Going back to Bali

I’m going back to Cali
Cali
Cali
I’m going back to Cali
No I don’t think so

I actually wouldn’t mind going back to Cali. It’d be great to see friends, get some fries at In ‘n Out and feel that warmth of security within myself knowing that Arnold was watching over my land. But instead I’m going back to Bali where I visited way back in December 1998.

Back then I had been working for Lucent Technologies on a project in Japan for a couple of months and in between leaving Tokyo and flying back to my crib in Columbus, Ohio (I used to live there??) my manager had asked me to stop in Indonesia for a couple weeks of work. I was installing a couple of sweet telecommunication servers in Bandung and then on the weekend my coworker Edwin and I booked a super cheap flight to Bali. All the planes were refurbished ex-military planes. On the flight down I remember talking to Edwin before the flight took off and a screw literally fell from the ceiling and landed in his lap. I didn’t put our chances of survival much higher than 50-50. But no more screws fell, we landed and all was good.

I really don’t remember too much of Bali except that my beachside cottage was amazing and it was walking distance from the Hard Rock Café. That was back in the day when I used to collect HRC tshirts from everywhere I went. Now I don’t even know where they are. I think I donated them all. Another thing I recall from back then was our driver, Made, taking us to this illegal cock fighting ring. It’s something I wouldn’t have the stomach for now but back then I was all about new experiences. I lost every bet I made and everyone wanted to bet with the lone white man there. I lost about $50 on 4 or 5 bets. But it was all good because just outside the cock fighting ring you could get a really cheap chicken sandwich, and you know it was fresh.

I’m not sure how I still have it but I have Made’s phone number in my iPhone and I’m going to give it a try when I’m there. I don’t expect it to work as who has the same number as ten years ago but you never know. He was a year or two younger than me and I think his girlfriend was working at Domino’s or something like that.

I’m going to try my hand at surfing which I’ve never done before and I’m not expecting it to be real easy, especially since I’ve never been great at skateboarding or snowboarding or anything that requires a good sense of balance. Supposedly Bali is a great place to surf and to learn how to surf. Kuta beach is an 8 km stretch of beach that’s pretty touristy so I’m thinking a week or so there to learn the basics and then going off to a quieter island just to the east of Bali, Nusa Lombongan, where the waves are supposed to be quite good too. And I’ve heard Ubud is a tranquil, artistic, spiritual area of the island and where the Love took place in Eat, Pray, Love. I hope to get some down time to relax and I’m stocking up on used books here in Brisbane before I leave.

And at the last second, I learned my friend Daniel from the Vipassana course will be joining me too which is awesome.

Daniel on the left

He’s a real funny guy and he’s originally Indonesian and speaks the language so that’s a big plus. He’s taking time off in between jobs (he was working in finance) and he was thinking of starting to look for work again but after hearing how cheap the flights were at $140 each way, he decided he would be going back to Bali too.

Wwoofing

Lasciatemi cantare
con la chitarra in mano
lasciatemi cantare
una canzone piano piano
lasciatemi cantare
perché ne sono fiero
sono l’italiano
l’italiano vero

Kind of by accident I had my first wwoofing experience here in Australia. I first learned about Wwoofing from my friend Jeff in India. Willing Workers on Organic Farms is what wwoof’ing stands for (http://www.wwoof.org). Basically it’s a work-for-board-and-meals exchange. It’s a great way to get experience working on a farm or getting involved in any of a number of projects that people need some help with. And of course to meet the locals.

Wwoof’ing began in Australia and there are over 1,200 farmers who are listed with wwoof in Australia alone. It is also growing in many other parts of the world. I found a posting from a Bedouin in Jordan who wants someone to help him out with his herd of goats and to help his children learn English. I wrote down his email and I may just write him down the road.

So how I got to wwoof…

After my Vipassana meditation class I pretty much had no plans or place to go. It’s my new way of traveling of not making any plans until I have to and sometimes it works out great. Other times not so great. All I knew was that I wanted to get to an internet café to take care of some travel plans. My well-dressed Italian roommate from Vipassana, Daniele, was going to Brisbane to wwoof at a Yoga studio/ashram for a week. I figured I’d join him and see if they could use an extra hand for a few days. In my mind I kept having this feeling that they would welcome me with open arms saying “Sure Emile! Come on in! We can definitely use your help.”

The answer was No. Someone else was coming in two days and I wouldn’t be needed. So much for my premonitions. I decided I’d find a hostel and just check into there but I was in no rush (10 days of meditation kind of chills you out) so I just hung out in the lobby of the ashram, waiting for Daniele to settle in and then we’d go get something to eat.

