Oi, Oi, Oi....(in a punk way.)
I just got inspired for my little punk prologue by one of the couchsurfing profiles I just read. We have been looking hard to find a place to crash in Shanghai while we are there for the Expo. We have just spent 3 nights couchsurfing on Lamma Island in Hong Kong and had an awesome time, so we are looking to continue our trend.
I guess I will start by wrapping up our trip to Southern Thailand. We flew in to Phuket about 17 days ago, and ended up getting an awesome couch to crash on at an american expats' place named DJ. He is a really awesome, totally high energy guy. His creative vibe is staggering, and he excels at photography, music, painting as well as talking! we had a great time crashing at his little house in the Katthu neighborhood of Phuket. The area was really local, and he lived just a couple blocks from a really nice little market with tons of great food, which was a total bonus. We chilled at his place, got some thai massages, rode around on scooters, explored southern phuket, ate tons of cheap thai food and ice coffees and just relaxed, while also talking to DJ for hours each day!
From there, we hopped a bus to the town of Krabi, where we spent a quiet night wandering around the small town, eating at its awesome night market filled with food, and just enjoying the really small town style of the place. The night market was awesome, and we had some great fried oysters mixed with scrambled eggs with bean sprouts as well as a seafood Rad Na. Rad Na is a mix of vegetables, meat or seafood or tofu, with crunchy yellow noodles all stir fried in a clear gooey gravy that is really good!.... it took us a few tries to appreciate it, but now it is one of our favorite thai dishes. We were going to chill in the very dull town of krabi and just soak up the mellow thai town vibe, but woke up and got motivated, so we decided to hop a long tail boat to Railay,
Railay is a series of beaches edged and flanked by the magnificent cliffs of Krabi. It can only be reached by boat, so it basically feels like an island. It is a mecca for rock climbers as well as rasta thai hippies, so the vibe is extra chill. There is no cars, scooters or much of anything there. The only real negative one can say is there is basically nobody that is actually from Railay... It is just a little series of hotels, restaurants and bars for tourists that want to get away. We chilled there for a couple days, hiking around the paths, checking out the cliffs, beaches, watching the rock climbers and just taking it easy. There isnt really anything to do there anyway, so i guess that qualifies our visit as "productive!"
Ok, i'm running out of town. The lamma island ferry comes once an hour, and we have 14 minutes to run over there, so i'm gonna jet.... More to come soon!
we are headed back to mainland china as of now.
next time you hear from me i will be peaking out over the "great firewall".... wish me luck
peace and love
ben
Friday, October 15, 2010
Phuket, vegetarian festival
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Southern Thailand
Singapore
The famous Merlion Statue of Singapore.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
More Bali pictures
Singapore....2 weeks ago!
Hey Blogosphere,
what's good?
Me and Jin have now made it from Singapore to Phuket, around the South end of Thailand, back to Phuket, and now are back in Hong Kong! I figured it was about time to put a little bit of effort in to the blog again, and catch up all the faithful 2 and a half (to steal a line from mitch in the morning of seattle sports radio fame) on what we've been doing.
Singapore.... what can we say.... police state, no..... over the top angry govt looking to beat people in to submission, no. soul less, materialistic, rule following, goody 2 shoes, perhaps.
We didn't see or hear about anyone being caned, or even see that many cops on the streets, but that doesn't mean that singapore is anything less than by the book.
The city is basically like a really clean version of China, or perhaps a China town(SF but flat?) Tons of "wet market" line every corner where you can go get a panda express style buffet for 3 to 10 dollars, depending on if you want 2 vegetables, 1 meat with your rice, or 2meats, one vegetable, or 4 meats, or 4 vegetables, or any other combo you can think of with your white rice.i'd talk more about the other food, but that was about the only thing we could afford to eat... The town is sooo expensive, it made me long for manhattan and a 1.75 plain slice! A pint of Ben and Jerry's ( i know, not exactly local, but still available all over for at least semi insane prices) is $14.85 singapore dollars! Ok, so its really only 11 or 12 dollars, but OMG!!! skittles, 2 dollars, coke 2 dollars(ok 1.50 US.... but its 45 cents in thailand!) Peanut butter, 7 dollars, prego 7 dollars, cereal 8 or 10 bucks! So i guess you get the point, its expensivvvvveeee! i actually saw 3(that is 1, 2, 3....yes 3!) Bentleys parked in a row, with a poor lowly ferrari behind them(i'm honestly not joking!)
