Balinese people can do no wrong in Kuta Bali

My last half day has been up and down and here is the latest update.

Stadium Cafe on Jalan Kartika Plaza was the place where I watched the rugby final between England and Australia. Mick Turnbull had arranged a table and stupidly invited 6 English people! In all we had 2 Aussies and the rest of us were from the UK. I was expecting Stadium to be packed with Aussies yelling at the top of their lungs to ‘stuff the Poms’. I was surprised to see that about half the people there were Poms like myself.

Right before the start of the game a fellow came over to me and handed me a large England flag. He was a Kiwi and I asked him why he was carrying an English flag around. He said it belonged to a friend of his and thought I might be able to use it. I’m not a patriot at all and think nationalism is pure bullshit…us vs. them etc. But I have to say after sitting next to Mick and having him yell ‘STUFF THE POMMIE POOFTERS!!!’ for 5 minutes I was thinking about strangling him with the flag.

Aussie fans were enthusiastically cheering on there team’s every move and our table wasted no time is returning that with our own noise.

During the game my cell phone rang and it was Jen Leo from Oregon. Jen is a great friend and is a travel writer. My mind was in a totally different place right then and I had no idea who I was talking too. Another friend, Philip from the UK is visiting them and wanted to chat. The noise at Stadium made it hard for me to hear but anyway I hope I was somewhat coherant.

At the end England squeeked a victory, I was glad someone won and its was over, how much of that stuff can you take anyway. On another table I saw Nely from Timor with her boyfriend from England. Nely said ‘We love Johnny’.

Everyone left for BBQ at Mick’s in Umalas. As I mentioned before I lost my giant key ring. Taking a taxi home I scalled the perimeter wall of my house which is about 7 feet and smashed my way through the front door using shoulder charge. Whole thing took about 1 minute….secure house!

Another friend Lisa Hunt, also a travel writer was heading up from Nusa Dua to meet me. She arrived and we went over to Mick’s in Umalas where a tidy little group was gathering, including Marcel from Germany, Ebong from Bali, Natalie from England and other assorted people. I didn’t bring my camera as I don’t want to turn every social gathering into a web cam.

Marcel and Ebong had us all in stitches telling about their dogs. Marcel’s dog is named ‘Bitch’ and after yelling ‘over here Bitch’ on the beach and having people get angry, he started calling her ‘B’. Ebong was given another dog called ‘Dick’ and similarly had to start calling it ‘D’.

Mick’s house is a decent sized 2 storey villa with pool and is perfect for entertaining. He’s a top guy and I hope he gets to spend another year here in Bali. I think Lisa had a good time too, with Mick grilling burgers, steak, sausages and fish and well as salad, veggies and ‘frog in a pond’ ( bread with egg in).

Around midnight Lisa and I took off, me getting dropped of at home and she going back to Nusa Dua. Lisa is from San Diego but moved to Chicago a few years ago. She loves the city and all it offers. My house is quiet except for the sounds of the tropics, cats, dogs, frogs, insects etc. My mind wanders and all kinds of revelations can pop up without warning. One revelation that jumped out while thinking about Balinese Hinduism and who/what ‘God’ is, was a thought that if God knows/ sees everything and the internet allows you to find anything, then maybe Google is a beta version of God. Clearly it was time for sleep.

Sunday morning around 8am I get a call from Marcel ( who I last saw drinking Johnny Walker Red ) asking me to come to Batubelig beach for breakfast. I walk down to Ku De Ta restaurant on the beach, no one is there so I take a taxi home. I pick up my helmet and walk to Nyoman, Nyoman and Nyoman’s house to get the spare key for my bike. Grabbing a taxi I start heading down town to get my motorbike. The driver doesn’t put the meter on and I ask him about 5 times “please turn on the meter”. He keeps driving so I say “Okay pull over, I’m out of here, this is bullshit.” ( see how this key thing got me wound up!). I grab another cab, get to Stadium but no one found the keys. Wanting to check on my bike I walked to the convenience store around the corner and low and behold the keys were still in it!!!. ‘Am I losing my mind?’ I thought. A shop owner approached me and said “Yesterday I find your keys and I wait you for long time but you no come.” I was so happy, I gave him all my change, about 17,000rp. That safety deposit box key has 300,000rp fine on it if I lose it.

After explaining to him how I left the keys and had to kick in my door we both laughed and I rode off to Kuta. Breakfast was at Kopi Pot on Jl. Legian. The place was totally empty and I had a Bali Kopi and fruit salad with yoghurt. I don’t know if it was the people there but the whole world seemed a brighter place. My breakfast cost around 24,000rp and the yoghurt had honey in it. Something I’ve never had before and recommend.

Kopi Pot serves breakfasts, salads, vegetarian, seafood, shakes, beers, juices, cocktails and closes at midnight. Its located between Benesari and Poppies II. Shady patio area is very pleasant.

This weekend is coming along well, Poms won, USC won, Arsenal won, keys found.