Bali, Indonesia

There is a running balinese joke that goes: BALI = BAnyak LIbur (Indonesian) = Many Holidays. While this island is a holiday paradise, it also seems to be the favorite Australian vacation spot too, mostly the bogans (read: rednecks) and the party animals, which has heavily influenced this island. I have only visited three popular spots in Bali: Sanur, Ubud and Kuta (which is barely 1% of what Bali has to offer), and I was highly disappointed. I was expecting a more traditional experience, but what I have seen is an island riddled with tourist and locals who try to dip their finger in the tourism by constantly harassing and ripping you off for transport or buying things.

Kuta

Words cannot describe how much I hated this city. Getting in and out of the city takes about 20 minutes through the traffic. It is riddled with tourists (mostly Australians) and kids who are here to party and get drunk for quite cheap (Kuta is like the equivalent of Cancun/Varadero for us canucks). Never have I been so annoyed at the locals who are constantly harassing me to grab a taxi or a transport (where the prices are obviously bloated just to get more money off of me). When I asked a "tourism information" booth for a local bus shuttle back to Sanur (which i know exists), he blatantly said "No bus! Only transport. My friend take you". It's also littered with McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Bubba Gump Shrimp and heaps more western restaurants. There is even a massive mall in the middle of town! It's also supposedly known for their beautiful beaches... which i beg to differ. The sand is very rough, and the water looks quite disgusting. Do yourself a favor, unless you want to party with jail bait aussies, don't bother.

Ubud

This city is focused on culture, yoga and nature with beautiful views of the mountain and rice paddies. Contrary to Kuta, it is a bit more quiet and the city has a little more charm. One of the notable tourist activity is to visit the Monkey forest where heaps of macaque monkeys roam free in the forest, in search for bananas that tourist come and feed them. They are incredibly smart creatures and will literally jump on you and go through your bag/pocket for food! Ladies, don't go there wearing a tube top. Why you may ask? Think what happens when a monkey (or two) grabs on to your top to climb on your head. Yes. The rest goes without saying. My favorite of the three cities. It also has a pretty big market where one can practice their haggling skills and come out with Bintang tshirts and other various items for a modest price.

Sanur

What was once a little fishing village, it is now a very busy tourist area, which is mostly occupied by families and older expats. The only reason why I stayed here was for scuba diving (my dive center is located in Sanur). I was highly disappointed with the selection of restaurants and food as it was uniquely catered towards foreigners (there are a few aussie bars with signs saying "Go aussies!") and food that are cheap for aussies but quite expensive for locals (the average meal costs 50,000 rupiah, which is about 5$, but the locals usually spend 1 to 2$ on a meal). The night market offers much more affordable fares (a nasi goreng, aka fried rice goes for 20,000 rupiah, which is 2$ vs 5$ for the main strip). The beach is highly disappointing too as the water is merky and the sand is also very rough.

Diving

Highlight (and reason for travelling to Bali) of my trip. Bali has a few notable dive spots, especially Manta point/bay where, in the right season, one can swim with manta rays! Such majestic creatures. The underwater fauna is quite remarkable and the visibility is just amazing (20 to 30 meters!!!)

Places I didn't get the chance to visit

Due to the lack of time, I didn't get the chance to visit Gili islands, another very popular tourist spots, but supposedly have beautiful white sandy beaches. I read that the western part of Bali is very scenic and offers a variety of activities and it is also possible to hike the active volcano Mount Agung.

All in all, aside from the diving, Bali isn't going to have a very lasting impression. I do have to admit that I've only been here for 6 days (and 2 of them was dedicated to diving). I might come back here, with a travel buddy, and stay a bit longer to explore the northern and western part of Bali.

Next stop: the javanese cultural center, Yogyakarta!

The beginning of the end

It's official. I'm leaving Australia. I won't lie, it sucks, it's painful and I'll miss this place so much. Not only I'm leaving a beautiful country, I'm also leaving amazing friends. Friends that I would trust my life with, even if I've only known them for 8 or 9 months (some even less). Friends that you feel you've known them for years. Friends that are willing to do the extra mile and out of their ways to help me out. Friends that will always be there when you need them.

Having said that, I don't have much choice but to have closure. The past year has been an amazing experience. I have learned so much much about myself and how to go with life. For once in my life, I didn't have a safety net called "the mother", that is there to catch me if I make a mistake. I had to face the responsiblity and consequences of my actions whenever I screw up.

Athough I didn't ultimately reach my goal to get a sponsorship, I still had the time of my life and I can be proud to say I took the risk to drop everything back home and try to make something with barely nothing. And you know what? I did pretty damn well! Within the 3rd week, I scored a job in IT, working with amazing people, learning about Agile and Continuous Integration. I didn't have to resort to live off pasta and ramen. I saved alot of money (come to think about it, I don't think i've ever saved this much back home in 10 months of work, even if the cost of living in Sydney is ridiculous), I lived in an amazing house. I tried things that I've never dreamed of doing before (running for 14km, running in the mud under a hail storm, going into caves). This has been the best experience of my life.

