I love Bali
indo-dreaming wrote:dandandan wrote:Just popping in to be a third voice of support for the quiet bogans of Bali, sitting there with a vacant stare for hours on end watching the world go by. Some of the most interesting conversations I've had en route to Indonesia has been with those types, telling me about the families that have looked after them over the decades and showing me the little presents they're bringing over for them. Hearts of gold, even if their Indonesian is truly abhorrent. I'll take them over any of the surf-entrepreneurs, drop shippers, and semi-pros of the Bukit any day.
*Very different to the kinds you find pissing on canang, berating locals, and brawling in the streets.
100% agree
Yep, got to agree with that!
blackers wrote:How was it GF?
Pretty decent blackers. A good mixed bag of big and scary with smaller relaxing days in between.
Couple of surfs at Uluwatu which were ok, bit of agro out there which put a bad vibe on it and G-land was great crowd wise. It was busy at Speedies for the two day swell but apart from that it was mellow as.
Leopard spotted crossing the track at tiger tracks by a guy at Bobby’s and I saw prints down past the boat channel.
This was almost as exciting for me as the waves. I love the thought of animals like that cruising around that jungle. Whales out the back a few days.
Plenty of surfs at kongs and top of moneytrees with no one in sight.
Amazing place.
Sweet. You didn't miss much here.
Goofy what was the agro at Ulu - Bule to Bule or Indo to Bule ?
No Indos involved udo
Booking flights to Indo tonight and it's a bloody overwhelming experience doing it after three years of no travelling! I became a Garuda devotee years ago and so haven't had to make the choice between the Aus airlines. If you were flying with 2-3 boards - one of them being a 7'6" - would you recommend Qantas over Virgin? I can't remember ever flying Qantas to Indo and they are well and truly on the nose at the moment, but they're also about $400 cheaper than Virgin right now so I'm conflicted.
dandandan wrote:Booking flights to Indo tonight and it's a bloody overwhelming experience doing it after three years of no travelling! I became a Garuda devotee years ago and so haven't had to make the choice between the Aus airlines. If you were flying with 2-3 boards - one of them being a 7'6" - would you recommend Qantas over Virgin? I can't remember ever flying Qantas to Indo and they are well and truly on the nose at the moment, but they're also about $400 cheaper than Virgin right now so I'm conflicted.
Qantas current record for lost luggage could possibly influence you , why aren’t you flying Garuda this time ?
I was about to say they aren't flying yet but I can see now they're going Syd to DPS and Jakarta a couple of times a week. Must have been looking on the wrong days!
I flew air Asia dan with no problems, boards no dramas, 7’2” board bag with 4 boards. Paid the 30kg for sporting goods no worries.
Anyone who has planned to fly to Roti though be aware that the runway in Roti is out of service so it’s the ferry/fast boat from Kupang to Roti. I chose to can it as I found out when I arrived in Bali and the forecast looked pretty bad. Lion air have me a full refund. Went west instead, glad I did.
I flew air Asia dan with no problems, boards no dramas, 7’2” board bag with 4 boards. Paid the 30kg for sporting goods no worries.
Anyone who has planned to fly to Roti though be aware that the runway in Roti is out of service so it’s the ferry/fast boat from Kupang to Roti. I chose to can it as I found out when I arrived in Bali and the forecast looked pretty bad. Lion air have me a full refund. Went west instead, glad I did.
I flew air Asia dan with no problems, boards no dramas, 7’2” board bag with 4 boards. Paid the 30kg for sporting goods no worries.
Anyone who has planned to fly to Roti though be aware that the runway in Roti is out of service so it’s the ferry/fast boat from Kupang to Roti. I chose to can it as I found out when I arrived in Bali and the forecast looked pretty bad. Lion air have me a full refund. Went west instead, glad I did.
Sorry about the triple post
@andy-mac , looks like you’re walking into a pumping swell, hope you have your step up or gun packed, enjoy and hope ya get shacked of ya brain .
