Bali
Trip Start
Oct 10, 2007
1
54
78
Trip End
Jun 26, 2008
Balikpapan, Indonesia
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Our first day here was spent acclimatising to the tropics. Hot and humid is the order of the day, but as we don't have anything to do other than mooch about it's fine by us! First stop was the beach, which to be honest wasn't really impressive. I think there have been a few storms here over the last few days so the sand was full of litter and many trees were leafless. It looked like there'd been a hurricane recently. Luckily we've had our beachy fix recently in Koh Chang, so headed away from the beach to explore Kuta.
Kuta has a reputation as being a bit of a party area, but as it's out of season we haven't found anything too raucous. We've spent a lot of our time chuckling at the obscene stickers for sale. I'm not sure why, but these appear to be Big Business, with most destined, presumably, for the bumper of the less cultured Australian's 'ute. They range from the downright insulting, Al Pacino inspired "fun you, you funnning fun" through to the utterly foul "I fun amputee midgets" right to the virtually incomprehensible (and anatomically spurious) "I ride my own vomit rod". Is there really a market for this? It would appear, in Kuta, yes.
The weather here has been mixed - very rainy and stormy for the first couple of nights but yesterday and today have been much more like you'd expect. Sun and cirrus-wisped skies suit the beach much more than vast, black cumulus so we spent yesterday afternoon supping the local brew (Bintang), chatting about our coming tour of Australia and generally doing holiday type things. Speaking of local brews, we have taken a liking to the local palm spirit, arak. Neat, it's a bit like meths - you take a sip and your eyelids immediately close against the feeling that the back of your eye is going to press itself through the cornea. We noticed that local bars sell Arak Attacks, which mix the spirit with orange juice, so in response we've concocted the Arak No Phobia - a hefty shot of the liqor, the juice of half a lime, some honey (appropriated from our free breakfast buffet each morning) topped off with soda water. It's a cracking drink! Plus, at around a pound fifty for 75cl it's cheap as the proverbial chips (which, ironically, are more expensive).
After chilling out for our first two nights, we opted to head out with our antipodean cousins for a Friday on Kuta town. It was good fun; we found a bar run by the local Harley Davidson club which was a belting place. A bit like a Hard Rock Café, but far less expensive, they had Harley memorabilia dotted around the place and played classic 80s rawk. Bonnie Tyler, Bon Jovi and The Cranberries (?!?) were the order of the evening. It was dead, though - just Em and I - so I played some pool with a bored bartender whilst drinking our Arak Attack Jam Jar (a fish bowl filled with the aforementioned cocktail). We were inevitably joined by an Australian couple who had "been on the Bintangs all day". The bloke was alright, even if he did make the mistake of asking Em how old she thought he was - she reckoned 38 but he was actually 34. Oops! His ladyfriend, however, was well tanked up and persisted in wandering round the dancefloor in a stupor. You can only really get away with slowly swaying and staring at your feet when listening to early nineties stuff (Slowdive, Chapterhouse et al); it doesn't really cut it when AC/DC are belting out. After her eighth shambling circuit she decided Em and I were stiff and typically English because we wouldn't join her on her lonely stumble, along with her feller who became very interested in his Jim Beam. We left soon after for food....
Anyway, today's our last day here and we're off to Darwin tonight, which we're looking forward to. We've sourced a hostel that offers free pancake breakfasts (hom) and has a pool, plus cooking facilities so we'll finally be able to recreate our Thai grub that we cooked in Chang Mai. I think the weather in Darwin is going to be as hot and humid as here, so we won't be up to much other than lounging, with a bit of relaxing and some more chilling out. Hope all's well with you, wherever you are!
Take care and prepare yourself for our next installment of inactivity!!
Andy
xXx
