Bali

It’s about time that I decided to relax a little bit while I’m traveling. My flight arrived in Bali at 6:30 last night and as I peered out my cab window through the darkness and the rain I passed by several lavish resorts, the Hard Rock Hotel, street vendors hawking cheap fried food, McDonalds, a Nike store, a giant Billabong store, tiny surf shops, and finally the narrow alleyway that led me to the small Indonesian resort I would stay at for the night. Bali exemplifies everything that is kitschy and stereotypical and touristy about traveling… but I expected that and I even welcome it. After spending a week in Papua, where nothing resembling a decent restaurant or a comfortable hotel even exists, I’m ready to kick back and spoil myself for a few days – even if it means subjecting myself to the ways of the Western tourist masses.

Before last night I had stayed in cheap grungy dives every night I had been in Indonesia. It was time to change things. The cheapest room I could get at the Kuta Puri Resort was $55 a night, but it’s by far the nicest place I’ve stayed during the trip and indescribably better than the places I usually stay while traveling. I think the fact that I need a place like Kuta Puri to stay is evidence that I’m turning into an old man. At age 23 and 24 I had no problems with staying in a $10 shoebox in Vietnam or a $6 scum-hole in Delhi. Things are changing. Two years ago I wouldn’t have considered blowing $55 for just one night in a hotel room. Now I’m thinking this might be my new standard – when I travel I want to be comfortable, and that’s just the way it is.

I’ve been looking forward to surfing again since I left Costa Rica in February 2008, so it was exciting today to finally run out into the ocean with a board. I had a blast catching some waves today, but I think I either forgot a few things I learned or I forgot how much I have left to learn or both. If surfing had a handicap, mine would be about 87. I could catch the smaller waves after they had broken and usually I could stand up on the board and ride it into shore, but any wave bigger than five or six feet would just throw me around like a rag doll. I watched several tourists, as well as local Indonesians, as they were surfing, and many of them made standing up and carving at the top of a six foot wave look like a walk in the park. I wish I could do that. Maybe learning to surf is like learning to snowboard that way – it’s not reasonable to expect to have perfect balance and to be perfectly comfortable if you’ve only been four or five times. I’ve been snowboarding for eight seasons and it’s not possible that I could have done some of the stuff I do now on my fifth time snowboarding or even on my tenth or fifteenth time. I probably shouldn’t expect to be an accomplished surfer after only five times either, but it sure would be nice if I could be.

Later tonight I found a small shop near the hotel that sells DVDs for only 10,000 rupiah each – less than one dollar! When I was in Southeast Asia in 2006 I loaded up on DVDs in Bangkok and Saigon, but my collection has since become dated and stale to me. Eddie, the Indonesian shopkeeper, cheered me on as I picked out nearly 120 new DVDs. For only a dollar each I can’t go wrong, and I literally only picked the ones I really would want to watch – there were thousands more available. Back at Kuta Puri I treated myself to an hour-long aromatherapy massage, then had fried calamari rings and a banana shake for dinner.

I feel a little hedonistic and obscene just spoiling myself like this and not doing anything of cultural or intellectual value today, but right now I’m tired and I need a rest. Today did the trick. There actually are quite few fascinating cultural activities and natural wonders on Bali. The next four days will be a perfect time for me to experience all that.