In the land of extortion, you have to watch your back, as word has it ...

SUMMER 2008By Chelsea PavoneSafe at home in Hawaii, I’d like to share a few stories,insights and mishaps that took place while travelingthrough Indonesia last year.After changing planes three times and nearly 24 hours of traveling,we arrived in Bali. Even our luggage arrived in good shape andcontrary to what your cautious family warns you about, nobodyslipped drugs in our bag and there were no police waiting to arrestus and demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars for our release.Assured we weren’t going to jail, we made our way through theairport with ease. Will had warned me that he gets nervous aboutflying, but he really was a breeze… even carrying my heavy bag.What a doll!Our passports were stamped and there were about a thousand taxicab drivers waiting outside, all with different prices though generallycheaper as you move on down the line. Everyone spoke Englishand all the cab drivers carry straps to tie your board bags to the topof the car. Smart. I guess about half the tourists in Bali are surfers.We stayed in the city for two days and surfed Kuta Beach alongwith a million other people. We strolled around town for the dayand at night we met up with my good friend Nancy, who had beentraveling around Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.She convinced us to go out on the town for the night, and eventhough I’m not much of a late night, clubbing, bar-hopping type ofperson, it ended up being great for people watching.Bali is sort of a hodge-podge of locals and tourists, but even withthe mix of cultures, drinking and dancing is the universal languagefor all young city goers. We started at a nice enough looking club, alocal band sang top 80’s hits while dolled up Japanese girls bouncedup and down on the dance floor-innocently enough. But as theclock struck twelve, the place transformed into a seedy go-godancer almost borderline strip club. I watched an 18 year old Englishkid stuff 10,000 rupia (the equivalent of about 11 cents) into ag-string and that was it. Gross. We left.We meandered through the Kuta Beach festival, an annual benefitconcert to remember victims of the 2002 bombings.The band played something vaguely reminiscent of TheClash, but people weren’t quitedancin’ like they did whenThe Clash rocked theCasbah, so after asnack of roadsidebbq corn on thecob we movedon.We foundanotherswankyclub and Isank intotheir comfy32 | womenssurfstyle.com | wSSm