Bali - Denpasar

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David here...

We left Candi Dasa using the hotel transport at 11:00 as agreed. There appeared to be some confusion on where we wanted to go at first as; a) we were not going to the airport at Denpasar, which is unusual and b) our hotel was near to Museum Bali not actually the museum itself. Anyway, once all was explained to the driver we set off. The journey was uneventful really, if you count numerous hair raising overtaking maneuvers and nutty mopeds riders flashing round on all sides. The white lines, traffic lights and usual rules of the road do not apply here at all. In fact, its fair to say our driver was a maniac, but it was alright as all the other drivers and riders were maniacs as well. However on the journey I did notice that there was no sign of road rage at all. It is expected that you will be cut up and in turn you will cut someone up. Horns are used to let someone know you are passing them and not to display your anger, in fact, our driver seemed extremely calm along the whole journey. Well, we arrived outside our hotel an hour and a half later in one piece and checked in with no issues. A welcome orange juice was very much appreciated.

We were staying at the very western style Grand Mirah Boutique hotel as we could get breakfast, a balcony and big room at a very competitive rate through Agoda, especially with an 8% off voucher that we'd been carrying with us since Bangkok. The room was really nice, spacious, airy and with a fridge and hot water. We were on the ground floor so the balcony was a seated area next to the pool. We quickly settled in before heading out.

Our first stop was to a coffee shop called Helman Coffee which was nearby. I'd spotted it on Google maps and thought it was a good place to grab an afternoon drink before heading on. Upon reading the reviews, I'd found out that it was actually a hard rock / heavy metal coffee shop, so off we went. It was a small place with extra seating upstairs. Suzanne had a Latte and I went for an Iced Choco Mint coffee. Hard rock music was playing, but nothing we recognised. The place looks like any normal coffee shop however on one wall there are what looks like quaint pictures hanging up. On closer inspection, they were band names and lyrics from bands like AC/DC, Iron Maiden and Rammstein. The coffee was really good and they appreciated my Anthrax t-shirt. The owners explained that all the ingrediants used to make their drinks are locally produced and asked about where we were from. We were glad we spotted the place on the map and went. Not the last time we would be there we told the owners.

So onward to our next destination, a big shopping centre in the hope to buy some supplies for the fridge. We bought crips and some beer and also had a small snack and drink at Dunkin Donuts, our first ever visit to a branch despite them being all over the world. By now, we were very hot, sticky and sweaty so went back to our room to relax and freshen up. Whilst we have been to hotter places in the world (hello Texas) I do not remember being this sweaty or sticky in my life. Bali really is one of the hottest and most humid places we've ever been to.

One other thing we've noticed about Denpasar is that we've had more geniune 'hellos' shouted to us here then anywhere else in Bali. Denpasar is not a tourist area and more closely resembles real Bali life. Usually tourists skip through, stop at the museum and head on out to one of the resorts along the coast so for us to be here for 3 nights is a little strange. As such when someone says hello on the street, it is usually to greet these weird looking strangers and not to try and sell them a tour. We have been asked if we want transport a few times but nowhere near as often as before. And it is still always funny trying to walk past a school where there is much hilarity and shy hellos and waves, I knew that I was strange but not that much surely?

In the evening we ate at Dapoerp Permuda, a nearby chain restaurant opened in 1976 that had good reviews. We had mutton fried rice, fried chicken and shredded beef, all of it was alright but nothing amazing or filling so we bought some soft drinks and a tub of ice cream for desert back in the room. The evening was finished with us eating ice cream and crisps on our outside seating area while drinking beer and listening to music before settling down to bed.

We were up and about for breakfast by 08:30, the norm for us in Asia. We are usually awake between 07:00 and 07:30 each day as life for people here starts much earlier to avoid the midday heat, so you're never likely to get much of a lie in. Breakfast was a small buffet affair of Idonesian staples and was tasty. The coffee and orange juice actually really welcome. Our plans for the day started at Helman Coffee where we had a drink, chatted with the owners and listened to Anthrax and Slayer with them before moving on.

Our aim was 'Gold Street'. This is supposed to be where you can pick up jewelry relatively cheaply and we'd read that there were lots of gold and silver shops and we were still looking to replace our weddings rings for the trip. Well, we should've realised from the name, we found tons of gold shops but only one silver shop that had nothing for us. Here's hoping we find something in our next stop. So, our next plan was to check out a big supermarket in the area to see if we could save some money by getting in some fresh bread, cheese spread and maybe some roast chicken. Could we find the blinkin thing? Nope, another fail. The next plan was to have some lunch. We had read about Babi Guling previously and was desperate to try it as it was roast suckling pig and the Rough Guide recommended one which was near to us so off we went hoping to find the place, which we did but the food looked cold and unappetising so we didn't bother. Our 3rd failed plan of the day. At least we were staying hydrated...but it was still very hot and humid as it always seems to be in Bali.

Feeling a little defeated by the day we decided to bring forward our plan to go to Museum Bali by a day as it was still quite early and that was one of the main reasons for coming to Denpasar in the first place. First off, you have to shake the 'guide' who will follow you round until you make it clear they are not required (they're not) and then you have to make it clear that you do not want to buy anything from the sellers roaming the grounds, obviously unless you want to. Once you are being left alone, the museum looks like it could be promising. The architecture of the buildings is stunning, with lots of intricately carved towers and archways. However that is the best of it. The museum artifacts are very limited. So after about an hour, including some time to buy and consume more liquid we left the grounds, being chased by another seller, and made our way to our one constant on this trip, beer. Once we were restocked we relaxed in the hotel and researched the evening plan.