My pad at the ashram

And wouldn’t you know it during that time the manager of the ashram came over and said that he had just received an email from the next wwooffers that they were going to be arriving later than expected and so if I could stay and help out for a couple of days that would be great. Perfect!

The studio is called Yoga Studio for Daily Life and it’s on the east side of Brisbane in a more industrial part of town. It’s a non-profit organization started by a Hindu named Swamiji. All the employees and yoga instructors work as volunteers and supposedly they’re quite big and have studios around the world.

I imagine wwoofing at a Yoga ashram is very different to the typical wwoofing on a farm. The closest thing I did to farming was plucking out weeds and watering plants. Our primary responsibility was to get the place cleaned up before the 10 a.m. yoga class and that involved sweeping, mopping and laying out the yoga mats for the first class.

Daniele posting a couple flyers

We did some gardening one day then the rest of the time we rode bikes all around Brisbane posting flyers for upcoming classes at the ashram. Brisbane’s a great place to ride because it’s pretty much all flat.

But the best part about the ashram was the meals. We had full, 24-hour access to the kitchen, fridge and pantry and we cooked a storm for each meal. It was all healthy vegetarian, organic type foods which means you can eat all you want and it’s still healthy.

Sporting my cool bike helmet

We were also responsible for making lunch for the couple of people working at the ashram but after the first day’s lunch they told us not to worry about their food. Not sure if they didn’t like it or what.

And another added perk is that we got to join in a yoga class each day and were actually encouraged to. It felt great to get some exercise in after being pretty immobile for the past couple of weeks. Poor Daniele though, who is learning English, has enough trouble understanding people when speaking to them let alone hearing it during a yoga class. So when we’d take the course, most of the time he had no idea what the instructor was telling us to do. And one time I looked over at him and he was peacefully asleep on his yoga mat. The ultimate relaxation.

I left the ashram after four days since I was going back to the Vipassana center to volunteer as a server. Daniele is still at the Yoga ashram, and they’ve asked him to stick around for a couple more weeks. Not a bad gig. Now only if he can understand the yoga class, he’ll be all set.

Two days in Singapore

“It’s a nice place to live, but I wouldn’t want to visit here.” Emile Baizel, when he visited here.

I stopped by Singapore for a couple of days after India and on my way to Australia.  On the way here I was pretty pumped to be seeing a new country as I always am when going somewhere new.  I was thinking I’d stay for a week to see all the sites and really do it right.  But after just a day I was done with it and ready to leave.  I was bored.

Yum!

It’s not because Singapore isn’t a great place.  It’s clean, very modern, people are friendly and peaceful.  They have countless laws and restrictions that would make even a Westerner raise an eyebrow.  Spit in public: $500 fine.  Chew gum: $500 fine and on top of that, you can’t even buy gum in the country.  You have to sneak it in when you come in from abroad.  Imagine that.  How would a Valley girl ever survive here?

A big plus about Singapore is you can get all sorts of food at really good prices.  I went to Little India both nights and got a heaping plate of biryani with naan and an assortment of other stuff for around $2.  Little India is the equivalent of a China Town except, you guessed it, with Indians instead of Chinese.  It’s a radical concept, I know.  Packaged foods like Pringles or Snickers are expensive because they have to import those in from afar.  Restaurants are much cheaper because they import a lot of the foods from Malaysia which is within an hour away by land.

My hostel took security very seriously!

There ain’t much room to grow stuff in Singapore so it’s all got to be brought in.  Cigarettes are a whopping $8 a pack, mostly I believe to deter people from smoking.  And they have more than Surgeon General’s warnings on there.  They have pictures of people’s cancerous cheeks taking up half the packaging.  My favorite one was a picture of a decrepit, mangled foot with the warning “Smoking causes gangrene.”  Really?  A foot?  Maybe he should have tried using his hand to hold the cigarette.

Basically, Singapore would be a great place to live but not to visit, at least not as a solo backpacker.  After walking around the city for a few hours the first day, I felt like I had seen all there was to see.  Plus, I’m kind of burning out on seeing sites and more into the experience of being in some place and engaging in some activity like hiking or something else.

