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Bali - Saturday, December 25, 2004
Arrival25 December, 2004
I arrive in Denpasar at around 2pm and meet the wonderful Diane and Marita, the sisters from Sydney and Townsville, respectively, at the airport. Temperature is around 31 degrees and humid as all buggery. Nyoman, our guide, greets us and takes us to the air conditioned van that will be transporting us around the Island for the next week. I don't want to leave the comfort of the van at first. It's so nice and cold! However, as we arrive at our destination, the Prani Legian Hotel in Kuta, I can't wait to leave the van and book into my hotel room...
Day One
26 December, 2004
Not bad for budget accomodation! I didn't leave the hotel room the night before for more than twenty minutes. It was hot outside and the room was air conditioned and had a telly. I'm such a wussy pussy!! Day one was a free day, we had the entire day to check out Kuta. However, as soon as we walked out on the street it appeared that Kuta was checking us out. I've never seen so many bloody hawkers in my life! We went shopping down the main street, had lunch on the beach (sort of) and had dinner at a restaurant that served western food (I had pasta...). We managed to stumble across Peanuts Bar after dinner which was empty but had pool for 3,000 Rp per game. I won't say no to a game of pool for only 0.45c AUD. We stayed there for a few hours... I think I spent a total of no more than ten aussie dollars for about five games of pool and four beers (all hail Bintang in all of it's ice-cold glory). When we arrived back at the hotel we met the rest of our tour group and went over the details of the week to come. There would be eleven of us split between two vans. I appeared to be the youngest person on the trip but soon found out everyone acted the same age. This was going to be a great trip.
Day Two
December 27, 2004
Today we travel to Ubud, one hour north of Kuta, to see the Monkey Forest Sanctuary and the local markets. On the way we stop to watch The Barong and Kris Dance. The Barong Play represents an eternal fight between good and evil spirits. Barong (a mythological animal) represents a good spirit and Rangda (a mythological monster) represents an evil spirit. Pictured below is a scene from Act One, two girl-dancers appear, representing the servants of the Rangda, looking for the servants of Dewi Kunti who are on their way to meet their Patih (Prime Minister). In the following act, one of the servants of the Rangda turns into a witch and weird stuff happens, the program isn't easy to understand, I'm working on translating the broken English though. I think what happens is the witch kind of possesses the servants of the Dewi Kunti and makes them angry. The servants meet their Prime Minister as planned and travel on to see Dewi Kunti... Or something like that.
Anyway, the show was awesome and the costumes outstanding. We made our way to the Monkey Forest Sanctuary next. The forest was beautiful and the monkeys were rude but we could feed them and take photos up close. It started raining so we had to share shelter with one of the monkeys, however, it was fun and only cost us about 80 cents admission.
Before we checked into our next homestay, we were able to wander through the local markets. I didn't get a chance to see all of them. The marketplace was massive, a couple of stories high and full of the most amazing crap you could ever feast your eyes on!! Everyone wants to barter for the best morning, afternoon or evening price in the market and you're always the first or last customer of the day, which means an even better discount! So that little man with the big doodle can be yours for as little as one dollar fifty if you play your cards right. If you so much as whisper "mahal" in a hawker's ear, you're greeted with a frenzied "Oh, name your best price! I give for you good afternoon price!!". So exciting yet so smelly. I rated the markets though, it reminded me of Paddy's, Haymarket in Sydney - only with more rain, less cover and lots of genuine fake Rolexs. A tourist's bittersweet dream come true and gone wrong.
Our homestay was amazing, nestled on the edge of a bunch of massive rice fields, all the rooms looked out over the fields into the sunset, which unfortunately was marred by the clouds on this particular day but it still looked nice..
There was no air-con in this one, although we did have a fan, lots of mozzies and not much light. However, the shower was good, nice and warm, plenty of water pressure and the bed was comfortable.
Day Three
December 28, 2004
- Created:
- Tuesday, January 11, 2005 at 9:36 PM
- Last Modified:
- Tuesday, January 18, 2005 at 6:01 PM