Visiting Bali: Spring Festival Startup

“We live in an odd era where too many people can ruin a good thing. We can clog tourist spots, elbow out room on trains, saturate a city or create unreasonable waiting lines. One of the secrets of enjoying travel comes from seeking out places where the hoards are not.” – Old Sean

Departing China

The long-awaited Chinese Spring Festival has finally arrived. This is the largest, longest government-sanctioned holiday in China. It marks the halfway point for the Chinese standard working year and guarantees an excellent amount of time off.

As usual, I made sure to stock up vacation time and get out of China well before the beginning of the festival.  To do otherwise would invite human traffic mobs in airport hubs with everyone penguin-footing around one another as occasional arguments broke out around open power outlets.

Truly, don’t travel in China directly during Spring Festival.

I began flying to Bali on the 13^th of January, after a hefty night out drinking with the expat guys.  I watched (abstaining due to my early flight time) as my small crew played a vindictive card-drinking game that resulting in switching shirts, smearing cake, downing chili-dogs and taking shots of what I assume was paint thinner, based on taste.

Overall, it was a nice send-off, but I wasn’t at a hundred percent the following morning.  For that matter, I haven’t been at one hundred percent for some time.

I’ve spent the last month in a low-level but persistent illness.  It comes with the teaching territory.  If you’re teaching children in the winter, they will smear their drippings on you, cough while making eye contact and put everything brightly colored in their mouths at one point or another.  This aligned with northern China’s cold and pollution whittling at an immune system… well, some chills, coughs, shakes and a fever is all part of the job.

One such fever accompanied me to the airport.  I managed to sweat a good bit of it out as I bunkered down in my seat while watching an intense airline movie with subtitles showing the Soviet Union challenging the American Olympic Basketball time, headed by a coach with a paralyzed son.  The movie got me through the flight, and I landed in Denpasar, Bali.

Experiencing Indonesia

I arrived in Bali as the best man for my friend, Jake, who was putting together a spectacular, jam-packed destination wedding.  Since I was the first to arrive, I set up my own lodging and handled a few standard errands on my end, one of which included shaving my glorious beard.

I now have the equivalent of a crew-cut on my pale, exposed chin.

I was grateful to let the hair go, though.  Bali was consistently and swampishly hot.  The weather started sitting on my shoulders around ten AM and it only became comfortable again after sunset.

Undeterred, I forced myself to wade through the heat.  I snacked on single servings of lemon gelato, transferred all the money I would need for the week-long holiday, bought gifts for Jake and his wife-to-be Kristen, restocked my grooming supplies, snagged some snack foods and kept myself fed. 

My fever, clearly battered to death by the combined heat of my body trying to kill me and that blazing ball of glory above, finally broke, and I breathed freely for the rest of my trip.

Solo Exploring Bali

To celebrate, I visited a couple of temples and checked out Kuta, a touristy part of town. There, I walked up and down Kuta Beach, spending intervening periods eating at a Burger King and communing with my taxi drivers.

Bali is a tailored tourist town, but it’s not the most walkable out there.  As a result, heading deeper into the city leaves the majority of the local culture more intact and easier to spot, but less readily accessible to the illiterate.

Firstly, there are small offerings placed on the ground all over the place.  These banana leaf baskets are about the size of a cupped hand. They hold miniscule offerings to an altering figure in Hindi religion.  Who or what this figure exactly is was a bit of a puzzle-game, as my different guides provided many different answers.  Regardless, the offers are set out on the sidewalk, making walking a careful exercise.

Additionally, the roughly constructed neighborhood buildings, which are usually one story brick, worn cement and sheet-metal roofs, all have family temples and shrines.  These structures, ranging from the size of a mailbox to towering over a person’s own home, are everywhere.  Every single family has at least one, and they are intricately carved, covered in fine moss and are as varied as snowflakes.

Further along, hordes of scooters dominate the roads and everywhere a person walks, especially in the tourist zones, shop-keepers, happy-massages, bars, clubs, wares, cafes and tour guides all try to stop walkers to ask for their patronage.

So that’s Bali in a nutshell.

Enter the Procession

The next day, things became much more interesting as friends and family of Jake’s and Kristen’s began flying in. It was a huge group of people all striving to enjoy every moment to the fullest. 

