here we are in kuta! joe's been updating our sanur and ubud adventures prior to today, so i'll give you a different update!
as joe mentioned, we got here yesterday (friday, october 17th) after experiencing the medical system first hand here in bali. while joe rested in bed, i wandered around the town, starting with watching the sunset over the beach. this place is crowded! it's like a college town, on the beach, with tons of australians and a ridiculous number of hawkers - people asking you constantly if you want transport or to see their shop or any other number of things you could waste money on. it's got almost a frenetic vibe to it, which is hard to get used to after the calm and culture of ubud. i managed to talk a vendor down from 80,000 rp to 30,000 for a pair of cheap sandals (my chacos have been giving me blisters). i know! an achievement!
needless to say, there is plenty of good people watching. and great food. i tried some gado-gado yesterday (veggies in peanut sauce). yum! i love the food - the spices, the flavors, the vegetables and the rice. it's awesome. i picked up a book in ubud that is all about an australian's love affair with the country and its people and how she married a local from ubud and moved there. she opened a restaurant and even has a cooking school! if we make it back to ubud, i might take a cooking class.
oh yeah, i should mention that while joe was resting in ubud, i took a wood carving class one afternoon and made a mask. it's pretty rad and i got the chance to explain what halloween was to my teacher. it was fun!
well, we're rounding out 1.5 hours at the internet cafe (and yes! uploaded 15 pictures!), so it's time to get moving to the beach so joe can see the sunset. it's beautiful.
miss you all and keep writing!
Saturday, October 18, 2008
die amoebae, die !
Three days ago, Amy and I went to a great Balinese dance in Ubud. It was a traditional dance with lots of animistic elements, elaborate costumes and neat stories that are acted out. It was really hot at the dance (at 7pm!), so I was sweating profusely and almost passed out. Some chocolate cake and mint tea for dessert seemed to make me feel better that night, so I thought it was a transient issue and didn't pay much mind. We went back to our hotel (Alam Indah) and I promptly decided to take a bath and fell asleep for around 30mins in the tub. I showered, then got into bed and immediately fell asleep which is unusual after I've napped that late in the evening.
I woke up at 6am (uncharacteristicly early for me) the next morning feeling really strange. My head felt hot so I took an Alleve (which I was supposed to take for something else anyway) and went back to sleep. Breakfast is included at most of the inns here, so Amy and I moseyed up to the veranda, sat down and felt really lightheaded again. I went back to the room and passed out for a few hours. When I woke up, I realized that something was definitely wrong. To be cautious, I started taking Cipro which is what the travel Dr in Philadelphia had told me to do. Checkout was at 12pm, so Amy was nice enough to research and book our next accomodations (at the Royal Palace in Ubud). The rest of my day consisted of advil and sleep -- I think I slept 20 of the 24 hours. The only other experience I've had that was comparable was a boat ride to the farallon islands (off SF) with Amy and Ron that I got so sick on I was dry heaving for seven hours and quasi suicidal by the end (ahh the memories). Even on advil, my fever was over one hundred, so Amy called our travel insurance company to find us a doctor. She wound up speaking to a physician on the phone and making an appointment for the next day. Incidentally, the Royal palace reminded me of a superficial person who is beautiful on the outside but horrible on the inside as the exterior structures of the palace and grounds were absolutely beautiful, but the rooms were dingy. They were the only accomodations available, so we made due.
We took an air conditioned taxi (b/c of my fever) from Ubud down to Kuta which is the tourist mecca of Bali, but also has the best western medical clinic too. They took a bunch of blood to run tests on and told me they would contact me. The doctor said it might be Dengue fever! I was a little freaked out because Dengue fever takes at least 2 weeks to recover from (maybe longer), is really painful, and it would probably ruin the majority of our Indonesian travels. Amy took me out to lunch all hopped up on advil, cipro and with a high fever, so she said it was a really entertaining meal because I was cracked out and funny, making all sorts of Dengue jokes. If you're reading this blog Matt and Charis, it reminded me of the Moldovan Syphilis string of jokes. My fever eventually broke that evening, but then my GI system went haywire. It has been a shitty few days :) The clinic ran some more tests and figured out that I have a colony of amoebae living in my gut! They prescribed me flagil (sp?) that specifically targets the pesky pathogens. The Dr called this morning and the Dengue tests came back negative -- yay! So, cross your fingers as the crisis seems to be averted for now. I think I'm going to pay more attention to which drinks have water and/or ice in them.
