October 16 – 18
And so to Bali, along with all the cool kids. Nikki and I headed south from Denpasar down towards Uluwatu. She’d found us a place to stay out in the sticks which was simply amazing, a little commune of ensuite chalets, with an outdoor en-suite, wifi, hot water and a bed that it would have taken Napoleon three weeks to march an army across.
Of course, things didn’t quite go to plan as I got into a fight with a monkey and, then lost the moped keys. Still, could have been worse, Nikki could have smashed a full bottle of beer in the bedroom …
First impressions – Bali is lovely – the people are friendly and helpful, a little more reserved than in the Philippines and slightly less crazy drivers. It will likely take us far longer than the time we have to explore but we’ll plan our time to take in as much as possible. There are no moto-trikes here so we decided to risk hiring a scooter. Just one, with me driving and Nikki clinging onto the back, when not taking videos. Apart from a slight issue turning right, which generally involved accelerating into a space that didn’t exist, some very dodgy cornering and a bit of a challenge getting started it was entirely fine …
First evening we headed off to the local beach, complete with temple (of course) and then got a Gojek meal delivery – more food than you could possibly eat for about £5. In the morning we zig-zagged off uncertainly on the moped after I’d had a trial run up the road and back again. With Nikki holding on grimly we slowly moved out – and then stopped after about 400 yards at the nearest coffee shop for the immediate necessity of the day. Once suitably fortified by caffeine we headed out into the great unknown.
It turns out that the great unknown (west side of Nusa Dua) is populated by a lot of Australians and Europeans, who all manage to cram themselves together on Padang Padang beach – which although it’s highly rated is actually the size of a postage stamp. A bit uncomfortable for a 62 year old man confronted by women wearing thongs for as far as the eye can see. And – oddly – swimming was banned, although you were allowed to row your surfboard out into the ocean. Nikki did enter the water and reports that the water is lovely – beating the seas off of Brighton or Bournemouth hands down.
After as much sun and thong as I could bear (i.e. 18 minutes) we wandered around the coast, as directed by Nikki, inspecting various cliffs (not sure why as I was mainly trying to avoid driving off them). After an unsuccessful attempt to visit a Hindu temple – I didn’t see it as I was concentrating on not dying on the road and Nikki assumed I’d driven past because I didn’t want to see it – we went home, changed – and went out again.
The Uluwatu temple does a tourist attraction show – Kecaka and Fire Dance – which tells the story … well, actually I have no idea what it was about, but I enjoyed it very much, especially when the White Monkey started getting funky. To be honest, I’ve understood Shakespeare plays less, and when a monkey starts kicking fire around an open air stage and panicking the extras I reckon that’s worth the money.
Prior to the show, however, one of the temple monkeys had stolen my glasses. I managed to grab the little b*stard (which was incredibly stupid) but in the end it was a simple ransom job. Monkey take glasses, assistant give monkey food and get glasses back, assistant give glasses back to Tim and gets £5. Everyone is happy. But if I ever see that little bugger in Epsom it’ll be a different story …
After the show we caught a Gojek back and had a great meal, with WINE, at Ohana, which advertises itself as for parents with kids. By that time the kids had all gone to bed and we pretty much had the place to ourselves and the food was superb.
Following the deepest of deep sleeps our second and final full day on Nusa Dua saw us heading left from our accomodation rather than right (east, Nikki) into what appears to be the playground of the wealthy, as we scootered past massive opulent hotels on a two lane, beautifully tarmacked road. Ignoring those, we had morning coffee in a local shop and then went to the Museum Pasifika, which presents Bali in the context of other South Pacific cultures. It’s a lovely museum, with a lot of work by European artists who seemed to be strangely drawn to Balinese women wearing very few clothes. But there’s some fantastic local culture, and the whole thing is beautifully presented – well worth a visit.
At this point the curse of the monkey re-asserted itself as it turned out I’d lost the bloody moped key. After about a year of denial, and wandering around peering in hedges, I finally accepted this and Nikki set off to get the spare key from the owner, disappearing on the back of a professional taxi scooter (she had better not get used to that level of smooth travel). At which point the police arrived to question me over my now misparked scooter:
“Why is your scooter here?”
“I lost the key. My wife has gone to get a spare.”
“Your wife lose key?”
“No, I lost key.”
[Laugh] “You in trouble!”
“Yep.”
At which point they moved my scooter and surrounded it in a ring of guards (this may have been incidental to the traffic control going on).
Anyway, Nikki arrived back with the spare key (and many others), so no harm done. We ended the day with her practising scootering – I suspect her pillion days are over. Tomorrow we head out to Nusa Lembongang, by ferry, for a couple of days of rest, relaxation and NO BLOODY MONKEYS, or at least none that have learnt to steal to order.
– Tim