Tag: bali

• Day 29 – Last Day In Bali

  Today started with another terrific breakfast at the Kawi resort in Ubud. After getting all or stuff organized, Brian and I loaded up our scooters and went to go check out the Ceking rice terraces. It was a cool little hike, and we got to see a Kivet. Which if you didn’t now is the little forest ferret cat thing that eats the coffee beans and shits them out. Which creates an incredibly expensive coffee called Luwak.

  

  

  From the rice terraces we drove the rest of the way to Ubud, and returned our scooters. I had a bit of an unfortunate incident with a bungie cord, when I was untying my bag from my scooter. I had mistakenly let go of it, and it came around the bag at about 200kph and hit me square in the face. God I felt like such an idiot, and the Balinese guy from the scooter place wouldn’t give me any room to breathe standing and staring at me like I was made of glass.

  

  

  Leaving that embarrassment we called a Gojek and headed the 2 hours from Ubud to Seminyek, to me Brian’s friend Bryan. Who has lived in Bali for several years. After checking out his incredible apartment, we went to a beach club called Mana for a bite to eat. I had a pulled beef sandwich on fresh focaccia, with the best damn fries I’ve had in my memory. Two times now in Bali I’ve had French fries that were just unreal.

  

  

  I said goodbye to Brian and Bryan after we ate and grabbed a car to take me to my airport hotel. When I arrived, I was a little disappointed with the shabbiness of the front of the hotel, as it did not look like the photos. After checking in, my disappointment deepened as I was led to a room with no windows, a faucet that never stopped running in the sink, a stink of mildew, and absolutely filthy bedding. Now never in my solo travels have I actually walked on a room, so I went to the front and asked for another room. This one had windows, but is about all it had going for it. There was the same mildew smell, the bedding was filthy and stained, and the walls were covered in dirty fingerprints. It was the most disgusting hotel I’ve ever stepped in. With my bags still on my shoulders I got online and found a room at the Hilton down the street. Now when I say I ran out of there I mean it. I kind of tossed my key card on the desk as I left, saying I couldn’t stay there.

  

  It was was so F*#king gross. Anyways I was able to get a room at the Hilton for next to nothing thanks to Agoda. And after a decent meal of lamb Nasi Goreng with lamb chops and some fresh fruit, I quickly was able to push the shitty hotel from my mind. It was a pretty weird energy day for me, after being solo for a month, I found spending every minute with a friend for a few days kind of taxing. I napped pretty hard in the Gojek and have felt sorta out of wack all day. It may have been the fact I had ice cream with my breakfast, but I doubt it.

  Till Tomorrow

  February 8, 2025

  asia, bali, indonesia, travel, ubud

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• Day 27 – Monkeys & Waterfalls

  Today was a good day, we started the day with a nice workout in the room, followed by a lovely 3 course breakfast of fresh pastries, Fruit with yogurt and a Croque Monsieur. This $60 a night resort is pretty friggin awesome.

  

  

  

  After breakfast we taxied into town and rented some scooters, Ubud is a crazy part of Bali. Its so busy. When we had our scooters we set off for our chat gpt planned Itinerary of natures walks, wildlife, temples and waterfalls. Brian loves to use AI for planning and it truly was a pretty damn good aid.

  

  First stop was a ridge walk, that was a nice little walk through a beautiful part of Ubud. From there we drove to the Monkey Sanctuary and did the several kilometer loop through the grounds, there is several temples and some amazing sights. Apparently there is close to 10,000 monkeys that call the sanctuary home. It was built many hundreds of years ago. It was a really cool experience.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  We then visited a local climbing gym to book a sick volcano climbing tour for tomorrow. By this time the sun had been high in the sky for a few hours and we were feeling it, we chose a random Warung on maps and headed for some food, cold drinks, and some well deserved shade. Now warung Adji, ended up being such an incredible spot. It was a classic SEA shithole, but the food was absolutely positively excellent. Both me and Brian ordered the crispy duck and volcano fried rice. Now we were not expecting to be served half a deep-fried duck each, although both of us ate it all. it was so good. And the Volcano fried rice served in an omelet was equally incredible.

  

  As we left lunch, the skies decided to cry on the island. It pissed rain for a good 20 minutes. We were not phased at all as it cut the temperature and humidity by a fair chunk. We then visited a cave temple called Goa Jojh, where we got yelled at louder than I ever had before by some ladies trying to sell their tourist wares to us. So loud and incessantly I had to yell back at them to stop yelling. It was jarring. The temple was super cool and had this amazing green space behind it with a beautiful little creek running through some ancient ruins. It was breath taking. After another crazy downpour me and Brian walked out of the temple back to our bikes, to find our helmets missing. Now this is probably one of the ballsiest, cleverest tourist traps I’ve ever fallen in. Those yelling ladies, they took our helmets into their shops “to keep them dry”. Now both me and Brian felt obligated to at least have a look in the shops, Those clever clever girls. We ended up spending a couple dollars each, and they sold us hard. you have to respect the hustle, when they do shit like that.

