Back in Bali

We are back in Bali after five rather odd days in Darwin. I mean, not thaaat odd - we didn't witness a Druidic rebirthing ritual or anything, but I found the whole vibe weird.

First, the day before we left Bali for Darwin was the one year anniversary of my dad's death. I knew it wouldn't be an easy day, so we left our house guests and taxied over to Sanur which is across to the east. I just wanted a quiet beach where I could sit and reflect with Phil that was away from our usual haunts. And it was a sad, but a good day. We sat for a few hours by the sea and walked the length of the beach and just as we were getting ready to leave, we walked into a huge parade for the Sanur Village Festival. It felt somewhat fitting to suddenly be in the middle of a massively long parade - almost a tribute that I could not have staged myself. My dad would have really enjoyed it.

I took some pictures to remember it by. This is my favourite - the girl bending down is checking her makeup in the mirrored beading of the other girls' dress.




Miss you dad. Always will.
......

Before we even got to Darwin, the trip started off weird. Our Balinese taxi driver who took us to the airport last Monday told us that his family used to live in Denpasar, but now they live north east in Candidasa because after the Bali bombings he felt it was too dangerous for his family to stay in the touristy south.

It really threw me - I have met plenty of Balinese who still are angry, sad, resentful about and traumatised by the bombings. The sudden drop off of tourism after the 2002 bombings ruined the lives of countless people. There were many who had businesses that collapsed, loans that then couldn't be repaid and then couldn't find other work. It's not surprising that it's still front and centre in people's minds. But I've never met a Balinese person who still harbours daily fears as a result of the bombings. He spent the rest of the trip pointing out the origins of the other cars number plates. DK means Denpasar. That's ok. But B means the car is registered in Jakarta. That is bad. 'Muslims', he said 'are bad... they hate America, they hate you'.
....

I had never been to Darwin before. In fact, apart from Victoria which I know reasonably well (thanks to many school holidays devoted to traveling around my great state - Benalla, anyone??) I haven't seen much of Australia at all. So I wasn't sure what to expect. I wondered if it would have a more Asian feel to it, being so close to SE Asia, or if there would be a more prominent indigenous community.

First up, it was awesome to be back in Australia. It felt like home in the larger sense even though no one would ever mistake Darwin for Melbourne. No endless mental currency conversions, no searching for the right Indonesian word, and feeling like a local instead of a tourist - such a nice feeling.

I just realized that I missed the opportunity to pick up some vegemite - GODDAMMIT!!!! Ah well, what I was going to say was it was nice to walk into Bakers delight - Oh apricot delight roll, I missed you sooo much!!

We arrived late afternoon Monday and left midday Friday, so in effect we only had three full days. To daytour or not to daytour, that was a question... answered fairly rapidly with not to daytour. For me, if there's more travel time than experiencing time, it's a big thumbs down. And most of the one day tours were drive, drive, drive, look at a waterfall, drive, drive, drive. Given that Darwin is a really easy trip from Bali, I'd rather come back on a visa run next year and go on a three or four day tour so the driving/ seeing stuff ratio is a bit better. All of which is a longwinded way of saying we decided to stay in Darwin rather than trekking off to Kakadu or Litchfield.

The waterfront area is really lovely, especially at sunset as you can see. The last photo is crappy quality but I included it because the night sky view was lightning storms in the clouds which looked awesome. You can just see the cloud all lit up in the photo.










In a previous post, I talked about the hopelessness I had seen exuding from some of the indigenous people I had seen in Darwin. I think what struck me most overall wandering around Darwin was the complete lack of indigenous people working visibly. I did not see one indigenous person working at Coles or Woolworths, or any of the cafes or restaurants, or in any of the new (I assume because it looks very pristine and new) waterfront area, or anywhere else in central Darwin.

So I'm really glad we took a bus to nearby Casaurina to see..... Kmart. Yes, Kmart - Phil's been talking about his deep desire for a black bonds singlet for three months. When he said in early August, 'I think I should get an extra singlet', I said sure, grab one. What I should have said is 'We are not leaving the country without that singlet' and then driven out and bought it myself. How is Phil, I hear you ask... He's good! He was running like crazy for quite a while there but a sore ankle is forcing a bit of rest time. He also shaved his head which has made him disproportionately happy!! Here he is mid-shave. I did ask him permission before I put this on here... I still don't know why he said yes!