Our first couple of days in the city, I was just in total shock. After having spent a month in the seemingly expensive world of Indonesia, It was a bit surreal to be exposed to US or more prices. Although after spending 2 months in Thailand, basically everything is expensive.
The city is really clean, and really nice.... We ended up spending our fisty night in the neighborhood of Geylang, which is where the cheapest hostels are within shouting distance of center city. Later on we found out from basically everyone that it is the "red light district" of Singapore. However, you would never know during the day, as it is really nice, upscale, with lots of restaurants, stores, basically everything, and i guess only gets red lightish late at night, which we never even saw... So yeah, even the ghetto of Singapore is a nice clean neighborhood.
I was surprised, there really is hardly any cops, or that many cameras watching you, or much of any security presence, but what there is, is tons and tons and tons of goody two shoes, ready to cast a scornful look or a ruffled brow if you happen to Jay Walk, stand on the wrong side of the escalator or moving sidewalk(this is a huge deal in uber efficient, fast paced S-pore.), or eat on the subway. Everyone looks like they are the thought police, ready to turn you in for any wandering moment of minor mischief. it was a little surreal.
After 7 days of eating chinese fast food, I got sick of it, and decided to go for some McD's! you have never seen a more motivated, serious group of McDonalds employees. They were running in all directions, running each other over to fill ice cream cones, efficiently doing everything, freaking out about their seconds count on each customer. I felt like I needed some kind of anti psychotic pharmaceutical after ordering my big mac meal. Just watching the employees freak out trying to move as fast as possible stressed me out!
After day one in the not so dirty dirty of Geylang, we began the first of our now fairly regular couchsurfing adventures. We stayed with a really cool and easy going guy named Dhougal, an Australian Expat, who has travelled extensively, and now lives in Singapore doing some kind of IT work. He is a really awesome guy, and knows tons about Psy-Trance techno music, has the same Canon 550D camera as me, has awesome taste in movies(and tons downloaded on his comp for us to watch on his flat screen TV!), and travels around the globe trying to make it to as many Total Solar Eclipses as possible! It was awesome hearing his stories of travelling around Russia, Europe,China, etc... and his descriptions of the 3 total solar eclipses he has witnessed! We have defintiely been inspired to head to the next total solar eclipse, South America, November 13, 2012....although we will then have to boogie to make it up to Chichen Itza for the end of the world just 5 weeks later!
Anyways, Dhougal has an awesome place, just a few subway stops from center city and basically all of Singapore, and had a really nice little bedroom for us, a comfortable living room, cable TV(OMG!!!), WiFi, a kitchen(yes!!!! we can cook!), and basically anything else you would ever want in a nice 2BR city apartment. He was a really gracious host, and gave us full reign over the Apt during the day when he went out. We took full advantage of this, and cooked breakfast and lunch every day, watched tons of his awesome foreign movies. Most notable of the movies we watched were The Castle(classic Australian comedy), In Bruges(really good!), Run Lola Run, as well as some other US classics like Repo Man, Borat, and Ace Ventura. So, we basically had a great time, and got to have some awesome late night convos about music, partying, travelling, and generally just life. It was amazing to relax in an actual home and we really enjoyed his hosting us and the company.
The rest of the time, when not watching movies, we went and just wandered around downtown, looking in the thousands of shopping malls, staring at the fancy buildings, gawking at rich people and their cars, getting hated on by the Thai embassy, and seeing the sites of the Singapore such as the Big Durian, the merlion statue, The Raffles Hotel and its Long Bar, and scoping out the scene of the Formula Street Race.
On friday, after a few days in town, we went down to pick up our F1 tickets, and see about maybe going to the practice race that night. After getting our tickets, we found a guy outside the hotel where the ticket office was, and bought 2 tickets for 30 US dollars, or roughly the price of an iced tea. The practice round was cool, and we got to see the cars drive around a little and scope out where we should hang for the actual race on sunday. By far though, the highlight of the friday practice round was seeing Missy Elliot perform at the Padang Stage for free! She came all the way from the US, and was obviously excited to play somewhere totally different from her scene. It was really cool to see her up close, in front of only a few thousand people, and although I never owned any of her CD's or really liked her much, seeing her live in Asia really was cool and made me miss the US a little. It was also by far the most american thing i'd done in months, and was kinda fun to just forget all about Asia and just see some good ol fashion US hip hop music!
