Alright, this marks the very first of a brand new category over here on my blog: Traveling!
I've never had this category before because I've never done any traveling outside of my youth. Obviously this is an exciting time for Bay and I.
This blog is being written from an internet cafe in Kuta, Bali. I'll start off with a brief description of the trip over here, and then move full swing into a description of our hotel, the tribulations we've encountered thus far, and the island itself.
The trip over here was good, if not long. 18 hours of flying in an airplane will certainly take it out of you. Bay and I caught an earlier flight out of Victoria to arrive at Vancouver International at 9:00PM. From there we had a 6 hour lay-over waiting for our flight to Hong Kong airport at 3:00AM. That's a long time! Fortunately, Bay and I had both cheated on our no-spending rule leading up to the honeymoon and agreed to allow each other to get one treat for the trip. I bought a Nintendo DS (and a card online to hack it so that I could download games. The express postage (will arrive in 4 days or less!!) did not arrive within the two weeks prior to me leaving, so I was left with the four games that I had bought before hand. Still pretty good, but a little annoying. In any case, I played with my Nintendo, Bay listened to her iPod, we both listened to DJ Superimportant talk on his cell phone across from us in his loudest voice, and we did a healthy amount of sleeping. Oh, we also had a couple of drinks at the Whitespot in the airport before heading over to our gate.
The most interesting part about Vancouver airport was how quiet and deserted it felt. Airports are really interesting places. You see people from all around the world, wearing their own styles, talking their own languages, and following their own questions. We walked all the way from the domestic arrivals point to the international departures - essentially the entire length of the airport, and it felt like we were walking through an abandoned site. You know how in apocalypse movies, after the catastrophe has occurred, there's always this point where the heroes are walking through a place that is normally thriving, but now its dead and nothing is happening? Well, that's what Vancouver's airport felt like to us. I'm not complaining - it was just ... creepy, almost.
Our flight to Hong Kong International airport was looooong. 13 hours in fact. For those of you unsure of what that would feel like, grab 13 stray cats, put them in a bag, and bag them against a wall for 13 hours. Then shoot yourself in the head. The bullet to the head part really clinches the feeling. Honestly, this was a good flight. I mean, it's never really pleasant being in a confined space for 13 hours, but Cathay Pacific did a good job making us comfortable. Every seat had a video screen in front of it that you got to watch, and there were plenty of channels to check out. My trust Nintendo pulled double duty for me, and I pet it on the console to let it know I cared about it. I caught up on some CSI and House that I had missed in the wedding lead-up blitz, and a little bit of sleep. Oh, I forgot to mention, before getting on the plane, Bay and I had a brainstorm and impulse bought two travelling pillows for 30$. Those are the U-shaped pillows that fit around your neck. This was a clutch move! Those little bad boys helped make sure that my head and neck were comfortable the whole trip.
Our food was actually quite good, and we were treated to wine free of charge throughout the flight. I took quite a few breaks to stand up and do some stretching, which, although some people might feel embarassed doing, I just told myself that everyone else on the plane would be wishing that they'd been as intelligent as I had when they got off. As far as the back and the legs are concerned, it was the right move. I managed to make it off the plane and feel relatively refreshed. Oh, one last thing - facial moisturizer. The plane had complimentary facial moisturizer in the bathrooms, and this was really helpful - nothing makes you feel more human and refreshed than running some of that over your face.
We stopped in Hong Kong airport for a few hours, grabbed some Burger King fries as our first "exotic meal" (hey, we don't even HAVE a Burger King in Victoria, unless you count Colwood, and even people FROM Colwood don't count that), and checked out the airport. Our travel agent was right, Hong Kong does have a very nice airport.
We flew out to Bali, and arrived at around 12ish. Wow, this was overwhelming. Bali's airport is very beautiful (much like the rest of the island), but there was a lot going on, and we had no idea what order to do it in. First step we had to buy our Visas. These cost 10$, according to our information, but 20$ according to the guy that ran us through. Even if he was lying, what were we going to do? Then, after getting our visas, we went got everything stamped and picked up our luggage. THEN, after that, we went through some weird customs thing. We got in line and immediately realized we'd chosen the wrong line after the guy on our end was meticulously looking at people's luggage, while the other guy was simply taking customs forms and waving people along. That situation was half-remedied when our guy decided he was bored of his job and walked off, half-directing our line to get in the other line. Fortunately the people in that line were nice and let us awkwardly get in front of them, and we got waved through.
We were told that we'd have someone waiting for us to drive us to our hotel, but good luck picking him out amidst the sea of people holding up signs at the exit of the airport. Seriously, there was about a hundred faces staring at us, each holding up a different sign. Eventually a nice taxi driver walked us over to the information booth and the lady working there paged an employee from our hotel (the Grand Mirage). They hooked us up with the right person, and he took us to our ride.
