Round two.. It seems odd that I'm writing more in my blog than I would when I'm at home on my normal schedule, in spite of the fact that I'm halfway across the world in an exotic paradise. Guess that's the way it goes though.
When last I left off, it was two days ago, and Bay and I had just finished a night out in Kuta. We're back in the same town again, and are enjoying it for all that it's worth.
Kuta is so weird, loud, and noisy. Everywhere you look, there are scooters, cars, tourists, buildings in disrepair, and good restaurants. And in spite of all that, the place is totally enchanting (I ripped that word right out of a travel brochure). The funny thing is how everything just sort of works. The traffic is mayhem - there are scooters weaving and dodging between every car, and cars are constantly pulling out in front of each other, or just off to the side of the road to stop and try and get a pedestrian to get for a taxi ride. On top of that, pedestrians are constantly cutting across in front of traffic, or just barely squeezing by a bunch of scooters already in the process of doing the same. The thing is that this is so constant that people just seem accustomed to it.
Bay and I were considering this while sitting in the fourth story of the sky garden lounge (more on this later) impressed with how there's barely any road rage. We figured that it's probably just because of how often it happens. Back home, if someone cuts in front of you, you can take exception to it, because, by and large, that occurrence is an exception. However, in Bali, it would take a lot of energy to get annoyed everytime someone busted in front of you, since it's happening roughly once every ten seconds on the road.
Aside from chilling in Kuta, we went on our first tour yesterday. This was a full day tour (8:00AM to 6:00PM - exhausting!), and took us to a Batik processing place (where they make sarongs), a typical Bali village, and the largest temple in Bali. As I said before, there are temples in virtually every single home, and office, and work place here, but the one we saw on this tour was incredible.
First things first though - we got on our tour bus, and were immediately told that we would be stopping at a Batik processing place. that's fine, it'd be interesting to check out the technique they use to create the patterns on some of these sarongs (that's what Batik is). However, we were also told that we would need to wear a sarong to go to the temple at the end of the tour, and that sucked. See, we had checked our brochure very carefully.. all we saw was that we needed to wear long pants (no shorts or skirts) and cover your shoulders.
Suddenly we're on a tour and we're told we need to buy a sarong. Not only that, but once we rolled in there, these sarongs were pricey - relatively speaking. See, it's hard to stay annoyed for too long, because pricey over here means it cost $25 USD. I know, I know, that's really very little to us, and these people don't have a lot of money, so it's doing good in the long run. Still, I resent the principle of how this was put forth.
Anyhow, Bay and I buy our sarongs after I bargain the kid selling them to us down to $42 from $50 (no, I'm not being a dick, that's part of the custom here), and Bay pays one of the ladies out front demonstrating how they make these designs to draw on her white t-shirt (fortunately she happened to be wearing one of her plain t-shirts). The design was pretty cool, and our guide (a cool guy named Jana - pronounced Yana) told me that we should probably give the lady between 5,000 and 10,000 rupiah for it. That's roughly 50 cents to 1 dollar. We get back into the bus, and head towards a typical Balinese village.
The village was pretty cool - very idyllic, with a small narrow road that runs through the whole thing, and on either side, fences, which open up into Bali houses. A Balinese house typically has about four buildings, each one essentially a room. One for sleeping, one for cooking, one for gathering with family members, and one for conducting ceremonies (typically this would be things like the cremation of a loved one that has passed away - this is a very important ritual to the Balinese). The village was cool, but it was weird, because we were basically just walking through someone's place and checking it out. I asked our guide about that, and he explained that the people that own the place are paid money to let this happen, but still... it feels like you're getting a bit of a slanted view of what an actual house is like. Either way, I got some dope pictures and will put those up when I get back. Bay was called beautiful multiple times by the people living there, and we interacted a little bit with the kids and the locals. Then, back to the bus for the big temple.
Guess what? We get back on the bus and are now told that if we're wearing shorts, we'll need a sarong. If we didn't pick one up earlier, we can rent one there, or buy one. If you have pants on, you don't need to worry. Gee thanks, after we're initially told that we'll need one either way. Oh well, our guide was a really good guy, and I can't fault him too much. He's just doing his job, and it's all part of the experience right? Basically the tour ended up costing me an additional $21USD than it otherwise would have. That's reasonable I suppose. Still, the one shitty thing is that it would have been nice to support some of the actual townsfolk instead of this processing plant with marked up prices..
The instant we get off the bus at the temple, we're besieged with about 15 booths selling sarongs, and ladies trying to get us to buy. Our guide warned us about this, as well as kids trying to give you flowers (then asking you for money) and people offering to drive you up the hill to the temple on their motorbike. We made our was past them and hiked up to the top, then checked out the temple.
It was pretty rad - this wasn't just one temple, it was about 10 of them, each fairly large, and each one decorated in a different style. Very beautiful. Not only that, but they're at the top of this long hill (ten minutes walk), so they overlook a great view. It was pretty awesome once you were up there. The only drawback was that once again there were people trying to get cash from us - people offering to take you inside the temple (strictly forbidden, and this ends up costing you a bunch), sell you postcards, give you flowers, take your picture. You learn pretty quickly that there's no such thing as a free gift here, and just reject offers to take a pamphlet or flower from someone ("it doesn't cost you anything boss!"). That being said, you also learn to accept it for what it is - really great people that live in a beautiful but impoverished land. They're just trying to make a living the only way they know how. So, basically, you learn not to blame them, but also not to weep when they say things like "Come on, help me out" - yes, it's sad, but everyone here wants you to help them out, and they all deserve it. You learn to be generous when you can, and leave it at that.
After the temple, we went for lunch at this incredible restaurant atop a great hill. Valleys surrounded the restaurant from all sides, and it essentially looked out over rice paddies in every direction. I got some great panoramic shots and our server was really nice - she was very interested in learning about other languages. I saw her talking to a Croatian couple that Bay and I had chatted with (also on their honeymoon) and asking them how to say hello in Croatian (I think it's "Koala" or something like that).
Today we started off with a good fight, and semi-ended it just before going in for our complimentary 90 minute massage. If ever you find yourself in a fight with a loved one, I recommend that you plan to do it right before a comlimentary massage, because it's damn-near impossible to stay angry at someone when every muscle in your body is being relaxed. Our masseures were really cool, and very good. We left promising to come back, but after walking around town and seeing the prices elsewhere, we'll probably just get a massage somewhere in town - the price for an hour-long massage is about $5USD. Talk about pampering yourself!
We spent the rest of the night shopping and enjoying some drinks at some of the really swank places in Kuta. As I said, we just finished a couple of drinks at the Sky Garden Lounge, which overlooks the main strip on Kuta. It's pretty awesome sipping local beer on a beautiful roof-top patio and look down at all of the traffic and people coming and going in this diverse town. It's time for dinner now, so we're going to walk around the strip and find a place to eat.
Oh also, I've been making a point to try each of the beers available here, and take a picture of the beer before each one. Coming up after I get back will be a review of all the local brews.
Bay and I are having an awesome time and have already made an agreement to come back. Once you've made it over here with your flight, your money goes very far, and the various places you can go are incredible. It's overwhelming at first, but once you're used to the local customs, you feel very safe, and it's easy to walk around and explore.
Oh, one last thing - you'll probably notice this is a lot of writing. Normally I edit all of my writing, because I'm anal-retentive, and I hate reading poorly edited stuff. However, that adds on about another hour to the process of writing a blog entry, so that will have to be foregone for now. Later!
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