Thursday brought forth a new day. We had our lovely breakfast over at Breeze and had a chat to Desi the manager. It was quite funny as she had stopped out the front on her bike not long after we had sat down. She had needed something from one of the staff before taking her little boy to school. A short time later she was back laughing her head off. She had taken her son late and was worried that the school would tell her off! Then just after she had finished telling us her husband came with the little boy as it was not his school day!! We all had a good laugh about it with her. One morning while having breakfast there a bike arrived out the front with a big yellow box on the back and it was the milkman!! He came in with one bottle of milk then off to his next customer! I never knew they milk men over there. Our little friend Wayan came over and we had a bit of a chat to him. He wandered around the restaurant looking at all of the pictures that they have on their walls. We offered him some food but he said he was not hungry. He said that he had a sore foot. I had a look and he had scraped the top a little bit. He had no shoes on and when I asked he said he had left them at home. So after breakfast we took him across the road and bought him a pair of thongs. I suggested a really nice looking pair but he chose a really cheap pair.
We said goodbye to Wayan and then we went for a leisurely stroll down Garlic Lane. We bought 2 each of those lovely iron/tin fish and geckos that are everywhere. Our friends had called us and asked if we could meet them sometime during the day so we decided to go and have a look at their hotel. They were at the Masa Inn in Poppies Lane so we caught a taxi. We found the hotel and then started to look for their room. It was right at the back and you guessed it,,,, up more damn stairs!! At least Dad was very sober by now! LOL So off I went first to make sure our friend were in their room. They were so I called down to Doug and my Dad to come up. The room was very basic but no different to most rooms in Bali. After a chat we made arrangements to meet for dinner. I asked my Dad if he wanted to have a look at any of the shops in Poppies and slowly make our way home or just catch a taxi back. He said that he could walk for hours and wanted to have a good look at he shops as he hadn't really been up that end of town before. Though, after about maybe 5 or 10 minutes he said 'what are we doing?' to which I replied 'we are looking at the shops on our way back to the hotel'. He said he was really tired and that the shops were all the same!! We had not even walked as far as TJ's!! Oh well so much for a bit of shopping! I suggested that we should stop for a drink which Dad jumped at! Our friends had told us of a book that TJ's sells about Kuta and I wanted to have a look at it so we went there. We ordered drinks and had a lovely relaxing break. I just love the pond and so took some photos of the fish and of these lovely long skinny dangly mirror things that were attached to fishing line and hanging down over the pond catching the suns rays and reflecting through the restaurant. I said to Doug that I was gong to buy some for our pond at home. The waitress overheard me and said that her husband made them. He came over and he said that they were about Rp30,000 each. We decided to wait as I was sure that I could buy them closer to our hotel. As we were paying the bill I saw the book and as it was only Rp100,000 bought a copy. (It is now gracing the top of our coffee table for everyone to have a read and get a feel for why we love Bali do much.) Just past TJ's Dad stopped at a wood place and bought an interesting carved wall plaque of some animals biting the 'bum' off another!! Dad has an uncanny way of finding strange things!
Once we had reached JL Legian we caught a taxi.
Dad said he needed to have a sleep so with him tucked up safe and a note telling him the time we would be back, Doug and I took to the streets once more. Just as we were leaving the hotel right in front of us was a shop that sold the long dangly mirrors that we had seen at TJ's! We must have seen them before but had not really taken much notice. So I started to select. I chose some really lovely colours and the best part was they were only Rp10,000!! I think I ended up with about 25 and, the guy threw in a few other bits for free. They were quite heavy so we left them at reception at our hotel.