I digress... Away from the city centre, and in the suburbs where people actually live, we saw everyone going about their normal routines - westerners, indigenous, everyone. Darwin definitely looked like a town with some serious integration problems, but my view changed a bit after I saw a bit more inclusiveness.

What else did we do??? Hmmm... We did go and hand feed fish for a few hours which was pretty awesome:




That's me feeding a batfish which was a bit bigger than a dinner plate and shaped like a huge diamond.

It seems that a lot of Darwin's fun-sounding attractions were closed because of the wet season (like the deckchair cinema and boat rides to see turtles on near-by islands). Next time, I'll try and aim for the dry season and spend a few days on a longer tour.

Anyway, it's nice to be back in Bali, although our return has been fraught with disaster... Firstly, we had left our apartment with a few things still in the bathroom - if there had been a booking by another guest, we would have locked every last thing away, but since no-one would be using it in our absence, we left our toiletries out (moisturiser, toothpaste, shampoo etc.) and some travel-sickness meds in the fridge. On our return, one of the over-zealous cleaning staff had thrown out every single last item. Not a great tragedy, but still seriously irritating!!! Lesson learned - lock everything away!

Then a walk by the beach on our first evening back was a bit of a disaster... This branch fell out of a tree onto my arm - freaking ouch!!




Then I twisted my ankle. And I have a cold. And there's been a weird grainy feeling in my left eye for the last two days so I'm stuck wearing glasses and being blinded by the sun every time I step outdoors. Aaaarrrggghhhh... I'm falling apart!!

But because it's Bali, it was still a gorgeous sunset walk (albeit a hobbly, squinty one):



Look just to the right of the shadow - yup, someone has dyed their poor dog Easter Egg pink!!!! At least it's a bit better than seasonal red and green...




Look at these two - I maintain that Indonesian children are amongst the most beautiful in the world.

The goal this week is to pack in as many of Bali's favourite activities as possible before we head over to London on Friday (yes, this Friday). I'm really quite pumped and i especially can't wait to see my sis!!!!!

So far I've had a massage daily. Just a mani, pedi, facial, scrub, wrap and hair treatment to go!!

- Posted using a walking cane and an eye-patch

Back in oz - well, Darwin

It's been a busy week, hence the lack of blogging. Last Monday, we had some visitors to our little place in Bali. Chris, Phil's stepbrother and a friend, Tobi, had been travelling in Thailand and stopped by to check out Bali for a week.

It's so nice to have some new people to spend time with, especially when they are as fun and easygoing as Chris and Tobi. They came to surf, which is something I hadn't attempted yet. Actually, despite staying 300m from Legian beach and walking on it every day, I still hadn't gone in the water. Not once. We did snorkel in the sea on the Gili Islands but I hadn't been in the sea in Bali yet.

So I was keen to spend a few days on the beach. Sadly for Tobi, a nasty spill on his motorbike in Thailand left him grazed, bruised and unable to get wet. He took it in pretty good humour and the alternative of lying on a sunbed on the beach under a giant umbrella wasn't too bad. So we spent much of last week lying on the beach or on the water, bodysurfing and boogie boarding. A very relaxing way to spend a week. We did other stuff too, including a to-die-for seafood dinner one night during which we all ate delicious tuna, salmon and white marlin sashimi to the point of exhaustion, but beaching was a major theme.

And now we're in Darwin for the week, renewing our visas and slowly dying from the heat and humidity... It's probably not that much hotter than Bali, but it feels massively warmer. So far we've fed baby crocodiles and hand fed fish in the Harbour. We're staying in a hostel for a couple of nights which is a slightly uncomfortable blast from the past. The hostel itself is clean, has a pool, a spa, a huge outdoor deck and a bar. But our room is actually a double bed with a single bunk bed over the top. Mind your head! Actually, it is fine here. Just been a long time since we were last in a hostel.

