Today I received my weekly phone call from Sean on the Batubelig beach in Seminyak.
On the way there I saw medical staff checking out a dog that had been hit by a Toyota Landcruiser outside clinic, there are many stray dogs around and they are really a hazard to traffic, especially motorobikes. I don’t think the dog will make it, Indonesia just doesn’t have the cash to fix stray dogs.
I got a call from Made at Bali Land and Houses. He told me my police registration was up and I must get a new one. Over here the police demand that all foreigners are registered with the police and of course this costs money. It’s a complete waste of time and serves no purpose other than to give idiots a job, but you have no choice. Anyway my passport was still with Arjuna immigration consultants arranging the latest extention of my ‘business visa’. Made agreed to take care of things till I could show him the latest extention. The police form will cost me about 20,000rp, no biggie.
I met up with our friend Armadi who used to work at Captain Haddocks and G-Land. She just came back from her brother’s cremation in Singaraja was apologised about 10 times for not inviting me. She said it was important to document it and said her brother’s soul was visiting people at the ceremony.
I’m getting some t-shirts made up in a woman’s style. Armadi showed up wearing one and it looked pretty good. I think these are going to be a big hit and want to see them all over Kuta.
While I was in Internet Outpost with Armadi my phone rang and it was Jen Ley from New York. Jen is a friend of a friend from San Francisco and is on a short vacation here. She has been staying in Ubud which she likes, and wanted to check out the south coast a bit more. I jumped on my bike with Armadi and headed down Jalan Benesari towards Jalan Melasti. I dropped off Armadi and headed up Jalan Legian to the 3 Brothers Hotel where Jen was staying. She kindly waited for me on the street and the white Baliblog shirt ( no not one of the cute ones, a man sized one ) identified me as I crawled along trying to spot the place.
I gave Jen my helmet and we rode a few more blocks to Benny’s Café on Legian beach. The weather was lovely and we sipped watermelon juice. As we chatted a line on ants patrolled up the wall which was distracting for Jen and she kindly flicked off ones that tried to take a short cut on me.
Benny’s is a popular place with expats for a late afternoon drink. Jen commented she liked the scene here way more than Kuta Beach as the vendors seemed to be less aggressive. I know the vendors in Kuta are overly aggressive but I can usually ignore them when walking. Jen said she found it rather upsetting that they wouldn’t leave her alone.
As we were chatting my phone started vibrating and I hurried retrieved it from my pocket. The caller was Yuyu, a traveler just arrived in Bali and looking for a place to stay. I knew she didn’t want a guest house like the one I stayed in when I first arrived and suggested Hotel Prawita on lower Jalan Legian where Barrie and Chandika are and also suggested the Kuta Beach Club off of Kuta Square. This place is close to the action and is quite nice once you get past the 1970’s lobby.
Barrie called later to say he met up with Yuyu and she wanted to look around some more. I invited her to join Jen and I but she had her priority of finding place which I can understand.
Jen and I went back to our house in Seminyak to allow me to change t-shirt and spray on some smelly stuff. I gave her some of the wine Chris brought from Oregon ( Cooper Mountain ), which was good as it won’t around for much longer.
I suggested we eat at Mykonos on Jalan Oberoi, which serves affordable Greek food and is fun. When we arrived the place was empty but after an hour it started to fill up pretty good.
We ordered a couple of starters, hummus, eggplant, pita and had a couple of cold Bintangs. Main course for both of us was the grilled snapper….very good with green beans, carrots and fried potatoes.
Our combined bill was 110,000rp.
We rode around the corner to Jalan Dhyana Pura, the main party street in Seminyak. At 9 o’clock this place is really dead and we were the only customers in Liquid bar. Jen said the design and layout of these places was somewhat similar to New York and this whole area was a ‘better hang’ than Kuta. We laughed as Jen asked what kind of juices they had. The bartender didn’t speak much English and replied. Jen asked if it was fresh and he said no. Jen then asked what fresh juices they have and he said strawberry, so she ordered one. We both agreed that strawberry juice would be very labor and strawberry intensive and couldn’t understand why watermelon or orange weren’t on the menu. The bartender came back and apologised….they were out of strawberries, but did have orange. Jen’s OJ came and she said it was good. Thank God for that….New York women!
We asked the same guy to take a photo of us and this was the result.
After our drink we decided it was time to call it quits and I drove her back down Jalan Legian to the 3 Brothers. This a was very fun evening and Jen is good company. She did comment that travelling alone here in Bali it was harder to meet other travelers than in Thailand and thinking back to 1993 when I last visited I can see the change in the amount of travelers and understand.
Still Bali is an awesome place that is coming back and I hope Jen gets to explore as much as possible.
Sitting at my desk at home I heard someone calling out my name and it turned out to be Josh who had tried in vain to scale our perimeter wall, lucky for him he didn’t try the back wall as it has chunks of glass imbedded. Josh was on his was out for the night and wanted to chat. We sipped a beer out back and tried to ignore the mozzies while disccussing travel and this country we’re in. I’m eager to hear the report from him as to how things worked out.
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I agree Hengky, I was expecting a funny picture when the words you used to link to the picture were: “this was teh result” - Very funny when your noggins come up at the bottom of the pix.
It was funny watching the camera pan around before he pushed the button. I think we were lucky to be in the picture at all.
Woo hoo! So glad you and Jen got together. Wish i coulda been there.
Nice picture…Nick, :-)) I thing that guy was drunk already or he forgot the standard of composition for taking pictures, well at least we still can see your face and Jen.