It's a fine bike. Beaches, patience and perspective.

Much zooming around with Gloria has ensued in the last two weeks. 

Mostly to coffee houses to use wi-fi and enjoy a hot beverage not processed by a wild cat. Every weekend is a lovely break out to sunshine away from the fluoro-prison they call work. In to the mountains, down to even further beaches and around some rather immaculate roundabouts. Roundabouts here are the most well-kept piece of infrastructure on this island. Great painted concrete and gold leaf trimmed statues surrounded by blooming flowers in pastel shades adorn the junctions while hundreds of bikes and cars belch and puff around them. 

As I left Denpasar for Ubud, two kindly Policemen bestowed upon me a fine. Twice, and in the space of twenty minutes. There is a stretch of the main bypass between Kuta and and Sanur which is rife for catching tourists, and if you haggle, or in my case plead and beg, you can get away without paying the full 250,0000 RP fine. The fact that this is even possible goes to show it goes straight in someone's back pocket, because they're not even bothered about getting the right money. Corruption ladies and gentlemen, the cousin of poorly paid government officials. 

Kuta to Padang Padang

It takes about an hour to drive to this lovely little beach from the mouth of hell. As you leave Jimbaran and follow the signs to Uluwatu, the road starts to transform in a building site. Half-started development upon development sit next to garish plastic billboards and giant signs promise a tourists' mecca to come.

Infiltration at the beach

I don't doubt that tourism is a huge economic drive for Bali, but it's such a shame that it has to come at the expense of the island's natural landscapes and wildlife. Most beaches here, especially during this wet season, are covered in rubbish and littered with bodies. As much as I also love a good temple, it also seems a bit vulgar that their largest, most historic and spiritual places of worship, the ones that are the most characteristically Balinese, have become glorified tourist sights. Hawker stalls line the exit and entry to Tanah Lot among others, and although it's similar in many other major religious attractions, such as Angkor Wat, this is a new scale of cheap consumerism indoctrination.

Which brings me back to Padang Padang and the Russian little shit terrorising my personal space and anyone else nearby. Flicking sand on me as he traipses back and forth with dead coral for his mother while he winges at the top of his voice. I thought he was going to drop it on me at one point. Little scamp. Judging by the amount of fully clothed locals and monkeys hiding in the cliffs, and the proximity to Uluwatu, I wondered if this beach has some holy significance.

The beach itself is gorgeous. Yellow sands, bright blue turquoise seas that I haven't seen since Thailand. (Most shallow water looks quite dark here as many of the beaches are a dark volcanic sand). Maybe it's the high concentration of surfers nestled in the waves and in the seated crowd lining the shore, but the vibe here is quite relaxed, there's something a bit Thai, maybe even a bit North Devonshire about it. The walk down the steep cliff steps and the long, right peeling break flowing

Resident cliff Monkey at Padang Padang

smoothly does seem to add to it. The green back roads coming up to Padang Padang remind me of Woolacombe, North Devon. As you climb the hill, the air becomes cooler underneath pockets of shade from the trees along the road and the lack of traffic hints at the undisturbed countryside. The trees are guarding the roadside and pavements have been abolished! Fresher air, fewer cars and great big coaches clogging up small roads- distinctly Devon!

On the beach, as I was about to write some existential rubbish about hating work, the tide barreled in to the beach to sweep away my bag containing my iPad and camera. I hastily avoided the wave and following shit-storm that would have meant. It was as if Mother Nature was saying 'Oi Dickhead, you should be more concerned with the fact you parked yourself too close to the water!'

Point taken, time to look around at where I am. A group of fishermen are silhouetted, sitting out on a huge rock near to where the wave dissipates. There are tourists and beaten tracks for a reason.

Surfers line up to rip

Bali in transit: me and my baik baik, motorbike.

Bikes in Asia, the only way to travel. 

Recently, I joined a friend for coffee in Kerobokan before taking a bunch of back roads to Cenggu for my first surf since I arrived. I was able to do this because I acquired a motorbike. 

Yes, a month in and I've only just got back on a board, but I have a good reason. There is rubbish every where! Surfing in the waste washing up from Java is like swimming in the brain of Tony Abbott. Plastic wraps around your ankles and wrists, the threat of an ear infection lurks and that dead puffer fish on the shore line looks very ominous. I made a mental note to tactically chunder any swallowed sea water. Reason number two: I am a pale person and burn to a crisp simply riding my bike, so factor in two hours of lying on a surf board and a chef from a seafood restaurant will be chasing me down the street convinced he's found his evening's lobster special. Both of those reasons, soon became reality, and they made that wave even sweeter, reminding me with a pelting hit of adrenaline, what you gain from board sports.)

Renting a bike: it's cheap

My bike makes me baik baik. Happiest in transit, this cheap little Honda eating up its' liquid diet brings me so much joy. I can go find odd Warungs on secluded beaches, tiny alleyways, run my errands, go to work and speed away from the city to find something else. I can travel under my own steam as it were. It feels like freedom. My bike makes me want to find the answers to some very serious questions. Can I make it to Bedugul on one tank of gas? What can I find by turning down some back streets? Where is there a decent espresso coffee? How long does it take to get to Padang Bai? Here's hoping rainy season allows me the freedom this little runner can give.

