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| Take a seat - waiter will be here soon! |
Mind the loos! The perils of the eco friendly
tourist.
Its been 15 years
since we were in Bali last and other than some more buildings, the security and
the staff seem very grateful that you have chosen their country to visit, the
toilets have ‘eco friendly’ systems on them. I am sure this is for the people
who use a squirt of water rather than toilet paper when they go. Anyway I
thought it was like a bidet. This is really wrong as the water is completely
cold. Imagine my surprise at that when I tried it out when we got to our room.
As is the Caz tradition and always needing to wee on arrival I went to the loo.
There was no loo paper so I thought – ‘when in Rome’…. Well Rome can stay there
and as quick as you like I summoned the housekeeping people. Not only did we
have no towels in the room there was no dunny paper. Both won’t do! (although
in an emergency there was a box of tissues) Sorry Bali – I’m not an eco
friendly tourist. A cold squirt of water up the backside every time you need to
go won’t make my holiday I’m afraid!
You want Massarzz???
I have discovered the
joy of the $5 for an hour beach massage. Actually the locals pronounce it ‘massarzzz’.
Its not as good as what my mate Trish Blacker in Florey can do but its still an
hour of massage on my tired and rubbish muscles and neck and its relaxing and I
love it. Every second day I have made time to go get ‘massarzz’ from the same
lady. She has a mate that sits with her and the main lady works on my back and
the other on my legs. Talk about a good value massarzz! I have been running and
in the gym here on alternate days so there is always some muscle group
whingeing therefore on tap massarzz is just great.
Getting the washing done
The motel does offer a
laundry service but its expensive as you would expect in a resort – so
everywhere around this strip you can get a real tattoo, a fake tattoo, washing
done, massazze or buy a trashy beach dress. Take your pick. Anyway we found a
lady that does massage and washing and hopefully not all at once. She is our
$1.50 per kilo person. Since I have been running and exercising every day I
have managed to acquire a nice mound of sweaty washing so we have given it to
her. We come back for our 5kg of washing amounting to $7.50 tomorrow. I just
hope she has not shrunk everything. If she has then my niece Alexandra who is 6
will have a whole new wardrobe!
Eating out in Bali
Eating out has been a
re learning experience. The first night after we got here we decided to catch
the free bus into Galeria – well its not called that any more its called the
Bali Collection. Kind of makes it sound like you have to pay to get in but you
don’t. We had been there in the
day and the free bus with the dodgy seats that move about and no windows so
that if you have bothered to do your hair by the time you get off - hair doing was a waste of time…
leaves on the hour and returns on the hour. So we caught the free bus in with everyone else and it was a
bit crowded – but you can’t beat a free ride.
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| I saw this gorgeous little beaded and sequinned dress in a shop and thought of several lovely little girls who would look fantastic in it - especially my nieces Alexandra and Gabriella. Its a girl thing! |
Once at Bali
Collection, everyone wants you to eat at their place so they try to entice you
with offers of discounts, free garlic bread, free spring rolls and a free ride
home. We ended up at a place called
‘Tropicana’ as they had cheap seafood. We were hanging for some seafood
after eating my healthy camping crap for
two weeks.
We lucked in as the
staff at this little restaurant were just great and we had this wonderful
waiter called Agus who spoke English pretty well. They had a live band and a
free trip home when we were finished. Greg and I immediately clicked with Agus
and Greg gave him shit which he gave back and its so nice seeing your man happy
for a change! We had a seafood platter for 2 which included crab and lobster,
baby snapper a couple of prawns which weren’t the best and something I could best describe as a super ball in
a shell. It was a hard and
leathery piece of seafood that didn’t have much flavour either - but the rest was fantastic.
Having converted a
beautifully presented seafood dish into a pile of shells and bones, we were
having such a nice time. The wine here is hideously priced and doesn’t look the
best so we are drinking a ‘Bintang’ beer which is unusual because neither of us
are beer drinkers. Mind you we only have one and that’s enough. However, Greg decided he’d have desert
and so I decided to have a cocktail. Enter the $5 Strawberry daquori. Yum – why
waste calories on a cake!
The band played Men At
Work’s ‘Down under’ for us on Agus’s request which was a very nice touch. Then
we scored our free ride home in a nice car. The seafood was only $35 Aussie –
bargain.
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| This cheeky squirrel was taking a packet of peanuts out of an offering, running up the tree and pigging out. All God's creatures! |
The next night we went
back to Galeria for dinner and tried another place. They were playing great
Jazz. We had tried to go to another place that had a really good blues band but
the people didn’t want to serve us so we left. If they took 10 minutes to
realise we wanted to eat there I would hate to wait for the meal! Anyway the
‘Black Stone’ looked sheik and had lovely comfy chairs and were playing nice
music so we went there.
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| Munching out upside down. He was also very timid |
Well that’s where the
good bit ended as the menu was rubbish. The lighting was so intimate that I
wished I’d taken my petzel light along with me. They lit the tea light candle
on the table so at least we had some light to read with. Hang on are we still
camping??? Of all the things on it the best I could pick was a club sandwich
and Greg had Singapore Crab. Greg’s meal wasn’t the best and it’s a bit hard to
stuff up a sandwich but the total experience was underwhelming so we won’t be
going back. They didn’t have free transport either. We went to catch the bus
and it was so jam packed that you couldn’t fit another soul on edgeways – not
even a skinny one. We caught a cab with a driver who would not give us change
but wanted us to use him if we
needed to go anywhere – fat chance. That was it. That was the night of the guy
who couldn’t sing in the resort. We watched the Olympics to learn that we are
not doing well at that either. No matter. On holidays. Who cares!
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| Greg relaxing whilst waiting for the free bus in the lobby of Grand Mirage resort |
We went back to the
‘Tropical’ the night after – which by now was Saturday night and had another
fabulous meal and a few more cocktails and Agus got chatting to us. He lives 3
hours by motor cycle away in his village with his wife and 3 month old son. (He
works 6 days per week in Nusa Dua so has accommodation here until his day off.)
As Bali tradition goes, the sons stay in the family village and bring their
wives in when they marry. Therefore, a few generations live together in various
ages. His religion is Hindu and his son is to be ‘christened’ or whatever the
equivalent in Hindu is on Friday.
He actually invited us
along to his village as guests at this celebration which we felt honoured and
humbled but since we are flying out on Friday – can’t go. It would be
interesting indeed to witness such an event. However I have no idea of
etiquette for such an occasion much less an outfit to wear or a gift for the
child - I can’t even bring a plate.
I’ve no idea what goes on and for how long - so its probably best we go home. I wondered about the
language barrier too. However – how nice of him to ask us. Wonder what his wife
would have said. “Bloody Agus bringing home strange Australians to our family
gathering – what was he thinking!?”
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