Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Chillin' In Kuta
To catch you up, our first night in Kuta Henk and I went to the Hard Rock Café (which happens to be just a 5 minute walk away from our hotel here) and had some delicious burgers for dinner. And Uncle Randy, you know what that means! Yes, here it is… a picture of your new HRC pin:
The morning of November 28th, we decided to catch up on our blog posts – which means a lot of uploading pictures on slow connections! (Very annoying.) We spent a few hours there, starting late in the day, and then walked through the crowded streets to Pizza Hut for some lunch.
But before going to Pizza Hut, we stopped at the pharmacy. Since our snorkeling days in back in Amed, Henk had been having trouble with his ear. Worried that it might be infected, we had stopped by a pharmacist a couple days earlier and asked them how much it would be for an appointment. Since it was only $20.00 or so, we decided to go back since Henk’s ear had gotten a lot worse. And it was a good thing we did! The doctor confirmed our fears: infection! We bought the prescribed drops and painkillers and hoped they would work. I also grabbed a map of Kuta, created by someone who owned a sports-bar called ‘AlleyCats’ which we decided to try for a bite sometime. But at the moment, we had pizza on our minds. I had a three meat pizza, and Henk tried one of the pastas.
We returned to the room and watched some series for a while, but when the power went out; (as it often does on Bali we’ve learned) we decided to have a snack (an ice-cream sundae for myself and pumpkin soup for Henk) at the fancy hotel café next door to our hostel. While we were enjoying our food, we got to listen to a live band play some classic songs like “Hotel California.” Awesome!
Pretty much the entire day of the 29th Henk and I spent in a fun restaurant called ‘Havana Café,’ which had a relaxing lounge area to sit and various pictures of Castro all over the walls. Since it was a little before lunchtime when we got there, I snacked on a juicy burger and we continued to order drinks throughout our stay. They had free internet, so we owed them for the connection, anyways. One of the things I wanted to do as soon as we got online was look up bed bug bites. Since getting to Kuta, Henk had again developed suspicious-looking bites which I was almost immediately sure were bedbugs. More about that later…
Later in the day, I ran across the street to get my eyebrows waxed – in an all purple spa room! Looked very cool. Still at the Havana Café for dinner time, Henk and I felt in the Havana spirit and he got a burrito. Of course, I ordered fajitas having the knowledge that you usually get more food with fajitas than burritos – despite that they are essentially almost the same dish. Hehehe. Henk was jealous of my excess of food, but I shared with him. Plus it distracted him (and I) from having to listen to the insanely annoying loud group behind us; don’t worry, we mimicked their annoying conversation for a while but eventually moved away from them.
That night we returned to our hostel, and the first thing I did was peal back the covers from our bed to investigate the possible bed bug situation. And GROSS! Finally, after having previously encountered bed bugs in Melbourne, we got to see the little nasty things. And they were not small at ALL – I was worried we wouldn’t be able to see them. They were HUGE! Eat bug was about the size of an apple seed, and they were crawling around the mattress everywhere. I took a video of the entire ordeal while Henk ran downstairs and made sure the front desk knew so we could switch rooms. We took a shower right after getting to our new room, and bagged up our clothing for the laundry. Not again!! At least we still had bed bug pills from Australia, so Henk could take them right away to get rid of the bumps.
The next morning (the 30th of November) Henk went to a few different places trying to find one with availability so we could switch hostels. We didn’t want to stay anywhere that had gross bed bugs for a night longer! I dropped off the laundry and he packed up our bags. The hostel we moved to was Kedin’s, one of the places we visited the first evening in Kuta, hoping they might have space. But of course since the place is Lonely Planet recommended they were all booked up. Kedin’s was much nicer than the place next door, even had a pretty nice pool! The two of us then went out exploring, stopping for lunch first at HRC again where I had their famous ‘Twisted Mac and Cheese.’
Our goal for the day was to try and find some Wayang Kulit in Kuta, so we walked around and as a result saw many different parts of the city. We walked all over the place, eventually getting extremely sweaty and exhausted. (We never did find Wayang there by the way, Kuta is purely a tourist city for partying. Forget finding any true Indonesian culture there!) One thing we did find though was an awesome purple motorcycle. We spotted an Indian restaurant and made a mental note to eat there sometime soon. As we were walking back, we stopped in many bathing suit stores and surf shops, but all of the items there were so overpriced. I could hardly find an interesting bikini for under $80-$90. And the bathing suits that were in the more reasonable $40-$50 price range were pretty ugly to be honest.
Later that evening, Henk and I went to get some take-away pizza from the Pizza Hut (Again! But after a month of nasi lemak I deserved it!) and we spotted some lights on the beach. What could that be? We headed onto the sand to check it out. Turns out (I thought maybe they were shooting a movie or something.) there were big lights up for the night surfers. We watched them for a while – some of those people really know their stuff! They looked pretty talented from where we were standing. I vowed then and there to go in the waves before we left Kuta. That evening ended with our pizza, garlic bread, and some episodes of House.