Now, I don’t typically travel in big groups.  Solo-to-four is my happy place, because any bigger and there’s a lot of miscommunication and a fairly large amount of waiting for that straggler to show up.

This group managed that very well, but it’s still not my favorite method.

Everyone flew fairly late at night and Jake loaded everyone into a van.  Even in a vehicle with 18 seats available, we were still overstuffed by two.  We managed, but I was grateful Jake had found us a villa within the city limits.  A short drive later, we arrived at our villa, Villa Jamu.

And speaking of the villa, it was easily the classiest place I’ve stayed in any number of moons.  The villa was a two story white building accessed through an ivy-covered ally too narrow for cars. Within, the villa had six bedrooms, each equipped with a personal bathroom and a large pool lounging in the center. 

Knowing that the rest of the guests would be rolling in tomorrow, Jake and I hung out near the pool, rehashing the last quarter decade (I hadn’t seen him since I’d visited Guangzhou in 2018). 

I was gifted an absolutely gorgeous watch which is on my left hand as I type this.  I tend to cover the watch when I travel now to deter thieves, using a stretch magic scarf, but I can’t wait to put it on for the wedding.

Anyway, around three in the morning, the whiskey had caught up to us and we bid one another goodnight.

Penida Island Jaunt

The following morning, I woke up for a bit of a tour.

My first day with company was spent with a lovely lady named Macy, who wanted to go on a Chinese operated tour of the nearby Penida Island.  We had to splash through the surf to reach the boat that took us there, and my boots quickly became a shoulder accessory as I switched to my Walmart-brand hiking sandals.

Penida is a stunning island filled with more natural beauty than a camera can capture.  Walls of volcanic stone are pocketed by wave erosion.  Shallow blue seas idyllically churn below, their colors framed by cresting waves.  Tropical plants crest ever rolling ridge and miniature chickens and sleek cows dot the island.

We started by joining a group driving north to a cliff overlooking a completely sheltered cove with a single land bridge allowing water in.  Great, uneven concrete steps jaggedly lurched up the mountain and tourists picked their way along the rim, firing photos every direction.  The area is called Broken Beach and while I was lividly cooked in the sunlight, I can’t deny that the coast is gorgeous.

Diminished by my beard loss, I declined any photos for myself but took a great many of Miss Macy as she posed daringly close to cliff drops.

Following our photography run, our guide took us next to Kelingking Beach.  Again, this is more of a steep overlook peering off into the ocean, but it’s worth a stunning glance. 

The uniquely-shaped peninsula that makes Kelingking famous looks like an enormous ridged land whale arching into the ocean as it breaks off from the island. I climbed a series of knobby trees with bare feet and a phone heroically clenched in my jaws for more wobbly photos.

Afterwards, we made a point of stopping for lunch. I chatted with some of the other ladies on our group in broken English and found one of them had, in the recent past, lived right down the street from me when I was staying in Chongqing way back in 2017.

Small world.

Quiet Stops

Near the end of the tour, fantastically, we were given the option to go swimming at Crystal Beach.  As another sheltered cove, this beach was fairly busy with people frolicking in the waves.  However, due to the heat and the long ride home, my little group abstained from swimming in the surf and instead sat in the shade sipping banana juices.  We had to be careful picking our way back across the sand, as it burned those who stepped on it

Finally, we made it back to the shore, getting free frozen watermelons before gathering ourselves in a van for the ride back to the main wedding group.  We ended up going to the truly fantastic restaurant Mexicola Motel, which served dishes that boggled me.  Obviously, the style is Mexican with a twist, but I gorged myself three times over and asked for a doggy bag. 

So, tomorrow is the wedding and there are further events following.   As such, I’ll end this post here and see what happens tomorrow.

Best regards and excellent trails,

Old Sean

Written January 15th 2020

Read more about visiting Bali and the world by visiting Leftfade Trails Destination Info.

Affiliate Disclosure: Leftfade Trails contains affiliate links, so using services or products through these links supports the website, at no extra cost to the user. All links are to tested services and products designed to aid travelers on their journeys. Some links specifically connect to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate this website earns from qualifying purchases.