Bali

Sunday 10th September

So after much chatting and debate, Cris had made it to Indonesia and had e-mailed me that he was in Bali from Friday 8th. All I needed to know. He’d e-mailed the hotel he was at, so job done, flight booked and Cris was already on the ground checking out the nightlife and hotspots. I had about 2 seconds thought for the 911 anniversary date but decided if I was going to get whacked by a tea towel terrorist, I might as well be doing something suitably satanic and bohemian – like sitting on a beach or, god forbid, listening to a live band in a bar!

The departure was rudely early, but at least there were no Heathrow-esque queues so check-in was fairly straightforward. I hadn’t paid much attention to the time difference but when the pilot announced a flight-time of 2 hours 15 minutes, I was mildly shocked. I’ve since found out that Darwin is closer to Jakarta than Sydney – go figure! The bonus was that I’d be arriving at 1030am local time – how cool!

On arriving, I had my suspicions that there’d be a rip off taxi affair to take me to Kuta Beach – O was expecting to arrive in Denpasar – which was 30 minutes by car from Kuta. – so when I was quoted 45,000 Indonesian beer tokens, I thought I was onto a winner. Imagine my surprise when 10 minutes later, I was rocking up at the hotel – I consoled myself with a Bintang and the thought that at 16000 to the pound, I was only down 3 quid! The hotel was a winner as well, they immediately offered me 20% discount on the rooms. Scenting blood, I ambitiously tried for 50%, but alas, like most of SE Asia, scratch the surface and you find that things aren’t what they seem. This ‘discount’ was the ploy for making an admittedly good deal sound even better but the grommets running the hotel couldn’t negotiate any more. Still, bargain, so in I checked. This experience, sadly, left me thinking that most, if not all, of the island was like this which nearly got me fingered heavily when I met ‘Steady’ and ‘Eddie’ of the ‘newly dropped box of surfwear t-shirts’ fame!

Cris was still in bed when I belled him at 11am and he took another hour to rock up – but hey, he’s on holiday and got in at 6am that morning – dirty stop-out! The hotel had a wireless internet set-up which was great value for money, until I discovered that I’d left my adaptor back in Darwin, which was priceless. Muppet. Anyway, let the holiday begin!

The majority of the week was beach, booze, clubs and broads, well, at least the broads could be looked at. I expected more of Thailand-style go-go bars and what not, but there was none of that, except a dodgy karaoke bar we discovered on Thursday! Cris did a wicked murder of ‘Sexual Healing’, a difficult song at the best of times but I guess Cris got carried away with the emotion of the night! The thing that really surprised me though was the number of times we were offered drugs – considering the penalty is death, this really surprised me. In fact, the various taxi drivers or lads looking shifty on the street corner were more concerned with our drug and whore intake than we were. None of it appealed though and we weaved our merry way through the bars and clubs of the area. The very weird one way system seemed designed to just take your money, as we never had a direct route to where we wanted to go – be it bar or home.

On our last night we discovered that the main drinking drag was where the bombs had gone off in 2002 and the Paddy’s bar we were at most nights was one of the targets. Luckily, no Jihadi decided to make a point so the evenings were very uneventful in that respect. Mind you, there were some wicked dance bars and we saw a great fire show at another bar. A darts game we played in one bar was possibly the most outlandish we’ve ever played, being a computerised plastic board with plastic darts. It was so bizarre, we had to play a few games (which I won, eh Cris?!) but a definite highlight was a bar with a live band called Crazy Horse who were fantastic. We found out later that the band had won the Indonesian version of ‘Pop Idol’, so they were either very good, or cheesily shite, depending on your point of view. We enjoyed in though, which says, well, I dunno, but something!

One restaurant that deserves mention was the 'Bubba Gump Shrimp Restauant' - I shit you not. What a scream that was. After selecting our meals, you turn over a plate that says 'run forrest run' and the waitress runs over screaming 'run forrest'. It's idiotic, but I loved it. Good shrimps too, although I thought the portions were a bit small!! Typical!

All good things come to an end though and after a week, I headed back to Darwin. Cris subsequently e-mailed a picture of his mail-order bride he met in a bar after I’d left. A dancer apparently. Umm huh, I see mate ;-0) Meanwhile, I was back to 35 degree heat and 90% humidity – only in Australia….!!

This, believe it or not, is the airports only smoking area. I had to laugh!!