< Indonesia Part 1

Indonesia Part 1


Kuta, Bali


BALI - Kuta, Sanur, Denpasar, Ubud, Celuk
LOMBOK - Senggigi, Gili Air

June 14 - July 11, 1999


Flying into Bali from Singapore allowed us to watch in awe as the Indonesian islands slowly unfolded beneath us. We had only purchased a one-way ticket into Indonesia because we figured we could definitely get a cheaper ticket out from within the country. At least that's what a travel agent told us in Singapore while conditioning it with a cautionary, "But they may not let you in without a pre-purchased ticket out of the country." But we loved the fact that our lack of plans gave us full control over our experience. We were overwhelmed and excited as we got off the plane and headed for immigration...what could possibly go wrong now that we were finally here in paradise? It was of course then that we noticed a couple in front of us in line having to show the immigration officer something before he stamped their visa...we strained to see what it was, pleading to each other, "Please don't let it be an onward ticket, please don't let it be an onward ticket!" We stepped up to the booth. The officer took one look at us and said, "Passports please." We secretly breathed a sigh of relief that he didn't ask for anything else. As he picked up his visa stamp and inked it, we started to relax, and it was right then when he looked up at us with a slight smile and quietly said, "Onward tickets please." Yi.

We had nothing. So we tried "Old Reliable:" lying. (Kids, don't try this at home...)

"Our travel agent told us we wouldn't need an onward ticket and we even asked her this question!"

"We called an airline office here in Bali and they'll only print up our ticket when we pay them here with local currency."

"My dog ate it."

Surprisingly, nothing at all was working. As we struggled, layering lie upon filthy lie, he leaned up close to the grill separating us and whispered, "Don't worry, don't worry, maybe this time I help you out and you...you can help ME out." Ah-ha, it all suddenly became painfully and disgustingly clear. I knew exactly what we had to do. I nodded and quietly said how thankful we were that he would help us out "this time" and smiled like all was well with this chocolate-covered, creamy nougat-centered world. As he finalized the visas and the paperwork, he kept singing in a low voice, "I help you out, you help me out," but I was only paying attention to the exact moment when those visas became permanantly stamped in our passports. Finally it happened. As he closed them up and held them out to us, he smiled and said, "Now, you have something for me...?" I said the only thing I could in this situation...

"So, do you take visa?"

He was not amused, but we were home free, literally, and very happy with our successfully manipulating his attempted manipulation. One thing about travelling through 3rd world coutries, if you're white, you simply represent "money" to the local hawkers and touts, and to damn near the entire population too. You are not a person, you are success and wealth, and they will do everything in their power to extract it from you. You can't explain, "but I'm only a backpacker, I have no money, I have no job, I have nothing!" because (a) the fact that you can travel is a luxury beyond comprehension, (b) if you have even $5 you probably have more than their daily, weekly or even monthly pay, and (c) your attempt to even TRY to explain that they won't be getting any of your money can truly be insulting to them. Still, even with this in mind, it feels really good when you are able to beat them at their own extortionary games. Especially when it's a government position...

So we began in Bali, the town of Kuta to be exact. Our first night there we spent a couple hours walking along the extensive and extremely crowded beach watching the phenominal sunset and the scores of surfers who travel here from all over the world to surf the amazing waves. As we walked around we were hassled pretty frequently to buy stuff from hawkers, but we didn't think too much about it - we've become calloused, cold travellers when it comes to hawkers and touts, and we believed we'd dealt with the best of them in Africa, Turkey and India.

But in the next couple of days, we very quickly realized we were up against a hawker/tout force that was beyond comprehension. When you walk down the street, every five seconds - literally - you are yelled at, "TRANSPORT?!" along with an enthusiastic mime of driving a steering wheel (many times looking helplessly like the mimer is conducting fallic, self-gratifying acts with each curled hand...perhaps not the best sales tactic) hoping that you will hire them to drive you somewhere. Then there's the money changers, sarong sellers, newspapermen, drug dealers, travel agents and on and on, yelling at you, getting in your face and, no joke, seeing you from across the street and running across - dodging the traffic to reach you, yelling at the top of their lungs the whole time. It's really, really annoying. Granted, Kuta is a complete tourist town, but this is really sick.

