Life Below the Equator

If it was exoticism we were after, we certainly got it in Bali. The very air felt different after stepping off the plane. The climate was cooler, the scenery lush and volcanic. The bustle was unlike anything we had experienced in Asia so far. The men wore sarongs and cloth hats. The women carried baskets on their heads. Strange wood carvings and stone faces gave us the impression we were in Polynesia. The sensation was immediate—I knew I loved Bali.

There were a few games we had to learn before we even left the airport. Taxi drivers were persistent, surrounding their prey who were fresh off the plane. Asking for 400,000 rupees to take us to Kuta, they weren't open to negotiation. “Very far,” they would say, or “Traffic bad.” Those were always the excuses. It's hard to judge, just arriving in a place. Do you trust them or not? Well, it turned out—not. Thank goodness there was a Westener around who informed us that we shouldn't pay more than 50,000 rupees. There was a taxi booth right down from where all the taxi men were gathered, and there they were selling tickets for the appropriate price. Our first lesson in Bali—don't trust the locals. They'll clearly cheat you with a smile.

The narrow roads were clogged with traffic. Perhaps because Bali is just a tiny island, there aren't highways. Getting from point A to B isn't a clear-cut path. It's a zigzaggy path, many times involving driving the wrong way down a one-way street, skirting pedestrians and souvenir booths. I loved it. We arrived in the evening, and the streets were lined with activity. Chris and I were wide awake looking out the windows. It was as if we started our vacation afresh. The thrill of travel was back.

Our taxi nosed its way down a narrow alley, parting pedestrians and motorbikes. It amazed me that they allowed vehicles on back roads like this. There was literally just enough room for a vehicle to get by. Tourists had to press themselves into walls or step into a booth to avoid getting hit. Lots of horn honking. Lots of tourists looking over their shoulders.

We had picked a hotel out of Lonely Planet. We needed something, less we get dropped off at some out-of-the-way place that was owned by a relative of the taxi driver. Fortunately the hotel was perfect. Our own bathroom, a balcony, breakfast brought to our room in the morning. The price was the cheapest we had encountered in a long time. Our love of Bali was alive and growing.

Kuta is a tourist hub, something on the par of Khao San Road in Bangkok, except larger. There was no shortage of restaurants or tourist shops. Everything was cheap cheap cheap. Chris and I splurged a bit the first night. Just down the road from us was a place called Tubes, which was geared for the surfer crowd.  A surf board was stuck to one of the restaurant walls, and you could stand on it and pose for a picture. Chris did this. I didn't. I was more interested in the Mexican fare being served at the restaurant, particularly the margaritas. After Malaysia, which isn't booze-friendly by any means, it was nice to get back to cheap cocktails. Chris and I may have gone overboard that night, ordering dessert and cigarettes (cigarettes are sold on the menu along with the food) ontop of food and drinks, but the atmosphere was so relaxing. There was gentle music playing, and waves crashing on giant screens around us. There's something so satisfying about stepping off a plane and arriving in a destination and going out for that first meal. You feel you've made it to where you want to be.

Another Sleepless Night

I was hoping to follow up our relaxing meal with a relaxing night of sleep. After all, it had been a long time since I had gotten a decent night's sleep. It started in Kuala Lumpur where Chris and I had shared a dorm room with two Asian princesses. These girls had taken up the eight-bunk room with their crap, draping clothes and accessories over every inch of space. These girls were a pain in the ass from the very start, playing their music (despite Chris' snarky remarks) and doing themselves up into the late hours as Chris and I were trying to read. They tottered out in their whorish garb just as Chris and I were settling into bed. I knew they'd be back drunk in the wee hours of the morning, and of course I was right. They not only turned the light on, but they sat on their beds talking to each other about god knows what, until Chris asked them to turn the light off and shut the hell up (good man). One of the girls was on the phone for what seemed like forever. Then she disappeared and never came back. This was very weird behavoir for a hostel in Kuala Lumpur. Were these girls travelers, or prostitutes? We'll never know. Anyway, we didn't receive a whole lot of sleep that night.

