Fast and Sandy

Bali is a place where you live the dream or maybe it just seems so as you are covered in purple haze. It's a place in Australia where people form all over the world go to forget, to adventure and live. Great surf and good weather is what drew this particular traveler here. I was well prepaired with flip flops and board shorts as I took on the challange of Bali.

Managing to surf for two days, Sleep (passing out totally counts) in five different places in three nights, riding around lost on my motorbike a whole night, clubbing, eating lots of good food, befriending the local surfers, a Czech surf community, chilling with Russians, do some shopping and even get some pictures of it I have to say I got the most out of my stay.

I'd like to give some estimations of what tings might cost you. These are not the prices I paid  but I think they are what you can use as an estimate

• Motorbike 50K Rp a day
• Housing 50-150k Rp a day
• Food and drinks (non alcoholic) 60K rp a day (3 Indonesian meals) 150K Rp for western food
• Surboards 40K an hour
• Taxi from the Airport 50K
• Taxi to the airport, meter + 5K
• Fake brand sunglasses 25K

Let me know if there are any other prices you might want

Have fun in Bali guys

Time Out Jakarta

Life in Jakarta is in the middle of everything and far away from far away. Sometimes When the tingling feeling of pollution or the hours spent in traffic jams seems to be getting to you it's time for a time out. Getting far away needn't be too hard or too far away. Weekend trips offers a range of destinations even if one is not taking a flight to get there. A popular destinations of the Jakartonése is the mountain resort of Bandung with it's cooler climate. Me, originally from a small cold village of Sweden (Stockholm), beaches and warm waters are much more enticing.

A few hours of driving is what it takes to reach the south coast of west Java where the surf destination of Cimaja offers what Jakarta does not. A slow pace of life, clean (or cleaner) beaches and unstressed locals.

The best way of getting there is by car but there are also buses that make the trip for those who want to save the coin for other pleasures. Traveling as a group makes the trip very affordable even for the most stingy backpacker. I think Gas, Housing and Surfboards hit me with a total damage of less than 150.000 Rp which is comparable with 112 SEK, 17.5 USD or 12.2 EUR. I easily spent more money on food and drinks during these days than that.

For housing we rented the upper floor of a villa which we shared for two nights. Despite no AC or mosquito nets I can't remember getting bitten even once. This is without using any mosquito repellent.

For your basic needs there are always alfamarts and indomarts not too far aways but I would recommend some of the many restaurants offering Ikan Bakar or BBQ fish. The fish is usually caught not too far off shore and is usually fresh. There are also a variet of shell fish available like lobster or why not try some barbequed squid.

View Larger Map