bali travel updates
Omg, we made it to Bali. It was absolutely out of control getting here... but we're here now! We packed up on Wednesday morning, ate some delicious mango, grabbed our delicious favorite breakfast (bread, fried bread, and egg) and headed towards the airport. Our flight was at 10:15am and we left the apartment at 7am. Before I left the US, I purchased an amazing travel backpack with a detachable fanny pack and mini backpack. But unfortunately I packed it a little too heavy. Okay, a lot too heavy. Even at 7am it was really really really hot and humid and Karen and I were basically drenched in sweat before we even got to the train station. Karen brought a big suit case, and a small backpack. I also had with me a fairly good sized carryon bag with shoulder straps that are really uncomfortable and hard to carry with the backpack so Karen was rolling it on her suitcase. We made it to the train, dripping sweat, and arrived at main station to catch a bus to the airport. Little did we know a huge adventure was about to begin………..
The main station in Taipei is huge. It actually has an entire underground mall connected to it. We followed the signs to the bus station, lugged our baggage up way too many stairs, and popped up aboveground. We entered the bus station, found the bus company we wanted, and thought we were good. The station was air conditioned and we were proud of ourselves for finding it. Just to make sure we were in the right place, we asked information about getting to the airport. The woman told us we were at the wrong bus station and gave us a tiny map with a building circled in red. As you can imagine, Karen and I were not happy about going into the heat again, carrying 900 pounds of luggage, to go to a DIFFERENT station. To make matters worse, in many intersections in Taipei there are pedestrian overpasses because the intersections are so busy and complicated by the thousands of moped riders. This means we have to go up a shit ton of stairs to go up and over the goddamn overpass. Karen and I decided to switch bag situations so she was carrying my heavy backpack and I was carrying her mini backpack, my carry on and her suitcase. The carry on was on top of the suitcase but it got too heavy for me so Karen had to take it. We get to the bottom of the stairs and Karen has the heavy backpack, the heavy carry on, and was helping me carry the huge suitcase. Remember, dripping sweat, maximum humidity, heavy bags. All the sudden, Karen and I are having a laughing fit halfway up the stairs. The kind of laughing fit that only my mom, Cara, Katie, and Cara Nicole really can fully understand. The kind of laughing fit where you have to get up and leave. The kind of laughing fit where you can't stop to take a breath. That kind. So we are halfway up the first flight of stairs each holding a side of the bag, trying to carry the stupid bag up the stairs. When we finally get to the top of the first flight, I am bent over laughing so hard. Karen had been carrying 3 of 4 bags at this point and I’m the one dying. I was laughing so hard I fell down onto the suitcase so I'm literally draped over the suitcase lying in the middle of the overpass. People were walking by just staring and Karen and I are just non-breathing laughing.
We finally got it together and managed to get our stuff up and over the bridge. We arrive in another bus station (after asking two more people if we're going in the right direction) and arrive to find we're still in the wrong place. Shonna/Karen = not happy. We dragged our stuff once again to ANOTHER building and finally found it... except they didn't have the same bus brand so we asked for the airport and bought a ticket. We relaxed and felt relieved.
The bus left at 8:15... And we were told by friends the bus should take an hour. Unfortunately we forgot to ask about that (arrival time) and after circling the city for about 30 minutes, picking up passengers who didn't appear to be going to the airport, Karen and I started to freak out. We hadn't left Taipei yet and we needed to be at the airport very soon. Karen tried to communicate to the driver, who spoke no English, that our flight was at 10:15. He made a worried face, Karen pointed at a taxi, and the driver nodded his head aggressively. So he stopped for us, we jumped in the cab, and that's when it really started to feel like the amazing race. There are two separate terminals at the airport, not to mention another non-international airport in Taipei... but luckily I had the info in my iPhone and we were able to point and sound. I never realized how much pointing and hand motions could be of use.
We finally got to the airport at 9:15... Phew! The check-in process was the easiest EVER, and we even had some time to shop and take some silly pictures. This adventure may not seem that funny to you, but with 100+ lbs of luggage, bazillion degree weather, 3 different bus stations, and no English... it was quite a journey for us.
The flight was fine. I only slept for about an hour which was pretty incredible for me... Karen and I had a few more laughing attacks over idk what. We laugh way too much. At inappropriate times. I love it.
