Missing… Presumed Having A Good Time

On the way to the East coast of Bali, I saw something that really shows quite well how crazy the Balinese are about the World Cup. This was a great place to watch the games! I stopped at the port town of Padangbai to catch a ferry over to Gili Trawangan, but I liked the town and the Zen Inn so I stayed a couple days and a few more on the way back into Bali. Roland, a crazy Dutch guy, owns the Zen Inn and made it into a sweet spot to hang out. Stuff is a bit more expensive there, but he’s done quite a bit of decorating and the rooms actually have a feel to them as opposed to the typical flat 4 walls. My favorite part of his bar is that he has about 250GB worth of music on his computer and a huge selection of music DVDs. I offloaded my puny 5GB of music to his collection and changed about 20% of my playlist while I was there.

It was here that I noticed that there are a huge number of Dutch people traveling in Indonesia. At any given time in the bar there could be as many as 15 Dutch all speaking some form of Flemmish. It’s especially noticeable when Holland is playing because everyone is wearing orange.

There are two secluded beaches one with beautiful white sand and another with blackish sand. Both were very nice, quite and peaceful. The best part was you could get a full body massage for an hour on the beach for $2. Gotta love that!

Well after a week in really boring Ubud, I decided to leave town and head for some physical activity up at the Volcano near Kintamani. I hired a guy to take me up to Kintamani, but on the way his motorcycle had problems and another guy came by and told me about his guest house and offered to give me a ride. We stopped at the top to take this awsome photo. He was a really friendly guy and I got a great room over looking the lake for $4 with a hot shower. I was thinking to myself, I could stay here for a long time. I had heard and read that there are very aggressive tour guide/thugs that guard the public mountain, but I figured I’d go anyway and see if I could get around them or maybe the stories were exaggerated like they were about Vietnam. Read the rest of this entry »

FOR THE BEGINING OF BALI SCROLL DOWN TO THE ENTRY ENTITLED ‘BALI’ ABOUT 6 STORIES DOWN

After the wedding festivities ended, the few Americans and an Ozzie moved up to Uncle Chet’s place in Ubud. It was yet another beautiful place set on top of a jungle instead of high above Montego Bay. For those of you that didn’t know me 7 years ago, much of the same crew that went to Ubud went to Jamaica for a huge week long let’s say party at Uncle Chet’s insane mansion high atop Montego Bay, Jamaica. Since I don’t have any pictures of Ubud with me, you can take a look at Uncle Chet’s Jamaican Palace at Silent Waters Once again my buddy Steven invited all of us to stay with him and generous as he is, treated us to a few days of luxury private villa service high in the hills of Ubud. There was only 1 small problem with the place. It only had satellite TV and in Bali, only the local SCTV air broadcast showed the World Cup games. Read the rest of this entry »

This was A day to be remembered. An amazing wedding in an amazing place. Destination weddings RULE! I had a linen suit made in Hoi An just for the wedding. The only problem with making a white linen suit and dragging it across 3 countries stuffed into my bag is that it’s made of linen. As I’m sure u know, linen is lightweight, but not wrinkle-free in any sense of the word. So I tried to get my hotel to press it for me by 4pm so I could get to the wedding in time. It came back pressed, but it still looked like a train wreck. Of course, I was running late, but couldn’t show up in a pimp-daddy suit all wrinkly like it had been stuck in my pack since Vietnam. So out comes the iron and my ‘excellent’ ironing experience (maybe twice in my lifetime). Now I know why people bring girlfriends to weddings. LOL Anyway, I’m supposed to be at Karma Village to catch the bus at 4:30. I get downstairs at 4:20 and the taxi still hasn’t shown up yet. I finally get in a taxi at 4:25 and hand the guy 50 thousand large to get me the 3km in 5 minutes. Miraculously, I made it and hopped my scruffy backpacking ass on the bus in a wrinkle free linen suit to a round of whoa, dude, holy shi… 45 minutes later after riding up hill in the “Little Bus that Could”. We made it to one of the most spectacular places that I’ve ever seen set on the cliffside of Ulu Watu the Istana Hotel has to be the most beautiful setting for a wedding. I kept asking myself why Bob didn’t just have the wedding at the Karma Villas where most people were staying. As I stepped on to the grounds of the hotel, my question was clearly answered with an emphatic THIS IS WHY!!!! http://www.photofactorybali.com/bobanddenise.htm The pictures on this site are awsome! The ceremony couldn’t have been more beautiful. They must have ordered the ‘beautiful sunset in the west with a full moon rising in the east’ package. I don’t know if they had to pay extra for them because both were beautiful beyond words. For a moment, I was a little concerned that it might rain. Dark clouds had formed all around the resort and heading our way. But for a small fee the Istana has a shield that blocks dark clouds from crossing its property. I know this because I saw the dark clouds stop and literally turn away from the resort before heading out to sea. The shield must have a daily rate because exactly at midnight, the heavens opened up and just poured 7 hours of rain onto the property in the matter of minutes. But by this time most of the guests had departed and the rest of us diehards were gathered in the main lobby area trying our best to finish off all the alcohol we had brought from the duty free shop. All in all a beautiful day that really left not for want. Congratulations! Bob and Denise. Thank you for inviting me to share in your special day.

