The other Bali

When you think of Bali you probably think of tropical beaches lined with luxury beach beach resorts and bungalows. But as you know by now, I like to see the local side of the countries I travel to and my Balinese experience is no exception. I arrived in Denpansar, Bali last night at 1am and was greeted by a smiling local named Eky. He is a couch surfer and offered me a bed in his families home. It sounded a bit too good to be true online...my own private bedroom in a house with 6 people (a family of 5 plus one maid) and to top it off he would even use his dad's car to pick me up at the airport. Well things weren't quite so simple. Eky was not able to use his fathers car so instead picked me up on his motorbike. This would have not been a problem, I have ridden motorbikes on many occasions over the past few weeks. However, we had a 45 minute trek to his house and I had my massive backpack weighing a whopping 20 kg and then my small backpack plus another bag. As I tried to balance on the back of the speeding motorbike I thought for sure I would tip off the back of the bike from the weight of my backpack. After a very uncomfortable ride we finally made it to Eky's house at 2 am.

I would be staying in his little sisters room which was covered in toys and has a large Barak Obama poster on the wall (strange!). The room was fine but the bathroom took some getting used to. The "peeing room" was out in the backyard. After walking through the dog zone- where there three caged dogs tried there best to break out of their crates to attack, i found the hole in the ground that was the "peeing room" not the most ideal situation for late night bathroom trips. The "shower room" consists of a large pot type thing (looks like a large flower pot) filled with cold water. The idea is that you splash water out of the pot and on to your body. I think I will hold off as long as possible before using that facility!

This morning I woke up and my host had gone to the market at 6am, so now I am hanging out with Eky's teenage brothers and all his friends. They dont speak a word of English, so it has been an interesting day. Eky is supposed to return around 5pm. This must be one massive trip to the market! I think tomorrow I will splurge and go for that Bungalow on the beach!