We arrived at the Bali airport and it was absolute chaos. There were thousands (and I'm not over exaggerating) of people waiting to buy visas and get through customs. I've never seen anything like this, and no one really warned us about this. As we wandered around trying to figure out which non-line to get into, I overheard a man telling someone about VIP service to skip the 2 - 3 hour line for $20 us dollars per person. I grabbed him, and asked him what the deal was. He asked for our passports and $25 to buy our visas and luckily Karen and I had some US dollars so we told him he couldn’t have our passports and watched him give the $50 to some sketchy man who was handing loads of cash to the side of a window where people had been waiting forever. We got our visa, and gave the guy only $35 ("all we had left") and walked around the thousands of people, and through customs without even stopping. We made sure he was "official" and that our passports were NEVER out of our site. It was totally shady and crooked but boy am I glad we found this guy. We literally got through the entire process in 10 minutes where it had taken others hours and hours.
We walked outside and there were about 100 men with signs with hotel and people's names to collect passengers to their hotels. We had to go through all of the people to see if ours was there. It was so unorganized and chaotic. Ours wasn’t there so I asked a local for his phone and called the hotel. The man who let me borrow his phone said he'd been waiting since the morning. It was 4:45pm. Because of the security line, the drivers are just waiting for hours, hopeful their people will arrive. It was nuts. Karen and I played a game of MASH or two and our driver arrived. We were so excited.
About 45 min later we arrived at our hotel. It’s really cute. Very naturey and peaceful. We are in a little villa with a big bed and an entire outdoor bathroom. The shower is so amazing... all covered with rocks. We got showered and ventured through town to have some food. The locals here speak a lot more English, but still not much. They look much more alike than the Taiwanese people... very dark skin and a mix between Pilipino, Mexican, and Thai. They are super small. I think the men are pretty attractive, but I’m pretty sure I’m the minority in thinking that. Everyone is VERY polite and although Seminyak (the city we're staying in) is very touristy, there are still lots of locals around. It’s very interesting because there will be a few shacks, then beautiful hotels, and really nice restaurants. The bars and restaurants are very nice here and not that expensive. About $10 per person. The taxis are so so cheap... they start at 50 cents and the meter doesn’t increase often at all. You can ride for a good distance and it will cost less than a dollar. Despite the low cost of travel, Karen and I have been having a very hard time with the currency. The conversion rate is 10,000 rp = $1 US dollar. That means, something that cost $53.25 is 532,500 rp.... too many zeros! Even though we understand the conversion rate we're having a very hard time getting the zeros straightened out. Lots of laughs from this. They also drive lots of mopeds like in Taiwan, but they are more like small motorcycles. So dangerous!
Yesterday we woke up at 10am, had this amazing free breakfast at the hotel consisting of banana pancakes (much different than US pancakes), an omelet, AMAZING pineapple juice, and some yummy chocolate cereal. So good. And everyone is so nice. Then we hung out at the pool for a few hours and chilled at the in-pool bar with the bartenders. What a life! We then ventured to the beach, picking up spa brochures on the way. The beach was fairly busy but still comfortable. There are lots of vendors trying to sell crap for so much money. We bought some dresses, Karen got a pair of sunglasses, and I got a watch. Their asking price is about 8 times more than the things are worth. They know how to rip off tourists but Karen and I came prepared.
After the beach we headed to a spa to get a 2.5 hr service consisting of a massage, body scrub, yogurt mask, and soak. Karen and I were in the same room. The massage was AMAZING. During the scrub, Karen and I got into an OUT OF CONTROL laughing fit because her salt scrub was turning brown because of her spray tan. So funny... and the women didn’t really know what to do with us... they just giggled too. The whole experience was really really nice and relaxing, not to mention incredibly exfoliating, for only $25. I think we'll be doing that again before we leave.
We got home late, had a late dinner, and went to bed. Today... we head to the busy city of Kuta to party with the Australians. Good times to come!!
