The thing about Kuta is...

It’s an easy place to lose sight of what you’re “supposed” to be doing.  At any given moment it is someone’s Cancun or Thailand or Ibiza (at this very second there is a girl down in the large courtyard of our hotel, belting out ‘I Will Always Love You’ at the top of her lungs – she’s Swedish so there is a bit of the song lost in her accent) and even at my age I find it’s easy to wake up with a hangover and wonder where the past 6 days have gone.   I was warned about the undertow carrying me out into the Indian Ocean, but no one warned me about the undertow of this town.  My last week or so (I’ve really lost count)in Kuta has been starkly different compared to my waking up at 6 a.m. for a nice jog followed by breakfast at 7:30 a.m. to the backdrop of roosters and a heavy contemplation of life.   Even sitting down to write this blog, there are so many ways to get distracted and remain on the surface of this place (and I don’t even have an iphone anymore!!).  In other parts of Bali it has been easy for me to pull out my brushes and paint a lovely picture of my experiences but here it feels like all of the paint has mushed together into a nondescript color of shit.  Sure you can find culture anywhere you go, but in this town one can become easily distracted by the thick, buff, shirtless Australians sprinkled down the beach in their tiny shorts and ridiculous neon sunnies (sunglasses), $2 beers at sunset and cheap nasi goreng.  Of course there is the energy of the younger crowd here which to most would sound like a good thing but when you look closer and recall your own youth, you remember searching for validation, acceptance and instant gratification but in search of that also comes rejection, feeling lost and unaccepted.  (It’s a tangible energy, as evident as the peaceful energy in the countryside of Uluwatu or the desperate search for peace in Ubud.) Kuta for the most part is like that – a melting pot of all the bad things Bali has to offer: Bintang, ephedrine, bad tattoos, horrible music, unabashed prostitutes, sly pickpockets, easy meaningless sex and mass consumption.  Every morning at breakfast you can hear what I call the “Kuta Cough” – this thick, ill-sounding cough full of infection and mucus probably obtained from kissing some random person(s) in the middle of the foam party at The Bounty (a foul, jam-packed nightclub down the street).  Much like the “Vegas Ick” you can tell a person has been up to no good when they develop the “Kuta Cough”.  It’s like a never-ending cold in the lungs.  

There’s even a couple at my hotel who we’ve nicknamed “the ‘fuck you’ couple” because every single time you pass them, they are quietly but aggressively in an argument with each other.  They smash things on the floor, and then get really close to each other and speak in strange hateful tones.  And when you look at them they IMMEDIATELY say “fuck you!!” to your face.  Every single time.  At first it was shocking, but now it’s amusing. 

This town feels like it sold its soul for money ages ago.  Watching the locals perform their morning ceremonies in Kuta, I’m not even sure what they’re praying for: more travelers?  More guys vomiting in the rooms?  More people having animalistic sex in the middle of day with someone they barely know?  What happened to the kind locals with their curious minds and generosity?  Did we do that?  Did 30 years of disgusting tourist ruin Kuta?  In case you were unaware or have forgotten, the city of Kuta was the location of the 2002 Bali bombings which had aimed to kill…you guessed it, Americans.  But instead its’ victims were mostly British and Australian.  Had the suicide bombers who committed this crime knew anything about Kuta, they would have known that they were two hours too early as almost no one goes out before midnight, hitting max numbers around 1a.m.  Thank God for poor research.  But even as I reflect on all of the lack of spirit, culture, history and intent here, I’ll admit I’ve met people here who will have a permanent impact on my life.    

My first day in Kuta I stayed at a hotel recommended by my friend Sebastian.  This hotel was crap(home of the “fuck you couple”).  The bed was horrible and the bathroom constantly smelled like crap – which I’ve learned is from an improper or lacking u-pipe installation.  But there were two good things about this hotel: it only cost $12.50 per night and it had Ana.  I knew Ana would be great before I even met her because she was playing some fantastic music.  It was a combination of songs I’d heard back in the U.S. and some really lovely Spanish/Creole music which I would come to know as my soundtrack to Bali.  When she started playing Frank Ocean I knew I had to go say hi.  A young Portuguese girl traveling the world for the past year, Ana was incredibly nice, normal and helpful.  

