The Return of Sunburn on my Sunburns

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The most economically viable and less soul destroying option for me to get to Oz was to fly indirect. I flew from London Stansted to Kuala Lumpur where I spent the night and not a day longer. I believe that now in total I have probably spent about a month of my life in Kuala Lumpur and feel that there is no longer anything else I can achieve there. It's a good city and I really recommend it, vibrant, convenient, hassle free, safe and like any good and grimy south east Asian city far from clean. For me though it doesn't quite have that same allure as other big south east Asian cities such as Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh.

So after a night in Kuala Lumpur I unliterally jumped on a flight to Bali, with prices from Bali to OZ being a smooth 50 quid I felt that I had very little choice in the matter. A few days on a tropical island sounded like just the ticket after a recent spate of toss weather back in Blighty. Plus what better way to burn off all that clan descent Xmas podge than spending a few days on the beers!

Thanks to the wonders of the internet I got myself off to a bad start upon arrival in Bali. The net should never be taken for gospel and any sketchy information unscathed should ideally be backed up by secondary evidence. On this instance I opted for the primary with the 'yeah, that will be alright' lackluster approach, not for the first time in my life I might add.

But anyway getting to the point, I'd found a place to stay off the net for about 2.20GBP a night and upon arrival at the airport asked the shadyesque taxi driver/ man with a van to take me there. It was in Bali's tourist hotspot of Kuta, about 15 minutes drive away, popular for its beaches, bars and err...bombings!

Once at my destination I asked the guy at reception 'How much for a single room my good man?'
To which he promptly replied '$52US per night sir'
He wasn't a good man at all, he was the devils apprentice, $52US a night!!! I'm no mathematician but that sure as hell wasn't 2.20GBP per night. I meekly pulled out my rabid internet print off and showed him my findings.
'So not this price?'
He took the print and had a butchers and smirked.
'Sir, this very old, maybe someone make big joke for you'
'Yeah...maybe' I replied.
'I'll just have to come back when I'm not a pikey anymore' I said....loosely...in my head.

So with the king of backpacks I went for a wee walk to try and find me some budget digs. And that's exactly what I did, I walked, and I walked, and to coincide with all this walking I did some more walking on top of that walking. I'm all up for a little walking but my major pitfalls were my spine snapping backpack, the 10,700,082 Oc temperature and a complete lack of accommodation. I'm pretty sure that there are probably thousands of guesthouses on the island but at that swelteringly precise moment in time they ceased to exist for me.

I must have lumbered about for a good 45 minutes before finally stumbling across a semi suitable establishment. The thing is you can't really stop in the streets and have a little sissy break because then everyone thinks that you are lost and you need a taxi, or a massage, or some drugs. I think just short falling behind Ho Chi Minh City I have been verbally offered the most amount of drugs ever in my short space of time here. I haven't checked the rule book out here but I'm pretty sure if you’re busted with drugs out here you could end up swinging.

Another thing worthy of note is that when the yocals try to sell you their goods they will do so in their bestest Aussie accents.
'Good day mate, you want....mushrooms?'
At 08:15am in the morning I think I'll give it a miss, but thanks for keeping me in mind. Bali being a relatively local tourist destination for the Aussies the island is quite literally brimming with them and their nice skin. I think essentially the equivalent to the British with the Canary Islands, Americans with Cancun, Saudi's with Dubai and the Polish with...Britain.

For the first night I took a mahoosive room with two singles, I paid a little more than what I normally would but I couldn't be arsed to waltz around the island any longer sweating my nuts off. 9GBP a night really wasn't going to change my life significantly. The hotel was in a fair locale buried in a minute cluster of palm trees adjacent to a building site approximately 1 minutes walk from the beach. The walls of my massive room were stained in mosquito corpses, which you would have thought would have been a good incentive for them to stay away, but it wasn't, in due course I was positively harvested during the night. I took some of the little bastards down with me though adding to the hotel room's artsy wall furnishings.

On depositing El Superbeasto (my backpack) ungracefully upon the floor I sat on the edge of my bed and considered a nap, it was only about 3:30pm and I didn't want to get my sleeping clock all deranged so decided a little walk around Kuta would perhaps be the best decision. Kuta consists of a whole venire of backstreets and alleys all far from quaint. I think that to find the true Balinese setup one would need to stray away from Kuta. Quite vibrant upon first glance, a multitude of tourists and motorbikes whizzing about the place. In my farty ways I wasn't to sure at this early stage whether or not this was going to be the place for me. I found the infamous Poppies 1 & 2 lanes and sought out a bar that was playing the Murray Vs Nadal game. I got to sample some of the local talent that was Beer Bintang, a fine accomplishment I must say and with the close of the Murray game ending in success and two large Bintangs inside of me & nothing to eat all day I was feeling pretty smashed and extremely tired. I probably could have curled up into a ball at the bar and gone straight to sleep. Obviously I didn't do that, I made tracks back to my massive hotel room.

