The 5000 Project

After the whole airport shenanigans, woke up in a hotel in kuta.

Kuta is soooo identical to patong in thailand that it was a little too freaky. Constant flow of hawkers flood the streets high, between the streets are expensive hotel sanctuaries for the _mostly_ perth tourists, every hotel has enough facilities to bunker in and survive the long haul of whatever dirtyness and pollution is occurring outside of the fine thick walls. From the hotel-tourist perspective it could well be like surviving a zombie hoard, while in a fortified bunker of total luxury at a much cheaper rate than home – a sacrifice they’re willing to take for the good of global exploitation.

I left kuta after walking around with the germans I befriended – the beach had rubbish and the constant ‘you buy’ brought back memories of my previous travels, and it occurred to me that there may be quite a lot of this kind of thing for most of my trip. From this point I thought that maybe i should keep most of my journey staying with couchsurfers if possible, fffaaarrr away from any kind of tourist location; my thoughts at the moment are undecided, see what happens.

I fled kuta and headed to an address written in pencil which a flatmate in perth gave me on the day I moved out of the house. He stayed there for a month but has been there multiple times in the past.
– I arrived at the address and walked down a long driveway/laneway until I met a family outside a large collection of rooms in a joined building. I mentioned that the name of my flatmate and their eyes immediately lit up. The father of the house invited me to drink coffee with him and smoke some local cigarettes (gudang gurans) coffee was served and we talked about many subjects including religion and philosophy, he mentioned a saying that he goes by “Friend of my Friend is my Friend” – which needless to say explained the hospitality. He offered free accommodation, I refused and paid the standard rate (which was still very cheap, 100,000 rupee; $10). That night he took me out to dinner at a local market, not a single tourist in sight I ate what can only be explained as every part of a pig (in small sections) on a plate. pork with pork blood and coconut, pork crackles on the side, dried pork blood, pork fat. We had murtabak (two folded pancakes with vegetables and mince) on the way home. A most excellent change from the chaos of kuta, I thank him often for his generous hospitality.
The room was simple and local, manual flush toilet and shower that didnt work (they fixed it today though, got home to a freshly plastered large patch in the wall covering a hole) I loved it :)

The next morning the germans managed to get a taxi for a day which cost 400,000 ($40 shared between 3) they rocked up at my address and away we went on a magical tourist adventure, which included:
– picturesque views of a volcano
– awesome ancient temple, which in my opinion is on par with angkor wat
– large waterfall
– the usual local customary trades, which revolve around tourists buying stuff (wood carvings, paintings, bamboo, gold and silver crafting)
– traditional dance which involves men chanting in tune sitting down and moving their arms about in the air (it is a lot better than what it reads, if anyone has seen the movie ‘baraka’ they will know all about it)

Bali is eating a bit of my dosh, so might head to malang tomorrow, yogjakarta is a bit too far for one trip. That is if I get a bus tomorrow :P

*** EDIT ***
For the record:
– The temple was Tirta Empul, the locals go there to cleanse in the holy springs, which is similar to confessions to nullify sin :P
– The traditional dance is called ‘Kecak’. youtube it.
– Something I missed out in the original blog post is a visit to a traditional coffee house in the highlands, they use coffee beans that have been digested from a luwak (similar to a possum), the stomach acids add to the flavour of the coffee. Yes, they clean the poop off and dry it out – apparently it’s an upper class delicacy around the world, as only some luwaks decide they want to eat the beans, plus the luwaks themselves are rare. I had a sip, tasted like coffee :P