But it doesn't stop there, they would come in each and every restaurant and stick their wares in your face - in EVERY tables' face - interrupting your meal, and rarely leaving when you say, "NO!" They would follow you in stores, catch you on the beach, IN the water, in your taxi... Even our hotel wasn't safe, as they constantly paraded through interrupting a conversation, a nap, or even a swim in the pool. We'd dive underneath to avoid them, and they'd stand there and wait until you finally surfaced to say, "HELLOOOOO...you want to buy ring?" We finally broke when we were at the hospital and a guy was circulating around to all the sick people sticking newspapers in their faces trying to make a sale.

The money changers are yet another enigma in human decency. We've never seen nor imagined anything like this in our lives. All the streets in Kuta are lined with tiny shops selling touristy stuff, and each one advertises that they change money. And their rates are ALL over the board - from 7000 rupiah to the dollar all the way up to 8000. We couldn't understand how there could be so much of a descrepancy. We soon found out why. It was because the ones advertising ridiculously high rates were LYING. The first one we tried, refused to count the money, forcing us to, and then afterwards he proceded to "stack" it. It was pretty obvious he didn't expect us to recount after he touched it, because as we did he suddenly became really nervous. Literally half of the money was suddenly missing. We were furious, and he suddenly proclaimed he no longer changed money anymore. Shaken, we tried another one down the street. I explained to him that this was the procedure: he counts it out, we count it, we RECOUNT it, and then if he touches it at all after that, we RECOUNT again. He pretended like he was listening. And then after we counted it, he of course touched it. I began recounting and a sweat broke out on his face. HALF of the money was magically gone. I lost it, furious at his stupidity at thinking we could possibly be trapped in his ridiculous web of ignorant stupidity, and because Paige had already signed one travellers check in anticipation of him NOT touching the money again. He suddenly proclaimed he was closed, had no money, and that the rates had changed in the last 30 seconds. It was only when we threatened to get the police when he folded and threw the correct amount at us. He screamed curses at us in Indonesian as we left. What a trial!

We tried 20 places in a row after that, and every single one tried to cheat us, suddenly deciding they had no money or that the rates had changed when they saw us recounting. I am not exaggerating. It became a game, we couldn't believe that this was really happening; they would only complete the transaction if you allowed yourself to be cheated or if you threatened to get the police. But what really got me was the fact that these losers didn't just try to sneak one or two bills, every single time they'd sneak HALF of the entire stack. Amazing. It had quickly become obvious that the places with the significantly lower rates were the only honest ones, but, emotionally spent, we instead went to a special money changing place (with "low" rates) and nearly hugged the lady when she completed the transaction honestly. We were thoroughly soured on Kuta.

Well, I imagine you noticed I mentioned "hospital" back there. Just as all this had reached its peak with us and we decided to get the hell out of there, I was inflicted with a wonderful bout of salmonella poisoning. We were forced to stay until I was better, tacking on five more days than we thought we could ever handle. The second I felt halfway coherent, we were out of there and on our way to the island of Lombok.

Actually, before I transition over to Lombok, I do want to say a couple of good things about our first limited experience in Bali. To get past the constant tout harassment we began looking in any direction that they weren't, and when we eventually became surrounded we finally looked up and saw an amazing sight. Kites. It seems that everyone here of all ages is addicted to kite flying, and, especially towards the late afternoon, the sky is filled with hundreds of kites of all shapes, sizes and colors. What's really amazing about this is that nobody goes to an open field or even the beach to fly their kites; instead they stand on their porch, on top of their small roof, or wedged in a narrow alley, letting out the string and strategically pulling and swerving it to make the kite dive and dodge. It's really fascinating. But the best part about it all is that these babies inevitable break or fall and sail out of control over the city. It's great to see a group of guys running helter-skelter attempting to navigate the alleyways and predict where their precious kite will finally end up. Each and every tree looks like it has been pulled directly out of a Charlie Brown "kite-eating-tree" comic strip.

Another fascinating aspect about Bali is their local Hindu religious practices. Of course you have the phenomenally intricate temples and huge rock carvings (breathtaking in their own right), but our favorite aspect of it all were the "daily offerings" performed by each and every single religious person every morning. They take a small folded palm leaf "bowl," and fill it with colorful flowers, a spoonful of rice and maybe a cracker or something - place it in front of their store/hotel/business/home/statue/whatever and laden it with incense sticks. It's really colorful, smells good and seems to make everyone happy. Plus, the stray dogs, birds and tropical insects really love their daily suppliment of rice and crackers.

Balanese Hindu prayer offerings

If you remember from a past India update when we were on the Andaman Islands, we had met a couple from Northen California and spent the week with them talking about travels. They knew we were going to Indonesia and had been there 7 times already. They told us, "If you go to just one place, go to Santai Cottages in Senggigi on the island of Lombok - it's the closest thing to paradise you'll ever experience." And after all the hawker/tout Kuta krap we were ready for ANYthing else.

