4th of July in Kuta Bali

Its the 4th of July in Kuta and here is my day so far. I rode down Jalan Legian to visit a French friend Oliver who lives at the Panorama Bungalows, a very nice place if you want a downtown location with gardens a pool set back from the hectic street scene.

Oliver is in the process of painting the whole place in the typical colors of SE France. The main colors are egg yellow and red. I’m going back tomorrow and will snap some photos so you can all get an idea of what’s around. Oliver is renting for 2 years and got a decent deal, I think he pays 25M rp ( $2,941 ) per year.

I brought some croissants ( hope it makes up for my lack of French ) and he made some black coffee. We discussed a project we are going to work on and I spent a hour there.

Barrie gave me my morning call or rather it was Yuyu’s turn to send messages via Barrie’s phone.

They were all in the restaurant at Prawita sipping tea with 2 Swedish tourists and Barrie’s mum. I joined them it was very nice to sit right there on lower Jalan Legian watching the passersby and feel relaxed in the shady hotel Prawita.

I might go with Yuyu tonight to a tradtional Indonesian restaurant we’ll see. Everyone is invited but Barrie’s mum doesn’t like the complicated foreign food so they will probably go to a western place.

Riding around to Poppies II I parked at Internet Outpost and saw the Patroli Polisi making a racket over the loudspeaker telling people to park their bikes elsewhere. Waste of time, they’ll all be back later.

Josh was standing outside Internet Oupost where he had been hard at work on a surfing article. I saw he was sporting some new shades but also saw they were covering up a shiner. My first thoughts were motorcycle accident but Josh told me a drunk had hit him with an ashtray at the Bounty Bar last night. Very scary indeed! I think he”ll be fine and am glad no serious injury occured.

I’m thinking how I should celebrate the 4th of July. Hard Rock Cafe with no doubt be decked out in Stars and Stripes. Maybe a burger will be dinner if nobody wants to go for the exotic Indonesian.

Right now I’m off to do another hotel report.