Ana and I in our room at Suka Beach

When I asked her where I could get a beer she said “there’s a Cirkle K right on the street” so I explained to her that I wanted a social beer not a beer I grab from the convenient store (although that isn’t such a bad idea sometimes).  Ana told me to head down to the beach at sunset; there are a lot of tourists there and everyone goes to watch the day come to an end and have a Bintang. And that is exactly where I met my brothers. 

I was watching the sun slip into the Indian Ocean with hundreds of other people: Muslims, Hindus, tourists, Kuta Cowboys, etc. when I decided to head back to the hotel.  I wasn’t sure about open containers in Kuta so I asked a couple of cute guys if they knew the etiquette for drinking in the streets.   The perfectly shaggy blonde with blue eyes filled me in with a resounding “yes”.  Turns out not only is it allowed, it’s encouraged.  Then his friend who is a dead ringer for Channing Tatum (his adopted nickname for the trip) asked me if I wanted a beer.  Or maybe it was the Grant the blonde (pronounced Gront) who asked me to sit down, I don’t know either way this was how my adventure with the Aussie boys began.  Grant and Channing, both Australian, told me about their jobs working in the mines in Australia.  They fly to work every week.   That is how they get to work.  They hop on a flight and it takes them to the middle of nowhere and they spent a week on, a week off or something like that.  They both work in different mines; Channing works with dynamite, blowing up the mining areas and Grant does something considerably more technical.  They were both very nice, incredibly cute and absolutely without a doubt far too young for me, which suited me just fine as I am not on a mission to find love or sex or anything temporary and superficial like a “hook-up.”  The boys invited me back to go out with the group – five of them total and I accepted, wondering what I was getting myself into. 

Next thing I know, I’m in a hotel room with 5 Aussies, waiting for them to get ready to go out and we’re all 3 Bintangs in.  I spent the next 3 or 4 (lost count) days with my Australian brothers getting all of the graphic and hilarious details from their crazy sexcapades while we ate breakfast, lunch or dinner.  Each guy had his own personality:

Grant (pronounced Gront) a.k.a. “Frenchy” was the smart one.  He was the one who filled me in on all the details of everyone and he had some of the best stories of the group. 

Brad “OCD” was also very smart – living way under his potential, and also the most particular and sharp one of the group.  OCD could tell you the exact exchange rate of any currency at any given time, he knew the standard vs. metric conversions of everything and he seemed the most level-headed and clever one of the group.

Justin “Channing Tatum” was mega hot.  Channing Tatum made me thank God I’m not 10 years younger because I would have fallen for him simply on looks alone.  Throw in the dumb-as-a-rock wit, which he uses to his advantage, and you can’t help but love him anyways.  I couldn’t understand what Channing was saying half the time, but he always had a positive fun-loving disposition.  Channing Tatum gave me the nickname “Boxgap”.  He also looked through my phone at all of my naughty selfies (unbeknownst to me), so you can kind of say Channing has seen me almost naked.  Almost.  He bought me a rainbow-striped heart lollipop the night before he left.  It’s probably the nicest thing he did to a girl the entire time he was here.

Todd “Mr. Bean”.  When I heard the boys calling Todd “Mr. Bean” I thought there was no way they actually thought he looked like Mr. Bean.  His nickname actually came from his expressed love of baked beans, but also because the other boys pegged him as not being the sharpest crayon in the box.  But I don’t think that’s true.  If you get Todd to talk about the things he’s passionate about, the enormous jock would go on and on.  He was the tallest and most muscular guy of the group and the Indo women loved him.  They alllll wanted to give Beano a massage…

Warren “Asian”.  I call Warren the Asian because, well he’s half Philippine, half Kiwi.  But in my opinion he couldn’t be less Asian.  However Warren was the total package; funny, fun, smart, wild, hardworking and protective.  When I got my phone stolen it was Warren who went charging up to some of the Kuta punks, ready to spill blood for an iphone.  And OCD was right behind him.  Warren taught me some fantastic dance moves including “big fish, little fish, cardboard box”.

I don't have pictures of the boys because they won't email them to me because they are little punks, too busy with drinking beers instead of emailing their big sis. 

