Spinnin’ Wheel

What Goes Up, Must Come Down

So here I am again, sitting on my butt in another warung, waiting for my food. I’m doing a lot of sitting on my butt in warungs lately, I can tell you.

It's those three round meals a day.

Tempe, tofu, eggs, veggies, rice, with all the extras. And yeah, banana pancakes, chips and chocolate bars.

Loads of fruit.

And then there’s the juices, so many juices. Avocado, banana, mango, dragonfruit, orange, watermelon, lemon, pineapple. You name it, I’ve had it. And at least one full coconut a day, sometimes two.

It’s so easy to be healthy out here. It’s food and drink heaven.

I’m also very happy to report that I’ve made it pretty much to the top of my crossing of the side of Gunung Agung, the big sacred volcano, and I’m still all here, unruptured. Cheery even. Cos I know I have big downhills to come.

It was a super hot hard climb yesterday though. Luckily I was in no rush, the gradient was relatively ok (by Indo standards), which wasn’t a big surprise, because I decided to take the car route on my app, not the cycle route. I checked out the cycle route first, and it was so ridiculously steep that I had to relent.

In the main, the main road was actually totally fine, there was traffic, but nowhere near as much as there is in the south of the island. Cars and trucks pass me by veering half over to the other side of the road, but they always beep before they pass, and mostly keep a distance. The really steep bits can be a little tricky though, because it’s hard not to wobble around a little with a loaded bike. And sometimes the side of the road disappears and the road suddenly narrows, without warning. But so far so good.

Rice paddies everywhere

The beautiful east coast

Coconut husks are used to make many things, like doormats, brushes, twine and particle board. The villagers also burn them at dusk to keep away mozzies.

The palm leaves of the coconut trees are used to make things like temple decorations, baskets, floor and wall linings and all sorts of other useful things. The coconut shells themselves are a major raw material for tourist knickknacks, jewellery, bowls and other wood products.

Sang Hyang Ambu Temple

Monkey business

Stonemasons hard at it

I had a lovely chat with this woman in broken Indo. She smiled and laughed all the time, except when I took the pic. She had lots of missing teeth, maybe that's why.

Roundabouts often have interesting sculptures on them

Another beautiful temple. Ho hum.

Shop colours

My legs are definitely feeling stronger, after over two weeks on these hilly roads. I feel like I’m really in the swing now.

I was here at my homestay and warung by the unusually early hour of 2pm.

Yeah I know.

Hottest part of the day.

No wonder I was dripping like a leaking Indonesian shower head when I arrived.

So wet my back got sunburnt

Tirta Gangga

So I’m in the small village of Tirta Gangga, which is the site of one of the most beautiful gardens and water temples in Bali. It’s really stunning. I know I say that a lot, but this time I mean it, not like all the other times.

Taman Tirta Gangga (Ganga Water Garden) is named after the River Ganges in India, a sacred river to Hindus. It was built by the King of Karangasem in 1946, and was the former royal palace, gardens, bathing pools and Patirthan temple.

Unfortunately, much of the palace was destroyed by the eruption of Gunung Agung in 1963, when the volcano erupted three times, killing 1600 people, and leaving tens of thousands homeless.

But the gardens, pools, and some of the temple remain, and are absolutely stunning.

The beautiful homestay I’m staying in across the road is stunning in itself, the perfect match for Taman Tirta Gangga. There’s an old guy who tends to the gardens here, I complimented him about them, and he was so proud to take me on a tour.

Another stunning balcony view

Hitting The North Coast (Not That One)

It’s poorer in these parts, and it’s easy to tell. People are dressed in older clothes, the shops don’t sell much, just small things that don’t seem to get much turnover, they look old and dusty and sunfaded.

There’s hardly anywhere to eat, the few food stalls that exist are almost deserted.  People have no extra cash for eating out. Locals sell small things on the side of the road, greens they’ve harvested in the forest, young or already sprouted coconuts, bunches of bananas.

After riding for a good 15km hungry, I finally found this little warung. It’s the nicest spot around. I was the only one here until just now, when 2 truckies rocked up. No one speaks a word of English, but that’s ok with me these days. I can order what I need - an avocado juice, fried rice noodles with vegies egg and tempe. No meat. The old mama gets it, and cooks up a storm.

