Adventuring in Indonesia
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Roos
11 Juni 2014 | Indonesië, Lombok
Hello dear followers,
In my last blog I told you about my roadtrip along the West Coast of Australia. A lot happened since I’ve been back . Somehow I couldn’t find the motivation to write but someone I met inspired me to write again. Let me tell you about my adventures in Indonesia. I must say my first days in Bali where pretty hectic and I never expected it to be the way it was.
When I just arrived to Kuta (one of the big cities in the island Bali) I was overwhelmed by the craziness of the city, the busy traffic, the smells and the culture. It was a huge change coming from a western country like Australia where I just start to feel like home. All of the sudden I have to start all over again in a different country. A new challenge that was going to bring me many good things and good people, but I can’t say I felt happy when I just arrived in Bali. Where is the paradise everyone told me about?
So I arrived at the airport in Bali, it was very busy, people everywhere. A taxi driver saw me coming with my big backpack and he almost pulled me by my arm and said come with me I have taxi, so I followed then he told me how much the taxi was, a ridiculous price for Bali standards. I said no thankyou I will have a look somewhere else. He and his workers kept following me, saying that there was no other taxi and he was the only company. Anyway I didn’t like how pushy he was and I didn’t believe him cause friends of me prepared me of normal prices. So there I was walking around in this massive busy airport looking for a taxi. Finally I found a taxi stand with set prices, so I took the taxi and I asked to guy where is the best place to go. I didn’t do much research before; I heard Kuta is the big main city in Bali. Everyone goes there for shopping and partying so I said let’s go to Kuta. O my god, Kuta was crazy! I didn’t expect anything like it. There was traffic everywhere. People everywhere. The taxi driver said where you want to go, so I said the name of the hotel my friends told me about. The taxi driver laughed at me and said you want to go there? It will be full it is one big Australian party here. It was around Christmas time and offcourse naïve as I was just coming to Asia I believed the taxi driver was honest with me so I let him take me somewhere else. This place was very expensive but I thought well let’s just stay here one night and have a look around town maybe change hotel later. I put my stuff in my room and went for a walk around the neighbourhood.
Then a local guy called me from his garden. He saw me looking around a little lost and invited me in for a drink and some food. I couldn’t believe it was really free so I checked 3 times is it really free? He said yes yes no worries, sit down and I will tell you something about Indonesia, you can’t keep walking around like that and we started talking. After some food and a few beers later he said let me call my Dutch friend, she lives here and she will help you and show you around. He called her and I had a chat with her on the phone. I couldn’t believe how nice and warm everyone was. I shouldn’t forget to mention this guy was really poor. He had nothing but everything. A home with a bed, a toilet (which was a hole in the ground where you had to flush with buckets of water) a shower and a garden but most of all a big family and a lot of friends. I spend the whole day at his place, two other girls from Norway came as well and we had a big barbeque and drunk some beers. In the end of the day he said go get your stuff now and I will bring you to the place where my Dutch friend is staying so off I went to get my backpack and on the motorbike he brought me to the other side of the city to a nice little guesthouse where I met Carmen.
Carmen and I became friends and she showed me around and told me a lot about Indonesia. She came here for many years and was now setting up her own business as a clothes brand for surfers. In the guesthouse I met a lot of awesome people who wanted to join me to do stuff and help me with organizing a Indonesian Sim etc. Now I knew where I could find the cheap food places and fresh smoothies and slowly I got used to the people that want to sell you anything and all the motorbikes and cars nearly driving you over to go trough all the very small streets of Kuta.