Supafreak wrote:@andy-mac , looks like you’re walking into a pumping swell, hope you have your step up or gun packed, enjoy and hope ya get shacked of ya brain .
yup some impressive swell periods in this one for sure.
donweather wrote:Supafreak wrote:@andy-mac , looks like you’re walking into a pumping swell, hope you have your step up or gun packed, enjoy and hope ya get shacked of ya brain .
yup some impressive swell periods in this one for sure.
Are you there yet don ?
Supafreak wrote:@andy-mac , looks like you’re walking into a pumping swell, hope you have your step up or gun packed, enjoy and hope ya get shacked of ya brain .
Cheers Supa.
Not getting in until 12th September... 6 weeks Hoping for good late season!!
Yep Indo about to light up!
Do have step up and proper gun left in Bali, whether I still have nerve to get the gun out could be different story.. :)
Supafreak wrote:donweather wrote:Supafreak wrote:@andy-mac , looks like you’re walking into a pumping swell, hope you have your step up or gun packed, enjoy and hope ya get shacked of ya brain .
yup some impressive swell periods in this one for sure.
Are you there yet don ?
Been already and back. It was a short 1 week trip.
Which Airline did you fly with Don ?
@udo , another friend flew to Bali with malindo about 2 weeks ago , had no issues .
Yeh hearing gd reports about them ..Im liking the Virgin 6pm Departure time Bris to Denpasar.
VA49
udo wrote:Yeh hearing gd reports about them ..Im liking the Virgin 6pm Departure time Bris to Denpasar.
VA49
Next year is looking good from goldy with virgin, $645 return with 23 kgs no charge for boards if that’s your 23 kg in one bag . 5.40 pm gets in at 10.15 and coming back 11.15 pm in at 7.00 am Maybe air asia will start up for some competition.
Yeh saw that..
Supafreak wrote:udo wrote:Yeh hearing gd reports about them ..Im liking the Virgin 6pm Departure time Bris to Denpasar.
VA49Next year is looking good from goldy with virgin, $645 return with 23 kgs no charge for boards if that’s your 23 kg in one bag . 5.40 pm gets in at 10.15 and coming back 11.15 pm in at 7.00 am Maybe air asia will start up for some competition.
Thats not overly cheap given what you can get jetstar specials for. Also that’s a crap return flight time.
donweather wrote:Supafreak wrote:udo wrote:Yeh hearing gd reports about them ..Im liking the Virgin 6pm Departure time Bris to Denpasar.
VA49Next year is looking good from goldy with virgin, $645 return with 23 kgs no charge for boards if that’s your 23 kg in one bag . 5.40 pm gets in at 10.15 and coming back 11.15 pm in at 7.00 am Maybe air asia will start up for some competition.
Thats not overly cheap given what you can get jetstar specials for. Also that’s a crap return flight time.
Its good for me though Don , no 3.00 am drive to Brisbane and $350 in parking fees , plus last day in Bali is a full one , plenty of time for shopping. I’m 6 klms from cooly airport
So how much is a Jetstar 'Special' all up ticket- all $Kgs and Oversize handling charges etc etc ?
Usually around $180 each way. $25 each way for board and $30 each way for baggage.
dandandan wrote:Booking flights to Indo tonight and it's a bloody overwhelming experience doing it after three years of no travelling! I became a Garuda devotee years ago and so haven't had to make the choice between the Aus airlines. If you were flying with 2-3 boards - one of them being a 7'6" - would you recommend Qantas over Virgin? I can't remember ever flying Qantas to Indo and they are well and truly on the nose at the moment, but they're also about $400 cheaper than Virgin right now so I'm conflicted.
I fly with Qantas and SQ frequently and never have a problem
Great post Sprout, that first wave was the wave of the day and vid for me..Kooky bodyboarder shouldn't have been there imo.But those sorts of waves are not meant for a lid i reckon even though my older brother loves or used to love massive 8 metre plus swells on a lid.I just dont think lids are good in waves like that, should be at padang padang instead.
Yeah chops too big for the bewg. Old mate had no style and no idea, must have got a lift out. Bit random haha.
