A Bali High

Bali dogs - these have to be related to the Dingo (in fact I think the Dingo may have come from here somewhere)..
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This was my third visit to Bali. I’ve never been there for longer than a few days at a time but each time we manage to do so much in a short time it always feels like I’ve been there for longer than just the weekend.

I don’t want this to be a boring old monologue describing what we did and where we went item by item, so I might just itemise the highlights and you can have a look at the pictures and see for yourself. I took quite a few so that you might be able to get a taste..

Check out the sign..
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I arrived there about 9:45pm local time on Friday night. Denis was there to meet me, we checked in at the Jayakarta, changed and headed straight out for something to eat and a couple of Friday night drinks. Although it was a bit after midnight by then, lots of the shops were still open and there were still plenty of people wandering around shopping and generally browsing but many of the restaurants had stopped serving dinner so we grabbed a light meal at a little place that seemed to be a combination café, nightclub and martial arts centre (see sign).. the nightclubs were all still pretty crowded despite being quite late and the end of the school holidays (most Australians have already gone home) but we went back to one we went to last time we were there, listened to the live band, had a couple of Bintangs/bourbons, left there a bit after 2am and finished the night with a late night swim in the hotel pool (hope no one else was up to see us – check www.twooldfartsskinnydipping.com and let me know if I need to get my lawyer involved :-).

The Jayakarta..
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Saturday, after breakfast and another quick swim and some freshly squeezed juice by the pool, we hired a motor bike and headed into town then out to Serangan to see the beach. It’s not so much a swimming beach, more a surfing location and some days the surfing is quite good but it was pretty small Saturday so I paddled around in it for a while, we had a coke in one of the many café shacks there along the beach then headed back to town.

Denis wanted to take me somewhere memorable Saturday night, to celebrate my results and to welcome me back to Indonesia and had more or less settled on the Ku De Ta. Anyone who has been to Bali has probably heard of it.. It is owned and run by a woman from Melbourne who is always there, just wandering around, chatting to the staff and making sure everything is running smoothly. Like most places in Bali, there is always an excess of staff – these were all dressed in black with black pants, black shirts, long black aprons, trays in hand, cloth over the arm, standing quietly in the wings until you nod or look around when they’ll suddenly be there at your side ready to take your order. This place will be hard to describe - it is not just a restaurant in my view but a meal experience, one that starts at a point well before dinner and lasts until a point well after. To enjoy the whole experience, we had to go there first for afternoon drinks because one of the best times to experience Ku De Ta is at sunset. Although there is seating proper within the restaurant, there are also group of lounges and day beds out in the courtyard formed within the wings of the restaurant, sitting atop a small rise above the beach itself. These lounges and sunbeds look directly out and over the beach, facing west and the setting sun and from them, one can lie back under an umbrella, sipping a cold drink, listening to wonderful music piped out through the sound system and watch the activities on the beach and view the changing skyline as the sun goes down. It really is something else. I hope some of the photos attached give you a little taste of this place, some of its flavour. You can also go to www.kudeta.net and get a further taste, of both the look and the music – it is simply an unforgettable experience.

Wares for sale at Jayakarta shop..
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After drinks, we came back for dinner (again just wonderful), lay on the daybeds/lounges until well after dinner, looking at the beach lit by a number of spotlights and listening to music and the sound of the waves coming in. I just can’t tell you how gorgeous it was…

Sunday we again went back, this time to lie on the beach itself and to have a late lunch there as a last taste of Bali before we went back to the motel and to the airport for our return to Jakarta. There are some pictures attached of some of the things we saw and experienced there on the Sunday including the hawkers, the horses, the Bali dogs, the kites, the hotels…

Typical Balinese jewellery stand..
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Although it may seem we spent most of the weekend out there at Seminyak, we did manage to fit in a couple of other things too. We had breakfast in the café across the road from the beach at Kuta Sunday morning – Spanish omelettes, coffee, toast and watermelon juice for two people for about 60,000 rupia (less than $10), wandered next door to get a couple of pairs of sunglasses for Danielle as promised (Dani, they’ll be on their way as soon as I find a post office???) and bought 15 more CD’s for about 120,0000 (a bit over a dollar each) for the apartment so again, as with previous visits, we packed quite a bit into a short time. Love it, love it, love it..

Huge chess set within Jayakarta grounds..
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Just to make sure we knew we were back in Indonesia though with the difficulties that life here can impose, we had quite the experience at the airport – Denis threw out all his flight paperwork, (boarding pass etc) when he arrived in Bali on Friday night and realised on Sunday that with it, he’d thrown away the ticket stub that still contained his return flight details. That’s never been a problem in Australia (in fact I can’t remember the last time I had a paper ticket there) and we assumed it wouldn’t be a problem here either. Even Garuda has an on-line reservation and booking system through which they can view passenger details and information but as it was, it caused all sorts of dramas. We should have known!!  Apparently if you lose a paper ticket, it has to be reported to the police here. A new ticket also has to be bought and the price of the first one claimed back from Garuda. Can you imagine the comical situation that then arose?? 15 minutes away from boarding and Garuda staff telling Denis there are no seats left on the flight?? And Denis reminding them there is a seat on that flight that he can use – HIS OWN!!! We made the flight but only just and had to purchase another ticket to do so.. typical Indonesian red tape..

Beach at Surangan.. surfing shacks and not much else but its all you need..
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Well that’s it for Bali. My next blog entry will be about a normal week in Jakarta. I’ve been carrying my camera everywhere with me to try and get some shots that show the day-to-day Jakarta so I’ll be interested to see if, at the end of the week, I feel like I’ve done that. I actually tried to photograph the shops and the café we had lunch in yesterday (I wanted to photograph the sting ray I had ordered for lunch) but a security guard came over and warned me ‘no camera, no camera!!’) so I might find it more difficult than I thought but I’ll see how I go.. I managed to take a few at Ranch yesterday without being hassled, the supermarket where we buy most of our meat and vegetables, and managed to get a shot of the live bullfrogs for sale so look out for that one on the next post…

The beach at Surangan..
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Til next time…

R&D