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On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 3:47 AM, Shonna Sommer
Hello in the states… my updates have been sparse as Karen and I have been doing much more relaxing than adventuring. I can’t exactly remember how I left off (I’m not sure what day it is or what time it is ever). We spent two nights in Seminyak… a quieter city about 15 minutes from the main city of Kuta. We had some major pool time and enjoyed the restaurants. We grabbed a taxi on Friday morning to go to our hostel in Legian… the cities all kind of smoosh together here. The hostel here is amazing. Totally swanky and cool. Karen and I have our own room with little bunk beds and we have another amazing shower. When we walk out of the room, the disappearing edge pool greets us with awesome white lounge chairs. Everything is white, grey, and blue, surrounded by the green of nature. The decorations are awesome and the staff is so incredibly nice. After we spent Friday walking around the big city and the beach, we came home and the staff invited us to a bbq on the roof. There is an awesome feeling of community and we met some great people from Austria, Ireland, Costa Rica, and Australia.
Friday night we hung out with the owner of the hostel and a few of his friends who live locally. They are all Australian but live here now. We had a fun time talking about different things in our countries and sharing stories about travels. They took us out to the main part of Kuta, which turned out to be insanity. As our Irish friends described it… it was all a bit messy. There was club after club filled with very very drunk people. Lots of dancing. Lots of guys without shirts on. Lots of girls stumbling out of the bars… and lots of locals trying to sell drugs, transport, and who knows what else on the street. It basically looked like Mexico spring break, but worse. We did some dancing for a couple hours but got over the scene pretty quickly. But in general, what happens in Bali stays in Bali. Haha. We had a fun night. We went to bed at 4am.
Yesterday we slept late, picked up take-away food, and went to the beach. We played in the ocean for a bit and just laid out for a few hours. Rough life we have. We came home and bbq’ed again with some new people and headed to bed relatively early. We weren’t quite up for another crazy night in Kuta.
This morning we woke up early and did yoga at the hostel. They have three classes daily and its only $5 for hostel residents. Karen and I were the only people in the class so we basically had a private yoga session. The instructor had a good laugh at us because she said our bodies are 100% different… which by the looks of us, makes pretty good sense.
Now, we’re lying by the pool enjoying pineapple strawberry juice and lunch. We go to central Bali tomorrow… which will likely be very different than where we are now.
We know you all are jealous. Try to refrain. We miss you.
Exes and ohs.
It’s Monday now. I meant to send this but got carried away by amazingness and it kind of slipped my mind. Forgive me.
The last 36 hours have been kinda insane. After yoga we spent 6 hours by the pool… we thought about going to the beach but the vendors are annoying and our hostel is so nice with no sand that we decided to stay. The sun was the brightest and strongest that it’s been since we’ve been here and Karen and I both got our first burn. We hung out with our Irish friends and met some boys from England. One was even a mechanical engineer… we had lots to talk about. He just finished school and apparently they do everything on a number scale and kept asking me what I got in school. I did not understand and continued to tell him that (thankfully!) grades aren’t really a big deal for engineering, and that it’s more about your degree.
We packed up, showered, and went to dinner with 5 people from the hostel: two from Ireland, two from England, and one from Germany. It was happy hour and we ate at a restaurant literally ON the beach. We could see the waves crashing as we were eating. And we are obsessed with the chairs. It was great fun exchanging slang and country information. After dinner we headed to a swanky bar that you would think should be right in the middle of south beach Miami. The whole place was mostly beds and as it turned out, we were their first real customers as we walked in right as their grand opening party ended. We met up with some more people from the hostel and there were 15 of us total, all lying on our bellies on a circular bed/couch laughing and playing games. It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. It was just incredible to be in a group with people from all over the world.
We headed back to the hotel early because we booked an adventure trip that was picking us up at 2:30am in the morning. We were both a bit tipsy and had previously decided it was pointless to try and sleep. The driver arrived and took our bags, our friends sent us off but it was definitely all kind of sketchy. Our hotel had booked the trip for us from a brochure we found but we drove for about 1.5 hrs and arrived at 4am to the bottom of the volcano where we were going to hike to see the sunrise. Obvi I slept the entire drive and when I woke up I was a little nervous Karen and I might need to run to save our organs. As it turned out, it was totally safe and there were tourists everywhere. It was completely dark and the stars were more visible than I’ve ever seen in my entire life. We had a personal guide who gave us flashlights and we began hiking right away. Karen and I were in full make up with our hair done… pretty comical. It was chilly at the mountain and it was the first time we were cold while in Bali and needed a jacket.