I woke up at 6am (uncharacteristicly early for me) the next morning feeling really strange. My head felt hot so I took an Alleve (which I was supposed to take for something else anyway) and went back to sleep. Breakfast is included at most of the inns here, so Amy and I moseyed up to the veranda, sat down and felt really lightheaded again. I went back to the room and passed out for a few hours. When I woke up, I realized that something was definitely wrong. To be cautious, I started taking Cipro which is what the travel Dr in Philadelphia had told me to do. Checkout was at 12pm, so Amy was nice enough to research and book our next accomodations (at the Royal Palace in Ubud). The rest of my day consisted of advil and sleep -- I think I slept 20 of the 24 hours. The only other experience I've had that was comparable was a boat ride to the farallon islands (off SF) with Amy and Ron that I got so sick on I was dry heaving for seven hours and quasi suicidal by the end (ahh the memories). Even on advil, my fever was over one hundred, so Amy called our travel insurance company to find us a doctor. She wound up speaking to a physician on the phone and making an appointment for the next day. Incidentally, the Royal palace reminded me of a superficial person who is beautiful on the outside but horrible on the inside as the exterior structures of the palace and grounds were absolutely beautiful, but the rooms were dingy. They were the only accomodations available, so we made due.
We took an air conditioned taxi (b/c of my fever) from Ubud down to Kuta which is the tourist mecca of Bali, but also has the best western medical clinic too. They took a bunch of blood to run tests on and told me they would contact me. The doctor said it might be Dengue fever! I was a little freaked out because Dengue fever takes at least 2 weeks to recover from (maybe longer), is really painful, and it would probably ruin the majority of our Indonesian travels. Amy took me out to lunch all hopped up on advil, cipro and with a high fever, so she said it was a really entertaining meal because I was cracked out and funny, making all sorts of Dengue jokes. If you're reading this blog Matt and Charis, it reminded me of the Moldovan Syphilis string of jokes. My fever eventually broke that evening, but then my GI system went haywire. It has been a shitty few days :) The clinic ran some more tests and figured out that I have a colony of amoebae living in my gut! They prescribed me flagil (sp?) that specifically targets the pesky pathogens. The Dr called this morning and the Dengue tests came back negative -- yay! So, cross your fingers as the crisis seems to be averted for now. I think I'm going to pay more attention to which drinks have water and/or ice in them.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
bali orchid garden
Amy and I both love orchids, and Bali has an entire garden devoted to them (over 2K species, http://www.baliorchidgardens.com/), so we decided to go the other day.
The guide book told us it was about 3km away and contained a vague map, so in the words of Gimli from Lord of the Rings: "Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?" (yes, I know that reference makes me a dork). Instead of taking a taxi (which are ubiquituous), we decided to walk there around 12pm (or 12:00 because they use military time here) which is close to the hottest part of the day. Ngurah Rai was the road we took and is an artery that connects Sanur with Kutah and Ubud. There are very few rules of the road, making the traffic pretty chaotic and dangerous. This is especially true for pedestrians, because there really aren't sidewalks and the concept of shoulders doesn't exist. To exacerbate the whole situation, people park in what would be the shoulder, so you have to walk around them, putting yourself square into the street. It was still a neat walk though because there were rice paddies, furniture builders and stone carvers all along it. We stopped in a few of the shops. The map of the area, which seemed pretty straightforward at a glance actually turned out to be vaguer than we thought, so we got lost for a while, but after asking a few people directions and getting burned by a motorcycle muffler, we finally arrived sweaty, dehydrated and ready to see some orchids.
We paid the entrance fee (50,000 Rupiah; thx to Lauren + Brent + Madi), were given orchid flowers as lapels and were off. We started exploring the gardens, but were soon greeted by Iwayan Gedewidiantara (yes, that is all one person's name). I wouldn't be spending so much time writing about the orchid garden unless we had met him because not only did he take on an awesome tour of each and every plant there, so much about Balinese culture and various things to see. He even sat with us after the tour for cat poop coffee. The concept of the drink is that the cat eats raw coffee beans, their stomachs partially digest the beans which are then collected and brewed all for your tasting pleasure! Amy took a million pictures of the flowers (how Amy), but internet connections are rather slow here, so we're doing our best to upload what we can. Iwayan was really into Green day, so we're going to send him a thank-you mix tape of American music including My Chemical Romance.