Saturday, we chilled and watched the qualifying on tv, which was good, because we really got to see all the angles of the track and the great views of the cars driving through the city that are hard to see when you are standing on the sidewalk watching them blast by at 200mph. There are definitely ups and downs to seeing a street course F1 race as opposed to a normal track. In a normal track, there are viewpoints everywhere, where the stands are built all around the track with views all over. However you also have to stand significantly farther back and never get within 100m of the track. The street race is just the opposite. Almost all the standing room only seats, besides a few small super crowded platforms, are right on the sidewalk, but you are standing often times, within just 5 or 10 feet of the car, and can feel the air rush by as the pass you, and sometimes even feel the dust or dirt they kick up as they drive by! It is hard to get a good overall view of the track, as you are usually just standing on the street corner/sidewalk, and simply see them rocket by you as you rubberneck trying to catch a glimpse of them. But both experiences, street track and track track are awesome and both have their advantages.
Luckily, during our friday reconassaince mission, we accidentally snuck in to the Singapore Racquet club. It really happened by accident as their security measures included a ten foot gap in the back part of their fence we just happened to wander through. Knowing this place existed, we went there again Sunday before the race, snuck in once again, and managed to have a totally uncrowded corner seat all to ourselves, with just a couple hundred people spread over 150 meters of sidewalk. We even had a neighbor spectator with an Ipad continuously updating the race news and times for us! towards the end of the race, we snuck in to the roof party at the racquet club and watched the race from above, while watching the action on a giant projector tv!
After the race, I cheered myself up after Lewis Hamilton(my new favorite race car driver as of 6 hours before when i decided I needed to root for someone) dropped out because of gear box problems, by going and seeing Mariah Carey for free at the Padang Stage. Learning from our friday show, we went before the race and got special wristbands that let us in to the first 70 feet or so of the show, instead of the back section where nearly every one else of the 5 to 20,000 people who wathed stood. We basically stood in the 10th row for the Mariah Carey show, and got a lot of really good views of her in her current not so hot state. We completely missed her falling down, but we didnt miss her constant talking about how normal she was and how she was was so "down to earth" because she poured her own water from the bottle in to her champagne glass! needless to say, this really impressed me.... but the show was pretty good, and she did actually sing, which was a surprise, and her voice is really amazing... So it was fun to see a real legend, who is a million times more famous than phish, and someone i'd never go see in the states, for free, and standing just 20 or so feet away. It was pretty cool.
Well, that is about it for Singapore. for the .5 of you that made it through this, congratulations, you are now 2 hours older!
Jin has just posted some pics, so be sure to scroll down and check them out, and more writing to come on our last 2 weeks in Southern Thailand, from Phuket, to Krabi, Railay, Trang, Songkhla, and back to Phuket, plus more couchsurfing updates!
oh..... and my DUCKS are #2!!!!! Boo Ya!
and more importantly,
GO GIANTS!!!!
... sorry philly(i rooted for you every other time, and the Gmen havent won a WS since Brooklyn in 57!)..... its about time!!!
what's good?
Me and Jin have now made it from Singapore to Phuket, around the South end of Thailand, back to Phuket, and now are back in Hong Kong! I figured it was about time to put a little bit of effort in to the blog again, and catch up all the faithful 2 and a half (to steal a line from mitch in the morning of seattle sports radio fame) on what we've been doing.
Singapore.... what can we say.... police state, no..... over the top angry govt looking to beat people in to submission, no. soul less, materialistic, rule following, goody 2 shoes, perhaps.
We didn't see or hear about anyone being caned, or even see that many cops on the streets, but that doesn't mean that singapore is anything less than by the book.
The city is basically like a really clean version of China, or perhaps a China town(SF but flat?) Tons of "wet market" line every corner where you can go get a panda express style buffet for 3 to 10 dollars, depending on if you want 2 vegetables, 1 meat with your rice, or 2meats, one vegetable, or 4 meats, or 4 vegetables, or any other combo you can think of with your white rice.i'd talk more about the other food, but that was about the only thing we could afford to eat... The town is sooo expensive, it made me long for manhattan and a 1.75 plain slice! A pint of Ben and Jerry's ( i know, not exactly local, but still available all over for at least semi insane prices) is $14.85 singapore dollars! Ok, so its really only 11 or 12 dollars, but OMG!!! skittles, 2 dollars, coke 2 dollars(ok 1.50 US.... but its 45 cents in thailand!) Peanut butter, 7 dollars, prego 7 dollars, cereal 8 or 10 bucks! So i guess you get the point, its expensivvvvveeee! i actually saw 3(that is 1, 2, 3....yes 3!) Bentleys parked in a row, with a poor lowly ferrari behind them(i'm honestly not joking!)
