When I was in malaysia, I met a couple who told me, when I get to Bali,
go straight to the city of Ubud (red, central-south).
That's where you want to go.
When I was in malaysia, I met a couple who told me, when I get to Bali,
go straight to the city of Ubud (red, central-south).
That's where you want to go.
Well, I got to Bali and the easiest place to go is this tourist trap beach area named Kuta Beach (red, south). It's huge and sprawling. I spent four days there. Then I went to Ubud. And I realized that that's where I should have gone all along. In Kuta, I met a driver who drove me up to Ubud the first time I went there. He said he knew of a place that was good to stay. He took me to the Saggitarius hotel.
This place may have been a bit better than the average place on the street,
but my experience was that it was rather typical.
But what was really pretty was the approach to my room. I was in the farthest room,
all the way in the back towards the stream.
You go down these stairs... On the way there's this pagoda that maybe they use for some sort of Hindu thing.
This is the door to my place, taken in conditions that I thought had sufficient light
and geometric integrity.
Saggitarius is on a long road in Ubud named Monkey Forsest Road. There's a native language translation of that, but everybody seems to call it Monkey Forest Road. There's few or no signs that say what it is, just everybody knows it.
On one end is "downtown" Ubud, where the main temples and many of the stores are. Right in the center was the palace where I saw all of the Balinese dance shows I went to. Every night of the week there was a different show, and they all cost 7,000 rups, about three bucks. I went almost every night.
On the other end is the Monkey Forest. There seemed to be some confusion, one guide book I had showed the monkey forest but in a slightly different location. The guy behind the desk explained that there's really FOUR monkey forests in Bali. This was one of them.
Some of the monkeys can get nasty, not unlike bears in Yosemite. If they know you have food, they'll try to get it. Usually there's a guy in the park with banana pieces that you can feed to the monkeys.
If you go behind the monkey forest, just keep following the path, there's a temple.
Right across from the temple I saw this guy playing music one day.
If you keep on going, you get to a road along which are a lot of woodcarvers. A lot of the carvings I bought came from this area.
One time I took a tour. All the Hindu temples all looked the same.
But this one seemed different.
I ended up returning to Ubud as my base of operations throughout my vacation in Bali and Sulawesi. I think I stayed in four different hotels in that town. I bought wood carvings, I bought film, I got lost, I did the cybercafe thing. I exchanged lots of email with people. The rest of this web page is emails, somewhat unedited.
When I get rups, it's like 2425 or 2440 to the dollar. I just saw an arcle, the rupia has dropped to something like 2600 or beyond to the dollar. whew.
Irene Hauke wrote: > > Hi Allan, > how are you, I hope you could get back to me very soon, since I have all this > questions to answer regarding your Health Insurance. The best thing would be > that I could fax you the application. > Is there any place you could do something like that? > I hope to hear from you asap. > Take care, > Irene > > Waterloo Maple Inc. hmmm... sorry. There's no cybercafes in Sulawesi, none that I found. Until the very end. The last day there was one, but I had no cash at all, maybe about six bucks, and it was Mohammed's birthday (july 17) and all the banks ... and all the BANK MACHINES were closed. And I had just been on these islands with no services. Like what you had for dinner depended on what fish they ccought that day at the hotel. A real far cry from civilisation. OK if you want to fax something to me you can try this place, I'll be going there maybe in a few days or a week. Cafe Trio, Petulu, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia. +62 361 976710 fax trioglobex@denpasar.wasantara.net.id you can email them if you have problems. I'll try to get there and fill it out and fax it back. remember that they are 11 hours behind (really what... 13 hours ahead) of you.
> >> Just wondered where you were? > > > >lost in sulawesi. Saw animal sacrifice. Ate way too much rice and > >fish. Did scuba. Slept under the stars on the roof of a bucking ferry; > >almost got seasick like everybody else. > > Bucking ferry? Conjurs up all kinds of images :) No no, a boat. With a roof. It was too crowded below. But of course you're protected from rain, and from falling off the boat... > >> Just let me know. > > > >yeah, I guess you can use whatever I sent. > > What did you "sent" me? Hmmm... well I sent many emails to you and a lot of them bounced. But you're replying to themm..... hmmm... I'll be abler to sort it out when I get back. > Alan, I would like to showcase your entire report on CSN....with pictures, > of you, of your trip...big time. Crap I wish I had something by > Monday....any way you can get me something? Everyone in the friggin world > is coming to the launch...it's so cool monday (sheepishly) you mean a few days ago? hmmm... photos are developed and in my pack. Some of them. Others are undeveloped in my mailbox in corte madera. No, I had them sent to my girlfriend in Sunnyvale. > Where are you writing from now? I am in an IRC meeting with our associate > editors right now. Alan....I might be the Editor in Chief (equity position > naturally) of the world's first cyber cafe/entertainment magazine....hard > copy, and we are looking at offices in UK, USA and ASIA...so you are going > to be my official cute traveling engineer foreign correspondent.....starting > now. well, ok, I knew I should have brought my laptop. I was thinking of bringing my newton, but that would have been tooo too... > Gotta run. I will be in and out of e-mail for the next 6 hours...we'll be > up all night. good luck. You know the pace is really diffent here. I think there's a bunch of people here waiting to use my machine. Not sure. There's just two machines here at the Trio Cafe in Ubud, Bali. You know you wait for hours for stuff around here. I think the only two cybercafes in Bali that are worth anything are Trio and Bali@Cyber. The telecom offices suck; they don't get it what you want to do with email. > Great timing...good to hear from you. Hey, I have a great friggin > idea...any chance you can get in my IRC now?????? I have my own channel on > the undernet...any chance? Let me know and I will give you the coordinates. Now. Now is 13:04, Bali time. I think that makes it like 9pm in california. I only get toa cybercafe like once every five days or so. I'll be back up to speed in early AUgust. My plane reservations back are not yet solid....
>Tell me about how you've gotten your clothes > clean, I started out mostly trying to do it in my hotel room, frequently as I shower. Then you hang it up somewhere and wait for it to dry. Different tricks for drying them quickly. Then I started using the hotel service. In an expensive hotel they charge too much. But one place I stayed at charged me $2 for a whole (small) bag of laundry, like three changes of clothes. So I'm trying to keep on doing that. >and another story about something scary, see other email >and a little about the > strange bugs you've encountered, there was a roach in the bathroom last night, but I washed him down the drain. >and the best artwork or architecture you've > seen! Bali. If you want a cheap place that's beautiful and people speak english well enough, go to bali, and go straight to the city of Ubud. That's where I'm staying right now. You have3 to shop around for the $4 a nite places; $8 or $10 is more common. And if you just go to a place that looks nice you might end up paying $30 or $50 or more, easy. If you want to pretend you're in america, it'll be expensive. You tolerate less and you save a shitload of money.