Monday November 17th in Kuta Bali

This morning I paid a visit to Global Xtreme internet cafe in Kerobokan to sort out my e-mail and deal with online stuff.

A friend of mine, Anthony is travelling across India and I like to check on him to see what he’s been up to. Just as I was gettting ready to jump online I looked in the corner of the room and saw aq football game on tv live form ther US. I was the Sunday night game between New England Patriots and Dallas Cowboys. I never to get to watch football anymore so I sat next to the Canadian guy who was watching and watched about 15 minutes.

There were not too many people at the cafe this morning and access was super quick. Riding back to my house I saw Made the gardner busy as work sweeping the leaves off the grass and pathway. Here in the tropics the trees and bushes grow out of control and continously drop leaves which pile up quick if not taken care of. Made was using what other Balinese use which is a hand held brush broom meaning you have to crouch over and sweep fast to get stuff moving. My neighbors sweep the dirt around their compound at about 6am everyday, which combined with the roosters is another reminder that I’m a lazy ‘bule’.

I visited some internet cafes and guest house in Kuta checking on my stickers and business cards. I want to get my site and its info in front of the tourists and have to keep up on it.

Arriving in Kuta it soon got cloudy and some of the places had staff outside trying to lure customers in including this lady from Tubes Bar. The beggar wasn’t representing anyone and I gave her 1,000rp. I usually don’t give but maybe the planets were aligned or something. I checked on the folks at Kondra Internet on Poppies II. This place gets a fair amount of tourist traffic and is situated quite comfortably 20 meters from Kori restaurant up a set of steps that can be a gathering place for the younger crowd.

Next to Kondra is an art gallery called Central Wave Painting. I talked to the owner Komang who was busy on the floor making picture frames. The shop focuses on wave pictures in bright colors and Komang told me she and her husband started the business in 1999. They basically worked their asses off cranking out pictures as fast as possible, he painting, she framing and wrapping as well as maintaining the shop. Now they have 2 shops, one here and one on Jl. Benesari.

Komang told me that she has 4 sizes of painting and the largest goes for 500,000rp, followed by 250,000, 200,000, 150,000. She doesn’t ship but told me she has sold hundreds of paintings to people overseas. It takes one day to paint a picture and the whole process including drying takes 4 days.

The surfers tend to go for the close up of waves while the family tourists like the palm trees in the background. With rent being 200,000rp per day Komang doesn’t have time to relax and says she works all the time.

Poppies Lane was getting quite wet now and the vendors at the beach knew this meant a slower than normal day for them.

One of the bonuses of being in Bali is I get to meet a whole range of people passing through and today I had an agreement to meet up with Lisa Hunt from Chicago, a friend of a friend back in the US. I met Lisa at her hotel in Seminyak and after chatting over a couple of drinks in Santa Fe we enjoyed Greekv food at Mykonos on Jl. Oberoi. Lisa is actually sitting next to me here at Global as I’m typing this!