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Riding to the Bukit and eating mackeral in Bali

This Sunday I wanted to go for another cruise down to the Bukit peninsula as it is close and relaxing. I used my long sleeve quick dry shirt that Chris gave me when he was here, packed on a ton of sunscreen and filled up with gas at the station on Jalan Raya Kerobokan.

I headed down the highway towards Nusa Dua at around 12 noon and traffic was fairly busy. There is a huge roundabout in Kuta that shoots traffic towards Denpasar, Nusa Dua and Sanur and it can be a scramble when traffic is heavy. I tried not to get caught up in anything complicated and let other people pass me, accelerating out of situations that looked troublesome.

My route took me to the main gate at Nusa Dua which is an area that was specially built for resorts and the village of Nusa Dua sits at the south end of this area, with the fishing village of Benoa at the north end. It takes 10 minutes to ride from Nusa Dua to Benoa on motorbike.

The village was very quiet and people were sheltering form the intense sunlight carrying out chores and enjoying their Sunday. Fishing boats were beached waiting the next high tide and others were being repaired.

I rode back to Nusa Dua, up the hill and into the center of the Bukit ( hill ) and headed straight south to a temple called Pura Batu Pageh which overlooks the ocean, stopping at a little store to buy a teh bottle. Right next door local men were playing cards and getting pretty excited about the outcome.

Descending a staircase to the beach I spotted a few temple monkeys and quickly put all my loose items inside the backpack, these little guys will steal anything.

The view was great and showed the coral reef at low tide. Local women were bent over cutting a brown type of seaweed and moving slowly across the area they had chosen. When I waded out to chat to them they shouted �photo, photo’.

Around 5pm I decided to go home and as I was riding through Jimbaran called our friend Ebong. I was 5 minutes away from his place along the road where the fish restaurants are so swung by a store, picked up a couple of beers and rode over. We chatted about the latest developments in our lives and were joined after a while by 3 other guys who work in the area. Ebong bought a big mackeral and we got the stove cranked up. It was a very cool thing to kick back with an all Indonesian group. One thing that made me laugh was Ebong’s choice of videos�.’Sex in the City’ and �Pluto Nash’. American culture is documented so well that here in Bali even the New York dating scene is understood.

As we got things going and were ready to eat another 5 people showed up plus Mick Turnbull, this was starting to get interesting. I know where to go next time I want a party.

Mick and I eventually said goodbye to the group and rode home together. Mick lives in Kerobokan which is a 10 minute ride from me. He wasn’t finished for the night though and wanted to hit Kama Sutra nightclub in Kuta, I was finished for the day and declined. We stopped on the bypass, said bye bye and went our separate ways.

This was a good Sunday and I will have to try to do more fun stuff next time.