San Tai entrance

Lombok is about a 4 hour ferry ride from Bali, and is apparently what Bali used to be like. It's beautiful. Santai had a cottage open and we immediately realized we had indeed found paradise. This place is perfect (for us). Luxurious bamboo cottages with large porches stocked with throw pillows and cushions (note: Paige actually just typed in "throw pillows" next to my "cushions," but I just wanted to make sure you knew that I didn't write that...we all know no self-respecting man would ever use the words, "throw pillows."), an enclosed private bathroom - al fresco! - with the shower water streaming from a huge clay pot nestled up in the belly of a tree. You open the hole in the bottom by removing a small rubber plug (also attached by a branch) and stand underneath the icy water within your own private lush garden and cool ocean breezes. Lunch and dinner are excellent local dishes that are served in an huge and intricate open-air bamboo gazebo-like place; a beautiful library/book-exchange on one half and the long dining table on the other with cushions (and a plethora of throw pillows - sometimes I like quiche too...) all around instead of chairs. Phenomenal food too. Each morning we'd wake up to the sound of waves and find tea and breakfast waiting for us on our porch - usually fried bananas and fresh papayas or a big bowl of coconut, bananas, pineapples and papayas.

Our San Tai cottage...and more importantly our porch hammock

We didn't move for 17 glorious days. Literally. The furthest we went was from our porch to the beach (20 yards) to snorkel or watch the sunset, or to the dining area to sit with all the other long-term guests and laugh and talk throughout the night getting to know each other. We were pretty actively lazy, but we actually did do a few things in those 17 days besides snorkel, nap, eat and read. Not a lot, but a few. We became friends with these seven great people from Germany (a group of 5 and 2) who were there the whole time we were there, and we all had a blast playing sand volleyball, inventing bad drinking games and learning new creative ways of communicating when the German-English language barrier inevitably broke down (beer and big bottles of local pineapple wine were very prevalent). All this bonding led to the learning of a very valuable lesson: 3 bottles of pineapple wine is WAY too much for one person. Thankfully, none of us was the victim; instead we watched as an English girl polished those 3 bottles (of what quickly became known as "wineapple pine") off and began describing in graphic detail her sexual escapades in airplane bathrooms throughout her sordid but highly entertaining (like a car crash) history. Thus the nickname "Toilet Girl" was born.

We also went diving off the northwest coast of Lombok. There, three small islands sit: Gili Air, Gili Meno and Gili Trawangan, and we had two days of amazing diving. We knew the snorkeling was great, having seen large green turtles, sea snakes and sting rays, but we weren't prepared for what we saw diving. Yes, we encountered great sharks, more huge turtles, squids and even a Giant Clam. But it was when on one dive towards the end when a shadow slowly emerged in front of us and a 10-12 foot Manta Ray (from wing tip to wing tip) slowly glided right past us, calmly flapping its majestic wings. We were in complete and utter awe at the size and beauty of this thing. Never had we seen a more amazing creature on this planet. It still gives us goosebumps to think about it. It was like having a limosine suddenly appear next to us underwater.

Diving off of Gili Trawangan

"Lombok" actually means "chili pepper" in the local Indonesian language. Here's how I found out first hand. We tend to avoid the touristy restaurants wherever we are (the local stuff is always cheaper and much better), and one night we stumbled across a tarp-laden, shanty-town-like food cart (called "kaki lima") with two picnic tables nearby. Every seat was taken but two - we were sold. The kaki lima always only serves one dish - in this case it was "basko" or a meatball/noodle soup. As we waited for our soup, we were suddenly aware that no one talks while they eat, and everyone eats REALLY loudly. It was exactly like a Simpsons episode where they are all eating at the dinner table, not talking, but smacking, slurping, burping and chomping in pure orchestrated disgustingness. But we loved it. Our soups were placed in front of us, and I asked for a guy to pass me the tub of chili pepper sauce. Paige told me later that as I put my third heaping tablespoon full of chili into my soup, the entire table had suddenly stopped eating and were staring at my bowl in hushed awe. Perhaps if I had noticed at that point, my mouth might not have caught fire. Still, I was determined not to break in front of these locals, and slurped that baby down with tears running freely down my face. I was able to walk it off afterwards to the sounds of a local bar spotlighting a local Lombok band who can't speak English, but strategically peppers their set with Lionel Ritchie and Commodores cover songs. Awesome.