Now I'm finishing off this chapter of my life in style: two months and a half through Asia, exploring, eating and diving my way through alone. Am I scared to travel alone? You betcha! Am I excited? FUCK YA! The world might be huge, but when you think about it, it's as big as a pebble. 10 billion and counting of people here, you're bound to meet a few great ones along the way.

Life is too short for regrets. Enjoy every second of it, like if it were the last.

Backpacker style travelling

Ever since I arrived in Australia, I've been living the big life. My tale is quite different from most of the backpackers/couchsurfers I've met: I didn't end up working in a farm or manual labor job and earn a meagre amount of money, I didn't have to share a 3 bedroom apartment with 12 other people (sometimes infested with cockroaches) nor did I end up eating pasta with either butter or tomato sauce (and instant noodles) on a daily basis. I had it good. In hindsight, I sort of missed out on the thrills and adventure of not knowing when your next meal is going to be and all the crazy adventures people have by hitchiking or driving a half broken bus through the country.

As I am planning my grand finale back home, I realized that I have saved so much money (seriously, the amount I have saved is what the average backpacker makes in 6 months) that I can afford luxuries such as flying everywhere I go instead of taking the train/bus. Although I do have the luxury to splurge, I feel like such a hypocrite because I have always told to myself to try to live a simple life and not travel luxury style. 

Hopefully my trip in Thailand will rekindle my desire to travel like the "commoners". I was so close to book heaps of flights within Thailand, good thing I stumbled upon backpackers blogs.

Confidence, take 2

A few months back (last post) I posted a positive sounding post about confidence. Funny how in a breeze, confidence can be lost. Now it might be because i have 3/4 of a bottle of red wine in me that I don't feel too sobby, but I can't help but being a hypocrite. During my entire stay in Australia, I've been saying: "Take like as it goes" or "Things happen for a reason" or other stupid cliche idioms like that. Guess what, when things happen for a reason, well "shit fucking happens" is my other idiom that I should add. I know it's not my fault that things are happening, that "a greater force is in control", but does it just suck when you feel that you can't do anything but hope for the best? Hopefully after the storm comes the rainbow.

I'm all sort of idioms tonight. Maybe I should drink more wine... in vino es vertitas.

Confidence

Funny how it takes years to build it, but it only takes one moment to lose it, and then it takes twice the amount of time to rebuild it. Three years ago, I lose my confidence. A verbally and mentally abusive boss made me forget the meaning of confidence. But somehow while working in a painfully routine and unchallenging workplace, it slowly came back to me. Cheering, supporting and believing in myself brought it up to its normal level.

Sometimes, all you need is a leap of faith to test out your confidence level. I'm glad I did mine.

Vive le quebec ostie...

I never realized how quebecois I was until recently. A few weeks back, I finally met another Quebecois person (i was here for 4 months, i haven't met one until then, just bloody frenchies from France!) and I was ecstatic! It felt good to speak in "bon quebecois". Speaking in French (with frenchies made me replace words from Quebecois to French.. hollible like the French say), talk about how awesome Montreal was with the food, festivals, summer and all. Over the weekend, I met yet ANOTHER quebecois girl, and I was even more excited because of the rarity! Then the full fledge quebecois came back, franglais, poutine, maudite marde, ostie de tabarnak viarge, saying how Laval is a black hole for direction you name it. It felt so, natural. We were such a great duo at promoting Montreal that they were wondering if we were working for Tourisme Quebec!

Maybe I'm starting to get a bit home sick and speaking to other people helps me remind me that I'm not too far from home.

Studying..

I forgot the meaning of that word. It's been over 5 years since I have graduated and I haven't done that since. I just finished a 3 day training/certification program for a product called Sitecore, an enterprise level CMS used through out the industry. I came into the training and exam with basic .NET experience (the entire platform is built on .NET). I am no where close to be a junior programmer with school experience, but I still felt incredibly overwhelmed. I forgot (perhaps it's a good thing since I have also forgotten my bad studying habits) how to study efficiently and mostly how to effectively answer multiple choice exams. Thankfully (well thank you useless knowledge compartment in my brain) I remember a useful tip that my high school teach taught me. "On multiple choice questions, the first answer is always the right one". Meaning, if you are unsure if your answer is right and the other answers gives you the same amount of question marks, chances are, it's the right question. Obviously, it is not a foul proof rule, but rule of thumb, it usually works.

The exam itself was intense, not because it was hard per se, but there is A LOT of material to cover in 3 days. If I could have a penny for everytime i said "what the HELL is this", I would probably be able to pay for the certification myself. The exam was as stressful as dentist appointment, and I don't remember feeling my heart beat that fast because of an exam.

Did I think that I passed? It felt like I managed to answer most of the question, following my rule of thumb, but I don't want to think about it. This also reminded me why I hated exams and school so badly.

[update]

Turns out I passed the exam. I guess using my gut feeling paid off. yay me