The hike turned out to be pretty challenging. Really challenging. It was about 1.5 hrs to the top and the last 30 minutes were almost completely vertical. Lots of rock climbing and since it’s an active volcano, there were slippery volcanic rocks everywhere. Karen and I were so so tired but we started a sing-along and made it to the top. The sunrise was incredible and at the top we enjoyed some delicious hot chocolate and our guide gave us some traditional breakfast that was good, but a little too spicy for us. He was quite the jokester and we had a very nice time with him. We went to see the place where the volcano erupts and there were the cutest monkeys EVERYWHERE. They would come up to us and take food out of our hands and were so incredibly gentle. Adorable little guys. I want one real bad.
Hiking down the mountain seemed to be just about as challenging as going up. Although it wasn’t as aerobic, the rocks are so slippery so it took us a very long time to get down. By the end, we started calling it rock surfing because we’d start to slip down the mountain but then catch ourselves before falling. Karen and I have very similar humor and of course we had another laughing fit. Of course. And for some reason, our guide and another guide thought we were lesbians. Not sure what that was all about. “you two friends?” “yes,” “juuussssst friends?” “yes, just friends.”
After the 4 hour hike, we headed to the nearby hot springs at the lake that’s associated with the volcano. These were the nicest hot springs I’ve been to. We arrived around 8:30am and had breakfast consisting of spaghetti and a Balinese type marinara sauce. Pretty strange for breakfast but we were so hungry we didn’t care. We spent about 3 hours at the springs; of course I fell asleep again… not to mention all the sleeping I was doing in between car trips. Karen didn’t really sleep at all. This is a pretty common theme: I sleep anytime we’re in moving transportation and Karen is wide awake. Nonetheless, Karen and I were basically zombies all day.
The last part of our day consisted of another 3 hour spa service including a massage, avocado mask, and bath soak. They gave us this really potent tea when in the bath and Karen and I couldn’t handle it so we just dumped it into the bath… figured it probably did something good.
Now we’re in Ubud which is in central Bali. The culture is much more abundant here. As we drove in we saw a lot of art studios selling really large paintings for very cheap, so we’re hoping to check out that and visit some monkey forests tomorrow. Our place in Ubud is nice, but much different than the hostel. It will be much quieter here and we probably won’t meet as many people. Its 6pm and Karen and I are about to go to bed and there’s people by the pool. Hopefully a good night’s sleep will counter-act our 36 hours of no sleep. It’s all been an adventure and Karen and I are taking it all in. We’re still getting along great and enjoying each other immensely. It’s been nice getting to spend time with other people but its fun because we are always having a laugh about something.
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On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 9:41 PM, Shonna Sommer
Oh the places you’ll go. Karen and I are in Bali heaven. The last two days have been amazing, and so different from each other. After the 36 hours sans sleep, we slept for 15 and woke up to a yummy breakfast and began venturing out into central Ubud. Ubud is a much more jungly town with many cute shops filled with Balinese goods. We attempted to walk down the street but didn’t get very far because we kept stopping to buy stuff. Lots of gifts… the goods here are incredible. From jewelry to photo albums made from jungle parts, to coconut serving spoons, we had a blast just enjoying the fact that we had no agenda.
For lunch we enjoyed one of our favorite meals by ordering a lot of food since it was so cheap. We ordered a pizza, a Greek salad, two mango banana strawberry juices, an omelet, and a jaffle, all for $11!!! Karen has discovered the jaffle, which is basically a grilled sandwich with whatever you want in it (traditionally egg and cheese or banana) and it’s in a special shape with the crust cut off. She’s set to get a jaffle press in the US and jaffle everything when we get back.
Karen wasn’t feeling great so we headed back to the hotel for a bit to rest up before we headed out to get some art. On our way into Ubud, we saw a bunch of art studios about 10 minutes from the main area. When we were in Legian we inquired about pricing for a very large-sized painting and the woman told us 350,000 rp which is only $35!! So obvi when we saw all the studios we got really excited. We asked around at the studios in the main part of town and all the large paintings (and I’m talking very large) were going for about $250 - $350 USD, which was still good for their size and beauty, but too much for Karen and me.
