My apologies for the long break between stories of my last trip to Bali but as maybe you can understand life sometimes really gets out of hand with many many things all happening at once.
Now that the dust has settled somewhat, this is a loose collection of short stories, in no particular order, but are fond recollections of Kev and my trip last August.
The 1st one covers kevvy's little sojourn up to Seminyak to sample the nightlife of somewhere that is just a little classier than good ole Kuta.
There was one particular night that kev and me had parted company to let kev explore the nightlife at his own pace. kevs got over his initial culture shock of being a first timer and seemed to have settled in rather well so I thought it would be a good opportunity to cut him loose and see if he will sink or swim.
Anyway kev has shot thru faster than a junkie with a stolen dvd player under his arm, to go and explore the wild nightlife of Seminyak.
Personally I think he was chasing some female company as opposed to hanging around looking at my ugly mug night after night. I also got the impression that he was chasing someone in particular as I remember him telling me about meeting this particular girlie and me not wanting to know about it as my drought was just getting longer and longer. Bah humbug, what's new about that eh !!
Kev poured himself back into our room at the bounty sometime around 6amish. If there was ever a face showing the signs of way too much partying then kev was wearing that face. He was also dribbling some sort of gibberish sort of sounds which I eventually was able to translate as something about being out of his depth up in Seminyak. The last I had seen of kev was at Paddies Reloaded dancing the funky chicken to his hearts content. Me? I had racked off back to the hotel for a quiet one for a change. No! it's not old age catching up with me, it is me being smart and pacing myself so I don't burnout too soon. Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
He started telling me how he made his way up north to Seminyak to check out the dance scene that according to the words of the rumour mill seems to really go off up there. Revvy at times gets right into the dance scene from time to time so he was telling me he was having a ball dancing up a storm and chatting up every girl with a pulse, both tourists and local girls as well. He reckons that the dance scene up there is very very intense and that I probably wouldn't like it. I reckon he is right as I am a live band kinda fella instead.
Between all the gibberish he was sprouting I was able to discern that he couldn't get out of the club where he was. It might have been double 6 but even to this day I'm still unsure. But anyway I digress here, sorry, kev was trying to get out of this particular club and was using a self taught indo language lesson but to no avail. Both off us had noticed exit signs during our travels but were unsure how to pronounce it properly. So kev pronounced it as Kaluah and as a consequence whoever he asked kept sending him back to the bar thinking that he wanted another drink instead of the exit. At this point I'm pissing myself laughing at the visuals I am getting of the poor bugger being totally exhausted, off his head, desperate to go home and all they are doing is sending him back to the bar for more drinks. This is the total opposite of back home where everytime you try to get a drink from the bar when you have had too much the staff try to guide you to the door and kick you out but in Bali it is the opposite they try to send you to the bar for more. I do love the Bali way of doing things!!
In sheer desperation it seems, kev had to scale a brick wall to get out of the club, ending up in a dingy sideline trying to stagger his way back to the main drag to try to get a ride home. Mind you the sun was coming up at this stage so I reckon he was pretty well fried and dried.
Fast forward a day or two and we get to the other half of this little tale which is set in our hotel room during one of our many midarvo siestas.
We were having a conversation that went something like this
PD: Whattya doing with the camera?
K: Nothing
PD: Bull what's going on? Have you got some dirty pics in there?
K: No nothing like that.
PD: well go on , show me then
K: no I'm deleting them
PD: What of ?
K: nothing
PD: Yeah righto, go on tell me
K: these are from the other night, I thought they were girls but looking at these it's obvious they aren't girls at all.
PD: Hahahahahahaha, you got had by the she-males did you
Show me the pics
K: nope I just deleted the last of them.
PD: Mongrel!!
Jeeze I was getting some great visuals there but sadly I never got to see the pics.
I could just imagine Kevvy having a dance and kissy kissy session with one of these girls and kev thinking that his luck maybe in. With one thing leading to another I'm imagining that kev is going for the big downstairs grope and coming up with a handful of crown jewels.
