Bali 2
May 23, 2007 at 12:33am
Man, so I just deleted a paragraph by bumping the wrong button. So now I'm gonna write on wordpad and then copy it onto the facebook thing once its done. Not as bad as last time but still....
So anyways, the next thing worth writing about takes place in the form of a tour. Greg Norman, my self appointed local guide, helper, and would be drug dealer, pimp, etc etc etc.... ("Young girl? Young girl?" ...."Old woman?" ..Hah.) has a friend with a car who does tours for people. For all of 30$ I'm getting a full island tour including the volcano, some temples, a monkey jungle, barung barung dance... The works really. So Sunday morning around 7 30 I'm picked up on a scooter in front of my hotel, and taken to the drivers house. He shares a modest place with a couple other families, and they have chickens in amusingly small cages in the front yard. He's actually got a pretty nice car, A/C and everything. Its a little Rav4 style SUV, but some kind I've never seen before. Anyways we wait there for a while until about 8 20, because the Barong Barong dance doesn't start until 9, and its not too far away. The Barong Barong dance is a pretty cool local tradition, its pretty much a musical play that consists of people wearing huge weird costumes and dancing to local old fashioned music to tell an ancient story of a battle between good and evil. I wouldn't have understood anything except they gave me some very poorly written notes about the plot. They turned out to be not much help though, due to a slight misunderstanding on my part. See, all the boys in the play were played by boys...except the main character. So I'm reading the plot and I figure I understand pretty good, and I'm watching the play waiting for this main character guy to appear and the main conflict to start up, and it was maybe 2 minutes from the end when I realized this woman was supposed to be a guy, and I just in a way missed the entire thing...Oops. hahah still got some great pictures though.
Next up we're headed to a place where they make silver jewelery. On the way though people keep coming to the windows and trying to sell me newspapers. They show me an english one, so I try going "No engrish no engrish" so they ask where I'm from, I see russian and german papers...so I try Sweden. Up pops a swedish paper. My guides had a great laugh, so did I.
The Silver Jewelery place was pretty cool, saw a small part where people were making earrings out of silver and stuff, all done by hand and very intricate...then spent 20 minutes in a shop where some guy was trying to sell me stuff. I got out of there with my wallet unscathed and moved onto the next part.
This is the part I've really been looking forward to. The Monkey Jungle/Temple. Its this special part of the Rainforest in Bali which is full of monkeys, and its a little tourist part. 10 000 Rupiah for entry and another 10 for a bag of bananas and I'm in. Man this place is COOL. Monkeys everywhere, mama monkeys running around with baby monkeys on their bellies, mid sized monkeys scampering around, big papa monkeys showin their fangs and beards and posing/lazing about. I keep trying to feed smaller ones, and bigger ones keep taking the bananas. I sat next to one, fed him, and then patted him on the head...and he instantly rared up, showed some MASSIVE fangs and looked pissed off as hell!! I got out of there, I'm not interested in getting any new piercings... I got some great pictures there, one monkey managed to get in my backpack and steal a banana!! and another climbed on my head ........... but all in all it was really cool.
On to the Elephant temple! This place was beautiful, I had to wear a sarong to explore it but I forgave it because it was so incredible. I went in caves and saw some amazingly old stone idols, explored paths leading to mysterious abandoned caves with freaky carvings, and even found a hidden path down through a bamboo jungle to a blocked off bamboo bridge...I felt a bit like Indiana Jones. Didn't get chased by any giant rocks though, that was a bit of a let down. The pictures I took do it so much more justice than these words, I really can't describe the place.
Next we went to the top of a mountain, next to a volcano. The view was incredible, the restaurant we had lunch at...not so much. I learned about Bali's corrupt policemen on the way up, and then next we went to a temple of Holy Water. Here people come to collect bottles and jugs of holy water, pray, and bathe in holy water. My guide stumbled onto a side pond where a bunch of guys were bathing in the holy water naked...I gave that one a skip. At the end of the day we went to a beautiful beach and watched the sunset, and I went home.
