Hools, what a fellow (Gary) and Jo his wife too, both great fun and good value.
You should have seen the look on his face when I smeared it with Martha Tillaar face cream. A few days later, I am sure his skin had improved amazingly well. So soft and smoothe!
Sue and Lauren (both post under Lozza) were lovely.
Met Struth and Petron again, Irene and Cathy, Julie57 (and Graham), Maryanne, Barry W and Shirley, TnT (Tracy), inmyblood (Shauna), Smudge and there must be others......short term memory loss for me! Hello to you all!
Ceremony on beach for Sue.
Di and I met Barry and Shirley, with Maryanne, her husband and Jeff at Legian beach for the 2nd anniversary for Sue. Some board riders took gorgeous flowers out to sea, way past the breaking surf, as tribute to Sue. Our loving thoughts are always with Shirley and Barry!
Toilet stops.
B always needs to ‘spend a penny' and she sure did get to try out some toilets in interesting locations. When we walked back down the hill at the top end of Tegallalang, there was another urgent call! We walked to the rear of some shops and found a compound with workers painting, slicing, chopping, tiling etc and asked, please use toilet. The older lady understood and I warned B this would be a doozy! She wandered out back of beyond and returned later, relieved and assured me it was one of the cleanest squats she had ever seen. Lucky for some!
Drivers.
Once again we used Wayan Merta, Didi's mate Buda, Tegal Sari drivers and we found a great fellow in Ubud. We had lunch at Murnis Warung and wanted to head back into cbd to tour the markets. Made Ardana was touting for business and we asked how much, ready to restart the battle. He suggested 15000, in his white mini van. Easy as, we actually paid 20000, easier to split between 4. We sms'd him the next day to check if he was available to drive us to Tegallalang. We found him to be very polite, fine English, a gentleman at all times and I will happily use him again.
Wayan Merta mentioned that he and many other Balinese feel less enthusiastic about their jobs these days. Less Aussies means less fun for them. He said he has friends in hospitality and they are really missing the Aussies fun loving ways.
Phone calls out of Bali.
For the first time, we called back to Australia and UK almost daily. I had a Pro XL Indo sim card and prefixed the Australian and UK phone numbers with 01000 (no +/plus) then the usual, country code, drop the first zero then the number eg
To call Australia, 61, then number 03 9789 4488 would be
0100061397894488
To call UK, 01000447851557878
Calls cost around 2500 per minute so 6 minutes was around 15000 ie just over au$2.
Sms using the usual +61397894488
Shops on Jl Sahadewa
The five shops out front on SuriWathi Hotel on the left/Melasti side have been recently rebuilt/renovated into lovely clean shops. I think rent doubled for the tenants and I think most previous tenants have returned, although I don't recall the lovely jewellery shop. We watched the new shops having pre-opening ceremony then the goods for sale arrived over the next day or so. They look lovely and fresh.
I know we remarked many times whilst in Bali, with all of the markets and shops around Bali, how on earth can they ever sell their stock. Gee life must be terribly difficult on a day to day basis. Some do it comparively so well, eg the Ketuts, Nyoman and Tootsies who took wise advise and sell at fixed prices.
Shopping
We frequented Ketuts fixed price store in the gang off Jl Sahadewa. It is just easier that way!
We ventured to Discovery Shopping Mall and bought more Revlon and perfume.
(Actually another funny story, I wanted to buy a cork screw. Found one in the electronics store above Centro but it was in the cabinet with the swiss army knives, so I gave that a miss. I had had trouble translating cork screw, was shown screws initially, so I asked the shop assistant to please write down the translation for cork screw. She wrote wine opener! I said no, I would like it in Bahasa. She said, same same!)
Stocked up on Martha Tilaars Biokos at Supernova.
Matahari at Kuta Square and Bali Galleria. Lots more stock at Galleria but I particularly wanted some Speedos shorts bathers for my dad and found them back in Kuta Sq.
Tegallalang, Ubud market, double six, beach sellers and Geneva
I bought a lovely tall giraffe from Geneva for 41000rp. I had priced them at home and they were around $70 +. Also bought wooden heron on wire legs and he stands beautifully without wooden platform. Bought replacement windchimes and wind whirlie thingies etc etc etc.
Had more sarong dresses made by Ketut's husband. I bought the better quality sarongs on Double Six and took them back to Ketut's fixed price shop for making. I think I paid her 15000 to make them up. Bargain!
Smokers Hut
At Denpasar airport in the departures area there is the tiniest smokers hut I have ever seen. I think smokers would be near on shoulder to shoulder and the smoke would be thick as!