. In noticed he paid 2000 IDR for 1 ice cream (0,13€!!!!!!!). As a tourist I never had anything that cheap. It was a funny ice cream by they way. It had strawberry and mango flavor as well as one flavor that is uncertain (blue color). The ice cream was served in a sandwich, haha. It’s delicious!

By the way: Don't book your activity in the official tourist-information. They turned out to be the most expensive. You can “buy” the exact same activity elsewhere for a much better price. Strange.

Back to the cooking: After our cooking class and before eating the guide showed us how to make an offer for the gods before eating. It was very interesting to see this “family temple”. It is not common to have tourist visiting the “family temple”. He also explained how the houses were build. Every house has another height level. The highest house is for the oldest people and than it goes lower and lower until the kitchen and the lowest one is the bathroom.

Some of these places are barely used, only for ceremonies. When you get married for example, they file the first four teeth of the person. He says it’s painful but necessary.

There are rocks in front of the highest house, under the rocks on the right side there were uteri (?) buried from boys that were born in the family? Under the rocks on the left side, the same thing happened for the girls. On many moments offers were made on these rocks.

These stories continued and continued: the highest house is build in the direction of the highest mountain in Bali, another direction is to bury people…. I can’t remember everything but it was damn interesting to get to know so much about this culture! I think I liked this more than the actual cooking :-)

On my last day in Ubud I went to the local Yoga-barn. Many people recommended this place, so I had a look. This place is huge! There are stairs and stairs and there’s a restaurant and a hotel. The atmosphere here was amazing! People were so relaxed and friendly! And no one was offering massages or transport, haha. Finally! I can definitely recommend this place.

The girl next door in my hotel went there every day. She was actually in Bali only for the Yoga. She recommended me doing Yin-Yoga. My body isn’t flexible at all, some of these poses weren’t really my thing but the great thing about this yoga was that the teacher kept saying: if your body can’t do this, that’s OK, than try it this way… or this way… or this way. She was amazing.

If I had more time in Ubud or if I checked that place earlier I would have definitely gone there again. I now know there are a dozen different kinds of Yoga. I really thought: this isn’t for me. But I left that place so relaxed that I might reconsider that opinion, haha.

After Ubud I planned to go to Kuta. All my hotels and plane tickets are booked for the first month of my travel. I have learned, this isn’t a good idea. I think it’s better to be flexible and just see at the moment. Besides that, hotels are cheaper if you book them in the hotel than via booking.com or agoda.com. Really. I thought Ubud was touristic, but Kuta is even worse. So if I hadn’t already booked this hostel for one week, I would have probably not stayed in Kuta. I have never in my life stayed in such a touristic place. It’s too busy and crowded for me. I prefer some silence and no people offering taxi’s, transport, massage, surf-classes….

The thing what’s keeping me in Kuta is the fact that I already paid for my hostel and that the hostel is really amazing. It’s right next to the beach, it has a swimming pool, and it’s clean! It’s everything my first hotel wasn’t, haha. Hostels are the place to meet other people and travelers.

I was afraid of being alone and not being able to sleep in hostels. So far (knock on wood) everything has been the opposite! In every hostel, my roommates have been very quiet and respecting the other people in the room. I have not been awake of people having sex, great!

So far the only place I felt lonely was in Singapore. I met my cousin there but after he left there was really nobody to talk to. Sad, I know. So, Bali is different!

During this summer, on my trip with Route Du Soleil I met a guy who was going to travel in Indonesia in September as well. He was traveling with a group from Joker. I met him (Roberto) and the rest of the group in Kuta. It was nice to meet them and to speak Dutch again :). In my cooking class I started talking with Malti, later that day she invited me to have dinner with her and another friend, Annette. In the Yoga-barn I started talking with a girl and her mum from Australia, I had dinner with them.

I have not been alone. You are alone when you want to be alone. As a matter of fact, also because I’ve been staying in hostels, I have never met so many people in such a short time in my life! It is actually because you are alone that you get into conversations with other people. They than know a person and that person knows another person, who knows a good restaurant and all of the sudden there are 8 random strangers having dinner together. A W E S O M E! This is how I met Malti from England, Anette from Germany, Chantalle from the Netherlands, Max from Canada, Gigi and Fabienne from Switzerland, Arnaud and Joss from France, Ian and Dominic from Germany, Christina from Indonesia, Jiao from China, Fabrizio from Italy/Germany/Brasil, Sabine from Germany… It is literally a never ending story.

Many of us are solo travelers. Many people are traveling for 3 months up to a year. So, really, my trip isn’t that special, haha.

Many people travel in Asia because it’s cheap. So far I haven’t met many people going to Australia of New Zealand. I guess I’ll meet them there. Malti told me that many (solo) girls are traveling in Bali. She thinks it’s because of a book/movie called: Eat, Prey, Love. It’s about a woman in her early 30’s that drastically changed her life and started traveling. Maybe many girls feel like that’s them. I’ve figured out that many people have different reasons for traveling. One girl started traveling after a burnout at work, another girl found out she had a tumor and actually I also met a guy that had a tumor. Everybody has his/her own story. Everybody got the same message: Life is too short not to do the thing you love the most.

I was always a bit jealous of people chasing their dreams, traveling around the world. In many occasions’ people need that wake-up call, like a car crash for instance, to wake them up from the: go-to-school, start-working, have-children-way-of-life.

If you’re reading this now and haven’t chased your dreams yet… and you’re thinking yeah yeah yeah, it’s easier said than done… well, than think of the reasons holding you back. And ask yourself: What will you regret more at the end of your life? Sticking to these reasons… or chasing your dreams?

