one thing I forgot to mention in my previous post about the KP was how good the staff were .Quite often in some hotels the staff couldn't give a rats ,but not at the KP they were very friendly and could not do enough for us ,nothing was too much trouble.On one particular morning while having breakfast our young male waiter,( who we later found out had only been there two days ) was hovering around us topping up the tea and coppee when I produced a tea bag and sat it in my cup and asked for some hot water.Five minutes later he returned with a wine glass full of warm tap water ,we all had a good laugh at his expence,he was pretty embarrassed but soon saw the funny side and laughed along with us.
For bank withdrawals we used the bank ATM in Rum Jungle road opposite the Fookin Pub, you can withdraw up to 3 million rp at a time where as some other ATM's only allow 1.2 million.
WINES; we had no problem at any of the restaurants we ate at to get Australian or Imported wines you can get Lindermans ,De Bortolies, Renmano and a few others both in red or white ,EG a caraf of Renmano Chardonay 500mls 60,000rp about $8.50 aus . at Ketumbar.
It was good to have a settling wine of an evening after a full day on the Bintang.
Before leaving our hotel one morning for our usual stroll around the streets via the Corner bar ,the Bamboo bar and Posers we saw some local Balinese women unloading a truck full of bricks, no occupational health and safety in Bali, these women had no gloves and worked in thongs and where still offloading when we got home around 4pm ,I know who is going to do the paving in my house in future.
On a trip to Sanur we saw a lot of men standing beside the road carrying shovells and we asked our driver Gorgeous Kamal what they we doing ,he said that they stand there all day HOPING that a truck will pick them up , if they are lucky a truck slows down but does not stop and they throw their shovells onto the truck ,run alongside,jump on and hang onto some handrails welded onto the side of the truck.They then have to load this truck with dirt (10 ton I think)and offload by hand for 20.000rp (3).
One thing that always amazes me is, as poor as the Balinese are their children always go to school immaculate and all in uniform ,I know that some Balinese cannot afford to send their kids to school ,but those that do should be very proud of the way these kids dress .Perhaps some of our public schools could take a leaf out of their book.
On our trip our party took a lot of photos and I started to think that if an enterprising young Balinese could get hold of a Polaroid camera and do the bars and restaurants taking instant photos he could end up with a pretty good business. Food for thought
SUMMARY: We had a terrific holiday ,the second honeymoon was a success,as you guessed the hotel was great,the company we had especially Bruce(82)and Shirley(78) were a laugh a minute and when us baby boomers started to slow down the geriatrics picked us up and dragged us along.
My mate Blue who reads this forum and knows that I contribute some times has asked me not to mention the night those horrible little microbes invaded his belly and he cacked in his bed. So I won't tell you O.K.
Cheers Gary and Josie