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Published: March 2nd 2007
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Scary Mary
Typical Balinese mask Selemat Pagi! (Good day-just about the only thing I've learnt in 4 weeks).
Hope all's well in your worlds, i am bagus!
Right, I think we'd just arrived in Bali last time, so as soon as the good weather came out, we hot-footed it to the beach where, after days of rain and travelling we just wanted to relax and fall asleep in the sun. No sooner had my sarong hit the sand we were pounced upon in every direction, by the whole world and his many wives, offering "manicures, pedicures, massage....?" Polite refusal is something that is quite hard to understand over here, but we were strong and didn't succomb to the countless sarongs, beads, sunglasses that we were being laden with. The only escape is to run to the sea, so that's where I pretty much stayed until I had turned a paler shade of white and pruned my skin til it shrunk. I did however, hire out a board and went surfing. It was really good, but quite a strong undercurrent. The only pity is that Kuta beach in Bali really is quite scummy and there's litter in the sea, so not quite the tropical unspoilt image that's
Cool Sarah
A moment's respite in our pool conveyed in the picture postcards, but it was nice enough just not having to wear a wetsuit and still feel all my fingers and toes afterwards. The waves were totally bodacious; clean and consistant, no wipeouts, I had like a really rad ride and was totally stoked...awesome!! (did I get enough surf lingo in there?) Oh and this never happens to me, but I actually bumped (yes-quite literally) into some of the guys from Croyde-small world hey?!
Even in the safety of our beautiful homestay we had little respite, after dodging all the hawkers and little roadside offerings on the pavements, we went back for a leisurely swim in our pool (yes, how lucky are we?) that was like a little garden of paradise. However, no sooner had we slipped into the cool water from the intense heat of the day, to be befriended by some wierdo old man from Germany, who sported the teeniest, tiniest (yet saggiest) scungy bathers you could ever imagine, exposing his wrinkly body, leaving nothing to the imagination. It would have been survivable perhaps to talk from a distance, but he was incredibly drunk, had a disgustingly snotty nose, a cigarette attached to his fingers
Gifts for the Gods
Offerings that are placed in every doorway, street corner, temple, pavement...roadside... that he flicked anywhere and a small wind-up boat that he insisted should circuit the swimming pool. What a freakish man-child we were graced the presence with. Hence it was time to move on.....
From Kuta we headed north to Ubud, a much quieter and slower pace of Bali, with clean, fresh air. We stayed with a lovely family whose daughter, Anna happens to be a famous Balinese dancer, who performs on tours and is the face for most of the Balinese dance leaflets, books and postcards! It also happened to be her birthday whilst we stayed at their homestay and she had friends in a band from her Arts Uni perform. It was a really cool night and I never thought I'd hear a reggae version of REM's "Losing my religion" or Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive" Balinese style sound so good!
The Ubud area is surrounded by rice fields with frogs a-plenty. We took a tour of the area further north, a very looonnnggg and winding road to see Git Git Waterfalls (nice but a 2 hour's drive in retrospect perhaps doesn't justify the hyped up image the tour guides convey). We did see some lovely temples and
Surf Dude?!
OK maybe not, but I caught one hey?! lots of Balinese artwork, some lovely temples and Balinese artwork and did I mention some lovely temples and Balinese artwork? We were quite templed out and couldn't afford any artwork.
We roamed Ubud and discovered Monkey road, where during a rare moment of actually contemplating a purchase, Sarah's bag was attacked by a small mokey that came from nowhere. Clinging onto it like it's life depended on it, Sarah justifiably shrieked like a girl and swung aroung around, trying not to throw the sacred monkey to the floor and stamp on it as I thought she might, but it's grip loosed in the whirlwind of panic and dropping to the ground it scurried away, never to make the same mistake again. I can't tell you how much I laughed, but that's only because it didn't happen to me! I kept a watchful eye though and we never returned to Monkey road.
That takes us nicely to the next destination of the Gili Islands.....
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