Whenever I visit a new place, I always wonder whether I could live and work there. I think it's a kind of security thing - just in case i ever make a horrible mess of life in Melbourne, there are other places I could live. It actually doesn't take too much to make the list - I think I would be comfortable living in lots of places - Most of the UK (London only if I had/ was making loads of cash), Holland, Germany (once I learn to speak German), most of Europe actually, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bali (so long as I never had to work) - to name just a few. And every Australian capital (yes, even Canberra) but Darwin I'm not sure.

It is a gorgeous setting for a city with the harbour and lots of green spaces but there is a weird menacing vibe hanging over the place. I've never lived anywhere with a significant Indigenous population, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Now that I'm here it seems such a sad situation - most indigenous people I've seen just vibrate hopelessness. There is a general look of dejection so complete that it makes me want to cry. While I have no doubt there is infinitely more to the situation than the several dozen people I've seen, what I have seen is really disheartening. Today I saw an indigenous man sitting on a bench in Coles, being told off by the Coles manager because he had taken some meat out of the fridge and damaged it. The manager told him that it now couldn't be sold, that he needed to pay for it and if he couldn't, he would have to call the cops. The man didn't move, didn't flinch, didn't answer, didn't try to make a run for it. Nothing. He just had a vacant stare that somehow managed to convey that he'd been here before, knew he'd be there again and just did not have the energy or the will to do anything about it. On our first night, another indigenous man threw a can of beer at my feet. It burst open and sprayed all of us. Without thinking, I said, "thanks, mate" (yeah, ok, sarcasm is never the answer). The guy was sort of a little angry. "You c&@&t$", he yelled after us. But he was mostly deadened, vacant, lathargic about the incident. It's so far outside my usual experience I don't know what to say about it all, except that it made me feel really sad.

Something that didn't make me feel sad was seeing a group of four hare krishnas on our last day in Bali, walking along the beach and singing. Hare Krishnas are always so happy, although these ones looked decidedly unhappy. Phil's theory was that while the rest of us take holidays in order to have fun, perhaps the hare krishnas need to take a holiday from being happy all the time. Makes some sense to me. Must have been a particularly religious week in Bali because we also saw a Buddhist monk. Or possibly fake monk - our friend Kenny warned us in KL that monks who ask for money are fake monks because real monks only ask for food. I still gave "fake monk" some money. If he was a fake monk, he'd certainly gone to a lot of effort to dress up!!

We're back to Bali on Friday - it will be nice to be back, but in the meantime it's nice to be back in Australia, even though it is very different to home in Melbourne!

In the 'hood

There is a 'bar' close by the apartment, called Rendezvous, which I can hear right now despite fairly effective soundproofing. It's a place with billiard tables, thumping music, and ladies of the night on offer. It is advertised primarily by a black dog that is nightly dressed in glowing devil horns. We call him 'Devil Dog'. Its a strange occupation for a dog, but he seems pretty contented.

The area we are staying in, Legian, is wedged between Kuta and Seminyak.

Kuta is the uber-touristy part of Bali where the surfers flock, with a pretty white sandy beach and the majority of chain stores (both real and fake), the less classy nightclubs and where the Sari Club and Paddy's Bar stood before the bombs. Nowadays the Bounty is probably the skeeziest club around - it and many others are where you can buy cocktails by the half-litre.

Seminyak, on the other hand, I think of as little Port Melbourne or South Yarra. A lot of blondes, a lot of fake tans. A lot of muscly men in tight t-shirts and loud sunglasses. A place filled with trendy bars and restaurants that are THE places to be seen... That is if you could care less about being seen in the right places. Ku de Ta is one of the trendier bars that is right on the beach and has a lovely view of the sunset (of course it is the same view of the sunset you can get anywhere along the beach). It serves pricey cocktails and food and gets right into the party scene. It's a people-watching paradise! The last time I ventured in, they were having a 'white' party complete with staff dressed as giant manga-style robots roaming around.

Seminyak is also home to many of the best boutiques (clothing, jewellery, accessories), some great spas and does have some fantastic cafes and restaurants, including the unexpected such as the Vienna cafe that serves kaiserschmarrn (an awesome concoction of pancakes, applesauce and whipped cream and/ or icecream that really shouldn't be found outside of Germany or Austria).

And our area? Well, Legian is in the middle, literally and figuratively. It has it's upmarket and not-so-upmarket places. There are some spots, like Rendezvous, that are pretty unclassy. There are a few too many restaurants whose advertising is a chalkboard with the words "Bloody good tucker mate" scrawled on in caps.

