We escaped to everybody's dream destination, Bali, to spend the time whilst the bike would be in transit from Singapore to Darwin. Originally we had plans to move about through Indonesia, but it's a pretty big place and we decided we had done quite a bit of moving around already. So we settled on Bali, not on the coast but slightly inland in Ubud which was a nice, relaxing place. Some of the underwhelming Julia Roberts film, 'Eat, Pray, Love" was shot there. So underwhelming we can't remember what it was about.
Bali airport was pretty ghastly. Two hours of queues to buy $35 (each) visas and then get them stamped. And then traffic from the airport which meant that you couldn't move at more than 20km/h on the roads. It seemed that an awful lot of people had had the same idea, and this was a Tuesday?
The fairly randomly chosen hotel turned out to be a Balinese villa with views over rice fields. We decided almost immediately to extend our stay, even if it meant changing rooms as we had had a last minute villa vacancy on the cheap.
We walked around Ubud the best we could on our first day. This relaxing, therapeutic, artistic heartland of the dream that we believed Bali to be... Well they need to sort out their traffic and pavements; building a pedestrian area might not be a bad idea. Luckily our resort was just outside of Ubud itself and we felt very relaxed there.
And so we hired the Harley replacement with ill-fitting helmets and no gloves. Paul's was a Bob the Builder helmet, ages 3 to 5 years, painted black. The bike might have been a 125cc, it might just have been driven by rubber bands. Or Absolut vodka? It had no problems turning right and you could never be in the wrong gear. It was also small enough to do pavements and not get stuck in too many traffic jams.
We thought Bali was a small island. It's actually about 100 miles by 60 miles scaling off the map the hotel gave us. We explored at least half of this. Cramps and sore bumitis.
We thought Bali was a beach destination. There are hardly any beaches at all as the surf comes pounding in or they (or at least some of them) are strewn with litter. They are also all black sand which psychologically seemed to be difficult, especially with white towels.
We thought Bali was hot and sunny. Well it hasn't been cold but all days have had more dark cloud than sun and Francoise has managed to catch a cold here.
So what were all those people at the airport coming to do? Well we reckon about 90% sit around at the sea watching less than 5% of them surf. The other 5% are either young couples about to pop the question, (Sorry sir, we don't have any champagne at the hotel but you could try our local Balinese white wine? p.s. if you want to go local, the local coffee is better than the wine), honeymooners, yoga addicts, couples possible acting out boss and secretary fantasies or people like us, bemused.
We have visited, or got lost, in quite out of the way parts of Bali. We have seen loads of rice fields, most of them very picturesque. We have seen a recently active volcano and driven round its crater rim. We have visited Echo Beach, cue for a song. We have visited temples in the sea. We failed to get to the tourist hot spots of Seminyak, Kuta and Legion because of the traffic and didn't even attempt to get to the ones on the peninsular south of the airport. So we missed seeing the youth of Oz crashing their scooters after a few Bintangs.
We also noted the similarity between the flags of Singapore and Indonesia. It seemed that whereas Singapore celebrated its 49th birthday whilst we were there, Indonesia held off a week until we arrived to celebrate is 69th anniversary, though it's hard to see any vestiges whatsoever of its Dutch colonial past.
Paul has always wanted a tattoo. Nothing too audacious and there have been a few scribblings left around about the design. Not any more! It's Tattoo town here and not like Edinburgh, well actually it might well be like some parts of Edinburgh.
It has been a very pleasant stay and we have caught up on the relaxing. In hindsight staying inland just outside Ubud was the perfect choice for us. Beautiful resort and very friendly staff. Tomorrow we fly back to Singapore en-route for Darwin. Anybody seen a 2009 black Harley-Davison Electraglide?
Paul & Francoise
We thought the same. Ubud is nice but Kuta is yuk
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