The other Bali

So I strolled east and inland to see a different Bali I'd heard existed outside the Kuta-bubble of unnormality. I'd planned a scenic route to go around eastern Bali and to go snorkling and surfing at various spots around. Well, it didn't really turn out exactly how I'd planned, but things rarely do in the end.Rolling along east with the motorbike I saw what the fuss about Bali really was about. I started to wonder if there really was anything ugly somewhere on the island. Everything was just so amazingly picturesque. If it wasn't the nature it was either something someone had built or the people themselves.

A view towards the sea from the monument of Aron. You can see Nusa Penida in the distance: I wandered off to a small paved road up the side of gunung(volcano in indonesian) Agung, the highest volcano around and found this memorial of Aron. A soldier, who played an important role on Bali when the colonization by the western world collapsed after the second world war. Actually he was going after Balinese independence, but the Java-based newly formed government of Indonesia couldn't have cared less. They made him a hero of theirs as well. So instead of a Balinese flag by his side there's an indonesian flag and instead of fighting for the independece of Bali he fought for the Independence of the glorious nation of Indonesia. After all they fought the same enemy. But ain't it great he can be a hero anyway? ;) This somehow reminds me of how for example christian holidays are so conveniently on the same dates as previously pagan occasions in the past had been. Or maybe how the ancient pagan god Solomon somehow in the winds of time became merely a dramatic king with magic powers.

Well, the site was abandoned and beautyfull. I decided to eat some of my lunch. Some delicious chili chiken with ginger rice and crackers. Something you pick up two portions wrapped in a banana leaf and get the crackers on top with, normally, lets say for half an €.

This is the throne of the Supreme god of the Balinese. It is believed, that all other gods are different incarnations of this god. I find it peculiar, that the god is never seen, but as the empty throne. Often the thrones overlook astonishingly beautyfull scenery. This one was looking at the monument.
I find these thrones humblifying. Especially here in Indonesia where worlds of islands are violently created and destroyed by firebreathing mountains emerging from the depths of the sea. Weather is also very different compared to the slow and persistent changes in the north. Here the weather is unpredictable and local. Winds seem to come and go from out of nowhere with sometimes just one bolt of lightning striking down somewhere and a roaring sound of thunder only to vanish as quickly as it came. No wonder people here believe in ghosts, spirits, magic and such.

So this is what changed my plans a bit. I was rolling down the road on neutral with my engine off quite happy and satisfied, when I came to this turn with black sand on the pavement. Didn't see it and just came in too fast. The bike just slipped from under me, but luckily I ended up with just a fleshwound. And miraculously nothing happened to the bike. I had this full bag of snakefruit on the hook on the right side and the fruit were totally squished, thus saving the bike from scraches and probably my knee from some additional damage.
So after applying some first aid to myself I decided to continue to Tirta Gangga to lick my wounds for a while. Oh! And most of the red on the pic is some red antiseptic they use everywhere in Indonesia. So nothing serious, but no snorkling or surfing for a while. A small lavastone cocooned under my skin -my Bali souvenir. I wonder if it'll emerge some day..?
The Tirta Ganga was a beauty. Built on a spot overlooking rice paddies and the sea in the distance one could only imagine how it had looked and felt like when it was still a palace with servants and luxuries around. Nevertheless I really enjoyed it. I stayed in a hotel just beside it for two nights. It was possible to have breakfast overlooking the garden. Here's a set of pictures from around there:
Spending time walking around the garden listening to the sound of running water, enjoying the artwork and taking pictures was a perfect way for me to spend my time.
There were suprisingly few tourist around.
another throne:
The gate to the old palace that once had been:
I think it's for birds:

The owner of the hotel had a great sense of beauty as well. He had grown a wonderfull garden of bonzai-trees and had several pieces of selfmade art around the place.The sun rising from behind the volcano:
After a bit of healing it was time to move on. I'd wanted to go snorkling and see the wreck of Liberty. But with some parts of me still quite out of order I decided not to go into the sea, but to go and have a look just in case there was something to see anyway, like maybe something sticking out of the water or something, anything. So I dropped by to watch some people snorkle and awe at the wreck somewhere under water in front of me. And to have some lunch.
The beaches of northern Bali tend to be black round lava pebbles instead of sand. Waves make a crackling sound rolling ashore as there are large cracks between the rocks and the rocks move a bit as the water fills the cracks and then lets go of the stones dripping back into the sea only for the next wave to do the same again.

