Bali, Indonesia...........It's NOT Missouri

Well, we made it to Bali last night. We left NZ at 7:00 in the morning and took a 3.5 hour flight to Melbourne, Australia. From there we had a six hour layover and then another 6.5 hour flight to Denpasar, Bali. We crossed four timezones in the process. We know have an +14 hour difference between the States.

We got in around 6:00 pm local time but by the time we got our visas and through customs it was dark. It was quite an experience right off the bat. The second we walked out of the airport we were barraged by locals pulling us every way trying to exchange money, buy maps, book hotesl, and get in their taxis. It was really frustrating. You couldn't even focus on our own maps trying to figure out where to go without 30 people saying, "Yes, yes, you come with me." It was a bit of a pain in the ass.

After finally negotiating a cab ride to the town of Kuta we made our way. It was chaos. There are motorbikes everywhere flying past cabs with hundreds to people just running about in the streets. There really aren't any type of traffic rules here. You basically just get out of the way and hope not to get hit. You have avoid children, bikes, motocycles, horses, street carts, and all kinds of other crazy stuff.

After about a half hour in the cab we get dropped off at our hostel. Lucky for us they had no vacancy for night. At this point we are all starving because we hadn't eaten in 18 hours. Our flight was on Pacific Blue and it's a budget airline. You get nothing free. All drinks and food must be purchased at a pretty ridiculous price. The Melbourne international terminal sucked too. They only had one crappy cafe to eat at and it was priced pretty crazy for the shit they were selling. We opted to wait and eat in Bali. We we freaking starving!

So, with fatigue setting in we decided to walk a bit and find the next place to stay. Lucky for us, again, there was a blackout in half of Kuta last night. We had no idea where to go and everything was dark so you couldn't tell what you were getting yourself into. You would look down alleys and just hear crazy Indonesian chatter and not know wheter to proceed or not. After some time we walked up to a hotel to try and get a room. Most people here speak Bahasa Indonesian with enough English to get your money and book your room. We just went for it and booked a room for the night not knowing what to expect. We didn't care anymore.

Later we walked the crowded, dark, chaotic streets and found some street vendors selling food. We don't know what we ate because it was dark but I know it was amazing! I'm pretty sure there was some pork, some fish, and some chicken. We got a huge plate of food covered in chili oil and beer for only $3.00. It was pretty awesome. We sat on a street curb while a woman served us with her bare fingers and finally got to take it all in. We were no longer in New Zealand and a long way from Missouri.

After that it was back to the hotel and thankfully the power had come back on. We passed out and woke up to a pretty nice view of the pool from our private balcony. Not bad for $10....


It's hotter than hell but only because of the humidity. It's like a Missouri summer with an extra 80% humidity. Hopefully it will be a great time though. Today we head for the beach to see what this place is all about. I'm sure we are in for some great views...

Talk to you all later!

Ryan