I’ve finally made it to the Balinese coast again, but the north coast this time, a long way away from any large towns.

Avo juice is common here. It's yummy.

Hey Phil, these riding gloves aren't yours btw, they're mine. We happen to have the exact same type. But I guess now is probably as good a time as any to tell you that, actually, I do have your riding gloves here with me. I picked them up by mistake, thinking they were mine. I discovered I have 2 pairs. Oops, sorry.

Stunning rice terraces

First glimpse of the north coast

Palm temple decorations drying in the sun

Sailing Away

I travelled a lot in Indonesia in the nineties. On my first trip I was determined not to fly there, so I put up a note in the Darwin Sailing Club offering to crew on a sailing boat heading in that direction.

After a couple of weeks a crazy English pirate dude with only two teeth, George, contacted my guest house, and offered me passage, for $200 plus crewing. He was headed to the Philippines. I was in.

Those were the days.

Australian passport control consisted of a Passport Officer coming down on to the actual beach in Darwin late one afternoon, where our boat was, and stamping our passports as having exited Australia.

The thing is, we didn’t leave.

Unbeknown to me, a shady Swiss character jumped on board that night, while we were still on the beach. He was keen to flee the country, to skip the law, I still don’t know why. When we got to our first major Indonesian port, he arranged for someone to make a stamp, which he used to stamp his own passport, it looked indistinguishable from my own official Australian departure stamp.

So we left in the middle of the night, on the high tide. We were on George’s dodgy catamaran, that he’d built himself. There was a whole pile of us - George, 2 crazy young stoner Aussie guys from Newcastle, 2 young blonde English party girls, Tiffany and Helen, a very very tall Dutch guy, the Swiss crim, and me.

And what a trip it was. Firstly, George had mountains of heavily potent weed, which we all smoked profusely for the whole trip. He also had endless slabs of beer, which were also freely on tap. There was a bunch of guitarists onboard too, we jammed a lot, but one of the Newcastle guys, Adam, somehow hated it if I played a song on my own.

If I felt like playing something, or even if someone else asked me to play a song, I’d launch into it, and then when I was just a few chords in Adam would start strumming a completely different song really loudly, and singing it badly.

If someone told him to shutup he just told them to shut the fuck up back, and kept playing, or he stopped playing and started a loud argument, which drowned out my playing anyway.

It was a pretty effective method tbh. On the whole trip I didn’t play a single song on my own, I gave up, it was too hard.

The things you remember.

Anyway, one night, in the middle of the night, a massive storm rolled in. Shit. Right out there on the open ocean, on what felt like a boat made of matchsticks.

It was a direct hit, and it hit like a bomb. I’d been asleep down below, and woke up being tossed around like a stunned mullet fighting a losing battle with an invisible fisher. I was scared, really scared, and for awhile there, whilst trying to stop myself from being thrown around, I actually thought my chances of survival weren’t very good.

The two guys up on deck, on shift, Adam and his mate, didn’t have time to get the mainsail down. It ripped to shreds, the cables and ropes flying around and whipping those guys up, cutting their faces, arms and hands.

The rudder snapped off. Massive waves crashed over the boat, swamping the motor and making it unusable.

It was so intense.

But we didn’t sink.

In fact, we didn’t sink about anysink. We were too scared.

We just held on for dear life, and, luckily, life held dearly on to us.

The next day, shellshocked, we managed to make it to a tiny island using the jib, a makeshift rudder, and a tiny outboard motor that George had onboard for his little skiff.

That island, Pulau Dei, was like stepping back in time. Whities didn’t make it to islands like that in those days. The whole village came down onto the beach to greet us, lined up on the shore. The village chief then walked past everyone and greeted our own chief, two-toothed George.

We were given the most amazing hospitality that night, including some weird-arse fermented coconut drink, pipes with local tobacco and herbs, and the sacrifice of a pig. The villagers sewed up a new colourful makeshift sail for us the next day, out of large woven plastic bags. True story.