My ring "Gekkonen" had a crack and I'd been worried of losing it if I didn't find anyone to repair it. I'd found nobody around Kuta to do it. But I stroked a bit of luck when I found a silversmith in a village to do it. It was interesting to follow him at work with his medieval-looking equipment. Anyways he did a good job and I was worried if he'd settle for 40000rs(around 2€)..
You should have seen his eyes when I handed him the money. The guy looked like it was christmas. Boy do I love Indonesia!
Anyways I'd determined to go see this volcano named Batur as it was supposed to be something else with a huge outer crater with a lake. I wandered along the coast trying to find my way up there, but ended up taking a wrong turn within the mist thinking about driving down into the crater, but just heading back down to the coast as the heights were cloudy and it was impossible to see further than a few meters ahead. I ended up sitting on a beach trying to figure out if it was a lake or the sea.
I ended up meeting some local kids as I'd parked on a remote spot with only a hut by the beach. Turned out the hut was in use by the local teens as a makeout spot. =)
So I ended up chatting with the younger brother of a youngster spending quality time there with his girlfriend.
I set up my hammock and took a nap. Eventually I decided to head back up to the crater to make it up the volcano next morning hoping to be there before the clouds roll in in the afternoon. Ended up sleeping in my hammock on the edge of the outer crater. The dog of a nearby house started to bark so I was discovered by the people living on the other side of the road. Two women came over and although I tried to explain with my internationals how I just wanted to go and sleep on the hill they didn't understand. In the end they went back to the house and I hid myself into a spot with a nice view. The people from the house came back later probably to offer a place to sleep, but I was allready cozy and hidden away, so I just stayed that way. They did smile and wave when I started my bike the next morning and rolled along past their house though.
The active volcano called Batur:
So I rolled down into the crater the next morning and decided to just drive to the other side of the volcano and find a trail up there by myself as I'd read how the guides there were way too expensive for me to pay and by reputation really really pushy even threatening people to get them to take a guide. Well I might do it too if I got several months of pay for scoring a tourist, but anyways, I wasn't that guy. So I stopped for some coffee in the town by the lake and got cornered by an artsalesguy, who'd taken off painting from his grandfather and being a sucker for art I bought a small piece from him and chatted a bit about meditation and ways of life with him. Got some nice info from him too. There was a hotspring by the lake behind the tourist, commercial one, where the locals went. Decided to go there later.
I cotinued on to find my way behind the volcano where it was said there was a trail up somwhere, where you could just follow a path up without any guide. Well turned out there were several guides just waiting to tell anyone that they can't go up there alone and that they wouldn't show me the way to the path. I just told them that I wasn't really even sure if I wanted to climb up the volcano if it was dangerous, but anyways I wasn't looking for company or guidance, but actually quite the opposite -a quiet place with nobody else around. Unwillingly they understood. But after driving around for a while looking for the beginning of a trail for a while, encountering several people I explained all this again I met a guy who said he'd take me to the start of the trail for 5000. I decided to give in. He was happy, I was happy. I probably wouldn't have found it without him anyway, but then again I was maybe a hundred meters from it.The weather was perfect. I spent about two hours slowly climbing up the trail stopping all so often to just admire the surreal sight of having a ten kilometre wide crater with a huge lake in it below me.

So turned out that When I reached the peak I was the only one there -almost. There was a hut on top of the volcano with an old woman and her business. She'd carry coca-cola and other 1st world bevereges up for sale and carry hay down for the cow every day. Well maybe the hay was the primary burden. She'd had no business for two days. I decided to buy a coffee from her and wander around the peak with it alog these narrow paths that sure gave me a thrill.
It was quite exiting as there were vents with fumes coming out. Somehow I'd imagined there'd be some kind of sound or noise, but eve though the volcano was clearly active it was completely silent. I guess I expected rumbling, crackling, hissing and lava pouring out. I even asked the woman if it ever made any sound, but she said it didn't. So I guess it doesnt. Untill eruption that is.