Our first couple of days in the city, I was just in total shock. After having spent a month in the seemingly expensive world of Indonesia, It was a bit surreal to be exposed to US or more prices. Although after spending 2 months in Thailand, basically everything is expensive.
The city is really clean, and really nice.... We ended up spending our fisty night in the neighborhood of Geylang, which is where the cheapest hostels are within shouting distance of center city. Later on we found out from basically everyone that it is the "red light district" of Singapore. However, you would never know during the day, as it is really nice, upscale, with lots of restaurants, stores, basically everything, and i guess only gets red lightish late at night, which we never even saw... So yeah, even the ghetto of Singapore is a nice clean neighborhood.
I was surprised, there really is hardly any cops, or that many cameras watching you, or much of any security presence, but what there is, is tons and tons and tons of goody two shoes, ready to cast a scornful look or a ruffled brow if you happen to Jay Walk, stand on the wrong side of the escalator or moving sidewalk(this is a huge deal in uber efficient, fast paced S-pore.), or eat on the subway. Everyone looks like they are the thought police, ready to turn you in for any wandering moment of minor mischief. it was a little surreal.
After 7 days of eating chinese fast food, I got sick of it, and decided to go for some McD's! you have never seen a more motivated, serious group of McDonalds employees. They were running in all directions, running each other over to fill ice cream cones, efficiently doing everything, freaking out about their seconds count on each customer. I felt like I needed some kind of anti psychotic pharmaceutical after ordering my big mac meal. Just watching the employees freak out trying to move as fast as possible stressed me out!
After day one in the not so dirty dirty of Geylang, we began the first of our now fairly regular couchsurfing adventures. We stayed with a really cool and easy going guy named Dhougal, an Australian Expat, who has travelled extensively, and now lives in Singapore doing some kind of IT work. He is a really awesome guy, and knows tons about Psy-Trance techno music, has the same Canon 550D camera as me, has awesome taste in movies(and tons downloaded on his comp for us to watch on his flat screen TV!), and travels around the globe trying to make it to as many Total Solar Eclipses as possible! It was awesome hearing his stories of travelling around Russia, Europe,China, etc... and his descriptions of the 3 total solar eclipses he has witnessed! We have defintiely been inspired to head to the next total solar eclipse, South America, November 13, 2012....although we will then have to boogie to make it up to Chichen Itza for the end of the world just 5 weeks later!
Anyways, Dhougal has an awesome place, just a few subway stops from center city and basically all of Singapore, and had a really nice little bedroom for us, a comfortable living room, cable TV(OMG!!!), WiFi, a kitchen(yes!!!! we can cook!), and basically anything else you would ever want in a nice 2BR city apartment. He was a really gracious host, and gave us full reign over the Apt during the day when he went out. We took full advantage of this, and cooked breakfast and lunch every day, watched tons of his awesome foreign movies. Most notable of the movies we watched were The Castle(classic Australian comedy), In Bruges(really good!), Run Lola Run, as well as some other US classics like Repo Man, Borat, and Ace Ventura. So, we basically had a great time, and got to have some awesome late night convos about music, partying, travelling, and generally just life. It was amazing to relax in an actual home and we really enjoyed his hosting us and the company.
The rest of the time, when not watching movies, we went and just wandered around downtown, looking in the thousands of shopping malls, staring at the fancy buildings, gawking at rich people and their cars, getting hated on by the Thai embassy, and seeing the sites of the Singapore such as the Big Durian, the merlion statue, The Raffles Hotel and its Long Bar, and scoping out the scene of the Formula Street Race.
On friday, after a few days in town, we went down to pick up our F1 tickets, and see about maybe going to the practice race that night. After getting our tickets, we found a guy outside the hotel where the ticket office was, and bought 2 tickets for 30 US dollars, or roughly the price of an iced tea. The practice round was cool, and we got to see the cars drive around a little and scope out where we should hang for the actual race on sunday. By far though, the highlight of the friday practice round was seeing Missy Elliot perform at the Padang Stage for free! She came all the way from the US, and was obviously excited to play somewhere totally different from her scene. It was really cool to see her up close, in front of only a few thousand people, and although I never owned any of her CD's or really liked her much, seeing her live in Asia really was cool and made me miss the US a little. It was also by far the most american thing i'd done in months, and was kinda fun to just forget all about Asia and just see some good ol fashion US hip hop music!
