"Heart; Meet Brain.": June 2007

In a nutshell, our Bali trip was ABSOLUTELY AWESOME!!

Liz and I were there from the 18th - 21st of June, Li Sze and Chris on the other hand were there from the 16th - 21st of June. On the 18th, we hung out at the beach. On the 19th, we went snorkeling, scuba diving, and bungee jumping(!!!). The next day we went whitewater rafting and also went to the spa at our hotel. On our last day we went for a tour to some places around the island(which 75% sucked, but I won't include the details here).

It was an extremely productive and AWESOME vacation; I had a wonderfully amazing time. Hence, I present to you; the BALI MEGA(PICTURE)POST!! (with comments and narration by myself, of course.)

The pictures here were mostly not taken by me, so credit is due to the others for taking the pictures. Thank you people!

And, without further ado...

I'll start with some random Bali pictures, which are more or less in chronological order. Then come the scuba pictures, and finally, the bungee pictures :)

Our first day - this was as we were walking back towards the hotel.

Evil Dog No.1; story to come soon.

Evil Dog No.2

Okay, if I recall correctly, Evil Dog No.1 came first. It seemed to be eyeing the food Liz and I were eating. The four of us were lounging around on our respective towels. We, of course, gave it the evil eye, as we were not in the mood to share. It loitered around us (and seemed attracted to Chris for some reason). Then Evil Dog No.2 came along. At first Evil Dog No.1 felt threatened because it thought Evil Dog No.2 was trying to butt into its food source (us). But then somehow they became buddies and loitered around us together, coming really close. And then Evil Dog No.2 started ROLLING AROUND ON CHRIS'S BEACH TOWEL! DISGUSTING RIGHT!? SOME RANDOM DIRTY MUTT ROLLING AROUND ON YOUR BEACH TOWEL!? It was trying to rub its back on it at the same time. RAWR! Then Liz and I made a hasty retreat towards the stall of the lady selling food to eat there in peace. We thought things would settle down then. AND THEN IT STARTED ROLLING ON THE OTHER TOWELS TOO!! My towel was left unspared. RAWR!!! Evil dogs. D: I didn't use the towel for the rest of my trip :( I used the hotel towels instead.

Next; Li Sze posing while washing the towels in the sea water... we were hoping to disinfect the towels or something, I guess.

Dinner on the 18th. We were the only customers in that place, which was nice but had morbid paintings. One of the paintings was of two guys on horses, one of whom was getting speared. Very appetizing. The food was good, if not outstanding, and I liked the welcome drink. And mixed juice! I was drinking mixed juice during the entire trip.

Dinner on the 19th, I believe, at this place called Jimbaran; we dined right on the beach. The atmosphere is much nicer than it appears in the picture; pictures can't really capture the feeling of the place.

A picture of us at Jimbaran.

Our food; had grilled fish, garlic butter? mussels, fried calamari, sweet and sour crab(which sucked and totally downgraded my rating of the entire meal), and some type of vege which I can't remember at the moment. I enjoyed the grilled fish the most.

I loved the shirts the waiters were wearing at the place we went to on our 3rd night there :P 'Helping ugly people have sex since 1862'. That's a pretty long time, and they must have helped quite a number of ugly people by now. Respect.

Us again, at dinner.

The traditional dance/play we watched on our last day, called 'The Barong and Kris Dance'. Barong = mythological animal that looks like a tiger, kinda. And here's the barong which had a really long solo kinda-dance performance during the prologue. It seemed pretty lifelike in terms of the way it moved; I thought the whole thing was fun and slightly creepy to watch. Regardless, I enjoyed it thoroughly; it was obviously tailored for tourists, as they included interaction with the audience, in addition to adding jokes that could be understood by foreigners.

The female dancers had pretty intense eyes, as I hope you can see in the picture here.

It so happens that I still have their informational flyer with me; here's what was written on it(almost completely verbatim).
___________

The Barong play represents an eternal fight between good and evil spirit. Barong (a mythological animal) represents a good spirit and Rangda (a mythological monster) represents an evil one.