Walking down the trail I heard ceremonial songs echoing somewhere. Amazing.
After I'd gone to the hot spring to take a bath and a coffee and some chatting and staring at people staring at me I decided it was time to move on. I wanted to see some more countryside, lakes in the west and to complete the round by driving down back south by taking a scenic road built with prisoner labour by the dutch. They even cut through a holy banyon tree, which naturally was total sacrilege for the balinese.
Ended up sleeping in a banyon tree again after driving untill it was dark. What a mighty one it was too. It had to be hundreds and hundreds of years old. Did you know that somehow the banyon tree causes the human body to produce endorfins? It is also said, that Siddhārtha Gautama became buddha(enligtened) under one.
Driving past the lakes I saw this beautyfull house on a ridge summit overlooking the lake infront of it and the sea far behind and below it. I'd fancy a nice view like this from my in-the-far-future appartment:
The shortcut to Pupuan:

The stretch after the lakes turned out to be one of the coolest things I'd experience on Bali. I was kind of driving by intuitive and ended up taking a shortcut to where I was going -what a route it was! It was ment for walking and for these bikes people around there drive. It was literally like driving in the middle of a jungle. And it went on and on for miles and miles and it was actually a shortcut through the jungle and to homes of families living on the slopes of the mountain volcano towards the route on where I'd planned on going. The biggest joy was just cruising there driving up and down and through some small streams. The up's and downs of the path had been paved with maybe a half meter wide stretch of concrete, where they'd slid grooves for additional hold. It was somehow fascinating to just ride along it and actually sensing the feeling of being 'in the middle of nowhere', getting a bit lost once in a while and stopping to ask somebody for direction chatting with them if they could speak any english. And getting wonderful smiles from most of the people along the way. Everyone I met was greeting me and I guess anyone else they might meet.
After the path I headed south along the Dutch road riding along stunning scenery. The road was slowly desceding along a ridge, so you could constantly see some terrain below usually as far as you could see with the sea glimmering from the far distance of the coast.
Although I couldn't surf I wanted to go see this beach called Medewi. The beach is special, because it has an incredibly long leftside break. I stopped to have some coffee and to awe on the surfers gliding on the wave. It's a bit dangerous though. If you don't ride along the break fast enough you'll end up banging on some rocks as the break starts quite near the beach and then continues into the baylike beach.I wanted to go see a temple and probably, if I'd make it on time spend the night somewhere in the proximity. Well,.. It turned out Medewi was a little bit further out than I'd thought. Racing against time to make it there I noticed that there were several other people doing it as well -racing full throttle that is. Nobody wants to drive in the dark, because there are no streetlights and you never know what to expect from the road. Well, I lost the race to the sun, but turned out there was still a race to be completed. Everyone who was racing along were headed towards Denpasar or the Kuta area, so I just kept on racing with the crowd all the way back to Kuta just in time to meet the swedes celebrating one of the guys birthday in this place called Joni Cafe. Boy had they been in the mood for a good party!
The Joni cafe was sweet by the way. Not only had it my name, but the girls working there were really friendly and let us bring our own drinks in aswell. It's a nice job for them too. They spent their days listening to music and playing chess against each other serving or making food or just chatting with people who happen to come in -and partying afterwards in the evenings. So I made it back to Kuta just in time before the swedes headed towards different directions and hung out with them for two days before heading towards eastern Indonesia..

Um. By the way as probably some of you allready know, at the moment I'm back in Finland. I just found a place to rent close to my school in Helsinki. I'll continue my 'Human resources management'-studies for the time being while doing some odd jobs, setting up our import company and writing some stuff now and then. I'll hopefully get "updated" in a while and start posting more recent stuff..
Tata for now!

