Bali I
Saturday, March 31st, 2007Jan 26-28
After spending the last five months in fairly Westernized countries, we felt like we’d been on an extended summer vacation and were anxious to challenge our travel skills in a new culture. We were excited to be heading to Southeast Asia and had been told that Bali would be a great introduction to the culture and we weren’t disappointed. Since the terrorist bombings against tourists in 2002 and 2005, the tourist industry in Bali has been devastated and has yet to recover and we were amazed at the quality for money that we got when we were there. At first, however, things didn’t seem to go so well. Our first experience with corrupt officials occurred when the immigration officer in Bali asked Claude for a tip while he had his stamp poised over Claude’s passport. Cool as a cucumber, Claude replied, “I’m sorry, we don’t do that where I come from.” I guess the guy was just fishing, because he just shrugged and stamped his passport anyway. Since our flight from Darwin arrived around midnight, our first view of Kuta, the tourist capital of Bali, was the taxi ride to our hotel, the Balisani Padma (booked online). The streets of Kuta were clogged with motorcycles and partygoers and we were soon hopelessly disoriented in a maze of narrow streets and alleys. Finally, our taxi came to a halt in the middle of a narrow alley and could go no further, thanks to a huge pile of dirt that was blocking the way (street repair). The taxi driver leaned back and said, “Your hotel is about 100 metres that way and around the corner – you can’t miss it.” I looked at my sleeping kids and the thought of humping them and our backpacks around this dark, strange city at midnight did not appeal to me. “No way!” I insisted, “There’s got to be another way to the hotel – find it!” Our driver gave me dirty look and rolled his eyes before reversing out of the alley. We spent another ten minutes winding our way through one way streets before he finally deposited us on the doorstep of the Balisani Padma. [read on]
tambour