Saturday, we chilled and watched the qualifying on tv, which was good, because we really got to see all the angles of the track and the great views of the cars driving through the city that are hard to see when you are standing on the sidewalk watching them blast by at 200mph. There are definitely ups and downs to seeing a street course F1 race as opposed to a normal track. In a normal track, there are viewpoints everywhere, where the stands are built all around the track with views all over. However you also have to stand significantly farther back and never get within 100m of the track. The street race is just the opposite. Almost all the standing room only seats, besides a few small super crowded platforms, are right on the sidewalk, but you are standing often times, within just 5 or 10 feet of the car, and can feel the air rush by as the pass you, and sometimes even feel the dust or dirt they kick up as they drive by! It is hard to get a good overall view of the track, as you are usually just standing on the street corner/sidewalk, and simply see them rocket by you as you rubberneck trying to catch a glimpse of them. But both experiences, street track and track track are awesome and both have their advantages.
Luckily, during our friday reconassaince mission, we accidentally snuck in to the Singapore Racquet club. It really happened by accident as their security measures included a ten foot gap in the back part of their fence we just happened to wander through. Knowing this place existed, we went there again Sunday before the race, snuck in once again, and managed to have a totally uncrowded corner seat all to ourselves, with just a couple hundred people spread over 150 meters of sidewalk. We even had a neighbor spectator with an Ipad continuously updating the race news and times for us! towards the end of the race, we snuck in to the roof party at the racquet club and watched the race from above, while watching the action on a giant projector tv!
After the race, I cheered myself up after Lewis Hamilton(my new favorite race car driver as of 6 hours before when i decided I needed to root for someone) dropped out because of gear box problems, by going and seeing Mariah Carey for free at the Padang Stage. Learning from our friday show, we went before the race and got special wristbands that let us in to the first 70 feet or so of the show, instead of the back section where nearly every one else of the 5 to 20,000 people who wathed stood. We basically stood in the 10th row for the Mariah Carey show, and got a lot of really good views of her in her current not so hot state. We completely missed her falling down, but we didnt miss her constant talking about how normal she was and how she was was so "down to earth" because she poured her own water from the bottle in to her champagne glass! needless to say, this really impressed me.... but the show was pretty good, and she did actually sing, which was a surprise, and her voice is really amazing... So it was fun to see a real legend, who is a million times more famous than phish, and someone i'd never go see in the states, for free, and standing just 20 or so feet away. It was pretty cool.
Well, that is about it for Singapore. for the .5 of you that made it through this, congratulations, you are now 2 hours older!
Jin has just posted some pics, so be sure to scroll down and check them out, and more writing to come on our last 2 weeks in Southern Thailand, from Phuket, to Krabi, Railay, Trang, Songkhla, and back to Phuket, plus more couchsurfing updates!
oh..... and my DUCKS are #2!!!!! Boo Ya!
and more importantly,
GO GIANTS!!!!
... sorry philly(i rooted for you every other time, and the Gmen havent won a WS since Brooklyn in 57!)..... its about time!!!
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
oh, bali! ....from singapore
oh bali!
land of beauty, culture and cuisine! a place that finally lived up to ALL the hype! or maybe we were just that happy to leave java! Bali was absolutely awesome. While the beaches were simply great(not the best ever), the culture, awesome food, people and inland sights more than made up for it. In fact, the inland, stepped terrace farms, temples and awesome tropical forrests were in many ways the highlight of the island. Our days on a scooter, getting lost driving around in monsoon level storms were even magical(although i couldnt have been wetter if i had jumped in a pool.) the times we drove around, stopping to admire the steep hillsides covered in rice farms, surrounded by palm trees and other foliage straight out of the jurassic period were a mind altering experience.