December 1st, we decided to go shopping, just checking out some of the interesting stores in Kuta. A lot of them had “hip-boutique” feel, almost in a New York, Soho-esque fashion; many grunge and punk ‘looks’ and accessories. Since we were near AlleyCats, we decided to try them for lunch. It was supposed to be hip a ‘sports-bar’ with a lounge area and some games from our map’s description. While the lounge area was nothing to rave about, they did have some yummy sandwiches for us. We split a salmon and cream-cheese baguette and a yummy chicken and mushroom baguette. After that we eventually ventured back to our internet café from one of the previous days to relax for a little while.
It was nearing the end of our stay in Kuta on the 2nd of December, and we hadn’t yet experienced the awesome surf waves we had seen. And I really wanted to jump in there! We went to the beach in the morning, and found an area clear from all the surfers to make sure we didn’t end up under any boards. I went into the waves, and Henk followed me. We experimented with different techniques for surviving the waves: swimming under them, holding our ground (with our back facing them) against them, or trying to time our jumps with their breaking so we wouldn’t be swept under. After a long while of body-surfing the waves, we went back onto the sand and had fun drawing some pictures and playing ‘catch’ with an apple. (Until it fell apart, that is!)
Next it was time for some delicious Indian lunch! Earlier in the week we had spotted a cheap but great-looking restaurant and we decided it was time to try it out. Great choice! I had an awesome butter chicken, and tried a ‘roti canai’ for the first time. Roti Canai is an Indian flat bread-- light, buttery and flakey; layer upon layer of soft dough. Henk stuck with a chicken masala.
On the way back from lunch, we stopped in a bathing suit place that sold some Ed Hardy stuff for really decent prices – plus we decided to consider the purchases as early Christmas gifts for ourselves. I tried on a few different suits, since I had been looking for some new ones, and found a couple awesome pieces! One was a sexy one-piece, and the other was a two piece jeweled bikini. Henk, not wanting to be left out, got a red Ed Hardy shirt. I’m sure you’ll see pictures of our new clothes soon enough. Wanting to try out my bathing suit as soon as possible, I put it on back at Kedin’s and Henk and I joined some other travelers in the pool. That night we stayed up a little too late, so we opted to have a quick bite to eat at the cheap yet nice hotel café.
The 3rd of December we took our flight from Bali to Kuala Lumpur, ready to start our journey into Malaysia! Henk will start by telling you all about it.
The morning of November 28th, we decided to catch up on our blog posts – which means a lot of uploading pictures on slow connections! (Very annoying.) We spent a few hours there, starting late in the day, and then walked through the crowded streets to Pizza Hut for some lunch.
But before going to Pizza Hut, we stopped at the pharmacy. Since our snorkeling days in back in Amed, Henk had been having trouble with his ear. Worried that it might be infected, we had stopped by a pharmacist a couple days earlier and asked them how much it would be for an appointment. Since it was only $20.00 or so, we decided to go back since Henk’s ear had gotten a lot worse. And it was a good thing we did! The doctor confirmed our fears: infection! We bought the prescribed drops and painkillers and hoped they would work. I also grabbed a map of Kuta, created by someone who owned a sports-bar called ‘AlleyCats’ which we decided to try for a bite sometime. But at the moment, we had pizza on our minds. I had a three meat pizza, and Henk tried one of the pastas.
We returned to the room and watched some series for a while, but when the power went out; (as it often does on Bali we’ve learned) we decided to have a snack (an ice-cream sundae for myself and pumpkin soup for Henk) at the fancy hotel café next door to our hostel. While we were enjoying our food, we got to listen to a live band play some classic songs like “Hotel California.” Awesome!
Pretty much the entire day of the 29th Henk and I spent in a fun restaurant called ‘Havana Café,’ which had a relaxing lounge area to sit and various pictures of Castro all over the walls. Since it was a little before lunchtime when we got there, I snacked on a juicy burger and we continued to order drinks throughout our stay. They had free internet, so we owed them for the connection, anyways. One of the things I wanted to do as soon as we got online was look up bed bug bites. Since getting to Kuta, Henk had again developed suspicious-looking bites which I was almost immediately sure were bedbugs. More about that later…
Later in the day, I ran across the street to get my eyebrows waxed – in an all purple spa room! Looked very cool. Still at the Havana Café for dinner time, Henk and I felt in the Havana spirit and he got a burrito. Of course, I ordered fajitas having the knowledge that you usually get more food with fajitas than burritos – despite that they are essentially almost the same dish. Hehehe. Henk was jealous of my excess of food, but I shared with him. Plus it distracted him (and I) from having to listen to the insanely annoying loud group behind us; don’t worry, we mimicked their annoying conversation for a while but eventually moved away from them.