That afternoon, Tiffany, Barbara, the Dutch guy and I headed up the coast, away from the village, for a swim. As we were sitting on the beach, back from the water, 2 guys walked past along the water’s edge. They were almost naked, and carried spears. Really.

They looked at us in surprise, stopped, looked back at the village in the distance and saw our boat on the sand, said something to each other, and walked on. They still lived traditionally out there in those days. maybe still do, who knows. Hunters and gatherers. Indigenous guys. Orang asli, as they call them here.

After the storm, typically, the winds dropped completely, and it took us forever to get to our first main destination, Ambon, the capital of Maluku province. I was completely culture-shocked when I left the boat - not only was Ambon the craziest dirtiest most lawless most intense city I’d ever been to, but I was so blown away by George’s magic ‘erbs that I was unable to really comprehend anything in the whole universe, let alone try and navigate this completely impossible to understand crazy-arsed part of it.

And rather than taking my time to ease into that world, within two days I’d fallen in love (lust) with a local Indonesian woman, left the boat, and decided to travel around the country with her instead, my shout.

It was amazing, and crazy. I’ll tell you about her, Wirda, another time.

Cycling in Sumatra in the 90s. I don't have many pics of those days unfortunately.

Tejakula

I can’t believe the beauty of the Balinese aesthetic. They make everything so stunningly appealing, I was gobsmacked again when I arrived at this beautiful homestay villa, only 30m from Tejakula beach. I really didn’t know what to expect, but it really wasn’t this.

The view from my balcony

My quarters

Interesting place for fruit to form on a tree

It's rambutan season. They're everywhere. Be jealous.

Anturan

I’ve been riding loaded up for 4 straight days now, it’s really been great, but now it’s time to chill for a few days.

Anturan is a village a coupla clicks east of what used to be a bit of a touristy beach, Lovina, although it’s pretty quiet at the moment.

It was a fun ride here:

Local produce

Woodcarver’s shop

The Plastic Army on the march. It was a telco promotion.

Lush

This little spot, at the end of a dead end street, is super quiet, with only a little warung, a small shop, a one roomed massage place, and two small guesthouses.

This is my room:

Made’s massage place across the road, taken from Putu’s little warung. I’ve been eating here every day, at least once, buying things I really don’t need at the little shop, and I also had a massage with Made. These guys are doing it so tough since Covid, they really need support.

Balcony snack zone

Sweet mung bean cakes

Milena organised me a Christmas gift all the way from Australia. So sweet. It was a beautiful massage from this woman, Eke. With homemade aloe vera ointment, no less. Yummm.

Singaraja

This large town is the main hub of the north coast. The centre is mainly Muslim, it’s a heavily trafficked populated place, but super interesting. There’s a huge market there, Pasar Banyuasri, which consists entirely of locals. Not one tourist to be seen anywhere, unless I look in the mirror.

Delicious salak (snake fruit), the brown fruit at the front

She’s grabbing some coconut sugar

Temple and street decorations

The tempe is so so good here, it’s served crispy and delicious

Making temple offerings

The raw materials

The noisy busy loading zone

Lovina

I’m sitting in a little tourist café/bar restaurant now, not a little shacky warung for a change. What’s come over me?

Actually, I’m in the touristy part of Lovina, there’s only really a couple of little streets near the beach that are the main tourist hangouts, where people come and eat, drink, listen to live music and chill.

It’s sorta cool, pretty relaxed at this time of day, on a Saturday early afternoon, I guess the area will be busier tonight, given that it’ll be Saturday night, and it also happens to be Christmas Eve. But tourism here is nowhere near where it was pre-Covid. Not by a long shot.

lt also depends a bit on the weather I guess. It really bucketed down last night, in truly tropical style. I haven’t seen that sort of rain so far on my whole trip, let’s see how that's all gonna pan out on my treadly.

Tomorrow’s a public holiday in Indonesia, for Christmas Day, which is surprising, given that this is very much a Muslim country (86% of people are Muslim).

But believe it or not, over 10% of people in this country are actually Christians, which makes nearly 29m people, more than the entire population of Australia, (which is only 44% Christian).

