Pertama Kali di Sorga (First Time in Paradise)
Getting to Bali from East Java is frighteningly easy. Step 1: Buy a $10 ticket at a bus station. Step 2: Get on the bus for 10 hours. That’s it. It travels from Malang to Banyuwangi, the coastal city closest to the edge of Bali. The bus drives onto a ferry, motors for 45 minutes, and then drives for two more hours to Denpasar, the capital city. The bus was so comfortable that I fell asleep after dinner in Probolinggo, another town near the coast in East Java, and didn’t wake up again until I had to show my passport in Bali.
On the bus I sat next to a very interesting character named Nana. She spoke excellent English (besides using the phrase “or something like that” after literally every sentence she spoke, and I’m not kidding) and seemed to see me as some kind of instrument for the purging of her soul. Ramadan began on Sunday and, as Nana informed me, followers of Islam should apologize to those they have offended and try to make things right. Stemming from this explanation, Nana talked for the next four hours about a situation involving her eye surgeon, his wife, and how the wife had disrespected Nana by showing disdain for her house and refusing to answer numerous text messages. I sat and nodded encouragement and reassured her that yes, it was rude to stop being someone’s friend because their house wasn’t as nice as yours.
I guess this response appealed to Nana immensely, because by the time we stopped for dinner she had invited me to sleep at her house when we arrived in Denpasar. I was about to say no—after all, in American you would never go to the house of someone you met on a bus and sleep in their daughter’s bed—but in Indonesia, there’s really no reason to refuse. People see having guests as an honor, and it seems almost unheard of that someone would steal from you or invite you to their house under false pretenses. I also hadn’t given much thought to where I was going to sleep or even go when I stepped off the bus in Denpasar at 4 am, so I said yes.
Once we arrived in Bali, I woke up and watched the people in street—and there were a lot of them. Although Bali is predominantly Hindu, there are many Muslims who live there as well. During Ramadan, followers of Islam fast from four o’clock in the morning until Mahgrib, at five-thirty. As we drove through the streets of Bali at three o’clock, it was like it was lunchtime. People were walking the streets fully dressed, buying vegetables, fruit, and favorite fried foods. Vendors had their carts set up and were doing business as usual. I had been wondering how food vendors managed to stay afloat during Ramadan, with no customers during the day and now I know—they just do a majority of their business in the early morning and after dark. As we pulled into Denpasar it was almost four, so things were starting to calm down as people went to the mosque or back to their homes to pray. I got into a cab with Nana, met her husband, and then slept another three hours in her daughter’s bed. At eight, Nana made me breakfast (even though she couldn’t eat) and I was off on my way to Legian Beach to met Nick, John, and Deanna, other ETA’s who had arrived there two days earlier.
My cab rolled down the streets of the Kuta region and then we drove along the beach. I know people say that Bali is overdeveloped and that the homes and hotels used to sit right on the beach rather than back from the street, but it still look pretty damn beautiful to me. Legian is north of Kuta Beach, the famous tourist area where two bombings have occurred in the past five years. Our hotel was really simple and great, no hot water or extra stuff, but it wasn’t necessary. It was about $9/night for a room with two twin beds and breakfast in the morning. I met up with Nick, Deanna and John and we went to the beach. They had made friends with the surfing dudes there (who were mostly from Java, but incredibly tan) and I paid for a lesson with Arif, one of the younger guys. Although we had similar levels of understanding of each other’s languages, he still managed to improve my surfing 300% in one lesson (although that isn’t really saying much, considering the level I was at before). The lesson was supposed to be an hour, but two and a half hours later I manually ended it when I bashed my face on the surfboard because I was too tired to push myself up anymore. After surfing we sat in the sun and ate the best nasi goring I’ve ever had, the only disturbance being the women who repeatedly grab you and plead with you to allow them to give you a massage. Later that night we went to a delicious dinner and a club up in Seminyak, but around 2 am the bus ride caught up to me and I went to sleep in my lovely hotel to get ready for another busy day of lounging.
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