After a few days I met Amy, an amazing English chick who travelled a lot in South East Asia, and was already totally used to all this and I decided to join her to move to Seminyak (20 min away from Kuta) where you can find the most amazing sunsets of Bali. And they really where so amazing. Travelling with Amy was a lot of fun, we hired motorbikes (what I promised myself I would never do) and drove everywhere around Bali. We met two awesome Mexican guys and travelled together for a while. After two weeks Amy left and I thought it would be time for me to go adventuring on my own. I left my big backpack with Carmen, who was living in Kuta and off I went with a little backpack on the motorbike…. The day started terrible, I lost my Ipod because after two weeks on the motorbike I felt so comfortable that I thought I could drive with my Ipod in (how stupid) some angel brought me back to reality and made me lose my Ipod (I’m sure this was a warning, haha) next thing a police officer stopped me and fined me for not having an international licence. The fine costs only 3 euro (5 dollar) but this wasn’t the only officer I was going to meet in the next two hours on my way to a little fisherman village. I got stopped another 3 times and lucky lucky me I got away with diehard flirting with the police and giving them a speech about how poor I was haha.
Okay I made it. Two hours later driving on the bumpy, rocky highways of Bali where one wrong movement can be your last I arrived covered in dust but totally fine. I checked in, in a lovely guesthouse and a few minutes later I met some girls and we went for dinner together. Next day I started driving early cause I planned to go to this Ashram somewhere in the mountains to go meditating for 5 days. I can write a book about my experience in the ashram but I won’t have enough time now to tell you what happened to me in this place. I can only say it was very strange and intense. Everyday 6 hours of shaking meditation. It was very good for me but I also felt very sick in the end which they said was a good thing cause I was opening up my soul and going trough my blocks. The energy off the place and the energy I woke up in me was definitely there, even if you don’t believe in this kind of stuff when you go here you will see, that’s all I can say.
After a week in the ashram I went to Amed, an amazing little village on the coast and here I met Erin, my now very good friend from America. I was still in the meditation vibe and was so shocked and inspired by all what happened to me in this week and I was very happy to share it was this cool, open minded girl. We both had a beautiful bungalow on the beach right on the spot where the best snorkelling was. I still felt sick and funny enough Erin was sick too, so together we where sick for a week and had the most inspiring conversations and some great laughs.
It was low season in Bali so there where nearly any tourists so everybody in the village recognized us soon enough. We got to know the locals very well and had some amazing nights drinking local wines and dancing in the reggae bar. Indonesians are crazy about reggae, they adore Bob Marly and a lot of them want to be a Rastafarian with dreads and smoke weed all day, haha. After more then a week in Amed, Erin me and our local friend went to the Gili islands to celebrate Christmas and new year there. The Gili islands are like a paradise, crystal clear turquoise water and white sandy beaches but also full of tourists. Every night you can make a party in one of the many bars on the island. We met some really cool local guys and spend a lot of time with them. After a week in Gili I had to drive back to Kuta to pick up my dear friend Jadis who came to visit me all the way from the Netherlands. Erin stayed in Gili and I went back to civilisation, on the crazy highways of Bali to pick up my friend.
Jadis and I spent a day in Kuta and went back to Gili. We did a cooking class and enjoyed the sunny beach days in the Gili islands. We went on a boat trip to do some snorkelling and spotted some turtles. I stayed with a turtle for hours. Such a pitty that just now my underwater camera was broken. We had some amazing days in Gili and went from there to the island Lombok. Jadis started to feel pretty sick, her visit was spontaneous and she didn’t took any injections for diseases. She started to feel dehydrated and we had to go to the hospital. After a few hours on the infuse, Jadis started to feel a bit better and we could travel a bit more. On the boat to Lombok we met some really nice locals that offered us a lift and they took us to some local market and offered us to drive us around the island for free whenever we wanted and we could even stay with them so we called them to ask if they wanted to show us the waterfall all the way in the North of Lombok (3 hours driving) so they did!! The father of the family could barely speak English but his smile made up for it. Amazing how hospitable the people are. We had an amazing day. It was exhausting to get down to the waterfall, it was around 30 degrees but the humidity made it feel like 40. After many steps we had to go trough water and rocks and finally made it to the waterfall. The water was ice cold but definitely refreshing and very beautiful.