Some other Joe Random showed up and helped carry our bags (something I'm always immediately wary of). As soon as we got to our ride, he held out his hand and said "give me a tip". Ugh. I have to give the people of Bali some slack though. The island is pretty impoverished, and they really got boned by the terrorist bombings that happened here a few years back. It wasn't even based on their own religion (which is predominantly Hindu) - it was apparently Islamics from Java and other surrounding islands. In any case, I sure hate being asked for tips, especially in what sounds like such a demanding manner. I suspect this was part language barrier, part necessity for the guy helping us, and part just custom in the wake of the reduced terrorism following those bombings. Bay gave him a 5$ USD bill, which we later learned is a massive amount, and our guide apologized, telling us that this wasn't typical.
We hopped in the car and he and the driver began taking us to the hotel. As we drove, he introduced himself as Augus (I'm sure I've spelled that wrong), and pointed out sights. Goddamn, Bali is beautiful and hot. But not so hot that I find it unbearable. Right now the temperature is about on par with the hottest day we had in Victoria. Literally every block has a small temple where people can pray, and the architecture is really cool. Augus took our information and gave us pamphlets for the stuff we needed to do. Then we arrived at our hotel and checked in.
Everyone was super friendly, and we were exhausted. First things first though, let's check into our hotel, get some money, have dinner, then go to sleep, on Bali's time (I read that one of the secrets to fighting jet lag is to wake up and go to sleep on the local time - going to be sleep wouldn't be hard considering we'd been up for over 36 hours... it would be staying awake). We left the hotel after checking in to go find an ATM. Everyone had told me that we really didn't need to buy much money, since we could just use ATM's. We rolled up to the ATM nearest the place and put in our Visa cards, ready to do a cash advance, since the convenience would be worth it. Hmm, that's weird, it says there's a problem with the card. We tried multiple cards and multiple techniques, but nothing worked. There's not a lot of things that will stress you out quite like being in a foreign country, not being able to speak the local language, and not having access to any money. Bay and I managed to keep our cool and assume that we would determine a way to deal (there's always something that can be done, even if it means getting Mom and Dad to wire us money), and decided to take a walk to the beach. On our way, some guy rolled up and accosted us.
I use the term accosted because that's what everyone here tries to do. I've been lucky enough to travel with my parents to places like Jamaica when I was younger, so I'm somewhat acclimatized to this kind of thing now. Plus, every second block in Victoria now has some jerk in a colored vest asking you to stop to talk to them about [insert charitable organization here]. I wanted to keep walking, but we were tired, fresh into the country, and stressed out. He gave us his spiel, and hey, look at that, we had just won 500$ free if we went to this place and talked to these people, and they would do something benign like show us a hotel room. Yah right, because Bali is hemmoraghing money and is desperate to give away 500$. He wanted us to arrange a time to meet him, but we managed to get away and left it at that. Lesson learned - don't make eye contact with people hawking stuff at you, and if they persist, be friendly and keep walking. Don't slow down because that means they'll stop you and get going. Normally I would be my typical awesome-jerk-self and blow the guy off in one of my many jerkily ways. But I'm outside of my element, and I don't want to just be a jerk on principle.
Anyhow, we went to sleep, and woke up at 10:00 AM, just in time to run downstairs and catch breakfast. We worked out, which felt awesome, because how many people will work out on vacation (Bay and I). After that we met with the tour representative and booked our tours. Last step, call Visa. We got in touch with them, but they didn't have the solution we wanted. Apparently, since Rupiah (the local currency) are worth about 10000 to 1 Canadian dollar, the bank machine showed Visa that we were trying to withdraw 5 million dollars CDN. That's practical.. They suggested we try some things, none of which were really practical, and we hung up. Hmm, things aren't looking good. We went for a swim, bought some drinks and charged them to our room (how else are we going to pay for things at this point?), and then headed back to the ATM to try our bank cards. I withdrew the smallest amount possible, and HUZZAH, it worked. Man, that felt INCREDIBLE. So now we've got the money problem solved, and we're loving it.
We took a taxi into Kuta today, which is the crazy seedy busy overdeveloped part of the island. It's so insane here - you walk down the street and simultaneously can see the incredible tropical flore and fauna, a beautiful hindu temple, a starbucks, and an abandoned super complex, which waS probably originally a 5-storey night club (no exaggeration - there are multiple of those here). The super complex would have become abandoned after the huge-tourism drop-off following the bombings.
We've spent the day walking up and down the streets, fending off people trying to sell us sunglasses and bracelets, checking out stores you would see at home (Roxy, a Polo store roughly one every block, and many other surf shops), and enjoying find dining. We spent $17.50 to have 6 beers between us, two main courses, and two appetizers. Good luck accomplishing that in Victoria.
Anyhow, it's time for us to head - we've got to be up at around 7AM tomorrow morning in order to get on our tour bus and head out to some of Bali's temples. The island is incredible. It's extremely diverse and we're getting some great pictures. The people are very friendly (although there is also a lot of attempts to get you to buy stuff too), and the weather is great.
More updates to follow.
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