On a day hike around the paddi fields outside Ubud in Bali I stopped to ask directions. While a young local lad helped me, Karol popped into an internet cafe for some seemingly urgent task. So I chatted with the local for a while and introduced him to the German girls we were with. Both the Germans are studying to be teachers and of course, I also 'work' in the education field. So of course that came up in our conversation. Learning of my interest in education and Balinese schools, the young guy told us his old elementary school was just a minute away and invited us to check it out. Actually it was less than a minute away. We'd been unknowingly sitting right on the school's doorstep. Classes were in session when we popped in, but that didn't stop the teachers, principal and students from giving us a warm welcome and tour of the small and basic, but beautiful place. The principal told me that there used to be about twenty students in each class. But now, just six to eight. He said it's because tourism has brought more money to families so now they can send their kids to private schools instead of village public schools like this one. He said this is a good thing. The kids were cute and friendly as all Asian kids seem to be. And the school seemed to be well harmonised with the tropical nature around it. One classroom, built separately from the others even was wall-less and surrounding rice fields and palm trees were visible just metres away. A wonderful environment to learn in (excuse the pun).
This is a video from the end of the trip. As you can see I’m pretty skinny and blue after a month on the road. Also I was feeling very lonely following the departure of Karol and Ronan and the end of my holiday romance. Travelling alone isn’t fun at times. The last few days of the trip were pretty miserable. I was burnt out and the places I chose to go (for diving) were so quiet and boring and the other travellers all seemed to be couples. So I became pretty emotional and even cried a couple of times like a little girl. I guess physical exhaustion and loneliness caught up with me, though I tried to moderate my drinking on this trip to prevent such a crash. But I guess it wasn’t to be.
I had to debate with myself about whether to post my holiday romance here. Fears of losing opportunities with perspective girlfriends down the line make me reluctant to talk of past encounters. And I'm aware that writing about such things may only give enjoyment to me, not to the readers, so I’m afraid I may just be indulging myself. However, as I’m aiming for honesty and openness on this blog, and since this experience was such a big part of my trip, perhaps the best part of my trip, I’ll share my experience and some videos which don't really relate to what I've written, but give you a feel for the place. A couple of nights before Karol was scheduled to return to London, he and I were having another of our fast-becoming famous "convenience store parties". Oh, and for your information, a convenience store party is one in which you simply buy your booze from the convenience store and hang around outside. Talking to any people that visit or pass the store is the goal. I play music from my smartphone, Karol does his funny dance, and we both use tons of Irish charm to get a fun party started with other fun people. Convenient store parties are great because A. They're super cheap B. It's much easier to talk to people because there's no loud pub music. C. And, uh, they’re cheap. Anyway I digress... So, we were having a convenience store party in Ubud, Bali and the party was really happening. We’d a few people drinking cheap beers with us, mostly Europeans. The convenience store workers loved us (I think) because we were strongly promoting their special 2 Bintang Beers for 33,000 rupiah. We were also sharing our hip flasks of Jameson whisky, so the following meeting I describe is based on hearsay and flashbacks. A young Asian girl walked past us with a yoga mat. I started chatting to her and found out that she, Sujin, lives just a few blocks from me in Seoul. Quite a coincidence considering the size of Seoul and that she was the only Korean I had met in Indonesia. After seducing Sujin with my seven Korean phrases, including “you’re pretty” and “more rice please sir”, she joined our convenience store party. Success! Actually Sujin turned out to be awesome. She had been studying art at Hongik University (Korea’s best), but got sick of it, dropped out (almost unheard of to do that in Korea) and moved to Bali. She was renting a beautiful bungalow just outside Ubud, spending her days studying yoga, painting, creating new types of art (using sea salt!) and hanging out with friends in funky cafes. We all drunk together that night and although Karol seemed to hate her (I suspect jealousy), I really took a liking to her. By the time Karol left for London two days later, we’d become close and Sujin let me stay in her countryside bungalow for the next week. Following three weeks of cheap guesthouses, home-stays, Karol’s snoring and Ronan’s tickling, it was heaven to move in with a girl. The next week was one of the best I’ve ever spent “on the road”. The place she lives is so peaceful and relaxing; with a natural green backdrop as you can see in the video.