This place has the most bizarre slogan I have ever seen:




"We've got what you feel like when you've had enough of what everyone else has got".

Huh?? These places seem to attract plenty of punters though.

There are also other great local restaurants and shops, hundreds of spas (no exaggeration) and a pretty relaxed vibe, which I like. Plus the less than 300m walk to the beach makes our location a big winner for me.

Last night we finally tried Poco Loco - the Mexican restaurant directly across the road - for the first time.

Our apartment is sort of hidden behind a big wall and many taxi drivers don't know where it is. So for the last five years when staying here, we give the address as "Jalan Padma Utara, di depan Poco Loco"; which means Padma Utara street, opposite Poco Loco.

For some reason EVERY SINGLE taxi driver in south Bali knows exactly where Poco Loco is. The reaction is always, "ahhh, Poco Loco" and off you go. I've probably said the name 100 times or more, but until last night it has just been a direction, a convenient landmark. Although a slightly mysterious one because there never seemed to be anyone there.

The restaurant itself is set quite far back from the road and it is a tad hard to see the tables from the street, but I always had the impression that the place was pretty empty every night... At one point, my dad had a theory that it was run by the mob (Indonesian mob, I presume???), who ran it as a cover... but it is possible that he was just messing with me.

Anyway, Phil and I decided at the start of the trip that we had to try Poco Loco - it's 10m away from our door, after all. Then for me, it somehow edged its way onto the bucket list - you know, we have to go just in case we die on our next side-trip... plus it's Murphy's law that you always discover the best restaurant on the last night of your holidays, so better to try things out now.

I was somewhat put off by poor reviews on trip advisor, one of which said:

"Worst Mexican ever. Service was so incredibly bad. Food was awful".

So armed with the knowledge that it possibly wasn't going to be the greatest meal, but with a will of iron to get this one crossed off the bucket list, we braved the 10 metre walk in the driving rain and thunder and sampled the Tex Mex delights of Poco Loco.

There was definitely a vibe about the place. One group of eight twenty-somethings wandered in drenched from the rain, virtually chanting "San-gria jugs, San-gria jugs". There is one staff member (a tiny woman) who walks around dressed as a gunslinger with a bottle of tequila in a gun holster offering shots.

But, it was actually really good - the veggie burrito was especially awesome.

I'm guessing from the number of people there last night and the amount of margaritas, daiquiris and sangria jugs consumed by those around us, this place doesn't need mob connections to survive.

Long live holiday excesses and long live Poco Loco.

- Posted using a little pinch of poco and a dash of loco

Bali tips and tricks

I have been a little under-inspired on the ol' blog writing front for the last week or so. It's not so easy to come up with fresh interesting things to say when on most days you, my dear readers, have achieved more over your lunch-break than I do all day.

A couple of weeks ago, The Age published an article by a lifestyle and travel writer called Carolyn Webb about Bali - called 'Bali, why bother?' that simultaneously made me really irritated, but also oddly unmotivated to respond.

It was so unbelievably one-dimensional that I assumed it was penned as a shock piece designed to attract as many comments from the pro and anti-Bali camps as possible (given how many rebuttal articles it spawned in the very same paper I think I hit the mark on that one). It also scored one for Tourism Australia who must just rub their hands with glee when they read this crap.

If you haven't read the article, you can still read it here.

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/bali-why-bother-20111024-1mfiz.html

I wouldn't bother, unless you're interested in startling insights like Ms Webb complaining that she was:

"harassed with the words, "Miiisss, miiisss, transport, taxi, where you going ... miiiisss?" I thought my name had been changed to Miiisss."

Did you tell them your name Carolyn?? I'm pretty sure if you'd said, my name is Carolyn, they would have called you that instead. When it comes to names, Balinese people in the tourism game have astounding memories for potential customers. Given her attitude in the article, she should count herself lucky they didn't called her "sour-face cow".

ANYWAY... What an intro. The point of my post is that while I couldn't be bothered writing about her article, it did make me think that I was a tad more qualified to give travel advice about Bali than Ms Webb, alleged-journo, who went once and whinged about it.

