Meeting Sharon from England in Seminyak Bali

Friday evening I got a call from Sharon who I had bumped into in Internet Outpost that afternoon.

Sharon is from Southampton England and has been reading the Baliblog for a while. She is staying at a hotel on Poppies I so I swung down on my bike and picked her up.

I find that a lot of visitors to Bali end up in the Kuta area without transport and go to Paddy’s or Bounty Ship for entertainment. While this is okay if you are 20 years old and have a dozen friends it is a bit of a beer swilling scene and I get bored after about 20 minutes.

I hadn’t eaten and we got to Seminyak around 9.30pm. The place was still relatively quiet and we stopped into Santa Fe on Jl. Dhyana Pura, each getting a pizza from their street side oven for 32,000rp. Sharon commented that hers was good and I’d say for Bali pizza it’s a decent quality. Sharon doesn’t drink and alternated between water and diet Coke, myself sipping a beer.

Sharon told me that she had been to Bali for about a month 10 years ago on a yearlong trip and loved it. She said this time returning made her want to cry as it had changed so much. There has been a lot of development and Sharon found some of the street vendors to be relentless. On her first day she was bitten by a dog and still has a cut and nasty bruise on her leg and of course the traffic is now out of control with all day traffic jams in lower Jl. Legian.

I can see what she’s talking about and for a solo visitor it can be overload for a variety of reasons. The Kuta area particularly Jl. Legian is crammed with tourist stuff, restaurants, bars and handicraft shops, its wall to wall. Not having transport limits how far you can explore and the beach vendors and those that hang out in Kuta Square can indeed be overly pushy. I deal with this everyday and have learned to tune it out. I don’t even look at someone who is trying to sell me stuff and they soon get the message.

The traffic congestion right now is largely due to the work going on all over the place on the storm drains. It’s a huge project with most big streets dug up, trenches going down 10 feet. When this is done things will improve.

I was telling Sharon that the beach vendors and the Kuta Cowboys are looking for something and when they realize you don’t have it they leave you alone. Sharon said the guys would approach her on the beach. I told her when I walk on the beach the guys ask me if I want a drink or to rent a surfboard and seem friendly. I think most of them are but there is an ‘acid test’, one time when I can get a true measure of their motives and that is when I take a long board in the water. On this occasion I don’t have a wallet on me so they can’t sell me anything, I’m male so they can’t have sex with me and I’m a beginner so I can’t steal their waves. I’ve looked around before, happy to say hello to someone but its like ships passing in the night�they don’t want to know. So much different from a woman sitting on the beach.

I suggested that Sharon get out of Kuta and visit the north and east coast, I think a Perama bus will works out well for her, their office is located on lower Jl. Legian and they have direct routes and schedules.

After the pizza we moved over the road to Space, a bar / dance place that has been around for several months. It was quite empty when we arrived but I have to say they do try hard to entertain. The bar staff were doing their best to put dents in the cocktail shakers and 2 of the Space dancers hopped on the counter for a little workout.

A small beer here goes for 15,000rp which is better than the 40,000-50,000rp they charge for cocktails. These flashy joints charge western prices, the good thing though is you don’t see hoards of British and Aussie drunks looking for trouble and that makes for a more relaxed scene.

Sharon told me that she is past her backpacking days of going for the cheap guest houses and now looks for a nicer place. She echoed what I have found in Kuta and Legian and that is that many guest houses that previously catered to backpackers have added a pool in the attempt to sell themselves to a higher market. You should check out a few places because I’ve visited guest houses that were 40,000-50,000rp and perfectly okay and seen others that were 170,000 for not much more.

After Space we hit the neon blue Liquid and checked out its assortment of Euro tourists and expats, Sharon told me it was cool to in such a trendy joint and was enjoying people watching. Down the street from Liquid is Q Bar, the gay center and that place was the busiest on the street. We saw some pretty funny looking dudes passing by.

At Spy Bar I said hello to a couple of people I know and we watched their ‘counter dancers’ who took the prize for ‘athletic ability’ over Space. One thing I like about Bali’s bars is there are not any doorstaff (except Double Six). I’m used to California where you’ve got 2 steroid eaters demanding ID, here you just walk in.

We were both pretty sober, and I gave Sharon a ride home, the streets were empty and it was so nice to cruise down Jl. Legian. Sharon is in Bali for another 2 weeks and I hope to hear her stories.

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