The next night I was at the bar with Chris and I ended up meeting up with my future travel companions Richie, Rich and Nick. Rich and Nick are 2 british Marines travelling together, and Richie...is an interesting story. A brit who moved to Thailand 6 years ago, has owned a bar there and currently owns a guest house and 2 scuba diving shops, and never plans to move back to England. He just found out he's having a kid with his Thai girlfriend! Very cool guy, shows the diversity of what you can do with your life! We got pissed up, talked about the boys times in Afghanistan, scraps, girls, and a million other things, and then hit the hay around 3 am. Next day was a lazy one around the pool. Me and Rich went to go for a surf, and on the way I managed to slip on a spot of algae on some steps and ding my MotherF*@#-ing board. I was not pleased. At all. One bit. In the slightest.
We headed back and I was in quite a foul temper. Later on we decided to go down to the beach, I rented a board and surfed for a bit, had a decent time, and then comes time to go back. I'm still pretty nervous on my motorcycle, I've got Rich on the back, his board on the side, and traffic goin mad as I'm trying to pull out, and somehow I end up fucking up, giving it way too much gas, ending up going way too fast and out of control, and losing the bike, falling, sliding my knee along the ground and my helmeted head as well, and smashing up my knee and foot to a pretty brutal degree. It really wasnt my day. I got up, shook it off after a couple minutes, and just drove it home, planning to never ever ride the bike again. When I got back I assed the injuries, decided they were minor, road rash on the knee and cuts on the toe, cleaned them up and went out. After that a few more normal days went by, swimming in the pool, reading, chilling out, I wasn't drinking too much. And then the party.
Chris, one of the guys at the hotel is having a 21st birthday party, and the hotel is throwing a bit of a party at the bar. A free buffet, drinking games...etc...This is gonna get messy. So the night rolls along, the bintang are flowing heavily, the food is good, and everyones getting sloppy. We're playing all kinds of drinking games like "I never", Spoons, and a bunch of other weird ones I don't remember...and then comes when it gets really messy. The local girls have set the whole place up with balloons, and each one has a piece of paper with something written on it inside. They vary from, chug your drink to jump in the pool to get egg broken on your head or flower in your face...Chris goes first. SPLAT. Egg on his head, flower in his face. It continues like this for a while, with people in and out of the pool (I was in like 3 times), egg going everywhere, flower everywhere, until it basically turned into a food fight. Afterwards it settled back down to normal drinking games, and everyone worked off to the showers to get ready to go out. The night out was awesome. I think I danced with at least 3/4 girls in that club. Embargo again, then we headed to double 6...but it was 100% empty!! What the fuck?! This ended up with us swimming naked in the ocean and getting a cab home. The girls stole my underwear, I wasn't pleased. Awesome night in the end though. In bed around...say...4 am!
The main other highlights of Kuta are a couple good surfs, and some unreal meals at this restaurant called The Balcony. Massive Seafood Skewer, and Surf and Turf. Both highly recommended.
Next step: Get the HELL out of Kuta!! Wheee!! I took my board to be repaired in the morning, and picked it up around 5 o clock. The boys without bikes have a driver waiting, we stick our boards and bags in the car and we're off. Its going to be a 2 hour ride to Balian! This feels long as FUCK on the bike. By the time we get there my knees and ass and crotch are all killing me, but its been fun for all that its been exhausting. Balian is the real Bali. Up in the country in the middle of nowhere, cows and chickens everywhere, beautiful views good waves and not much else. We've been here since thee 17th now, 6 days, and its been unreal. First couple Nick and Ritchie were still here, so there was much bintang drunk, and a great fire on the beach. Ever since its just been me and Rich, reading, sleeping, surfing, drinking tons of water and eating small amounts of Indonesian food. Its really been great. Absolutely no stress, no worries, no anything. Just tons of sleep, eating healthy, out on the water alot, being lazy as fuck and reading good books. This week has been one of the best of my travels.