Armenian church

And not really knowing anyone in Singapore I was  pretty much doing more of the site seeing stuff.  There is a whole lot of shopping around, including the famous (although I hadn’t heard of it previously) Orchard Road, which is an endless boulevard of malls and shops selling everything from electronics to clothing to Rolex watches (the real variety).  Seeing as I don’t really have anything I urgently need while I’m traveling (except maybe a Rolex watch) I found myself just kind of drifting between different shops.

What I could use is a used book store as I’m looking to buy another book soon.  Right now I’m debating between ‘Life of Pi’ and ‘The Witch of Portobello’.  I’m currently reading ‘God of Small Things’ which I picked up on the Everest Base Camp trek in a lodge, trading in my previous book for it.  I did find a regular book store but as with most things in Singapore, the books were not cheap, about $15 for a paperback.  I was getting used to the knockoff books in India which you could buy for $1 each.  Yes, they make knockoff books.  They really have replicas for everything in India and Nepal.  I’m still waiting to see someone making knockoffs of knockoffs.  I guess that may also be called the real thing.

One of the highlights from Singapore was seeing an Armenian Church here in the city.  I was browsing the map trying to get my bearings and all of a sudden I see ‘Armenian Church’.  Very random.  An Armenian church in Singapore?  I had to see this.  I walked over there my first evening and luckily there happened to be a couple of men doing some administrative work who were still hanging around.  We chatted for a while and I learned that there are a whopping thirty Armenians in Singapore.  “Thirty thousand, I asked?” No, thirty.  And they still have an active church which they’ve had now for over 150 years.  Leave it to the Armenians to keep a church going with a tiny community.

My first night I decided I’d go out and check out some of the local night life.  My hotel was in a bit of a distant area so all the area was quite tourist free.  And the big thing to do in Singapore is karaoke.  They have karaoke bars everywhere so I figured why not and wandered into a karaoke bar down the street.

How to use a toilet in Singapore

They greeted me with a pitcher of Carlsberg beer (a whole pitcher for myself) but couldn’t understand when I told them I wasn’t drinking and I only wanted a Coke.  I moved seats at some point and the pitcher kept following me.  They placed it right in front of me even though I hadn’t taken a sip.  Amazing.  As always I had a lot of nerves before getting to sing my song but it turned out to be quite alright as everyone sang along with me to ‘You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling’.

I met this great guy Foon who took me to some local hole in the wall for late night noodles and fried fish.  He’s a gambler on the side and every 5 minutes was checking his phone for updates to the Hoffenheim vs Schalke 04 football game.  He’s been gambling on sports for years and claims he’s way ahead in winnings vs losses.  So I got interested and asked him his secrets.  And I won’t go into the details here but the man does have a plan.  I may have to try a few of his suggestions.  Ironically, as we were walking to get a taxi he was telling me that Asians are by far the biggest gamblers in the world, that they love to bet and bet on everything.  We get into the taxi and he’s checking his game’s score when the taxi driver looks over and asks “What’s the score of the Chelsea game?  I’ve got big money on that game.”  Nice.

What to do in Kathmandu?

Whattcha gonna do

Whattcha gonna do in Kathmandu

Bad boys, Bad boys

Whattcha gonna do

I had planned to write my post on the Everest Base Camp trek as soon as we got back from the mountains but Kathmandu has this way of making me really lazy. (Update: although I wrote this post a while back, it’s taken me this long just to get it posted.  My bad, yo.  Sue me.  I’m being lazy in Australia and it’s a great thing.) Kathmandu is not necessarily a lazy town as there’s a lot going on, merchants walking the streets trying to sell you Tiger Balm or a toy violin, and there’s definitely a night life and just lots of people walking around. But I stayed in Kathmandu for a week after the trek and really didn’t do that much. A big reason why was I just got done pushing myself really hard for the past week on the hike (and the two weeks before that on Annapurna) so I just felt like chilling out. Here is how I would spend a typical day in Kathmandu:

· Wake up around 7 or 8 because I can hear all the voices in the reception which shared a wall with my room.

· Go get breakfast with Jeff since Anthony and Cesar are prima donnas and sleep in till after noon and Jeff was sharing my not so quiet room.

· Then after breakfast it’s kind of a mystery what I did with my time. I did absolutely zero sightseeing in Kathmandu, not because there isn’t anything to see (there’s a ton) but because after being on the traveling road for a couple of months now I’m not in a real rush to see yet another must-see site. They all tend to blur into one another and you forget which Llama opened which temple and which deity is being honored by the human sacrifice in the middle of the town square. Ok so there’s really no human sacrifices happening and I’m not sure if that would be a must-see. I never went to the public stonings and other similar rituals in Riyadh. I’m not in a mad rush to see that kind of stuff.