THE DANCES STARTS WITH MUSIC OVER TONE
Followed by his friend the monkey, the tiger comes up. Three masked dancers appear, representing men making palmwine in the forest, whose child is killed by the tiger. The three men get angry and attack the tiger which is helped by the monkey. During the fight the nose of one of the three men is bitten off.

FIRST ACT
Two girl dancers appear(one of whom is pictured above), representing the servants of the Rangda, looking for the servants of Dewi Kunti who are on the way to meet their Patih (Prime Minister).

SECOND ACT
The servants of Dewi Kunti come. One of the servants of the Rangda changes into a witch enters both servants to make them angry. They meet their Patih and go together to Dewi Kunti.

THIRD ACT
Dewi Kunti and her son, Sadewa come up. Dewi Kunti has promised the Rangda to sacrifice Sadewa. A witch appears and enters Dewi Kunti. She becomes angry and orders the Patih to bring Sadewa into the forest. The Patih is also entered by a witch so he does not have pity on Sadewa. Sadewa is then taken into a forest and tied up on a tree.

FOURTH ACT
Unknown by Rangda, Siwa, God appears and gives Sadewa immortality. The Rangda appears, ready to kill Sadewa and eat him up but Sadewa is still alive. She then surrenders and asks him to redeem himself, Sadewa agrees and kills the Rangda. The Rangda goes into Heaven.

FIFTH ACT
One of the servants of the Rangda called Kalika comes up before Sadewa and asks him to redeem herself too, Sadewa repuses(not a mistake, that's what they wrote). Kalika gets angry, and change herself into a boar and fights Sadewa. The boar can be defeated. She then changes herself into a bird but defeated again. At last she changes herself into a Rangda, Sadewa cannot kill her. In such circumstances Sadewa dictates and then he changes himself into a Barong. Still the Rangda seems to be too powerful and the fight is unended. Followers of the Barong appear and help him flight(not a typo by me, either) the Rangda.
_____________

So that's how it went. Didn't really make too much sense, if you ask me. It felt as if we had only been watching a small part of a much larger epic. Without the informative flyer, we wouldn't have understood the entire thing. It was a good experience, though :)

Next; we were at this temple... I forgot the name. In any case, its renowned for the spring water that bubbles up from within the temple area, which supposedly has magical/special qualities. People come up here to bathe/rinse themselves with the water, and drink it too. The water is actually really clean; at least it seemed clean to my eyes, as it was really clear. Here we're just posing for a picture in front of this doorway which had a lot of symbolism to it, but I don't remember what the guide told us :P

The place where visitors/devotees come to bathe or drink the water. Each of those openings which are shooting out the spring water supposedly provide their own individual blessing/magical quality, which is why true devotees go to meditate in front of every single opening.

Some people hoping to get blessings and stuff, I suppose.

Just a picture of us by the water :P

The guide told us to try the one which gives you beauty/good looks. So we did. He instructed us to splash the water on our face twice, and drink it twice. I did it; not sure whether the others followed his instructions exactly. Hope it works!

Liz and I; the statue on my side is of a god, the one on hers is of a goddess. Again, there was a lot of symbolism attached to it, but I can't remember it. It was Hindu in nature, though - not surprising since 95% of the Balinese people are Hindu.

The enclosure of the pool from which the spring water bubbles up. It's walled on all sides, probably to prevent people from swimming in it, although people could jump over the wall if they really wanted to; it's not too high. It was actually really beautiful, despite the light rain which disturbed the surface. See the blackish sand underwater? That's where the water emerges from the ground. The black sand was kinda churning, like dark clouds moving around. As you can see, the water is really clear, and the vegetation in there seemed to thrive - there were fish as well. The guide told us that the water flows from the temple into the irrigation system for agriculture. He then added that while the pool looks nice and clear, it would be dangerous to swim in; the blackish sand acts as quicksand. A person could get stuck there.

Chris and Li Sze. See those things tied around their waists? All visitors have to wear them. I don't remember why. But it was probably important. :( Mine was purple.

Chris and I, as we pretended to meditate. Or something. I don't think people smile when they meditate.

A view near some volcano. Nice, huh? But we felt harassed around there; the peddlers were peddling their wares so aggressively that we only stayed long enough to take a few pictures.