I've been thinking about back home alot since I've been here too, and how different its going to seem after all this travelling. I still miss my friends a ton, and I have to admit even with all these great people I've met travelling, theres something about the girls back home too. As much as I love travelling, its true, home really is where the heart is and its impossible to completely leave it behind. I called Durrell a couple days ago, hearing that hilarious cape breton accent got me excited for summer. Its gonna be great to be back with everyone, sitting around camp fires, drinking Canadian beer, smoking joints and just having a great time.
You think alot when you're travelling, theres lots of quiet alone time. Its funny, I feel like I've answered alot of questions I had about myself since I've been travelling, but for every one I've answered more have popped up. I finally feel ready to go to University in the fall now, I'm actually looking forward to it. I hope this Rugby Camp will toughen me up that I can play Football as well as Rugby maybe, even though I don't have much experience. I'm gonna have to keep in the gym hard this summer when I get home to stay in shape for tryouts though!
I do miss stuff about home. The food, my bed, Smudge(that goofy bastard), but most of all my friends and family. Travelling for 4.5 months is a long time when you're on your own. I hope next time I get to bring a bit of home with me in the form of a friend or a girlfriend.
Somehow this trip seems like a warmup for more travels, the fact my parents have been giving me money, I haven't been good enough at surfing to take full advantage of the waves, and just other things that I needed to sort out mentally and emotionally before I was ready to take 100% advantage of this opportunity are all finally sorting themselves out. As incredible as this trip has been and will continue to be, I know next times going to be even better. These travels will always have a special place in my heart as the first though. Cronulla especially as a place is going to have a spot in my soul forever.
To all my friends I've made while travelling, I love you all and I hope to see you On The Road again. To all my friends back home I hope you get to come with me next time.
Love your travelling Caper, Dave
Bali 3
Well, at long last I'm uploading some pictures. It says its going to take half hour or 40 minutes or something so I figured I'd write another entry in the mean time, fill time and stuff. Not nearly so much has happened as usual since the last one, its been a pretty slow couple days in Kuta really, I've been kept pretty lazy by the outrageous burn I acquired on my ankle by slipping while walking my motorbike. Heat+Exhaust+Clumsy Me=Very large and painful burn. Its keeping me out of the water, and actually keeping me fairly inactive, it even hurts alot when I walk. I hope it heals quick, I've been putting aloe on it pretty regularly. Anyways, since I've been in Kuta...
First afternoon I got here, well I'd lost Rich on the way in, I think I mentioned that before. I got ahead of him, and stopped at a gas station to fill up. He passed by before I could get to the road to wave him down I guess. Then, he stopped at a further gas station by the turn off to Kuta, which I missed entirely, because the signage was confusing, it looked like a one way street the other way..or something. Anyway he tore off after me trying to catch up, but he couldn't, so we'd thoroughly lost contact. Without cell phones or anything, I left a message on his facebook, and had faith in a certain plan of how I'd find him.
Next step: In Balian, I'd found myself both loving and hating my longboard in equal parts. On smaller days, or even just less sloppy days it was great, easier to catch waves, easier to stand up, etc etc, generally just easier. But on some days out there, pretty regularly in fact, its size became a real drawback. It is, sadly, impossible to duckdive well. So when you've caught a wave and you're in the way of the rest of the set, you generally get pounded all the way to shore, after numerous failed attempts to duckdive massive slabs of whitewash, feeling frustrated, possibly cut up, and bruised. Not ideal. I borrowed Rich's 7'0 Shortboard and it was unreal being able to actually duckdive and navigate out there, a little slower to paddle, and harder to catch waves but the compromise being that it was possible to get out alot easier, it seemed worth it. Its also a better feeling not being the only guy out there with a longboard. Having a Mal in the water, if you're not catching tons of waves, is like sticking a big flag on your back saying "I'm a kook beginner look at me I can't surf", and it really kind of messes with your confidence. Or mine anyway. I do love my Mal, and I can't wait to surf all summer with it on the smaller waves back home, but I felt a shortboard would be a prudent investment...
