Bali Day One

My fiance and I just spent a week in Bali, Indonesia. This is from the travelogue that I did not keep past the first day:

After 30+ hours of travel, we arrived on Sunday night to the Bali airport in Denpasar to broken ATM machines and difficult decisions about whether to declare Gabe's oranges. For brief moments I was terrified we would spend the week in Bali without a way to get cash. But we found a working ATM and for probably the only time in our lives, we got to view bank balances in the tens of millions. After an hour and a half drive to Candidasa, we did little more than pick at the delicious traditional Balinese meal, then fell into a hard bed in sticky heat with only a single three-blade fan to cool us, and had the best sleep of our lives.

Ryan warned us we would wake with the sun, around 6:30am, and his prediction was vindicated, for me at least. Gabe was still deeply asleep beside me as I rose, found the villa's promised yoga mats, and padded outside to the postage stamp lawn. The sun rising to my left, I faced the ocean and practiced five rounds of sun salutations. It was the most peaceful and beautiful I have felt in so long.

It is impossible to write about the events of today without overshadowing them with our accident. John, Ryan, and Gabe rented scooters. I was too afraid, as is usual for me, but rather than stay at home, my compromise was to wrap my arms around Gabe's belly and ride on the scooter behind him. I was terrified at first, but seeing Gabe's pleasure and exhilaration at driving gave me pleasure and exhilaration. Driving in Bali is nerve-racking for so many reasons, and the rain--which I assume we will face daily (as it is the rainy season)--exacerbates them all. After riding many hours to visit the Taman Ujung Water Palace and the Water Temple at Tirtagangga,  we were mere meters from home, when, having missed what we thought was our turn, Gabe attempted a turnaround on a slick incline out of a parking lot. The bike slipped out from beneath us and sent us skidding over the gravel.

Immediately, we were surrounded by people who wanted to help. They got us to our feet and aimed hoses at the dirt that stuck in our wounds. Gabe had landed squarely on his shoulder and suffered a deep contusion, but thankfully no dislocation or breakage. He had a deep, large scrape on his elbow and is already proud of the scars he will undoubtedly grow. I was not as injured: a big scrape on my knee and cuts on my right hand, with minor scrapes on my elbow, arm, and shoulder. Gabe seemed to have a tear in his eye when he told me how thankful he was that I wasn't badly hurt. I knew the feeling.

The Australian owner of the Bayside Bungalows took good care of us, strangers. He sent one of his staff for iodine at a nearby "dokter," then sent two more to see us home: one to drive us in a van and a second to follow with the fateful rented scooter. Our brains mush from the accident, we mumbled apologies to the driver as we stared desperately, trying to remember where we were staying in this new town that had not even known us 24 hours. Finally, we were relieved to find our road, which Gabe will attribute to me, but what was really a lucky accident of our driver. We paid the scooter owner 100,000 rupia for the damaged bike (about $9USD), then limped home to Villa Nilaya.

This was our first day in Bali.