Singapore was a nightmare sleep-wise for me. First we had those creaky bunk beds, then I had the bed bugs dropping down on me. I just wanted somewhere quiet and bug-free.

Bali looked like the place. It was geared towards relaxation, bubbling fountains and koi ponds and massages. The air was cool and bug-free in Kuta. Chris and I sat up reading for about an hour in our nice airy bedroom. As I sat there, it occured to me that down the road from us construction was taking place. I could hear a drill. “I hope that's not going to go on all night,” I told Chris. Silly me. The drilling stopped. We went to bed. I dozed off. Around midnight a truck rumbled down the narrow alley, and then the REAL construction began. Drilling, backhoeing, dynamiting... I don't know what the hell they were doing. But the noise moved closer and closer until they were right outside our hotel. I simply couldn't believe this was happening. I looked outside to see a work truck parked in the alley, several men asleep in the back. How were they able to sleep with all that noise? It looked like it was going to be an all-night operation. I went to grab some earplugs. Up til then they hadn't seen out the outside of my rucksack. I popped them in and the construction was lessened to just a mild roar. Along with the workmen outside, I eventually dozed off.

Like a Surfer

We could have been on the Gold Coast in Australia. Anyone with blond hair and board shorts in Kuta had an Australian accent. Just a short hop over from Oz, Bali was the destination of the kangaroo people. I found it interesting. Just like Americans in Cancun, or Brits in Ibiza, the Austalian youths headed to Kuta for their partying. Hearing “Summer of '69” sung loudly in an Aussie accent outside our hotel at 1:00 in the morning was no different than hearing the any wanker closing down a pub on Manchester Rd back home. The urge to shout “Shut the fuck up!” was strong in me. One thing I've realized on this trip—I have a general dislike of young drunken party-goers, regardless of their nationality. I don't find them witty or cute. I don't even find myself dredging up old party memories from a decade ago when gazing upon them. No, at best I just tolerate them these days. I'm getting old.

But not every Austalian was in Kuta to party. A good number of them came to surf. Understandably so. Kuta Beach is famous for its waves. Huge honking waves that can take a novice out. Girls and boys alike with gleaming trim bodies could be seen carrying boards through the streets, the most gorgeous people you could imagine. I felt like such a frump in my gypsy skirt and tank top get-up. To make it worse, I carried a boogie-board. But I didn't even care. Boogie-boarding I could do. Boogie-boarding was a good time. I wasn't going to die boogie-boarding.

Chris and I each took turns. One would boogie-board while the other sat on the beach. On the first day out, I went first. What a thrill it was. I don't even care if that sounds lame. The waves were ideal for boogie-boarding. I had mastered this little skill before back on a vacation to South Carolina. I had spent three days in the water before I got the hang of it, droppin the board down just a split-second before the wave hit. Timing was the key, and I got it right time after time after time. A few times I rode a wave completely in, sailing past swimmers and waders, coming to a stop on the wet sand, rolling awkwardly off. It was exhilarating when this happened, and I'd rush back out into the water to do it again.

I'd get braver, going deeper out into the water to catch the bigger waves as they crashed. There was a line of surfers out past the break-line, just chilling out waiting for a really big one. It was always exciting to see when one was forming, the surfers would come to life. I'd get my boogie-board in gear and together we'd all try to catch that big one. There were some exceptionally good surfers out there. Some were crap, falling off their boards immediately, but some knew exactly what to do. I'd never seen surfers up close before. It was quite thrilling to be there among them, riding along with them, watching each wave come rolling toward us.

Beware of the Hawkers

When my turn boogie-boarding was over, I squinted over the beach, trying to find Chris. I had traveled quite a bit over but I knew we were next to a flag. Everything blurred without my glasses. I looked for a solitary figure on the sand. What I got was a blurry group of people waving at me.

