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Published: January 2nd 2007
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Wel i can safely say i have never had a new years eve quite like this one! We are staying at a hotel in Kuta, with hot showers and air con and its own pool - the best place so far. On New Years Eve, the locals were all selling great quantities of cardboard horns and plastic trumpets, which everyone was blowing non stop throughout the day/evening and in some cases the following day! Come the strike of midnight, nearly every bar was deserted as everyone descended on the beach to see in the new year and watch the fireworks. The problem was that most of them were locals - who had all travelled to the beach on their motorbikes, and so within a few minutes the streets were seas of bikes all trying to get back into town and it was interesting to walk amongst them to say the least! (photos to follow of this!). Tims guidebook said that in Bali, motorbikes are only for those who have an immortality pact with God, and i completely agree! That night we met 3 Australian girls, who are all very nice and have been suggesting things i should see when i reach
Australia. Its really odd as the one girl Catherine looks just like our relative Briony in Bristol (but only my family will know who i mean!)
It is very hot here, in a rather uncomfortable way over the first couple of days as the humidity has been 90% and there has been a couple of crazy downpours per day, however today seems to be much better as the humidity is less and there has been no rain - touching a big piece of wood as i type! We are going to book a few trips whilst we are here, diving depending on availability and cost and i am thinking of horse riding and para-sailing, and Tim's also thinking about surfing but i don't think i am a strong enough swimmer for that! There are also a few local tours that sound interesting, such as a trip to the Monkey Jungle - but it just depends on what we can fit in and when.
I have also found a lovely young tailor called Alex, who as we speak is making me some made to measure dresses and 3/4 length trousers - and oh boy are they a bargain! He
is charging about 12 pounds per item - and you can literally have him design whatever you want - length, shape, material style/colour, even down to the little details like how many straps the dresses have, whether they cross over or not, and what the ends of the trousers look like.... it was hard work making all the decisions as there are so many nice materials to choose from, that i might have got a bit carried away - but where else can you get a made to measure silky evening dress for that money?!! He is making me a variety of evening dresses, wrap dresses to wear in the day/on the beach, and some pretty shorter dresses as well. There are also stalls selling lots of clothes, shoes and bags at very cheap prices - i guess another box will be winging its way back to England before long lol! I'm also thinking about having a couple of suits made - he can do a mans suit for about 30 pounds so guess a womens one will be a bit cheaper than that!
After all the healthyish food in the Thai islands, we have kind of gone off
the rails a bit since. In Singapore we ate a KFC and a Pizza Hut, and in Bali we seem to be on a one meal a day diet - the first night we ate at BubbaGump Shrimp Co - how many people recognise this name?! I didn't know there was such a place - but apparently there is a chain of them in America. It was crazy, with signs on the tables that you flipped over each time you wanted service, and they would shout out "stop forrest stop" and run to the table, take the order and then you flip the sign to "run forrest run" and they go away. If you wanted a cocktail every staff member crowded round, did a song and dance whilst shaking the cocktail and then clapped and smiled a lot before pouring the drink. (having witnessed this embaressment we didn't order any cocktails - despite Tim threatening to buy one for me!) We ordered a meal that turned out to be far too big - 4 corns each filled with a different type of prawn - and i couldn't finish mine. The next night our daily meal was at the Hard Rock Cafe - which was again a first for me - and again the portion sizes were massive and i failed to finish mine. Today we might give the local food a try - there is plenty of choice here - Indonesian, Balinese, Italian, Chinese and Thai, plus KFC, Pizza Hut, MCDonalds and Starbucks!
So there you have it, if you come to Bali, and you like food, shopping and heat, you will be very happy indeed. And if you like diving or the other activities on offer then it is a fantastic place to be...as long as it isn't raining!!!
PS trying to load up the pictures but the connections are so slow here because of the earthquake that i only managed 7 in one hour..
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