Playing Tourist

Although I had a good number of spectacular Pak Wayan quotes to choose a title from ("Whether you have other dogs beyond the funny one, people don't care" and "Boys, all 2,000 of you" spring to mind), I had to go with the descriptive title here. I suppose that, no matter how superior a student abroad may feel to the swarms of ignorant tourists clogging his island, a man's got to travel and enjoy the oceans of the South Pacific while he's in country. And so I did. Our weather cleared up from monsoon-y and a few of us headed to the southern peninsula of Bali, the Bukit, to visit a place called Ulu Watu, known for its important temple and spectacular surfing.

For starters, the Bukit is wildly different from the rest of Bali. The area I'm staying in, Bedulu, is in a very green and wet part of Bali just below the central mountains. When I ride the bemo into Ubud (have I mentioned bemos? They're the public transportation here, big rickety vans that follow the market routes. There's no real set passenger limit, as we've fit probably 16 in a van, and price is negotiable depending on your bargaining skill. Successfully flagging down a bemo and paying the local fare makes me feel almost as cool and local as when I can banter in Bahasa Indonesia with the other passengers) to visit with the Internet and see what lovely things everyone has had to say to me in my absence, I'm surrounded by palm trees and random rice fields and other tropical vegetation. Apologies from deviating so far from my subject; the Bukit, by contrast, is really dry and arid, much more like the chaparral hills of Southern California or what I imagine the Outback would be like. The climate and vegetation, combined with all the surfers and beaches, actually made me feel a bit homesick. Apparently the Bukit was historically poor, too dry to grow rice and originally separated from the rest of Bali (Tommy Suharto connected the two and messed up some ecology in the process), so the people subsisted largely on selling salt. That was, of course, before tourism. Now there's a big resort on the eastern side of the peninsula and lots of expert-level surfing on the west, where I was headed.

We checked into a hotel (at $40 a night for one room, it was damn cheap by American standards, considering the splendid pool and ocean view. but the $400,000 rupiah tag made my Balinses price sense cringe, especially because we couldn't barter) and headed off to the beach, which wasn't really what we expected at all. The road (no sidewalks, which proved challenging to us non-motorbike-with-surfboard-holder-riding folk)lead us to a series of concrete steps, very steep and sandy, that went down the face of a cliff. Along the cliff some entrepreneurial souls had built a large collection of tin-roofed huts housing warungs (cheap restaurants), surf shops, and the like, all with amazing views of the ocean. At the bottom of the cliffs was the little strip of sand, hidden among giant rocky columns, which opened into a kind of cave that the surfers could walk out of to get to the waves. There was a viewing platform on a large seaward outcropping, which we climbed a series of rickety stairs to get to. From there the Indian Ocean unfolded, a perfect South Pacific blue, with the white cliffs of the Bukit stretching out to either side before bending back and out of sight behind us. The waves were the largest I'd ever seen, and the most picturesque, easily 6-10 feet tall on average with a big barreling break, way far out to sea because of a shallow reef that the surfers would walk out on. And the surfers were spectacular and probably more than a little insane, tackling waves that looked like the drowning and pulverizing variety. Absolutely five stars amazing natural beauty.

So enough about that, let's talk about me. We spent one sunset and one late afternoon there, chilling on a little strip of beach beyond the rocky cliffs and watching life go by (not to mention a few hermit crabs). We also spent a good deal of time in the pool, eating in a warung we found that served good pizza and Bali's own tasty beer, Storm (the only stout I've ever had that tasted like kalamata olives. In a good way), and walking along the hot roads to get everywhere. The Ulu Watu scene is, as a t-shirt has it, bloody bagus, but a little weird. The Balinese themselves were naturally a little more reserved and unfriendly, doubtless from years of dealing with the tourists, of which there were few (as one friend characterized it, surfers and the sorts of girls who want to pick up surfers). But the prevalent vibe wasn't that of an over-touristed beach world, but much more of a surfer hangout that happened to be in Bali. In fact, the whole weekend felt like a pseudo-Balinese experience, rubbing shoulders with westerners and enjoying the sun and surf in an area of arid natural beauty. It was weird, but very relaxing and nice, minus a slight sunburn (in fact, I'm probably the darkest I've been in my life right now, which isn't saying much). One day I hope to be a good enough surfer to return and do Ulu Watu as it was meant to be done, but in the mean time I'm satisfied with our little break from constant cultural immersion.

Oh, and I finally ran into some temple monkeys. Although the area was traditionally poor and slightly forgotten, Ulu Watu is home to a very important temple, the Pura Ulu Watu. It's a shame that the Balinese don't really like the beach (it's associated with danger in Balinese Hinduism), because ocean temples are spectacular. This one, for instance, sits on the very edge of the cliff almost at the bottom of the peninsula, looking back up at the cliffs. The ocean was just as blue, and the drop down was even more sheer and spectacular. The grounds (I guess that's what they would be called) were also incredible in that arid Bukit way, and I would have loved to go explore through the scrub along the cliffs. And, most importantly, the area had a large resident group of temple monkeys. Technically macaques, they seemed to just sit around and feed off trash and food that tourists brought for them to eat. Some were fat, some were old, some were cute, and some were small, but they were all, for the most part, indifferent to us and good-natured. There were a few instances where some wanted to grab a camera or something, as I gathered by the fact that they ran towards us with beady little monkey eyes on our electronics, but by showing no fear and leaping back cursing they got the message that we were not to be trifled with. They also had a little monkey playground set up, with a rope swing and water basin to play in. It's a shame they were all doubtless rabid and ready to kill at a moment's notice.

Tomorrow, I'll have been in country for one month already. That's kind of amazing, but also feels pretty right considering all the stuff that's gone down while here. My writing juices are mostly spent after another overly long post, so I'll promise yet again to talk about the homestay family and my art project and all that other stuff later. But before I go, credit to Jake for the inspiration to change blog titles once I speak the language (and I also didn't want to offend the locals with Hunter S. references). The current title is, fittingly enough, Bahasa Indonesia for "Friendship Adventure." Good fun.