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Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Tanah Lot, Bali

The medical process in Indonesia is much like America's, except not at all. There are doctors and medicine, but the similarities end there. My throat felt a little raw this morning and I decided to inquire at the front desk about nearby pharmacies. The next thing I know, we are being hauled away in a strange van, heading to go see the mysterious Dr. Manjeeb. Manjeeb was a tall man, maybe 6 foot 4, and he stroked his beard as if it were a plump purring Persian cat. After taking a deep pull off of his wooden pipe, he diagnosed me with a case of sinusitis. "You go now," he said. Okay, not really. I was hoping that my visit to the doctor was strange and unusual, but the doctor was a pretty normal Balinese guy. He took my vitals and prescribed me some medicines. After that, things actually got a little strange. We had to meet him in an office, and while we waited, we watched an Indonesian music channel. This group called Team Low was playing, and we gleaned that they were a sort of a Weird Al type band for Indonesia. It was pretty hilarious stuff. The doctor and his nurse then wheeled out some luggage filled with meds. They rummaged around and chose some medicine, and even threw in some extra for Kristin. After that, we payed a small bill and then left. The entire process took about 30 minutes.
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We had a pretty uneventful day. After having some great yellow watermelons for breakfast, we visited the doctor, and then spent the rest of the day around Tanah Lot. Tanah Lot is a very famous Balinese sea temple. We shopped alot, and tried to take it easy since neither of us felt too great.

Bali coastline

Tanah Lot and surf

One more rice field pic

A closer shot of the photogenic Tanah Lot

Me, forgot to wash my hair today

Some ducks just hanging out at low tide

A balinese man giving offerings to the sea

More ducks and tidepools

Hanging out

Another angle of Tanah Lot

Entrance

Great painting, nope

A Balinese home

More MJ, dude was everywhere

Tanah Lot shopping area

Kristin's little buddy

Waves

We watched a ritual. These people went down to the water, and did

some stuff, releasing...

This guy from a bag, and he just ran around, aimlessly

then they all marched to the sea

Kristin back at our hotel

Dramatic low tide

Some kids playing in the tide pools

A bat of some kind that we ran into at the market

Just hanging out

Empty worship area at dusk

Enjoying a Bev

It was made with some Balinese liquor

Our hotel which apparently has one hell of a golf course

Night Tanah Lot

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

There will be blood (Pemuteran, Bali)

It was a massacre. They outnumbered us and came while we slept. They got exactly what they wanted, and what they wanted was our blood. I awoke at about 3 am, and noticed some blood on my pillow. I figured it was a bloody nose, attributing it to our rigorous travel schedule. I inspected my nose, found no problems and went back to bed. About 2 hours later, Kristin and I both woke up, and our sheets had numerous blood stains. We looked up at the netting that draped our bed, and what we saw made us shudder. Mosquitoes, everywhere. We had been eaten alive while we slept. A fleeting attempt at genocide was made at this point. We went around the room like desperate banshees smashing bugs in our hands, spraying 100% deet bug juice around like an assailed woman wields a bottle of mace. There was panic and deliberate attempts were made to kill, but our comfort would not come. We had to wash our own blood from our hands. This is never a good thing. We laid in bed smacking at our arms and bodies, waiting for the morning to come. A rooster jestfully crooned on in the distance, and our Indonesian innocence slipped right through the cracks in the floor of our lavish bungalow. Staring at the ceiling, both of us realized something, mosquitoes suck.

"I dont know, maybe 60 or 70 bites," I told Kristin as we sped away from our villa the following morning heading towards the westernmost point in Bali. I would try and count them, but it was a futile endeavor. We both knew which appendages were peaking out from our sheets because our bodies told the tale of their feast. We pictured mosquitoes sucking blood until they exploded, swerving around the air like drunk maniacs, stopping only to high five. We must have been fun, two exhausted american travelers, too starry eyed to notice that pitfalls of Indonesian living. My face looked like that of a 6 year old with chicken pocks. Kristin's shoulders looked like she spent a whole day wearing a backpack with straps made from poison oak. We looked like a couple of freaks, and we were about to be right at home. We were on our way to Gilimanuk Bay, a driftway between Java and Bali, home to some of the strangest creatures that the world has to offer, essentially an ocean freak show.

Our dive was great. We saw a bunch of weirdos down there, and Kristin even liked it. Our dive partners were an Italian couple from Paris, and we had a good time talking with them at a local warung for lunch. The dive site was like a desert, littered with small oasis of quaint villages filled with odd residents. I will let the pictures explain it below.

After our dive and lunch, we returned to the Amertha to settle our bill with the hotel and dive shop. We spent millions. Gusti returned to pick us up and take us to south Bali. He took one look at us, and said, "You need Bokasi." Bokasi is apparently an all natural salve popular in Indonesia. He told us to rub it on our bites, and we would be bagoosh (good). We were informed that people even use this antidote for stomach aches, with a few drops in a glass of water. I have no idea what sort of alchemy is going on in this bottle, but it works.

Gusti took us through the rice terraces and mountains to south Bali. It was a very long but beautiful journey. We even stopped at a real Balinese department store on the way, and were very impressed with the deals. They also had super nintendo and sega genesis games for sale, as if they were new. This brought back fond memories for me. We arrived at our hotel, Le Meridien Tanah Lot, just in time to watch the sun set over the Indian ocean.