I somehow convince Lisa to eat there. The food is cooked in the morning and sits out all day, and she more wary of food hygiene and hygiene in general than I am, but she's a trooper. I had a deep-fried vegetable omelet, some curried Tempeh, little shrimps, and the lady covered the rice in coconut curry. Lisa had some eggs, potato, chicken. All that and a couple of drinks cost less than $5. The only thing I don't like about this style of eating is that it's never served hot.
We spent the day at the beach, and I make some friends with a couple of preteen Aussies who are teaching me to negotiate the ocean, and I do my best to understand what she means by all of the surfer terminology she is using. I am impressed by their friendliness, their lack of fear, and that the 12 year old said that when the waves come, I should turn sideways because there is "less surface."
We meet Timeka back at the hotel. Timeka's knee has been a serious problem for a good 5 days, and she can't really walk very far. We get up to the pool and there's Timeka, by the pool, by herself, drinking her second piña colada, and the pool bartender is playing Beyoncé, Janet Jackson, fabulous, 50 cent... They must have googled "black girl, 30s, American" and came up with a playlist of early 90s hip hop. I swear, when Lisa got to pool they started playing J. Lo.
I said if he starts playing Taylor Swift, I'm leaving.
On recommendation, we go to jimbaran bay, south of the airport. Everyone goes here for the seafood restaurants and to watch the sunset. The hotel staff tells us it's gonna cots 150k rupiah, and our taxi driver tells us it's gonna cost us only 50k.
I am now worried that he is going to take us nowhere near jimbaran.
We get to jimbaran, and he is trying to tell us that he will wait for us and bring us back, because there is no taxi back, only tour busses. He's trying to charge us a total of 200k, and we're not having it. Lisa keeps telling him that we don't know how long we will be; he keeps saying he'll wait. We keep saying no, he keeps saying he'll wait. We are firm, but we are worried he's still going to be around when we're done.
jimbaran bay has a narrow beach, and the entire beach is lined by restaurants. It's about an hour away from sunset when we arrive, and it's not crowded at all... Mostly light-skinned Asian tourists taking lots of pictures and a couple of couples taking wedding photos on the beach. There are two restaurants out of all of them that are crowded; one is populated by mostly white people and the other is populated by mostly Asians.
I insist on the restaurant all the asians were at...Does that make me racist?
We can choose from fish, lobster, prawns, squid. Everything is priced by 100 grams. Timeka hasn't eaten all day and is famished and has decided that this is going to be her living large moment...gotta be lobster. Lisa, too, wants lobster. I have only had whole lobster in Maine, and even though it was delicious, it was too much work. Crab, too. I can't be bothered. Even when it's shelled for me, like at the Red Hook lobster pound, I'm not into it... it's about $17 for a sandwich and for that kind of money I would want my socks knocked off. It just doesn't do it for me, I really love a good fresh whole fish, anyway. I guess I have cheap tastes. We have to go to the front of the restaurant, choose our catch, and they grill it for us.
I want red snapper. I tell him it's just for me. He picks up a fish, looks at it and looks at me, and tells me that it's too big. This is a really good sign to me. He picks one he thinks is smaller, about 600 grams. Lisa decides she wants the live lobster instead of the fresh lobster, about $1 apart in price per 100 grams. Might as well live large being that we've not really paid more than $5 a meal the whole trip. The guy goes to get the lobster and boy, this lobster put up a fight. He was trying his damnedest to get away while he was in the tank and when he was on the scale, he ran away as soon as the waiter turned his head. Timeka's eyes are bigger than her stomach, and she decides that at these prices, it's worth is to get the lobster AND the fish. I think for a moment to stop her, but I don't. I now have seafood envy, and I get the guy to give me three prawns also. Each prawn weighed 100 grams.
The meal comes with rice and the ubiquitous and delicious water spinach. The food comes out a while later and it's overwhelming. The fish and lobster came out cut lengthwise and splayed. The lobster was cut open. This made everything look enormous. Everything was covered in the Balinese chili sambal- tomatoey, mildly spiced, and very seasoned. I loved it, Timeka wasn't thrilled, Lisa indifferent. I probably could have just eaten the prawns, but it was all so delicious I ate all of it, and ate very little rice so as not to explode. Timeka takes one look at what she ordered and sees that she really overdid it. She gets through the lobster and can't even make a small dent in the fish. Lisa's lobster, still pissed as hell in the afterlife, stabs her in the hand as she's trying to eat it. He really did go down fighting. My fish, prawns, juice, spinach and rice, and fruit for dessert, came out to about $25. This is a huge splurge compared to everything else we've eaten, but so worth it for the view, the ambiance, and the only seafood I've eaten in Bali that hasn't been cooked to the point of no return.