The real world of bali is filled with fancy hotels, infiniti pools, tons of traffic, overdone tourist temples and millions of tiny warungs(local food stall/restaurants) that all combine to make an authentic Indonesian attraction. Yes, Tanah Lot was a huge disappointment, but our scooter ride afterwards up into the highlands to see a more remote temple more than made up for it! After Tanah Lot we were tempted to just call it a trip, head back to our hotel in Ubud and relax for another day or so before heading out, but then we decided to take off in to the mountains, see some of the famed farmland, jungles and a lesser known temple(name to come.) That might have beeen the best idea we had in bali. Our drive up the hills and farther in to farmland was awesome, and then our scooter ride back down the hills was awesome for different reasons. The whole way it sprinkled rain, but on the way back the skies opened up and it began pouring!!!! within moments i was totally soaked. we pulled in to a small metal barn/garage of a farmers, but realized it could be hours before the rain stopped! So, i gave jin my raincoat, which luckily was big enough to fit over her, and the backpack, and I braved the water to get absolutely drenched! We made it back to Denpasar after a while of driving through a straight up monsoon! When we got to Denpasar, our scooter even ran out of gas! Luckily, one of the liquor bottle gas stations was right around the corner, so the ordeal only lasted at most 10 minutes! these are the classic asian gas stations, where people sell you 3/4 of a liter of gas for 25 cents more than the price of liter.... all out of a liquor bottle and supplied at random from most any streetside store more than a couple kilometers from a gas station!
Overall, Padang Bai was a relaxing and chill place to spend a 6 or 7 days(spread out over two visits,) Ubud was a nice upscale tourist spot(although a bit too upscale and touristy for me and jin), and Kuta was a great tourist laden party town, best for only one night! We had a great time in Bali, but were ultimately happy to leave.
Now, we have been in Singapore for a week. We are leaving to head back to Phuket, Thailand tonight, and have found another free place to stay on couchsurfing.org. More to come on SG soon, but it won't be near the misty eyed, magical memories that Bali left behind.
land of beauty, culture and cuisine! a place that finally lived up to ALL the hype! or maybe we were just that happy to leave java! Bali was absolutely awesome. While the beaches were simply great(not the best ever), the culture, awesome food, people and inland sights more than made up for it. In fact, the inland, stepped terrace farms, temples and awesome tropical forrests were in many ways the highlight of the island. Our days on a scooter, getting lost driving around in monsoon level storms were even magical(although i couldnt have been wetter if i had jumped in a pool.) the times we drove around, stopping to admire the steep hillsides covered in rice farms, surrounded by palm trees and other foliage straight out of the jurassic period were a mind altering experience.
The real world of bali is filled with fancy hotels, infiniti pools, tons of traffic, overdone tourist temples and millions of tiny warungs(local food stall/restaurants) that all combine to make an authentic Indonesian attraction. Yes, Tanah Lot was a huge disappointment, but our scooter ride afterwards up into the highlands to see a more remote temple more than made up for it! After Tanah Lot we were tempted to just call it a trip, head back to our hotel in Ubud and relax for another day or so before heading out, but then we decided to take off in to the mountains, see some of the famed farmland, jungles and a lesser known temple(name to come.) That might have beeen the best idea we had in bali. Our drive up the hills and farther in to farmland was awesome, and then our scooter ride back down the hills was awesome for different reasons. The whole way it sprinkled rain, but on the way back the skies opened up and it began pouring!!!! within moments i was totally soaked. we pulled in to a small metal barn/garage of a farmers, but realized it could be hours before the rain stopped! So, i gave jin my raincoat, which luckily was big enough to fit over her, and the backpack, and I braved the water to get absolutely drenched! We made it back to Denpasar after a while of driving through a straight up monsoon! When we got to Denpasar, our scooter even ran out of gas! Luckily, one of the liquor bottle gas stations was right around the corner, so the ordeal only lasted at most 10 minutes! these are the classic asian gas stations, where people sell you 3/4 of a liter of gas for 25 cents more than the price of liter.... all out of a liquor bottle and supplied at random from most any streetside store more than a couple kilometers from a gas station!
Overall, Padang Bai was a relaxing and chill place to spend a 6 or 7 days(spread out over two visits,) Ubud was a nice upscale tourist spot(although a bit too upscale and touristy for me and jin), and Kuta was a great tourist laden party town, best for only one night! We had a great time in Bali, but were ultimately happy to leave.