I did an inward groan as I walked over. Chris had attracted a whole group of hawkers. They had actually made themselves comfortable, sitting around him like they were good friends. They greeted me happily. Chris looked happy, but only because he saw his escape, grabbing up the boogie-board and heading to the water. I awkwardly sat down next to our new “friends.”

It was all, “Where you from? What you name? How long you here?” I absolutely can't stand these conversations. They're all a lead-up to, “You want massage?” or “You want sarong” or whatever else they're trying to sell. We had encountered hawkers in many places in Asia, but these Balinese ones took the cake. The conversations lasted forever, talking about family and life ambitions and such. They talked with such seemingly sincere interest, though, it was hard to break them off. And with dread you knew the question was coming, “Maybe you want…?” So awkward, especially after hearing about how their husband was out of work or their children didn't have shoes.

The women that surrounded me were annoying to the max. I must have said no thanks to them at least a hundred times. The most persistent was an older lady who was wearing like five layers of clothes (she was cold, she said, though I was sweating in the sun). She was dead bent on giving me a massage, even giving me a taster. I wasn't opposed to a massage. I might have wanted a massage very much. Just not then and there. I told her maybe later. Good price, she said. So I asked her how much, out of curiosity. The price she gave was okay, so I told her I'd consider it, maybe get one later. I couldn't shake her after that. The other ladies wandered off, realizing their time was wasted on me. The older lady stuck with me to the end. Chris returned with the boogie-board and I was so happy. But here was the keeper of the money, and the lady turned to Chris. “Your wife want massage, yes?” Chris and I both got up, ready to leave the beach and get away from the hawkers. “Another time,” I told the lady, not sure how else to be polite. She turned nasty then, realizing her time had been wasted. “You asked how much. You don't do unless you buy.” I hadn't signed up for her game anyway, so I don't know why she was calling me out for cheating. “You bad luck,” the lady said, walking angrily away. “You bad luck, you bad luck.”

God, I hated these hawkers. Perfectly charming people, but they couldn't understand the meaning of no. I saw lots of tourists just ignore them. “Where you from?” was met with downcast eyes. Chris and I just couldn't do that. We'd always give out a “no thank you.” But in Bali, no thank you is just another way of saying yes. It was exhausting.

The people were so unbelievably friendly. It created problems because you didn't know if there was sincerity there. If there was, and you were rude, you just looked like an ass. Chris and I errored on the side of kindness, and for this we were pestered to death. But we did interact with the people, and for that I give ourselves credit.

The only time we ran into problems with this kindness was at a money changers. The guys there were jokes and laughs right from the very start. While Chris changed the money, I sat outside and talked with a friendly young man. The friendliness was overflowing. Chris popped his head out to ask if I had 10,000 to make the exchange easier. I complied, but it was still jokes from the money changer, and we were laughing along. We walked away from there thinking, wow, those guys are great. Chris actually thought we had gotten a good exchange rate and we were laughing about that. Well the joke was on us, as we later found out. At dinner Chris counted out his wad of cash and realized that we had either spent way too much in the past few hours, or we had gotten ripped off at the money changers. Well, we had failed to heed the warning from Lonely Planet. Money changers in Bali are notorious for ripping off tourists. They count the money in front of you, then cause a distraction (like, “hey, you have 10,000 rupee note?”), then pocket a good chunk of the money while you turn away. It happened to us.

I was pissed off, and a little disillusioned to be honest. We had had such a good time with those guys. They were full of crap, ripping us off while patting us on the back. I was so angry that when we passed that way later that night, I spouted off to the guy standing there. He was the guy that had entertained me outside. I figured he had been used in the distraction. “Thanks a lot for ripping us off,” I spat at him. He seemed deeply hurt, saying he was just a shopkeeper, he wasn't even the money changer. The money changer wasn't around. I walked away from him feeling confused. Had he been part of the scam, or had he been genuinely nice to me? As much as I loved Bali, I hated that aspect of it. You didn't know whom to trust.

The construction continued through the next few nights. I stuck my earplugs in and learned to sleep with this background noise. Like the hawkers, some things you just need to tolerate in order to experience the bigger picture.