Pretty cool environmental initiative in the Bali mangroves and rivers. Even goes into detailing the brand names of the most prolific items.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MnpWOYlU4D1xQSy3ocK9tvptVcITBWWt/view
Champion effort
Oh jeez ilikelamb, what a disaster..Good to see recovery on the way by those good people.
My Canadian mate lives in Lampung and says still everywhere there people either just throw their plastic in the rivers or burn it next to their homes, with burnt toxic plastic fumes going straight into their homes.
Lampung isn't even that busy compared to Bali and Jakarta.They were used to throwing away banana leaves as packaging, not plastic that doesn't biodegrade quickly. Nightmare situation.
I vaguely remember a Japanese company doing this years ago but because they could only get a yellow looking product and not clear they didn’t go ahead with it . There are other articles about this young Australian girl dating back to 2017 https://www.naturalblaze.com/2020/04/teen-invents-biodegradable-plastic-...
That Impossibles clip looks sick. Hell of a lot more manageable than that Ulus clip.
Yeah hopefully the Indo government follows through with its banning of single use plastics and fining companies that have terrible waste collection standards. Indo though.
It probably dosent help that Australia was sending over our waste to Indo after China cut us off a few years back. Something about that waste being used to fuel tofu production in Java.
here it is
Jesus that is just horrible.Plastic is probably worse for you than leaded petrol fumes!
Plastic is all time.
The Great Pacific garbage patch should be reconsidered as a monumental human accomplishment and retrospectively added to world globes everywhere.
Humanity still strives towards the incredible moment when word comes back from an interstellar explorer probe that they’ve located a man-made Great Universal garbage patch in deep space.
Now that’s a dream worth having.
Here's more good work from that same guy on insta- i like lamb posted.
The dolphin project link you posted there supa looks like a great facility. I'm surprised Bali has such a thing. Awesome
goofyfoot wrote:The dolphin project link you posted there supa looks like a great facility. I'm surprised Bali has such a thing. Awesome
Yes I was surprised , its also a world first and prototype according to the article . Not too many tourists in west Bali so it seems like a legitimate organisation.
The cranes finally gone , still a bit more to chop up though . https://fb.watch/fvwg3CgUHz/
juegasiempre wrote:RIP Bali.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-15/bali-approves-digital-nomad-visas...
Interesting. Indonesia approves not just Bali. Certainly opens up a few options, its a big country :)
juegasiempre wrote:RIP Bali.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-15/bali-approves-digital-nomad-visas...
If Bali was going to die, it happened long ago just means people will be working legally.
BTW. The eye opener to me of how many foreigners must be living in Bali was the footage of line ups during Covid, even Impossible's a wave people rarely bothered surfing even twenty years ago was crowded during Covid. (meanwhile most of Indo had crowds like early 90s)
I have been back in Oz since 2015, but lived in Bali full time from 2000 to 2014, except for short stint back in Oz in 2003 due to bomb factors. I am here now, first trip since 2019 and the place in my view is still best spot on earth. Sure it's crowded at main breaks, but how many A grade waves are there, with plenty of B grade waves to be had. If swell solid unless you want to surf Padang there is plenty of options. The people are still beautiful. Still lots of cool expats to meet along with the influencer fuck wit crowd. Great food, night life if you want it. I have mates that were here in 70's, they reckon Bali was stuffed by 80's. People in 80's reckon by 90's it was all over. I look back at 90's as great period, my first trip being 1990. So for a 20 year old surfer today, I reckon Bali would still be pretty dam good.
Anyway I'm about to head to Bukit, traffic feels like 2005, but no doubt next year it will be madness again.
Finally I cannot see this visa making any difference, it was always easy to get a Business or social budaya visa here for 6 months, just had to go to agent and pay money and fly to Singas. Done....
A set just cleaned up the Ulu morning team....Dreamy conditions.. enjoy ..
I love Bali.
You wouldn't think that such a thought could be controversial . But it is.