So I've put together a top tips list for traveling in Bali. It's a few things (some more tongue in cheek than others) that I've picked up on my various trips over here that make a real difference to how much I enjoy the place.

Here we go:

1. Learn a couple of Indonesian phrases.

And I mean a couple - you don't need to be able to say much at all in Indonesian to make your stay more pleasant.

My top phrases would be "Terima Kasih" which means thank-you, followed by "Tidak mau", which literally means "don't want".

It's nice to be able to say thank you nicely and people appreciate the effort. Tidak mau is a much more selfish phrase because it stops touts from hassling you almost immediately in about 98% of cases**. Especially if said with a big smile.

I also like "saya sudah" which means "I already". Use it with the guy trying to sell you sunglasses on the beach when you're already wearing the exact same knockoff pair. It usually prompts a reaction of 'fair enough' and instantly, no more hassling.

Happily, all the important words are the same in both languages - beer, margarita, daiquiri, cosmo, pina colada, long island ice tea etc. etc.

2. Don't haggle.

This might be a radical one for those who associate Bali (or South East Asia more generally) with bargaining.

I'll be upfront - I'm not a fan of bargaining. In fact I dread it when I need to buy something from a market stall with no fixed price. It's such a painful ritual of going back and forth on price only to end up more or less at the price I would have happily paid in the first place, but couldn't offer because it throws out the bargaining-dynamic.

I'm not saying don't bargain. Lots of people (both buyers and sellers) enjoy it, even thrive on it and many people make their living from it. But there's a difference between bargaining to find a price that both parties are comfortable with and haggling for every last dollar.

Try to remember that the last time you went to the movies at home. Recall how you paid $17 a ticket to watch yet another Jason Statham action debacle and probably also shelled out a minimum of $10 on a small popcorn and coke deal. Now, ask yourself whether haggling over $2 or $5 or even, gasp, $8 is worth your precious holiday time and energy?

Before you ask, no, I don't like getting ripped off either. But I think, if you are really "successful" in the haggling stages of bargaining, you are potentially leaving someone with almost no profit. Is it really so important to get that bangle AS CHEAP as possible? Does it really feel that good to feel like you've paid the smallest amount anyone has ever paid for a sarong?? Or would it actually be fine to pay a tiny bit more and maybe not completely screw down the seller?

3. Buy a Bintang singlet and wear it with pride.

Make sure it's a knock off and if you're a guy aged over 20, don't feel intimidated by the softer colours - purple and aqua are totally masculine.

If for some reason, you can't rock a Bintang singlet (GOMP refuses - won't even do it for my idle amusement) then the only alternative is to buy them as souvenirs for all your friends. You can even get creative with it and get a Bintang singlet for your dog...

Think I'm kidding?? Check out Bisli, the pet of friends Gab and Ilan. Here he is modeling last years' Bintang singlet:






4. Try some Indonesian food.

Yeah, you can get great (and cheeeeep) Italian, Japanese, French, Chinese, Belgium, Indian and Malay food here, but you can also get all that at home. Try finding Indonesian food in Melbourne - it does exist, but only in very few places and it's sooo much more expensive there that it'll make you cry! I mean it - the last time we ate Indonesian food in South Melbourne, it took GOMP days to get over the price. He still talks about it with a crushed expression every now and then!

Plus tempe (fermented soybean cake - no, don't make a face) is awesomely delicious and very nutritious.

It should go without saying, but here tis; never, ever eat the Dutch food. Even the Dutch won't touch it.

5. Don't commission a sticker

There's been this thing over here where it's really cheap to get custom stickers made up. Tourists get revolting things printed on stickers to take home and the sellers stick them up as advertisements.

They're usually super original and witty, and say things like "Trev is gay". Sometimes they up the ante and read "Gay Trevor is gay". Yup, I see what you did there and it's still not clever.

Lately though, they've been getting really disgusting. I don't want to know that you, or one of your friends has sexual relations with intellectually disabled, amputee midgets. It's gross people, gross!!

Don't make it a drinking game to come up with the most offensive lines. Don't dare your friend to make one for a workmate back home. Please, just don't.

6. Don't be afraid to hide at the spa

If the heat, the touts, the noise, the traffic and the chaos become too much, turn your head 45 degrees and you will undoubtably spot a spa. Head straight for it and don't look back.