He wont admit to this happening and really I don't think it did but if it would have the look on his face would have been priceless!
Ambitions of a bit of rumpy pumpy would have turned into a running runner or a legover turning into a high-speed leg it out of there exercise.
Kev kinda stayed away from Seminyak and the dance clubs after this episode.
I really don't blame him.
The next story is a complete example of our immature stupidity but jeeze it was fun.
There was one night there as we were leaving paddies reloaded after having few cool, refreshing cocktails under our belts and we copped the usual requests if we wanted transport to wherever we were going.
Seeing as we couldn't be bothered doing the controlled stagger we try to call walking back to the hotel we decided to accept the offer of transport back to the hotel.
When they found out that we were going back to the bounty hotel we had two motorbikes piloted by bounty group security guards in full uniformed regalia, seeing as both places are owned by the same company.
They asked us if we wanted to go back via poppies2 and we explained no no we want to go back the long way, we want to race.
Well you would have thought that we offered them a share of first prize in the lotto, their faces had just light right up and they were as keen as us to go racing.
Next thing you know we are off , bloody kev has got the jump on us and his bike is off at the highest rate of knots a poor little 125cc two stroke motor could muster. Well my fella just pulls out without looking and the next thing I know is that we are pacing a car on JL Legian as we are heading down to Bemo corner but we are on the left hand side of the car an I'm looking ahead to see a parked in front of us an I'm beginning think that the gap we will have left by the time we get to the parked car is not going to be all that big , but somewhere my rider pulled out an extra one tenth of a horsepower out of this underpowered bicycle and we actually manage to get in front of the car as Bemo corner starts approaching really really quickly but we were no where near kev as he is already around Bemo corner but as we head towards the beach my fella is doing a Garry McCoy and catching them pretty quick.
We turn right onto the beach rd where the hard rock is and we get some cheers from a coupla of drunk bystanders who have twigged to what's going on then my bike passes kev with me hanging off the back of the bike giving kev the single finger salute.
Next thing I know kev is level with me and kev is giving me the bird back at me. So what do I do ? I reach over and slap him on the back of his helmet not once, not twice but three times! He's looking at me with a puzzled look on his face trying to work out what the strange thudding noise was until I reached over again and slapped him on the back of the helmet a couple of more times. Next thing you know he's twigged on to what's happening and he is starting to slap me in the back of my helmet.
Let me try to picture this a little bit better for you.
It is 3am in the morning with not much traffic, we are drunk out of our skulls, traveling at about 80kph, sitting on the back of motorbikes, wearing only Bali attire and with little better than an icecream container for a helmet and we are leaning over slapping the crap out of each other while we are racing!!
Anyway, back to the race, the turnoff for poppies2 came up really quick and kevs rider who is quite a talented rider get there 1st and I got blocked off by a taxi so we had to go the long way round thru the sand which slowed us down no end. As we were coming up to the left turn on poppies2 (which is where the indah is) we are right behind kev going at almost maximum speed, around the bend we go with my fella right on kevs backwheel, straight after the bend we pull out and start to pass kevs bloke, just as I look up I see the horror shiny smooth right hand turn coming up really fast but we have passed kev , that's the main thing tho.
By now I have recognized the grey besser brick wall with the really sturdy steel gates that we are hurtling towards and I'm having some pretty bad visions of leaving my whole body imprint on this wall as well are heading into this corner way too hot!!
There is now only one thing to do in theses circumstances, pray to the gods , hope like hell that you make it oh , and close your eyes like I did. When I opened my eyes we had made it around the horror bend, and I felt like a million dollars in small chance. Rather loose and rattley!
Kevs bike pulled into the foyer of the bounty hotel just before I did as my fella had to slow done thru the carpark.
We both paid off our riders and made our way inside.
Normally it only costs about 10,000 Rp for a ride home but we both paid off our riders 50,000 each as we had a ball and it was worth every penny we paid for it.