There's supposed to be an active volcano in the background. The cloudy day ruined it, we couldn't see it.

More of the same thing.

Same thing, again.

Okay, this part is kinda sad. There were these super cute puppies being sold by the street; we saw them in a few places. A number of them are crammed into a cage which doesn't look all that comfortable due to the number of puppies in them. The puppies which are not caged are, well, leashed to something, like these two were. It was really depressing to watch. They were the cutest animals ever, with cute barks and bright, sad eyes. They mostly seemed lethargic and timid, which I believe is the opposite of what puppies tend to be like. I don't think they're fed well, but I may just be assuming that. I mean, the people there seem like they can hardly make enough to feed themselves - how would they be able to feed these puppies adequately?

Before I continue, I just want to add that I felt sad not only for the puppies, but for the people of Bali as well. Their lives revolve around tourism. Tourism is all they know. If tourists don't buy their wares, they won't be able to put food on their tables. Each time someone approached me to try to sell me stuff, which happened quite often, I felt a pang of sadness. They weren't merely trying to con me out of their money; while some were, I refuse to demean the entire lot of them. Some of them, I know, really need the money from tourist purchases. Let's face it; tourism in Bali hasn't really recovered since the Bali bombings. There are fewer tourists now than there were before the bombings. I think a number of governments even discourage their citizens from going to Indonesia, particularly tourist spots like Bali. But the livelihood of people in places like Bali depend on these foreigners for money. It's sad, and utterly despicable, that the people of the entire island have to suffer because of the actions of radical extremists. They may have been able to kill a few dozen foreigners, but at the end of the day I think they hurt their own countrymen and countrywomen the most. Think about how of them suddenly found themselves penniless after the mass exodus of tourists from Bali; they haven't really returned in full force since then. I think I'm just overthinking the situation, but that's how I really feel. They may have called out to us tourists in cheerful and welcoming tones, but sometimes I felt an underlying desperation or sadness behind their masks. I may have just imagined it. Yes, I agree that some of them are out to squeeze as much money out of the tourists as possible. But I will not judge them too harshly, because some of them, I think, really need to.

Okay, enough sadness for now. Sigh. Happy clappy stuff now; scuba diving.

Here we are pre-diving in our wetsuits. Mine was.. uncomfortable. It was tight in some places, and also had no ventilation; it felt quite hot underneath while we were above the water. But we were quite excited.

Pre-diving briefing, on techniques and such. Basically, we just had to learn a few hand signals, and a few basic skills; we weren't actually doing our own diving; an instructor would be holding on to us and would usher us around underwater. All we had to do was hold on tightly to coral for photo and video ops. That's why we needed to learn the hand signals; it was to communicate with the instructors while underwater. It was, nonetheless, an enjoyable experience.

Li Sze and Chris rockin' their wetsuits and scuba gear underwater. There's a reason why we all looked so serious down there; we're not allowed to smile. Smiling would create openings around the mouth, which we had to close tightly around the mouthpiece which was connected to the oxygen tank. Therefore, smiling isn't a good thing, unless you want to breathe water in.

Me rockin' my wetsuit and scuba gear. They gave us super soggy bread to shake around to attract fish for better pictures. Okay, there's another reason why I looked a bit too serious. Half the time, I was trying to hold on to the corals/rocks and not get pushed away by the surprisingly strong underwater currents, because basically we weren't really allowed to move around ourselves - the instructors were the ones moving us around. That meant that only the instructors were allowed to press the inflate/deflate buttons connected to our vest, which determines whether we float up or sink down. Ours was set to float up most of the time, even when holding on to the coral. So we had to hold tight. Once, I thought that the instructor had grabbed my oxygen tank and was pulling me away, so I let go of the coral I'd been holding on to. I drifted up for a few moments, and realized that no one was holding on to me. I floated up dumbly, half panicking, for a few moments, before one of the other instructors managed to grab my arm and pull me back down. I held on more tightly to the corals/rocks, afterwards -_-...

Liz and I in yet another photo op. I think after awhile I was sick and tired of latching on to corals/rocks for photo ops, and just wanted to go up. But it didn't occur to me to use the 'I wanna go up' signal. Oh well. It was pretty fun. I would definitely go scuba diving again in the future.

