Trawangan Island, Indonesia - Day 6 to Kuta, Bali...
It's sad to leave Trawangan. We had a such a good time and could have stayed for quite a bit longer. Our UK friend Patrick was nearby the boat dock and wished us goodbye. We were traveling back to Bali on the same boat and ferry as the Canadians, so they were there as well.
On the 2-hour journey on a minibus from the Lombok boat dock to the ferry terminal I sat next to Kim, a really neat woman from the UK. She told me how an around the world trip had totally changed her life a few years earlier. After talking about some of the personalities of her pre-trip boyfriends and how she was now, I can tell that it was quite life changing! The sadest tale she told me was a boyfriend who was very cheap. He had an old frying pan that she would cook some of his meals with and she kept asking him to get a new one for himself. For her next birthday, as a serious and the only gift, he gave her a small frying pan. He loved the USA because you got free food (peanuts or other munches) at the bars where you drank. I cannot picture help putting up with a person like that at all now.
Her new question to potential boyfriends is, "if you could travel to anyplace in the world, where would you go?".
Kim and I continued our conversation on the 5-hour ferry ride. It was a lot of fun and it also made the time pass quickly. She doesn't believe she belongs in the UK and hopes to open an upscale hostel in Spain. She promised to let me know when she does it.
After the ferry arrived, we were routed to minibus for the trip to Kuta. I sat next to Peter and his friend from Austria. They were nearing the end of a 6-month surfing safara covering Hawaii, California, Australia and Bali. As can happen, things did not work out quit as smoothly as planned. In Australia they had rain 3 out of the 6-weeks that they were there. They didn't rent a car and were fairly restricted to the areas they could surf at just due to lack of affordable transportion. The bus charged $50 extra for their boards. They found the most famous surf areas to be very competitve and were sometimes forced out of the area, them being beginner level surfers. Their best experience was in Kuta on Lombok Island. They stayed there for six weeks. They said they had great weather, friendly people, cheap food, inexpensive accomodations and a great beginning surfer area.
Peter, who climbs back in Austria, set up a slack line between trees near his bungaloo. A slack line is like a tight-rope except it isn't tight and it is set a very low level, about 2-feet above the ground (to avoid very painful injuries, if you know whta I mean!). His was 18-feet long. The object is to gain the balance skill to walk the length of it and back. From what I've seen, it is very challenging. He said by the time they had left everyone of the locals had tried it, from kids to grandfathers. Some of the local teenagers actually became quite good at walking the entire line. People accomplished the skill as well.
We got back to Hotel Sorga and I tried to get some money out of an ATM. It refused to dispense any money. After several attempts and trying a different machine, I surmised that they had put a hold on the ATM access. I searched out and found the only place in Kuta, possibly, that sells international phone cards, purchased a card and tried calling the Bank number. After 40-minutes of trying to get through to several different numbers and going to a nearby internet place to find more bank numbers, I called a friend, Tony, in the USA and had him call the bank on his cell phone. He was able to reach them but they would not do bank transactions through a 3rd party, so they gave me a number to call back. I was able to reach them directly, but it took about 10-minutes to go through all the security questions, like, when did you first start your account in Georgia? I don't normally keep that kind of information in my memory banks. They said they froze the account because of the foreign transaction taking place and they didn't have any note (I called them before I left the USA) of me traveling. The fact is, I had been traveling for 3 1/2 months and they did nothing, why suddenly freeze my account? Whatever, I'm not too impressed with my credit cards' security division. I'm not impressed with there knoweldge of geography as well, when I told her I was in Bali, she said, "that's in South America, right?". Eek!
It's sad to leave Trawangan. We had a such a good time and could have stayed for quite a bit longer. Our UK friend Patrick was nearby the boat dock and wished us goodbye. We were traveling back to Bali on the same boat and ferry as the Canadians, so they were there as well.
On the 2-hour journey on a minibus from the Lombok boat dock to the ferry terminal I sat next to Kim, a really neat woman from the UK. She told me how an around the world trip had totally changed her life a few years earlier. After talking about some of the personalities of her pre-trip boyfriends and how she was now, I can tell that it was quite life changing! The sadest tale she told me was a boyfriend who was very cheap. He had an old frying pan that she would cook some of his meals with and she kept asking him to get a new one for himself. For her next birthday, as a serious and the only gift, he gave her a small frying pan. He loved the USA because you got free food (peanuts or other munches) at the bars where you drank. I cannot picture help putting up with a person like that at all now.
Her new question to potential boyfriends is, "if you could travel to anyplace in the world, where would you go?".
Kim and I continued our conversation on the 5-hour ferry ride. It was a lot of fun and it also made the time pass quickly. She doesn't believe she belongs in the UK and hopes to open an upscale hostel in Spain. She promised to let me know when she does it.
After the ferry arrived, we were routed to minibus for the trip to Kuta. I sat next to Peter and his friend from Austria. They were nearing the end of a 6-month surfing safara covering Hawaii, California, Australia and Bali. As can happen, things did not work out quit as smoothly as planned. In Australia they had rain 3 out of the 6-weeks that they were there. They didn't rent a car and were fairly restricted to the areas they could surf at just due to lack of affordable transportion. The bus charged $50 extra for their boards. They found the most famous surf areas to be very competitve and were sometimes forced out of the area, them being beginner level surfers. Their best experience was in Kuta on Lombok Island. They stayed there for six weeks. They said they had great weather, friendly people, cheap food, inexpensive accomodations and a great beginning surfer area.
Peter, who climbs back in Austria, set up a slack line between trees near his bungaloo. A slack line is like a tight-rope except it isn't tight and it is set a very low level, about 2-feet above the ground (to avoid very painful injuries, if you know whta I mean!). His was 18-feet long. The object is to gain the balance skill to walk the length of it and back. From what I've seen, it is very challenging. He said by the time they had left everyone of the locals had tried it, from kids to grandfathers. Some of the local teenagers actually became quite good at walking the entire line. People accomplished the skill as well.
We got back to Hotel Sorga and I tried to get some money out of an ATM. It refused to dispense any money. After several attempts and trying a different machine, I surmised that they had put a hold on the ATM access. I searched out and found the only place in Kuta, possibly, that sells international phone cards, purchased a card and tried calling the Bank number. After 40-minutes of trying to get through to several different numbers and going to a nearby internet place to find more bank numbers, I called a friend, Tony, in the USA and had him call the bank on his cell phone. He was able to reach them but they would not do bank transactions through a 3rd party, so they gave me a number to call back. I was able to reach them directly, but it took about 10-minutes to go through all the security questions, like, when did you first start your account in Georgia? I don't normally keep that kind of information in my memory banks. They said they froze the account because of the foreign transaction taking place and they didn't have any note (I called them before I left the USA) of me traveling. The fact is, I had been traveling for 3 1/2 months and they did nothing, why suddenly freeze my account? Whatever, I'm not too impressed with my credit cards' security division. I'm not impressed with there knoweldge of geography as well, when I told her I was in Bali, she said, "that's in South America, right?". Eek!
posted by Chris at 10:00 PM
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