Head south, young man.

It was surprising hard for me to leave Kuta (about 7 or 8 days ago). I had become surprisingly installed in a place that is the antithesis of what I think I am looking for. It was a gross town, but I think I just really needed to stay in the same place for a while.

They have a bar there with drinking contests. A wall of fame and all. One guy wrote "Scottish. We invented drunk". He drank 8 shots in 49 seconds (shortly after that I puked and got thrown out). Seriously though, this beach is like Daytona during spring break. Every night, all night. I've driven to Daytona, more than once.. well three times actually. One time I even took a bus. Now that's dedication to the cause... and embarrassing. Here its less embarrassment that I feel and I see it more of an opportunity to make some serious fun of whats going on. I saw a 40 year old man in dockers and tucked in dress shirt (loafers with no socks... yes I'm serious) rolling around on the floor because he couldn't get up, grinding against pillars and then fighting the boyfriend of one the hottest girls in the world (boy did I ever get a thrashing that night :). Its fun, but gets tired. If I open up my encyclopedia of clichés I would find Kuta under "a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there (for long)". There are also some of the hottest bodies that I have ever seen in waking life parading around in almost nothing, which is more tortuous, but somehow doesn't get tiring. Strange.

Most of the tourists on Kuta beach are from Australia. I guess its kind of like me going to Daytona for a holiday. The touts pick up on that type of thing and tend to say "mate" a lot. Their Ts tend to come across as Ks to the uninitiated. "You want to buy a Tshirt Mike? Transport? Hey Mike, massage? Woman Mike? You want a blow? Marijuana Mike? You like Charlie?".... I don't even know the man... How do I know you? It was a serious problem. I kept taking double takes at touts, hawkers, drug dealers, whores and legitimate massage types alike where a single take is too much to offer in most circumstances. It is a sign of weakness; of interest; of certain infestation to a man who thinks he just heard his name and a special kind of hell for a man who absolutely HATES being hustled. I once got pulled out of the window of a truck like bus by a throng of very hungry and enterprising taxi drivers in Laos at 3am. I didn't like it before that night and especially don't like it now. Its also part of traveling alone and I've inherited oodles of behavioral expectation from those lonely male travelers who have come before. I am a freaking magnet walking down the street past 2am (in any country). We (tourists) created this in a culture which is otherwise deeply spiritual, honest and timid (at least from what I have seen during my limited time here).

It did feel strangely like bizzaro land home though. I had wheels (decrepit and dangerous wheels, but wheels all the same), I liked my hotel (although it was too expensive for what it was), I had a dude who I rented my surfboard from in the morning, I knew where to go and get good, cheap coffee, I knew how to get around the one way roads and back into town (I went days! without getting lost). If I wanted to spend a $1 on some delicious nasi goring, $2 on a whole red snapper, or $3.50 on some great pizza it was all there. I knew the name of the guy who checked my bags for bombs when I went for my free Internet glut in the evening.

It was kind of creepy staying almost directly across from the previous site of the Sari Club, but they have a nice little memorial. The locals say that they are about 65% recovered from the mayhem, but the last 35% will take quite a long time methinks.

As soon as I left I felt good about it, but I had dug myself in with a fair bit of inertia. It was definitely time, although tough to get away. The commute was taking way too much out of me. Its not the physical side of it (although I was generally exhausted from a morning surf), but it was concentrating so intently all the way there, concentrating so intently 400ft over the ocean for the afternoon and turning around and doing it again. My brain just isn't built for that type of thing these days and I would arrive back at my room twitching, covered in pollution with contacts that where glued to my eyeballs with a heady brew of noxious dust and goo. Then there was that fucking scooter, forged from the depths of hell.