Crazy Kuta, funerals, and lost flip flops

Marlo and I decided to go check out Kuta on this day. So we headed out.. got a taxi and were on our way. We didn’t really know where we wanted to go in Kuta.. just knew we wanted to check out Kuta.. so our driver actually dropped us at a mail that was in front of the beach. We were pretty hungry by the time we got to the area (kuta is always a traffic jam) so we ate at Kafe Batan Waru.

While we were having lunch a funeral procession passed by. Everyone was dressed in white and sarong’s and they were carrying this big beautiful temple like thing.. not sure what they call it but basically it had the body in it. The head of the village was riding along with it and they were singing etc.

After lunch Marlo and I walked through the mail and then out to the beach. Once we got outside we realized this was not the beach we were looking for. So we walked back through the mall, out to the street and turned left in hopes of finding a nice beach to hang at. We did find a beach and we took a left… we walked a little ways before realizing we were walking right through the funeral. There was someone on a loud speaker that was transmitting from a van.. there were 3 of these temple like things on the beach and one had already been burned and it appeared they were about to burn another. We didn’t want to be disrespectful so instead of turning and going back the way we came we just kept walking in order to try to get OUT of the middle of their funeral. :/ As we walked I started to notice that we were actually walking through the cemetery. Ohhh .. that makes sense. It all seemed more like a celebration than a funeral though. I think I like their way of doing it much better than the grief stricken downer of funerals we have. I really do want mine to be a celebration.. I want to be paraded down the street in a beautifully elaborate box, have people sing and dance, and then put me on a floating bamboo raft, light me on fire, and push me out to sea.

I don’t think this is even legal in the states but I think that is a much better exit for my body than being put in the ground and even though I have already specified I want to be cremated.. its so unceremonious in the states.

Anyway after that we kept walking and finally found what we think was the beach we were looking for but it too was a dirty beach and the crowds were a bit too much for me so Marlo was kind and went along with my desire to leave. On the way over our driver had told us about Dream Land beach.. which was suppose to be magnificent so we were off in search of a taxi.

Okay so I had read that we should only take the Blue Bird Taxi’s and so we were trying to find Blue Bird taxi’s and we saw a few blue taxis but I couldn’t tell if they were the right blue taxis. I didn’t want to deal with the haggling if it wasn’t and so we went to try to find other taxis.. this lead us down a very long long path that seemed never ending.. like we were stuck. Also we walked all through the shopping district I guess. The short of it is we walked a long way to find a taxi and later I found out that all the blue ones are part of the Blue Bird Group and would have been fine to take.

The Gist of it all.. I didn’t really care for Kuta very much at all.

The taxi driver we had was very nice and he took us to Dream Land beach.. it was a very loooonnng drive. We had no idea it was so freaking far. When we got there we realized that there was no way we were going to hail a cab back out of there so we started trying to find out from the driver just how we were going to get back out.. after a few minutes of confused discussion it was decided that he would wait for us while we went to explore. Great! Our cab so far was only at like 10 dollars on the meter even though we had been in the cab for an hour or more…

We head down the stairs and out along the side of this building and it was indeed a very pretty LITTLE piece of beach… (if you don’t look at all the trash that has washing into the inlet that is). I think we didn’t see all of it.. but the little piece we saw.. the waves were gigantic and there was no swimming allowed. Lots of tour buses showed up .. everyone piles out.. people snap lots of pictures and then they load back up and go… Except sometimes.. sometimes there is a bit of entertainment at the expense of the poor unsuspecting tourists.

Marlo and I crossed over a small water way and headed up to the top of a hill to just look down on everything. I lost a flip flop as the water rushed back out but by some miracle managed to get it back.

On two different occasions a tour bus full of people would off load down on to the beach area and start taking pictures and then a huge wave would come and knock everyone down, stealing many many pairs of shoes, ruining many camera’s, and scaring the crap out of small children (and parents) who wash into the inlet with the wave.

Now before you give me shit about not warning people.. this wasn’t something that we expected either.. most of the time things were calm and you would kind of forget there was this raging ocean who could throw a 6 foot wave toward the beach at any moment.

I actually started to get nervous that if the tide was coming in .. which it appeared to be .. we would be stuck.. on this hill.. not able to get back across. I was nervous going down the hill because I had a beach bag loaded with stuff, wet flip flops, and it was pretty much straight down jagged rocks. A very nice Indonesian man helped me down. Then when we got to the beach the inlet that we had crossed earlier had grown to about 6 ft wide and about 2 to 2.5 ft deep. I pulled my dress up over my waist kick the bag up to my shoulder grabbed my flip flops in my hands and ran across hoping the water didn’t suck me out into the ocean. I made it across just fine. Marlo along with everyone else who has not apparently had the same realization as we did are on the other side trying to figure out what to do… They all went further up and crossed at a different point which wasn’t as deep but to me seemed to be flowing stronger… Doesn’t really matter.. Marlo and I got back across without losing anything and without getting any of our camera’s, iPhones etc. messed up.. That is more than I can say for many folks there that day.

Our driver was cool.. he was always keeping up with where we were and waiting nearby in case we were ready so he was right there when it was time to go.

Back to Sanur, dinner, rest of the night was pretty uneventful

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