Now comes the BEST part; BUNGEE JUMPING! WHICH WE DID TWICE BECAUSE THEY HAD A BUY ONE FREE ONE PROMOTION! IT WAS AWESOME! Here we are after our first jump(I think). Oh and before we jumped, they would measure our weight and WRITE IT DOWN IN KILOGRAMS ON THE BACK OF OUR HANDS OKAY. Sigh. So I had a large '85' written on the back of one hand. At least I can thank them for checking my weight for me, since I haven't checked it recently. Sigh.

Well, my first jump sucked, so I'm only posting pics of my second jump. So here's the tower we jumped from; 45 meters tall. Doesn't seem that high when you're on the ground, but when you're up there it's a different story.

Us in the lift going up. If I look terrified to you, it's probably because I was. Somehow the 2nd jump scared me more than my first one.

Me and Chris looking down from up there, trying not to appear too terrified I suppose. I think Li Sze was preparing for her jump then. And she did her second jump BACKWARDS! RESPECT TO THE MAX! Both Chris and I refused to do it backwards.

In my mind: O. M. G.

They actually tell us not to look down before jumping. So they tilted my head up because I was looking down. They'll also lift your arms to spread them out, not sure why I have to jump with my arms spread out though.

Me: YEAAA...

...AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

*SPLASH!!!* Omg okay I TOTALLY did NOT expect to dip into the water. They asked me if I wanted to dip into the water; I said no. I guess my mind forgot to register the fact that they then told me if I didn't want to touch the water, I should jump out, instead of just falling face down off the platform. Hence my dive went down in a clean, straight line, and I dipped into the water, up to my shoulders. It was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!

This is after I'd bounced around a bit and gotten over the rush of the moment, which was when I realized how AWESOME it had been, which explains why I was smiling.

The guy's job is to wave a long wooden non-phallic pole in a jumper's direction post-jump-and-bouncing for the jumper to hold on to so they can be pulled down onto the mattress.

Okay, this wasn't nearly as dirty as it looks. I was on a high from the jump. The guy's job was to ask us how it was, etc etc. That's all. D: And the bungee gear I was wearing caused the front of my pants to bunch up in a most unfortunate way. Sigh. But the jump was AWESOME.

Wheee!!!

A very happy Hisham, after an AWESOME bungee jumping experience!!!

So, that's all folks. Congratulations to those who survived reading/going through the entire post. It took me FOREVER to do, by the way.

In any case, it was the most AWESOME vacation ever! I'm so glad I was invited!

And a HUGE thank you to Li Sze, Liz, and Chris for making it such an AWESOME experience! In my book, you're all absolutely AWESOME!

ps: specific credit/dedications/general words of praise or advise for each of them are as follows;

Chris for being such an AWESOME negotiator/bargainer. Sorry the rest of us didn't help much with that. And it was great that I finally got to meet you and hang out properly! And don't upset Li Sze too often okay. You're a great guy, but Li Sze is my good friend, so I'd be obliged to side with her more often than not :P

Li Sze for bugging me to go and making me feel bad the first time I canceled on you. Because if didn't feel bad, I wouldn't have felt compelled to go. And I wouldn't have had such an amazing time. Also, thanks for generally being enthusiastic and excited the whole way! You're AWESOME. I have no idea how you stay positive all(or most of) the time, but I'm sure glad you're like that. Thanks for being a great friend!

Liz for helping me out with the travel plans/details/uh, documents! And for being my traveling partner, and also my unofficial semi-lepak-buddy there since Li Sze and Chris have each other already to lepak with. :P Whateverrr Chris and Li Sze! So yeah. And seriously, you should have gone bungee jumping with us! Regardless, so glad you went as well! Or else I would've ended up as a third wheel.

pps: Hope I didn't forget about any other good things that you guys did for me, directly on indirectly. And the trip was AWESOME!

And that's all there is to my BALI MEGA(PICTURE)POST. Took me forever to write. Hope you guys and gals who do read my blog, for whatever reason, appreciate it okay. :) Goodnight!