Surfing Bali

I feel I've had a writers block. I haven't been able to edit my booklet or write my diary. You see I feel I've become increasingly tired during these past months. I guess its because I've been moving around a lot. And as I really can't afford spending the tourist price on everything I always have to find the cheap prices everywhere immediately, which adds up to the job. Its just that when you have blond hair over here you are immediately assumed to be a wealthy guy and thus nobody even imagines giving you stuff for the normal price. Its always triple or at least double.
I also feel dislocated actionvise. I feel more like I'm kind of more respoding, than initiating stuff. I'm back in my whirlpool of trivial or and megalomanic thoughts about this and that. And these thoughts seem to overwhelm me like they did in my, oh, so troublesome teenage years. I'm just not really living the moment and initiating, but just letting thoughts pass without action. No that I think the thinking part of it is bad, but without action even the most beautyfull of thoughts just pass. Sure, if it's a heureka!-kind of experience you'll remember it, but in truth I think our brain(or at least mine) isn't that brilliant of a recording device to begin with. Thoughts come and go and so has so many beautyfull moments of thoughts, experiences and feelings passed without being recorded. Do you people out there have any working methods of recording yourself? Do you use dictators or something? How do you manage your selves? All athmospheric aweing, which in fact is what I'm all about in real life gets left out of my writing and get's left out of my reflection. Not that I'm relly feeling bad or something. All these things that have happend to me on this trip has put me on the verge of, hmm, developing myself. For example I believe I was very good at taking stress.. Now I know that if I just keep my mind open for change my smile will never fade. Before I thought I have pretty good skills to come by in life. Now I know that I have em'. And ever since a few years ago I started working on this childhood trauma of mine having to prove myself to others. That's not what I want. I want to prove my stuff for myself because I believe the essence of myself is something I can do. Not that anything can be done to make me unambituous -I'm too twisted to be less than trying to chase my dreams that have formed my mind for so many years and why should I be anything else? My ambituousness lies in doing as much good as possible. I'm trying to be as much myself as possible and I'm trying to be as good as possible while always being able to enjoy the ride. And that's something I've learned more about along this particular path.As things get more and more different in cultural aspects you start noticing how there is no right way. There are just different ways. Well, some ways might seem more effective and some even might seem futile, but that absolutely is not up to you to decide although in life and especially within systems we might think that there are right ways and wrong ways and often it seem so. But this is just an illusion. The thing you think is better is based on your experience on repetition of something you've done succesfully(in your opinion) before. What we don't take into account are the experiences of the other persons previous experiences and the actual subjective intention. Even if the way of somebody trying to do something leads to them later on soing something the way you would have done it it still will probably evolve further into something that then would look down on the previous ways of doing things. So different isn't neccessarely better or worse for that matter. Sure, you can help if you have a more efficient way of doing things, but the way of setting values like this actually evokes resistance towards evolution. Looking down on someone never helps. When your ways get efficient you can be sure there's a bunch of people with ways as efficient as yours and groups that might aswell look down on your so called efficiency from their aspects. A good example of this is eating with your fingers. Somehow I've always secretly thought that it's something savages do somewhere or just if you don't have any other option. Boy did I learn from this one. I'd spent all Malaysia not eating with my hands, but on Bali driving around with the motorbike one day coming back from a not so succesfull attempt on riding the surfboard I bought some ginger rice and without any sorts of tools to dig into it I thought "what the heck, they do it everywhere" and started digging.Actually eating with your fingers recuires a bit of finesse. It's like learning to use western cutlery when your a kid or tuning in to use the chopsticks. Either my techniques that time weren't that pretty or they dont see westeners eat with their fingers that often or both, but I attracted attention. A guy standing outside his car even knocked on the window to draw the attention from the back seat towards more interesting sights.
Anyhow, Because I found out it was actually that difficult I decided to learn to do it as gracefully as the locals did. There's a special way of pushing rice into your mouth from your palm with your thumb. Actually, when you get rid of your prejudice towards it it actually feels better than eating with some sort of cutlery. You can actually feel the texture of your food in a different way than we do with our mouths. And about the hygiene factor: I think most westeners somehow lure themselves into thinking that when you eat with a knife and fork you automatically eat hygienically and even washing of the hands becomes irrelevant. Still people drop their food from the plate to the table or floor, pick them up with their fingers and still eat it.
Live and learn. Bali Must be one of the most beautyfull places on earth. Not only was I awed by the paradiselike nature, but the balinese just value beauty in almost everything they do. Where is this attitude in our hyperproductive culture?
