Bali

We had both always wanted to go to Bali for years, lured by Kuoni images of rice paddies, strange Indiana Jones temples, exemplary craftsmanship and friendly locals.

We arrived in Kuta – home to a breed of young aussie, identifiable by the close sunken eyes, generally glazed, clueless yet dangerous-if-poked expression and body of sculpted meat that you would associate with ‘Donk’ of Crocodile Dundee fame. In order to identify these creatures, and so that they could identify each other they were all branded with Bintang singlets of various colours. They could generally be found around watering holes that sold cheap beer and Viagra. We found their diet, although largely liquid-based, also consisted of KFC or McDonalds, though it has to be admitted it was the best MackyD’s we ever had. Here was the Shag-a-luf of Indonesia. Our initial reaction was God help us!

Thankfully, we were not alone, and with our new-found friends, Bailey and Kimberly, we decided to apply the old adage, ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’, and together we set out to earn our singlets.

We walked along a main street until we found a dark bar with full music kit setup, many tattooed and pierced young Indonesians sitting outside and importantly, not a singlet in sight. Our drink of choice was a litre each of ‘jungle juice’ with ‘secret ingredient’. It was a mixture of Arak (a local spirit) and god knows what else, served in a children’s plastic beaker (perhaps this was also done with the aussies in mind). The boys had two litres, the girls had one, in both cases the job was done.

We then proceeded to watch the Indonesians take it in turns to pick up the guitar and play and sing with aplomb. Bailey and I had come to the same conclusion: be it art, dance, craftsmanship or music we were skill-less Westerners. The locals could even address us in our own language and all we could do in return was smile, say thank you and probably, if asked, hit a triangle, although not necessarily in rhythm.

From there we headed to the super-clubs. These were sprawling monstrosities bursting with sweat, adrenaline and herds of alcohol fuelled animals of which we were now a part. Inside there were drinks promotions every 15 minutes which helped Bailey and I pace ourselves whilst Alex and Kimberly danced away. After a few incidents, one involving a distressed Bailey, a disappointed stranger, some public toilets and the prayer position, we left to go home.

The night was over for all of us, except for Alex who decided to go on a night sleepwalk in just her knickers and T-shirt. Her first port of call was the reception area where she got quite aggressive when they wouldn’t let her use their toilet, how dare they try to explain that she had one in her own room. Her next victims were a poor Indonesian family who rather foolishly had not locked their door and after a brief conversation she was told to go back to her room. Whilst this is very un-Alex-like behaviour it did secure her a top two finish in the stories that happened last night competition the next morning.



We spent the next 8 days on a road trip around Bali with Bailey and Kimberly. Having the car and the world’s worst map meant that we travelled most of Bali. We stayed in the most beautiful accommodation in Ubud and also saw some really naughty monkeys at the monkey temple. We dived on the North coast as well as in Amed where we did a wreck dive inside a sunken WWII US cargo ship and stayed where the atmosphere was so much quieter and more traditional.



Miraculously, we returned the only just road worthy rental car on time even after being stopped by the horribly corrupt Bali police force who after a lot of play acting and lying managed to drop all ‘charges’ for a bribe of £6. As beautiful as Bali was, we felt it was now pretty much a tourist island and in the end we were pleased to move on. So the next day we parted with our road trip partners and left by boat for the Gilis.