Bali

June 23. Pemuteran to Canggu. 135 km

This is a map of Bali.

I had a nice ride over the hills to get to Canggu. The back roads in Bali are quite nice and way less traffic. But once I got to the coast road it was very busy. I thought I new where a decent hostel would be close to the shipping company I was using. When I go there, they were full. Just down the road I found the Berawa Beach Surf Stay. It was great. The guy who lived there and ran it was a French guy name Fred who grew up in Africa. He had spend the last 20 something years surfing in Indonesia and now had an Indo wife. He spoke French, English, Italian, Spanish, and Indonesian. It was really impressive listening to him talk to guest after guest in one language then another. Canggu is about 20 minutes (by scooter) north east of Kuta. It is a very chill area and was quite a nice place to hang out for a few weeks. BB Facebook page.

Amazing fried chicken. 

The giggling girls who made the chicken

Sasquatch crossing? 

Apparently this works to sell cigarettes.  

They just love taking corners way to fast. 

Fred's sweet custom Honda 150. It was very fun to ride. 

View from the top

Truly a paradise. 

Kites. Huge kites. it was kite flying season. 

June 24 until July 8

A Kiwi named Shane was about 3 months into his RTW on a DR650. He and I had been emailing back and forth and he made it to Canggu the day after I did. The girls I met a few days before in Mt Bromo (Kim and Lucia) wanted to go out that night. So Shane and I went into Kuta to meet up. The next night they came to Canggu to stay at our place for the next few days. Its really easy to get sucked into paradise so everyone would wake up in the morning planning to leave, then say "I'll leave tomorrow". There was a Deus Ex Machina shop in Canggu Shane and I went to check it out the custom bikes. They made bikes, surfboards, clothing, art, there was bar, cafe and even a barber shop. What started as custom bike shop had turned into a full out hipster haven. The bikes were cool but they were 3x the price they should be. Regardless, they had a free rock concert every Sunday night. On a Wednesday they were having a viewing of the movie "Why we ride". The movie itself is decent, but it is very "California" if that makes sense. The 2 parts that resonated with me was an interview with Ted Simon and an interview with Dave Barr. Both did solo travels around the world. They both expressed the same emotions that I have been feeling. I'll admit, it was hard to hold the emotions back and I did tear up some. Shane is in the first 2 months of his journey and I told him I was envious of him right now. His life is going to change so much. Much more than you can comprehend. All I could say was "You are going to have such a good time".

A few bikes from Deus Ex.

They all left in one form or another the next day. Shane went west toward Java, Sumatra, the rest of his RTW. Kim (South African) went back to Kuta. Lucia (Hungarian girl) left east toward Lombok and some other islands for a month on a rented scooter. I gave her a raincoat, sleeping bag and some tie down straps I didn't want to take with me to Oz.

Saying good byes...

Shane is still going. I'm not sure how he hasn't totaled his DR yet. 

My Indo visa was only a 30 day visa so I needed to extend it before the 30^th of June. I went to the Indonesian immigration office on Thursday the 26^th but I was to late. The office is open 8:00 to 11:00 pm. I went back the next day with my paperwork filled out. They said "Come back on the 2^nd to pay."

"Will I get my passport back on the 2^nd?"

"No. Maybe on the 4^th".

So just to be clear about this. You go to the office one day to hand in paperwork. You come back a few days later to pay. Then you come back a 3^rd time to get your passport and visa. Ok this seems simple enough.

In the office I met a very cute little Russian girl who was going through the same trouble. We talked for a while and She gave me her number. I would pick her up on the 2^nd on a scooter to go pay for our visas.

"Power is off in building. We cant take payment".

"I can't just give you the money and you do the computer work when power comes back on?"

"No. Come back tomorrow between 8 and 11".

My Russian friend left on a tour for a few days so I went back alone the next day.
"Is power on?"

"Yes."

"Cool, can I do payment?"

"No. System is down"

Ok. this is getting lame. The next day was same thing. Saturday I she was back and we went together. The office was open for cleaning but not for business. We went back on Monday (at this point I already had a flight from Bali to Oz the next day). On Monday the 7^th of July, they finaly said they could accept payments. She went first. They told her "you can get your passport Wednesday". This was't going to work for me. I told them I have a flight and I need my passport back. They took an hour to find it and I went home. That night my Russian friend and I had one last date.  That's all you get to know.

During this time I spent about 4 days cleaning the motorcycle because I had heard horror stories about Oz. I dissembled the bike piece by piece and spent countless hours washing parts individually in a tub like I was washing dishes. 3 days of cleaning and 1 day of assembly. In order to ship on the airplane, I had to drain the petrol, oil and disconnect the battery. At first they told me I needed to drain the battery. I told them its a sealed battery and there is no possible way to drain it without ruining it. It seemed to work. Later, they told me I needed to remove the spark plug cap also. Luckily I had a spare spark plug under my seat. I told them "this is the spark plug".

Supplies

Teardown

Washing EVERYTHING!

Putting her back together. I'm not sure why it took so long. Maybe there was distraction.

Cleanest she has been in years.

Even girls who aren't single want a pic on her.

I had been quoted around $1800 for a 200kg crate. When I brought the bike to the shipping agent, they said "this is to big, it will cost more". The airline charges by kg or meters cubed.. depending how they can make more money. With everything but my wind screen, the bike and crate was 3 cubic meters. Apparently 1 meter cubed = 165 kg or something ridiculous like that. So the new cost for shipping the bike as it sat would be about $4,600. I wanted to tell them to get bent but I needed to get to oz. I went back to the hotel and had a beer to think. I looked at pictures of the bike on my computer and did some calculations of the size if I removed parts. All said and done I was able to get the bike down to 2 cubic meters. The tires, forks, front fender, part of the fairing and headlight were removed. Price now was $2400. Tough to swallow but oh well. Moral of the story, Indo to Oz is stupid expensive. Turns out you might be better to buy a bike in Oz while you are there. I will rant about that next time.

All crated up.

At Immigration in the airport I had to explain why I was 10 days overstay on my visa. I knew I would have to pay 200,000 rupiah per day overstay. This was about $17 a day. In the little office I explained to them why I did not extend. I showed them all the paper work. It didn't matter. Then I went to pay them 2M rupiah and they told me the fee charged to 300,000 rupiah per day on the 4th of July. I went back out to an ATM and pulled another 1M Rupia out. It was only after I paid and I was on the plane I thought "Dammit, 4 of those days should have been at 200,000 rupia. It would have saved me $20". Basically, spend the time and get the LONG visa before you get to Indonesia. Their Immigration is ridiculous to deal with.