Bali Hai June 9th

I finally arrived at the only time spot that I have on my trip. Since I left ‘home’ some 15 weeks or so ago, Bali was the only place that I knew I would go for sure and that there was a drop-dead arrival date of June 10th at 5pm for my buddy Bob and Denise’s wedding. I arrived just under 21 hours before the wedding just in time for their welcome to Bali cocktail hour at their colossal 4 bedroom villa at Karma Village Jimbaran. This place is the type of place that you would see in lifestyles of the rich and famous. I swear I heard Robin Leech on the soundtrack as I walked into the villa. I was waiting for the paparazzi to jump out of the bushes to see who was staying there this week. No celebrities this week. Just some of the best people in the world. We had a few cocktails and watched the start of the World Cup on a giant 42-inch widescreen TV. Of course the cocktail ‘hour’ lasted a bit longer than planned and seeing as the next day was going to be a pretty big day for the hosts, we decided to go to someone else’s slightly less colossal villa to continue the festivities well into the nigh… morning.

The next day started off at 5am. We got up before the sun to catch it rise above Ankor Wat. This was an even more amazing sight. Not only for the sunrise, but the throngs of people all over the south wall of Ankor anxiously waiting for the sunrise (IPH) I got some great pictures of Ankor Wat with the reflection of the temple on the pools of water in front of the temple (IPH). By 10am we had been out visiting temple after temple for 5 hours and were exhausted. The mid-day heat was upon us and we were tired. When we stopped at a lake, 2 little girls came up to us trying to sell us drinks, T-shirts, bracelets…. They were both very cute, but 1 only had a skirt on with no top. I asked her why she didn’t have a shirt on and she told me she was too poor to afford one. LOL They are good. So, I decided to buy a round of beers from her at 10am (hey, it’s 5 O’clock somewhere) and we had already been up for 5 hours. The other little girl was just despondent, absolutely inconsolable. She was so mad that we bought all 5 beers from the other girl and none from her. One of the Dutch girls, Martine, tried to give her a dollar, but she wouldn’t take it. She just said, “I don’t want money for free” (but in her head, I could hear, “I want to rip you off fair and square”) and she ran off crying. We felt so bad for her as her tears really seemed genuine. I also had a bad thought in the back of my mind about what kind of message we were sending here by buying 5 beers from the topless little girl and none from the clothed little girl. So we ended up buying another round from her too.
Read the rest of this entry »

On the bus ride from Phenom Phen to Siem Reap, we met a few Quebecois.  At yet another planned bus stop, Asim must have been really hungry because the only food that she found edible was a bag of fried crickets.  I was really impressed that a seemingly squeemish little Canadian Chinese Vietnamese girl was ripping the legs and head off the fried crickets and popping them in her mouth.  I decided not to partake in this barbaric ritual.  I love trying new things, but fried crickets is apparently a bit beyond my level of adventure.  We actually arrived in Siem Reap 30 mins before the published arrival time (something that never happend in Vietnam).  But unfortunately, we were still 10K outside of town.  Here is where it gets really wierd!  Seemingly 100s of Tuk Tuk drivers swarmed us as we got off the bus with signs saying the exact opposite of what they were doing.  “No Hassel”  “Take you to any guest house 1000 Riel (.25)”  Some even had 500 Riel on their signs, but upon further examination it was free, but they want to be your drivers for the next couple days around the vast network of temples around Ankor Wat. 
Read the rest of this entry »

