Sorry if this is confusing. I dropped the post in the wrong place back in JBR 4. Hope it works this time.
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This is the second last instalment. I started all this with the intention of just posting a few impressions. Sorry I got carried away folks.
Sammie and Suzie's
I was so looking forward to meeting up with everyone at S&S. The girls gave me such a hard time as I had been dreaming about it for such a long time. There was a get together planned for 24th and nothing was going to keep me away. It was great to meet a few of you down there, Jarrah did you go that night, so sorry I missed you. A big hello to C_Shell, Kiwi Carol, Addy of Oz and Nikno. It's a wonderful thing we have here on this forum and a lot of friendships have been made over the years. It was definitely one of the highlights of my holiday meeting you lot.
I went back once more before we left. There was a crowd of about 15 people and I thought, great, more forumites to meet. Well there was not a single person there who knew anything about the BTF, still they were a nice bunch and I certainly invited a number of them to check us out here on the forum. Funny that, I guess a lot of people see the eskies and just drop in for a Bintang.
Walking back that evening to the hotel along the beach was magical; the sun was just above the horizon and through the haze and smoke from the numerous fires around it looked like a huge orange ball reflecting in the backwash from the waves. A memorable Bali moment perhaps enhanced by that fifth Bintang that Sammie forced me to drink.
Keeping in touch
One of the most important things for us on this trip was being in contact with the girls if we were separated, lost or if we were going our own way for the day. Also we wanted to be sure the boys could contact us if they needed us for anything. Forget global roaming and all those other expensive options. Thanks to Mic's website and a few other helpful people we found a solution to this that was so simple and inexpensive it was ridiculous. We took our mobiles to the girls who have a little phone selling booth at the bottom of the escalator in Matahari's in Kuta. We bought a SimPati Sim card for 50,000Rp which they set up for us on the spot. They checked it worked and even put the number to check remaining credit (*888#) in the mobiles phone book for us. 15,000Rp is the connection fee and you leave with 35,000Rp credit. This lasted the whole first week and we bought another 50,000Rp top up credit for the second week. I don't remember exactly what it cost us for calls home but it was dirt cheap. We made three calls to Australia one night and it cost something like 9,000Rp. We rang everyone on the last day just to use up the remaining credit. We were very impressed with this service.
A very special moment
Just after we bought the Sim cards for our mobiles and were looking around Matahari's Margaret's phone went off for an incoming message. Who could that be? Nobody has our new number yet. In very broken English was the message 'You buy sim, you leave back pack here' Margaret had left it on the floor outside the counter in full view of anyone who could have picked it up. We were so impressed with the girls honesty we gave her 50,000Rp and a very big Terima Kasih Banyak.
A very frightening moment
This is a story that should act as a bit of a warning not to let your guard down. There are crooked people everywhere in the world and sadly Bali is no exception. This however could happen anywhere. We still truly believe that Bali is safer than some of the night spots here in Perth.
The girls had stuck pretty close to us for most of the holiday, not wanting to risk venturing too far on there own at night. We were more than happy about that. We had been to the Hulu club with them early in the holiday for what turned out to be a great night out (even for a homophobic like me) It was somewhere the girls wanted to go back to and they planned to go there for the 11pm show and have a few drinks. They were then going to a few pubs along the short walk back to the MBR. Off they went on their big adventure only to come flying back 10 minutes later in tears. They had taken normal handbags with them and Tamara was on the road outside the MBR with her bag facing the road. She broke all the rules and did not get a second chance. Two mongrels on a motor bike zoomed past and ripped the bag from her arm. She was not hurt but that was the end of their big night out. They ended up going to the all night bar at the MBR and got well and truly sozzled on very expensive drinks there.
Karma will crap on those bastards in the end.
Tamara lost about 400,000Rp, ($60) We were so glad this happened towards the end of our trip as the girls did feel a little less secure after that.
Only one more to come
Thanks for all your comments and kind words everyone
Frank