The guide book told us it was about 3km away and contained a vague map, so in the words of Gimli from Lord of the Rings: "Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?" (yes, I know that reference makes me a dork). Instead of taking a taxi (which are ubiquituous), we decided to walk there around 12pm (or 12:00 because they use military time here) which is close to the hottest part of the day. Ngurah Rai was the road we took and is an artery that connects Sanur with Kutah and Ubud. There are very few rules of the road, making the traffic pretty chaotic and dangerous. This is especially true for pedestrians, because there really aren't sidewalks and the concept of shoulders doesn't exist. To exacerbate the whole situation, people park in what would be the shoulder, so you have to walk around them, putting yourself square into the street. It was still a neat walk though because there were rice paddies, furniture builders and stone carvers all along it. We stopped in a few of the shops. The map of the area, which seemed pretty straightforward at a glance actually turned out to be vaguer than we thought, so we got lost for a while, but after asking a few people directions and getting burned by a motorcycle muffler, we finally arrived sweaty, dehydrated and ready to see some orchids.
We paid the entrance fee (50,000 Rupiah; thx to Lauren + Brent + Madi), were given orchid flowers as lapels and were off. We started exploring the gardens, but were soon greeted by Iwayan Gedewidiantara (yes, that is all one person's name). I wouldn't be spending so much time writing about the orchid garden unless we had met him because not only did he take on an awesome tour of each and every plant there, so much about Balinese culture and various things to see. He even sat with us after the tour for cat poop coffee. The concept of the drink is that the cat eats raw coffee beans, their stomachs partially digest the beans which are then collected and brewed all for your tasting pleasure! Amy took a million pictures of the flowers (how Amy), but internet connections are rather slow here, so we're doing our best to upload what we can. Iwayan was really into Green day, so we're going to send him a thank-you mix tape of American music including My Chemical Romance.
Monday, October 13, 2008
bali baby!
yup, we're chillin' in bali. well, it's more like sweating constantly, but still, it's awesome. it's hot and humid, but there seems to be a nice breeze most of the time and a lot of the shops have awnings, so there is a good amount of shade. we were stoked to check into our decked out hotel around just before midnight last night after another long (8hr) plane ride. we slept well and woke up refreshed. after eating breakfast in the hotel, we wandered towards to beach. we sat beachside for a while, lunched and now are at an internet cafe trying to upload our hundreds of photos. doesn't look like we'll get to all of them in this sitting, so keep an eye out for more! we'll be here until wednesday, hoping to check out the orchid garden tomorrow, and then it looks like we'll head up to ubud to hang with the monkeys.
hope you're all well! we're loving reading the comments!
hope you're all well! we're loving reading the comments!
japan rocked!
Even with no command of the Japanese and poor maps of Kyoto and Tokyo, I still had a really good time. Japanese people are extremely friendly in general, almost all of them speak English as a second (or third) language and they are really accommodating.
Kyoto had lots of historical Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, which were really neat to visit. We took an overnight bus (think red eye) from Kyoto to Tokyo which arrived around 6:30 am. We decided to visit a park in the city (there are many beautiful parks in Tokyo's downtown) with a Shinto shrine and happened upon a religious service which was a really neat spiritual experience (especially when cracked out that early in the morning). The concept of a given individual practicing more than one organized religion (i.e. Buddhism and Shintoism) still seems very foreign (and maybe unnatural) though.
Food has been really good in general; lots of ingredient combinations that are odd to westerners. Bean paste inside pastries. Fermented rice (Amy hated this). Pocky chocolate sticks. Chocolate and banana dumplings. Almost any vegetable tempura style. Soba noodles. Plethora of different grade teas. Mmm. And American and European cafes all over.
Kyoto had lots of historical Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, which were really neat to visit. We took an overnight bus (think red eye) from Kyoto to Tokyo which arrived around 6:30 am. We decided to visit a park in the city (there are many beautiful parks in Tokyo's downtown) with a Shinto shrine and happened upon a religious service which was a really neat spiritual experience (especially when cracked out that early in the morning). The concept of a given individual practicing more than one organized religion (i.e. Buddhism and Shintoism) still seems very foreign (and maybe unnatural) though.
Food has been really good in general; lots of ingredient combinations that are odd to westerners. Bean paste inside pastries. Fermented rice (Amy hated this). Pocky chocolate sticks. Chocolate and banana dumplings. Almost any vegetable tempura style. Soba noodles. Plethora of different grade teas. Mmm. And American and European cafes all over.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)