Day 10: Bingin Beach, Bali

This was probably one of my favorite days. I knew we would be at some crazy exotic place but to my surprise, it was even more exotic than I could have ever imagined. Yet it felt so familiar to me, because it was straight out of my dreams. It's that kind of place you really can only dream of..so you sort of laugh when it's actually happening in front of you.

Well we left around 10am from Kuta to Bingin Beach with our driver Wayan. It was a long drive, but very scenic.

This here is the God of the Ocean. Love it!

So we get to Bingin Beach and all I remember my brother Mitch telling us is that they stayed at some little bungalow place on the top of the cliffs and they walked down each day to surf. So we checked out each room, like we were starting to get used to from our last visit in Kuta. Each room smelled or urine, and there weren't any sheets, and no roof in the jungly terrain. I'm no city girl, but I'm definitely not a happy camper when it comes to the bed and bathroom. You really start to reconsider everything you believe in, like sleeping on the ground, or a roof, when you're a 3rd world country like Indonesia. I used to think I could tough anything. But this bungalow, NO WAY. I walked in, and the smell of urine was so overwhelming that I walked right out, and shook my head, in front of Wayan, the landowner & Drew. No shame. Well, Drew had already given the deposit and I was sweating through my clothes and all I wanted was to get my body in some water. So I just unpacked quickly to find my suit, and booked it. I walked to the cliff's edge and DYING. The ocean was so close, yet so far away. It was literally a vertical drop, with trees blocking my vision of the path. 

The above photo is Drew asking Wayan if he could drive down somehow to show us the hotels on the sand. Well of course, there was no way to drive down there, only to walk to check them out. Frustrate because Drew already paid the lady like 20 or 30 bucks..but I mean come on. The whole reason we came here was to be on the sand. Not a grassy jungle with a gazebo view of the ocean. Remember it's like 99% humidity and 99 degrees outside. So the idea of walking down to check out other options was a dread, but I told Drew, if he made me sleep in that bugalow, I would make for a very unhappy person. And Drew later said that I wasn't overreacting.. so that was good that I wasn't the only one freaking out. Sleeping without a roof is one thing. Sleeping in a room with urine, not so good. Drew also said it was probably the wood and with the humidity, it made the wood smell. Hmm.

So while they were talking, this is what I was looking at.. (below)

What my brother didn't tell us was that the walk down was like a 15-20 minute walk. It's steep, but most importantly, sorta dangerous. You have to watch every step or you'd fall flat on your face, on the rocks. But we did it! And this is what we found:

 

I remember standing in this little hut over looking the ocean, and just drooling..and also suck down all the water we had left. All we had brought down with us to check out other places was water, some cards to play with, and my camera. And maybe some snacks. But really nothing. 

As we were trying to find a place, we soon realized there were like 10 options, all looked relatively similar, so all it was was finding a place that was far away from all the girls & their surfer boyfriends. There were A LOT- topless beautiful women. Later in the next few days, they slowly started disappearing, so really it was just that one day. 

Anyways- we find a perfect place..and they tried ripping us off, but we don't do that. So Drew got us a deal..by saying "If we chose your hotel over everyone else's, you have to give us... "It worked! This was us waiting to cool off before we went back out there:

The hotel was a beautiful dark wood with white walls. We had about 5 staircases and one hill to walk up to actually get to our bedroom, but that was A-Ok with me! We later realized we had the nicest hotel on the beach and for only $30 a night? Okay!

All we had was a bed, a fan that was attached to the wall, a balcony to dry our towels and suits, and a bathroom. Not really a roof, but who cares when you have the ocean right there? Really! It made us think we could buy (one far distant day) a shack on the ocean, and let it be a shack because the ocean is really all we care about.

We stayed in the room for a good 20 minutes talking about how we're going to get all our TONS of luggage down that dreadful hill. With my sprained ankle in recovery, we knew it would take me like 4 hours to go up and down. So Drew asked the hotel managers if he could pay them to help. You say the word money to them, and they'll do anything! Wayan (one of the managers) offered her niece. Haha. Poor girl was like 80 pounds and 10 years old, maybe. She put a towel on her head and put that 50 pound suit case on top of her head, and walked right down. I hope she doesn't have back problems, but I'm sure she does this all the time.

These were all photos from our balcony. The last was of the locals bathing. Literally scrubbing their bodies, with their clothes on..or atleast most of them had clothes on.

Does it get any better than this? Nope!