I love Alex

Written October 2

I have neglected to mention that while I was in Thailand diving, Alex, a friend who I’d met in Peru emailed me to tell me that she was going to be in Bali at the same time as I was.  Nothing had come to fruition though and when I landed in Bali, it hadn’t sounded like we were going to be in the same places at the same time.  I had given in to the fact that I would have to start from scratch when finding friends.

Our balcony in Padangbai.

However, that next day, after I met with the woman from AquaMarine Diving and had checked my email again, I had a message from Alex.  She told me where she was staying and that she was leaving on a one day/one night trip that morning but that she could meet me back at her guesthouse after she was done.  

The thought of having someone to hang out with and in a room that wasn’t filled with mold made me weak in the knees.  I had the owner of the cafe call a taxi for me and half an hour later, I was on my way to another area in Bali: Sanur.  

When I got there, I found the guesthouse within a few minutes and met the owner.  I was given the option of having a room with a fan or a room with air conditioning and I opted for the air con.  I felt like I deserved it after the previous night.  

The room was great -- large, clean, no mold and no mosquitoes in the bathroom, with furniture, and a stones throw from the beach.  I threw my stuff down, cranked the air, and took a nap.  When I woke, I explored the beach and went to bed early so I wouldn’t be tired in the morning when Alex arrived back.

Alex in the Blue Lagoon.

At 9am, there was a knock on my door and a loud “Helllloooo!” and I knew it was her.  Yay!!  I opened the door and we hugged and commented how weird it was that we last saw eachother in Peru almost 6 months prior.  We chilled out in my room for a bit and discussed the plan for the next few days: Alex had already been in Bali for a week and she was on a strict budget.  She had planned on leaving Bali soon because of the cost until I arrived but would now stay for a bit longer if she and I were going to split the cost of a room.  She had picked out an area in east Bali that wasn’t a typical backpacker stop and we decided we’d go there that afternoon.  

Alex is the perfect person to travel with because a) she’s traveled a lot b) she doesn’t freak out when she gets lost and c) she seems to make friends with local helpful people wherever she goes.  So in true Alex fashion, within half an hour of leaving my room to go find us a taxi ride to our next destination, she returned to tell me that she’d found her “taxi driver friend” who was going to give us a discounted ride.  Score.

Around 2pm, Alex and I arrived in Padangbai, a small town in east Bali that had sounded interesting in our guide book.  We checked out a few guesthouses and decided on one that had offered us the top floor suite that had a king size bed, tv and DVD player, air conditioning, private balcony, beautiful bathroom, and breakfast at a rate of 200,000 Rupiah ($20) a night!  We wandered around town and quickly realized that this “town” was really just 2 small streets and that we had grossly overestimated the amount of time that we would want to spend there.  We attempted to find a bar to go to at night, but found that most people were in bed by 10pm in Padangbai and we ended up on our private balcony with the guesthouse owner drinking Arak, the local alcohol of Bali and eating special Balinese peanuts.

Tossing popcorn in the air b/c we were bored.

The next day, we decided to snorkel at the Blue Lagoon which was a 5 minute walk from our guesthouse.  The water was crystal clear blue waters with coral and volcanic rock down below.  On the rocks were black crabs shimmering in the sunlight which freaked me out because at first I thought the rocks were just shining until I saw things moving about.  Gross.

That night was again unsuccessful in finding anything to do, so we decided that the next day we would rent motorbikes for the day and then would leave the following morning.  

We woke up the next day, had our free breakfasts and set on our way into east Bali with a basic map and a few places we hoped we could find.  Our first stop was the first major town where we hoped the ATMs worked because the one in Padangbai had been broken and we were low on cash.  We started out riding on local roads, moved on to busier roads, and eventually graduated to Bali’s version of a highway.  I felt like a badass... except I was on a scooter with a bright blue helmet and I’m pretty sure I didn’t look as cool as I felt.

Mmmm, ice cream from the ice cream motorbike guy.

We found the next town after about 30 minutes of riding, stocked up on 1.5 million Rupiah each and decided to find a black sand beach for our next destination.  We got there in a surprisingly short period of time and parked our hotrods to take some photos.  Things we noticed: 1. Black sand is indeed much hotter than white sand 2. Black sand isn’t quite as impressive as it sounds 3. Black sand seems to stick to you much more than white sand (not really, it just ends up being more obvious when it’s all over you because of the contrast between my pasty paleness and it.)

We got lost and found this.

Next up was a marathon ride through pretty much any major town in east Bali.  At one point, Alex’s bike fell over, something that would end up costing her 500,000 Rp the following day.  We happened upon a small village where we ran into a Balinese ice cream man -- a guy on a motorbike with a cooler strapped to the back and a small speaker playing a loop of ice cream truck music.  Struck by how hilarious it was, we stopped and ordered a cone each and apparently 2 Western chicks on motorbikes aren’t a regular occurrence there because by the time we’d ordered and received our cones, we had a crowd of people looking at us.  

We continued on and found an amazing hotel that was surrounded by rice fields and had a view of the volcano.  From there, we backtracked and got back on a main road that eventually took us back to Padangbai.  The day had only solidified my opinion that taking a day to explore off of the beaten path in a new place is always a good idea.  If you can do that via motorbike, even better.

The owners checking us out.

The next day we had to leave though... Padangbai was boring.  Besides, I knew I’d have to go back again because the boats to the Gili islands all took off from there.  So with a fond farewell, a hefty bill, and an additional 500,000  charge for Alex to pay thanks to the busted bike seat, we had a new taxi driver “friend” take us to the area in Bali where we knew we could find something to do at night -- back to Kuta, the dirty place I had been to when I’d first arrived to the island.  With fingers crossed that we could find a hotel that this time was not moldy and mosquito infested, we were off!