Shifting rooms. Dragging our bags over the cobbles (doesn't that noise sound so depressing when you are checking out)? to room 111 we finally unpacked and put our clothes in drawers, blow up sheep in the closet etc, and thought that was it until the girls arrived in one and a half weeks, when I would be staying put and Robbie would move next door. God it was great to have my own bed. I mean brothers are alright, but (like my old scout master used to say) there's nothing like the real thing.
Next morning when I opened the door, I thought that some dirty person hadn't been able to get to the ocean and had gone to the toilet on our door, so we told the cleaners who promptly arrived 7 hours later, and they mopped it up. Returning that night there was the same mess, and I wondered if Susie had found out where my room was. I wish it had of been that simple, as the pool got bigger and bigger until we had to snorkel around the room constantly. There was a leak in the wall and it was getting worse.
I love the simplicity of Bali, using towels to form a dam to stop the water flowing through the room; we would go to reception and tell them that there was a problem. A cleaning crew would arrive several hours later, take our towels, not replace them, mop the floor and bugger off. 3 days later a doctor sent by the manager, arrived to check out which one of us suffered from incontinence. Luckily he spoke several words of English and we were able to convince him that we were not causing the mess. Ah the penny dropped and we were told that we would have to shift to (yep you guessed it), room 132 by the bar. We performed a bit and told the manager that we would rather grow gills and stay where we were than stay there. After all, we reasoned, the water was only 25mm deep in the room and was flowing, it's not like it was stagnant or anything.
Ahh the best laid plans of mice and men. Wringing out our clothes and deflating sheepy, we packed and were moved along the corridor with an excellent view of nothing. Still it beats room 132. And the time was simply flying by. I had thought that a month in total would be like 4 weeks or so but at this rate it was only going to last several days, and all we had done was unpack, pack and shift rooms. Surely there was more to Bali than that? Anyway a journey was in order, and as Gusti (our driver from years past) pretended that he was dead whenever I wandered down to see him, it was time to jack up a new driver and explore the hinterland. Although there were several rooms we hadn't stayed in at Baleka yet. Ahh the decisions.
Although it was a tough decision, we thought that we would leave room changing for a while and have a bit more of a squizzy around the island. I popped next door to a car hire mob and priced a driver and car. The quote was okay, but I was gonna have to breach the subject with Emms about sending over a little more do ray me. A txt war ensued, and after convincing her that I really had spent most of my original hundy on snorkelling equipment for our old room, she agreed to a bit more. God I love that girl.
Now being adventuress sorts, Robby and I decided that we wanted to explore the coast, and harbour just in from Negara to the west .The next day we piled into a trusty 900cc Suzuki of sorts and with our new trusty driver Putu, we did indeed head west young man. Many hours later we stopped by a group of ladies walking in a line towards a temple. I asked Putu to stop as I wanted to buy some fruit. They all had stacks on their heads, but obviously knew no English or broken Indonesian, because try as I might I could not get them to sell any to me. Anyway we stopped at a little shop in Medewi and after walking around the shelves for half an hour trying to figure out what the hell everything was I brought a little bag of peanuts and a warm red fanta. Just can't beat the culinary delights of travel can you.
Perencak was an interesting little place and we got some neat pictures of the fishing fleet stationed there, also of the temple. I was hungry again, however could not get a pork sandwich anywhere. We concluded that there must be a shortage of pigs in the area and wondered how a pork farm would go up that way? Maybe on the bit of vacant land by the big mosque.
Off again to Perangangan (or something like that), which is more westerly again. Wow that was a big smelly port with dead sardines lying everywhere sun bathing. Nothing to see here folks, so we cruised to Negara for lunch and went into a Hardies that has a food court. Again with my limited Indonesian, I got so flustered as to what to buy, how etc that I settled for a jellytip icecream and a red fanta. At this rate I will be able to right my own book on experiencing Balinese eating through the eyes of an intrepid traveller.
We retraced our steps back to Legian, and as it was late afternoon wandered down the crooked lane passed Rickys bar to the beach. There was a group of guys there at a beach bar, drinking with some young indo guys. We plopped down beside them and boy was there a strange vibe about it (a bit like after your granny gives you a kiss, tongue and all). After realising the only thing they were interested in hearing about was how Robbie and I had slept together for three night, we gulped our drinks and wandered back to get a feed at Rickys.
Another day spent in paradise.
Regards Ianz