BALI

Great flight, if late and long, so we arrive at about 01.30 and bed. Up to excellent news. The sun is shining, the Honai Hotel is really great, just outside Ubud which is a pretty town up north of the capital Denpasar in the rice fields, we can see them from our window.

Total change of pace, full of temples, lots of smiling and bowing, quite rural.

Apart from lovely views they even gave us free straw hats! How generous is that??

I will wear mine while I harvest the rice crop.

Sara has a written list of twelve things TO-DO whilst in Bali. You need to bear in mind she has been trying to get here since 2020 so I'm actually surprised the list isn't longer. This list includes such odd aims as 'drink coffee made from poo', visit 'Monkey Forest', and some piss easy ones such as 'see rice terraces', well the view from our hotel cracked that one. Monkeys in a forest can't be hard either. Coffee made from animal poo - not so sure???

Once rested we head off into Ubud. About 30-40 miles inland and one of the recognised tourist towns which simply means it started with lots of backpacker hostels and home stays and has now added nice hotels. The town itself is just clogged with traffic, thousands of scooters and cars, almost all locals just buzzing about here there and everywhere. Pavements blocked by scooters and stalls and not one ATM can we find that works. We need currency! Finally, and along with lots of other Europeans we lock onto one particular bank and withdraw 2,000,000 Indonesian Rupees, sounds a lot. £100. That's all it would give us and even then Revolute froze our flipping card!

Initial impressions of Ubud were not good, then we turn a corner and find the nice bits and everything improves. During our wanderings we start to realise that behind the most innocuous doors great wonders abound. DOOR ONE was off a main road alive with traffic, go through said doorway, down three steps, and wow! A deep, green and verdant river valley running under the road. Impressive as you will see in the video left. DOOR TWO off a crowded market, no idea why we went in, thought it was a temple, but NO. It's an amazing and massive and surrealistic pile of rooms to let - for £15 a night, including breakfast - and a free beer on arrival. Despite the fact that we are in a lovely hotel for £75 a night I can't resist booking a room, for one (Sara for some reason can resist it). I stay there the following for a laugh. The breakfast is amazing and the room great, all for £7.50 pp We also spot a sign saying BATIK LESSONS so we book that too.

The Batik lesson was five hours long and really enjoyable. Taught inside yet another amazing collection of mini-houses, courtyards and open fronted rooms we were the picture of concentration as we sketched the outlines of our masterpieces, dribbled hot wax around each shape, painted by numbers to fill them in and generally made a mess. Sara paid tribute to Buddha and I copied the design of some Batik I had bought in Borneo 40 years ago which are still vibrant to this day.

The weather remains fine throughout, possibly because we are now aware of how to use our magic umbrella. If we carry them its fine, if we leave them behind it pisses down. Magic!

A new day dawns and I feel like shit, sore throat, runny nose, red eyes. Could it be the dreaded? Don't know, don't care. Off to find a chemist for a bucket of jollop. In I go, looking totally like a plague victim, I'm immediately approached by two assistants. I calmly ask for paracetamol and decongestants, pay for them and we leave. Sara is crying with laughter. She saw it differently. Apparently I was sweaty, snot ridden, wild eyed and coughing and all the while babbling that I did NOT have Covid, I had tested myself, nay, not once but TWICE my good woman, I DO NOT HAVE COVID! Threw a handful of money on the counter and ran out. As if??????

Next box to tick - Monkey Forest. The clue is in the name, Forest with added Monkeys. On the edge of town, Deep dark dank forest with hundreds of edgy monkeys wandering around. At this point Sara stops chuckling over my smash and paracetamol grab and remembers she has an abiding and deep seated fear of - Monkeys. As this realisation only comes about once we are in the approximate centre of said forest of monkeys it was only ever going to be a challenge to extricate ourselves, especially as the monkeys can smell fear, or maybe they just like snot.

You can spot Sara in the middle left of the photo, the monkeys are just visible lower middle, plotting on how to capture Sara.

Bali is often described as the 'Land of Temples' and it took until our second day for us to clock that in fact not every building is a temple. Take a look a what is the Bali equivalent to a UPVC front door in Chatham with a 'Mon Repos' or 'Dunromin' sign in Gothic script. No, no. no. they go way better in the front door stakes.....

In Bali most people live in multi-generational family groups, in a walled compound that contains several small houses, shared kitchens and a family temple. Each village will also have two community temples and a public temple, so temples do abound, but my goodness the Balinese certainly know how to big up a front door.

