That night was Saturday, and the mighty Blacks were playing Aussy.
The week before I had met a couple from Melbourne. Michael and Glenda. Michael was from Belfast originally, and with his accent, and my warped sense of humour, even introducing himself had me in fits of laughter. We had arranged to see the game together. So off we went to some French or Italian sounding sports bar opposite Posers Bar. What a game. I was in no doubt we would kick ass, and kick ass we did, in the last minute, thrashing Aussie by a very large margin of 1 point. Actually all the way through the game I was practicing my ocker accent just in case.
Next morning Emms, Sean and I were heading to Garlic Lane when straight outside JeJe's Emms steps into a manhole cover in the road and rolls her ankle. PANDAMOIUM. 7 snake oil sellers appeared out of the crowd, 57 taxis screamed to a halt, all visibly concerned. Concerned that the very thing they pray for had happened and they mightn't get a buck out of it. I managed to get Emms into one of the taxis and shot straight back to Baleka. 7 snake oil sellers and 56 taxis cursed their luck and slopped off back to business as usual.
Hell, 2nd day in country and Emms pulls up lame. Those of you who scoffed at me bringing sheepy are laughing on the other side of your face now eh! (Other side of your face. What does that mean anyway?) However I digress. I shot down and got a bag of ice from Circle K. Got short changed and whipped back to the hotel. Emms immediately packed a towel with the ice and put her foot up. At that stage I was too embarrassed to tell her I had brought the ice for some vodka and lime mixers I was about to polish off.
I sent Sean off to Robbie's room to see if he had an expanding type bandage. Even better the little ripper had a proper ankle stretchy support thing. Bought it in NZ at the $2 shop. R&R was the order of the next several days. I whipped a bit of ice out of the towel when Emms wasn't looking and sipping a Vodka with my arm around sheepy. What a day and it was only 9am.
With my constant support and encouragement, like 'What are ya a girls blouse'?'Hell when I used to play rugby I broke both legs and still finished the game' I can report Emms gritted her teeth and came right after several days. Not before I had suggested she plonk herself down on the footpath and see if she couldn't earn a bit of extra cash by begging. It's hard being the only one who can think outside the square I can tell ya.
Well, seeing as Emms could semi walk, dragging her crook leg like Quasimodo, it seemed another trip was in order. I wandered over to see Putu and arranged a new people mover that would hold us all comfortably for a trip up the island. I wanted to have bo peep at Munduk and shoot on down to the coast, spending several days coming back around the east.
The van was a beauty, a new Suzuki something. However with 5 people, two broken BB guns and the blow up sheepy we had to do a bit of careful packing. I was excited about what gastronomic delights I would encounter on this journey.
We stopped off in Tabinan and had a wander around a big temple thingy there. A moat surrounded the place and I was waist deep passing my third eel to Seany when all hell broke loose. Some guys dressed in sheets started hollering at me and demanding I get out. I tried explaining that there was plenty for all of us but they wouldn't have a bar of it, so shouldering the ones I had caught, we whistled back to Putu and shot through. They can't have been too bad a blokes though, as we were leaving the car park, they threw my shorts and undies (that I had taken off) onto the windscreen of the van.
Heading north we stopped at a car park and these guys had a large Iguana (lizard) and two bats hanging around. Bet they were annoyed, as instead of buying them for grub, the stupid tourists were paying to have pictures taken with them.
We got to the Bedegul Lake and had a shufty around. I watched about 10 guys up to their ankles fishing for goldfish, so when I showed them the eels I had caught, and told them where I had got them they got real excited and started shouting. Ah fishermen, we are the same all over the world aren't we.
Heading north still, we pushed on up a big hill with monkeys marking the way, and swung left. There was a parking area that looked over two more lakes. They must do a bit of duck shooting there as we spotted several hides dotted around the shore. Man the Balinese are so artistic, even the duck hides had been made to look like little temples.
Lunch was at the start of the decent to Munduk, in a restaurant with a pretty good view of smoke from fires. Now I don't want to be predigest (see I can't even spell the word), but there must have been a sneaky Javanese hanging around the car park, because when we got back, the eels were gone!!!! Okay Okay to be fair they were getting a little ripe, but if Putu hadn't insisted that they had to go on the roof instead of being in the aircon interior they would have been fine. When I asked Putu about them, he must have been as upset as me, because he suddenly couldn't speak English.
We rumbled through the Munduk decent and stopped off at a waterfall. It was okay I guess. No eels but.
Regards Ianz