The trip started in LAX showing up to the airport with 3 large board bags, 8 backpacks, and 2 camera cases, yaaaaa we gotta lot of shit. It just so happened that the lady working at the Cathay Pacific desk was Indonesian, so David my mate that studied in Bali started chatting with her. She loved it and that basically set us up to get hooked up with our luggage which everyone knows you get screwed for oversize/overweight usually. After 20 minutes or so we all had boarding passes and were outta there paying nothing for our bags which should have been at least 400 total! Off to a great start and on the plane we settled in for the 13 hour flight to Hong Kong where we had a 4 hour layover to grab a bite to eat before the final 5 hour flight to Bali!
Landing in Bali you have to wait in line to get your visa upon arrival, that took about 1.5 hours, then we picked up our bags and heading for customs check out. We got stopped, David and Travis bags got checked for how many boards and had to end up paying $1,000,000 RPH (just over $80 USD) for having more than 3 boards. After finding a transport driver in the sea of hundreds of people asking, we got all the boards on top and packed the 4 of us inside, quick 30 min drive to our hotel in Kuta where were staying for few nights. Hotel was traditional 2 beds and bathroom very simple, 50K RPH a night ($4.20 USD) per person. Once we settled in we sorted motorbikes out, which we got 4 for 30K RPH each per day ($2.50 USD), I love this country! Walking down the street we found a traditional Nasi Goreng plate (fried rice, veggies, chicken) we all ordered the same along with a Bintang, the local beer. There was a large shopping store nearby where we all headed to get some legit nice helmets since we'll be here for awhile and the helmets the rentals give you are shit.
After few hours of laying around we got on the scooters for a ride up to Uluwatu, since the swell was small, Ulu's would be the only decent wave breaking. All of us had a couple decent ones, only out for an hour, munched down another nasi goreng for lunch and then cruised around looking for a place to move to the next day. After going to about 8 different homestays/villas we found a nice one that we could all split for a decent price then headed back to Kuta since our 5th friend Jay was supposed to arrive around 5 pm. We waited for him by sipping a Bintang while watching the crazy traffic down the back ally of Poppies St 2. When Jay arrived the vibe got a lot funner by hearing his story getting here, walking down the street finding another great spot to grub was a perfect ending to our second night on the island of Bali.
Day 3 was off to a slow start since a few people were hungover from the Bintangs the night before, but Alex, Jay, and I went for a walk down to the beach to check out what it was like. We encountered a baby monkey that we played with for a bit and got some really cool photos of! When we all got back to the hotel few guys went off to get a massage as I started packing up. After a few hours of getting all our gear together we were on the road following the van with our stuff and Jay in it while we were on our 4 scooters. I got separated from the group and doubled back a few times but still couldn't find em so I took off cruising up the windy roads of the bukit, I finally arrived at Bingin Sari our home stay we picked out. The family were staying with is awesome, the mom Made runs the place cooking, cleaning, and booking rooms. She has a few lil girls which I gave a nick name Kachang Kecil (Ka-chong Ca-chill, means
little peanut), the rest of our time there they would smile and sing Kachang Kecil Kachang Kecil, it was super funny.
We ended up staying at this home stay for 6 nights, the setup was beautiful, location was great, and breakfast was cheap and good! The homestay is up on the cliff and a lil back from the surf break at Bingin Beach, just up the point is another famous wave of Impossibles. We all got out to Dream land a wave down the beach that is a sand bottom wave with usually pretty crowded with beginners as it was this day. But Alex was filming and got a couple sick shots of just the lifestyle on the beach and a few of our waves even thought there wasn't much going on in the surf!
The next few days we explored a few different spots I had surfed before but they weren't really turning on like they had when I surfed them before. But no the less we had some fun getting more footage romping around on the scooters and flying the drone! On Sunday we went out to Single Fin a bar at the top of the famous surf break Uluwatu, Sundays it goes off with live music and hundreds of people having a good time. We also went to a sick full moon party on the beach that had a reggae band and DJ until about 1 or 2 in the morning at Padang Padang. The bukit is beautiful place with pretty mellow roads to all the surf spots and hundreds of home stays and restaurants tucked into every corner and crevasse, it would take months to go to them all.
Towards the end of our stay on the bukit at Bingin Sari my mate Jeremy that I actually traveled to Indonesia with last year arrived on Wednesday. He linked up with us and we got a bed for him to crash on for a few nights before we headed out to a new area of the island called Sanur! We got our last surf in at Impossibles for a few hours before making the trek over to Sanur again with a van full of gear/surfboard bags while 4 scooters followed!
Once again thanks for following and stay tuned for the next post!
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