This group of guys had me laughing from the moment we met until the hours before they had to get on their plane.  I would wake up, go for my run, have my breakfast and then wait a few hours until the boys began to stir.  Then I would walk over to their much fancier hotel and they would tell me all of the incredibly graphic details of the previous nights’ debauchery.  I’ve heard some pretty raunchy stories in my day, but NOTHING comes close to what these precious boys were doing with their penises at night.  One of them woke up to a love note one morning thanking him for the fun times last night and the girl went on to say how much fun she had and it was too bad that he fell asleep during sex, before he had the chance to finish.  She left her name and number, “just to have fun, nothing else!”  One of the first nights we hung out, I unknowingly met and sat next to two girls who had had a foursome with two of the guys the previous night, switching partners and everything.  I can’t imagine what kind of friendship those two have.  Those same two guys had another foursome with another couple of girls, this time no switching but I think the girls made out with each other while the guys had sex with them?  (The look on my face as I’m writing this is priceless.  You’d think I was trying to do long division what with the way I’m trying to recall the details).  There were also a couple of stories of hooking up with one girl, either in the swimming pool or in their hotel room (with the other boys in the room in their beds ‘trying’ to sleep) and then going back out, hitting on another girl and having sex with her as well.  Oh, and some “happy ending” massages.  I still haven’t gotten a massage because of this.  I can’t tell which ones are real and which ones give the happy endings.  One day I came to the hotel and the second I walked in, one of my sweet angelic Aussie boys came over to me and proudly showed me his “sex knees”.  He had somehow found himself in the middle of nowhere with some girl out by her surf camp compound and as he wasn’t a guest there and they wouldn’t let him in, they decided to go for a walk in the middle of the night on a small road in the middle of the rice fields.  They laid down to look at the stars and the next thing you know…sex in the middle of the road.  He still doesn’t know where he was, but he paid some guy who happened to be driving down the road at 4 a.m. $10 to take him back to Kuta.  There was also another night that involved a prostitute and I’m pretty sure that was the only time a condom was ever used in this entire gluttonous trip. At one point I asked “sex knees” what he would do if he got that girl pregnant, seeing as he didn’t use protection and he didn’t pull out and his honest response was “I don’t even know her name.”   Now most of you may be disgusted by now but let’s not judge.  I’ll tell you right now, I spent 9 or 12 days in Kuta (it’s all the same, after a while you stop counting days) and these guys were hands down some of the best people I met in that shithole town.  It was like I had 900 pounds of security around me at all times.  When they left I actually felt their absence.  These guys love each other.  They genuinely want to be around each other, they sleep on one another in the car, they give each other backrubs.  They are nice to each other and close in a way I’ve never seen in a group of guys in America.  They would rather all be smashed into one car, sweating on each other than have two separate vehicles, lest they miss one moment together.  And they invited me along for EVERYTHING.  One night we went to a swanky restaurant where we each picked out our fresh seafood from buckets of snapper, tuna, lobster, clams, prawns and crabs.  The dinner tables were out in the sand right by the water and there were traditional Balinese dancers performing on both sides of us as well as a gorgeous lightning storm miles away over the ocean.  Another day I went with the boys – a couple of them badly hung over- to a paintball course and took pictures of them shooting each other at incredibly and illegally close range, laughing and screaming like little girls while they belly crawled and hid behind giant tires, freestanding walls and fake fighter jets.  On a side note, Beano killed it at the paintball range and OCD hit a guy square in the facemask, and from a considerable distance too.  I even got drunk with them one night – the only night I’ve been drunk in Bali.  We had a blast, we went to some bar and met Bam Margera and Channing and took pictures with him (lost forever in the iphone).  We danced our asses off at another club and I apparently took a disco nap in  Channing Tatum’s arms.  When they played 2Pac “California” I OWNED the dance floor, screaming out “I live there!!!” at the top of my lungs while pointing at my Brandy Melville California cropped tank.  I made OCD go to the highest part of the club with me and dance on some sort of stage.  The whole night was a blast.  Until I got my phone stolen because that’s what happens on Jalan Legian at SkyBar when you’re drunk.  You get pickpocketted or just straight up robbed, as Ana discovered when she looked down and the purse she was wearing (my Hobo bag) was gone.  It is absolutely unavoidable and there is nothing you can do about it except to not bring a single thing you would care to lose.  While I am very very upset that I didn’t even have that phone for a month and it’s already gone, I’m mostly sad that I don’t have a camera with me.  Thank God Ana is so generous and is letting me use her camera. 