So, I have 400$ in back pay in Australia, as well as my income tax coming to me. This was originally going to be summer drinking money, so I wouldn't need a job for a bit when I got home in the summer, but I decided to suck it up, and spend that money on a coffin and a shortboard. Some might say I should have just sucked it up and stuck with the Mal, or maybe sold it if I wanted a shortboard...but anyways I couldn't get at the money, so I found myself in a familiar situation thats beginning to get a little hard on my pride, even if its a great comfort to my wallet: Asking my dad for some cash. I assured him its only a loan, that I had the money, etc etc, but he didn't really seem to care. He's honestly almost too generous with me, I'm quite a lucky bastard and I really feel it, and without any qualms he said he'd come through for me. Fuck yeah!! You are the man dad, couldn't be doin this without ya. Anyways, its time to go board shopping.
I headed over to Poppies II, a sort of alley/street combination around which almost all the surf shops are located. I spent about 3 hours going from shop to shop, drooling over board after board after board, getting excited and generally having a ball. I went to a ton of shops, easily 15 if not 20, and every one had one board that stood out as being a solid candidate. From 6'10s to 6'6s, all proper wide and chunky boards, varying in price and paint and shape and everything else, I considered a broad spectrum. All the whlie I was also looking at the smaller boards, and the big longboards, and in the case of the smaller ones wishing I was good enough (and perhaps not quite so chubby from my travels) to ride one of them, whereas with the bigger ones I admired them for their size and their implied speed and power and rideability. I wanted to buy them all. I must have cut quite the sight, dancing excitedly through the shops, admiring, touching, picking up, and scrutinizing hundreds of boards. I think the shop owners all got a bit of a kick out of me. I stumbled into non-surfboard shops, taking the time to check out some sick skateboards, and unreal carveboards, and all sorts of wonderful gear. In the end, I wandered into the Hot Banana surf shop and found her.
I went in and told them what I was looking for, and they pulled her out right away. A 6'6 x20"x 2 3/4 Swallowtail Tri-fish Alacantra. Something about her just clicked, it was exactly what I was looking for and I knew it. No fancy paint job, just a pure stick ready to get the job done. I was in love. I admired it for a while, talked price, talked board bags and deals and packages, and then in the spirit of good sense decided to go look some more. When I did, I found I wasn't really looking. I browsed 3 more shops half-heartedly, always thinking of the board in the Hot Banana shop. In the end, after maybe half hour more looking I decided I'd made up my mind. Maybe I just acknowledged that it was made up for me, I'm not sure. I went back to the shop, bought the board, a grip pad, a leash some wax and put in an order for a bag. I'd seen a sick Creatures 2-6 board coffin at one of the shops, but after I bought what amounted to the most expensive board I'd looked at, I couldn't justify splurging on the bag too. I got a simple Indo-made 8mm thick double board bag, black with camo sides, ordered in to arrive the next night. The guy at the shop put on the grip for me, far more carefully than I would have done so that was good, and I picked her up and headed for home. Walking home I could feel the board vibrating whenever one of the more guttural bikes walked by, and somehow it just felt right tucked under my arm. I got back to my room, waxed it up something nice, and set it up against the wall.
Sadly, because of my burn thats where it has sat since, while I have read the 3 surf magazines I've aquired cover to cover, a couple times, as well as finishing Jack Kerouacs On The Road for the 2nd time in my life (this being the first time actually on the road however), and generally being a bum and waiting to heal.
Oh. As to finding Rich, I went to the Balcony, this unreal restaurant we went to a couple times, around 8 o clock. I ordered my meal, and lo and behold right after my starter came in struts Rich with his newly arrived girlfriend Claire. She's just arrived, and they then headed straight to the Balcony. Rich said he was sure I'd be there. We were both right. Claire, who I'd heard much about in the time in Balian, turned out to be very cool, and quite pretty. Also, a very classic posh brit Accent, which I got a kick out of. Anyways, we're all meeting up tonight and then they're gonna come with me to Bounty to see if I can find the boys from OZ, Kavi Kruger Drew and who knows maybe Graeme. I wonder what they'll think of my purchase, or the fact that while I have gotten better at surfing, I still suck. We'll see, tonight should be interesting. I'm not gonna get too pissed up, Bounty is famous for having whores and girlboys lurking in the shadows...don't need any trouble from those quarters. Wish me luck.
