Monday, June 18, 2012

Padang Bai, Indonesia (March 28th-April 1st)

The airport smells of incense. That was my first impression of Bali when I arrived late on the evening of March 28th. I found the driver my hostel had sent for me, and he explained that the odor emanates from the thrice daily offerings of the Balinese people. My second impression was of the pure madness of the motorbike traffic. Cyclists sped in and out of traffic without regard to their safety or that of anyone else's, and more than once, I thought our van might pancake an oblivious moto-driver weaving haphazardly into our lane.

After an hour and a half's nerve-wracking drive, we arrived in Padang Bai, my intended place of rest for the next few days. As we walked the narrow alleyways of the small village, stepping over upturned woven baskets housing chickens and constantly crowing roosters, I noticed the aforementioned offerings on each and every doorstep, intended to keep out demons.


Despite the late hour, children trotted behind us, giggling hello over and over again, like a refrain. We climbed dozens of stairs to the Lemon House, where owners Ben and Claire greeted me warmly and showed me to the sole dorm room. The bed was huge, almost the size of a double, and I settled into it quickly and fell asleep.

The next morning, I woke up naturally and then waddled into the main area of the hostel, only to be gobsmacked by the layout and view.


I had seen them at night, but that hadn't prepared me for how fantastic the Lemon House looked by day. I sat down to a delicious breakfast of bananas, watermelon, papaya, poached eggs, toast, and an English tea that my Welsh hosts seemed quite proud to have, all made to perfection by the sole member of staff: the marvelous Ketut.


I decided to enjoy the vista from the shade of the Lemon House and give my skin a much-needed break. I read for a while. Then I picked Ben and Claire's brains about the village and Bali in general. I also had my first shower in an Asian bathroom, where the shower head is simply positioned on one of the walls in the same room as the sink and toilet. But my surprise at that hardly registered in comparison to my realization that toilet paper is rarely used in Asia. Instead they use what's commonly referred to as a bum gun.


Uh-huh. I'll let you figure out how it works on your own.

When finally I felt the desire to vacate the shade, I made my way down toward Bias Tagul (White Sand) Beach. As I stepped from our alley onto one of the town's two main streets, a motorbike passed by me with a small yappy dog standing on all fours on the back of the seat, tongue out and tail wagging happily. Just as I recovered from my shock enough to laugh, another bike passed by with a whole family onboard, including an infant! I thought that I would never get used to seeing that, and so far I haven't.

In any case, I doubtfully made my way up a rocky, trash-strewn hill to which Ben had directed me, thinking that I had picked the wrong town to spend a few relaxing days on the beach. But ten minutes later, I turned a corner on the dirty, littered road to paradise.


After inching down the steep slope, I emerged from between two of the restaurant shacks onto one of the most beautiful beaches I had ever seen.


A woman greeted me who turned out to be Ketut's sister, Made, and I bought my first sarong from her, spread it out on the sand, and settled in for a perfect afternoon of swimming in the bath-temperature water and reading on the shore. I ordered my first local meal from Ketut and Made's mother, who ran one of the sea shacks. I still don't know what kind of fish I ate, as the menu simply said "sea fish", but it tasted delicious and came with vegetables and my first of many plates of white rice.

As I finished my meal, a light rain began, and I watched the water fall through the still present sunlight, one of my favorite phenomena. Then I returned to the Lemon House to watch from the balcony as day morphed gloriously into night, accompanied by the sonorous chanting of the nearby mosque. I read until I fell asleep, completely at peace.


I awoke the following morning with my ear still throbbing with pain. After I'd done a bit of yoga on the porch, Claire got me an immediate appointment with the doctor at one of the local dive shops. The doc took one look in my ear, said, "Wow, that's really infected." She hopped on her motorbike and went to pick up my antibiotics herself, giving me the chance to chat with some of the dive instructors about my options for getting SCUBA certified and to wander along the main waterfront of the town.


Later, armed with antibiotics and strict instructions not to snorkel or dive for 5 days, I ventured with my roomie Kirsten through the village to the Blue Lagoon, a gorgeous, secluded enclave of course known for excellent snorkeling and diving. Since I couldn't partake, we simply swam out and bobbed along the surface for half an hour or so before returning to shore to bask in the sun for a bit.


We lunched on our deck chairs, and while I very much enjoyed my papaya shake, I didn't even finish my greasy, flavorless jaffle-- a panini-like confection with dough ironed into a sealed square around a filling. But my dislike of this popular snack may have arisen from my choice of a cheese jaffle, and I would soon learn that cheese in Asia isn't much better than it is in South America.

