Bali Bali Bali

After a night and a morning in Ubud, I made my way south to Denpasar on the 10th of July. I would say “Kuta”, but every time I said this word to locals, they looked at me like I had two heads - so much for Google truth versus local truth.

My goal in this particular adventure was to meet up with my friend Olta, who was traveling with her friend Chris (both women are English teachers working in China; Olta is originally from Albania and Chris is originally from Crimea). I’d briefly met Olta in Kuala Lumpur, though we hadn’t spoken much to one another as another traveling companion had dominated the conversation. Over the intervening months, however, we’d become close over Instagram and WhatsApp, texting almost daily. When it came up that we were going to be in the same region, I took the opportunity to book a hostel a block away from the pair’s hotel.

Java Java Java

I arrived in Jakarta on June 27 expecting to meet my friend Bevin from Philadelphia there already. Unfortunately, we’d both misread the email - both her flights added a day and we’d only accounted for the one. Nonetheless, we were able to connect on the 28th and set about an eastward adventure.

In Jakarta specifically, we mostly wandered around the national monument, including going to the top of the national library. We did have an excursion to the old city section where we were mobbed by dozens of Indonesians who wanted to take photos with us - a first in either of our travels. It wasn’t a “let’s distract them” style of photo-taking either - this was borne of a genuine desire to have a photo with a foreigner and, in some cases, practice English or have a short video-recorded conversation for a class. The whole thing was surreal. We went to the bank museum, had some street food, and tried to check off a few “must do” items before moving on. A significant portion of our time was spent struggling with planning and buying tickets.