#legain

[clickeric]

Right ofd of Legain is the all you can eat and drínk buffet #skygarden #legain #bali #kuta #indonesia (at Skygarden Kuta)

[angelinkbali-blog]

Awesome leg ink! #inkedtoperfection #bali #tattoo #studio #ink #legain #kuta #angelink

[ortsa]

Worst Night?

I will do my best to tell this chronologically.

Manu, the property manager, needed to go to Kuta (40 minutes away at least) to get a fin that had been repaired. He offered to take me to some surfshops looking for boards. We hop on the mopeds at the property. I explain to him that I am not well versed on these things and to not go fast and keep close. We leave and the helmet I am using has a plastic shield to protect your face and eyes. When down it is almost opaque. So I have to drive with it up, and sunglasses on.

We leave the area of the property and head north towards Kuta. We stop at a nearby place and get some food.

The food was easily 10x better than anything I had in Thailand. Maybe I’m under exaggerating that. Seriously. Cheap too. We then head off towards Kuta. The further we go the darker the skies and the more crowded the roads become. Imagine being in a foreign country where there is a moped literally everywhere…. Seriously hundreds around you at anytime…I was one of those yesterday, skimming by cars stuck in a massive traffic jam… Manu, my guide often separated from me by 20 mopeds and sometimes a car. Now keep in mind, I’m not yet comfortable on a moped in a quiet environment, let alone massive traffic and swarms of other mopeders. But I mush forward, often looking down to avoid pot holes as the rain begins. Droves of other moped drivers are pulling over to put on ponchos. I don’t see Manu pulling over. He looks back, slows down and I catch up. At a traffic light he asks me if I want to put on the poncho. I suggested it was likely a good idea. We head out again, but now I have my sunglasses off. With the dark clouds, it was too hard to see with my sunglasses on. With each big bump the plastic shield drops and I’m virtually blinded while riding a moped in a sea of complete chaos (hundreds of moped, cars, trucks pot holes, rain and lack of knowledge of location). So my best view of the road at this point is riding without sunglasses and no plastic shield. This meant dirt was constantly in my eyes. Constantly. I thought, it’s either this or likely crashing this moped. We mush onward with dirt in my eyes, stopping at a couple shops along the way.

We finally make it to a shop that has the brand of board I am looking for but not the model. I give the lady my local number and she says she will call me if their warehouse has it. We move on to the next shop. Now we’re are on twisty roads lined with shops, restaurants and bars. Manu makes a left, then right then left etc. I stick with him. We stop at some other shops and see a board I like, but it is 9,200,000 rupiah ($948). Too expensive. I look at my phone and there is a text from the lady saying the warehouse has what I am looking for for 5.8 million rupiah. I try texting her back to send it to the shop closer to where I’m staying and that I’ll get it. My text don’t go through. I’m scratching my head. I try to call, nothing. I am puzzled because I just got the SIM card 4 hours earlier and put down 150,000 for one month of unlimited Internet… That doesn’t work. I look at my battery, 7%. I ask Manu to text her back. Manu is in the same boat. No battery and needs to top off his phone. We go to a store and Manu puts some money on the phone. I don’t because the guy there said it is working, which it wasn’t. I didn’t get the sense that throwing money into it was the fix when there was money on it.

So we mush onward to go home. Btw, it had stopped raining. Now my only foe is the continued traffic and darkness. Manu and I maneuver the narrow streets of Katu and Legain. At one point he mentions that we just keep going straight.

Now one thing you must know about me. In 1999 I didn’t move to Los Angeles when I should have, likely because of fear. Florida was comfortable and LA was an area I saw myself constantly lost… GPS systems weren’t as prolific. I stayed in Miami. So, please understand that being lost is a fear of mine. I remember being at a department store in Florida when I was really young. It was called Gayfers (seriously not making this up). I was with my mother. I reached up to grab her hand and it was some other lady. I think I freaked out a little and remember feeling a lot of fear in that moment. I was quickly reunited with my mother, but that obviously had a profound effect on me if I can still vividly remember it 30+ years later.

