Roland Loges is one of those extraordinary
charactors that you meet every once in a while by chance of a lifetime and I am sure not the kind of guy who is easily befriended by any Tom, Dick or Harry. My impression of him is that he chooses who he hangs out with and I consider myself very privillaged to have met him and gained his friendship and respect as he has mine. He is a proffesional diver and dives all over the South East Asian Islands and seas wherever there is good places for diving. He takes out of this world kind of underwater pictures and to my utter surprise offered to download for me all the pictures he had taken most recently and gave them to me in two CDs. Roland is from Switzerland spends half his time working while the other half among the coral reefs of the underwater world!
charactors that you meet every once in a while by chance of a lifetime and I am sure not the kind of guy who is easily befriended by any Tom, Dick or Harry. My impression of him is that he chooses who he hangs out with and I consider myself very privillaged to have met him and gained his friendship and respect as he has mine. He is a proffesional diver and dives all over the South East Asian Islands and seas wherever there is good places for diving. He takes out of this world kind of underwater pictures and to my utter surprise offered to download for me all the pictures he had taken most recently and gave them to me in two CDs. Roland is from Switzerland spends half his time working while the other half among the coral reefs of the underwater world!
Had my final dinner with the three European friends I have hung out with last night and this morning they are all headed for their various destinations. The two Austrians will head for Culik to find their way to the islands for diving and the Swiss Padangbai where he has some friends and later head out into the sea for the same reasons. I have booked a seat on the shuttle bus for Ubud where they had all agreed upon would be the perfect destination for me.
Took a walk along the Kuta Beach area and was less than impressed with the whole scene of tourists and locals hanging out amidst all the surfboards and shopping houses and busy traffic. Nothing special if one had been to Miami Beach or the Tanjung Bungah in Penang. Except for the surf boards the rest looked like no different with the locals trying very hard to make the tourist pay and the beach bums immitaitng beach bums all over the world with their long hairs and sun burned skin, dork glasses and Bermuda shorts that has been well abused. The exotic Bali identity does not exist in Kuta except in the enclaves of the many small hotels and lodges snugged within the surrounding area
s where the gardens are well decorated with an attempt at replicatng the original Bali look.
Thus far I am beginning to get the feel for my journey as I learned more and more from those that I have met, I gather from their experiences of having been here before the do's and dont's, the reasons for the need to leave their home and the ups and downs of life itself from their perspective. We laughed over common jokes and passed the time in trying to understand eachother. Roland the Swiss was quite a character whose idea about living is work six months and travel the rest. He has been to almost all over the South East Asian Archipelago from the Celebis and Sulawesei to the Thai Burmese Border, from the Philipines to the Comodo Isand.
The Sorga (Heaven) Hotel is a decent place to stay but is still quite expensive if you are on a tight budget. The people who run the place like most of the others are polite and helpful all the time a smile on their faces.
The flights and Hotels has pretty much chipped out at my budget and I have to start managing it better if I am to stay on till my departure date. I had been very fortunate to have been treated to most of my food and drinks by my new found friends who themselves are I am sure keep a close tap on their wallets. But as my friend Tony in Solo has reminded me 'mind your manners' and you will go faR. So far so good and knock on wood i hope my luc
k will keep on getting brighter as my journey north to Ubud continues.
Took a walk along the Kuta Beach area and was less than impressed with the whole scene of tourists and locals hanging out amidst all the surfboards and shopping houses and busy traffic. Nothing special if one had been to Miami Beach or the Tanjung Bungah in Penang. Except for the surf boards the rest looked like no different with the locals trying very hard to make the tourist pay and the beach bums immitaitng beach bums all over the world with their long hairs and sun burned skin, dork glasses and Bermuda shorts that has been well abused. The exotic Bali identity does not exist in Kuta except in the enclaves of the many small hotels and lodges snugged within the surrounding area
s where the gardens are well decorated with an attempt at replicatng the original Bali look.Thus far I am beginning to get the feel for my journey as I learned more and more from those that I have met, I gather from their experiences of having been here before the do's and dont's, the reasons for the need to leave their home and the ups and downs of life itself from their perspective. We laughed over common jokes and passed the time in trying to understand eachother. Roland the Swiss was quite a character whose idea about living is work six months and travel the rest. He has been to almost all over the South East Asian Archipelago from the Celebis and Sulawesei to the Thai Burmese Border, from the Philipines to the Comodo Isand.
The Sorga (Heaven) Hotel is a decent place to stay but is still quite expensive if you are on a tight budget. The people who run the place like most of the others are polite and helpful all the time a smile on their faces.
The flights and Hotels has pretty much chipped out at my budget and I have to start managing it better if I am to stay on till my departure date. I had been very fortunate to have been treated to most of my food and drinks by my new found friends who themselves are I am sure keep a close tap on their wallets. But as my friend Tony in Solo has reminded me 'mind your manners' and you will go faR. So far so good and knock on wood i hope my luc
k will keep on getting brighter as my journey north to Ubud continues.
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