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Wednesday, 28th, at sea.
Darwin is a few hundred Ks behind us now and we have a calm sea with an ‘oily swell’ which means two things to sailors, one, it is a sea that can bring on sea sickness and two, a warning of storms. Sure enough, the rain has started and the weather is getting turbulent, hence the saying the ‘calm before the storm’.
I am convinced that the Internet manager for Carnival Cruises is called Ned Kelly. You can’t get a signal but theirs on board, they block all others and charge like Australian bushrangers. You can buy blocks of time, I purchased 150 minutes for $75. Sounds good eh ? After they had finished stuffing me around with the clock ticking I finally got to send an email , but it ended up costing me $25. The system keeps dropping in and out, takes ages to work. Internet cafes in Darwin charged $2.50 for an hour of internet time, on board you would be charged around $30.
These are just small aggravations though, the overall package is excellent and the service brilliant.
This morning after a leisurely breakfast we attended a lecture on Bali, it’s customs, what to watch out for, money matters etc which was very informative. We then went to a Trivia morning. I have found that I have attracted a ‘friend’ on board. He is a big Scots born Aussie who saw me on day 2 wearing my Wests Tigers shirt and latched onto me. He is a Tigers fan and talks a thousand words a minute. You can’t get away from him and every time he sees me he is like a pimple on my posterior. Linda went to Bingo and won $27, so she was happy with that.
I don’t know what I will be like when we reach UK, they may have to get a crain to get me off the ship I will have put on that much weight. You have to see the deserts and cakes they put in front of you for afternoon tea. I am finding that my shirts are already getting tight and I’ve only been on this floating fat farm for a week. On top of all the food they have a system whereby you can buy a ‘coffee card’ for $33 and you can get the good gear, Lattes, Cappuccino’s, frappe, flat white etc and each time you get one they mark a coffee off your card, You get 15 coffees for that money. The secret of the cards success is that as long as you have a coffee emblem left on the card not marked off you can get FREE hot chocolate for the whole voyage and it is bloody beautiful. You can imagine how many free hot choccies I have had this week and I still have a full coffee card, totally unused as yet.
Off to a magic show tonight, then will have go to one of the bars and listen to some great live music.
Sunday May 30th, The Indonesian Island of Bali.
We boarded a ships tender at 8am on a sultry overcast day and landed at the port of Benoa, greeted by Balinese dancers and band. We were then organized onto air conditioned coaches for our tours and off we went. Described in the ‘blurb’ as “Described by centuries of visitors as a near image of heaven on earth’ I can only assume that those visitors have never been to various parts of Australia , New Zealand, Canada or Europe and if this is ‘Paradise’ then our Moslem Brothers and sisters are welcome to go there when they leave this mortal coil. Like most first time visitors I had a minds image of a sultry, palm covered paradise but this was completely dispelled upon leaving the Port. I have no doubt that there are some beautiful beachside suburbs that live up to the image, but our first encounter was a mass of third world urban sprawl where developed and planned urbanization was totally missing. One thing for sure, no one would make a
living here if they were in the business of selling paint. The vast majority of buildings were drab concrete or wood with tin roofs. Some of the squalid structures and homes were so bad it made some of Australia’s indigenous townships in the bush look like Surfers Paradise and many of the rivers were full of rotting garbage. Traffic was an eye opener with thousands of scooters and motorbikes all over the place and many had three of four passengers, many small children with no safety helmets or protection. We saw one motorbike with Mum and dad wearing helmets and a baby, about 12 months old, wearing a bunny suit with ears only sandwiched between them.
Bali’s main industry is the tourist one and of course the main source of money is the overseas visitor. The bus tours then began the ’harvest’ by taking us to most of the most expensive shopping areas, this one in the goldsmith and silversmith area. I must admit that I have never seem such beautiful craftsmanship, absolutely exquisite. We then traveled to the next tourist stop which was an Art museum where we found dozens of small school kids sitting under shade competing in a colouring in competition. These children were absolutely beautiful in looks and extremely talented in their artwork, aged between 5 and 9 they were a joy to watch and it was explained to us that these were the future artists of the Island.
From there we were taken to another high priced shopping area where we saw some wonderful wood carvings for sale. I have to admit that the craftsmen and artisans on this Island are incredible.
Again, after a fairly long drive through country roads surrounded by rice paddies and where almost every house was a small primitive roadside shop or farm, we stopped at the top of this mountain for lunch and we were met by this incredible view of a wonderful valley with an active volcano, Mt Batur in the background and a lovely lake at the bottom. His was worth the long travel. Here we had a wonderful meal but the visit was marred by the very aggressive street hawkers who waylaid you on the way back to the bus. I have never experienced anything like it before where 4, 5 or 6 hawkers surround you, shoving their wares in your face, pulling at your sleeves and shouting above each other trying to barter. We were advised, ‘No eye contact’ and just keep saying ‘No’. Poor Lyn was surrounded by them, including 10 and 11 year old kids, all competing for money with the most favored word ‘Dollar mister, American dollar only’.
