I'm sitting in a huge room filled with Chinese dudes playing weird computor games. I mean there must be 50 young men at least. I'm the only white guy for sure, and it's LOUD in here. I don't know what they're all yelling about! I think I may be one of the only ones using the internet.
Auckland is weird. I was out walking, waiting at a huge intersection downtown, around 5:30pm, waiting for the walk signal. Seemed like it was taking forever. There were mobs of people patiently waiting. When the buzzer sounded everyone started crossing everywhich way, north-south, east-west and crossways. We filled the whole big intersection. I don't think I can convey how strange that was. It sort of looks like a downtown street in the US, but I've never seen people do that!
Another difference, which bummed me out, is that all the stores seemed to close at 5:30. And only about 1/3 of the resturaunts were open. The whole place is practically shut down. After the teeming streets of Bali and Thailand, this does not compute.
I left the dead-tired gals to sleep off the red eye flight, whilst I searched for stores that sell warm weather gear. I walked about 5 miles and found a few I'd seen in the phone book, but of course they were closed.
The prices here are giving us fits. The taxi ride from the airport was almost $50! The lonely planet guidebook we just bought (before 5:30) was also $50. That's NZ$, but still!! We have to get coats and sweaters and some shoes for the kids. It's not really cold yet, but much cooler than Bali.
The gal who checked us in at the hotel told us we should leave tomorrow and head straight for the South Island. Don't waste any time with the North Island. There's nothing up here worth seeing, she said, at least that you can't see down South. We've heard this before, from a NZ couple at the Chiang Dao Nest. Hard to believe. But we were planning to head south right away anyhow, to try to salvage as much warmth as we can down there. And as little rain as possible.
Driving into Auckland from the airport we were reminded of Eureka, up in Humboldt County. A smattering of charm here and there, but rather dull. Now with this ghost town thing they've got going....jeeez. I just feel lucky to have found this weird internet place. We read that there are gazillions of Chinese students now in NZ. A lot of them seem to be in here.
A few days ago we were saying goodbye to Ubud. We had one last breakfast at our favorite place-Tutmaks, our home away from home. I had one last massage at my favorite spa. We said goodbye to our lovely guesthouse and Dede, the Javanese fellow who works there we all liked so much, and all the gals in the alley we bought stuff from, and Nyoman and Made our drivers. We also said goodbye to a bunch of money at the cargo office! Yikes. It's going to be interesting fielding all this import stuff.
Anyhow, Made's brother in law drove us down to this place called Dreamland. It came highly recommended as a beach experience to wrap up our Bali adventure. It was another in a series of really bizarre experiences. About an hour and a half south from Ubud, we came to this huge fenced compound out in the middle of nowhere. Our driver informed us that one of Suharto's evil sons had scammed all this land and tried to establish a gigantic resort. We had to pay rp5000 at the gate and then drove down miles of broad corroding palm tree lined road. Apparently corruption killed the deal and the son went to jail and folks are still fighting over who gets the land. I mean this place is HUGE. the road just went on and on, two broad lanes with nothing there, except periodic guard houses. It had the feeling of a modern ruin. At last we could see the Indian Ocean ahead of us and a funky handpainted sign said Dreamland that way. We had to skirt a huge sink hole that had taken out 2/3 of the road and then suddenly we were on a very rough dirt and rock path going through bushes. Oops there's a cow. Oops, a few more. A giant puddle to try to skirt. Unbelievably rough ground, then a bunch of guys waiting around for something, a bunch of cars parked amongst the scrubby trees. We're here! Huh?
We parked and our driver led us on a little hike to a steep path cutting down the cliff. Sure enough, below us was gorgeous azure water with big waves and people in the water (maybe 30?) with some thatched buidings, some of them resturaunts and some maybe guesthouses. Right on the beach, or perched halfway up the cliff. A crazy bunch of steps leading down. And the heat was so intense we were fainting and getting roasted.
Our driver expected us to hike down and check out the lodging options. But we were looking at the size of the waves and the feeling of isolation. I really wish we had pushed on to check it out. It was really something different. But we bailed.