First afternoon I got here, well I'd lost Rich on the way in, I think I mentioned that before. I got ahead of him, and stopped at a gas station to fill up. He passed by before I could get to the road to wave him down I guess. Then, he stopped at a further gas station by the turn off to Kuta, which I missed entirely, because the signage was confusing, it looked like a one way street the other way..or something. Anyway he tore off after me trying to catch up, but he couldn't, so we'd thoroughly lost contact. Without cell phones or anything, I left a message on his facebook, and had faith in a certain plan of how I'd find him.
Next step: In Balian, I'd found myself both loving and hating my longboard in equal parts. On smaller days, or even just less sloppy days it was great, easier to catch waves, easier to stand up, etc etc, generally just easier. But on some days out there, pretty regularly in fact, its size became a real drawback. It is, sadly, impossible to duckdive well. So when you've caught a wave and you're in the way of the rest of the set, you generally get pounded all the way to shore, after numerous failed attempts to duckdive massive slabs of whitewash, feeling frustrated, possibly cut up, and bruised. Not ideal. I borrowed Rich's 7'0 Shortboard and it was unreal being able to actually duckdive and navigate out there, a little slower to paddle, and harder to catch waves but the compromise being that it was possible to get out alot easier, it seemed worth it. Its also a better feeling not being the only guy out there with a longboard. Having a Mal in the water, if you're not catching tons of waves, is like sticking a big flag on your back saying "I'm a kook beginner look at me I can't surf", and it really kind of messes with your confidence. Or mine anyway. I do love my Mal, and I can't wait to surf all summer with it on the smaller waves back home, but I felt a shortboard would be a prudent investment...
So, I have 400$ in back pay in Australia, as well as my income tax coming to me. This was originally going to be summer drinking money, so I wouldn't need a job for a bit when I got home in the summer, but I decided to suck it up, and spend that money on a coffin and a shortboard. Some might say I should have just sucked it up and stuck with the Mal, or maybe sold it if I wanted a shortboard...but anyways I couldn't get at the money, so I found myself in a familiar situation thats beginning to get a little hard on my pride, even if its a great comfort to my wallet: Asking my dad for some cash. I assured him its only a loan, that I had the money, etc etc, but he didn't really seem to care. He's honestly almost too generous with me, I'm quite a lucky bastard and I really feel it, and without any qualms he said he'd come through for me. Fuck yeah!! You are the man dad, couldn't be doin this without ya. Anyways, its time to go board shopping.
I headed over to Poppies II, a sort of alley/street combination around which almost all the surf shops are located. I spent about 3 hours going from shop to shop, drooling over board after board after board, getting excited and generally having a ball. I went to a ton of shops, easily 15 if not 20, and every one had one board that stood out as being a solid candidate. From 6'10s to 6'6s, all proper wide and chunky boards, varying in price and paint and shape and everything else, I considered a broad spectrum. All the whlie I was also looking at the smaller boards, and the big longboards, and in the case of the smaller ones wishing I was good enough (and perhaps not quite so chubby from my travels) to ride one of them, whereas with the bigger ones I admired them for their size and their implied speed and power and rideability. I wanted to buy them all. I must have cut quite the sight, dancing excitedly through the shops, admiring, touching, picking up, and scrutinizing hundreds of boards. I think the shop owners all got a bit of a kick out of me. I stumbled into non-surfboard shops, taking the time to check out some sick skateboards, and unreal carveboards, and all sorts of wonderful gear. In the end, I wandered into the Hot Banana surf shop and found her.