From Lombok, we ferried back to Bali for a wonderful reason: because our friend Robert is flying here to meet us tomorrow and spend 2 glorious weeks here in Indonesia! We are really excited to hang out with Robert, not to mention getting some first-hand news about life back in the U.S. (we've really missed certain things like - who won the NBA finals, and has anything been able to come close to replacing "Models Inc." on the Fox network...). But first, we had three fantastic days in the town of Ubud, set up in central Bali within the dramatically lush green jungles and beautiful Balinese temple construction. We found a wonderful 2-storey house for $10 overlooking the extensive rice paddies and reached only by navigating a narrow path winding through the irrigation canals. We awake each morning to plates of fresh mango, banana, watermelon and pineapple, and dine to the sounds of the local Balinese women screaming grunts out in the paddies to scare away the theiving birds. No scarecrows; they do this all day. It's surprisingly more humorous and interesting to try to pick out the different intonations for scaring the different birds than it is annoying to hear a screaming grunt every 15 seconds.

Our front porch in Ubud - good place to hang the laundry

Onto Paige's lil' blurb. Sorry if there's some repetition.
It's truly everything I'd imagined. "Bali" makes me think of Elvis singing Bali Hai with a ukelele and dreamy blonds in bikinis swooning at his feet. I don't recall if some Hollywood movie was actually made about Bali, but it's so much better in person that I expected. As Chris mentioned, after we landed at the airport, we caught a quick cab to the beach ghetto called Kuta, a place stocked full of sun-burned Australians in ugly Hawaiin floral shirts and long-haired surfers with swim trunks perching precariously on their tan hips. Chris can tell you all about the scantily-clad babes in bikinis. I was more distracted by the 20-year old surf-rats with sinewy 6-pack stomach muscles. Since we were only going to stay for a few days, we loved the sun, sand, and cheap, guess-what?-beers!

However, after only a few hours, we kept hearing a new word that wasn't in our Bahasa Indonesia phrasebook. We figured it was the Indonesian way of saying, "Greetings, welcome to our country." It was so often and so loudly screamed, we figured they really were happy to have us on their island paradise. We knew that with the economic crisis and political instability, they would be thrilled to have tourists walking their streets. However, soon we realized that the locals were always saying the same few words. We paused and considered that they were perhaps like the Nepalese who always greeted foreign guests by saying "namaste"-"I greet the god in you". So what were these new words to add to our newly aquired Bahasa Indonesia vocabulary list?.... "Transporrrrrrt, Hello, yes?!!?? Sorry if I sound unfair or unfriendly, because yes we are visiting their country. Yes, we are their guests. But, no we don't want to be offered "transporrrrt" every other second. Along with what Chris mentioned about the money changers, our opinions were getting very negative about Indonesia. So, we had to get outta Kuta. Onto Lombok.

Our shuttle bus to the coast took us through picturesque green paddy fields and gorgeous Bali landscape. Hindu temples that are very Balinese dot the countryside at every corner. I say "very Balinese" because each temple or doorway is decorated with ornate stone carvings of monsters and other ghoulish looking statues (they are actually Hindu gods or devils that I could name if I had paid more attention in India). Beautiful bamboo poles 3-storeys high decorated with origami-looking bamboo flowers arch over the roadways. We constantly see women wearing yellow lace blouses and sarongs riding side-saddle on back of their companion's moped. Sometimes, whole families ride on mopeds perfectly balanced, often carrying tradional woven baskets with temple offerings. Men also wear patterned sarongs, in addition to a white jacket/shirt and white head scarf that looks a bit like a red-cross bandage. Junior is usally sitting on Dad's lap. All without helmets, of course. We cringe.

So we arrived at the port 3 hours later and hopped on the ferry to Lombok for the easy 4-hour journey. Another shuttle bus was awaiting at Lembar port on Lombok to transporrrrrt us to Sengiggi where 90% of the island's development has been constructed. Finally, after arriving in Sengiggi, the last leg of the journey was a 15-minute "bemo" ride north. Bemos are small trucks with a cab in front, and a covered pickup bed lined with very small benches lengthwise for passengers. They are usually crammed full of the standard assortment of passengers and their goods (i.e. fruits and vegetables going to market, masses of coconuts tied together with palm fronds, and any other odd bags and baskets.) Throughout our 3 weeks there, we rode these bemos to and from the main town, and always the drivers attempted a new price. We had to laugh when one cheeky fellow asked us for 5000 (roughly 75 cents) and the real price was 300 rupiah. Hey, whatever the market will bear. Unfortunately, all the Western tourists staying down the road from us at the Holiday Inn gladly paid the fare demanded (even if it was 20 times too high) since it was still incredibly cheap. 4 star resorts are a bad influence for budget backpackers who want to pay something close to the real fare. It makes us wonder how many times we have paid 20 times the real price for something. Probably more than we care to know.

