Beauty. Culture. Heritage. Conformity. Diversity.
Bali contains all of this and more.
Let's start from the beginning.
13 hours of flying. There really isn't much to expand upon; it's long, cramped, tedious and stinky. But you make it through. The trade off is tremendously small.
We flew all night and landed in Taipei (Capital of Taiwan and a supposedly "freer China") at 5am local time. Its amazing what you see in a major international airport at such an hour. First and foremost, an accommodating semi-outdoor smoking area. Fun!
Beautiful...Right?
Morning cigarettes can be delicious in their own way.
Onward and upward brought us to Beef Noodle Soup, Wontons, some delicious airport kimchi and a steaming pot of black tea. Burger King be damned!
After 5 hours of patient impatience, we hopped our next flight, from Taipei to Denpasar. 5 hr flights are easy when you just knocked out a 13 hour.
Read some books, Brian slept, and the islands of southeast Asia floated under us. I worry I will be a broken record, yet the sheer amount of eye popping imagery is making me dizzy.
Now this is where I committed a cardinal sin. I have no photos from then until now. I'm a bad man....
Another 5 hr down, we land, its gorgeous, not a shred of clouds, and we are met by brian's old chums. And my new chums. Prita, Ryan and Wayan (lots of people have this name) greet us with Bintangs (the local brew, which I have learned isn't even brewed in Bali!) and a happy car ride from the population cluster fuck that is Denpasar and "southern Bali" to the idyllic environs of Ubud (To be clear, Ryan swears that even Ubud is getting to crowded by the tourist swine and that the only good places to see pure Bali are in the northern extremes where the faint of heart do not venture).
Here, Ryan and Prita live with several others in a beautifully appointed compound...off a dirt road...surrounded by rice patties...and equipped with powerful internet. What else does one need?
Upon getting settled, we took some necessary shots of contraband tequila and hit Ubud. Amazing fresh water fish, dried and fried chickens feet, the happiest coffee I've had for some time, Bintang like no ones business and lively debate about Judaism. It was a happy evening...minus photography.
The night ended with star gazing and latenight skype meetups with the folks back home. This is how I will leave things until I update next.
Photographs!
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