Kuta is a place in Bali. In Kuta I stayed at a hostel called “Pro surf camp hostel”. As you can imagine, many people come here for surfing. I thought about it surfing but I’m pretty sure it’s not my thing when I see other people surfing. My skin gets very itchy from salty water and I don’t like the taste. You can’t stay dry when surfing. Even if you’re a professional you’ll get wet. So I decided to look at the beginners having their first surfing lessons, check out the beach and watch other people surfing.

I was hoping for a silent place, laying down on the beach and just relax. Well, no, that didn’t happen. There are many people trying to sell things to tourists. Honestly, they annoy me and you can’t ignore them. I tried, but they are persistent :-).

Hanging out with all the other solo travelers was really fun. I had a night walk at the beach with the Swiss girls, dinner with other people and lunch with other people. It’s fun. I think I’ve told my story about 50 times now: Where are you from? Where did you travel too? Where are you going next? …

Hanging out with these people made my stay in Kuta more pleasant. It keeps your focus away from all the guys in the street offering transport and other things. I went on a day-trip with some of the guys. Christina, a girl from the hostel, organized that day for us. We went to “Karma kandara beach”, “Uluwatu beach”, “Bluepoint beach” and to the Uluwatu temple. I really enjoyed that day and it was very nice to see the Uluwatu temple. I can recommend going there. With a sunset we saw a traditional Indonesian Kecak dance, it’s very different from any dance I ever saw before. It’s interesting to see! Some of the guys were really funny.

Rainy season is coming, so if you plan on visiting Asia in September than make sure to bring your umbrella. Just as in Hong Kong and Singapore there can be some heavy rainfall. Usually you have time to prepare yourself. You can see the clouds coming, the sun is going away, wind starts blowing and locals start to pack their stuff. When you see the locals running around, that is the time to head for shelter, haha. I’m still using the 2€-umbrella, bought in Hong Kong. It does the job :-)

Spending a holiday in Bali is cheap. Life in general is cheaper than in Europe, even with all the scams and people asking “tourist-prices” it’s still OK. From time to time, when buying things on the street (especially souvenirs) you need to be good at bargaining. Also the taxi’s don’t really have a fixed price. I found an app called “bluebird taxi” and with that app you can check what the regular rate for your route would be. Knowing this you can start negotiating with the guys in the street. They’ll probably say that “500.000IDR” would be a good price, where as in real the price would be 150.000IDR. The other day I went to a local restaurant with Christina and the guys and I had dinner (and a drink!) for 26.000IDR (1,79€) and we got a lot of food you know. But even going to a restaurant and paying 5€ for a meal which would coast you 15 or maybe 20€ in Belgium, is still OK. If somebody is selling a really good thing or offering a really good service than I don’t mind giving a tip. I even like to double the price if I really enjoyed the pedicure. But the other way around, trying to get a reasonable price for something that isn’t supposed to be expensive, that’s not really my thing. So over all, countries like Thailand and Indonesia are really good for you budget if you want to travel for a longer time.

Tip 1: Use the “bluebird-app” for finding a taxi, or at least to figure out the right price for your ride.

Tip 2: Do some research on the internet and check out which hostels/hotels you like, visit them when you're in that city and pay in the hostel/hotel, it's cheaper because you'll avoid paying for a percentage going to booking.com.

Last but not least… “health and safety” of course.

When visiting Thailand I expect to get sick. I seem to have a sensitive tummy because even when I’m eating the same as everybody else, I get sick and they don’t. So I was worried about Indonesia because it’s very similar to Thailand. Luckily I didn’t get that sick as I was in Thailand (twice). It’s not that nice, having the toilet as your best friends for 4 days in a row. I assume I had some kind of food poison there. In Indonesia my going-to-the-toilet-system isn’t going as it’s supposed to. Sometimes I need to run, haha. I don’t know what happened or why I got sick. I try to eat healthy and avoid washed fruit, ice cubes and suspicious food. If you’re planning to travel to Indonesia, you’ll probably be more lucky than me, yet I advise you to bring some Imodium or sh*t like that, haha.

In the shopping mall I saw some evacuation maps. I know, it’s probably because of my job (“beroepsmisvorming”). I checked the maps to see if things work the same in here as what we expect in Belgium. I noticed there were 2 evacuation maps! One was in case of fire and the other in case of tsunami. I never thought about that possibility. In Japan, Singapore and Thailand, when you go to the beach there are many signs on the beach pointing to the way you should run in case of a tsunami. I didn’t see many of those signs in Bali (Kuta) but I saw the evacuation map. So I asked a local if I should worry and they said that the possibility of having a tsunami is bigger in Sumatra (another Island of Indonesia) than in Bali. Since the huge tsunami in 2004 every place in Indonesia had to have a tsunami evacuation map.

Did you know that most of the people that died in this tsunami were people in Indonesia? European people know about this tsunami because many foreigners and locals died in Thailand (5.400), but in fact most people died in Indonesia (130.700)!!

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeebeving_Indische_Oceaan_2004#Indonesi.C3.AB

It is time for me to leave these hot places and explore some colder places in the world. My time in Indonesia wasn’t what I expected but I will definitely come back to see the other Islands.

Let’s go to Sydney! Let’s celebrate my birthday :D

Hugs, Mel

P.S.; I’m writing my blog posts in Word first because the WI-Fi is usually horrible. I ended up with 11 pages here, wow!