So, we finally arrived at Santai's bungalows that Chris described above and were delighted to find a place to stop. Stop and not move. After 11 1/2 months on the road, stopping is a nice thing. Lombok could be one of the prettiest places we have visited on this trip. It's fairly laid back and much less touristy than Bali. We stayed at Santai based on a friend's recommendation. Sorry if the following repeats what Chris wrote, but I am on a separate computer typing my thoughts of this little slice of heaven. We stayed in one of 9 bungalows: thatched roofs, hammocks on each porch with throw pillows, and ours had a view of the ocean. Falling asleep to waves crashing is my idea of perfect. The owner is a nice British woman married to a man from Sumatra who has lived on the island for 20 years. Most travelers stay a long time because it's so ideal. All their guests eat most of their meals together for lunch and dinner in a open-air bungalow, Japanese style sitting on the floor leaning against pillows around the low wood dinner table. Their cook makes all local dishes with fresh fish every night. Breakfast was served to us every morning on our porch. We felt like royalty but thankfully on a backpackers' budget. The snorkeling was fantastic and the bungalows right up against the beach, but privately nestled in a lush jungle garden. Every evening either sitting on the beach or swinging in our hammock, we watched the sun set, listening to the waves crash, and watching out for dolphins leaping up out of the water in the pink sky. Amazing. We will go back again and again to Santai.

San Tai's open air "dining room"

You must wonder what we are thinking as our traveling days approach their end (at least on this year-long trip). Many, many emotions are swirling through our heads and hearts, thinking about the re-entry. Missing all of our family and friends more and more, knowing we get to see all of you soon. But also lots of anxiety about where we'll live and work. It will be a shocking reality to hear an alarm clock every morning since we've forgotten they exist. But, oh how I can't wait to have my morning espresso! And I think something is growing in my backpack. We'll have to fumigate it when we get home. The clothes are definitely going to be burned because they are so toxic.

Three things we miss the most (food only):
1. real Mexican food
2. real coffee
3. good beer


Thanks for reading,

Grizd & Fajita
chrisandpaige@hotmail.com
http://www.tarantism.com


Ubud, the day we wrote this update

P.S. Chris here again...
And now it's time for another fun-filled episode of:
"Sleeptalking with Paige!"

Many of you who know us know that Paige has a long history of sleeptalking and sleepwalking. Before we got married, Paige, her family and her friends repeatedly warned me of what I would undoubtely encounter. I actually enjoyed manipulating her sleeping mind when it happened, answering her frightened screams of, "Oh my God there's someone at the window with a machine gun!" with an innocent and confusing question like, "Flies in the buttermilk?" Inevitably these questions led her to a confused silence and then peacefully back to sleep. But I wasn't satisfied, my goal was to actually make her laugh IN her sleep.

In Thailand I really started trying. One night as I was reading she woke up and said, "Do you see it over there?" -pointing in the corner of the room. "Do you mean the see-through pyramid?" I asked. "No," she responded, it's not that." "Then, do you mean the giant mushroom?" "No," she stated, convinced of what she saw, "it's not the giant mushroom either!"

Then, in Kuta one night as I was listening to our portable CD player, Paige suddenly woke up, jumped out of bed and pointed at me. "Get up, get up!" "What?" I asked. "Get up, don't just lie there in that urine!" Even I was stunned over that one. "Well, I actually haven't peed myself, and I don't think there's going to be any urine here unless you have other plans," I responded. "Well then, what's THAT!?" she stated, pointing to the cd player. "It's a cd player," I answered, "what did you think it could be, urine?" Defeated, she sleepily and defiantly answered, "Yeah, well you never know." ...Indeed.

But still no laugh. Then in Senggigi one night as I read, Paige woke up and started raving, "Did you see it today, did you see that fish? Didn't you see that fish that jumps from rock to rock? C'mon, you know, what's his name...?" I sensed my opportunity. "Oh, yeah," I began, "I can't remember his name but wasn't that the same fish that was in that "After-school Special" about verbs?"

I got the laugh.