So actually there’s over double the number of Christians in Indonesia than in Australia.

Yeah, Indonesia isn’t short of people generally, of any spiritual flavour. It isn’t that short of land either, I might add. Surprisingly, it’s the 14th largest country in the world by land area, and the 4th largest by population.

And that’s all right on our doorstep guys. Looking from Oz, Indonesia feels like a long long way away. It hardly ever makes the news, most Aussies wouldn’t even know who the President is (Joko Widodo, his final term expires in 2 years), or be able to name 3 islands in the whole country, I reckon. There’s actually 17,500 to choose from. Maybe you've heard of Bali, Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, Lombok, Flores?

Indo has ten times more people than Australia, in a quarter of the land area. Maths …. that makes it roughly 40 times the population density of Oz.

Australia’s the sixth largest country in the world by land mass, and the 55th by population.

Reader quiz:

Which countries are bigger than Australia in land mass?*

So anyway, Lovina’s a pretty cruisey place to hang out, it’s got the ubiquitous kitsch of Indo tourist hotspots, the grandiose beachside sculptures, the sarong and tourist trinket stalls, the soft rock (soft cock) keyboard soloists in bars, with their reverb and volume turned up way too much. But the place is actually super quiet at the moment.

I did not know that

I did know that

Splendrous beachside kitsch

And there's more

And more

Entrance to a private wedding. They're super grandiose affairs. Everyone dresses up big time (just like Aussie weddings).

OMG. Westerners

The passage to the loo, here at this restaurant. Beautiful, and fancy.

*Quiz answers: Russia, Canada, China, US, Brazil. Bet you didn’t guess the last one.

The People You Meet

Jörn, from Hamburg, is a retired paramedic who stays at Anturan regularly, but hasn’t been since pre-Covid. We’ve spent a couple of nights having dinner together, chatting about life (interesting), politics (boring), and Bali (also interesting).

He gave me a lot of insights about how this place has changed over the years - at least this tiny part of the north coast. He knows the locals here at Anturan, their families, their friends. This small little village used to be pumping with tourists. Now it’s  only dribbling.

Jörn was very keen to espouse his theories about the war in Ukraine, and the whole scene in Europe. I don’t blame him, he’s right in the thick of it. German power prices have skyrocketed, they’re spending billions of euros supporting Ukraine, everyone’s talking about it.

It’s super important, but for me it seems so far away at the moment. Not so long ago I used to be quite interested in politics, but I’ve really been out of the loop for a while now, and seem to have little desire to get back into it right now.

***

Lee is an English guy who’s married to an Australian woman. He found himself in Oz on a tourist visa when Covid struck. He was only planning to stay for the length of his visa, but heard there was an amnesty on short term visas, which seemed perfectly logical, as he was physically not permitted to leave the country anyway. But what he didn’t do was check it out with the Immigration Department (big mistake).

Six months ago his mum in England got sick, so he went to fly out to visit her. At Tullamarine he was stopped by Immigration, and told he’d overstayed his visa, but that there’d be no fine. Instead, they banned him from returning to Australia for 3 years!

So crazy! He’s married to an Aussie woman. He has his own business. It’s just nuts.

The culture at the Australian Department of Immigration has been dodgy for decades now. I’ve had a lot to do with them over the years, having sponsored both Carmen and Brigitte, and on many occasions helping friends with their visa applications, getting documents together, jumping through hoops.

The department rips visa applicants off bigtime. They charge exorbitant fees, which you need to pay even if your visa is refused. The staff there can be super patronising. I’ve heard them with my own ears.

They make hugely important decisions which massively affect people’s lives, and they don’t even need to offer any reasons whatsoever for their decisions.

You can tell I’m not a fan. Maybe the Labor Government will force some cultural change in that massive department. But they’re a juggernaut, I know that, and that kind of culture's very hard to turn around.

Anyway, Lee, in an effort to be closer to his wife, has decided to live in Bali, and she’ll visit him regularly. I guess they’ll just have to see how that goes. Not sure why they didn’t just both move to the UK?

Oh yeah, it’s the UK, I understand. Who wants to live there right now, it's really tough.