In Ubud there aren’t an abundance of taxis so we arranged a van to drive until we started recognizing the studios. When we got there, we asked what time they were all open until and they said 6pm. At this point, it was 5pm. We started to freak out a bit because there were lots of studios and little time. So we began what we later titled “speed arting.” We basically went around to 6 – 7 studios rushing around trying to find what we liked and making bargains. At the first place we really decided we wanted something, we bartered a painting each from $90 down to $30. They have to take the canvas off the wood backing so they can roll them up so we can bring them home so we were basically like “ok, we’ll take it! We’ll be back in a few to pick it up.” And off we ran to the next studio. The art is really unbelievable and so incredible cheap. I bought a set of three large pieces that go together that is about my height and even longer in width for only $80. In the US this painting would have been minimum $300 - $400. The artists all wanted to stop and chat but we had places to go, art to see. We ended up rushing around to all the studios, each picking up a good amount of pieces. I ran out of cash and wall space and we finally ended up at a very large studio that was open until eight. Karen and I both bought nice sized pieces at this place and as we waiting for them to roll our paintings, their children brought us water and nuts and ultimately they convinced us to buy more. I bought another VERY large piece for my guest room and at this point it was dark and we realized we didn’t have a way to get back to our hotel. The artist asked how we were getting back and ultimately in our last purchase we bargained for the large piece, a smaller piece for Karen, and a ride home for $60. Karen and I have big plans to come back to Bali and buy out a few studios and sell at home to friends, family, and on the internet. The cost of the art is just incredibly low and we were mostly limited by wall space and transporting the paintings home. We have much more luggage now than we started with, not to mention huge rolls of canvas, so we are starting to leave things behind to make room for gifts and goods.
Speed arting was amazing. We are pretty proud of ourselves for keeping our eyes peeled and finding studios on the outskirts of town. Also, Karen and I have been expert bargainers. Karen got this AMAZING and HUGE painting for just $30. Incredible. Need to decorate your home? GO TO BALI!
After speed arting we piled all of our stuff into our room and had a nice dinner and came back to go to bed early to get ready for our big adventure today. Packing was a bit of a project so we spent a decent amount of time getting resituated so we could move to our next location.
There are lots of tour companies in and around Bali and Karen and I had an idea of what we wanted to do but none of the companies had the exact versions of we wanted. We got our hotel to call the company and ask if they could customize a tour with pick up, white water rafting, time in the monkey forest, a tree top adventure park with zip lining and ropes course, and a ride to our new hotel which is all the way on the north coast of Bali and about 2.5 hrs north of where we are. DONE! All for $80…. which is pretty incredible considering the entrance fees for these places plus transport.
White water rafting was awesome. Karen had never been so that’s always fun and we shared a boat with a cute Japanese couple. Our guide spoke 5 languages so he said everything to us in both English and Japanese. He was quite the character. He had a tattoo of a completely naked lady on one arm and on the other arm he had two people having sex with “I LIKE SEX” written underneath, in English. Karen noted that his ability to get girls has probably significantly decreased since he got that tattoo and I agreed. He had a bit of a crush on me and kept calling me his wife. He told Karen to go to Lovina (our next destination) and for me to stay with him. I kindly declined. Karen and I wore her surf shirts and with my new matching fuchsia glasses I looked a bit like a super hero. I call myself LADY RAFTA. Protector of the rafts.
The rapids were a good size and we had fun under the waterfalls and swimming in the river. Overall, it was a great experience and very beautiful getting to see so much of the jungle.
Next we ventured to the monkey forest where three different breeds of monkeys co-exist (semi) peacefully. The guide sat me down to have a monkey climb on me and I went to pet him and he scratched my neck and hissed and showed his teeth to me. No one had told me I wasn’t supposed to touch them! I’m glad I didn’t see the glaring teeth because it probably would have scared me too much to do it again but I just sort of felt like it was my fault. The scratches only lasted for about an hour or so and it’s a good story to say I got attacked by a monkey. We spent some more time with the monkeys (and baby monkeys) on our heads eating papaya leaves from our hands. They are the cutest things ever and I want one really really bad. Pictures are amazing.