Gloria-baik motorbike

Gloria and I are champing at the bitt to go on some adventures, The 30 minutes trek through Seminyak's back roads to Cenggu left us hungry for more. I call her Gloria because of how glorious it feels to ride a bike abroad. So the next week I made my way to Seminyak again to find the beach there. Very nice, but not quite far enough to be called an adventure. I keep my eyes peeled for Jimbaran and have a solitary calming moment, or two hours' worth of them, watching planes taxi out at the nearby airport. The runway cascades out of the bay and the planes look like they are wading across the water as they stutter their way out to flight. All that watching planes made me hungry and I indulge in a seafood bbq for one. With a candle. I am the best, most romantic boyfriend ever. 

The next day I ate up Tanah Lot, a famous Hindu temple built on a rock. Once upon a time it might have been attached to the island but is now atop a rock pile on the shore of Bali. The whole place is like a religious garden, smaller temples are hanging on cliff tops on either side of the main attraction and I couldn't help but be reminded of the Twelve Apostles off the Great Ocean Road in Australia. There, great rock outcrops and eroded land masses stick up out of the sea where they had once been part of the coast line. I always think they are an ever present reminder of the power of the sea.  

Small Bike Adventures outside work

As I work here, like most battery hens, I have to dedicate some, or most, of my day to being confined in a strobe-lit office. The adventure tact changes during the week. I try to find places closer to home, I go hunting for restaurants, and pleasant beaches, and if that fails I usually end up in a *Warung eating fried rice or bartering over a knock off pair of Nikes. When in Rome. All this searching, finding and exploring keeps little Gloria quite thirsty and I have to say, petrol stations in Bali have got it sorted. In to the forecourt, off your bike, fill up with a services pump, here's your change, off you go. I barely ever have to queue and when I do it's the most efficient queue I've seen, which for Asia, and as an English woman, is saying something. Filling up my tank costs me under £1 and it will last me a good three days depending on where I go. Western Europe take note. 

I'm not separated from the passing environment by plexi glass, and I can feel it all around me. I can breathe it in, feel it on my skin and, not so amazingly, feel it burning me. There is a reason why I now wear a hoody on a bike in thirty degree heat. To me, riding a bike in a foreign land is a way of getting to the crux of traveling. To immerse yourself in another environment and allow it to fill your nostrils (although mine were full of bike fumes). To let it tangle your hair, and the next thing you know your very skin and eyes are glowing with the brightness of a thousand foreign experiences all taken through every sense you humanly own.

If I didn't have such a big bag I would buy one of these and fulfill the dream I have of traveling through all Asia on two wheels. Although if is as small or big a word as you want it to be. 

*A Warung is a family small restaurant in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Kuta: Conta Part II

Rice terraces near Ubud

Day escape from Kuta

A visit to Ubud for a cat-poo-ccino seems to help me get over the previous night. Cat coffee, or Coffee Luwak is akin to the weasel coffee of Vietnam. However it's far more common to find the organically grown coffee where the cats are allowed to roam the trees freely. Try the first floor of the craft markets in Ubud for a little history and a nice chat with the nice Balinese fellow selling it for 30,000 a cup. I spend some time talking to monkeys and gods at cliff top temple Pura Luhur Uluwatu, seemingly to enlighten me to the genuine culture here. Even if it is over-run with other tourists, and seems a little bit of a shame that the whole island and it's traditions have become a selling point. I love temples. They are mainly Hindu here and really interesting to look at in comparison to those I am used to seeing in places like Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Structurally they are much more simple and take on the look of a simple thatch tiered pagoda. I am yet to find a Buddhist temple, for which I am most keen to investigate. I don't know what I'm really doing here (pah, after all that planning) but maybe Buddha can help show me the way. 

End of week II

The job is going well and I am getting good feedback from my students. Until I can find a Kost (a cheap self contained one bed unit) I have moved temporarily to a nice hostel, with friendly backpackers and far friendlier Indonesians than you could ever find. Indonesians will do anything for you and expect nothing in return, a concept pretty hard to get your head around coming from England. They don't make them like this at home. 

It's rainy season, which brings nightly downpours and a much needed breeze to this humid island. The wind blows against the rattan blinds and attempts to make its' way through the thatched roof. It's not having any of it. I am on the outskirts of the city, and I can see the sunrise on my daily walk to work where I have the great honour of sitting in a strobe lit office at a Formica desk talking to students thousands of miles from me through a head set. Surrounded by other teachers with Stockholm Syndrome, my 'teaching-call-centre' job affords me two lovely bonuses. The first being that I can order all sorts of wonderful Balinese lunches for the Princely sum of about 50p without leaving the desk I am chained to. The second being that for all my middle class white girl gripes, I am so happy to help someone to talk my L1, to tap in to that side of my personality and the world's incidental 'lingua franca'. And I can appreciate, not only how lucky I am to do this, but that life is easy for us in England and we should really stop moaning about, well, pretty much everything that we moan about. Especially tipping waiters, prices of bus tickets, queues and whether the word 'selfie' deserves to be in the dictionary. Hey, it's all relative. Although slightly less when your new Indonesian friend tells you his salary is a third of your already fractal wage, and you wonder exactly how he can afford to live. 

The Four Face Buddha shrine at Vihara Buddha, Kuta

 You're ok Princess. If he can smile, and live a life where money is not priority number one, you certainly can. Talk to Bhudda, he knows. Whether I do, only time will tell.

To get around Bali for as little money as possible, rent a bike for the equivalent of £2 a day. Learn some basic Bahasa and enjoy the best of Bali by endearing yourself to the locals. Most importantly, try the street food, Coffee Luwak (the afore-mentioned cat coffee) and get out of Kuta and in to the North to the rice terraces, fishing villages and mountains. There is more to paradise than beaches.