After a few days of relaxing and driving around in Lombok I had to say goodbye to Jadis who stayed another 2 weeks in Indonesia. It was time for me to go back to Australia…
In my last blog I told you about my roadtrip along the West Coast of Australia. A lot happened since I’ve been back . Somehow I couldn’t find the motivation to write but someone I met inspired me to write again. Let me tell you about my adventures in Indonesia. I must say my first days in Bali where pretty hectic and I never expected it to be the way it was.
When I just arrived to Kuta (one of the big cities in the island Bali) I was overwhelmed by the craziness of the city, the busy traffic, the smells and the culture. It was a huge change coming from a western country like Australia where I just start to feel like home. All of the sudden I have to start all over again in a different country. A new challenge that was going to bring me many good things and good people, but I can’t say I felt happy when I just arrived in Bali. Where is the paradise everyone told me about?
So I arrived at the airport in Bali, it was very busy, people everywhere. A taxi driver saw me coming with my big backpack and he almost pulled me by my arm and said come with me I have taxi, so I followed then he told me how much the taxi was, a ridiculous price for Bali standards. I said no thankyou I will have a look somewhere else. He and his workers kept following me, saying that there was no other taxi and he was the only company. Anyway I didn’t like how pushy he was and I didn’t believe him cause friends of me prepared me of normal prices. So there I was walking around in this massive busy airport looking for a taxi. Finally I found a taxi stand with set prices, so I took the taxi and I asked to guy where is the best place to go. I didn’t do much research before; I heard Kuta is the big main city in Bali. Everyone goes there for shopping and partying so I said let’s go to Kuta. O my god, Kuta was crazy! I didn’t expect anything like it. There was traffic everywhere. People everywhere. The taxi driver said where you want to go, so I said the name of the hotel my friends told me about. The taxi driver laughed at me and said you want to go there? It will be full it is one big Australian party here. It was around Christmas time and offcourse naïve as I was just coming to Asia I believed the taxi driver was honest with me so I let him take me somewhere else. This place was very expensive but I thought well let’s just stay here one night and have a look around town maybe change hotel later. I put my stuff in my room and went for a walk around the neighbourhood.
Then a local guy called me from his garden. He saw me looking around a little lost and invited me in for a drink and some food. I couldn’t believe it was really free so I checked 3 times is it really free? He said yes yes no worries, sit down and I will tell you something about Indonesia, you can’t keep walking around like that and we started talking. After some food and a few beers later he said let me call my Dutch friend, she lives here and she will help you and show you around. He called her and I had a chat with her on the phone. I couldn’t believe how nice and warm everyone was. I shouldn’t forget to mention this guy was really poor. He had nothing but everything. A home with a bed, a toilet (which was a hole in the ground where you had to flush with buckets of water) a shower and a garden but most of all a big family and a lot of friends. I spend the whole day at his place, two other girls from Norway came as well and we had a big barbeque and drunk some beers. In the end of the day he said go get your stuff now and I will bring you to the place where my Dutch friend is staying so off I went to get my backpack and on the motorbike he brought me to the other side of the city to a nice little guesthouse where I met Carmen.
Carmen and I became friends and she showed me around and told me a lot about Indonesia. She came here for many years and was now setting up her own business as a clothes brand for surfers. In the guesthouse I met a lot of awesome people who wanted to join me to do stuff and help me with organizing a Indonesian Sim etc. Now I knew where I could find the cheap food places and fresh smoothies and slowly I got used to the people that want to sell you anything and all the motorbikes and cars nearly driving you over to go trough all the very small streets of Kuta.