I went in and told them what I was looking for, and they pulled her out right away. A 6'6 x20"x 2 3/4 Swallowtail Tri-fish Alacantra. Something about her just clicked, it was exactly what I was looking for and I knew it. No fancy paint job, just a pure stick ready to get the job done. I was in love. I admired it for a while, talked price, talked board bags and deals and packages, and then in the spirit of good sense decided to go look some more. When I did, I found I wasn't really looking. I browsed 3 more shops half-heartedly, always thinking of the board in the Hot Banana shop. In the end, after maybe half hour more looking I decided I'd made up my mind. Maybe I just acknowledged that it was made up for me, I'm not sure. I went back to the shop, bought the board, a grip pad, a leash some wax and put in an order for a bag. I'd seen a sick Creatures 2-6 board coffin at one of the shops, but after I bought what amounted to the most expensive board I'd looked at, I couldn't justify splurging on the bag too. I got a simple Indo-made 8mm thick double board bag, black with camo sides, ordered in to arrive the next night. The guy at the shop put on the grip for me, far more carefully than I would have done so that was good, and I picked her up and headed for home. Walking home I could feel the board vibrating whenever one of the more guttural bikes walked by, and somehow it just felt right tucked under my arm. I got back to my room, waxed it up something nice, and set it up against the wall.
Sadly, because of my burn thats where it has sat since, while I have read the 3 surf magazines I've aquired cover to cover, a couple times, as well as finishing Jack Kerouacs On The Road for the 2nd time in my life (this being the first time actually on the road however), and generally being a bum and waiting to heal.
Oh. As to finding Rich, I went to the Balcony, this unreal restaurant we went to a couple times, around 8 o clock. I ordered my meal, and lo and behold right after my starter came in struts Rich with his newly arrived girlfriend Claire. She's just arrived, and they then headed straight to the Balcony. Rich said he was sure I'd be there. We were both right. Claire, who I'd heard much about in the time in Balian, turned out to be very cool, and quite pretty. Also, a very classic posh brit Accent, which I got a kick out of. Anyways, we're all meeting up tonight and then they're gonna come with me to Bounty to see if I can find the boys from OZ, Kavi Kruger Drew and who knows maybe Graeme. I wonder what they'll think of my purchase, or the fact that while I have gotten better at surfing, I still suck. We'll see, tonight should be interesting. I'm not gonna get too pissed up, Bounty is famous for having whores and girlboys lurking in the shadows...don't need any trouble from those quarters. Wish me luck.
Bali 4 (Formerly Bali 4/New Zealand 1)
I'm putting this here to effectively call my own bluff and force myself to write about the massive amount of time thats gone by since I last wrote a journal entry before I forget it all. Heaps has happened..
Zoomin in Bali
massively sprained ankles
trips to dreamland
mad chillin with shlatvian south africans..and so much more after these messages from our sponsors!
..Tomorrow.
And I guess this is tomorrow isn't it. Shit this is going to take a long time.
What has it been, 3 weeks since my last entry?..I'm going to have to read the last one and see what the last thing I wrote about was..one second.
And alright I'm back. Man thats ages ago. Pretty much around the half way point of my month in Bali, and I've already left there and been in New Zealand for a week. This is going to be hectic...probably going to have to make this a multi parter...
How about scratch the New Zealand part of that title.
There. Done that, now time to write about what happened.
Well, me being an intelligent lad I got a Dettol bar of soap and went back to my hotel room at the Ayu Bed and Breakfast. My festering, throbbing burn is actually so bad its giving me muscle cramps, and yet still I ignore it. What, I think, is the worst that could happen with my magical Aloe Leaf and Dettol Soap? ..But anyways. I get cleaned up, burn and all, get dressed, and head out to meet up with Rich and his girl at Sky Garden. This is a massively cool club, very classy but a bit expensive with unreal live music and djs, great food, comfy couches, beautiful waitresses, and its on the 4th story of a little tower building. We started drinking 2 for 1 Heinekens up there, and somehow Claire managed to talk me into chugging one. And then another. And then I'm on a roll. Without eating dinner. So this is promising to be an interesting night. We hung out and chatted and drank for a while before heading over to Bounty where supposedly the SA crew is going to turn up tonight, according to Kruger about 2 weeks ago..