Next box to tick - Bali Swing. The area is bisected by many deep ravines and off the edge of one such a bright spark erected a single swing. And it became a thing. There are bloody swings all over the hockey now, can't move for flipping swings. I was of the impression it was an adrenaline junkie thing. It's so not and I was so misled. Its a bloody Instagram thing. An area the size of two tennis courts with 10 swings of different designs and 10 photographers and 10 long queues to sit on the f'ing swing for 30 seconds while you look AMAZING. They even rent out the big floaty dresses. By this time I had been conned so in for a penny in for a pound, we queued and posed and actually had quite a laugh. The little Balinese photographers, the actual snappers, were so poor my pic won the ultimate accolade of being selected by the model as her fave.

As you can see above, the photographers struggled with some of the models. My performance amused (some) of the many folk waiting patiently in the queue for their shot at Instagram stardom. Others felt I was being disrespectful of the great god Tik-Tok and taking the holy name of Facebook in vain. But seriously, look at the photo of the Swing area. It's just a temple to self image, a playground for adults to big themselves up. That is not to take away from the fact that my shot of Sara is both memorable and iconic and a clear winner.

Next box to tick - Cycle ride through the paddy fields. Bali is pretty much an island that slopes down from a few volcanoes into the sea, so flat it ain't. Imagine my delight when I found a DOWNHILL cycle tour. Bish, bash, bosh and we signed up and it certainly lived up to its name. 15 lovely miles freewheeling downhill via all sorts of diverting and educational sidetracks. Primary School, Rice Fields, local peasants house (bloody fit looking peasant at 95, born in 1928, fought the Japs, looked better than me!). And the creme de la creme - coffee made from poo!!! What were the chances?? It is actually coffee made from the crap of wild Civet Cats. They are apparently very, very picky about which coffee beans they eat, and they just love coffee beans. In their guts they strip the husks from the beans and shit out the actual, and still usable, beans. It is their impeccable ability to select the best that makes their poo famous. To me it tasted like Maxwell House, yup, you got it, like shit.

We often use bike rides as a way of getting right off the beaten track and seeing the real countryside. There is no other way of being able to confidently ride along a cart track without the quite real fear of ending up in a dead end surrounded by dogs and being fed to the pigs. OK, that is the extreme end of the possible outcomes, particularly as in a Musilm country there are precious few pigs. But fed to the ducks? Now that is the stuff of nightmares, or to monkeys?

Next box to tick - Traditional Balinese Dancing. Sara had a particular dance in mind, the Fire Dance. Could we find it? Could we hell! I think like one fish & chip shop owner is hardly likely to recommend another fish & chip shop (I know, poor simile, but it hot and late and I've been drinking) it seems that one local dance troupe will deny that the other dance troupes even exist. But find it we did. Amazing performance. 100 men, on stage the whole 90 minutes, no instruments. Basically like a Welsh male voice choir mated with a Hakka. Just strong clicking sounds, much waving of hands and, obviously, fire. Halfway through the performance one elderly dancer decided he had given his all and exited stage left - but not before he had gone out of his way to present to ME the two flowers he had behind his ears. ME. I pressed them in my notebook and they will remain with me to my grave. At the end we had our photo taken with the boss and the under-boss then drove us home. Lovely people.

Looking at the photo of us and the dance master makes me think. I do a lot of walking and there are NO pedestrians other than me in this country, everyone else seems to have have a scooter permanently welded to their arse. While walking I have been wondering why people look at me and smile (and sometimes point, and occasionally laugh). Could it be they have never seen a RED man before. They've seen white, brown, black, but never bright pillar box red. And before you say it - yes I use factor 50. I can't help an alcoholic flush!

The dance master told us that the 100 dancers are all from the same community, they perform twice a week all year round, they are all volunteers, unpaid, and all the money they make goes back to their community. Try that trick in Harrietsham and you'd do well to get the vicar, his son and the village idiot for one performance a year, and they'd want expenses.

We probably ticked other boxes but who cares. Our first week in Bali was in one hotel, in one town and it was great. The lucky umbrellas did their job. In that as long as I have my umbrella it doesn't rain. If I don't take it then it checks it down. Hence Lucky umbrella. Now it was time to............

SPLIT UP

Yup, to go our own ways, paddle our own canoes, plough our own furrows, walk different paths, seek our own destiny, find ourselves, seek enlightenment. Actually the last two were just Sara. The main reason we have ended up in Bali is that in 2020 Sara paid a monkey deposit to a Women's only Yoga Retreat (a monkey being £500 in Medway parlance, and maybe why Sara hates monkeys?) which she was adverse to losing. So she is off to spent a week polishing up her 'downward dog' and I am taking to the hills.

I will be unable to report on Sara's doings other that to repeat the term Oooomm, Oooomm, Oooomm and show these pics of her and her accommodation. The rest may be revealed later.

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MY plan is to hire a car and travel round Bali, despite the state of the roads and the incessant buzzing of scooters all around like bloody annoying mosquitoes, which since you ask, there are none. None at all. Quite odd but very nice. You'd think that with all these rice paddies they would be in swarms. Must be the exhaust fumes from the scooters that's done for them, it certainly gets to me.