  

  

  

  

  From there we drove 20 to Tegenungan waterfall. What a cool place that was, the whole area was about 5 degrees cooler than the city. And it was just an epic spot for a dip.

  

  

  

  

  From the waterfall we headed back to our bougie couples retreat to lounge in the pool and have some cocktails, well mocktails for me, cocktails for Brian. They were incredibly good. Funny enough, as soon as I placed our drink order and walked to the pool, it started pissing rain again. Now there is something very satisfying about being warm in a rain storm, in a pool sipping a drink. It was wicked.

  

  When we were fully pruned we got back to the room and ordered room service, I had crispy duck again and Brian had beef rendang. Both were delicious. Brian never having had ordered room service before in his life got all kinds of excited and ordered dessert as well, we got Balinese crepes and fried bananas with ice cream.

  

  All in all it was a great day, Its super fun hanging out with a close friend from home. I’m exhausted and writing this quickly so I can get in bed and rest up for climbing tomorrow, so I apologize if my grammar is terrible.

  Till tomorrow.

  February 6, 2025

  bali, indonesia, travel

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• Day 25 – The Most Expensive Fish Soup

  Today started very early. I woke at 5am to get ready for my 6am pickup. Promptly at 5:29am, my driver called to say he was here waiting for me. Well there went my 30 minutes of stretch and wakeup. I hurriedly got ready and met my driver. Now all over SE Asia I’ve noticed many subtle ways people just think fundamentally different here. As I approached the low rider minivan that was my ride, I noticed it was parked unusually close to another vehicle in front of it on a steep down slope. I met my driver and he stopped me from getting in. He says ” I just need you to go in front of the van and stop it from rolling forward and hitting the other car”, No shit he just asked me to put myself in a completely life threatening position at 5:45am. Thankfully there was a hotel staffer there who also jumped in and with the two of us (not between the two vehicles like originally suggested) we pushed the van to stop it from hitting the other car. Of course the 2 ton minivan rolled forward but only very lightly tapped the other car. No damage. What a start to a day.

  

  So after that I got in the van, and we streaked off up the dark street. To cross the lower peninsula of Bali, to the town of Nusadua. Nusadua is where all the boats launch from in this area. Today I was going deep sea fishing on a private chartered boat. Now all my friends and family know, that last year I had planned a chartered boat fishing trip out of Phuket, Thailand and it was cancelled on the day of. Coming here to Bali, fishing definitely was not on my mind. But luckily yesterday morning I saw a sign for fishing charters. With a couple hours of research and a few WhatsApp conversations, I had a boat a captain and a fishing guide. Wahooo!

  

  After the 35 minute ride through Bali, we arrived at the boat launch and I paid the small fortune of 9.5 million Rupiah ($850 cad) for the charter. It was incredibly beautiful sailing out of the Nusadua harbor. My guide was telling me that we should have calm seas all day. Good for fishing.

  

  What a crock of shit that was. About ten minutes out of the harbor, the 10m fishing boat was being thrashed around in 2 meter chop. I was assured this was only due to the location we were currently sailing through. Another crock of shit. We motored for about 40 minutes to our first location. Still in 1-2 meter swells with a bunch of chop. We difficulty fished for about 20 minutes, and one of the guides landed a small barracuda. The entire morning went like this, motor for 30 minutes, fish for 20, etc. I’m not going to lie, I was really starting to wish I didn’t go on this boat. 1 to 2 meter seas are not that big of a deal, but when the water is also very turbulent and choppy, it makes for an incredibly unpleasant ride. My stomach was tested for sure.

  Around 11am the ocean finally calmed with some nice rollie 1 meter swells and the chop dissipated. Now I have fished my whole life back home, in rivers. Not in boats. What a different animal it is, I felt like it was my first day at school. The river bank never tried to buck me off of it before. For the first several hours I struggled to produce anything, let alone stand.

  

  As the sea calmed my confidence grew, we switched from jigging to bottom bouncing. A technique I am very well experienced with. Through the next several hours I managed to catch 3 small red snappers, and with the help of my guide. I brought up a nice red grouper. The hours rolled by like the swells, and after a few gummy sharks, and several re applications of sunscreen. I was spent.

  

  We headed back to the boat launch and the office of the boat company, where my guide and another staff member prepared all the fish we caught into a sumptuous little fresh fish feast. I was served an Balinese Grouper soup, with a side of fried snapper. It was delicious and I’m glad it was, because that’s the most expensive fish I’ve ever eaten.