After a few days I met Amy, an amazing English chick who travelled a lot in South East Asia, and was already totally used to all this and I decided to join her to move to Seminyak (20 min away from Kuta) where you can find the most amazing sunsets of Bali. And they really where so amazing. Travelling with Amy was a lot of fun, we hired motorbikes (what I promised myself I would never do) and drove everywhere around Bali. We met two awesome Mexican guys and travelled together for a while. After two weeks Amy left and I thought it would be time for me to go adventuring on my own. I left my big backpack with Carmen, who was living in Kuta and off I went with a little backpack on the motorbike…. The day started terrible, I lost my Ipod because after two weeks on the motorbike I felt so comfortable that I thought I could drive with my Ipod in (how stupid) some angel brought me back to reality and made me lose my Ipod (I’m sure this was a warning, haha) next thing a police officer stopped me and fined me for not having an international licence. The fine costs only 3 euro (5 dollar) but this wasn’t the only officer I was going to meet in the next two hours on my way to a little fisherman village. I got stopped another 3 times and lucky lucky me I got away with diehard flirting with the police and giving them a speech about how poor I was haha.
Okay I made it. Two hours later driving on the bumpy, rocky highways of Bali where one wrong movement can be your last I arrived covered in dust but totally fine. I checked in, in a lovely guesthouse and a few minutes later I met some girls and we went for dinner together. Next day I started driving early cause I planned to go to this Ashram somewhere in the mountains to go meditating for 5 days. I can write a book about my experience in the ashram but I won’t have enough time now to tell you what happened to me in this place. I can only say it was very strange and intense. Everyday 6 hours of shaking meditation. It was very good for me but I also felt very sick in the end which they said was a good thing cause I was opening up my soul and going trough my blocks. The energy off the place and the energy I woke up in me was definitely there, even if you don’t believe in this kind of stuff when you go here you will see, that’s all I can say.
After a week in the ashram I went to Amed, an amazing little village on the coast and here I met Erin, my now very good friend from America. I was still in the meditation vibe and was so shocked and inspired by all what happened to me in this week and I was very happy to share it was this cool, open minded girl. We both had a beautiful bungalow on the beach right on the spot where the best snorkelling was. I still felt sick and funny enough Erin was sick too, so together we where sick for a week and had the most inspiring conversations and some great laughs.
It was low season in Bali so there where nearly any tourists so everybody in the village recognized us soon enough. We got to know the locals very well and had some amazing nights drinking local wines and dancing in the reggae bar. Indonesians are crazy about reggae, they adore Bob Marly and a lot of them want to be a Rastafarian with dreads and smoke weed all day, haha. After more then a week in Amed, Erin me and our local friend went to the Gili islands to celebrate Christmas and new year there. The Gili islands are like a paradise, crystal clear turquoise water and white sandy beaches but also full of tourists. Every night you can make a party in one of the many bars on the island. We met some really cool local guys and spend a lot of time with them. After a week in Gili I had to drive back to Kuta to pick up my dear friend Jadis who came to visit me all the way from the Netherlands. Erin stayed in Gili and I went back to civilisation, on the crazy highways of Bali to pick up my friend.
Jadis and I spent a day in Kuta and went back to Gili. We did a cooking class and enjoyed the sunny beach days in the Gili islands. We went on a boat trip to do some snorkelling and spotted some turtles. I stayed with a turtle for hours. Such a pitty that just now my underwater camera was broken. We had some amazing days in Gili and went from there to the island Lombok. Jadis started to feel pretty sick, her visit was spontaneous and she didn’t took any injections for diseases. She started to feel dehydrated and we had to go to the hospital. After a few hours on the infuse, Jadis started to feel a bit better and we could travel a bit more. On the boat to Lombok we met some really nice locals that offered us a lift and they took us to some local market and offered us to drive us around the island for free whenever we wanted and we could even stay with them so we called them to ask if they wanted to show us the waterfall all the way in the North of Lombok (3 hours driving) so they did!! The father of the family could barely speak English but his smile made up for it. Amazing how hospitable the people are. We had an amazing day. It was exhausting to get down to the waterfall, it was around 30 degrees but the humidity made it feel like 40. After many steps we had to go trough water and rocks and finally made it to the waterfall. The water was ice cold but definitely refreshing and very beautiful.
After a few days of relaxing and driving around in Lombok I had to say goodbye to Jadis who stayed another 2 weeks in Indonesia. It was time for me to go back to Australia…
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