Unless you're cashed up, of course.

But the more interesting thing about Lee is that he claims to have had an affair with Taylor Swift, in the UK, when she was just 16, and he was 25. She apparently told him she was 18, and he told her he was 22.

So Lee didn’t say her name to me, but said that after their one night stand (during which he was very drunk), all he could remember was that she was a singer with blonde hair and that they had the most incredibly passionate night.

They had no contact afterwards. But then, 2 years later, he saw her on MTV. When telling me about this he even stood up and acted out his reaction when he saw her on TV (shock on face, hands clutching head, very ham).

He immediately contacted her. She replied within 10 minutes. Then it was on for young and old.

Fitting.

They began a passionate online relationship. All of their communication was coded, to protect her reputation - she a sweet country singer, he a junkie. But they never saw each other again.

After five years of online bliss Lee broke it up, it was too hard on him emotionally.

He told me that this famous blonde artist wrote a song about him, called “22.” (He obviously wanted me to know who the artist was at this point). He claims that the song “22” isn’t about her at 22, but about their night together when he was 22 (even though he was 25).

So romantic.

So bullshit.

Well … I think. I did a bit of research. As far as I can see, Taylor Swift wasn’t even in the UK when she was 16, let alone touring there.

The super sad thing is, Lee is still totally in love with Taylor Swift (and not with his wife). He’s living out his physical life, but dreaming a completely different one in his head. Not sure how he’s gonna sort that one out, but it seems pretty straightforward to me.

Let it go mate.

Maybe what’s required is some treatment by a random Korean or Japanese Zen master, which they dish out when you’re being a dickhead.

The treatment consists of a coupla hard Swift slaps across the face and head.

(My iPad put in the capital S by itself, that’s AI for ya, Arty Intelligence).

Pemuteran

Wow. It’s my last day in Bali for awhile. Already.

I just got here. It’s not fair. Bugger the visa thing.

I’ve discovered that to renew my visa up here on the north coast of Bali could take up to 14 days. Bummer. But if I get my arse to Yogyakarta, they’ll do it in 3.

So that’s where I’m headed. I’ve got about 8 days left on my visa, so will need to get there by then.

It was beautiful riding here today.

Stunning rice paddies. Don’t ask me about the Ferris wheel at the back. So random.

Roadside market, Siririt

The stunning sea

Oops

As you head further west, the area becomes distinctly more Muslim, and mosques start to become ubiquitous, as they are in other parts of the country. Some of them are quite pretty.

My guest house was beautiful, as usual.

A quilt made of old traditional Indonesian sarongs

I found an amazing warung close to my guest house, Warung Setia. It had the best food ever, a fitting end to my time in Bali.

I walked to the beach, and came across a bunch of tourists trying to help a distressed cat, which was stuck on top of a high wall. As soon as I stopped, one of them said, “hey, you’re tall, could you put this food up on the top of the wall?”

But even I couldn’t reach the top of the wall. So I asked a hefty Dutch lady if she could kindly bend over, and I’d step up on her back. Surprisingly, she was fine with that, up I went, and rescued the poor feline.

Good deed done, I walked to the beach, then ate food and drank beer.

Coconut grove on the way to the beach

Dusk magic

2 4 6 8. The glass may say Bintang, but the contents are Singaraja. It's way tastier than Bintang, in my humble opinion.

Bye Bye Bali

So my plan is to ride to the ferry terminal tomorrow morning (about 30km), and then take the ferry across the Bali Strait.

Tomorrow a new chapter begins. I’ll be in heavily populated Java, and it’s a totally different ball game over there. None of this gorgeous aesthetic and gentle Balinese Hindu-Animist hoohah. It’s gonna be full rough and ready Java baby, headscarves, mosques, and gentle Islamic hoohah.

Plus I need to get to Yogya before my visa expires, which is not really possible for me on my bike. It's too far. It'd be physically crazily tough, which doesn't sound fun at all.

And for me this trip is about having fun.

Among other things.

No, I’ll have to come up with another plan.

Stay tuned.

All will be revealed.

Well not all all, don't worry ❤️