En route I required a chocolate fix and stopped off at a minimart/club, all the convenience that one needs plus hard thumping beats so that you can't think why it was that you went to the convenience store in the first place. Chocolate!! That's the one, and what a find it was. I managed to reveal to my eyes for the first time in three years the very rare and illusive Ritters Sport 'Butter Biscuit' flavor, I discovered this marvel back in Thailand in 2007 and couldn't get enough of that shit. But since the glorious 2007 'Butter Biscuit' era I haven't stumbled across the flavor since, just other flavors that just don't quite compare. I could tell from the packet that it had melted at some point from within and would represent a some what congealed status, but that didn't stop me from committing to the purchase and devouring it like Dale Winton devours a hotdog and meatball salad.

During the night there was a tropical storm with some heavy rain, there has always been something strangely soothing about rain hammering down on your surroundings whilst being nestled comfortably in your bed.

In the morning I was issued with my complimentary toasted egg sarnie, fruit and a cup of coffee in it's near to purest form as could have possibly been, it was like drinking black paint, my teeth were jet black as an after effect.

After breakfast and paint I hit up some new accommodation about 10 minutes away from my previous locale, slightly cheaper at just a tipple under 6GBP a night, that's a 4 beer saving. Again only a room with two twin beds available and again the room was really massive and didn't really know what to do with itself apart from smell faintly like a queefing festival that was perhaps held the night before. But it had a nice little porch just outside the room where I could do some reading and writing, so that would keep me happy. I also made sure that I was again adjacent a construction site with a massive crane towering above my dwelling that I actually failed to notice upon arrival.

At around noon I ventured to the beach. I can't say that I was overly impressed. Every time I went in the murky Skegness like waters I was attacked by crisp packets and condom wrappers, not great. Again I would hazard to guess that straying away from Kuta and heading elsewhere would produce something more idealistic to what I had originally envisioned. I did however manage to get myself burnt to a crisp in a shade of just under 2 hours. When I got back to my digs at around 3ish a combination of jetlag sissyness and sunburn fatigue set in and I ended up wasting the rest of the day in bed.

In the morning when I went to reception to pay for another night the receptionists eyes widened in what closely resembled shock.
"Ooo, Why your face red?"
I went back to my room and checked out my face and it was indeed very lobsterish, I also had big white marks surrounding my eyes from where I had been wearing sunglasses, my forehead felt like a piece of leathery plywood and looked like that of an 102 year old man. In a nutshell I looked like I had just survived a nuclear holocaust, a little freakish. I decided that it would be best to spend some time out of the sun and do some reading on my porch. Even then I was ridiculed.
"Hey man, what happened to your face?" said one Indonesian chap strolling by.

As the afternoon breached I got myself a little bit bored so spunked on a load of sun lotion, donned my sunglasses and sun hat in an attempt to disguise myself from the sun. I also had on my West Ham shirt which seemed to draw heaps of attention from the locals.
'Hey, Aston Villa, Aston Villa' they were screaming at me as I walked past, oh dear, oh dear.

I stopped for a bite to eat in a restaurant, an Aussie guy close by saw my shirt.
'Villa won 2-0 mate'
'Cheers mate' I replied.
Bit awkward telling people it's actually a West Ham shirt so I just let the mistakes slide on by, it's easier that way. The waiter then came over to give me the menu.
'Your face ok?' he said.
'Yeah, not bad, how's your face today?' I replied.
I had a local dish of nasi goreng, a sort of fried rice with meat tucked in it with an egg slapped on top, a tasty treat. Scanning around the restaurant there were a couple of aged guys sat around without their shirts on, who invented that idea and made it socially acceptable past the caveman era? No one wants to see that guff while their eating, plus how far will the trend go? Am I to expect that in 20 years from now that it will be perfectly acceptable for 'dudes' to be sat around in a restaurant with their meat and two veg chuffing about the place?

With the Aussie open final beckoning I sought out a dark and dingy refuge in which to watch Murray get whooped by Federer. After the game I didn't really feel like doing much else possibly due to my post apocalyptic era face, so I made tracks back to base. I wouldn't say I overly achieved too much in my few days in Bali to be honest, probably only covering about 1% of the island there is a great deal more the island has to offer. But essentially for the all intensive purposes of chilling out next to some building sites and catching up one some much needed sunburn before heading on to work Bali more than catered for my needs.

* Apologies for the unaesthetically pleasing blog, I have yet again managed to destroy another camera.

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