  

  All in all it was a super cool experience. At this point in the day, I realized that even though I had applied several coats of sunscreen. It was no match for several hours of direct sunlight, as all over my body little patches of sunburn started to appear In the most inconvenient places. My forehead, the tops of my knees, my hands, the backs of my knees. Well whoops. By the time I got back to my hotel, sun stroke was for sure, starting to set in and I was very excited for the cool reprieve of my AC’d hotel room. Normally I would never hide in my hotel to avoid the sun, but today was a necessary exception.

  

  After several hours of reading in the beautiful temperate AC, i finally felt cool enough to go back into the world and find some dinner. Google brought me to a place called Warung D’Bucho, which was a Balinese BBQ joint. Now in Asia, finding high protein meals for less than your whole wallet can be a challenge, as meat is expensive. So a BBQ spot that was only $10.95 cad for fall off the bone chicken and ribs with rice and veggies, was truly welcome. It was banger too, they served a homemade shallot sambal for dipping. It was excellent.

  

  Now even though I am Totally dehydrated, Sunburnt, Heat stroked, And my computer keeps swaying likes its made of water. Or maybe its me that’s swaying, I’m not sure. Today was such a great day.

  Till Tomorrow.

  

  P.s I have met my fair share of restaurant cats in SEA, But none of them have been like this cat. She belonged to the owners, and was very clean or I wouldn’t’ve picked her up. She cuddled with me for 20 minutes on my lap while I waited for my meal, and then sat beside my chair the whole way through my meal. Such a sweetheart.

  February 4, 2025

  bali, cruising, fishing, general, travel, writing

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• Day 24 – The Art Of Doing Nothing

  Today unlike the last few days, I woke feeling pretty allright. Which was a relief, as the last few days have been pretty rough.

  

  As I have done very little exploring since landing in Bali, I decided to go check out Uluwatu Temple first thing, before the sun got too high. Normally I just self tour as tour guides can be kind of shit and annoying, But today I was approached by an elder guide and I agreed to pay his ludacris guide price of 150k rupiah. His name was Wayan, which if you didn’t know is one of 4 names of every Balinese person. They stand for 1 through 4, Wayan is 4th born. Because of this most Balinese have nicknames.

  

  Wayan gave me a great tour, and I enjoyed the time spent with him. Especially when he pulled out his slingshot to ward off the thieving monkeys at the temple that prey on tourists. That was cool. His company was worth the fee. I truly do love the Balinese locals. They are a great people.

  

  After my tour I headed to Ketut Massage, Ketut being another of the 4 names. I believe it is 1st or 2nd. To get my ears candled, I know that sounds weird but I’ve been having some weird hearing issues in my left ear and thought it would help. Well sure as shit, now I can hear good out of both ears again. I wanted to go do a paragliding adventure today, but after consoling my partner. Decided it was not worth it. I mean seriously $110 cad for a 15 min flight is an absolute ripoff.

  

  I decided to grab a bite at a spot called GT warung, and had yet another completely different Nasi Goreng. Which was toatlly delicious.

  

  From lunch I decided to grab my climbing shoes and hit a bouldering gym, for a workout. It was a great little gym. I was the only customer there, so I got to hang out with the 2 bored to tears staffers who showed me a bunch of the routes. It was a great hour session.

  

  When I sufficiently tired myself out on the wall, I headed to the beach. Nyang Nyang beach was truly a spectacle, with an expanse of rocky coast and beautiful waves smashing the beach. I was there at high tide so there wasn’t much beach, but there was free lounge chairs. I settled myself in, and read the afternoon away. It was glorious, this is the only time this whole trip I just purposely did nothing.

  

  On the way back to my hotel, I stopped at a restaurant call Warung Aunty. Where I had a traditional Indonesian dish called Rendang. Which was a sorta curried sorta not spicy beef dish served with rice and a side of the tastiest garlicy vegetables I’ve had in forever. This was truly a runner for best meal of the trip. Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm, I could eat 3 portions of it.

  

  To finish off my night I read some of my book and did a little preparation for tomorrow. Its gonna be a big day, that’s all ill say.

  

  Till tomorrow

  P.s as I finished writing this, I looked out my window to see a massive streak of lighting cross the horizon. I guess there is going to be a storm tonight. I think i saw 15 flashes in about 2 minutes so its a doozy.

  February 3, 2025

  asia, bali, indonesia, travel, ubud

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• Day 22 & 23 – Write Offs

  When you travel, especially when you are hopping from country to country, There are expected days that you write off. Big travel days, etc. Then there are the days you don’t expect to write off.