Many people don't love Bali, in fact they proclaim to hate it. Bemoan what it has become, it's lack of purity, it's lost innocence.
Sure, I can see their point. I can't imagine anywhere on Earth that has been transformed as radically as Bali over the last thirty years. From rice paddies and coconut groves to six story discotheques . It's totally unrecognisable in the most built up areas.
But that's not what this post is about. It's about why I LOVE Bali.
I love Bali because ...
- it's still the home of an intense cluster of world class waves. Roping lefts : Uluwatu, freight train right barrels : Sanur, backlit mega tubes : Padang Padang. Rip able reefs, fun beachies. Short , slabby pits and long mellow points. River mouths and bombies. It's got the lot.
- it's still possible to get uncrowded quality waves in 2015 when it seems as though the entire planet has discovered surfing. I was trading crystal clear , rolling right walls with only two other surfers just this morning.
- it's still freaking beautiful. Watching the mist reveal Mt Agung in that unique Bali morning light from a black sand beach as the sun comes up is still special.
- the food is amazing. Walking around town building up a hunger and knowing that at any given time you are within shouting distance of fresh, exotic and delicious meals with enough variety to make your head spin is priceless.
- the Balinese are legends. Friendly, happy and always keen for a joke. Unfailingly polite and welcoming. Healthy, spiritual and decent.
- the Balinese surfers rip their waves and they still own them. A visiting Brazilian would not think twice to drop in on an Aussie local at Kirra. But you won't see the same in Bali. The Balinese surfers are treated with the respect they deserve. Because as everyone knows, if they are not treated with respect there is consequences.
- the water is so warm it's like swimming in silken angels tears.
- telling people that you are going to Bali will often elicit a response along the lines of ......"why would you go to that traffic ridden, noisy shithole ?" And then as you're kicking back with a Bintang watching the sunset over Uluwatu you can imagine them sitting at lights in their car on their way home from work in Perth. Which , for those that have never been , is a noisy , traffic ridden shithole. And this makes me laugh. Which is something I enjoy doing.
- The fruit is incredible.
- despite the millions of tourists, the fast food franchises and the Aussie over familiarity with the joint it's still exotic. The smell of clove cigarettes, the ogo ogos of Nyepi, the Buddhist offerings , monkeys , food and language are all enticingly foreign.
- there is no overreaching nanny state. You want to ride your motorbike with all four of your children and the missus on the back...whilst texting. Go for it.
- you can live like a king on a regular Aussie income. Maybe not such a great benefit for the Balinese themselves though.
- it's close to Oz. Twenty hour plane ride and a shot at developing deep vein thrombosis.....ummm no thanks. It's actually faster to fly to Bali from Perth than it is to drive to Albany. You can fly from Port Hedland in less than two hours.
- you get an opportunity to regularly witness some of the most foolhardy behaviour imaginable on a daily basis. You ever seen a man being doubled on a motorbike through traffic whilst holding a large pane of glass ? What about seeing someone hold a nail between his bare fingers while his mate tries to grind the tip off it ? It's all there folks.
- you can see people making do with not much and making it work. An exhaust system held on with a T Shirt ? An outboard motor attached to a boat with no anchoring system, just held on with a man's brute force ? Why not ? It might not work forever but it'll usually get em over the line.
- the winds can blow offshore for months at a time and when they blow onshore, well , that just makes it offshore somewhere else. It's an island !
- you haven't seen glassy oceanic conditions till you've seen Indonesian sheet glass. It's like an oil slick. And if you're ever near Benoa Harbour that could well be what it is.
- old people are accorded the respect they deserve.
- it's exciting. It's a melting pot of the world. Wide eyed villages from remote Asia, jaded techno princesses from Russia, sleek surfy chicks from Canada , your next door neighbour from Ipswich....it's a party and everyone is invited.
Including YOU. I'll see you there. You can't miss me.
I'll be the sun burnt drunk in a head to toe Bintang ensemble with hair braids and a fresh tattoo of a unicorn across my back . Don't be shy. Come and say hello.