After our failures during the day, we were determined not to let Denpasar beat us so wanted somewhere good to eat. Unfortunately all the recommended places were a long walk away from us and in this heat we just didn't fancy it. That left us with one option really, especially as our back up plan of Kunti Kebabs wouldn't pan out as they shut quite early. We read that there was a big place in the night market that did Babi Guling so that was where we headed. It was only a 15 minute walk from our hotel and the roads were chaos, which meant that a lot of moped riders were using the pavements instead. The night market really is a local place and sells everything. We really did stand out but didn't feel in the least bit threatened or unwelcome, quite the opposite in fact. We wandered around and fianlly found the place we wanted, Kusuma Dewi. The lady in charge spotted us, motioned us to sit down and told us to try her Babi Guling. Within a minute we had 2 plates of Babi Guling, and it was not what we expected at all. We thought it might be a big pile of pork however it turned out to be various cuts of pork mixed and matched with different herbs and spices and was very spicy. We didn't really want to know what each cut was and we both ploughed through the meal. It was very tasty and we were both pleased to have tried it but it was not something we would have to seek out again. The cost came to IDR 45,000 including the water we had, which was great value.

Still feeling a little hungry we then bought more corn on the cob from another seller (IDR 10,000) which was tasty and feeling chuffed that we'd conquered Denpasar we finished with what looked like spicy fresh crisps, which turned out to be made from fruit or some other vegetable, not potato, and was incredibly sweet. A small misstep but a cheap one at IDR 5,000. We then headed back to the room where we saw out the evening playing cards, listening to music and drinking a couple of beers.

We got up and had breakfast at a similar time to the day before. Within a few minutes we were both hot and sweaty. I've never sweated from the backs of my hands before, did not think it possible even, you live and learn. Breakfast included fried noodles so we attempted to order fried eggs to go with it, but got boiled, no big deal, still very tasty. We then relaxed in the room for a while before embarking on a walking tour around the city that we had downloaded from the web. It would be a 13km walk taking in many sights and we swore to stay hydrated at every opportunity. I won't go into the details of the walk but one of the highlights was the Bali Arts Centre which was nice and shady and had great architecture to look at and it was fun watching performers practicing dance moves or instruments. All the way round the walk we were buying juice and water but by the end of the walk we were tired, hot and hungry.

We had planned to find a good restaurant in the Renon area of town, where the avenues were tree lined and it was a nice area to walk around in. However we didn't find anything that we fancied. Eventually we passed a little place called Warung Jim Jim. Thinking this was our last chance for food (it turned out it was) we stopped and ordered a chicken burger, a chicken and bacon sandwich, some french fries and a strawberry milkshake and mango juice. It has to be said that the food was poor and the portions were small but the drinks were very refreshing and it was good to sit down for a while. While there we did move from a big table to let a group of teenage girls all sit together which they appreciated. We did also feel a little bad not going for Indo food but after our walk, I in particular was feeling funny. Walking 13km in the heat does strange things to you, who knew? Anyway, within 40 minutes from the food stop we were back in our room. We had been out 6 hours in total and it felt like it. I literally collapsed on the bed and didn't move for ages. We did skip any alcohol (go us) so had tea and coffee in the room. By the time I'd recovered enough it was gone 21:00 so we decided to skip more food and ended up playing cards for a bit before settling down to bed. Sadly it did mean we also had to skip the final trip to Helmen Coffee that we'd planned.

We did find that when we got back to the room we had an email waiting for us from Bluebird Taxis confirming our booking to Sanur the next day, which was good news. The hotel claimed in their room information that they could organise transport to Sanur for IDR 100,000 however on asking at the front desk we found that it was actually IDR 225,000. We looked up how much it would be by taxi and it should be IDR 60,000 roughly. We could've flagged a taxi down the next day but as there are reports of imposter taxis in Bali we decided to email the company and were pleased to receive the confirmation. We would have liked to use public transport but found no feasible option so a taxi was our best bet.

We were woken up at 07:30 by our doorbell and room service. What? We politely declined the offer of our room being cleaned and tried to settle down again. That pretty much sums up the hotel really. It looks the part but there is just a lack in the details; taking our towels and not replacing them, not replacing the coffee sachets, not cleaning particularly well, giving us partially opened sugar sachets full of ants (glad we spotted that before adding water). Some things they do well, toiletries were replaced along with drinking water each day. Not our best stay in Bali but it was alright. As we were now woken up we decided to head ealrly to breakfast in an attempt to avoid the heat. Noodles again but no one to ask for fried eggs... and after we had learnt how to say this in Indonesian! Also some noodle soup with chicken which was very nice. We then had around 4 hours to hang around the room, have showers, pack up, write the blog and get ready for checking out at 12:00.

Overall our stay in Denpasar was good but it would be the place we skipped looking back, there really isn't that much to see here, but it was good to see another side to Bali...and it is always nice to get geniune 'hellos'.

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