Visiting Dhyana Pura during the day in Seminyak Bali

Its great talking to Balinese locals and getting their input on the tourist scene here in Kuta.

After getting online at Internet Outpost on Poppies II I walked down the street and passed this lady busily knitting herself a sweater, or some other garment. She told me there weren’t too many people buying her t-shirts and when I said ‘sama sama’ pointing to the other shops she agreed. When everyone is selling the same thing its time to get out of the business.

Lunch today was masakan Jawa, a padang style set up where you get a plate of white rice ( nasi puti) and pick items from various plates. The location was Warung Nikmat on Jl. Bakung Sari in Kuta. Barrie mate you’ve got to go here. It’s a more ‘down home’ style than Warung Gossip with strangers sharing the same table. I got a heaping plate with bbq chicken, a lovely eggplant dish and water spinach plus sauce for 8,500rp…about $1.

Today I tried to visit some of the many bars and restaurants on Jl. Dhyana Pura, the party street in Seminyak to see if there is any way I can work with them to help promote what they’re doing. I talked to Indonesian staff, 1 Indonesian manager, 1 guy from London and one guy from Holland, its an interesting mixture of people we’ve got down here all trying to do their thing.

Parking my bike close to the top of DP I strolled down past Santa Fe and someone called out to me. It was Jasmine who I had been on road trip s with last year. She was sitting in Warung Baku Dapa enjoying her oxtail soup and waiting for her girlfriends. I told her what I was doing and she said “these places are already doing okay without you.” She has a point but I’m sure they’d all like to do a little better.

Dhyana Pura is raging after midnight but very slow during the afternoon, its actually very slow during the early evening too, but feels like a different place in the day.

Interesting to check out the interior of some of the bars in the daytime. Some look good still but others are not much more than concrete blocks with cheap chairs and some fancy lighting.

In the WOW Café one of the staff was passing the time playing the drum, Balinese style by laying the drum on its side. These drums have a skin on each end. I jumped in and had a bash seeing as how the manager wasn’t on hand for me.

Agung, also an employee at WOW was sitting and preparing the base for daily offerings, which seems a favourite pastime here.

Latest on Angie is she has a sore throat after returning from Nusa Lembongan. Hopefully that won’t stop her margaritas and tacos sliding down tomorrow night.

The update on Bill is he is looking at places today. Having some trouble with his phone but hopefully the supermarket phone place can straighten that out.

A funny thing just happened. I’m sitting out back typing and one of my Australian neighbors was singing ‘Skippy the bush kangaroo’…never thought I’d actually live to hear that.

My pulsa (minutes) just ran out so I’ve got to make a quick swing by Bintang to get some more. Usually 110,000rp lasts me a month or so. I’m on the ProXL system.

Lastly one of the places I visited on Jl. Dhyana Pura was called the Mixwell Café. The owner is a guy from Holland who told me his vision was a place right in the party zone that wasn’t sleazy or pretentious and was aimed at surfers. This bar actually looks good in the daytime! They are having a surf film debut presentation at 10pm on Saturday. So if you’re into surfing and want to check out a new place that has only existed for 2 months come on down to Mixwell Café located between Oxygen and Spy Bar.