Now, we have been in Singapore for a week. We are leaving to head back to Phuket, Thailand tonight, and have found another free place to stay on couchsurfing.org. More to come on SG soon, but it won't be near the misty eyed, magical memories that Bali left behind.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Bali
Even being a famous tourist destination, Balinese are still keeping their way of life, have really beautiful rice terraces.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Bali to Lombok to Gili and Back
hi mom!
hows it going? sorry for being out of touch, we have been busy relaxing, while also trying to see and do lots of things. plus jin was sick for a few days so we didnt do a whole lot(she is fine now.) about a week ago, we went to Lombok. We took a shared minivan(bus, called bemo) to a town on the beach called Sengigi. It was really pretty, but not a whole lot to see or do. Lombok is really pretty, but its culture is sorely lacking compared to bali, and it is filled with thousands of absolute asshole punk kids who are about as rude and obnoxious as any idiots in the world. We rented a scooter one day and drove around to a bunch of really pretty secluded beaches and saw a bunch of tiny towns and indigenous villages that barely any tourists make it to. travel on lombok is very very difficult without your own transport as most bemos only go between towns about 15 or 20 miles apart, so if you want to go somewhere far, you have to pay for a hired car, which is very expensive(30 plus bucks a day) or argue with bemo drivers every half an hour as they try to charge you 10x more than the local price, 5 dollars each instead of 50 cents. we enjoyed our time on lombok, but were happy to leave. after that, we hopped a boat to gili trawangan, a tiny island off the west side of lombok. it only has about 2k people and no cars, roads or anything besides bars, restaurants, tourist stuff, and hotels..... its really nice and is supposed to be the next big thing in indonesia. the fast boat back to bali from there is like 35 dollars a person, so we hopped the slow ferry back to lombok for 1 dollar each, then argued with some more bemo drivers to get us to mataram, then lembar(?) where the ferry leaves back to bali, which is 4 hours and 3 dollars. on the ferry more punk kids harassed us telling us that the seats were for VIPs and we had to pay 2 dollars to sit there. after arguing with them, asking for ID, asking for a VIP ticket, none of which they had, i told them to go get the police, and obviously they never came back! woo hoo, very minor victory. By this time, jin was kinda sick, so when we got back to bali and padang bai, we chilled for the night, then the whole next day. Yesterday, Jin was feeling better, so we took another bemo to Ubud, the cultural capital of bali. we relaxed all last night, mostly cause it was raining. today we decided to be lazy, and rented a scooter for 4 dollars to drive around to all the museums and stuff in town. We went to the house of Antonio Blanco(the blanco renaissance museum), and the museum puri lukisan(fine arts museum), where we saw tons of awesome balinese art from the "young artist" collective that came after WWII. today, we also went to the Monkey forest sanctuary, which holds a couple of moss covered hindu temples surrounded by a jungle like forrest, complete with rivers, springs, and of course, tons of monkeys. Tomorrow, we are planning on takin the scooter to Tanah Lot, one of the most famous temples in bali, and maybe seeing another temple or just exploring some small towns before we come back to Ubud for the night.
hows it going? sorry for being out of touch, we have been busy relaxing, while also trying to see and do lots of things. plus jin was sick for a few days so we didnt do a whole lot(she is fine now.) about a week ago, we went to Lombok. We took a shared minivan(bus, called bemo) to a town on the beach called Sengigi. It was really pretty, but not a whole lot to see or do. Lombok is really pretty, but its culture is sorely lacking compared to bali, and it is filled with thousands of absolute asshole punk kids who are about as rude and obnoxious as any idiots in the world. We rented a scooter one day and drove around to a bunch of really pretty secluded beaches and saw a bunch of tiny towns and indigenous villages that barely any tourists make it to. travel on lombok is very very difficult without your own transport as most bemos only go between towns about 15 or 20 miles apart, so if you want to go somewhere far, you have to pay for a hired car, which is very expensive(30 plus bucks a day) or argue with bemo drivers every half an hour as they try to charge you 10x more than the local price, 5 dollars each instead of 50 cents. we enjoyed our time on lombok, but were happy to leave. after that, we hopped a boat to gili trawangan, a tiny island off the west side of lombok. it only has about 2k people and no cars, roads or anything besides bars, restaurants, tourist stuff, and hotels..... its really nice and is supposed to be the next big thing in indonesia. the fast boat back to bali from there is like 35 dollars a person, so we hopped the slow ferry back to lombok for 1 dollar each, then argued with some more bemo drivers to get us to mataram, then lembar(?) where the ferry leaves back to bali, which is 4 hours and 3 dollars. on the ferry more punk kids harassed us telling us that the seats were for VIPs and we had to pay 2 dollars to sit there. after arguing with them, asking for ID, asking for a VIP ticket, none of which they had, i told them to go get the police, and obviously they never came back! woo hoo, very minor victory. By this time, jin was kinda sick, so when we got back to bali and padang bai, we chilled for the night, then the whole next day. Yesterday, Jin was feeling better, so we took another bemo to Ubud, the cultural capital of bali. we relaxed all last night, mostly cause it was raining. today we decided to be lazy, and rented a scooter for 4 dollars to drive around to all the museums and stuff in town. We went to the house of Antonio Blanco(the blanco renaissance museum), and the museum puri lukisan(fine arts museum), where we saw tons of awesome balinese art from the "young artist" collective that came after WWII. today, we also went to the Monkey forest sanctuary, which holds a couple of moss covered hindu temples surrounded by a jungle like forrest, complete with rivers, springs, and of course, tons of monkeys. Tomorrow, we are planning on takin the scooter to Tanah Lot, one of the most famous temples in bali, and maybe seeing another temple or just exploring some small towns before we come back to Ubud for the night.