Last night as we were riding home in a continued sea of mopeds, Manu got far enough ahead of me that I couldn’t see him. I thought I saw him make a left turn, so I followed down a dark road. I sped up as fast as I could to find Manu, but I didn’t see him. Now I am screwed. I make a u-turn and head back thinking Manu might have pulled over to wait. I get back to main road and go straight. I continue as my anxiety levels rise. I don’t see Manu. I continue for about 20 minutes, don’t see Manu. I am starting to panic inside. I am 5 hours in a foreign land and totally lost. My cellular connection is dead and my phone battery is at 4%. I don’t know the name of the place I’m staying at because online it was just called a bungalow. I only know that it is near Uluwatu. I see a rack of whiskey bottles on my left with gasoline in them (aka gas station) and pull over. I notice I’m also almost empty. I’m close to peak panic level. I take off my helmet and ask “Uluwatu?” I’m pointed back the direction I came from. Thus there is a turn I missed, but where? I’m totally freaked out at this point. I start thinking about how much I want to just leave and go back to the USA. How I’m going to be driving the streets of Bali, aimlessly all night, lost. My greatest fear. I purposely got the SIM card so that I wouldn't get lost. So that i would have internet and presumably google maps as my guide. Everything was failing me… The gas lady was able to convince me I had to go back three traffic lights then turn left. I wasn’t so sure. I left her, going wrong way still until I could find a suitable break in the traffic for a u-turn.

As I’m heading back I see a place on my left (in Bali they drive on the left) that looked like they sold cell phones, and likely SIM cards. I stop and ask if I can charge my phone. The lady had no clue what I as talking about. I used rudimentary sign language and she pulled a charger off her shelf. I said, no I don’t want to buy… She insisted that to charge my phone I had to buy. Cost, 175,000 rupiah. At this point I was ready to pay anything. I wanted to get back to the room, get my bag, go to the airport and leave.

I gave her the 175,000 rupiah and began to charge my phone. I’m feeling like I might vomit. My anxiety is through the ceiling. I ask if I can top off my phone. She doesn’t understand and calls for someone else to come help. A young man appears eating food and smoking a clove. He speaks decent English. I give him my charging phone, show him the texts showing the 100,000 payment earlier and he does a couple of things and says the Internet should be working. We turn off and back on the phone. Nothing. I give him 20,000 rupiah to add to the account on the phone. He processes it with his cell phone (all seems so shady) and all of a sudden I see my phone ringing and it says Manu.

I answer. Manu asks me where I am. I replied sarcastically that I was in Bali. I had no idea where I was. Now, remember, Manu is from Spain. He doesn’t speak the local language that well, but I didn’t care. I handed the phone to the guy in this store that was helping me. Turns out Manu went to a McDonald’s and would wait for me there. I said to the man talking to Manu to tell Manu to come here, but the language barrier between the three was too much.

Instead I was drawn a very rudimentary map to the McDonald’s. I followed it from memory to a point. I was on a moped, in continued traffic, dodging pot holes and puddles, I certainly wasn’t going to hold the map out in my hand while driving. Twice I stopped on the side of the road to try and figure out where the heck I was. Despite my phone now working, google maps and the internet was not. I stopped a third time to call Manu to confirm I was heading in the right direction. 20 minutes later I arrive at a McDonald’s. No Manu. Panic ensues again thinking I’m at the wrong McDonald’s. I call Manu, he answers and is clearly riding his moped. He went to pick up another guest nearby and assured me I was in the correct location…

I waited in this landmark of Americana for my Spanish guide. He finally arrived. I wanted to collapse. We then headed back to the property. The roads back to the property were pitch black dark with few, if any street lights. Dogs everywhere roaming the streets, much like stray cats around a cat lady’s home. We turn left, curve right, turn left again, right, right, left, right, left, left, right, over a dirt road, then left…. I don’t know… I was following… And we arrived.

I drank a beer and went to bed.