It’s rare for me to feel relaxed in the company of a person or people without taking time to myself or finding “my space”. But with Sujin I was totally content without it. Even the simplest things like having a healthy, organic breakfast and Bali coffee on the veranda were so enjoyable. My usual attitude of eat quickly and “let’s do something!”, dissipated to the point where I might’ve even seemed lazy. We had no routine to our days, but always managed to do something fun. Yoga class, meditation class, hiking in the rice fields, visiting the great cafes and restaurants she’d discovered in the last four months, or meeting her friends. We often spent evenings alone on her veranda drinking hot whiskies made with lemon, sugar, cloves, cinnamon and the final bottle of the Jameson. Relaxing to chilled beats like The XX or Gotan Project, we watched fireflies dance around the palm trees below us.
I struck up a friendship with the owner of a new, but cheap arung (family-run restaurant) in ‘our’ neighborhood. A passionate artist, like many Balinese, he had decorated his restaurant so that it was like a living room and the atmosphere was very cozy and welcoming. We dined there several times and he always came to chat with us, showing genuine interested in both Ireland and Korea. Despite being only twenty-three, Sujin was contemplating opening a Korean restaurant/bar. Her plan also includes making her own makgeolli (korean fermented rice wine). Anyone that knows about my life in Korea will know that I am absolutely crazy about makgeolli. I drink it almost every day. It’s so cheap and healthy and tastes great. She had a meeting scheduled in the south of Bali with a Korean businessman to get some advice. Upon learning of my interest in makgeolli, she invited me to join. I gladly accepted and we took an overnight trip to Seminyak, a popular beach-town. The meeting was very interesting and I might write about it later. Following that we walked along the beach and promenade keen to do the beach bungee jump. But at over one hundred dollars, we decided not to. We visited a trendy Spanish bar/restaurant on the beach, and I mean literally on the beach, with funky big cushion-chairs to sit/lie/melt on while drinking beers and eating tapas to house music and the sound of waves. After a few beers we found a cheap and nasty room and then headed out in even more nasty Kuta, the famous beach and party place of Bali. I’d been here at the start of my trip, but hadn’t experienced the infamous nightlife. For all the beauty, tranquility and warmth Bali has to offer, Kuta has none of it. Drunken people everywhere, horrible-looking bar-girls (of the prostitute type), drugs sold openly and lots and lots of dodgy-looking characters walking up and down the strip, seemingly looking for prey. We hit a few clubs and Sujin enjoyed the dancing, but I found it hard to relax or drink in that atmosphere. We spent the next afternoon haggling for cheap sandals, enjoying lunch beers on the beach and swimming in the big waves. And then shared a “transport”- private taxi with a German family, the father of which had envious haggling skills and got us all a great price. The great thing about Sujin was that although we basically spent twenty-four hours a day together for that week, I never saw a bad side to her. She never got annoyed, and there are plenty of things to get annoyed at in Bali, not least the ogling eyes of locals and their comments. I never heard her complain, show any negativity or put anyone down. It was very refreshing and naturally had a similar effect on me.
And she was a wonderful, caring host. Always good beer in the fridge, nice organic food; plenty of cheese and vegetables. And generous too, often picking up the bill in restaurants, including in our most expensive eatery (the Korean restaurant in Seminyak). And although Sujin will live her life in Bali and I in many other places, I’ll always keep those fond memories.
Here is a video I made of a day trip I took just outside Amed in northeast Bali. They video and audio quality are not great as I recorded it on my phone. But hopefully you can get a feel for the place and the experience.