Right before we leave, a group of male sarong-clad troubadours are coming our way. I think most tourists hate this... You're enjoying a nice meal, and then you're held captive by mediocre musicians singing cheesy American songs poorly, and then you have to tip them to boot. I say to Lisa and Timeka, "if they come here I'm going to stab myself in the eye." Of course they come to the table, and start playing "Pretty Woman," and of course the guy singing is butchering the words. But the band isn't bad, and they're all a little ugly, but somehow charming. At some point in the song, one of the backup guys sings the part where they go "rowrrrrrrr," rolling his r and looking me right in the face. I laugh so hard that when he leaves us to go to the next table, he does it at me again. Hilarious. The next table gets "la Bamba." They must have had a Spanish specialist in the band, because the other guy singing it actually did a decent job of it. Timeka says "maybe he IS Spanish," which he is clearly not, and now I know she's eaten too much food and is delirious. Next table gets the Brazilian hit "Ai se eu te pego" and I'm pissing myself. The Spanish specialist also does Portuguese.
On the beach, a young guy from the restaurant tells us that he has a friend who will drive us back to the hotel for 90k rupiah. We argue that it only cost 50k to arrive. He says, just like the first driver, that there are really no taxis, only tour operators, and that it's more expensive to go back than to arrive. We don't believe him, and when we go outside we find a guy will go back for 70k.
We get in the taxi. About 5 minutes into the ride, Timeka turns to us in the back seat and says, "girls! UNO OJO." The young driver had one eye and a hearing aid. We all start cracking up, and I'm not worried at all but Timeka and Lisa are petrified, as now they think the one eye situation is what just made us most crash into a motorcyclist. We put on our seat belts. Lisa can't find hers. I might have taken it, but it's every man for himself.
We are hysterical, and in between calling our driver "one eyed Willie" and other derogatory monikers, a little beggar girl comes to our window. Lisa and Timeka always give them money; I never do. I tease Lisa for pitying the little girl but making fun of our handicapped driver.
Lisa starts to pray aloud "please, god, let us get back to the hotel safely. And please let this young man get back home as well." After a long silence, she adds, "and please god forgive us for laughing."
The driver has to pass through central Kuta to get to Legian. Most travelers stay in Kuta at least for a bit as it's the beach town closet to the airport. We take one look and all are thrilled we never stopped there. It's big, very commercial (there's a KFC, McDonald's, Wendy's, Starbucks, Hard Rock Cafe, AND Burger King right near one another) and it's dense with people. Horrible.
We manage to get home in one piece.
There's talk about going out dancing, but we're always too tired at the end of the night to get motivated to go. I also can't help the feeling that the nightlife is going to be young and nasty or old and cheesy. That's what i tell myself, anyway. I don't feel like I'm missing anything, even though on this whole trip so far we've only made friends with two other travelers.
The next morning I take a small walk off the tourist strip to get away from all the Australian-run and priced places. There's a Coffee Bean next to us, the same as in the east village, at the same prices. I find a small warung and order "Kopi Bali" and say it that way, a good thing because I don't think they would have understood me otherwise. I see the woman putting spoon after spoon of sugar in the coffee, and i remember that Kopi Bali is served super sweet and I don't like it. The place smells either of fish sauce or cat piss, neither a pleasing odor, and whatever it is I breathe through my mouth as i sip my coffee.