The capital of Cambodia. When I finally arrived in PP, we were so tired and really just wanting a shower and a bed to lay down. So we took pretty much the first place we saw. I finally caught up with Cris and Corey that I had met 3 weeks ago at Hanoi Backpackers. It was good to have roomates again after traveling all thru Vietnam by myself. Unfortunately, we were in the wrong part of town. We were riverside as opposed to lakeside. I’ve heard from many others that the lake is the place to stay. The first night we ended up at a crap hole of a place that the motorcycle taxis took us to. It was a whore house pretending to be a nightclub. I wasn’t inside more than 2 minutes before I said this is just not my kinda place. That’s even before walking into the dance room where we saw all these 14 year old girls dancing with fat old men.

DISTURBING MATERIAL BELOW NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART

Read the rest of this entry »

Against my better judgement, I decided to take a 2 day journey up the Mekong Delta on a boat up to Phenom Phen.  I had pictures of Apocolypse Now running thru my head and the Rolling Stones playing in my ears.  “I can’t get no.. satisfaction”  Unfortunately, there wasn’t a .50 caliber mounted to the front of our boat.  But like in the movie, you should “never get off the boat”.  Not because of the FN tigers MAN, but because of the horribly touristy villages that they take you to.  What really is the point of going to visit local minority villages in their “natural” habitat when you are on an organized tour of the Mekong Delta??????  Ummm…. if you’re looking for anything authentic, that’s not where you’re gonna find it!  The best part of the trip was stopping at the coconut candy factory.  They were good candies unless you have a loose tooth.  Man were they chewy.  They also had a 4 foot boa constrictor that I got to hold and take a picture with (Insert Pic Here). 

The rest of the trip was pretty much hell!  We stopped for lunch on the first day and it just pissed down rain for about 2 hours (IPH).  By the time we got to the point to catch a bus further up river, we apparently missed our bus or they over booked and I got put on a local bus with about 8 others.  This minibus had more seats on it than I’ve ever seen before (IPH).  I think I counted 21 seats with no room between rows nor an aisle.  There also wasn’t any room for our bags and we had to sit with them for about 6 hours to a crappy hotel on the border of Cambodia.  The hotel had no mosquito nets, but plenty of mosquitos.  I felt like a bloody pincushion.  The next day we hop back on a boat to the border and cruise thru immigration and another 4 hours on a boat to Phenom Phen.  You’d probably have thought that there would have been some incredible scenery up the river, but after about 4 hours of nothing, but floating crap boxes and grass along side the river, u get a little bored.  All I have to say is, DON’T TAKE THE MEKONG DELTA TRIP UP OR DOWN THE RIVER FROM Phenom Phen to Saigon.  Take the 5 hour bus trip instead.

The food in Saigon was very good. Unfortunately, it took me to my last days in country to find the best bowl of Pho in Vietnam. Phuc Dat! To be honest tho, the best bowl of Pho I’ve ever had was in the most unlikely place in the world, Miami at Karen’s restaurant, Hy Voung, on Calle Ocho.  She lived in Vietnam for 14 years and learned to cook some of the best Asian food you can find in South Florida, but I digress.  I wandered around chinatown looking for good food and interesting sights.  I saw a couple elderly Chinese ladies selling young coconuts.  They motioned me over and started to hack open a coconut for me.  They started the bidding at 40K as I laughed and responed to them in Cantonese.  They instantly dropped the price to 20K as I continued to laugh and banter with them saying that I was Chinese and not just born yesterday.  After being in Vietnam for almost 3 weeks, I learned that most of the hawkers have figured out that in the barganing dance that tourists will be very happy with 1/2 the starting bid.  So they’ve learned to start at outrageous prices up to 4x their rock bottom price.  I ended up giving them 10K ~.62 cents for it, but I told them that was only because they were Chinese otherwise I would have only paid 5K and they were quite happy with it. 

Read the rest of this entry »