I had this very aggressive hawker trying to sell me a hand carved Chess set which was beautiful and one that I actually wanted. He pushed aside the other hawkers and went on and on saying ‘80 dollar Sir, only 80 dollar US’ I kept saying ‘No’ and walking but he kept following saying ‘What you give, what you give for chess set’ I said ‘Nothing’ which made him get more aggressive so I said “I give 10 dollars Australia”. he wailed at this and said ‘You rob me’ so I walked on and said ‘Go away’ and he kept following but I realized that the closer I got to the bus the louder he became and he said ‘Fifty dollars US Sir, Fifty dollar’ I said ‘No’. and when I got to the bus he said ‘Fifty dollar Australian Sir’, said ‘No’, so he said ‘Thirty dollar US’ I said ‘I give you 20 dollars Australian” He wailed and said ‘But it Backgammon as well as Chess, two games, thirty dollars US’, I said ‘Twenty dollars Australian’ and turned to get on the bus so he said ‘OK, twenty dollar Aussie’. I took out a 50 dollar note and said ‘You got $30 Aussie change”? He said ‘I get and ran around the other Hawkers and came back with a $20 Aussie note, he said ‘Here, 20 dollar Aussie change’, I said ‘No, we agree on twenty dollar for chess set, you give me thirty dollar Aussie change”, he took out a $5 note and said “OK, I give you twenty five aussie dollars”, I said “No deal” and got on the bus step, he shouted “OK, here thirty dollar change’ and handed me $30 change. This was my first taste of bartering and I loved it. I am assured that this will be the game in India, Malaysia, Dubai, Turkey and Egypt so I had better get used to it. The craftsmanship on the chess set is absolutely wonderful and I am pleased with my purchase.
We then had a few more stops, one being a ‘typical’ Bali village and this was very nice, very clean and the people invited you into their homes and were absolutely lovely. The homes were quite primitive by Aussie standards, especially the cooking and laundering systems but they had wide screen TVs and other mod cons.
The people were extremely accommodating and the children were absolutely gorgeous, standing in a row outside their homes smiling sweetly and posing for photo’s (at a cost of course) but you could not help but love them.
After stopping at an 11th century Hindu temple and meeting even more Hawkers we then went to a Batik centre which we were assured by the guide was ‘ver cheap’ and I looked at some very nice sports shirts which was ‘ver cheap’ at $69 AUD. Again though, the craftsmanship displayed was something that is rarely seen in Australia and a joy to behold.
All in all it was a long hot humid day but certainly an eye opener. The beauty of the Island and the accompanying squalor and poverty of many of the areas we passed through certainly left a lasting impression and all in all we found it a very educational and enjoyable day, but we certainly would not be rushing to have a 2 week holiday there. To be fair though, we wanted to see ‘real life’ in Bali and we certainly saw that and we did not get to see the allegedly beautiful beach suburbs like Kuta etc so we can‘t really make a full assessment of the place but not being ‘Beach people‘ these would not appeal to us anyway.
All in all we found the Balinese to be lovely people and we were assured by Aussies who go every year that these folk are a gentle and kind people. It appears that the aggressive hawkers are mainly from the Island of Java that doesn’t have a tourist trade who come over to Bali to make money and are a different culture being mainly Moslem whereas the Balinese are mainly Hindu. Now moving on to other experiences. Singapore next stop.
Tuesday, 1st June, At sea.
A nice restful day catching up on doing the laundry, having more free hot chocolate, lunch with friends, trivia session and today was the day they had a crossing the line ceremony. Yes folks, crossing the imaginary line on the earths surface, the Equator. The day when everyone who has never crossed the line before is covered in spaghetti sauce and melted chocolate and thrown in the swimming pool. We went to lunch instead as we have seen it before but we heard about a few Yanks onboard who were having their first experience and who were ’advised’ by some Aussies that the Equator was denoted by a thin blue line on the sea and the ship would sail past it by slowing down to 14 knots so photo’s could be taken. About half a dozen of these denizens of ’The most powerful nation on earth’ were seen standing on deck next to the ships rails with raised camera’s looking for ’The Equator’ line. Three later complained to the Pursers office that the ship was going too fast and they missed it. Ah, our American cousins, you just have to love em eh ?
Linda had a sore throat last night so I went to one of the many bars onboard and purchased a nip of whiskey for her to gargle with. There was about 1 cmtr on the bottom and the bill was $9.50.
Good job we don’t drink much eh ?
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Heather
non-member comment
I am impressed with your bartering over that chess set! My boyfriend spent time in Bali and had some crazy experiences, both good and horrible! Our blog is looking for travel photos, tips, etc, to share. If you have the time, check it out at dirty-hippies.blogspot.com, or email us at dirtyhippiesblog@gmail.com. Continued fun on your cruise! Sounds fantastic! Heather :)