quote

"Let the world change you... and you can change the world."

Saturday, April 19, 2008

In search of gluttony

One last hurrah weekend on Bali
Two days of surfing
Three lip synching drag queens
Four sunset beers on the white sand beach
Five VSO volunteers
Six night clubs
Seven salsa dancing partners
Eight fashion show models
Nine hours of sleep over 2 days
Ten times too much Rupiah spent.

And the memories priceless, right? I should write commercials. My request simple. I wanted people. Lots of people. I wanted lattes. Lots of lattes. I wanted surfing, shopping, and dancing. I wanted to sleep in and then lounge on the beach. I wanted to end it with a bang.

A weekend of gluttony and everything not Flores.

There is Indonesia and then there is Bali. Or at least the quintessential tourist Bali… the Bali that has the reputation, the Bali that people flock to for holiday. It’s different. We sought out ‘Bali’… correction, we conquered ‘Bali’!

We rendezvous at ‘The Monument’ in Kuta. The monument being that in honor of those killed in the Bali/Kuta bombings. An eerie feeling to sit waiting, quietly, on the once premise of a booming club. Pictures of those lost stimulate a sense of realness. Just kids really. Perhaps on a gap year or holiday. Australia, UK, Netherlands, USA, South Africa, Korea, Indonesia. Several years on and tourist are just starting to come back in force. I read in the local news (an English version… it takes days for me to translate thus the news would be out-of-date) that tourism in Indonesia is up 27% from last year. Nevertheless, the further east one goes from the island of Bali, the further away one goes from western-ization and the pale faces of tourists.


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