Friday, September 10, 2010
past Bali, into Lombok, and on to Gili Trawangan
Hey out there
sorry for the relative lack of posts. Me and Jin have been stuck in the world of expensive internet on Bali and now Lombok. Thus we have been busy relaxing, chilling, and soaking it all in... plus frantically searching couchsurfing.com for a free place to stay in singapore!!! we spent 5 nights in Bali, one by the Denpasar bus station(after we arrived at 11pm), and 4 more in paradise on the beach of Padang Bai. Padang Bai is an awesomely chill little backpacker town where the ferry to the next island east, Lombok, leaves from. We relaxed there for a few days in a beautiful little bungalow about 30m from the beach. The food there was great, the water nice, and the people cool. Best of all, the past few days are some of the holiest days of the year for the Hindhu people of Bali, so we got to hang out at their temple and watch the elaborate dances, and drumming at their ceremony.
The ceremony was awesome. A bunch of people played drums and the Gamelan, a big collection of drum like cymbals set up on a table like holder. Then, they had a sort of sunday or hebrew school like recital of little girls dancing in elaborate Balinese costumes. It was about the cutest thing ever, and it was so cool that we got to enter the temple grounds and watch! after the girls danced, we got to watch a sort of play like performance with giant dragon like things dancing around(2 guys in a giant costume playing the front and back legs.) and other performances too. It was super cool, and really underlined why people like Bali so much. Other than that, we didnt do too much in Bali, just ate some awesome cheap grilled and curried fish, and relaxed and read. 2 days ago, we hopped the ferry to Lumbok, and have been chilling in the beach town of Sengigi since then. It is pretty nice here, but we are really excited to get to Gili Trawangan, a tiny island, just a mile or so wide, with no cars, roads, or COPS!!! woo hoo! we are hopping a ferry tomorrow morning there!
anyways, we are taking off for the night... more updates to come!
ben and jin
sorry for the relative lack of posts. Me and Jin have been stuck in the world of expensive internet on Bali and now Lombok. Thus we have been busy relaxing, chilling, and soaking it all in... plus frantically searching couchsurfing.com for a free place to stay in singapore!!! we spent 5 nights in Bali, one by the Denpasar bus station(after we arrived at 11pm), and 4 more in paradise on the beach of Padang Bai. Padang Bai is an awesomely chill little backpacker town where the ferry to the next island east, Lombok, leaves from. We relaxed there for a few days in a beautiful little bungalow about 30m from the beach. The food there was great, the water nice, and the people cool. Best of all, the past few days are some of the holiest days of the year for the Hindhu people of Bali, so we got to hang out at their temple and watch the elaborate dances, and drumming at their ceremony.
The ceremony was awesome. A bunch of people played drums and the Gamelan, a big collection of drum like cymbals set up on a table like holder. Then, they had a sort of sunday or hebrew school like recital of little girls dancing in elaborate Balinese costumes. It was about the cutest thing ever, and it was so cool that we got to enter the temple grounds and watch! after the girls danced, we got to watch a sort of play like performance with giant dragon like things dancing around(2 guys in a giant costume playing the front and back legs.) and other performances too. It was super cool, and really underlined why people like Bali so much. Other than that, we didnt do too much in Bali, just ate some awesome cheap grilled and curried fish, and relaxed and read. 2 days ago, we hopped the ferry to Lumbok, and have been chilling in the beach town of Sengigi since then. It is pretty nice here, but we are really excited to get to Gili Trawangan, a tiny island, just a mile or so wide, with no cars, roads, or COPS!!! woo hoo! we are hopping a ferry tomorrow morning there!
anyways, we are taking off for the night... more updates to come!
ben and jin
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