I’m going to tell a story about my days in Bali using the photos I take and descriptions to go along with them – because I think that’s going to be the best and most enjoyable way to do this.
We woke up this morning and discovered the pool right outside our ground floor ‘balcony’ door.
Stepping outside of the room and looking to the left resulted in this view…
After getting dressed we went and had some breakfast. This is some baked boiled eggs with mee goreng noodles and sweet bun. On the other plate was some tropical fruit with yoghurt dribbled over it, and a waffle. There was some juice and a coffee. It was awesome! (Probably somewhat ordinary, but considering the environment, it was AWESOME!)
And looking up from the table we can see a couple of girls enjoying their breakfast too. In the background you can see the pool area, and that tells you that our room is just a few metres away, which is very convenient!
In the background you can see a raised area with red umbrellas. We went for a walk around the grounds after breakfast and ended up there…
Soon after that, our driver turned up (we’ve hired a driver to take us around to various locations that we want to see. If we have him all day he charges about AU$55. Not too bad.) and we headed off to see Kuta Beach – with a quick stop at a SIM card shop to get some mobile data on the local network. Bought a 4.5Gb card for about AU$11. Woohoo! As you probably know, it’s important to me to stay connected, to share updates and photos and enjoy the process of sharing my experiences.
Anyway, onto the beach…
We spent some time under an umbrella, sucking away at some coconuts…
One of my experiences while sitting on the beach included the following, that I shared on Facebook:
This is one of the entry ways to Kuta Beach….
At the end of a lot of walking (probably about 3km in the 28c sun!) we made our way back to the hotel to have a shower and then head out for a massage.
Now, the interesting thing about the massages here is that the level of service of some of these places is amazing. As I wrote on Facebook:
After the massage we got them to take us to a lovely area for dinner instead of back to our hotel. Dinner was very nice!
Followed by dessert…
I can tell you with absolute pleasure that I’m so very happy my teeth have been sorted out, and my throat has healed up so that I can eat ordinary foods without any issues. Being able to eat this nice dinner, followed by delicious dessert, and not be in pain, was a treasured experience!
When we finished dinner and went to the area that we could catch the last shuttle bus back to our hotel, we arrived a few minutes too late. It had gone! So we were left with the dismal prospect of an incredibly expensive taxi fare (50,000 rhupees, or approximately AU$4.50…). Luckily for us, another shuttle bus pulled up. I asked him if he’s going to [our hotel] and he said yes, so we got in.
It was a small open bus – open at the back. There’s no seatbelts. We were watching the traffic behind us. A big bump and we could have been thrown from bus! We weren’t, so that was good. We were with another two couples going back to their hotels as well. The driver dropped them off first and then asked which hotel we were going to. I said [our hotel] and he said that was the OTHER bus and we had missed it. I got a bit angry at him and told him that I asked him if he was going to [our hotel] and he said yes! He agreed, and took us to the hotel. Woohoo! We tipped him 10,000 rp (AU$0.90 cents – it’s great being rich! /western_sarcasm) and we were all very happy. Considering it would have cost us 50,000 rp otherwise, it was worth tipping him for going out of his way.
Speaking of tipping, I did some research about it this morning during breakfast, and wrote this on Facebook:
I decided that we’ll be generous. If they ask a price, then we’ll pay that price. It’s really not that expensive to us. And if we don’t really want it, then we just won’t buy it. But there won’t be any haggling (at least by me) – this is their life that they’re trying to struggle to survive, and it’s people like us that help them. I don’t want to be that asshole that makes their life that much harder.
Here’s a few more updates from Facebook that I made during the day.
Ok, bedtime now. You’ll hear from me tomorrow! Breakfast is at 7am, and our driver is coming for us at 8:30am, and we’re heading off to a highlands area called Ubud, a couple hours from where we are. I’ll have more photos and stories for you tomorrow night.
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