Past time, I finally ate gado-gado. Boiled vegetables in a peanut sauce; usually comes with egg, which I swapped for tofu. This one also had tempeh. SO good. And, at Warung Nelayan, I accompanied it with hands down the best Bali coffee I've had since I've been here. It's so thick and rich it actually tempered my cake craving.
I think the total price of this meal is 25k IDR (about £1.50), though the coffee is on the menu in two places, for 5k and 10k, so we'll see..
I captured and released two mosquitoes that were inside my net.
I am a paragon of virtue.
What I captured them in was the lid of the mosquito repellant though, so they had a really shitty five seconds. I'm not that nice.
Well I've been here for a week and a half now, so maybe late for very first impressions.
To be specific, I've been only in Canggu, aside from some of a day in Ubud. I'm staying about a 15-20 minute walk from Batu Bolong Beach and a little further to Echo Beach. It's not built up, and there are lots of rice paddys. The streets are lined with villa-style guesthouses, restaurants, and small shops. There's nothing that feels 'local', not that I have any basis for comparison, having never been to any other part of Indonesia. Actually, there are little temples everywhere and they're somehow inconspicuous and impressive at the same time. Several times a day, locals place 'offerings' of banana leaves containing rice, flowers and incense (and sometimes sweets and cigarettes) on the ground in front of temples, homes, and guesthouses.
Most people I see around are tourists. People come here to surf and yoga. The beaches are good for surfing, but the waves are too big to swim. They're fairly unspoilt, not much trash or anything like that. There are a couple of bars on the beach, but nothing excessive. No massive hotel or apartment complexes, like Penang.
I also haven't seen any shopping malls or even supermarkets. But I haven't been far. It took a little while, but I did find cheap local (probably) food at nasi campur places. There are actually quite a few, but they're unassuming and I guess I skipped over them nestled between the fancier salad-and-smoothie-bowl-packed places that cater for health-conscious tourists.
Rather than helping yourself from a buffet (like nasi kandar in Malaysia), you point at dishes and they're plated for you. Tempeh and three or four types of vegetables has so far come to between 10k and 15k IDR (less than 1GBP). For context, main dishes or even smoothie bowls and fancy cakes are upwards of 50k at other cafes. But the nasi campur stops aren't ideal places to stay and work, being largely wall-less and power-less, so hot and not particularly comfortable. The ones I've seen so far, at least.
Random Balinese people one passes in the street are extremely friendly, including the ones who aren't trying to sell you transport. People say hello or welcome, and smile in a way that includes their eyes. I don't think I've experienced any catcalling so far.
Walking around at night is a little more difficult as there are no street lights. There are a few cross streets linking the main ones (which run perpendicular to the coast) which pass through rice paddies, and unless there's passing traffic it's completely dark. I'm walking around with my running lights, anyway. Most people rent scooters as there's no public transport, but I don't feel like now would be a good time to learn to drive. Uber and equivalents are banned in Canggu. You might get one to drop you off here if you're lucky, but you certainly can't get a pickup; local taxis only, and they're not cheap.
There are many more street dogs, but they're not as needy as the ones in Penang. Ie, they don't follow you. Sometimes they bark, but it's usually at something else and you just happen to be passing. I'm still a bit unnerved, but getting better at ignoring them.
Canggu definitely feels like a place people are on holiday, not living. Over the upcoming weeks I'll venture a little further out though, towards the main center of Canggu, as well as Seminyak (which is about a 1.5 hour walk from where I am). I'm not feeling particularly inspired to try to see the whole island. This is good, because I'm supposed to be (and have been!) writing my thesis. I'm trying to keep hold of that mindset. I've done yoga every single day (for the first time in my life) and I've found it easy to start my day at 7 or 7.30 every morning. I think I'll be content on the three parallel streets of Canggu that I know so far, for the most part. Right now I'm by the pool at Serenity, having come here for breakfast and yoga, and I don't feel like I'm missing out on being somewhere else. Maybe I'll make one excursion to see a volcano... But the holiday/resort/chilling TF out vibe is working.
In reply to: https://rhiaro.co.uk/2017/03/chocolate
But on a related note, now when a cafe doesn't have any vegan cake at all I'm proper offended. (Like Betelnut, where I am working from this morning. Cracking smoothie though).
The other evening around 9pm I just fancied a chocolate with my tea. I walked 3 minutes down the road to the organic grocery store and was able to buy a single delicious handmade vegan chocolate. Ah, what is this life.
So I fixed the bedbugs problem.
By moving from the hostel dorm to a room shared with one other person at a yoga retreat with a pool. For 20k less. I'll be here until Saturday, then decide what to do next.
May go back to the original dorm for a few days until the equivalently priced dorm at the yoga retreat becomes available..
The tradeoff is no kitchen at the yoga place.. but the pool... and 25% off in their veggie cafe which has lots of raw desserts.. but I like the location of the hostel better... Man, life is hard.
I went to Ubud for most of a day with A from Romania who I met at the hostel, and met up with N from Denmark who I met at the airport when I arrived. It wasn't a crazy jam-packed day, but we managed to get a few things in.
The taxi drive was about an hour. We ate breakfast at Atman; the 'famous' raw, grain-free porridge was pretty good, and the coconut oil latte was super interesting and creamy.
A and I went to the Monkey Forest (entrance 50k IDR) and spent about an hour there. Lots of curious baby monkeys. Bigger monkeys fighting over bananas and sharpening rocks. Old monkeys lounging around looking wise.
We stopped by the Ubud Palace, but it was mostly closed for renovations. Wandered through the market, then stopped for juice. It was hot (though perhaps cooler than Canggu) and none of us were feeling particularly energetic. I found a trail on the map and we walked along it a little way, and saw a waterfall and some nice views.
N had found a driver willing to take us back for 220k, which was a really good deal between 3 of us. On the way, he stopped at a coffee farm, and we tried many different flavoured coffees and luwak coffee. The luwak coffee was 50k for a cup which we shared, and the others were free. The luwak coffee is the one that is made from beans pooped out by a civet. It was really sweet. We had to get them to promise this was naturally its flavour and they hadn't added sugar. Apparently most people find it sour, but because the three of us don't each much sugar are tastes were different from the average tourist. All of the flavoured coffee samples also had sugar added, and coconut creamer (or honey in the teas). They managed to make six of them without sugar for us, but they were all pre-mixed with creamer. Not what we really wanted in a coffee tasting... We couldn't really taste any coffee. So if you go to one of these places and are a sugar-free kinda person, ask in advance for no-sugar versions of the samples. The only ones they sold were the pre-mixed instant versions too, which was disappointed, so we didn't buy anything.
Ubud is full of nice cafes, yoga studios, and shops selling yoga gear, as you might expect. I suppose I didn't really wander far, but it didn't feel much different from Canggu, minus the surfer part. Mostly tourists; perhaps you have to go deeper to find local culture.
I'm getting bitten to shit by mosquitoes even when I wear repellent. If I get dengue fever, someone finish my thesis for me please.
I'm really enjoying being on my own again.
I'm really grateful for all the new friends (family?) I made in Penang. But there's something to be said for being in a new place and not knowing anyone, and nobody knowing me.
That said, I met someone at the airport who is also trying to finish her thesis here (on plant-based cooking!). She'll be in Canggu at the weekend, and we'll be study buddies.
Leaving Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at 10:20am (+08:00) on Tuesday the 28th of February 2017 and arriving in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia at 1:25pm (+08:00) on Tuesday the 28th of February 2017