My first day in Bali started out with a bang. Actually I guess it was more like my first night.
Abigail, Hannah and I took a late flight from Singapore to Bali, connecting through Jakarta on May 24th.
This was our first flight leaving Singapore and I remember realizing how nice the airport was.
We found out our flight was delayed at the gate. I spent some time standing at a counter working on some homework, and then randomly some guy started talking to me.
I thought it was weird because out of all of the people in the airport, I was working on a laptop about as intently as anyone else, but I soon realized this was a surfer from Hawaii who spent his time as a carpenter on a remote Indonesian island.
I knew very little about Indo at the time so I have no idea what island.
We ended up walking back to the convenience store in the terminal, buying some beers (I bought cider) and then drinking at the gate. When I got back to the gate with the stranger and beers Abigail and Hannah were quite worried, thinking I had been gone too long and would miss the flight.
When we boarded the plane, the three of us were in a row and he was directly across the aisle. I think I sat in the middle with Abigail on my right in the aisle seat and he kept trying to talk to her before passing out. I think he had a couple more beers than I did.
When we landed in Jakarta, we didn’t. We touched down and immediately pulled up and did another lap around the airport. Pretty sketchy. Our Hawaiian friend did not wake from his slumber. To this day he certainly doesn’t know that this happened.
When we landed a second time, we thought we were late for our connection so we sprinted around the airport. I think there was an outdoor tram, and the outside air was smokey. On the flight in we noticed what looked like small fires burning throughout the city. Maybe it was the time of the year of a religious ceremony. Or it’s always like that.
We were in such a rush Abigail (another plane expert) asked an employee for a ride on a golf cart which saved us some time too.
When we finally got to the gate, we realized our clocks were an hour off and we had safely made it.
So we made the flight to Bali. We had an hour or two to wait until Nyoman (who we had never met) picked us up. Hannah and I laid on the ground with my first Pulpy. I facetimed Frances. Abigail set her hammock up a little distance from us and some guys yelled to try to startle her.
Nyoman did arrive and had a sign and a driver and we loaded up. I think we had some ciders and asked if we could drink them and he said sure. We fell asleep in the car, only waking up for a couple things. A massive roadside market with a hundred people running around getting ready in the dark. A weird group of guys that seemed like a road block.
We did make it to the trailhead and took off in the dark. We went up not the normal hiking trail, but a steeper one that all of the dirt bikes with paying tourists were on. We had to step to the side a lot. And it was noisy. Not very pleasant.
We started to see all of the headlights along the trail higher on the mountain and could finally see how big of an operation this was. Hundreds of people hike up the mountain every morning it seems.
Even with our late start, we were close to the summit as the sun started to rise. The view was amazing. One of the best of my life.
To be continued.