Gili Trawangan

Arrived at Gili Trawangan, off the coast of Lombok, this morning. It's a small little island, about 2km from end-to-end, and very nice, with white sand beaches and blue-green waters. I rode around the island on a bicycle today and stopped to watch a gorgeous sunset.

Tomorrow I'm going to snorkel and relax a bit.

Ever since I've come to Bali, it feels like I've left the backpacker trail and ended up in the middle of a resort. It's actually not all that great - instead of being around other interesting young people, it's a bunch of fat old Aussies and trashy party-seekers from Europe and Australia. Not exactly my crowd. And things are more expensive too. Oh well, I'm still enjoying the scenery.

I'm looking forward to going home though.

Update

Not too much new to add here. In Padangbai, in Bali. Went on a great dive yesterday to the Liberty Wreck, a WWII shipwreck. It was great - the wreck was awesome, totally encrusted in coral and brimming with schools of fish.

Tomorrow I'm off to the Gili Islands, some small remote islands off the coast of Lombok (the next big island to the East). Will do some snorkeling and mainly just relax.

It's hard to believe my trip is slowly coming to an end. Already I'm starting to sort out some of the many things I will be doing upon my return...

More later

Volcano Monkey Mountain

Woke up before 2 AM this morning to hike to the top of Gulung Batur, an active volcano, to watch the sunrise. It was pretty spectacular.

Almost as if on cue, as soon as the sun rose, a pack of monkeys came to greet us. Yes, more monkeys.After the sunrise, we walked around the crater of the volcano. All around there were vents of steam, some large, some smaller.

Back to the beach tomorrow.

Ubud Day 1 - Monkeys and More

I arrived in Ubud this morning. Ubud is Bali's cultural center, and though just an hour down the road from noisy Kuta, it feels a world removed. It is serene and spiritual here.

After settling in, I went to the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary, just a short walk down the road from my homestay/guesthouse. There are a few temples here and like a gazillion monkeys. I tried to feed some of them bananas, which was fun. But then some of them got rowdy and chased after me and my bananas so I threw the bananas at the monkeys and ran. It was fun.



Later in the evening I watched the Kecak and Fire Dance. The owner of my guesthouse was performing tonight, so I went and watched his group. It is prominently featured in the movie Baraka, which you must see if you havent already. The coolest thing about the kecak is the chanting, but this computer is not cooperating with me in uploading my videos so you should google/youtube it and see for yourself.


I had mentioned briefly before the little flower boat incense things that are outside every doorstep here in Bali, one of those little touches that makes it feel so unique and magical. Well I stumbled upon a little boy making them today:
Everywhere I have traveled, there is great excitement and affection for President Obama, which reassures me that slowly but surely our standing in the world is being rebuilt. In my conversations, I often use it as a springboard to talk about America's diversity and how Obama's election signals the rise of a new generation - my generation - that is ever more multicultural and cosmopolitan. Maybe I overplay it a bit but I feel like it's my duty to share this with foreigners after the dark Bush era. In Indonesia, they are definitely more excited about Obama than anywhere else I've been - everybody here knows that he grew up in Jakarta and understands Indonesia and they have great affection for him. I found this painting in an art shop walking down the street today:



Alright that's it for now. I'm touring some temples around Ubud tomorrow and then at 2:00 AM I'm going to hike up to the top of Mt. Batur for the sunrise. Should be awesome.

Surfing in Magical Bali

Had a great surf lesson today and was riding waves pretty quickly.  It's not as hard as I thought it'd be - which is not to say I'm any good but I can get up and ride the wave at least.  I'm leaving Kuta tomorrow but will probably dabble a little more with the surfboard when I come back here in 2 weeks.  It is really tiring though!  It certainly requires a lot of strength and stamina.  Now I know why all those surfer boys have such nice bodies...

I'm loving Bali.  Over dinner tonight I was chatting with Marina, one of the young girls who works at the reasturant/food stall.  She is from Jakarta and came to Bali on a whim two weeks ago to do something new.  We had a nice conversation for about an hour or so and I told her many things about America.  Her English was great and it turns out that she's a college graduate (business major) who quit her boring office job in search of something new.  I can relate to that.  I think one of the great joys of independent travel is the many conversations you have with various people.   Traveling alone, and being an Asian American, is something of a confusing oddity to the locals and tends to invite the countless interesting conversations I've had along the way.  It's these conversations that enrich the trip, making it more an immersive cultural experience rather than a mere vacation.  Last night I was talking over kreteks (Indonesian clove cigarette) with the guy working the front desk at the inn I'm staying at.  That smell brought back memories - I haven't had a kretek since college!  He kept trying to sell me one of the many prostitutes his boss has, and did seem notably less talkative once I signaled I wasn't particularly interested...

I have a pretty unreal itinerary here in Bali.  Tomorrow I'm going to Ubud for the Sacred Monkey Forest and Kecak Fire Dance and then touring some of the ancient Hindu temples.  Then hiking a volcano to watch the sunrise over lava flows, scuba diving a shipwreck encrusted in coral and packed with schools of fish, and then chillin out on the Gili Islands...

But then the trip winds down and I will be sad to go.  I saved the best for last.  Can't be sad yet though!  

alright im off.  goodnight folks.  

Kuta Beach

Made it to Kuta yesterday, the beach hub resort of Bali.  Think Santa Monica full of foreigners in Indonesia but everything is about 10 times cheaper and more charming, with little Hindu flower incense sacrifice things outside every doorstep.  It is overly commercial though, with more McDonald's than I can count, Starbucks, Hard Rock Cafe, etc.  It's a little much for my taste, actually, so I'll probably leave for quieter more splendid places in Bali tomorrow but not before I take my surf lesson today (Kuta being a world-famous surf mecca).  I've always thought it quite a tragedy that as a native Southern Californian I never learned to surf.  I'm not sure one can really learn to surf in two hours but I'll give it a try.  I'm a quick learner, though that's tempered by the fact that I'm physically clumsy.  

Bali is nice.  It is refreshing to be back in a humid sticky vibrant interesting place again after my detour into modernity (boring) in Malaysia and Singapore.  And of course, it is most refreshing to be paying dirt-cheap prices again for everything (though that seems to have the effect of making me buy more things...).  Bali seems to be the cheapest of all the places I've visited, even at marked-up tourist prices here in Kuta.  But the people are fun and nice and it has none of the roughness of other poorer places I've been to.  Even after just a day, I can see the magical appeal of this place, and that's before I've gone on to see the cultural wonders, natural beauty, and amazing diving on offer elsewhere in the island.  

After seven weeks on the go, I think it's a sign of how much I've adapted that, upon landing in Bali, I found the touts refreshingly familiar and haggling for cheap things a fun exercise, rather than a tortured hassle.  Yesterday when I was checking out some fake Ray-Bans from a vendor we broke into a laughing fit haggling with each other, all in good fun (I didn't buy them and I told him I was just looking but that apparently only made him bargain harder).  

I have more pictures but they seem to load slowly so I'll try again later.  

In Bali

More later