In Reply to: It's when people give a blanket posted by JennyWren on Wednesday, 19. October 2005 at 15:41 Bali Time:
Jenny
As you've said your first visit was 1975,....I was just thinking back to the '70's and early '80's in Bali.
Do you remember when the exchange rate was 400rp = 1 Aussie $,....Bintang bisar at a hotel was 1200rp...the old large 5 Rupiah coins that felt like plastic and would blow away in a strong wind LOL,,,,, in places like Sanur when you left the hotel the shops all had very little electric and kero lamps,... lobster baskets just off shore in front of some beach restaurants,.. the little shops on the beach just rough thatched huts with the sand as the floor that they had to brush some of the largest rats i've ever seen of the goods,.. the beach at Sanur was wider, the water clearer and cleaner and you could swim safely in it....the days of eating outside of a good hotel was like playing Russian roulette and sometimes eating in the hotels was much the same,...I remember my wife and I getting horribly sick with food poisoning at a buffet at Sanur beach hotel (that cost me a packet)....my wife returned from Bali in '77 and spent 10 days in hospital with a staian of typhoid,.. memories memories
The small streets with big open smelly drains,.. the old early '60's Chevy and Pontiac taxis some left hand and some right hand drive that took up all the road,.. once asked my friend that drove us around if I could drive his '64 Chev Belair as I had one at home myself,.... he agreed and I asked him you appear to drive all over the road do you drive on the left or righthe said with a smile "We drive in the shade"
The only traffic light in Bali,.. in the main street in Denpasar,..the hassle free locals the lay back attitude,....
Well memories of all the things that once made Bali a paradise,....that's long lost! in my opinion...I guess that's progress but myself I prefer the old Bali and the old attitude of the locals,....And just quietly many of those friends i made in the early days do too...