Spent 4 nights in Kuta (where the airport is in Bali) which was 4 nights too many. I've never said no so many times in a short time in my life. As soon as you get past customs at the airport people start haranguing you with "taxi" or "transport". I wanted to simply get some money from an atm and wait for sunrise to take the 3km walk to the hostel. I must have been accosted 30 times before I could find a quiet place in the airport away from the "helpful" locals. Then the walk from the airport was a nightmare of help - it left me feeling beat up and very negative. One guy (a rent a cop from a hotel) demanded to see my passport - then while I was fumbling to find it, he ran and got his buddy to come try to sell me transport! The very worst though was the next morning when one of the hostel staff came into my dorm at 8:00 to see if I wanted to rent the scooter I'd inquired about the evening before! It was like a nightmare come to life - you are in hell, there is no sanctuary. Every day in Kuta was pretty much a constant barrage of people wanting a piece of me. I finally learned to just tune them out, it was just too exhausting otherwise.
I went to the shuttle bus stall on Friday to book transport to Ubud and ended up taking a sunset tour kind of spur of the moment to the Tanah Lot temple. It was by far the most touristy thing I've done yet (with the possible exception of diving the GBR). I would've liked to learn some history about it but it was pretty much just a commercialized operation. We weren't even allowed up to the temple proper. But it was a lovely place and for about $12 usd, was an evening well spent.
The hostel I'm in is a bit outside of Ubud proper, surrounded by rice fields and coconut trees. It's not exactly quiet and tranquil but it's a welcome relief from the busy cities I've been in for the past couple of weeks. They rent out scooters for about $4/day so I will get one tomorrow and start exploring the area.
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| View from my bed |
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