Hello

Welcome to my blog, this is where I will be sharing my travels with all my friends and family. I hope you guys fancy the pictures, stories and updates I post on here for all of you! Enjoy!

Saturday, May 15, 2010

I love this place.

Hello all, I am still in Bali and still loving this place. It has been a pretty awesome week. A lot of relaxation and riding of my sweet scooter. I had a bit of an ear infection this week from surfing after some heavy rains. But I got it taken car of right away and its all gone now! Stoked. There is supposed to be a massive swell coming tomorrow as well, not really showing too much today but that's okay. It is kind of like Hawaii here where it can go from 5ft to 20 in a short amount of time. I am so into life here though. I can definitely understand why so many people leave their home countries and move here. Land here is incredibly cheap as well. I love the way everything looks and feels here too. The Balinese architecture, statues, and landscapes are so cool. I can for sure see myself building a house all Balinese style. The furniture is another thing as well, it is so cheap and so awesome. I have found so many cool pieces I wish I could bring with me. I have been going for a lot of scooter rides around the city and around the lower part of the island and come across some really neat places. Yesterday I made my way to the Bali Safari and Aquarium. That was unreal. The picture up top is me with my new little friend. I wanted to take him with me. He was a little mad man, so strong too. They had some pretty rad creatures at the zoo. They had a massive tank with piranhas and I apparently had got there moments after they had just dropped a whole chicken into the tank. There was just a chicken skeleton in there being ravaged by all these little red piranhas. It was pretty sweet to watch. You could see their little dagger teeth poking out of their mouth. They also had some massive lions and tigers. I got there just as they were feeding the tigers as well. They had this massive white tiger, it was a beast. I ended up buying some special pass when I got there that was Rp. 385,000, which is really only $35 US, and it gave me a free safari ride and free time with the monkey and access to some other parts of park, like rides and whatnot but I didn't care about that. They had another deal where you could get to hang out with lions and get your picture holding one, but unfortunately they weren't having it yesterday. I was bummed about that, I fully wanted to play with a lion. But yea, anyways, I got to go on this safari thing and it was pretty awesome, driving through all these different habitats from around the world. You go through like an Indonesian part, then an African and an Indian. And some of the animals fully come right up to the truck. We had to stop for a bit because this massive male lion wouldn't move. And once it did it went right outside my window and gave me a full stare down. I snapped a picture of it licking its chops at me. I was hoping it was looking at the small child next to me. Overall though, the zoo is amazing, I might have to make another trip up there before I leave... It was a pretty gnarly ride up there on the scoot scoot. Driving through Kuta and on the freeway was insane. You go into full survivor mode. There's people flying by you in cars, military guys riding motorcycles with machine guns strapped to them, trucks almost running you off the road, a dude with a bird in a cage and a whole family on a scooter weaving in and out of traffic and 100000 other scooters fighting with you for position. I ran into a car once, but kept going hoping they didn't notice. That was my only real mishap. Totally minor. I actually got super into it, I was having a blast. All my old motorcycle skills came back, I felt like I was in a race. Apparently there's no speed laws? I was amazed. I was just going with the flow of traffic and just following peoples lead at first. And people where just blowing by the cops. So I gave it a try and it was all peachy. Sometimes they would fly right by you right after just to get in front of you. It was heavy. Up towards the zoo area though was some pretty unreal land. It was the full Indonesian rice patty fields that you see in the pictures. I wanted to stop and get a picture so bad, but pulling over was wayyy too hectic. Pretty sure I would still be on the side of the road trying to get back into traffic. It is pretty fun using your horn every couple seconds though. It's not like the US where the horn is like bad thing almost, its more like you just use it as a 'what's up,' 'i'm here,' or 'i'm passing you.' I love that scooter. The funnest way every to check surf or go surf or even to just get food. I seriously love this place. This will not be my last trip, that is for certain. I was told a while back that once you go to Bali you're ruined. You will always want to go back, and keep coming back forever. That human was correct. So all in all, everything is going great, I am happy as a clam and pretty amped on this place. I still haven't even gotten any other surf breaks! I have been at Uluwatu everyday I surf, because it has been the best. Hopefully with this new swell I can get come Padang Padang, Bingin or some Dreamland. There are a ton of waves around here. I really want to make it to Lakey's, I need to figure that out monday. Its a cheap flight and even cheaper stay there and the waves are supposed to be phenomenal. So many exciting things! Wellll I am off. Maybe a beach day today, or surf when the tide drops and the waves pick up. Who knows! The beauty of Bali. Gooodbye.

Ps. Just realized, as of today have been gone 4 months. It's going way too fast.