I have a confession to make: I'm a Bali Tragic. Bali has been a big part of my life ever since I first visited in the early 80s.
It had been 18 months between trips, and I was gagging to return. I didn't write a JBR after my last trip in June 2010, when I went solo, as the holiday never quite gelled (I work on the premise that if you don't have anything interesting to say, don't say anything at all). But seeing as I love reading everyone's JBRs so much, it's my duty - and pleasure - to document in full this holiday, which was a delight from beginning to end. So many things happened, good and bad, so much to tell fellow Bali Tragics!
Without doubt, I'd had misgivings about going back, particularly after reading so many reports about bashings and theft and traffic, etc. I was also feeling apprehensive about taking the Princess, my 15 year old daughter. Fifteen is a difficult age for many teenagers (as well as any poor sod who has to deal with them), and my daughter is up there with the worst, in terms of overall tetchiness and volatility - one minute she's an angel, and the next minute... well, let's just say that one could reasonably expect her head to rotate 360 degrees as she rants in demonic tongues!
For our January 2012 trip, I'd booked two nights at D*Kuta in Poppies Lane II, one night at the Safari Park, and the remaining twelve nights at Pearl in Seminyak, where my 88 year old father was joining us for a week.
Princess and I flew Air Asia via KL to Bali, which would add considerably to the travel time, but get us into Denpasar early afternoon.
The 7 ½ hour flight to KL went without mishap - a bit of turbulence, a lot of restless leg syndrome due to the snug seating configuration, and a slight altercation with the man sitting next to Princess, who hogged the armrests, intruded on her personal space, and snored, oblivious, while his phone played the first bars of ‘The Entertainer' (remember the piano music from that movie The Sting?) over and over and over again. By my estimate, anyone sitting within earshot was forced to hear that tune at least 80 times, until the man began to stir, and I tersely asked him to shut the music off! And as for the boy sitting behind us with a head cold and no hankie? His sniffing made a sound like thickshake being slurped through a straw - it was all I could do not to snatch somebody's earplugs and ram them up the kid's nostrils.
Princess was overtired and overwrought, not to mention hungry. She wouldn't touch her meal (she's become a fanatical vegetarian and militant health freak in the past six months). I dined on nasi lemak and a glass of white, while she refused to have any part of her meal, juice included, on the grounds that it (a) contained meat, (b) was not healthy, or (c) was not to her liking!
Her frustrated mother with the jumpy legs sat counting away the seconds until we landed at LCCT in Kuala Lumpur.
It was still dark in KL when we arrived. We breezed through Immigration, collected our baggage and strolled through customs, where there was absolutely no one on duty (dammit, why hadn't I thought to bring my portable nuclear reactor and huge stash of illicit drugs?).
We passed the time before our flight left for Bali with a bit of brekky (ordinary, and at Australian prices), a bit of a wait while we checked our luggage through to Denpasar, and then a bit of a walk to the nearby Tune hotel, for something to do. On the way past a car park, I noticed dozens of pairs of windscreen wipers standing to attention as we passed - how nice that our arrival was officially recognised. (Seriously, if anyone can tell me why people put the wipers up on their car like that, please explain!)
Four hours went by pleasantly, and we caught our flight to Bali. We landed on time, at an airport amazingly deserted. No long queues at VOA or Immigration, our luggage was waiting for us, and - once again - nobody stopped us at Customs. We jumped in a cab, and headed for D*Kuta.
Of course our room wasn't ready, so we went for a stroll along the beachfront, had lunch at Black Canyon, and bought juice for my duty-free vodka. Then back to the hotel to claim our room, which was clean, comfortable and nicely decorated. Kettle supplied, but no mugs or glasses (not a problem, as I'd brought two plastic glasses from home for drinkies). We cooled off in the pool, then went to find somewhere to have dinner. Stupidly, we left our brollies behind.
I'm not that familiar with Poppies Lane II. We meandered along the road, reacquainting ourselves with Kuta's smells, sounds and sights - kreteks, cooking and drains; whistles, toots and touts; cool dudes, bars and mushroom cafés (‘Mum, aren't mushrooms DRUGS? Ewww!') Every restaurant we passed was rejected by the Princess. I just wanted to sit for an hour so the Princess could eat, and her mother, the Queen of Cocktails, could drink something exotic before turning in for the night - we were both pretty shattered after 36 hours with no sleep. We had just turned onto a quiet lane, when a giant water main burst in the sky. No choice now but to duck into the nearest café and wait for the deluge to stop. Our meals were just okay, but I had the worst margarita ever. Pure arak, with a lemon waved somewhere over the cocktail glass... well, at least it was cheap.
The torrent eventually eased to a steady shower, and we decided to go while the going was good (or so we thought). We were drenched within seconds, stuck in a lane submerged in swirling storm water: aaargh, why didn't we bring our brollies, our thongs AND our pool noodles? All we could do was laugh as we waded through the water, cheered on by local spectators.
The first day of our holiday ended in dry, comfortable beds, as we were lulled into sleep by the sounds of the night and rain pattering on the roof.
It was great to be back again!