The German Generals Meet The Crowds

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Bali is small enough that you can quite happily drive around it yourself so we hired a couple of cars to tour round. In keeping with what our budget would allow, the cars we ended up with were clapped-out heaps. They resembled the cars that Nazi generals used to drive around in during World War II. As we were heading north through the mountains one of them broke down on a corner going up a hill. As we were trying to turn it round so that we could jump-start it down the hill, a huge great lorry came round the corner, lights blazing, and we honestly didn't think we were going to make it.

We then broke down again just as we arrived in Singaraja and someone who was passing by helped us out. It also just so happened that he worked in a hotel and we were very happy to follow him back there. As it happened, with the exception of the hotel in Jakarta, this was the best hotel we had stayed in so far.

Singaraja could not be more different to Kuta. We had gone from one extreme of bars and clubs full of pissed Australians everywhere to the other extreme of complete silence. We ended up playing cards to the early hours although it kept ending in arguments as the Russian cards had some cryptic alternative to kings and queens (Totalitarian tyrants) so we kept getting confused.

We spent the next day touring the north of the island. Highlights included some waterfalls and some excellent thermal springs that had been channelled into a series of large pools. We also attempted to find a big temple, unfortunately one of the cars broke down in some village in the middle of no-where, where no-one could speak any English. Crowds gathered as we pretended that we knew what we were doing as we banged mindlessly under the bonnet hoping for a miracle. Fortunately someone in the village knew something about clapped out Second World War German staff cars and he was able to get it going for us again. We abandoned the temple.

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Photos

Thermal Baths
The Banjar Thermal Baths in Singaraja

Thermal Baths
The Banjar Thermal Baths in Singaraja

Thermal Baths
The Banjar Thermal Baths in Singaraja

Thermal Baths
The Banjar Thermal Baths in Singaraja

Thermal Baths
The Banjar Thermal Baths in Singaraja