You know all those hot chicks you see riding horses on the weekend around Byford......Yeah well that's not me. Firstly I'm not a chick and secondly they might be hot but they must also be slightly nuts.
Number one child, also know as 'The Horse Freak', has been talking about riding horses in Bali for months before we got here. Needless to say the wife, who wouldn't even do the kids slides at WaterBom Park last year, wouldn't go riding so I, who shall now be referred to as TMFSR (The Man From Snowy River) got dragged to Bali Island Horses.
The young blokes there looked after us. We had two guides one for me and one for the boss (Horse Freak). Funny thing is, she does riding lessons every week and can ride well, me on the other hand? I haven't been on a horse in 15 years. Do you think it showed?
The beach ride was awesome and I recommend the morning ride because the beach is black as the ace of spades so it got pretty hot by lunch time. They took us to a bat cave and small temple built on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Hey, did you know Sapi Muda doesn't mean calf, as in young cow? No, neither did I. Anyway back to my bum.
After the bat cave.........no we didn't see Robin or that old guy who cleaned up after them, Alfred I think, we rode up a hill. Wait..........I hung on while the horse bolted up the hill. We rode through a few small villages, corn fields and rice paddy's.
The ride was great. Beautiful scenery and stacks of butterflies. I'm in touch with my soft inner man. I did want to rip one of their wings off to see if they flew in circles so I must be a boy
We booked through Beni HAAN who we found on the internet and the Bali Travel Forum. Nice guy. Actually he's a very nice guy. Not nice enough to offer to massage my bum after the ride but nice enough to only laugh quietly at my discomfort. My pop, god rest his soul, would be proud to know Beni is Protestant. Missionaries! They're everywhere.
The horse riding was about $42.00US through Beni which was a pretty good price and he picked us up personally. His car has great aircon. It'd be even better if it had one of those massage seats for post-horse riding posterior manipulation (Bum Massage).
Did I mention the names of the horses? The boss's horse was Susan, mine was probably Dianne or Mary but I pretty much named it Mongrel after the first 500 metres.
Shortly after the torturous equine adventure we went back to the hotel and after a quick S.S.S (not the 8 year old she's too young to shave) we were picked up by Raceng who took us to Centro where we discovered Krispy Kreme (KK). They should just add another ‘K' because they are just as wicked as those dullards that wear the white sheets.
That was supposed to be a compliment but after re-reading it I realize that it doesn't come out that way. Needless to say Krispy Kreme is good. Yes we eat noodles and rice when we're here but we like to try things we don't have in Perth. Before you say it, I know we've got doughnuts in Perth but we don't have KK. We've got beer in Perth too but it doesn't stop you trying Bintang or Tiger Beer here does it?
We went to the Surf Factory Outlet on Ngura Rai (I know that's not the correct spelling). There's stacks of gear there as usual and at least half the price of Perth BUT.......if you're huge like me, good luck!
The wife is 5 foot FF and has a huge tie rack (take out tie and see what you get) Anyway, she might be tiny but some of her is big! She said the range was limited simply because of the sizes but still managed to get a pair of Rusty ¾ pants for $30.00AU.
We made it back to the hotel before the 4 year old had a mini melt down. We gave Raceng some car cleaning gear, his wife some Lindt chocolates and his kids Cadbury chocolates. I reckon he might have shed a tear if we weren't both so tough, that or I might have been standing on his foot. Did I mention I was huge?
We had dinner at ‘OURS' on Garlic Lane. It was pretty good. Not great but good. The cocktails are really good according the drunken bum AKA my wife. Glad to see a very big bunch of proud Australians singing the national anthem at the beginning of the footy. By the way the Eagles lost........yeah I support the Dockers. Don't start.
Had to buy some clothes because we simply didn't have any. Paid a bit too much but it was better than wandering the streets the next day naked. On average we paid 50000rph for XXL surf shirts and 30000 for kid's dresses. Went around the corner onto Melasti Street and after the kids almost tripped over the poor lady having a kip the boss (the big boss) bought a ladies strappy top thingy for 50000rph. Again too much but the lady was so tired and I have to admit so were we. In the end the prices were fair and I'd rather pay a bit more than argue over a dollar or two. The quality of everything was good.
At one shop on Garlic Lane we bought 5 XXL surf shirts, 4 kids dresses and one pair of kids shorts all for 500.000rph. The ladies were nice they said I spoke such good Indonesian that I could have been one of them......O.K maybe I was thinking that but they did start talking very, very fast when I started talking to them in Indo.
Something interesting we've discovered this trip and probably interesting to some of you with rupiah at home. The 20000rph note with the orchid on one side and a bird on the other isn't accepted anywhere now. You might be able to change it at the bank but we haven't tried. Funny thing is we got the notes from the money exchange at Carousel and they are brand spanking new....go figure. Oh yeah and the 50000rph notes with Ex-president Soeharto are fake. Somehow we managed to inherit two of them from somewhere.
We're about to jump in the cold pool at the hotel and numb my bum (even at my age that sounds funny).