Bali Day One and Two.....I want a Brazillian
The flight with Garuda was uneventful. The food was OK and the touchdown, always an important part of the flight, was smooth.
That was the smoothest part of our arrival. The arrivals area was packed. We arrived at 10.25pm and so did the other half of the world. There was about 400 people arriving at the same time. So many that we walked on the tarmac and were were bused to the terminal.
The arrivals area was hot and the perfect place to incubate a bit of swine flu. The four us us travelling together, sans kids, made the best of it while I watched the poor woman in the line next to us slowly melt down as she got hotter and more tired. Poor buggar was out on her feet by the time she got to the counter. Heaven forbid the customs official who sent her back to pay for her visa on arrival.
Either Australians are well researched travellers or ,Brazillians are just pretty to look at, really really pretty, because just about every one of them got sent back to pay for their visa. That done we met Raceng at the front doors and headed to the Mecure. He's still a great guy. Just a genuinely decent fellow.
He loves Kit Kat. We gave him some chocolates for him and his family when we arrived. The next day when he took us shopping he smiled and mentioned that he loved the Kat Kit......
We spent four hours shopping at Ramayana and the shoe shops across the road from there. Two days shopping budget gone and four hours later Lee and I staggered out of there under the weight of all the things the wives bought. I liked my wifes comment later that night 'Honey you could have carried more'. I'm not sure if that was a compliment or a criticism.
While we were in Ramayana we grabbed some nasi goreng from the food hall. Guess the name of the food hall, nah you won't. It's named Diarea. Add a 'H', a vowel or two and a bit of childish humour and you can guess what made us chuckle today at brunch. I say brunch because not only did we have breakfast at the Mecure (Not bad. Good banana bread), brunch at Ramayana, lunch at Bali Bakery but we also had dinner at Mudah Warung in Double Six. That was great. It was a bit of a stretch for Tash because the food sits in a window display but the shredded chicken and beef rendang was fantastic.
While we were in Ramayana we saw a reptile shop upstairs. Go have a look. If you're anti-snake or spider take a shovel and some fly spray and lots of it. They have spiders the size of small children, snakes that are bigger than a car and they will happily bring them all out for you to hold.
Funny thing on the way to the Warung. We grabbed a Blue Bird Taxi and headed up to Seminyak. The driver wasn't too sure where it was so he stopped while I rang our mate Steve who lives here. He gave me and the driver directions, technology, love it. We had stopped about 30 metres short and spent about $800.00 ringing Steve only to giggle when the driver started to giggle. Oops....
Back to Bali Bakery. Awesome!
After dinner we walked to Bintang Supermarket and bought the usual water etc and the more unusual stuff, Pocari Sweat (still tastes like dirty dish water but oh so good when you're hot) and blueberry Cadbury Chocolates. Now I like Cadbury chocolate but blue berry? Don't rate it. Smells like toilet cleaner.
Then things went a bit pear shaped. We jumped in a taxi Blue Bird 379 and our taxi driver (602) decided we should pay $100.00 to travel the 15 minutes back to our hotel....It was a Blue Bird Taxi which are normally great. He did start the meter so I wasn't greatly concerned and he had a bit of a laugh with us, to start with. Then it got a little Twilight Zone. I realise in Bali the driver isn't always the same one on the licence displayed in the car and our driver definitely didn't look like the guy in the photo but regardless he was a freak.
He started talking about bombs and how the Police controlled the bombs and the bombs controlled the Police. I've had a bit of experience with crazy people so I just humoured him. The atmosphere was a little tense especially when the wife used our 'special' word and I'm not talking about the one we use when we're having some special mummy and daddy cuddles. We start talking about our trip to 'Mexico' or about 'Mexicans' when we're a little uneasy. Mexico came up a fair bit in conversation during that ride. Our travel buddies thought we were almost as crazy as the taxi driver.
One of them suggested we walk at one stage and if it wasn't for the 20 kilos of water and pocari sweat we would have jumped that cab!
The funny business didn't stop there. Every time he changed the gears he slowly opened my short pocket that had my wallet (severely depleted from the days adventures) in it. I could feel what he was doing and had we been a little closer to the hotel or a Police Post I would have had a word or two but it's sometimes just not worth the grief.
Funny thing, everyone in the back could see what was going on so he must be the worst pick pocket in the world or a complete dullard. I'm going for dullard.
Once we got back to the hotel we went up stairs and they even opened the bar for us, had a drink and crashed. Bet our travel company aka Benny didn't crash like he wanted. It was like a bad Benny Hill movie listening to him trying to soften his wife up for some summer lovin......
Mind you as I type this my wife is snoring gently next to me in bed.
Day Two.
Travelan work wonders. Even with the visit to the Warung last night, no dramas in the tummy department.
We had a chuckle about the taxi driver again. Raceng was a bit worried for us but we assured him it was funny in a weird, your cousin is your mum and your dad is your nephew, sort of way.
We headed straight for Unagi this morning. I don't think awesome is the best way to describe it. If handing your wallet over to a woman whose fingers move faster over a cash register than a magician on speed is awesome, then maybe it was but it was a good experience regardless.
Unagi is a big 2 storey warehouse where the shops go to shop. It's got all the place mats, candles, incense and paraphernalia Karen buys to make the house smell nice when I've been mucking out the stables. It also has good stocking stuffers for the kids and lots and lots of household things.