That night we returned to our hostel, and the first thing I did was peal back the covers from our bed to investigate the possible bed bug situation. And GROSS! Finally, after having previously encountered bed bugs in Melbourne, we got to see the little nasty things. And they were not small at ALL – I was worried we wouldn’t be able to see them. They were HUGE! Eat bug was about the size of an apple seed, and they were crawling around the mattress everywhere. I took a video of the entire ordeal while Henk ran downstairs and made sure the front desk knew so we could switch rooms. We took a shower right after getting to our new room, and bagged up our clothing for the laundry. Not again!! At least we still had bed bug pills from Australia, so Henk could take them right away to get rid of the bumps.
The next morning (the 30th of November) Henk went to a few different places trying to find one with availability so we could switch hostels. We didn’t want to stay anywhere that had gross bed bugs for a night longer! I dropped off the laundry and he packed up our bags. The hostel we moved to was Kedin’s, one of the places we visited the first evening in Kuta, hoping they might have space. But of course since the place is Lonely Planet recommended they were all booked up. Kedin’s was much nicer than the place next door, even had a pretty nice pool! The two of us then went out exploring, stopping for lunch first at HRC again where I had their famous ‘Twisted Mac and Cheese.’
Our goal for the day was to try and find some Wayang Kulit in Kuta, so we walked around and as a result saw many different parts of the city. We walked all over the place, eventually getting extremely sweaty and exhausted. (We never did find Wayang there by the way, Kuta is purely a tourist city for partying. Forget finding any true Indonesian culture there!) One thing we did find though was an awesome purple motorcycle. We spotted an Indian restaurant and made a mental note to eat there sometime soon. As we were walking back, we stopped in many bathing suit stores and surf shops, but all of the items there were so overpriced. I could hardly find an interesting bikini for under $80-$90. And the bathing suits that were in the more reasonable $40-$50 price range were pretty ugly to be honest.
Later that evening, Henk and I went to get some take-away pizza from the Pizza Hut (Again! But after a month of nasi lemak I deserved it!) and we spotted some lights on the beach. What could that be? We headed onto the sand to check it out. Turns out (I thought maybe they were shooting a movie or something.) there were big lights up for the night surfers. We watched them for a while – some of those people really know their stuff! They looked pretty talented from where we were standing. I vowed then and there to go in the waves before we left Kuta. That evening ended with our pizza, garlic bread, and some episodes of House.
December 1st, we decided to go shopping, just checking out some of the interesting stores in Kuta. A lot of them had “hip-boutique” feel, almost in a New York, Soho-esque fashion; many grunge and punk ‘looks’ and accessories. Since we were near AlleyCats, we decided to try them for lunch. It was supposed to be hip a ‘sports-bar’ with a lounge area and some games from our map’s description. While the lounge area was nothing to rave about, they did have some yummy sandwiches for us. We split a salmon and cream-cheese baguette and a yummy chicken and mushroom baguette. After that we eventually ventured back to our internet café from one of the previous days to relax for a little while.
It was nearing the end of our stay in Kuta on the 2nd of December, and we hadn’t yet experienced the awesome surf waves we had seen. And I really wanted to jump in there! We went to the beach in the morning, and found an area clear from all the surfers to make sure we didn’t end up under any boards. I went into the waves, and Henk followed me. We experimented with different techniques for surviving the waves: swimming under them, holding our ground (with our back facing them) against them, or trying to time our jumps with their breaking so we wouldn’t be swept under. After a long while of body-surfing the waves, we went back onto the sand and had fun drawing some pictures and playing ‘catch’ with an apple. (Until it fell apart, that is!)
Next it was time for some delicious Indian lunch! Earlier in the week we had spotted a cheap but great-looking restaurant and we decided it was time to try it out. Great choice! I had an awesome butter chicken, and tried a ‘roti canai’ for the first time. Roti Canai is an Indian flat bread-- light, buttery and flakey; layer upon layer of soft dough. Henk stuck with a chicken masala.
On the way back from lunch, we stopped in a bathing suit place that sold some Ed Hardy stuff for really decent prices – plus we decided to consider the purchases as early Christmas gifts for ourselves. I tried on a few different suits, since I had been looking for some new ones, and found a couple awesome pieces! One was a sexy one-piece, and the other was a two piece jeweled bikini. Henk, not wanting to be left out, got a red Ed Hardy shirt. I’m sure you’ll see pictures of our new clothes soon enough. Wanting to try out my bathing suit as soon as possible, I put it on back at Kedin’s and Henk and I joined some other travelers in the pool. That night we stayed up a little too late, so we opted to have a quick bite to eat at the cheap yet nice hotel café.
The 3rd of December we took our flight from Bali to Kuala Lumpur, ready to start our journey into Malaysia! Henk will start by telling you all about it.