On that note, let’s talk about Ana.  Hailing from Portugal, Ana is a 25 year old world traveler.  She has spent the last year backpacking all over the world with another friend of hers, Tutta or Tutti or something like that.  Ana is everything that I am not and I am able to observe her and she, me.  She has created the soundtrack to my experiences here and introduced me to some amazing genres of music.  We take energy from each other and for someone her age we are able to have really great conversations about energies, demons, reincarnation, love, lust and fashion.  Oh and boys.  Of course boys.  Ana’s travel partner met a guy her in Bali and she has disappeared into his love-nest in Canggu so Ana was on her own when I walked in to Chempaka 3.  I introduced Ana to the Australians as well as a trio of Italians I met in Uluwatu while lunching with the Aussies.  She and I hit it off right away (thanks to music) and after visiting the Italians’ hotel caddy corner to ours we decided to room together at Suka Beach, bringing my grand total per night to $6.50 and that includes breakfast and wi-fi.  I had a dream about the “fuck you couple” on our last night at Chempaka 3.  The next day And I packed up our things and hauled them across the street.  We owned that hotel the first few days.  We met Brits, Spaniards, Italians, Israelis, Swedes, Brazilians, Argentineans, Belgians and more.  We danced at Sky Garden when they would actually play good songs, we held hands to cross the street, we took turns buying the toilet paper, we shared water, soap and travel tips.  Ana could survive on less than $2 per day if she had to.  She’s a spicy little Portuguese girl who knows how to use her strengths.  She’s sweet and perfectly nurturing… And boy-crazy as hell.  Of course when I was 25 I couldn’t be stopped, so this is par for the course.  We go on adventures with some of the boys and it’s great to have a relatable female with me.  The Italians; Roberto, Ricardo and Davide (Rick, Rob and Dave) took us with them to a beach on the other side of Uluwatu, where we descended 300 stairs to the shore of a sparsely populated beach (three people when we showed up) and spent the day laying on the beach sunbathing, reading and writing.  We drove to different areas in the country, zipping down the roads on the scooters, stopping at every lookout point to check the waves.  We saw monkeys and cows and deserted tourist destinations.  It was so nice to get out of the city, breathe the clean air and shake off the gluttonous party energy that surrounded Kuta.  I’m so glad we got out of town that day.

Davide, Roberto and I at dinner at Gong Corner, our fave.

Ana doesn’t even care that I detest Sky Garden and refuse to go.  Almost every night we do dinner together, give each other a kiss and part ways at Jalan Poppies 2; her to the clubs and me back to the hotel.  I fell off of my routine for minute when we first got to Suka Beach and found myself drinking more than I had during the entire first part of the trip. After quite a few days of this I started feeling irritable, stuck and tired.  I had to get out of Kuta, I didn’t care how; I was losing hours and days to this place, I didn’t know how long I had been there, I didn’t know what day it was or what time it was.  One day I actually ran down the beach to Seminyak; I just kept going until I couldn’t see Kuta anymore, even traipsing through three river mouths to get away.  I decided I had to plan some one-offs from Kuta.  Being on a bit of a budget I couldn’t really afford to just up and move my stuff to Seminyak – plus I was scared to be honest. After traveling by myself it was nice to have someone to “come home to”, even if home disgusted me so much I would hardly get in the pool (if you knew what happened in that pool you wouldn’t get in either).  I was saving heaps of money but was it worth it if I was just wasting away in this place?  Then one day one of the Brits, seeing my discontent told me about a place called Lombongan – an island 12 miles east of the eastern side of Bali.  He told me about these bungalows that were like little houses right on the beach.  They were super quiet and lovely and he only paid $20 per night and the boat to get there cost $32 (normally $45 but I negotiated due to it being low season).  This was going to be an expensive one-off but I had to do it.  I was covered in bedbugs and fighting off some slight Bali Belly and everyone around me had some sort of drunken battle wound: the guy staying in the room next to ours jumped off the second story after taking mushrooms and broke his feet.  They moved him to a first floor room after he came back from the hospital – in a wheelchair.  Another girl had a full-on infection in her leg after wrecking a scooter and then stepping on something very sharp and dirty during an arak-fueled night of drunkenness.  A third guy started getting boils all over his body from lack of sleep and overconsumption of alcohol.  One of the boils developed staff and he ended up in hospital for a few days.  One morning while eating breakfast Ana looked up to see a girl puking off of the second floor balcony – WHY NOT THE TOILET????  Enough is enough.  I had been sucked into the vortex and I had to get out.  Jaimie Skittle (one of the Brits) took me to the spot to buy a ticket for the boat and I was on my way to Lembongan Island the next day.