A trip out in Kuta

Pool Day

The gratuitous foot shot

As I predicted yesterday we spent the day doing nothing, again, but this time decided that we would have a change of scenery for nothing doing and spend it by the pool and check out the hotel’s food for lunch (It operates as a restaurant and has good reviews – so we thought we would give it a whirl – it was good, but more of that in a later food and drink blog special).  I have therefore provided you dear readers with the second of my photojournalism shots of the sunbathers eye view of what we are up to.  The foot shot with the pool view.  I hope you enjoy and if there are any foot fetisishts out there you will get even more pleasure from this shot than most. 

Messing around in Kuta

After our loungy day we agreed to meet some people in Kuta on the other side of the island. 

The Journey

Now, I thought this would simply be a boring old taxi ride to the resort, but it was filled with all sorts of pleasures.

Roundabout Art – Firstly, I got to see another of those outstanding pieces of roundabout art to which I referred in an earlier blog.  I managed to scramble for the camera and take a quick snap of it.  I present it here for your delectation.  It was another humongous effort and very nice to look at especially as the sun was just going down and the lighting was moody from the cloudy sky.

Another fine piece

A moped made for (well however many/whatever you want)

The next pleasure of the journey was witnessing the skill and ingenuity the Balinese use in testing the limits of mopeds and scooters, which as we all know are made for one and perhaps a pillion now and again.  Well not in Bali – here are some of the things I saw taking place on mopeds during this short trip worthy of mention.

• One handed driving while holding onto a small dog (picture evidence attached)
• A father,  a mother (driver and pillion) – then a the small daughter stood in the foot well holding on to the handlebars and, quite incredibly as we a passed I noticed  small baby attached to the mothers breast having a much needed drink.  I kid you not and I am only sorry I could not get a shot of this for you
• A largish tree whose root ball was resting on the foot well while the tree projected about 10 feet in the air.
• A man with various homemade panniers attached to the back upon which he had managed to cram five  crates of the local beer (Bintang)  – two each side of the rear wheels and one on the pillion seat area secured  with a few bungy straps

Kicking Kuta

Day-glo cocktail anyone

We chose to stay in Sanur for our rest and recuperation because we had read that it was much quiter and chilled than Kuta.  Wow did they underestimate that – Kuta is like Blackpool on acid.  It is noisy, fast, furious and also, as you will find out, quite a bit of fun.

We met up on the beach road having watched the sun go down and a noisy and fun Hindi Beach celebration, had a couple of beers overlooking the beach and then set of for Poppies lane to this backpacker restaurant(gong Corner)  that had been found by the people we were with staying in Kuta for some grub.  The food was great (I had red snapper smothered in garlic butter )– I also tried a new local beer which I prefer to Bintang – Bali Hai – much tastier and less gassy

You work it out

. 

Best of all it was suck good value about £16 between six of us.  It was also full mostly of Australian surf dudes who looked about 10.  I am getting old I know, but it was like being in an episode of Home and Away listening to all the Aussie banter,  I didn’t hear Shelagh mentioned once though which was a shame.

Then we headed next door to a this day glo decorated  bar (Green Box) which serves shots and cocktails.  This is where it started to get messy as one of these little lime, sprite and local spirit cocktails was about 70p so we felt it would be churlish not to have quite a few and help out the local sprit manufacturers. 

Across the lane was a spa treatment centre and we found this sign highly amusing in a childish  – looking up swear words in a dictionary kind of way.  We went and asked what kind of treatment it was and true enough it did what it says on the sign. Although Ratus apparently equates to douche or rinse in the English language – we could not fathom though what the wooden looking things in the picture were for though!

We had an absolute belter of a night and they were all great company, the picture of us was about halfway through our session and we look pretty hammered already –  I don’t really remember the taxi ride home but it was about 4am when we staggered back in to the hotel – so John informed me this morning.

We were Merry

Today was therefore spent nursing some very large hangovers on the beach and waiting until about mid afternoon to feel human again.  Saw these two lovely people walking down the beach – if you look closely you will notice that they have his n her matching bikinis and shorts – awwwww how sweet.

His ‘n’ Hers

Packing up in the morning as we are now at the end of the lazing beach bit of Bali and heading off to Ubud for a bit of culture and sightseeing.  

I hear that Joe won x-factor (it was the talk of Bali today!) – bet we don’t hear from him again after his top /fastest/biggest/selling Christmas number 1.