Chris’s last 24 hours in Bali

Saturday afternoon Chris and I went down to Pantai Kuta to watch the Kuta Karnival parade.

The event was due to kick off at 2pm from upper Jl.Pantai Kuta and do a loop around to Jl. Melasti, Jl. Legian and back to the beach. We waited in front of Hard Rock Café for about an hour and saw some motorbikes and some horse & carts.

It was a lovely afternoon and people were assembled in readiness for the parade. I had a bbq to arrange back at the house so couldn’t wait around for long. After watching a troupe of Balinese dancers go towards the beach I decided to head for home and get things organized.

As I was shopping in Bintang supermarket my phone rang and it was Ketut, my friend from Negara. He was at my house and was wondering why no one else was there.

I quickly got home and set about readying the place for an unknown amount of people. Ketut and his sister in law Dia, a civil engineer helped us with the salad and getting the fire started and I cooked them some Java corn on the cob with madu (honey) while we were waiting for other guests.

After an hour my buddy Mike from Nevada City CA ( now Tampaksiring) showed up and dazzled everyone with his proficiency at Bahasa Indonesia.

Our next guests to arrive were Palu, Wiwin, Stewart and Miranda from Holland. Palu once again told me I should wake up to myself and go surfing with them every morning at 6.30am… “You’ll could have been a great surfer by now.” he said.

Last to arrive was Ika on her own motorbike from work. I had cooked banyak ayam (chicken), and corn and we had plenty of salad and fruit salad.

The night wound down with good laughs and full bellies.

Sunday midday I told Chris we had to have our last meal together at the Cat & Fiddle pub in Sanur. The taxi there from Seminyak cost 30,000rp and when we got there the place was virtually empty. We found the food to be good, Chris going for Irish bangers & mash, myself the Sunday roast with sliced pork and roast potatoes. “When you think about it one of these girls would make a good wife.” said Chris. “Sure. Cooking English food, serving beer and doing the garden, just make sure they were formally a ‘pembantu’.” I said.

After copious rounds of Guinness ( we cleaned them out of cold Guinness) we switched to Anker Stout then fizzled out and played ‘silly buggers’ with the waitresses until our taxi arrived.

Chris flew out of Bali at 6pm today and I hope his time here was enjoyable. Next time we’ll get him a ‘cewek nakal’.

Sunday evening I am heading down to Pantai Kuta to check out the food court and late night Kuta Karnival action on the beach.