Happy Bali Day Angry Roosters!

So Aug 16th was boring... Woke up, packed, taxi to the ferry, ferry to Ko Pha Ngang, switch to another ferry to Surrathani, bus to a bus station in the sticks.... bus to another random bus stop on the side of the highway, and then waited approx 1/2 hour just to pay an extra 500 baht to take a private van w/ some other passengers straight to the hotel instead of taking the originally planned other bus and then taxi... so we saved one step, by not having to take another taxi, and we didn't have to wait another 40 minutes... it was a nightmare.  Another complete gongshow of getting from one place to another in Thailand... but the thing is, it's always worth it!  So in total we travelled for just short of 13 hours.  

~gong show of switching ferries and trying to find and grab our luggage.  I'm certainly glad it's our last ferry for a while!~

~bus stop?~

So then we get to Bali, and Lockey's talking to this Aussie surfer fellow, who was on our flight and Lockey had asked him about surfing in Bali before our flight (but Lockey didn't learn too much as this guys accent was THICK! Like peanut butter... mmm I miss peanut butter....)  Anyways, So we get to Bali and we're trying to get a Taxi, and this guy said he's been there 8 times prev and has only ever had to pay 50 000 IDR (yes you read that correctly, the conversion is ridiculously hard to do!)  but they were trying to charge 120 000, but he got one guy down to 100 000.... so then we tried to share a taxi and the guys were NOT budging, so in the end we got a taxi for 250 000 ($29.24) and the other guy got his and we split ways b/c it was cheaper than sharing... even though we were going in the same direction... go figure.... (And we still felt like we got ripped a new one...) 

Anyways, we arrive at our "hostel" which is actually really nice... I should take a couple pictures to post.  It's super modern, and has an open air bathroom, so you get to pee and shower basically outside... oh the freedom!  And has cement floors, and I have slept better here than even at the "Grandma's house" hotel in Samui.... (You would only get that joke if you had read the previous blogs, don't worry about it...)  

So we go for a walk to the beach, passing some roaming cows on the way.  The beach is super nice black sand.  And the waves are ginormous much to Lockey's chagrin... it was the first thing we checked out as that was what Lockey (and I, but mostly Lockey) were looking forward to in Bali.... unfortunately though the waves are just TOO big right now for surf sessions.

So we walk along the beach and we see some kites in the sky (our cab driver had explained to us that it was kite "season"  as we were wondering what was floating WAY up in the sky.... like ridiculously high.) So we watched the balinese men flying some kites, and then all of a sudden I see tons of scooters w/ flags driving up to the beach, and then a big dump truck comes up w/ a huge kite (4.8 meters, we asked.)  on the back of it and everyone is cheering and such.  So we stayed and watched as a few other big (not as big)  kites were being flown and then asked about the kites...

Balinese men make these kites, and it takes a lot of them to fly it, to do the take off and catching it afterwards etc.  There were NO women flying the kites.... A few were present watching, but that was the extent of their participation.  

We also found out that we had arrived on Indonesia's national holiday (which is funny because when we went to Switzerland we had arrived on THEIR national holiday too.... it was an accident both times!)  It was neat to see how they celebrated by getting together and flying these kites, and EVERYONE was SO nice.  I felt like a minor celebrity in this little area, we were the only tourists watching and the balinese people kept saying hello, and waving and smiling at us, even when they were driving their scooters past us!  It was a good self esteem booster  (which both Lockey and I are in desperate need of self esteem boosts :) .  

When we were finished watching the kites we decided to try walking back along the road instead of the beach which was a bit of an adventure as the roads aren't very wide, and lots of scooters were trying to head to the beach w/ their big kites and such... Also their roads aren't straight... the "city" planning is non existent... I kept seeing roads that looked like they would intersect ours so we could turn back towards our hotel, but then they never did actually intersect... so we'd keep walking.  We walked by rice field after rice field after rice field.  They are very beautiful!

~Rice Field at dusk~

It takes forever to drive from one beach to the other, but to walk on the actual beach takes less than 10 minutes, it's bizarre!  Anyways, we ended up in some random village other than the one we wanted to be in.  We had no money, and didn't want to walk all the way back to the beach to find our way home... we were now lost.  So a random balinese guy stopped on his scooter (Always looking to make a buck!) and told us he could go home and get his car (he was a transporter for his profession, he gave us a card... that's legit right?)  so he came back 5 minutes later and took us to an ATM and then wanted to take us to the city to show us around a bit... I said no thank you, I'm sick of travelling please take us back to the hotel... his name was Made, and he was super nice, like all the other balinese people we had encountered thus far... (other than a few pervy pubescent boys).  

Another thing we saw on our walk (and have seen several times since) is old people  (like the really skinny shrivelling up old people... Yes mom and dad, even older than you!)  riding or walking bicycles.  They usually have uber skinny legs and go SO slow, that I don't even know how they maintain their balance, but they are STILL riding!  It it all very impressive to Lockey and I.

Another thing that Lockey and I saw was Roosters... lots and lots of roosters.  They are all over the place here, but these particular roosters were in wicker type cages, and they were ANGRY roosters... ("he's an angry elf"... quick what movie?  sorry tangent...)  anyways, after our ride w/ Made, he told us he could take us to a cock fight.  We had no interest in this, but then saw an article in this random balinese newspaper thing about traditional cock fighting, but how it's being ruined by the gambling.  Sorry to say it, but it's ruined by Roosters... angry, pecking roosters... I hate roosters since Koh Tao when they woke me up every morning at 6 am.... I don't think that just because you  woke up b/c you saw the sun, that you need to scream and wake me up.  It's not socially acceptable, and I hate roosters.  And I don't need to see them fight.  

~Angry roosters that actually lifted their own cages from just being angry!~