To end our day of adventure we headed to the Bali tree top adventure park that has 6 courses of combo high treetop ropes course and zip lines. The trees here are lots of trunk with bushy trees just at the top, which is perfect for zip lines. They had us do a 5 minute demo course to show us how to operate the carribeaners and the pullies and then let us go on our own. We did 4 different courses and they were all incredibly challenging. We had to balance on wobbling logs, climb through moving barrels, and walk on tight rope. The courses proved to be much more challenging than we expected. Because of our different body shapes, what was hard for me was easy for Karen and vice versa. The good news is that after a couple really challenging runs, we’d get to go on a big zip line. Challenge, challenge, reward. Anytime there was a hard part, Karen would say "imagine we're on the amazing race Shonna... go go!" As you can imagine, there were a few laughing fits halfway across runs. Not so good when you’re holding onto one rope for dear life.
By the end of the 4th course we were about 50 feet up in the trees. Meanwhile, there isn’t a guide or anything so no one was supervising us the whole time. That made me a bit nervous but I guess that’s just the way it goes. We had a blast but were really tired by the end of the day. We have a couple great videos of us on the zip line… maybe one or two of crashes into nets.
We arrived in north Bali in Lovina pretty exhausted and rather grumpy. Adventure days make us tired. Tomorrow we are getting 90 minute massages in the morning and plan to lay by the pool and go to the beach. Does vacation get any better than this?
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On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 10:41 PM, Shonna Sommer
No one could be sadder than Karen and me to be ending our Taiwan/Bali adventure. It has been has blast. We had no idea what was in store for us, how well we’d get along, and how much we’d get to do and experience. The trip has been cultural, relaxing, adventurous, and in general a huge success. We will miss each other immensely and have plans for parties and gaga in the future. We have been spending the last few days baking in the sun, trying to figure out how to transport art, and giggling a lot. Tonight, we had our final dinner on the beach in matching floral rompers that we bought in Taiwan without being able to try them on… as you can imagine, we received plenty of stares.
For our final update, we’re summing up our trip by a few things that make us laugh and remind us why this trip was so amazing:
- Number of bug bites on Karen’s body: 21 (she got 40 new ones the night after I wrote this)
- Number of spilled drinks by Shonna: 3
- Average length of waiting time for meals: 45 minutes
- Number of consumed juices (per person): approximately 90
- Laughing fits: at least 700
- Days spent at beach/pool: 8
- Total art purchases: Shonna – 7, Karen – 8
- Pounds of luggage: 100+
- Average servings of ice cream per day (Taiwan only): 2, sometimes 3
- Number of jaffles consumed in Bali: 11
- Times during the day Shonna was sleeping and Karen wasn’t: the entire trip
- Spa treatments: 9 each (wow!)
- Animals attacking Shonna: 2 (one monkey, one fish)
- Fun and fabulousness: 2.5 whole weeks!!
Karen has been an even greater travel partner than I could have ever expected. She is extremely accommodating. As most of you know, I’m a huge complainer. And a few days into our trip I realized that when I would complain, Karen would accommodate my complaint. It was a bizarre occurrence to me and it took me a while until I realized it but I think it’s really cured (or at least helped) my complaining. For example, Shonna “ugh this bag is so heavy” Karen “give it to me, I’ll hold it” or Shonna “uhhhh I’m cold” Karen “here, take my sweater.” Pretty amazing.
Also, Karen and I quickly realized we needed to be a bit of each other’s “mom’s.” Karen is a bit spacey and will totally forget what she’s doing/what she needs to do, and I lose/misplace EVERYTHING. Fortunately, we caught onto these subtleties early on and were able to help each other survive throughout all the madness.
Taiwan was an amazing cultural phenomenon. We are thankful for our friends who helped us navigate and understand the city and we feel very fortunate for our experience. It wasn’t the best timing that Kevin moved back to California (and coincidently just left back to China for work, so I STILL won’t get to meet him!) but we had a journey of a lifetime.
Bali was full of relaxation, new friends, beaching, pooling, hiking, hot springing, tree topping, snorkeling etc. etc. etc. We will be back. For art and vacation. One day, one day.
Thanks for letting us share our stories with you. See you all soon.
Lots of Asian love,
SHONNA AND KAREN
p.s. sorry about my grammar and spelling this trip... I’m on vacation biatch!
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