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

Righto, well, before I blog post about bali; I’ll start with the comedy of errors that I made to start the trip – ignoring advice isn’t advisable, but it does make for interesting happenings and amusing read :P (this is just a smooth cover for my inability to admit stupidity)

Advice #1
From: My brother
Advice: “oh nic, just letting you know that you need to get a return ticket for indonesia or proof of exit in order to enter the country”
My thoughts: (naahh, that doesnt sound right, every country in south east asia doesnt have a silly rule like that)

Consequence:
I arrive to check-in at perth international airport, the guy at the check-in desk declines my ticket due to no return ticket in itinerary. I go on the net to somehow find a way to purchase a ferry ticket to singapore from indonesia online using credit card, obviously no luck there. Admit defeat and purchase a return ticket to aust, departing in 1 months time :( plan now is to lapse the ticket and catch the ferry before the 30day travel visa expires.

Result: $166 wasted :(

Advice #2
From: Everyone
Advice: “Always keep some USD on you and aalllways make sure you exchange money before you fly out, to prevent issues with visa purchases on arrival”
My thoughts: (before land border crossings, of course I would do this; However airports have ATMs/Shops, I want to arrive with no AUD or USD so that I only have one currency straight from ATM upon arrival. Bali is perth’s main holiday destination, there’s bound to be stupid people like me who don’t prepare money beforehand)

Consequence:
Arrive and approch ‘VISA on arrival” purchase counter. Unfortunately I am unable to use eftpos, cash only; no problem, I’ll head to the one of 6 (thats right, SIX, all lined up) ATMs for people to extract money.
Not one ATM works. Error “Communication link down”. Met two other germans with the same issue, found it odd that noone else was experiencing the problem, was surprised that most people were more prepared than us.
Let the information guys know about the problem, they couldnt fault it – but offered to use my camera as collateral in trade for the $22 VISA fee. I declined.
One of the germans found enough cash for a VISA and offered to get money out for both of us, with an airport escort letting him back in.
Immigration officers rocked up 30min later, I was asked to go to the immigration office; Harsh questioning in a very dodgy office, after about an hr he said that if the german isnt back in 30min, he will send me back home (which i assume would mean a black mark in my passport?).
10min later… german comes back with news! All commonwealth ATM transactions in bali were down, all three of us had commonwealth bank cards, will be down for the next hr and a half (after the security guard next to him phoned commbank, once he noticed many others outside having issues)

eexxtremely happy with news, I extract funds from ATM – get out of the airport with no further issues, other than having to stay at an expensive hotel in kuta as nothing else was open at 3am :(

Result: Met two awesome german backpackers (who have been living in perth for a few yrs) who I have been touring around the island with for the last couple o days :D

Well, tomorrow I fly out at 8pm from perth international airport.

At this stage I just want to be on the plane. A little anxious waiting to get out there, considering how amazing my last big trip was I’m also wondering how this one can match it. Crazy talk really, I’m sure it will be an awesome experience.

Main thing is to try a different route compared to last time and get to europe with enough funds to survive, possibly sticking around in china for a while to figure out the europe transition (and to figure out visas). See what happens.

Anyhow, I have packed the bag. Everytime I travel I seem to pack lighter and lighter, this time I’m not even taking shoes as my last trip they were stuck in the bag most of the time – once I hit the cold climated countries I’ll upgrade my bag and stuff it full of warm clothes, It’s going to be interesting experiencing true cold for the first time – far too conditioned to perth and south east asian climate :|

Over the last few days I have familiarized myself with client/server opensource netcafe software, the software along with anti-spyware/virus applications will be on a thumbdrive – the plan is to liberate the unsuable computers in many of the hostels in asia, in exchange for possibly free accommodation/food. See what happens, it could also be far too much effort for the reward :P

Below is a tagged photo of the contents of my bag before I head out (click to see tagged items):