On our Feb trip we had seen a big carved Komodo Dragon in the Gang going to Ketut's Shop but we could not buy it as we would have been too much over weight. We had told the man at the shop we would be back in July and that we might buy it then. We had a look and the dragon was still there. It must have been the first time ever that they did not recognise us when we went back! Once we got talking the wife said she remembered us. I just loved it and really wanted it but Doug was worried about getting it home as it is really quite heavy and he was worried if it had borers and ended up being confiscated. I said that we would give it a really good looking over. Anyway after our little 'tete a tete' I decided for us that we were going to buy it! We needed to change some more money so we told them we would be back later in the afternoon or first thing in the morning to pick it up plus it was heavy and we did not want to carry it around with us. We went to Ketut's and bought some little cute pyjamas for our 2 Grandsons. On the way back past the 'Dragon' shop they were applying polish and rubbing 'our' Dragon to make it all nice for us! They were also going to wrap it so we could carry it easier on the plane. They made little pouches out of paper to wrap around the claws on the feet!
We ended up down near the GVC to change some money so we went in and had a chat to the staff and decided that we would have a quick bite to eat. They make the yummiest Chicken Crepes for about $3 and I always used to have one if we were in the pool on our last trip. We both ordered one each and also a plate of chips each. While we were waiting I went to the pool to see if the water was any warmer than at our hotel. It was a bit cooler than when we were there in Feb but still nice and heaps warmer than the pool at the Suriwathi. I wish that I had taken my bathers as it would have been so much better than just dipping in my big toe! LOL Some of the staff that knew us were on duty and they were really happy to see us and once again it was hugs all round. Our lunch arrived with the chips coming first. I just love their chips and started to 'hoe' in. Then out came our much awaited crepes and then we both remembered that they also came with chips! Oh well we were hungry but we did end up leaving some. I feel really guilty leaving food on the plate but we could not fit in any more. When the waiter came to take our plates we both apologies for leaving them and then he said that he should have told us that it came with chips. We told him to eat them on the way back to the kitchen. I often wonder if the staff ever does eat any food left on plates?
All too soon it was time to be back for my Dad. Little did we know that the moment we had been dreading all holiday was about to befall us!! We stopped off at reception to collect our shopping then leisurely strolled along the path to Dad's room. When we arrived at Dad's room I knocked as usual but there was no answer. A tiny little trickle of panic ran though me. I tried the door and it opened, whew that was a relief but it was only to be short lived as the room was empty! I called him as I ran to the bathroom but still no sign of him!! By now that little trickle was huge and gushing like a tsunami! Thoughts of where was he, how far could he have gone since we had left him raced through my mind? Doug was just about on his way to our room just in case Dad had gone there when the nice lady from next door came out the front of her room and I asked her if she had seen him and she said yes he had headed out the front but not long ago. Sheer horror ran through me as I thought of all of the things that could happen to him. He had absolutely no concept of the money so I dreaded the thought of him trying to buy anything, he has a hearing problem so can't hear properly and he is hopeless with accents, even if he found a taxi he couldn't pronounce the name of the hotel let alone say where it was! I had a quick look in his room again just in case he had left a note like the last time but there wasn't one. I said to Doug we would leave our shopping in Dad's room and he could go one way and I would go the other up and down Garlic Lane in the hope of finding him. We had just started to go down the path when Dad appeared from nowhere! The mere sight of him brought on a feeling of sheer relief. He said that he had woken up a bit early so had wanted to come to our room but got lost so went to reception to find out where it was! We had no idea where he could have been when we came through reception as those who know the SuriWathi know there is only way in. I said to him that we had gone through reception and never saw him there then he said after finding out where our room was he really needed the loo so he had gone to the toilet behind reception!! This was scary as the toilet is up about 5 steps with no handrail and they are tiled. Dad had absolutely no idea of the panic he had caused. The lady from next to Dad came over to see Dad. We were trying to explain to Dad about how scared we had been as we were worried he could have got lost. He started going on about really weird stuff and he had no idea he was in Bali and was going on to the lady about being in Burma! We all tried to reason with him but he was adamant that we were all wrong, we were in Burma! In the end we just said to Dad for him to believe whatever he wanted as we realized that he was not going to believe us regardless of what we said.
