So it was now my birthday..great place to be able to celebrate it. I don't even remember what we did that day. I just know we headed over to Franks Bar (on beach out front of Jayakarta) and watched the sun go down as we sipped beer and listened to the guys play some awesome tunes. We met some guys from Perth, who let of fireworks in honour of my birthday, and the repetitive sounds of 'happy birthday' being sung by all got to a point where I wanted to cut off my ears (...) We also met a lovely older couple and after we left for dinner, headed back to Apache to start the debauchery. Our Canadian friend was their again so she came over to join us. We noticed another lone traveller sitting by themselves so we invited them to join us again. Another Canadian guy who was in Bali for a long time on a surfing trip. We ordered more Shisha and all started having an awesome time, that was UNTIL my new friends thought it would be entertaining to alert the band of my birthday, and shout out in the club to get on stage while they sang happy birthday.. YET AGAIN, and sing along with them to 'welcome to my paradise' while chugging down some nasty arak concoction, all to the amusement of everyone in the club. We then moved on to the bar at the back of the club, which I thought was only a small room. I was wrong.. It was like stepping into Jamaica, the set up was really cool and I have never seen so many dreadlocks in my life.. And I have been to Jamaica! We even started a drinking game where you had to scull every time you spotted a Balinese local with dreads. We danced, and met more travellers and just when I thought I could retreat back to the hotel I was dragged to the Bounty. I have never seen a larger sea of paralytic, bare foot, bintang singlet wearing, crazies in all my life. After a shimmy and a shake I was ready for bed but nooo, my friend was not having any of it. So I pulled up a seat and watched her dance around, I even contemplated paying the bar staff to wind the clock forward so I could convince her that it was late and we should go, but then the club closed and I thought I had been saved. But nooo my friend was still not having any of it and rounded up some ‘new friends' to keep her company while I gave up and took a scooter back to the hotel. I wouldn't see my friend again until 10am the next day (...)
Feeling a little worse for wear we dragged our arses off to breakfast, and spent the rest of the day slothing around the pool and taking nanna naps. I had another friend in Bali at the time so we arranged to meet at Franks bar again.. it became our local hang out. Again we sang, drank beer, ate pizza on the beach, I practised my Indonesian while the boys corrected me in the Balinese equivalent, we met some more Aussies and tried to learn the lyrics to 'Bali holiday'.. All I can remember is the jiggy jig massage part. At 1am in the morning, and after being there since 4pm, I was ready for bed, (it must be my old age) but once again my friend, over powered by the Bali high, wanted to stay. At this point I learnt that I couldn't force her to come home, no matter how hard I tried to pursued her, so I hopped into a cab and headed home.
The next day I took her to Seminyak for shopping, but after realising most shops where not much cheaper than back home, we gave up and headed back into Kuta for a foot massage. It was our last day in the Kuta area so we went back to Franks one last time that afternoon, brought him a bottle of vodka cause it was Franks Birthday, and continued to sing into the night. On the way home we decided we were not ready to retreat to the hotel so we walked along poppies, an (as it has always been something I wanted to do after seeing many other tourist do it) sat on the steps of the mini mart and drank some Binnies. We met some students from Jakarta on holidays, and on our way back to the hotel, curiosity got the better of us and we went up to the mushroom bar on poppies two to check it out. I personally don't know why anyone would drink the stuff, and we got a little disturbed by the monkey that sat in the cage right next to the speaker box. Poor thing. After giving it a scratch on the back and finishing off our beers we called it a night, ready to move over to Tanjung Benoa the next day for some water sports and to meet up with an old friend...