Bali: Monday

Bali: Mondy

MONDAY:

I woke up late, groggy, and opened my back door to discover that the balcony to my room had stairs right down into the pool, as did every room. I headed to the other room and found John, the girls, and Lauren and Jen hanging out. Lauren and Jen had been put in touch with a local named Wyan who, for 20 bucks total a day, would be your personal driver, tour guide, and friend. He was awesome.

I spent a lot of time riding shotgun next to Wyan, driving through rainforests or through fields of rice paddys, talking to Wyan about his religion (Hindu), Politics (not going too well for the Hindus. Bali is 98

Percent Hindu, but Bali is a part of Indonesia, which is governed by Muslims.), Meditation (he can blank his mind for an hour), and food (dude loves rice more than anyone I've ever met).

But anyways, on this particular day he thought for a second, then said "I'm going to take you to Dreamland." A half-hour drive took us to the most beautiful beach that I've ever been to, hands down. The water looked laughably like generic postcard tropical water, the sand was white, it was all backed by a wall of rainforest, with pockets of houses and huts poking out all along the ridge.

We tossed our stuff down and ran gleefully for the water, swam out to the waves, realized that they were GIGANTIC, tried to body surf one, caught the wave and then had it land on top of us, and then retreated somewhat less gleefully than we had charged the wave. We were gonna rent some surfboards and surf, but the waves were too big and we feared them.

We ended up drinking at the Beach bar for around a dollar a beer, then bailed.

We headed back to Kuta, the capitol of Bali, to do some shopping (Shopping in Bali can be very, very cheap if you know how to bargain well...shirts, bags, etc for 2-6 bucks, etc) then Wyan 'wanted to show us something,' and so we just got in his car and he took us to a Hindu temple clinging to the lip of a cliff a couple of hundred feet above the ocean. It was pretty kickass. We spent a while exploring the temple and feeding the monkies pieces of pineapple, then Wyan 'wanted to show us something,' so we went to another part of the temple and watched a Kecak Dance.

A Kecak dance is a Hindu legend acted out in dance, driven by a chorus of around 70 barechested, beatboxing, shouting, chanting, singing, murmuring badass guys ranging in age from 20 to 65. They provide all the music with their voices, and it was heaven for an accapella music nerd like me. Fucking amazing, and the sun setting into the ocean behind it all was pretty cool , too. Near the end of the dance they set all these piles of brush on fire, and the demon-king character ran around and kicked them (barefoot!) into the air. I've got some amazing pictures that Amanda took of all this that I'll put up at some point on my photo page:


http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b297/geminizero/

I've got some Bali stuff up already, but I'm working on more.

Anyways, we then headed back to Kuta.

The Guam girls were pretty exhausted, so they headed to bed. On their way out, we found out that they were tired from being out at the bars until 6 am. They said that a 'magic drink' that they had tried at some bar had something to do with this. John and I decided that we needed to try said magic drink, and so after our amazing, 4 dollar dinner, we went to the bar that they had found it.

John wandered up to the dude, and goes,

"Ummm....do you have....magic shakes?"
"What?"
"Er....do you have...mushroom drink?"
"Oh yeah. Come in!"

A SIDE NOTE ON ALL OF THIS:

When you arrive in Bali, one of the first things you see in the Airport is a huge sign that states: Bringing drugs into Bali carries the DEATH PENALTY.

As a result, I was skeptical that this dude was really going to give us a drink with magic mushrooms in it. I was sure that it would just be some sort of tourist trap drink with a lot of alcohol that would convince you that hey, something's wierd! I must be on mushrooms oooooh!

So he brought us both a shake for 4 bucks each. We downed them, playing pool, and then Mandy wandered in (amanda had gone home to sleep). John and I ordered another round of these 'mushroom' drinks. Haha yeah right are these really mushroom shakes. We finished playing pool and decided to find this reggae bar that the girls had been talking about with a killer live band and good ambiance.

We went up to the bartender of Venom (the bar with the 'magic' shakes) and said goodnight. And then he did something that we would later shake our fists at and yell, "He knew!"

He shook our hands, looked us in the eye, smiled in a knowing way, and said, "you guys have a good night."

At the time, I didn't think anything of it. We started walking down the street when suddenly I felt a little tug. Holy shit. Those really were mushrooms. And a whole lot of them. Uh-oh. We have to get off the street. Now.

The problem was, we didn't exactly know where this reggae bar was. the street was dark, crowded, and filled with seedy-looking dudes who would pop out of the dark and ask if we wanted to buy pot. Everything was looking sort of grim when suddenly we could hear some fantastic Marley song. There was bar!

The bar was lit with all sorts of cool lights, and the best reggae band I've ever seen played all night long. I know because we were there all night long. They played Marley, hits from Java and South America, and Sublime! Bah-Bah!

We, too were up until 6 am.


Okay, so I'm writing too much. I just spent two hours covering my first day and a half in Bali, and now I'm out of internet time. Again. Okay, next time I'm here, I'll do the rest of the days real fast and just get 'er done. dang!