We asked Dad what he wanted to do and he said that he would like to have a look at the shops so off we went once more. Dad bought a few DVD's quite gruesome ones actually all about blood and guts! We still had not had much luck finding where he had heard the Gamelan playing way back in 1999 so we wandered down JL Melasti to JL Legian in the hope of either finding it or hearing it! We came across a building that had big gates and Dad thought it looked a bit familiar but it was not the place. As it had been so long since Dad had been we thought that it was possible that the building may not even be there anymore. We walked as far as JL Padma and by then Dad was getting a wee bit weary in his old legs. I felt really sad for him as this had been his dream for so long to find this place but it looked like it was not going to be. I asked if he wanted to get a taxi back but he said he was quite happy to walk. Dad was amazed at how a lot of the shops sold the same things and he said he couldn't work out how they could all make a living selling the same stuff. Back at the hotel Dad said he wanted to have another rest for a bit until dinner time. Once again we left him with the obligatory note of when we would pick him up and said that he was to just stay at his room if he woke up early. I had actually thought of just sitting on his verandah whiled he slept! LOL We went back to our room and I did a bit more on Kelik's song book and wrote down the titles of the DVD's and CD's we had bought. After about an hour I said to Doug that I wanted to go to my Dad's room just in case. A wave of relieve washed over me as we neared his room as I could see he was sitting on the verandah. He said he had only just sat down which was good timing! LOL His neighbours on the other side were on their verandah so we had a good natter with them for ages. We went across the road to Breeze and had a drink. I needed to exchange a DVD that I had bought the wrong version of and I just thought that I could take it into any shop to exchange it but that was not the case. Each shop has its own code to determine if it from their shop! Some have a barcode others have a hologram seal others have some numbers in the top right corner. After going into about 4 shops I gave up for another day. We wandered back to the 'Dragon' shop as I really wanted to have my Dragon! Some shops had been closed for ceremonies and I did not want to miss out on getting my dragon! He was all wrapped up and ready for us but we could still smell the faint aroma of the polish coming through the layers of cardboard. We took him back to the hotel and left him at reception to save us walking al the way back to our room. I borrowed a big black marker and wrote or name all over him then asked if they would put him safe in the safe room!! LOL. Doug thought this a bit of overkill but hey I had waited 6 months for my dragon and I was not going to loose him now!
It was now time to make our way down to the IndoNational to meet our friends for dinner. Our table was right down the back. Unfortunately it was right next to where the smokers go. I was utterly disgusted with two families who were there smoking and both had little toddlers who they allowed to crawl on the ground all through where they had been dropping their ash! Their little hands and feet and knees ended up black from the ash. It was just gross. Despite this we all had a lovely meal albeit consumed trying hard not to breathe in the second hand smoke! It would have been much enjoyable if there were some sort of clear blinds to block out the smoke from drifting into the restaurant. There was a man going around selling DVD's and we tried to avoid him but Dad had other ideas and invited him to our table. We were all gobsmacked though as he was wearing a South Australian police shirt complete with a lanyard ID and badge!!! I asked him where he had got it from and he was very reluctant to say. The badge had Acting Sergeant when I told him it was against the law in Australia to wear a uniform if you were not a police officer he put his hand up over the sergeant bit and laughed and said I only Acting!!! LOL Dad bought a DVD called something about the Dolls Club. I think he thought it was going to be a bit saucy but I don't think it is. We had a lovely time and soon it was time to go as Dad had decided he was tired again and had his head resting on the table. A few of the staff came over and asked if he was ok which we thought really nice of them. Dad had had one too many and he was so funny walking up JL Padma a he reckoned that he did not need any help but he really did. My friend and I left him to walk with the men and we went on ahead. He wanted to find another bar and we said they were now all closed and got him back to his room safely. There endeth another lovely day.
More to come....