Karol, my best mate, is also my original travel partner. Our first trip together was twelve years ago on summer break from our first year at university. We worked all summer in part-time jobs and scraped enough money together to inter-rail around five countries in Europe. We were on such a tight budget we usually took night trains to save the price of hostels and lunch was often supermarket bread and canned tuna on a park-bench. But we’ve both been seriously bitten by the travel bug (and many other types of bugs) and have continuously and often independently traveled different parts of the globe. It was great he flew all the way out to Indonesia from London to travel with me. Lots of good times, though Karol doesn’t show it on camera. And plenty more of trips together to come no doubt. Sorry future wives. Here’s a couple of random vids from my phone. The first is me and Karol on a motorcycle getting a taxi ride to our home-stay. This was hilarious. We were both so hungover and exhausted that we couldn’t think. Some guy on a motorcycle kept bugging Karol to buy trinkets. He was so exhausted that he was in fits of laughter as this serious-looking peddler tried to sell his wares. But forever the wheeler-dealer himself, Karol managed his exhaustion and negotiated seriously with him. After twenty minutes or so of this, I started walking home. Another ten minutes later and I heard a little horn beeping. Then “Mark, Mark”. I could see a motorcycle with an helmeted Indonesian rider. And from behind that body I could see a big white arm flailling about in an attempted wave to get my attention. Karol had not only got an amzing price on the hand carved whatevers he’d just bought, but also negotiated a taxi ride home for us. We all made it back in one piece, but the driver didn’t look one bit happy. Nor did the suspension on his bike when we got off.
The second vid is simply an empty beach in southern Lombok where we spent a couple of days. Pretty boring unless you’re a surfer. But we had one special experience when Karol called in a public taxi to take us to another town as all the private operators were rip-off artists. We learned the hard way why none of the local hospitality workers would call us a taxi or even give us the phone number. The whole system is run by gangsters. We had experienced this before on Lombok at the ports. Really dodgy places and even dodgier gangsters trying to scam travelers through monopolising the taxi system, lying about boat departure times and other petty, but effective methods. Here however, it nearly got bloody as the local gangsters all ganged up on the one public taxi driver we had arranged to pick us up. Luckily Karol was able to sort it all out before it got violent. And I, even more luckily, enjoyed a long shower oblivious to the whole ordeal until it was over.
And this last video is self-explanatory. A cool cafe we found while hiking the rice fields around Ubud with the German girls from out Rinjani hike.
I did two scuba dives in northeast Bali at a place called Tulamben. There is an American shipwreck there. It was an army transport ship that was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in 1942 and now lies just 40 meters from the beach about 20 meters under water. It was a spectacular dive, but unfortunately I don't have an underwater camera. However I made before and after videos. The highlight of the dives was the huge school of jackfish, about 400 in number, swimming in a bright silver spiral next to the wreck. About 15 meters high, this huge living tornado was magnificent to see. Continuously circling together like in Finding Nemo and totally unafraid of us divers. My Dutch diving buddy and I even swam down under the school, turned on to our backs and looked up through them. Amazing! Literally tons of these big fish swimming right over and around us as we gazed up at the surface 20 meters away where the sunlight refracted as it hit the water. A very memorable experience. The company I dove with was called Adventure Divers. It's run by and English-Dutch gentleman called Ian and I was very happy with their service and equipment. I've included one of their videos that show the wreck dive if you are interested. And you can see the silver jackfish I mentioned at the start of the vid.
I made a couple of videos in Bali to show the types of accommodation available and the cost. High season is July and August. I was there in September so the prices are lower then if you negotiate.
We stayed at a friendly place called Bukit Bungalows on Gili Trawangan. As we were there for several days we got pretty chatty with the young guy running the place. One day he and I were talking in the garden after the usual omelet and Lombok coffee breakfast. I had heard people in Indonesia get married quite young and asked about his situation. He got married in his early twenties. His wife was seventeen at that time. This was interesting, but not surprising. However, what he told me next was very surprising. He used to be a rice farmer in his home town. He earned 25,000 Rupiah for 8 hours work. That's less than 3 US dollars. But when he came to Gili Island and started working in tourism his earnings greatly increased. He was able to pay off his small house in just a couple of years. And, according to him, this caused one of the other farmers in his hometown to become jealous and start using voodoo on his wife. His wife, who lives alone in their hometown is now having mental problems because of this voodoo. Sometimes she just starts screaming or freaking out for no apparent reason. So every time he visits his hometown, he searches his land for voodoo related items. He told me in voodoo to make the spells stronger, the person who is cursing the other often hides a magical item close to the home of those he is attacking to increase the strength of the spell. I asked about the possibility of visiting the village elder for help because I'd heard of that being done. But he seemed reluctant to do so and said he would just keep searching his land. I'm not sure what I think about all this and I'd love to learn more about Indonesian believes, but I'm certainly flattered that he spoke to me so openly. And for the following weeks in Indonesia I experienced a lot of this openness and willingness to share personal stories with strangers from Indonesians.
