Eventful Bali (i)

Preface: To Mr. Smith (if you happen to be reading these chronicles), it is with no offence to you that I'm writing them, I wish to record how I felt at that moment and even if you might not have agreed or at some point see the same from my point of view, I wish to point out that nothing here is written to deface the kind of person you are.

Bali.

After a few months of proper scheduling and discussion, it finally happened. There wasn't any cheap flights, there wasn't any bargain. But a wish is fulfiled - a trip to Bali, Indonesia. I booked the tickets on Garuda, them being a better deal than most others I could find at that time. And believe me, their service isn't that bad... some actually dread their name when it comes to flying. Their crews aren't young and pretty like most of Singapore's airlines, but what's more important is they can deliver :)

My mate S arrived in Singapore a couple of days before our flight together to Bali (Denpasar) - BTW Bali has only one airport and it's not in the "town/city" Denpasar, it's only named that as a name for their international airport. Our flight was brought forward to 7am and so we decided to spend the night in the airport since we had to check in around 5ish.


Arrived.

We took a metered taxi outside the airport but I have a serious suspicion that the driver took us on a bit of a winding route to get to wherever we were going! Well, what to do, when you newly arrived, are tired and lugging heavy bags. So F it, just get it outta the way and since we haven't book anything for our 1st 3 night accomodation, we had to do some work. I got Su's Cottage in my shortlist for places to stay in Legian, unfortunately they aren't the cheapest and we decided to seek a cheaper place (probably in Kuta). S collapsed on the bed not long after we arrived, he suffered from lack of sleep from the night before... so we had a nap before walking down to Kuta.

And there we saw Kuta/Legian in Bali... the street was filled up with shops and only shops. Taxis and drivers everywhere on the road, asking if we needed transport. Beach was stunning, especially during sunset, it was full with tourists laying on the sun-beds for a tan or being pestered by the "beach hawkers" to get a necklace, fake branded watch or even a manicure/pedicure/massage. My mate didn't enjoy this place because there was nothing for him, no surfing and no shopping. He was practically annoyed with shopping (even window shopping), so I went without him. I went out alone the 2nd night and it started to rain cats and dogs, I ended up buying an umbrella and had to walk miles along the badly flooded roads. It got so bad that I hopped onto a cab which stopped for me!! But the driver was unexceptionally rude... until I started to chat with him, he got a little friendlier.

Food wasn't really cheap or awesome in Kuta, I wasn't impressed at all.

Before I went, I had a few freelance drivers' contacts and so we could ring any up if we decided to make a daytrip. But we also found a better deal online, S had apparently sent a request and they quoted us something very reasonable. Unfortunately we couldn't find the place, ended up chatting to a local man who offered to recommend us a driver. We went back happy and to our dismay (and darkest nightmare) the driver didn't turn up the next morning. We looked the guy up and things got worse, price he quoted wasn't including a driver and worst of all, it was doubled. Nasty nasty, we sure weren't very happy.

After some haggling around, it was almost noon time we found a driver whom would take us for the price we offered. We hadn't much time to waste as it was the last day in Kuta, the following morning we would leave for Ubud! The daytrip turned out very pleasant, even though it was a short one to two places - Tanah Lot and Uluwatu, but we were almost pleased to get out of Kuta (which is boring us to death!). Tanah Lot is overrated in my opinion, I guess everyone was there for a photo or two, that was it. But Uluwatu turned out to be much more fun, with aggressive monkeys accompanied by a very beautiful scenery. The monkeys were trying to pickpocket S's camera or even tried to open his bag... but only ended off with his bottle of water. Some tourist got their sunglasses flung over the cliff and the local picked it up for them (of course receiving a tip in return). Now hearing from my indonesian friend saying that the monkeys might be trained to do that, now that's just nasty. I was snapping a close up shot of the monkey, and it actually tried to grab my camera (very quickly after the shot)... this is how naughty it can be!

Anyway, we were quite ready to leave Kuta after 3 nights and a very uncomfortable last 2 nights being bitten by bugs and insects in our poorly facilitated room!! Thank God! My legs now look hideous from all the itching bites :(