After lunch, we joined two other LH guests on Bias Tuggal, where I sated myself at Ketut's mom's shack once again, this time with a coconut juice straight from the coconut and my first banana pancake, an apparent staple on the Asian traveler trail. After a few more hours of sun-bathing and head-above-water swimming, we returned to the LH, cleaned ourselves up, and headed out for the evening.

We ate at Grand Cafe, where I got grilled mahi mahi over fresh salad greens for $3.50. I also learned a few valuable dining lessons: 1) You can't alter menu items in Indonesia. If you don't like what's on offer, order something else. 2) As in, South America, in Asia, sugar is in practically everything, even when truly unnecessary, like in a fruit shake. If you don't want sugar added, say "No sugar." This is the one exception to rule 1. And 3) Bali functions on island time and island etiquette. Service is slow and perfunctory. Our waiter stopped taking our order to answer his cell phone, and when I later flagged him down for drink refills, he stopped for five minutes on his way to the table to chat with a friend who was hanging over the railing, still on his motorbike.

After dinner, we wandered through the soporific PB night scene until we found an open bar, where we drank some laughably over-priced, poorly-made cocktails.


Kirsten explained that liquor cost a small fortune in Indonesia because of the high taxes tacked on to deter the native predominantly Muslim population from imbibing.

As we drank, the bar tenders flocked to our table to flirt with Kirsten and me, presenting us with flowers they'd made from beer cans. I asked one of them how teenagers came to be bartenders, and he swore that he was 23. Initially, I found the hard to believe, since he looked all of 15, but most Balinese people simply look far younger than they are. "You like younger men?" he asked, eyebrows bouncing up and down comically. "Not that young!" I replied.

Hearing far superior music wafting over from the reggae bar next door, we changed venues. The bar's Balinese owner, Rasta, only allowed us to pay for one drink before he took out a bottle of arak, a homemade whiskey of up to 14% alcohol content. He insisted on each of us taking shots with him and his local friends as he told us about Bali. "Everybody come here, jealous of my life. We get up at 1pm, go to beach, drink, swim, drink some more, snorkel. Good life. Always relax."

With some encouragement and a lot more arak, he turned off the music, picked up a ukele, and entertained us with a song about Padang Bai. It concluded, hysterically, with a call and response section imitating the ubiquitous calls of Bali hawkers: "Hello. Where are you going?", Transport, transport," "Massage, massage", etc.


By the time the sing-a-long was through, I had come to realize just how much my antibiotics had affected my tolerance. I was truly and properly soused! The night with the group begging for a serenade as we wandered, giggling, back to Lemon House. I sang a bit of Nina Simone, followed by the chorus of my own "Favorite Things", and they praised my drunken balladeering hyperbolically.

The next day, I slept in, bid farewell to Kirsten as she headed off to the airport, did some yoga, and lazed about the Lemon until the midday sun had passed, then headed back to Bias Tugal Beach. Although still beautiful and swimmable, the sea had changed completely; where before gentle surf had lazily crawled up to the beach, 10-foot waves now slapped the shore.





I had positioned my sarong a good 3 meters from the water's edge, but a freak wave crashed onshore, barely giving me time to snatch up my camera and wallet. My banana pancake didn't make it. I moved my things to the safety of Ketut's mom's restaurant shack. When Ketut arrived, I accepted her invitation to indulge in an hour-long massage right there on the beach for a whopping five bucks!

That evening I went with Claire and Ben to their friend's restaurant, the Ozone Bar, where I ate another mahi mahi salad, this time paired with a pineapple, orange and lemon fruit shake and tasty, albeit styrofoam-textured krupuk crackers. Delicious. This time, I had enough sense not to drink on my antibiotics, and since the vibe was decidedly laid back anyway, I made it an early evening, catching a wholly unnecessary lift back with B&C's friend purely for the experience of my first motorbike ride.

I spent my last day in Padang Bai doing more of the same, this time in the company of another roommate, Patricia, a lovely girl who I discovered at day's end to be only 19 years-old. As we supped that evening, sitting on pillows beside a low table perched on a raised palate??, I realized with contentment that our mutual shock at each other's ages had made for the closest thing to a shock in the middle of an utterly mellow day. I had gotten just what I wanted from Padang Bai.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Jalan Pelabuhan Padang Bai,Manggis,Indonesia

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