I arrived at night in the torrential rain - oh dear. Then my room had cockroaches, big oh dear. I had to keep going out to get receptionist man to kill them with his broom. And there was no sink, not a problem, just a little odd. Nerves over the cockroaches kept me hot (under covers) and awake. But after that there was no more sign of any so it was fine, a bargainous room really cos there was a pool which i used in the morning. Went to the beach and swam in the late afternoon and kept out of the sun in between. In the sea i struck up a conversation with some English guys (yay me!) who turned out to be reeeally lovely. It was like having surrogate dads or big brothers for the next few days cos they took me out for dinners and to bars and generally looked after me. I went with them to a Deepwali party at an Indian restaurant which was great!! They're doing business with an Indian man in Bali so that's why they were invited. It was really fab, there's obviously a really tight community there, with the big mafia-type patriarch fellow there in the middle of it all. The women were wearing gorgeous saris.The music was great, really liked it. They had prize draws and games, like four corners - i vaguely remember playing it in Brownies! Hehe. And the food was delicious, proper naan!!! Finally. Yum. And an India v Pakistan cricket match was showing on tv, always interesting! We went after to a club called Karma Sutra, which was interesting too, hardly any westerners in there, i didn't like the hard dance music but then a band came on, they were actually pretty good! A funny mix of American, Austrian, Thai and locals in it, they did Black Eyed Peas covers and I Will Survive, a funny mix but a good one.
We went body boarding which was so much fun!! My first two trys i caught the waves all the way to shore, ha! FUN! On the beach we saw a religious gathering thing, hundreds of people all dressed in white...some sort of ceremony to pray to the gods (Bali is Hindu not Muslim, one of only 4 islands in Indonesia that isn't) against another tsunami. They put offerings to the gods outside every house and shop and in cars etc. and are generally very religious, but in a nice way.
I went a little mad on dvds again....oops.
I have no idea where the locals get some of their English phrases from, they're very funny. Like someone asked me where in England i was from - am i a cockney or a northern monkey? Those were my options, i had to disappoint him by being a boring southerner. They call the men Boss and the women Darling or Lovely (i blame some Welshman for that one). Who knows. It was quite annoying getting hassled constantly, you gotta be careful on the beach and stuff, like if you aren't very firm in your no's you'll be surrounded by people offering to sell you all sorts, massages, henna tattoos, jewellery, watches, etc. Annoying if you just want a bit of peace, which ya generally do on a beach! But they can't get ya in the water so it's ok!! I was warned by a nice German lady who'd been there for two weeks so had learned from experience.
We stopped to look at the bombing memorial, pretty sobering. Really sad, they were just on a night out having no part of whatever the political situation is that led to it. I don't understand it anyway.
On my last day i went white water rafting!! Another first. Wicked fun! I was put with a French girl and two Dutch guys, all lovely, so we were the European contingent, representing! :-) We were doing well when we nearly sank when we hit a tree that came outta nowhere, haha! The guide seemed to panic a bit, shouting at us to get to the front. It was very funny. But the Japanese capsized, so we were certainly better than them! Beautiful scenery, rice fields, jungles, nice to see a bit of Bali other than the beach. Especially because Kuta (the beach where i stayed) is incredibly westernised McDonalds, Starbucks, Hard Rock, Top Shop, Billabong, Carrefour, etc etc. So it was nice to see a different part. The river was near Ubud, the arty town. Anyway, and we overtook various Aussie rafts, haha, but then waited politely at the end and let them finish first. Doh! The end consisted of a 4m drop!! I was frightened as was one of the Dutch but it was really good! My poor toenail got broken somehow in the jump, and then further assaulted itself at the airport that night by banging into the stupid metal x-ray thing. I wasn't very impressed with the airport - there's an unannounced 'passenger service charge' - what service is that? that you have to pay after check-in, in cash (I'd been so pleased to have used all my currency!), and there's no ATM in the airport so you have to go outside, have a hunt for it (it's hidden behind a kiosk) then go through security again which is when my toe hit itself. And there was a ridiculous number of babies and small children on the flight. Grr. It does baffle me as to why people take little things on holiday with them when they're that young. Shrug. Bali was fun!
