Bali Hai
Been in Bali four days now. We had a one day stop over in Singapore I checked in the airport in hopes of my bag being turned in, but not a chance. Didn’t do much in Singapore. I had lost the charger to my new camera and had to replace that. Then come to find out Malika had it in her bag, so now i have two chargers and a camera i wish i hadn’t bought.
We flew into Bali late, i met a local on the plane who taught me some Indo-talk. The line through imigration was ridiculous, so by the time we got into the city it was quite late. We took the first overpriced place available and went searching for new accomodations the next morning. We found a cheap place at the end of an alley. A small doorway opened up into a beautiful, lush courtyard area with a pool and elephant fountain. We have been staying here the last three nights, the place is great but there is not a lot of air flow through the rooms. the fan is like 100’ feet up, so even on high you can not feel it. I don’t see any marks but my whole back itches so i think we are going to move again today.
Bali is kind of sad. You can tell it was a hugely popular place before the bombings. Now it is practically a ghost town. There are still quite a few tourists. Far more people working the tourists than needed. All sorts of bars and stores sitting empty or shutdown. I talked to one local for a while and he told me that before, in the hight season every room in every hotel was full. In an area the size of downtown Modesto there must be 100 hotels. There are no high rises like i thought there would be, most of them are traditionally down in the style of little temples or tropical bungalow style. The three of us are paying $5 a piece and i think we could find a place with pool for less.
Malika came in two days later with James, who she shared a cab from the airport with. James is cool we all get along with him. He has a few more friends coming in this weekend. We have been talking about maybe heading north where it is quieter and seeing about renting a villa or house and just kick it there the rest of the time.
Johnny took a surf lesson the other day, he liked it but wants to move along at a faster pace. The waves up north are said to be better, but still good for beginners. We will probably rent a car and all drive up together, hopefully find a place and the surfers may even split the cost of a surfboard between them. My funds are pretty low so i will be happy just sitting on the beach the rest of the time. I still have enough to go for a couple of dives too.
Malika is up now so we are off to go new place hunting.