Arriving in Denpasar, Bali. June 15th, 2010.

My family and I arrived in the Denpasar Airport late in the evening on June 15th, 2010. It was packed with arrivals and departures.  As we stepped into the hallway leading to immigration, the departures lounge was visible through a wall of glass. It was filled tan, sun burnt tourists with melancholy expressions. At first, my initial thought was, Haha, sucks for them! They have to leave one of the most fruitful cultural places in the world! Then, the slightest twinge of pity entered my being, for at the back of my mind, behind all the excitement, hid the knowledge that in five weeks from that moment, the roles would be reversed. I pushed that thought further away as I came upon a surf photo covering the wall next to Immigration, making me eager to jump in the Indian Ocean.

We filed out into the street, with "Taksi" drivers following us, each saying that they were the ones with the best car, the best air con, the safest air bags and the most experienced drivers. What we have to understand is that these local Balinese, (and foreign Javanese workers), make nearly two dollars a day, making a total of $86.56 per month. Source: (http://www.balidiscovery.com/messages/message.asp?Id=4150).  This money factor caused them to be eager to find customers and cheat higher prices out of the rich and ignorant tourists. After we haggled the price down to one third of Madae's asking price, we got into his car and headed to the dingy hotel we would eventually stay at.

Although this summer becomes my seventh trip to Indonesia, I never cease to be amazed at the endless maze of markets, and especially the flowing traffic of the country's highest consumer product, the moped.  It is possible to paint a picture of a school of fish in your mind, and use that as an example of the way mopeds are driven in Bali.  Every person is relaxed, and drives with a watery motion, flowing around obstacles and moving together as a pack.  Due to this reason, driving a moped in Bali is relatively safer than driving one in much more advanced countries such as the USA and Europe.

We arrived one hour later at Hotel Lusa, in North Legion, with only a 30 second walk from the beach.  A friend stored his surfboards in Hotel Lusa for us to borrow, and from there we obtained them from the storage closet. My dad found us a nice Kijang car for only $10 dollars a day. We arose the early the next morning to head out south to the Bukit Peninsula. The adventures begin...