Magical Bali

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Bali is awesome. It is one of over 17,000 islands in the Indonesian Archipelago and is just over two kilometres east of the island of Java. Eighty per cent of tourists to Indonesia visit only Bali. Indonesia did experience I massive earthquake when I was in Bali, on the island of Java, and I was fortunate enough to be safe from this.

It is a right of passage for every Australian to make their way to Bali, and I thought this would be one large, touristy craphole. Many people come back again and again and you can see why.

I stayed at the Oasis Hotel, in Kuta. It was a funky little hotel just off JL Legian and an easy five-minute walk from the centre of Kuta. There is an abundance of restaurants, markets, entertainment here and you could see the place pumping. I had a sore throat and felt horrible after the plane so I took some painkillers and I woke up fine.

I had a look around town the next day. I found my way up the legendary Poppies Lane before I became the victim of a scam. Looking back it was one of the best things that could have happened. A local came up to us with win cards. One of the cards told us we had won either: $10,000; a free hotel accommodation voucher; a voucher book or $1000. The catch was we had to go to Nusa Dua, a town 20 minutes drive from Kuta and we were almost pressured into an intense sale of time-share. The local’s name was Abus and he was so thankful as he got a bonus for taking us there that he became our tour guide for the duration. The hotel we went to was nice and Nusa Dua is somewhere I didn’t think I would go to.

I did end up making it back to Nusa Dua on the last day for some of the cheapest jetskiing you will find anywhere in the world. I had never been jetskiing before but was given free use of the port for fifteen minutes. Some of the best fun you can have on water.

Bali is not just all chaos and party. The next day we had a cultural day. Abus picked us up and took us to Ubud. Ubud is almost smack bang in the middle of the island and it where all the carvings are made. We were taken to some markets where all the wholesale products were. After this we went further up the mountains to have a look at rice paddies and tea plantations. After this we went up the top of a volcano lunch. I highly recommend anyone do this as you sit on the edge of the volcano overlooking the rim. The land is so arid that there are actually some townships there. Ubud is also the location of the monkey forest – home to thousands of monkeys. The place garners a lot of tourists and the monkeys are happy to accept bananas of people. They are greedy creatures however so make sure you indicate you don’t have any food on you or they will attack you.

Another must do is to have dinner at Jimbarayan Bay – about fifteen minutes south of Kuta. Abus dropped us off to shower and picked us up. You overlook arguably the nicest beach in Bali where there are hundreds of tables on the beach – I was with my friend Craig and his parents Barb and Tunney – and we enjoyed some drinks while the beautiful sun set over the beach as planes came in to land at the airport. We were able to go and pick out our fish, which had been freshly caught, for dinner.

A lot of people say Bali is a shopper’s Mecca. I think it is overrated. It is different from Bangkok in that the markets are all around the streets and not in sectioned areas. I think if you weren’t interested in Bintang shirts, fake Louis Vuitton and penis shaped bottle openers (“Bali Bananas”) then there wasn’t a lot of offer. I did have a changed mindset by this stage of travelling though, where I was less interested in souvenirs – would rather save the money for the next trip. It was fun though testing my bartering skills for Craig’s parents – and the sales people seemed nice enough – except for one woman who took my hand and started cleaning my nails, without me asking, then demanded money. I was quick to tell her where to go. I did spend money on a custom-made leather jacket while in Bali though as the price was around $70 and that is cheaper than I could ever buy it for in Australia.

There is so much to do in Bali that five days is not enough to cover anything. I think you could stay for a month before getting bored and as I said, people go back year in year out. I was determined to go for a swim everyday in the beach. Famous for surfing, Kuta Beach is popular for its close proximity to the town. You can’t go to the beach without being hassled for surf lessons or a massage. The water inst particularly nice and you need to watch out for rips in the water. It is nothing like what is on the Gold Coast – in fact the sand it quite gravelly. I didn’t get to learn how to surf which was a bummer – but there just wasn’t enough time to do everything. I did however manage to swim in the Indian Ocean, which meant I have now swum in the two of the three largest oceans and the world’s longest river.

Indonesia has a tough stance on illicit drugs. Many high profile foreigners have been locked up and even killed by capital punishment for drug offences. One night we were offered mushrooms, ice and marijuana from men who pop out behind the bushes. Usually these people are working with corrupt officials who will them bribe you up to $20,000 to stay out of jail. It is not worth getting involved at all.

Perhaps the most famous prisoner in Bali is Australia’s Schapelle Corby. A beauty therapist from the Gold Coast who was caught and convicted with 4.1kg of marijuana in her bag at Ngurah Rai airport and is serving a 20 year sentence in Kerobokan Jail. The news story has captured Australia like no other, with people divided over whether is she is innocent, as she has vehemently maintained or guilty. The book I read on the plane was her biography and one morning Abus took us to the prison, 30 minutes from Kuta, to visit Schapelle. Once there, I was informed that Schapelle had a list of 103 people she would see – people like her family and lawyers – and that these people only were allowed to visit. I then asked if she could sign my book but was told by the prison guards that this was not possible. I gave up trying and went back to the hotel.

One of the best parts of travelling is the people you meet. In Bali, we met some interesting characters. One night whilst having a swim in the hotel pool I was invited to have a few glasses of Moet by four Vietnamese boys who were staying in the same hotel. They spoke varying degrees of English and were in Bali studying. After about an hour of drinking and talking it became apparent that they wanted something more – kept offering there beds to us to sleep in, asking us to keep the door open while we went to the shower etc. We were both beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable so made up some excuse to leave.

It would be amiss to go to Bali and not pay some respect to bombings. In 2002, Kuta was the scene of a terrorist attack. In the main part of town, one night a bomb went off in one of the main nightclubs and also a car blew up on the street. Hundreds of tourists died, a lot were Australians, and it affected the tourism in Bali for years. They have made a really nice memorial in the centre of Kuta district.

Poppies Lane is magical, and the memorial is only at one end of it. A narrow street, which is cramped, busy and somewhat dangerous – it somehow works and keeps people coming back. It was pouring rain for my last day visit to Poppies Lane and I needed to fund a bottle shop for some alcohol. That night we went to a restaurant we hadn’t been to yet. We had some alcohol, got massages from the locals and also bought some CD’s from some guy selling them on the street. I remember this restaurant for the $4 jugs of Long Island Ice Tea. After Barb and Tunney left we decided that we will never drink with this value again – there was a karaoke machine set up which we both gave a go at singing.

It does take a lot to get me to sing so I must have had a few. There were two Russian people at the restaurant that seemed to be entertained. After the restaurant closed we went out clubbing – Paddy’s Bar and The Discotheque were the two places – I drank so much alcohol, namely Jungle Juice, that I don’t remember getting home that well. I did have KFC in my room from the journey home, and managed to pick up a padlock somewhere along the way. Looking back, I can say this is probably the best night I have ever had out at the nightclubs so far. The next morning we had to leave, and it wasn’t feeling well until well beyond the airport. All that aside I look forward to going back to Bali and doing it all again.

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