Lord of the Flies

We woke at 7:30am to meet Gusti, our taxi driver chartered for Kuta to drop by Richy's friend Wawan's shop and pick up our motorcycles. It rained the entire way to Kuta. Roads flooded and terrible visibility. Fortunately, once we got to Wawan's the rain cleared and it was sunny skies. Wawan owns a two part shop; half leather fashion and accessories, and the other a wood antique shop. He must be one of the most interesting individuals I have ever met. He's been a Enduro motorcycle racer, a club owner, business owner, artist, and designer. We spent the first 3 hours in Kuta at Wawan's place above his shop exchanging stories and eating Nasi Campur (translated at "mixed rice" is a traditional Balinese meal of rice, prawns, chicken, egg, native vegetables, herbs and spices) . While hanging with Wawan, his maid arranged for two 200cc Honda Tiger's to be dropped off at his place for us. Life is nice and easy.

Once we got the bikes we made our way up the west coast of Bali en route to a town called Tirta Ganga. To no surprise, 30 minutes into the ride it starts pouring rain. Not rain like the Thailand land-slide rain, but enough rain that in 10 minutes we were completely soaked. We ended up stopping at a roadside food stop to eat one of the foulest meals I have ever had. Fish balls on a stick, mystery meat soup, rice and mystery vegetable stuff... Oh and we weren't the only ones there either, we were accompanied by HALF THE FLIES IN BALI!!! Before I realized that I couldn't eat this junk anymore, the flies had taken over my meal and there was nothing I could do. I left my entire meal on the other side of the room with the flies and attempted to enjoy my roadside "Coffee Balinese." This is basically coffee flavored sludge in a cup with water that is hotter than the center of a hot pocket. It was a matter of minutes before I broke down from heart burn and the sensation of bugs crawling all over me. I demanded we leave "fly kingdom" and move on in the pouring rain.

Before turning onto the road from the shore to Tirta Ganga we noticed it was nick named "Dizzy Road" so we decided to stop early in a small town called Candidasa. We were very lucky to have stopped here because we got a the last 2nd floor beach side room in the our guesthouse. We set up the hammocks, took in the breeze, and listened to the the crashing of ocean waves beyond our front yard. After a short nap, we treated ourselves to a feast of Balinese food.

Just like the night before, we ended our day asleep in our hammocks...