One small matter to clear up first - why no JAVA. Java is off, cancelled. We met some fellow travelers and they told me that Java is strongly Islamic, way more than Bali (which has 'laid back' as a religion), with more restrictions and less friendly. AND I may struggle to get red wine! Plus it is a long way and Lombok sounds nicer, so no Java.

Having nixed Java and decided to spend my week driving around Bali I encounter a slight issue with the hire car. The internet and the big car hire firms say quiet clearly and firmly that I need to show an International Drivers Licence as well as my UK license to hire a car in Indonesia. I have one. It is safe in my bedroom drawer in Harrietsham. Bugger. Check with Eva at reception at our very, very efficient hotel. Struggle to explain the difference between an ordinary UK drivers licence and 'International'. Eva asks me in a patient tone "can you drive a car?" Obviously thinking I've decided that as I am on holiday I might just give car driving a whirl for the first time. Once I have assured her I have been driving for 55 years she still looks doubtful but arranges a car. It turns up, the bloke hands me the key and basically walks away. Didn't even LOOK at my ordinary license! To this day I don't even know if I am insured. He just charged me £20 a day all in for a sweet little banger. The smaller the better because driving in Bali is all about squeezing through gaps no wider than a doorway.

So off I head to Mount Batur, the active volcano that last erupted in 2000, great drive except being at 5,600 feet up it was a tad cloudy, so much so that I spent an hour driving over saucepan sized potholes in a right pea-souper with visibility of about 10 yards, round a series of hairpin bends, following a mountain road with no signs for 4 hours at an average speed of 18 mph, I kid you not.

No matter, on to Bedugul, home of the next volcano and Bali's next top Instagram shot, the Ulan Danu Beratan Temple. SO I shoot it, it's the law.

The day at Bedugul was a walking day. Has to be! I normally have two pieces of toast from breakfast, here I am snarfing down a full English, two pieces of toast and fruit, every flipping day. If I don't walk it off I'll have to roll it off. So a total of eight miles was tabbed that day. God bless my Sketchers Archfit Airsoft Supercushion Lovelyfeel Eversosoft shoes which make walking a pleasure, if you don't believe me, try them.

Once again - I am the ONLY pedestrian. Other than in a town centre NOBODY walks anywhere. Everyone waves at me or peeps their horn as I trudge manfully along in the muddy verge at midday in 30 degree heat, with my bright red round face and my white hat, looking like some form of warning beacon. Mad dogs and Englishmen!

Down to the temple and then two miles up a single lane cart track to the back entrance of the enormous Botanical Gardens. Google said it was OK. It was not OK, Google lied. Big barred gates, but a just about scalable wall beckoned, so scale it I did. Into this massive park under dark looming trees and no people. Just me. I started to think it was possibly closed and that this could get interesting as a security vehicle cruised by. However the nearer I got to the main entrance (some 2 miles later, told you it was big) it morphed into Hyde Park, all manicured lawns and massive statuary (below). I guess in the season this place is rammed with picnickers. Today, just me.

I successfully sneak out of the main gate and I was immediately accompanied by my new guide dog, just picked me up and stayed right next to me for the next two miles home. I am really pleased and proud as I am now actually the full Monty. I am finally equipped with the Mad Dog, to go with my Englishman, and I am in the Mid-Day Sun. We made a right couple, striding along winding hilly roads, him mostly walking in the middle of the road with cars honking, scooters veering (it's a mad dog thing you understand, or maybe he was hamming it up for my benefit), right to the door of my hotel room. Whereupon I told him he could not come in, one, because he was clearly mad and two, it was late afternoon and I no longer need his help with my Mad Dogs and etc, etc, parody for the locals. I don't think he understood a single word. Mad! I still wonder what the locals were thinking as they blatently obviously though the daft mutt was my property and thus my responsibility, and I bet most of them don't even know the bloody Noel Coward song!. Damn odd.

Next was the drive around the volcano ridge and down to the north coast, along tiny roads and precipitous downhill hairpins with Google repeatedly suggesting I turn down almost vertically downhill unmade roads. I think I should check my filters, I may have inadvertently set it to 'suicidal routes only'. My next stop is Lovina, the main north coast resort and a lovely beach-side hotel complex for just £40 a night. Should be £140 easily. Love Bali.