It's all fixed price but very very cheap. There are no prices just codes but the ladies are very helpful and you soon find one trailing behind in your wife's wake of shopping destruction. We spent over 800000rph there but bought enough things to fill the next mini skip I order when the wife is away overseas for work (She won't read this until tomorrow if she remembers so I'm safe till then).
However, at one stage Sutra, the lady who was helping us, did swap the basket for a shopping trolley. She knew.....
We did Perlu Jewellery in Seminyak. Nice stuff but the Pandora charms the girls wanted were the same as the ones you can get off Ebay so we gave it a miss. The shop is nice and the chap who worked there was pleasant to talk to.
You see, this is where I made the first mistake of the day. I mentioned to Raceng (The man will be the death of me. You'll see why near the end of the trip) that the charms were no good so, good old Raceng, damn his helpfulness and cheeky grin says, 'I take you where they make the jewellery for the shops'.
Why did I open my mouth. $130.00 later we've been given a tour of a silversmith and the wife has a new ring and we've bought my mum her Christmas present. Raceng took us to a big silversmith named UC Silver. They make their own jewellery and sell it in a big show room next door. It is very nice and well priced but it still would have been cheaper to kill Raceng......did I say that out aloud......or cheaper to let her buy from Ebay till her fingers bled on the keyboard.
We headed to the roadside markets just before the entrance to Nusa Dua. We went there two years ago and found the people to be less pushy and fun to bargain with. They didn't let us down. The quality of the shirts was good and the people were lovely. Surf shirts were 50000rph ($7.00Aus) and the same for Polo shirts.
I got a bit cocky again with the Indo I have been teaching myself and ended up buying six shirts when I thought I was buying three. I haven't admitted that to anyone yet. I only grudgingly admitted that Tash was right about the banana bread not being banana bread yesterday at brekky. I know because I had bread with huge chunks of banana in it this morning before I went to pick Kelly, Jess and Bianca up from the airport.
Did you know it costs 300,000,000rph, almost $40,000Aus, in bribes to get your kids into medical school in Bali. Just a point of interest.
After Nusa Dua we headed back to the hotel slowly, because the porter we had to hire to carry everything the girls bought found it hard to keep up.
Hang on! Something very exciting happened.
We went to the Tupperware wholesaler in Denpasar.
I love that place. (Jl Teuku Umar No 65A Denpasar Bali (0361) 8422161 email wmb@indo.net.id
Raceng and Lee stood outside and talked about trucks while inside I gave BH's wife and the lady behind the counter, who thought I was gay, cooking tips. Did you know if you steam too much rice you can freeze it, in your tupperware, and defrost it later and it makes great fried rice. Two kids sanwich keepers in Bali $6.00 each, in Perth $25.00 for the pair.
Now speaking of fried rice. We ate at Bali Bakery again but the one in the new Seminyak Square Shopping Centre. It was nice. Not great but nice. Speaking of nice but not great. The girls fake boobs at the table next to us, nice but not great. The wives were quick to point out that boobs shouldn't point towards the sky and that 'She obviously hasn't had kids, damn her'. Okay maybe I added the last bit but that's pretty much how it went. Not to labour on some other woman's boobs, but I'd like to, she was an attractive girl but the boobs did look like she had smuggled two bowling balls through customs. And I wanted to learn how to bowl.....kidding. I'm going to shock value when the wife reads this. She slaps me you know.
Anyway, enough about boobs. Speaking of which, didn't BH's wife (AKA GG) act like one at dinner tonight. She was a giggling gerty after the two cocktails at dinner tonight. You know how there's a fine line between getting lucky and getting a sore back from having to carry your drunk wife home, well I can confirm GG's limit is two cocktails.
We ate at W Burger in Oberoi Road, Seminyk. 'W' should stand for WOW! Because it was the best meal have had since the last meal Steve recommended. It wasn't cheap by Bali standards but it was comparable to Perth prices at $50.00 per head but and there's a big but. We had three 8 course tasting plates and three main meals, cocktail, four beers and desert in that price.
This is perhaps one of the best restaurants I have ever eaten at. The owner is a Chinese guy who was married to a WA lady but he now lives in Bali with his new wife and 4 year old son. He went out of his way to have a chat to us and made our night with his banter and antics. What ever you do, don't read the menu out aloud when there are kids nearby. Very entertaining!
Basically he serves burgers but burger like you have never tasted. He makes them with wagu beef from Margaret River and beautiful fresh salads and reductions (Thankyou Master Chef). The tasting plate comes with three mini burgers from a choice of five. Fantastic food that I thoroughly recommend. Very family friendly but just remember what you'd pay in Perth for the same service and food.
There is only one desert and it's a combination of three chocolates on a rice spoon with a pouring of Absolut Vodka. The kids can have the same minus the vodka or with it if you want them to sleep in.
Taxi ride and a quick shop on the way back and here I am steadying myself for tomorrow's onslaught on my wallet. Poor thing must be near death by now.
Somewhere during the day we went to the Discovery Mall for a fly in fly out visit. The girls did the fish feet thing. It's where you stick your feet, or whole body if you're adventurous, in a fish tank full of small fish that eat the dead skin from your feet. Well let me tell you they didn't have enough fish to clean GG's feet. Ian THORPE would be proud of the size of her feet. They're like snow shoes. She hasn't read this yet either so I'll know when she does because she'll smack me in the head with her handbag.
Oh yeah, we're going quad biking and rafting on Sunday with Kelly and Jess. I look forward to the challenge.
Day Three. Squirty Gerty and chicken bacon.........
More to follow.