  

  I didn’t write yesterday because I was exhausted and annoyed with how my journey from Cambodia to Bali ended up. Plus I’m dealing with some kind of jungle flu and a gastric issue all at once.

  

  Yesterday was supposed to be my first full day here, AirAsia certainly made a mess of that. On my last post I wrote about how one delayed flight made me miss a connection, and I had to stay in Malaysia. Well my new flight was yesterday morning at 9:15 am. We boarded on time, taxied on time, and then we sat on the tarmac at the runway for 2 hours with no information given to us. After the two hours it was announced we had to return to the gate to refuel. Which seemed weird to me, but whatever. As soon as we were back at the gate, airport security rushed onboard and quietly removed two passengers that were seated near me. When I say quiet I mean completely silently. There was nothing spoken between the passengers, security, or flight crew that I could hear. I was only 10 feet away. It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen on a flight. We waited another 30 minutes at the gate, the passengers did not return. Finally we did refuel then waited another 30 minutes on the tarmac. in total 3.5 hours of standby. Making a 3 hour flight a 6.5 hour flight.

  

  Well there goes the day. I ended up getting to my hotel at 6pm last night. Even though I was feeling less than 100, I quickly ran a few new country errands. From there I grabbed a burger. Since I had very little time to figure out the exchange rate I paid for my meal, without paying much attention to the price of what I ordered. When I sat down, I did the conversion and realized I just paid $28 Cad for a burger and fries. Now that’s more than id normally pay back home, and coming from Thailand and Cambodia, that’s 3 or more meals worth of money. I was a little shocked. Then I made the realization of where this particular joint was located and the businesses surrounding it, I was in tourist central. With all that being said it ended up being a stellar burger with incredible fries and a nice thick flavorful milkshake. So I left happy, Asian food has not looked particularly appetizing the last few days, after this gastro issue set in.

  

  That was pretty much the end of my night last night. Not feeling well enough to continue to explore the windy, busy, dangerous roads of Bingin, Uluwatu. I settled in my bed and read more of the second harry potter book. I read the whole first book, while transiting from Cambodia to Bali. Let that be a marker for how long it took.

  

  Thankfully I was able to get a really good sleep last night, thanks to some sleep meds and some Neo Citron. Pro tip, travel with Neo Citron. Its an absolute life saver when you need it.

  

  This morning I awoke feeling pretty darn good, which came to a surprise as I expected to be much more sick than I felt. I stretched for 2 hours and then puttered off to town to get a massage, go see the beach and grab some food. The massage was excellent, the beach was pretty crazy with big waves, and my lunch of Nasi Goreng was decent. Then near the end of my meal, it hit me. Like somebody hooked up an air compressor to my nostrils and filled my head to bursting. Thankfully I was only a short drive from my hotel because the dizziness was not far behind the congestion. I hate being sick on vacation. Even as I am writing this I can barely focus. I’m sitting in my hotel with the blinds shut as the sunlight is making my head split. Total complete write off. Tomorrow will be better. I hope.

  

  Since reading Marcus Aurelius’ book, I have been practicing a type of stoicism. It has helped me curate a particular mindset that I am applying to everything in my life, and how I process the world around me. I used to get so internally upset about some things and in turn ruin my time doing that thing. Staying calm when things go astray, not victimizing myself internally when it feels like the world is blatantly out to get me or ruin my day. I must say it has helped me be a much happier human. Even when I cant be more than 15 minutes from a toilet and my head feels like its gonna pop. Especially finding a silver lining in an otherwise dreadful or incredibly inconvenient situation.

  For example, I now have the time to write down the shit show of the last two days. If i wasn’t feeling so dreadful I probably wouldn’t’ve even bothered. Ill take that as a victory.

  

  

  So apparently I could not sit cooped up in my room all day regardless of how sick I felt, after I wrote up to this point I decided I was going to Padang Padang beach. I heard tell of some cool bouldering routes there, and since I have never bouldered on actual boulders before I was pretty pumped to giver er a go. Remember me saying how sick I was, no matter my drive to do something I truly had no strength to boulder. I did 2 attempts on a route and called it quits and went for a swim.

  

  

  Somehow today, even though I was in my room for 90 percent of the day. Managed to get a brutal sunburn on my shoulders. Yay for me. After the beach I went to a restaurant called Menza, The food was expensive. But neither dish I had was that great.

  

  Big ole side bar. Did you know that Nasi Goreng, literally means fried rice? My family has been eating Nasi Goreng since the dawn of my time. Now I’ve had it 3 times here and it has been completely different every time, whilst being nothing like what I grew up on.

  I guess today was a half write off.

  Till tomorrow

  February 2, 2025

  asia, bali, bouldering, food, indonesia, travel

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