· I did do a lot of xmas shopping and that took up a lot of my days. I have become a level 8 bargainer with the local merchants. It helps that it’s slow season now as the treks are winding down due to the weather and so any reasonable (for me) price that I put out there is usually finally accepted, even if it is one-third of what the merchant was originally asking for. Here’s a typical transaction:

o Me: “How much for this mp3 player?”

o Merchant: “For you, I give you special price. 4500 Rupees.”

o Me: “Wow, 4500? That’s a lot. I can do 2000.”

o Merchant: “Sorry sir, that is too low. I will lose money. Final price, 4000 Rupees.”

o Me: “No that’s still too much. Ok I’ll go see what else I can find in another shop.” KEY POINT: I put the merchandise down and begin leaving the shop. If the merchant is way overcharging he will drop the price significantly at this point. If not, then I know he was giving a good price and then it’s up to me if I want to pay that much.

o Merchant: “Ok 3000 Rupees.”

o Me: “I’ll give you 2500. Yes or no? That’s my final price.”

o Merchant (dejected): “Ok take it.”

It is a blast bargaining. I wish we did it in the states more often. I’d like to walk into Safeway and be like “You know what Mr. Cashier, this milk is just too expensive. Throw in a loaf of bread along with it and we’ve got a deal.”

· For lunch you could always find me getting a tasty falafel wrap from a corner shop with a bottle of Coke to wash it down. I always looked forward to them.

· After lunch was history and the midday shopping phase was over, we’d get dinner and then prep for another movie night. We watched two movies every night on Cesar’s MacBook Pro. Yes we’re that lame. Most people go out at night and drink beers when they’re traveling. Not us. On our walk back to the hotel after dinner we’d buy a couple of movies and a whole lot of snacks. A lot of the bakeries offer 50% off all their items after 7 p.m. so those were always a good call. DVDs are super cheap in Kathmandu, around $2 each for a really good quality film. The first film we watched was the new James Bond ‘Quantum of Solace’ which somehow they already had in good quality. I was quite disappointed with it after really liking ‘Casino Royale’. They basically reverted back to the uncreative story lines and ‘no way he gets out of this’ action sequences of the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies and it was missing the strong story and characters from ‘CR’.

So there you have it, I went to Kathmandu and became a movie critic. Other movies that I will tell you are not worth seeing include ‘The Transporter’ and ‘Tropic Thunder’. And somehow I was the one who chose those movies so now I’ve got a rep as being a bad movie-selector, not a title I’m proud of.

Once you get away from the crazy-busy-car-honking center of Thamel, there’s a lot of old Buddhist buildings and other shrines to check out. I don’t know this first hand but that’s what the maps and people tell me. There is an important Buddhist temple that is famous for being overrun by monkeys and there’s also one of the world’s largest stupas (a holy shrine dedicated to an important Buddhist figure).

I pretty much spent my entire time in Thamel which is the most touristy area of K’du (I just coined that word. +5 points for me). I usually can’t stay longer than a day or two in the ultra-touristy areas of cities but due to the low season and the fact that our hotel was very off the beaten path it made hanging out in Thamel doable. Thamel in Nepalese translates into ‘lots of people selling everything from Tiger Balm to trekking gear’. There are countless trekking shops, all selling the same knockoff trekking gear (North ‘Fake’ as the stuff is called here). Jeff rented a pair of Wrangler hiking books for the Base Camp trek and after a few days the entire front of the left shoe came unglued and his sock was fully visible. The rest of the hike each step he took would make a clapping sound as the sole bounced up to meet shoe.

There were a few times I ventured out of Thamel. Once to get a visa extension when I decided I needed to stay longer to do the Base Camp trek. Another time to go look at some computers. Yes the geek in me came out and I opened my wallet a bit and bought a little, dare-I-say ‘cute’, white laptop. My justifications for purchasing it:

· I need more weight in my backpack

· I can’t really get in the blog-writing mood when I’m sitting down in a noisy internet café and I can’t write by hand any more for reasons unknown

· I have a place to backup my pictures when the memory cards get full

So there you have it. What to do in Kathmandu. It’s not a place most people come to for the city itself. It’s more of a transit town for people about to start a trek or who have just finished and are looking to lay low for a while before moving on. And if you’re just beginning your travels in Kathmandu then you’ve probably got the motivation to go see some of the sites that I missed out on. Send me the pictures. I’ll Photoshop myself into there and say I was there.