The last stop on my food adventure is the pork. I leave Timeka at a surfer cafe for more Americanized fare, and I go into the alley where Warung Melasti is. There's about 6 people there, all Indonesian, and I ask for the Babi guling, which is silly in retrospect because its the only thing they sell. I'm a little concerned that I don't see the roast sucking pig, but I sit anyway. She brings me a small bowl of soup, and a place of rice that has a square of pork cracking, some spiced and seasoned pork, some curried pork, something that looks like ground pork mixed with something, and a coconut-flecked stir fried long bean. The spiced pork was definitely flesh, the curried pork was tough and indiscernible, so I didn't eat that part because i thought it might be some nasty organ. The soup was cold (almost all food in typical warungs are served at room temperature) and had a piece of bone in it. None of this is what I was expecting. I was anticipating just a big pile of pork pulled right from the pig. I look around, and everyone is eating exactly the same dish, so I figure that this was just what it was. Except that the couple across the way each got two squares of cracklings when I only got one. Fucker. I go ask for chili sauce to put on the pork, and a man from Jakarta tells me that this is his favorite place to get Babi guling when he comes to Bali, so I am relieved that I got the real thing. He also answers the question that's been on our mi since Timeka ordered those ribs in Ubud: Balinese Hindus eat pork but Indian Hindus do not. Verdict: Latin pernil and Filipino lechon are much better than this. I go to pay, and she charges me $2.50, and I get the feeling that I got the White Girl Tax.
I can't be mad at that, but after 9 days in Bali, talking to lots of tourists, i learn we are really shitty bargainers (I knew this already) and that we're pretty much overpaying for everything. It is so annoying to know that we are getting ripped off, but at the same time it's so cheap for us. I bought a mask (so stereotypical, but I really liked the colors.). She said $10. I said $8. She asks the boss if that's ok. He says ok. Now I know I should have said $5. But really??? IT'S THREE FUCKING DOLLARS, but I still feel like I fucked up. I HATE bargaining.
I go to get Timeka at the cafe, and I walk in on her talking to another American black woman. She says to Timeka "I'm sorry, I just had to come over and talk to someone who looked like me." She hung out with Timeka and me the rest of the afternoon. In a country where the shopkeepers keep calling Timeka "Beyoncé," I can understand why it's so exciting to meet another Black woman. She's from Chicago and works in the music industry and is a lawyer and tells us entertaining stories about Nas, which is really nuts because Lisa and Timeka were reminiscing about the time in their youth where they were all hot and bothered for Nas.
Lisa and I go off to get the "fish spa" treatment. For $3.50, you dunk your feet into a fish tank and these special little fish eat the dead skin off your feet. They look like teeny, tiny black catfish, and eat only the dead skin off your feet like you would eat corn, typewriter style. Hundreds and hundreds of little fish suction themselves to your feet the second you put them in there. Lisa and i really want to do it, for the experience, but we're both really creeped out. I make Lisa go first, you know, so I could record her doing it. It was like my own little "two girls, one cup" reaction video. She's squealing like a little girl, and sweating. It's grossing her out so much. I go next, and it is weird as hell, but as soon as I realize it feels like little bubbles all around my feet, I can take it. Every time Lisa looks at me like she's losing it, I just yell at her "BUBBLES!" There's about five Balinese people eating lunch and scoffing at us. They do not look happy. Two American surfer guys ask us what it's like, and we taunt them to put their hand in. They weren't having it, even after Lisa told them to man up and do it. My feet are definitely softer! Symbiosis spa, they should call it.
One more rushed massage/pedicure and we're off to the airport. Once again, the guy from the hotel tells us it'll be 150k to get to the airport, but I get a large car and he says 100k. I make sure "for three people?" Yes. I say again, "for three of us?" Yes. The taxi drivers here usually charge more money for more people. We get to the airport, and I hand him 100k. He says "oh no, three people 140k." I said "OH HELL NO I TOLD YOU THREE TIMES" and walk out the door. I was NOT having it. Maybe I'm getting better at bargaining, right as I'm leaving Bali.
After 9 days in Bali, we're ready to go, but I know we only scratched the surface of what Bali has to offer. And we didn't even come close to seeing the REAL Bali. There's extreme poverty and many people live in unsanitary conditions that we only saw when going through the back roads of a taxi. But to me, it's a perfect place to vacation: affordable accommodations and transport, great access to delicious and authentic food, lovely beaches and opportunities to not be in a crowded touristy area. I just wish it were a little closer to home, but I suppose that the fact that it isn't makes it that much more special. Every driver whose car we get in eventually says to us, "first time bali?" One day, my answer will be "no."
No comments:
Post a Comment