On the way back out we saw a sign for a resort hotel on a different beach and we though, what the hell, let's check it out. Turned out to be an even crazier rocky ride over to it. But once there it was easily accessible, no hike down the cliff in the blistering heat. What a surprise! It had a beautiful infinity edge pool looking out over the sea below, with Bali's biggest volcano in the far distance. It had these round thatched open air bungalows, each set in their own grassy garden, with big comfortable beds and a bed alcove for the kids, each with deluxe mosquitoe netting canopies. It was a luxury type place and Krista especially fell in love with it. We stayed, even though we were short on cash, having planned for a rp150,000 place and this was rp700,000, with a fairly expensive resturaunt we'd have to rely on. Anyway, we stayed and it was amazing. One reason we stayed is that there were cute little monkeys in the trees. How exotic!
Turned out that they also shared the pool with the guests. Hmmmmm. That water is a bit green. and warm. They investigated us during our swim and kind of freaked out the girls. Very cute and very naughty. They invaded the open air resturaunt and finally one of the gals had to whack them with a tree branch to get them out. They were swinging from the wiring and knocking things over. I jokingly asked if they ever come to the rooms. ha ha.
The next morning we had just gotten up when the three little monkeys came to visit. At first we were delighted, amazed, enchanted. Then they were swinging around on the canopies and shades, climbing on us, jumping around the bed, grabbing stuff and knocking things over. The littlest one was pawing at Eden, who started really freaking out! I began the half hour process of shooing them out by batting at them with pillows. Outside they grabbed our swimsuits off the drying rack and one of them was dragging Krista's suit up to the top of a palm tree!
I looked back in the room to tell Krista but the gals were gone! Where'd they go? When I realized they'd barricaded themselves inside the mosquitoe netting in the kid's alcove, weighting the netting down with pillows, I started laughing so hard I had to sit down.
By then the monkeys had come around the side and were climbing the wall of our open air bathroom. Very bad manners.
Finally I lured them up to the resturaunt for breakfast and let the staff deal with them. Jeez.
It was shortly after shooing them out of the room that I opened our suitcase and an enormous wolf spider jumped out and scurried behind it. Heart attack time. That spider was BIG and very very fast. I just prayed the girls wouldn't see it--they were still holed up in the alcove, but they wondered why I was yelling and swearing! I'm sorry to say that I killed the poor devil. I'm sure he meant us no harm, but a bite would've sent Eden to the hospital for sure. That was when we decided to check out early. Monkeys and spiders. And coral.
The day before we'd taken the path down to the beach for a swim, or so we hoped. Unfortunately we picked low tide and ended up walking up and down the beach looking for a place we could get in. We walked over all this coral and we're freaked out about cutting our feet to shreds (we didn't). It was very hot and most unsatisfying. We didn't understand that it was low tide until we got back to our room.
anyhow, the next morning we had an enchanting swim in a little lagoon on the same beach, with the tide well in. Nice soft sand underneath and beautiful warm bouyant water. Still, it was a bit scary because everytime a wave would come in we'd feel a strong pull outward. At first we really panicked. but the pull would only last a minute or less and was always followed by the wave sending us right back in. Still, it gave an edge to the whole thing. All in all it was lovely.
But we left and ended up staying in Kuta, the place we'd been avoiding so long. There is a very long beach there, with hundreds of people milling about--strange and unlike anyplace I'd ever seen. Many surfers and lots of the Balinese people bathing were wearing clothes! I wore a shirt to keep the sun off. Eden and India learned to body surf there and we had a lot of fun. Our hotel was a big sprawling thing, just a very short distance up Poppie's alley. Maybe a 5 minute walk.
I'd heard that in Kuta we would be assailed non stop with touters and aggressive peddlers. That was not my experience at all. Certainly no worse than Ubud. The stuff being sold in the little stands was different--just a bunch of crap from Taiwan really. And the resturaunts weren't very good, but we did okay. On the way to the airport yesterday we realized that we'd seen only a small part of Kuta, and that somehow we'd landed in a more mellow area. Most of the tourists were Australians. Young, rowdy and not especially interested in the Balinese. At least that's my impression.
By the time we left I'd learned enough Indonesian to be able to be somewhat polite. I love the Balinese people! They are beautiful, dignified, courteous, forgiving, hard working, creative and have the loveliest smiles. Along with the Thai, of course.
So now we are in New Zealand, and just dead tired. Only got a few hours sleep on the plane (and plane sleep doesn't really count anyway). NZ is 4 hours ahead of Bali so we'll have some minor jet lag issues too. I don't know if we'll have it together to rent a car and bail out tomorrow, or if we'll just stay an extra day in Auckland.
I'm pretty sure our next big stop will be Nelson and we'll try to rent a house for a week or so.
Wish me luck, driving on the left and all.
I'll try to get some photos up soon.
love and monkey kisses,
rob
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