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Published: December 15th 2018
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We waste most of the morning of our last full day here sleeping, and then set off for reception to see if we can get a late check out tomorrow. We are approached by a young European staff member who speaks to us in a tongue that neither of us can understand. Issy asks him if he can repeat whatever he said in English. The look he gives us suggests that he was speaking English the first time, and perhaps unsurprisingly our request for a late check out is denied.
We head back to Bali Collection and hoe into large quantities of pizza and bread at an Italian restaurant. We are sitting right next to a large fan, and when we finish our cans of tonic water the now empty cans start sliding around randomly on the glass top table. It looks very spooky. Issy says it feels like we’ve got front row seats at a seance. The waitress comes to check on our progress and looks a bit shocked when she sees the cans move as we stare at them. I think she suspects that we might have evil supernatural powers and that we’re moving the cans with our
minds. The bill appears almost before we’ve had a chance to chew our last mouthful of food, and she looks very relieved to see us walk out the door.
Issy is of course contemplating yet another massage. I’m struggling to think of a suitable excuse not to join her so it seems I’ve been enveigled into yet another torture session. We go back to her favourite salon where she is surely now their best customer. She expects to be welcomed like a long lost friend, but all the staff are different, and the price has also jumped up significantly since the last time she was here a couple of days ago. She tries to haggle them down to the old price and they eventually cave in. None of them look particularly happy, and I begin to doubt the wisdom of haggling a cheap price for what to me is semi-voluntary torture, particularly after just having consumed a very large quantity of food. They ask us to pay up front for the first time. I wonder why. I think that maybe they’re angry about the price and are planning some particularly harsh treatment as revenge, so figure that they’d better
Huh?
It seems that if you want a bag of concrete here in Indonesia, this is what you order extract payment now in case the pain gets too much for us and we decide to do a runner mid-session. I notice that the customary disclaimer form is a actually headed “counselling sheet”. I think I might be in need of some of that by the time all this is over. As expected, the agony is significantly worse than usual. I consider pleading with my tormentor to stop, but decide that it might be better for my claims to manhood if I don’t when I hear Issy calmly requesting to have her massage pressure increased. I wonder how my beloved can be so impervious to the pain. I decide that this must have something to do with childbirth.
Issy heads back to the hotel while I go back to Waterblow in the hope of seeing a little more wave action than I got when I went there earlier in the week. As I approach the platform I do indeed see some foam spurt up into the air to the oohs and aahs of the handful of other spectators. I get my camera out and point it towards the action in eager anticipation of the next big wave. I wait, and wait, and wait, until my arms are too tired to hold the camera in position any longer. It seems that the big wave I saw as I walked in was a one-off for the day, so I wander away despondently without anything to show for my efforts.
I pass some building works on the way out, and note yet another fine example of English words finding their way into the Indonesian vernacular in a sort of fashion. It seems that if you want to pour some concrete for a path in your front yard here in Bali, you need to make your way down to your friendly local hardware store and ask for some bags of “semen”.
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