As a follow on from our run amuck episode was that everytime we tried to leave paddies we didn't even have to be asked for transport, both fellas' were waiting there on the bikes already to go if we wanted. Sometimes we did, sometimes we didn't, but it is hard to say no and disappoint people sometimes. They were there without fail. Jeeze they are good. We would never have that kind of service back home.
There is no way that I was going to drag kev over to Bali and not do the white water rafting. So I did the usual thing and wandered down to pub Bagus and booked the rafting with George who works there. George is the Charles Bronson look alike but is a really cool character.
Anyway the next morning we got picked by the bus after nearly oversleeping and getting left behind. After general introductions on the bus it turns out that part of the group is from a country town here in WA that I know rather well, so there is that link of everyone knows someone thru someone. Of course there was much laughter fun and frivolity on the trip up into the majestic hills of Bali. With only one exception. I started to get that ominous rumbling in my guts that can only signal bad bad things to come. Yep I've reached that stage where I am way too scared to fart for fear of what might follow thru. This of course led to one of the longest three quarters of an hour in my life. But finally we arrived at the starting point of the day's adventure.
Well I'm off the bus in a flash and bolting for the dunny. I hope there is no one in there cos they are about the have company in there wether they want it or not. This situation is desperation of the highest order. I go flying in thru the door, slam the door shut and head for the bowl. At least I've been here before and know that it is a western style not squat style toilet but it really would not have mattered if it was a squatie, it was going to get used regardless! As you can imagine, the relief is one of the greatest joys known to mankind. It's times like this that the world is truly a beautiful place. But this joy was short lived as the realization dawned that there is a severe lack of toilet paper in this tiny little closet cubicle. Why I call it a closest is that is also a storage room for mop, bucket etc, and all kinds of cleaning paraphernalia. Well I am looking thru all this stuff trying to find anything that could even remotely be used as a toilet paper substitute. But there was absolutely nothing that I could use and using the mop was out of the question, even I'm not that feral. I mean this situation is beginning to get really desperate. What they hell am I going to do? Then it struck me! I had the brainwave that saved the day. The solution I came up with would get me arrested in any country of the world including back home in Australia if the relevant authorities catch you doing it.
What was my solution? I had realized that I carry my own supply of paper with me where ever I go. It's in my wallet. You all know the joke of the 1000 rupiah notes being absolutely useless except for as toilet paper. Well guess what, the joke is true now. It may not have been as soft an comfortable as the usual stuff I was used to, but under the circumstances I was as happy as you could get under the circumstances. Believe me when I say that desperate situations demand desperate acts. This was one of them.
We broke up into groups of 4 and started the trudge down the 100 or so steps down to the river. The raft we got was the dud raft with the leak that someone has previously mentioned in other jbr's. Which meant regular stops to pump it up, but as far as I'm concerned it is all part of the adventure. Some people get all freaked out over things like this as if it is a life threatening situation but I feel that they may be overreacting somewhat. We got to stop on a regular basis and saw sights that you would normally never see as you go rushing past down river, we didn't have much choice about these stops, it was either stop and pump or sink. We also got into the usual water splashing fights as you race the other rafts as well. Which is all well and fun till I splashed a raft with a coupla Dutch fella's in it and they were highly unimpressed, judging by the scowls on their faces. Some people gotta learn to relax, besides how can you go white water rafting and then get upset when you get wet? Besides I understand Dutch very fluently and knew exactly what they were saying about me afterwards.
The last 3 meter drop near the end is always fun. But kev got the best view in the boat on that one as the cute girl in front of us in the boat ended upside down with her bum in kev' face. Never heard any complaints about that one tho lol.
We faced the 150 or so steps back up to the top. While watching the locals lugging all the heavy boats and equipment up those same steps it occurred to both me an kev that when we whinge about those steps, we really don't have any need to whinge about the steps as we go up there once only not repeatedly like these fella's do day after day after day and they get paid a pittance for it as well.
We had another great day at the Waterbom Park. There was me and kev, a married couple, Reece and his missus plus 4 girls from our hotel. By all accounts it was going to be a good day even if only that we were surrounded by goodlooking girls.
