Was looking at some old photos in a post further down and they took me back to Bali and our first of many trips there. Wow how things have changed. We were only in our early 20s and had never been out of Oz. We had to have lots of needles back then including smallpox and because of the lack of refrigeration and very ordinary hygiene and food handling practices we had bali belly the whole trip.!!!!Must admit other than a few very rushed trips behind a tree on the side of the road it didn't seem to bother us too much or cramp our style (so to speak LOL).we hired a motor bike for a month and used vouchers to travel at our whim all around the island...the losmens were VERY basic - no hot water, squat loos and the water and left hand wipe ya bum system (sorry never could bring myself to try that) so always had to be armed with a roll of loo paper !!Could never work out where the soap kept disappearing to til we caught a big fat rat foaming at the mouth - he sure must have been hungry eh.One of the big hangouts was Pension Joni in Legian and the fav food was banana jaffles and ice juices. Lennys was the famous restaurant and the couple of discos around all boomed Rolling Stones and a bit of Osibisa. The famous Froggy was only a boy and he worked at Jonis after school each night - he drove us crazy but we all loved him. I look at old photos and we were both darker than the Balinese - lay on Kuta beach all day and baked...what a blissfull time that was....
We are now 50 (went as young lovers and married soon after)and must admit I love the luxury of Bali now - all those exquisite hotels and devine restaurants...but you know ..there is still something very special about our first highly addictive trip to paradise and those "good old days" Are there any other oldies out there with similar memories of Bali ?
Cheers
Victoria