Day 64, Long Ride Home, Melbourne, Australia

Arts student studying the Arts

Left Kuta the night before at 11pm, arrived Melbourne 7am (local time), went to art galleries to escape the cold, ate lunch with bro, back to airport, left Melbourne 5.50pm, arrived Christchurch 11pm (local time).

After a lengthy bit of sitting in airports/planes you would really just like to go home because you feel rather wasted. But I must have looked a bit wasted as I got pulled up by customs and had all my bags emptied and searched, and swabbed and tested for drugs. Gutted for them they couldn't find any, because I'm not stupid and stuffed them up my butt.

Thank You, and see you next travels
Shades of Invisible...

Day 63, Final Beach, Kuta, Bali, Indonesia

The last beach of SE Asia I may ever see

Goodbye Kuta
Goodbye beaches
Goodbye sun
Goodbye warm
Goodbye jungle
Goodbye orangutans
Goodbye busy roads
Goodbye over population
Goodbye rubbish
Goodbye monoculture
Goodbye smelly places

Day 62, Snorkelling, Padang Bai, Bali, Indonesia

Mystical Beach Rocks

There are definitely better places around to snorkel than Bali, but for something to do that will pass away a day then it is not too bad. Lots of interesting looking fish of reasonable sizes. The coral wasn't up to much, which is probably because the ocean is full of rubbish and run off from all the development around.

Also Bali has come to be a rather lonesome place. There aren't really any hostels around, or guesthouses with a communal area to socialise. Seems things are more set up for the couple coming over on their summer break. So it has been rather difficult to meet anyone. This has meant things get rather tame at night but at least I have lots of movies to watch on my laptop. This might also explain all the rather empty looking photos of nothing in particular as of late.

Day 61, My final stop, a quiet beach, Padang Bai, Bali, Indonesia

Sleepy beach dreams

So this is the end of the road, from here on I'm heading home. A few nights in Padang Bai to go snorkelling and burn in my tan as much as possible. Then it is back to Kuta to fly out to Melbourne to Christchurch. But that is still a few days away and right now sitting on the beach talking to some locals who are practising their english is way more pleasant than thinking about life back in NZ.

Day 60, Police Bribes, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

Balinese Traditional Dance

So this is from the Ubud Writers Festival street party. It was pretty small, but lots of fun for a short time. Some dancing and some reggae and some people doing monologues from their books they've written. This was after a photo exhibition in some flash resort, which was pretty impressive, especially one artist who had seemed to be a pretty conservative muslim girl, but had gone into a maternity ward in the Phillippines and photographed women having children. Needless to say the photos were rather dramatic.

But before this, I had rented a motorbike and drove up some volcano to see the volcano within that volcano which also had a lake beside the inner volcano. On the way there I happened to come across a rather informal police stop. After a very thorough check of everything the police could think of we came to the international drivers license. Of course I don't have one, so was informed that I would get a two million rupiah fine. But the friendly police man then says, 'well if you help me, then I help you'. *WINK* *....ie, asking for a bribe....*. Hmm I was really unsure what to do here. Police corruption is a terrible thing and obviously paying a bribe is only supporting this further. But on the flip side this is Indonesia where such cases as the Schappelle Corby drug smuggling case got here a life sentence. So the police man then says, maybe two hundred thousand rupiah should cover it. I'm like 'no..'. He then points out the two millions rupiah fine again, and so I reluctantly, mainly because I couldn't think of an alternative quick enough, said 'one hundred thousand' and flicked him the cash (in the most un-secretive I'm giving a police officer cash for no good reason way).

He was only too friendly on the way back, waving me right through the stop and tipping his hat to me...

Day 59, Book Club, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

A rice paddy field and its water source

In Ubud at the moment is a writers festival, which is a series of events that writers attend to increase their skills, network, and share their writings with others. I'm here while it is on, so attending a few of a free events is a necessity. I went to a pecha kucha night and listened to about ten people share their ideas. A lot of it was bands pushing their terrible music. Then it occured to me, that what South East Asia needs more of is synth. Everyone is jamming out on their guitars and drums producing music that belongs well back in the 90's. My question is, why aren't all the NGO's who are trying to save Bali (while sipping lattes in nice cafes and relaxing on white sand beaches) aren't getting donations from back in the west of synthesisers and bringing those street kids out of the 90's and into the nearly 2010's...

Day 58, The Cultural Side Of Bali, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

A man counts his earnings for the day

Not being near a beach in Bali sounds rather like a contradiction, but it is possible. The town of Ubud is at least an hours drive (if the traffic is good) to the nearest bit of ocean. So instead of purely relying on the waves to boost tourism they've put their money into producing a cultural experience. The streets are full of Balinese art galleries, chic cafes and book shops, which is pretty good after some stressful days surfing back in Kuta. The icing on the cake is that it is coincidently the Ubud writers festival at the moment, so I should be able to catch a reading or something while here.