There have been some changes at the waterbom park since I was there last year previously. They had extended the height of the tower and added a new ride called the smashdown. Going on that ride was one of the hardest things I have ever done.
We were all at the top of the extended tower going one by one on this ride when it came to my turn. What you have to understand is I work 1000m underground and have a huge problem with heights. When it came to my turn, there was a bit of breeze and the tower shimmied a slight bit. Well that was it, my heart rate went straight to 200 beats a minute and my breathing rate went thru the roof. I reckon I left fingernail marks in the wood railing and the fact that my eyes were the size of dinner plates probably gave it away that I was slightly uncomfortable up there. To say that I was slightly terrified might come close to the truth. After a couple of minutes I had settled down and threw myself off the tower. Well what a ride that was, it was great. I couldn't wait to get up there and give it another go. They reckon the 1st time is the worst, well they are right, it just gets better an better everytime you give it a go. After about a dozen or so goes on the smashdown we all decided it was time to move on to the lazy river after one last go. Of course the gentleman in me which I try to keep suppressed reared its ugly head and I let the best looking girl of the group go before me. When I got to the bottom everyone was saying boy did you miss out! What happened? The girl before me lost her bikini top in the water at the bottom of the slide and of course I missed out on a glimpse of the puppies with the pink noses. Spewin!!
The urinating monkeys on the lazy river are great for a laugh, especially for our juvenile sense of humour. At the waterfall at the bridge you can have heaps of fun as we did by piling your floatie rings on top of one person and wait for it to fill up with water. That's great fun but be warned the victim may emerge with a blue tinge tho.
There was one casual evening when I couldn't be bothered going out so I just hung around Rainbows café all evening making new friends with tourists and locals alike. One of the aussie guys I was hanging around with had these two very realistic rubber snakes. As you can imagine this created heaps of entertainment for us over hours and hours. We hung one snake from the tree out front of rainbows and laid the other one on the footpath, and then at the last minute we would 'warn' people about these dangerous animals. The screams and reactions were absolutely brilliant. Only one or two people got upset with us, the rest could see the humour in it. One girl we got 3 times in the space of 15 minutes. Yep she was blond too!! *puts flameproof suit on*. The best reactions definitely came from the Korean/Japanese tourists. Mind you we did settle down slightly, only slightly, when one tourist leapt onto the road to escape the 'snake' and nearly got cleaned up by passing traffic. I never thought that the 2 snakes for 10000Rp would be able to provide so much entertainment.
It was also at Rainbows near the end of my holiday, that I ran into Joel and encountered a tale of woe that we all dread happening to us.
Joel had his two weeks of bliss, spent all of his money and it was time to go home. Him and his mates packed everything up and made their way to the airport. It was at this point that tragedy struck of the highest order. Joel's passport had gone missing on the way to the airport. They searched their transport, doubled back to the hotel, searched the room all looking for his passport but it had vanished into thin air. In the end there was nothing they could do but board the flight home and leave poor Joel behind. They gave him all the rupiahs they had on them which wasn't much and wished him good luck. There wasn't anything else his friends could do. At this stage the poor bugger is in tears and I don't blame him, I would be too. I think it was his 1st time overseas and his trip has gone done the gurgler bigtime.
He made a report to the police, to officialize his vanished passport; this of course cleaned him out of his money that he had left. What made it even worse was the language barrier when it came to filling out the forms as there were all written in indo and the cops English was pretty well non-existent. But they did ask him if he knew anyone who could help translate for him. That's when the penny dropped and he remembered the card a mate of his gave him incase he needed a driver when he was there. This is where Jimbo entered the picture. He gave Jimbo a call and he was down there like a flash. Jimbo is as aussie as they come for a Barlow as he has lived in oz before. Jimbo translated everything for Joel, filled out his forms , housed him at his place after moving out his wife an kids, so Joel would have somewhere to stay until it all cot sorted out. He fed him and gave him some spending money for smokes and ancillaries. This is all from one stranger to another.