Following our tough hike at Rinjani, we all fancied a bit of R&R on the beach so we caught the boat over to the Gili Islands. Getting around Lombok is an absolute hassle despite the island being so small. There's no organized public transportation between towns and always people are trying to overcharge and rip off travelers to use the private means of transport. And of course it's never on time and often involves stops or changes that were unexpected. So the idea of being on an island small enough to walk around for five days really appealed. The Gili Islands are three and we stayed on the largest, Gili Trawangan, which has nice beaches and a decent nightlife.
It was a great place to chill. The beaches are nice and there are enough people to create a good vibe, but still with a peaceful atmosphere and not too many vendors hassling. The water was beautiful and clear with mediocre snorkeling right on the main beach. We had heard big sea turtles were often visible there, but didn't spot any when we rented gear and snorkeled by ourselves. However a couple of days later we went on an organized snorkeling trip which stopped at three different sites for snorkeling. Despite major hangovers (obvious from the above video) and a shortage of sleep, we all enjoyed that. And at the second site we were lucky enough to see two huge turtles with shells as big as my torso. We even got within three feet of one of them.
Brothers forever. I think. Best friends forever.Gay. We like snorkeling. But the deep water is scary.
If you do yoga or meditate or get tortured sometimes then you'll know what a 'happy place' is. It's a place you invent in your head. It doesn't have to be real. It's just somewhere that you feel very comfortable, safe and relaxed. And of course it's usually somewhere beautiful in nature. Well for years my happy place has been behind a waterfall. I had never been to anywhere that resembled my mental happy place. I had just made it up from snippets of movies, things I'd read and my own imagination. But, unbelievably, two days into our Rinjani hike I visited somewhere even better than my happy place. When we arrived at the crater lake of the volcano I told the lads I fancied a swim. But before we had a chance to jump in, one of the porters beckoned us to follow him. About a twenty minute hike later we came across some natural,but mediocre undeveloped hot springs with a handful of other hikers sitting, looking at them or dipping their feet in. "Not here", said the porter, "walk more", and he pointed further down a slope. We followed him and as we rounded a corner we could see a beautiful, green, steaming, hot waterfall. Lovely mossy rocks lined a natural bath at the base of the little waterfall. And just a handful of other bathers serenely basked in the perfect warm water. Following two days sweaty, dusty hiking and a night's cold camping, we were in dire need of any form of bath, so this was like heaven to us. We all had big smiles as we scrambled over the slippy rocks into the liquid paradise in nothing but our underwear and layer of dirt/sweat. I'll always remember that feeling of being surrounded by warmth in a place of true beauty. After bathing a while, I spotted a little cave behind the flowing water of the waterfall. Although it seemed a little dangerous because the rocks were slippy and water blocked visibility, I decided to try to climb up and into the cave in pursuit of a real happy place. Wow! It was even better than I'd imagined. Once I got inside, I was wet and would have got cold quickly, but for the warmth of the water and rocks. It was also much more comfortable than I imagined because moss lined the rocks on which I was sitting. And because the waterfall was not too heavy or big, I could still see the view well and wasn't deafened by the roar of water. AND the view through the water was down to a deep, lush valley with not a single sign of development or even a hiking path to be seen. I wished I had a waterproof camera to capture that image. It was so much better than the happy place I'd been imagining for years. Added to the fact that this was a real place, with hardly anyone there and needing a two day tough hike to reach it, I was totally elated to be there. I wish I had taken better pictures to capture the place, but I guess I was too busy enjoying it.
Ronan and Karol in the water. Happy place is top center.
Some of the students and our friendly guide.