These people manage to decorate everything. And its not because they want to brag by something fancy. They really aren't that rich to begin with. It's in valuing beuty itself. Still our "rich" western cultures progress into building everyting on a more and more cost effective basis. Who ever let all these "I don't need curtains" kind of guys in charge? Is culture really evolving if everything people build is getting uglier? Why hasn't anyone come up with a rule like "if you build something new after tearing that old building down make sure it's more beautyfull than the one thats being replaced"? Well.. Maybe it's just me, but I value beauty and I think there should be somekind of system to encourage the "growth" of beauty in our societies.The balinese are wonderfully unaware about their artisticity. Before, there wasn't even a word for 'artist' in balinese, because everyone was doing art in some ways even if only by making a flowerarrangement every day to drive bad spirits away and to lure good ones with their beauty.
Getting to know Indonesia through Kuta on Bali is a little bit like trying to understand thai culture by staying on Khao San road in Bangkok. Both are places where the unnormal is normal. It's a place where during the morning and day people do healthy activities like for example surf, dive or something. Then in the evenings people party hard. Every day. I met many people who said it's like this every day and the people who live there are on some kind of "get the money now and spend it now" kind of gear. I think it just might be true. There's a lot of aussies on Bali. It's even cheaper to fly there than to fly somewhere on holiday in Australia and the surf's good all year round almost every day. And it's cheap. And you gotta love the balinese people and why not Indonesian people in general. But Indonesia is huge and its more like a melting pot of cultures than a single culture. Well, I guess that's a fact with most larger countries. The balinese even have their own language although what binds Indonesia together is bahasa indonesia -"speak indonesia"- a true international language, in whitch everybody in indonesia, who study, study with. It's easy to pronounce and builds up in an easy to understand way. It's unbelievable how quickly you get the hang of it!The thing about the people there is that the smiles on peoples faces are sincere(well most of the time) and that's beautyful. And especially many balinese
girls did indeed have made my head turn. People are really friendly and genuinely interested in you. Well of course in Kuta it's like anywhere in the tourism bubble -it's all about money. Heck, you get that even in normal society a lot. It's all about the dough. For me money is a function. It's outsourcing something that you decide not to do yourself. And by using money we agree on somebody doing something on our behalf is it for growing food or doing out laundry for us or something more abstract like a service. But for many money has become an abstract and value by itself. People are in it for the glitter. Many many people agree on other people making many stupid things to earn a buck, by just not not really even caring what was done by whatever they just used their money for. I think I have a right not to spend my money on people doing stupid things for me, or for my money I mean. I guess people could cosiderate me a cheapskate. I'm not greedy, but I tend to like many functios in my life. !) And those functions cost money. Which I don't really have enough of. So my stuff is usually old and a little bit broken or repaired, but works. =) Here's my sandalrepair mark VI:So about the two weeks in Kuta. On arrival at the airport on Bali I bumped into five swedes of which I'd met three first on the Cameron Highlands and later in Kuala Lumpur. So I joined them and spent the two weeks mostly in a place called Sari Bali Bungalows on Kuta beach. Days by the pool or learning to surf. Chasing the sunsets in the evenings and eating well. And drinking.I rented a motorbike after two days and just started driving around looking for interesting places and boy did I find many. I also rented a surfboard for a week and dragged it around to various spots. Did I learn to surf?Well you could say I'm on the brink. I can't really catch the big waves yet, but I catch some and I think I got a hook of it.. It really is one of those addictive sports. When you actually catch a wave and ride it it really feels kind of like flying. And after you catch one you go "I wanna catch at least one more". I'm lucky I'm interested in so many things, that I'm not considering to become a full time surfer. Surfing can also be dangerous. Many surfers get a fright from ending up in the "washing machine". I did. A big wave catched me an pushed me several meters underwater and held me there my back aginst the sandy bottom until what felt like a very long time. Eventually the wave let go and I came to the surface to gasp for some air when the next one rolls in and tries to give me the same treament. Luckily I could hang on to my board and stay above. Decided to get out of the water for that day. Well.. On Kuta beach it's not as dangerous as in some places which have dangerous reefs, that you can be cut on or hit unconcious on while you get this treatment from the waves. But its good to be a good swimmer if you want to catch the waves. Learning to surf on already broken waves is possible even for people with lesser swimming skills as there's a strong current on top of the wave and it kind of just grabs the board and gives you a ride without the need to paddle hard and jump on the board with a perfect balance. People sometimes even manage to get up on the board on their first try. Catching a bigger wave is a bit trickier though. You need to paddle hard to get some speed before the wave comes and then at the right moment and depending on the size of the wave grab the board from the right spot and push yourself up. I'd say don't bother with any lessons, but just ask the person renting the board to just show you how it's done. You'll have to get the hang of it mostly by your self anyway.So because of the sheer fun of Kuta and the swedish lads I ended up staying at the beach for two weeks. I also spent some qualitytime with this crazy aussie surferchick Mads and her cousin Erin.
But after a while I woke up to this feeling of having to get going if I wanted to do this trip around Bali and to other islands..
So I decided to start my roadtrip by heading east towards the "Tirta Ganga-Water of Ganges"..