It was a bit hard case in Lovina, we called into in a neat little hotel called Sumi (I think) to negotiate the room rates and Gusti the driver hopped out and started to dust the Kijang with a feather duster while he waited for us. I asked him where he got it and he said they were chook feathers on special from a small village near Negara in the west of the island which had been selling them real cheap the last several days!!!!
Holding my breath I wandered past him into the lobby. Aha room rates quoted were all in Euro. 20 Euro for a fan cooled room, 30 Euro for a/c etc. So speaking my best broken English I tried to enquire what the prices were in Rupiah as I knew as much about Euro values as Gusti did about the dangers of buying and rubbing snotty chook feathers over his vehicle. After using my hands and talking loudly so she would understand the young lass understood perfectly what I was on about and brought me a sick hen to pet.
Finally we were shown some really neat rooms and we checked out the even neater swimming pool complete with concrete dolphins, we asked how many rupiah per night it would cost (for the room). When told the price, I realized she must have been the sister of the guide I hired in Klung klung and she wanted to fly to Perth to join him for a bite to eat together. Pleading poverty (as only a Kiwi can) we ended up paying bugga all for the night.
Digs settled, next job was to ensure the driver was okay for the night, so I wandered out and said Gusti, bugga off and be here by 9am tomorrow, and hey don't be bloody late. You know we pay him good money, and it is nice to be polite and sensitive.
We wandered down to the beach and marvelled at the sun light playing on the broken glass, black sand and plastic bags. Holding hands so as not to be dragged away by the swarm of sellers that descended on us we whipped up over a rock fence wall and walked around a large hotel complex that had gone broke and was rapidly becoming victim to the tropical elements. Don't know the story on it but someone would have lost a lot of moola.
We wandered back up the road to visit a butterfly farm which hadn't opened. So we crossed the road to a little warung for a good feed of undercooked chooky and bintang. After swatting mossies that rose like a cloud off the creek the warung was built over we headed back to the complex to sit around the pool. None of the other guests wanted to speak English, and as my Dutch/German/ was limited to what I had read in war comics as a kid I didn't want to say Fritz Fritz vas is das? Got um Himmel Arrrrg etc. So I compared body builds of theirs to mine and can only conclude that I must be part seal and am storing my body fat for the next big freeze. Bet they cant down the number of binnies I can though. Ha ha.
Heaps of geckos up country and they must have been hatching or something coz I managed to catch a couple of them. I think that they are cute, but am the first to admit they don't taste too good, maybe cooked would help.
Was right into my hol now and decided to order a whole meal in Indonesian. Sitting there drinking warm squirrels milk and chewing on a broiled tractor muffler, I concluded that wasn't the smartest idea I had ever had. I also concluded that this was not my real Bali. Next day we were off to dive that wreck, wave my privates at divers (see previous JBR) and head to Amed.
Funny Kuta/Legian was getting closer and I was going through the motions around the island but my heart lay in the dirty noisey little gangs around Garlic Lane.
Ianz