Having enjoyed the visit to the mountains I descended to sea level and the well know black sand resort of Lovina, land booked into my excellent hotel I decided for entertainment to join a cooking class and so ended up walking into the local village to find an actual family’s house, Dad was the teacher, mum and the five kids just lurked about. There was just one other student, a German hippy called Thomas who lived locally. Really good class. No frills, in fact no bloody kitchen. The family of seven cook in the open section to the right in the photo. A camping gas two burner on a table, no sink, no oven, no nothing, washing up done at a standpipe set just 12” off the floor, outside in the yard. DIY improvement is obviously not a Balinese thing. If a tap 12” off the ground was good enough for grandpa, then it’s good enough for us, kind of thinking. We whisked up a really great meal and the three of us (me, Thomas and the Dad/chef) sat down to sample it. The remainder of the family salivating down my back. I had specified before signing up for the class that I did not want to be the only student. I now suspect that Thomas was persuaded to join in for a free meal in order to hook me in. When we had finished the family swooped and scoffed the lot, and Thomas rode off with the son, waving to me as I trudge home on foot. To make matters worse the German bastard persuaded me to go back up into the mountains, even recommended a hotel.

So back up along winding, snaking, hairpin bending roads for 2 hours. Looked at Google and it said 30 minutes to go. Looked at the distance and it said 5 miles!! 5 miles, 30 minutes, I could run it that fast, you can’t be serious!! That gave me some concerns about the road ahead. And bloody justified they were too. Moments later I went down the narrowest, steepest road/track I have ever been down! Finally got to the hotel, that picture is the approach road (which is good by comparison to some of the others), and chatted to the owner about my route in, he burst out laughing. Apparently its not really a road and certainly not suited to cars! Bloody Google Maps!

Chatted to said owner and he apologised for the fact I was covered head to foot in flies, I quite enjoy the odd fly in my coffee but this is taking the piss!

They were inside the car, inside the room, took days to lose them all the little tinkers.

Apropos of the flies “farming country” was his explanation. “It’s the fertiliser” he explained. I would have replied but my mouth was full of flies. Nobody, but nobody, put this minor fact in their Bookings.com reviews, nobody. It only goes to confirm that fact the in relation to my German Hippy mate – the only good German is a …… German, and certainly never take up their recommendations. I now face another 2.5 hours to get down of the mountain – although it is very picturesque. Apart from the light dusting of flies that cover me from head to toe. Oh and now it is starting to rain. Might keep the flies down.

The next few days saw me in a variety of lovely beach hotels which I won't bore you with in Amed and Candidasa, The stand-out happening was I had a massive fall-out with my female travelling companion!!!!!!! Massive. We've traveled together for years, never a cross word, but wow, did it kick of!!

That lovely lady who I have grown to trust over the years in many, many countries let me down big time. I am off course referring to Miss Google Maps. I can only guess my lovely lady has been taken over by Miss Balinese Maps and let me tell you Balinese Google is a total twat, an evil bastard, a duplicitous arsehole. I could not take any more of it taking me down tiny cart tracks, over fords, through farmyards and God knows what else. Balinese roads, fine. Balinese drivers, fine, Balinese dogs, ducks, kids, scooters, all in the middle of the road for hour after hour, fine. Balinese Google!!! Not fine!! To return the car on the last day I had to drive about 2 hours. I ignored whenever she tried to get me to duck down a tiny side street, but one mile short of home and I weakened. I have NEVER been down a narrower track in a car. OK, I did pass a hand painted sign that said something like 'NO CAR', but you never get anywhere by trusting signs. 50 yards later the car fell off a foot high concrete kerb and grounded, needing four big Balinese to lift me back on while I just repeated the phrase "f'ing Google, f'ing Google". She even took me the wrong way round a one way system just for a laugh. It didn't phase the locals much but my goodness it got to me. Thank God Sara was not in the passenger seat at any time on my 10 hour, 300 miles, 18mph average speed week long drive. F'ing Google!!!!!

We spent two weeks in Bali and loved it. Sara really enjoyed her yoga retreat, and I loved seeing Bali off the beaten track, miles from tourists. Even the local drivers were impressed when I told them where I have ventured.

The people are really lovely, similar to the Cambodians in that they smile a lot and believe in individual 'karma' and in the importance of families.

The island has been badly affected by the pandemic, and a lot of businesses are closed pretty permanently which is sad. Hopefully they will bounce back

Out in the countryside it is quite quiet and pretty scruffy. but the temples (and the amazing front doors) give it a uniquely Balinese look.

Also it was not too crowded as we were at the end of the low season. Sara was in the south of the island which is more touristic, and she spotted a few nice spots that she quite fancied going back too. I did not see that as I was in the north. But we got a flavour of what it could be like from our cab drivers who regaled us with stories of Ubud traffic (which was always appalling) saying the in the season to go 5 miles can take 3 hours. Not sorry to miss that!

Anyway, it was time to get the band back together and get back on the road. This time to the Gili Islands, a collection of tiny car-free islands off the coast of Lombock. By fast boat................

ONWARDS TO THE GILI ISLANDS AND LOMBOK