This was the beginning of a mad searching mission. First there was some confusion as to which club was actually bounty. There was one next door which certainly fulfilled the description of being full of Hookers and ladyboys, but after some indecision I realized that wasn't really Bounty it was some shitty club. I went next door to the real Bounty, still with Rich and Claire in tow, and wandered around looking for the boys. It was still fairly early at this point maybe 9 o clock, and I wandered around and drank Bintang for a while, going to the dancefloor, some crazy part where the Indos were moshing at a punk band, and a karaoke section before deciding to try some other places again. Somewhere around this point Rich and Claire decided to go home and leave me to my searching, I imagine I was pretty wasted so I didn't really mind too much. I wandered to some other clubs, and then worked back to Bounty. Back up on the dancefloor, I bottlebonged a Bintang tall boy or two, and was just enjoying my night having pretty much decided that the crew wasn't going to show up, when I was proved quite obviously wrong.
Kavi Fulena came grinning up the stairs, shirtless and dreads hanging, obvious as a clown at a funeral. This is one guy thats hard to miss or mistake for anyone else, and I was stoked as when I saw him. Soon after Drew's girlfriend Casey came up with Kruger, and the rest of the boys were downstairs. So began a beer fuelled night of enthusiasm about surfing, laughing, dancing, and finding out where to meet them the next day. I woke up the next morning with a throbbing head, leg, and a destination: Eric's Cafe, Dreamland.
Zoomin in Bali
massively sprained ankles
trips to dreamland
mad chillin with shlatvian south africans..and so much more after these messages from our sponsors!
..Tomorrow.
And I guess this is tomorrow isn't it. Shit this is going to take a long time.
What has it been, 3 weeks since my last entry?..I'm going to have to read the last one and see what the last thing I wrote about was..one second.
And alright I'm back. Man thats ages ago. Pretty much around the half way point of my month in Bali, and I've already left there and been in New Zealand for a week. This is going to be hectic...probably going to have to make this a multi parter...
How about scratch the New Zealand part of that title.
There. Done that, now time to write about what happened.
Well, me being an intelligent lad I got a Dettol bar of soap and went back to my hotel room at the Ayu Bed and Breakfast. My festering, throbbing burn is actually so bad its giving me muscle cramps, and yet still I ignore it. What, I think, is the worst that could happen with my magical Aloe Leaf and Dettol Soap? ..But anyways. I get cleaned up, burn and all, get dressed, and head out to meet up with Rich and his girl at Sky Garden. This is a massively cool club, very classy but a bit expensive with unreal live music and djs, great food, comfy couches, beautiful waitresses, and its on the 4th story of a little tower building. We started drinking 2 for 1 Heinekens up there, and somehow Claire managed to talk me into chugging one. And then another. And then I'm on a roll. Without eating dinner. So this is promising to be an interesting night. We hung out and chatted and drank for a while before heading over to Bounty where supposedly the SA crew is going to turn up tonight, according to Kruger about 2 weeks ago..
This was the beginning of a mad searching mission. First there was some confusion as to which club was actually bounty. There was one next door which certainly fulfilled the description of being full of Hookers and ladyboys, but after some indecision I realized that wasn't really Bounty it was some shitty club. I went next door to the real Bounty, still with Rich and Claire in tow, and wandered around looking for the boys. It was still fairly early at this point maybe 9 o clock, and I wandered around and drank Bintang for a while, going to the dancefloor, some crazy part where the Indos were moshing at a punk band, and a karaoke section before deciding to try some other places again. Somewhere around this point Rich and Claire decided to go home and leave me to my searching, I imagine I was pretty wasted so I didn't really mind too much. I wandered to some other clubs, and then worked back to Bounty. Back up on the dancefloor, I bottlebonged a Bintang tall boy or two, and was just enjoying my night having pretty much decided that the crew wasn't going to show up, when I was proved quite obviously wrong.
Kavi Fulena came grinning up the stairs, shirtless and dreads hanging, obvious as a clown at a funeral. This is one guy thats hard to miss or mistake for anyone else, and I was stoked as when I saw him. Soon after Drew's girlfriend Casey came up with Kruger, and the rest of the boys were downstairs. So began a beer fuelled night of enthusiasm about surfing, laughing, dancing, and finding out where to meet them the next day. I woke up the next morning with a throbbing head, leg, and a destination: Eric's Cafe, Dreamland.
