Next morning after turning off the AC I wandered passed our blaring TV and down toward the GVC to catch up with me old mate and driver, Gusti, to see about us grabbing a lift to Ubud .
He must have been thinking of buying a watch as he was crouching behind a watch stand just down the road from his normal station. I have known him for years now but it always comes as a bit of a shock to realize a mate is getting old and more specifically in his case, deaf. Honestly I had to fair scream at him to get his attention. I had just picked up a bit of concrete to chuck at him when the movement must have caught his eye.
Well, Gusti has been upgraded and drives a new Kijang now. Only 6000ks on the clock. As he was showing it to me with pride, I noticed a chooky feather duster in the back left over from last year. Discretely holding my breath I said 'look an angel' and pointed toward the Loji market. As Gusti glanced in the direction of my pointed finger I threw the duster over the block fence into the back of the Padma.
A new car and a missing chooky feather duster make for a formidable foe to negotiate a price to Ubud with. After about 20 minutes of playful haggling I released my neck-hold on him and he agreed the rate that I had stated as my first cost. Ahh the fun of negotiating in Asia, if he had of just done that in the beginning it would have saved his torn jeans, black eye and dent in the door of the Kijang where his head accidentally bumped three times in the course of our negotiation. I would have saved my Brad Pitt glasses and best bintang tee-shirt.
Price agreed, and with Gusti going to pick us up in an hour, I wandered passed a sneezing Padma security guard and into a group of 4 or 5 of those young girls that try and sell you the bracelets and pick your pockets at the same time. Well maybe they were practicing to be wives, but something was wrong. The youngest one was fair crying and shoved one of the other bigger girls who in turn shoved her back harder. They all started screaming and the young one took off her shoe and threw it at the other one.
Picking myself up from the street and dusting off, I realised that her aim with a shoe is as bad as her ability to pick pockets. Nursing a sore head, I watched as they whacked the daylights out of each other, which drew a crowd of locals and security guards from the GVC. Don't know what that was all about!
Giving way to a short fellow with a limp, I squinted down and was stunned to see that it was a blurred image ot the beggar that sets up on the footpath down from the GVC toward Bamboo corner. I always give him a tip, and the last one was a beauty. The look on his face was priceless as I leaned down and said 'Love ya mother'.
Any way I digress, because I couldn't believe my eyes. I had just supposed that he was carted there by someone, or slid along on his bum or something, but he was walking, walking as well as me the night we drank the Vodka. I hung back until he had settled, and then paid him the toll and wandered off up toward our digs, nursing my head and thinking crikey, Legian was so exciting and exotic , what would Ubud be like, also with my glasses gone, more to the point what would it look like?
Ianz