May 31, 2001 - Thursday - Ubud, Bali
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| Rice paddy with misty rain - Ubud - Bali, Indonesia |
I'm sitting at a marbled and tiled balcony right now, over looking lush green vines, trees, and palms. More than half of the plants I see are blooming profusely with a rainbow color of red, yellow, blue, pink, and orange. Rain thudded quietly on the thatched roofs with an occasional rumble of thunder.
There were songbirds calling out before, but they hushed to listen to the chorus of raindrops. A few temples sat in the distant - shrouded in smoke and floating on top of an emerald pool of rice paddies. The visual senses are just so vastly different and provided a welcome change to the westernized world of Australia.
It's touristy here too but not as bad as the main town of Ubud and definitely not as bad as Kuta where I just came from a few hours ago. The twisty streets with chaotic traffic patterns, small food stalls and various shops lining the road selling different goods, polluted roadside and creeks, and stray animals all reminded me of Taiwan. Instead of expecting some sort of culture shock before I got here, I now feel quite at home.
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| Marc trying to bargain with a guy selling paintings - Ubud - Bali, Indonesia |
We arrived late last night - and I met up with an English bloke named Marc at the airport. We figured that it's better to try to stick together as one and see what we could find for the night and we ended up sharing a room for about US$4.70 each. I know that it's a bit high compared to what other travelers have told us, we needed a room at 2AM in the morning anyway and it's only a place to sleep.
The taxi driver offered girls to us for blowjobs for only US$0.75. What a bargain.
Mark is a cobbler from England - a person who makes leather shoes by hand. He's taking a long break from it as I am, and is trying to see the world. He's probably seen more of North America than I have. We parted company the next day because he was waiting for another Brit friend of his arriving from Darwin and I was meeting Jason.
On the way to Ubud, the chaotic streets made me cringe a few times, but it's no different than the streets of Taiwan where chaos rules the roadway. After arriving in Ubud, I went to a café and after chowing down about half of a fried rice dish and fresh papaya juice for about US$2.40, Jason showed up and sat down. It was nice to see a familiar face in a foreign land.
It's been more than 2 years and Jason started to get a little graying in the hair and a little plumper. We chatted for a while and he showed me what things I can do in Bali before he drove me around town to look for a place. He talked to the locals and finally found a nice bungalow apartment for me. It's far more clean and spacious than the one last night and for a little less than the price I paid on my share.
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| Temples and paddies in the country side - Ubud - Bali, Indonesia |
The rain eventually let up and I ventured out into the countryside and then back onto the main road and headed into town. There was a dirt road leading into the fields so I decided to follow it and walked along a stretch of rice paddies that ended up at a large, seemingly abandoned temple.
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| Gorge right in town - Ubud - Bali, Indonesia |
There was a deep gorge with a bridge spanning it and I managed to find a way down there to the water. No signs of life in the water except for a few snails and eventually, a few men came down and started washing their cloths and bathing in the water. I headed back up again and headed into town on a road, which was lined with merchants, store after store of sarongs, woodcrafts and other handicrafts.
Guys standing by their cars chanting "taxi? taxi?" repeatedly at passing expats. I did go into a shop and by the way the shop keeper looked at me, she probably thought I was a Japanese tourist. She tried to sell a sarong for US$10. I started to leave by she begged me to look at her other wares and tried to sell me some more sarong for about US$7. I eventually made an offer of US$2.50 for a sarong, which is still a very high offer. After standing firm on the offer and tried to walk out of the shop several times, she caved in and agreed to my price. I walked down monkey forest road and had a small dinner there of fresh juices and Indonesian fried rice for US$1.
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