You know when people are genuine so I also gave Joel 100k (about $16) so he would not have to rely so much on Jimbo. He wouldn't accept it but I forced him to so in the end he gave up with me. Over the next coupla days I ran into Joel at rainbows (cos jimbos wife owns the 1st stall next door) and kept tabs of his progress getting a replacement passport. Jimbo had driven him everywhere incl the consulate. Nothing was too much trouble. If you ever have any doubt as to where Bali's magic is, it is in the people. Even ratbags like Jimbo have a heart of gold. A coupla days later Joel gave me the money back as his parents were finally able to deposit some money into another tourist's plastic card which he could then access. The day before me an kev were due to fly out, Joel got is passport and flew back to Perth. As well as him being held up, he lost a weeks work as he does soccer clinics at high schools south of the river in Perth.
On the day when me an kev flew out, we were late to leave for the airport when Jimbo came running up and said that there was a phone call for me. Yeah right?? Now I was really confused until I spoke on jimbos phone and it was Joel. He just wanted to let me know that he made it home ok and all is good. He also thanked me for my help and support when he needed it. Mate, it was a pleasure to be able to help someone else when they really need it. It is all karma, what goes around comes around. I told him to do the same for someone else if the opportunity ever arose.
And out of this I now have a driver I can trust and will be using in future trips to Bali.
Now comes the last story and the one I love the best but I must put forward a disclaimer right now!
If you are easily offended by or about porn it is time to finish reading now and click out of this story now.
You have been suitably warned
Ok for those few of you who are still with me here the story goes like this.
The Kingsly boys in the rooms either side of us, well a couple of them were walking down poppies 2 when this indo fella comes up to them saying 'sticky sticky'. Well the boys are slightly confused as to what he means so the indo fella opens a newspaper he is holding to reveal a blank looking dvd in a clear case while repeating 'sticky sticky' to them. This fella is trying to be really subtle about it so he doesn't attract too much attention. The penny drops with one of the young lads when he figures it's a porno DVD. Of course!! Sticky sticky as in a stick flick! You know, an instructional video on horizontal folkdancing.
They get to haggling a price for this disc. Most normal DVD's are around the 10000rp mark but cos this is a special one that all the young lads are interested in they eventually settle on 50000rp. They reckon they did good on their haggling cos lets face it; it is a good price for a porno in anyone's language.
Later on in the day they get back to the hotel and start telling everyone who cared to listen, about the great value disc that they got. So they went about borrowing a dvd player off someone else in the hotel, set it all up, stocked up on Bintang and munchies and thus they were all prepared for a 'gentlemen's afternoon'. Both me an kev were invited to join in but some sort of alarm bell was ringing with us so we respectfully declined. Besides there was already a dozen fella's in a tiny hotel room so we couldn't have fitted in regardless if we wanted to.
We are quietly sipping (guzzling?) our duty-free on our balcony as well started hearing some pretty bad moans an groans. It was coming from the young lads not the dvd. 'that's disgusting' and 'aarrgghh that's sick' and the young lads start evacuating the hotel room. Either someone has done a Bali fart and followed thru or else this sticky DVD was not quite what they expected.
Judging by the looks on their faces it was still hard to tell which one had caused the exodus. Then one of the fella's told us what had happened. It was just as I had suspected. The DVD was not what they thought it was. Instead of showing heaps of examples of horizontal folkdancing lessons, it was all these indo fella's playing with themselves doing what comes naturally to all teenage boys and most males of any age.
Well they were told it was a sticky sticky but it was not quite what they had imagined they were getting.
I almost gave myself a hernia I was laughing so much at these guys. Even to this day that story still puts a smile on my face.
The golden rule of Bali is
'Nothing is what it seems or what you think it is'
If anyone is still reading so far, thank you for taking the time to read my inane ramblings of Bali 2004.
So much more happened but there is no way in the world I will ever get around to typing it all up and then posting it, but if we ever happen to run into each other I have heaps of Bali stories I would be happy to share and keep youse all bored for hours.
Roll on Bali August 5th 2005
Cheers PD