If there's a place on earth where people are more in tune with massage, I want to see it for myself. With rare exceptions, even the cheapest, most run down looking place will still leave you floating after an hour of Balinese massage. And the good places are really really good. And so delightfully affordable. I think I might go out and get one now!

---------------

Before I do, a huge Happy Birthday to Jacqui who is celebrating her birthday here in Bali and whom I am just about to meet for lunch.

- Posted using

**One guy trying to sell me tshirts on the street with a quick wit yelled: "Tidak mau means I love you - do you love me??" when I used it on him... Hysterical. So it's not foolproof, but at least the response is entertaining!

Warning: This post is about the environment...

I confess... I'm not what one would call an environmentalist.

I'm not actively anti-environment or anything. And when I think about it, lots of things I do routinely are environmentally-friendly - at home, I don't use the car very much, take short showers, rarely buy bottled water and try to turn lights off.

But I'm not switching every appliance off at the wall, eschewing meat and insisting on using only clean solar energy. And I still occasionally drive the car five minutes to the supermarket...

Here in Bali, it's much the same. We're not driving (ok, a few taxis here and there), or hiring motorbikes and make a point of refusing plastic bags...

The bottled water takes a bit more effort though and mostly because the island is so poorly set up for it. According to the signs posted all over Bali, there are 30 million water bottles used every month in Bali. That's EVERY MONTH!! It's enough to make even the most buried environmental conscience shudder a little.

Part of the reason so many bottles are used is because you can't drink tap water here, so the vast, vast majority of cafes serve water in sealed plastic bottles as a way of assuring their paranoid customers that the bottle has not be refilled by the cafe out of the tap. Having spent a bit of time here now, I cannot imagine any cafe cheating it's customers out of clean water, but unfortunately the sealed plastic bottles seems to be the status quo now.

(just as an aside, to those journalists - aka agents of the Australian tourism board - who write articles bashing Bali's allegedly dirty beaches, I actually think it's pretty impressive how clean the place is considering the amount of rubbish generated by tourism)

To avoid filling the streets with used plastic bottles, Phil and I each brought our own water bottles over here. We have a water cooler in our apartment with a 20 litre water bottle which gets refilled. It's incredibly cheap (about $2.20 per 20L bottle) and easy to fill up the bottle in the morning and take it out with us during the day.

Quite a few stores have also realized that the number of plastic bottles is a problem and now sell metal drink bottles next to a big sign reminding us of the 30 million bottles a month statistic. One small problem... there's virtually nowhere to fill them up!! Yup, not one of the stores which sells the water bottles also sells refills. While it's fine for us to bring out your water bottle filled in the morning, if you need more water, it's straight back to the plastic bottles. And most tourists wouldn't even have access to a water supply like we do.

It would be so easy for a store to have a 20L bottle and sell refills for $1 or so. A couple of places in Ubud do it, but so far I haven't found one place here in the south that does.

Even the gym I have joined here doesn't provide water, but rather sells plastic bottles, despite also selling the metal water bottles at reception. I just outright refuse to buy water in plastic bottles at the gym, so often get to the bottom of my water bottle and just fall into an increasingly uncomfortable state of dehydration... geez, and I wondered where all those headaches were coming from!

I have been thinking that it might be nice to do something useful over here and I've been trying to think of a way to get more stores/cafes to sell water in a sustainable way. I could drop some flyers at the venues which sell the metal water bottles suggesting they invest in a water cooler and charge customers a small amount for refills, but flyers just seem so lame... Anyone got a better idea??? I just know you guys are more creative then me!!

Wow, what a rant! I did warn you that this post was about the environment, but its ended up even more altruistic than I'd intended!!

Don't worry though, if you come for a visit to Bali, you can shower as long as you like - especially now that rainy season has hit. This is the cafe I'm writing in as the midday deluge hits:





The whole courtyard ended up filling lime a giant bath. I love it - it feels so cleansing.

Finally, I had to share with you.... cheese TimTams.

I haven't been brave enough to try them, but I'm pretty sure they're filled with cheddar rather than something sweet like marscapone...eeewwww...




On the upside, I think they're halal... Phew, right??

- Posted using the drops from a thousand rain clouds