Bali Day Seven – Final Leg of the Race

Well now it was Chris’s turn to be sick. Chantal was much better today and was only feeling mildly down however Chris had stomach cramps and waves of pain throughout the day. We started the day by packing up our belongings to leave tonight and then making our way to breakfast at the hotel as usual.

By the way, we’re staying at O-CE-N in Bali and eating at their restaurant, The Deck. It’s fairly good food most times but there can be some pretty ordinary food at times. The buffet breakfast is included with all room bookings as far as we’re aware. It’s a pretty good deal because it can be painful to find food sometimes and it just takes a load off your shoulders knowing that breakfast is sorted.

Once we finished breakfast we made our way to Kuta Square to do the final birthday/gift purchases with our remaining money. Thankfully we were able to get gifts for everyone (except for one person as we couldn’t find anything suitable).

We made our way back to the hotel and Chris decided to rest at the hotel with Olivia while Chantal and Andrea went through the Kuta-Legian markets again. There’s so much there and it’s where we got most of the gifts from the previous days.

We’ll be leaving the hotel tonight to catch our midnight flight. Whoo!! Who wouldn’t be excited by a flight that runs throughout the night?

We’ve had a lot of fun in Bali. We’ve seen the people, the streets, the stalls and stores and how to get sick. We’ve seen some of the most beautiful sunsets, learned to barter well and surfed on the beaches.

Just some fun little facts about Bali that we’ve learnt. This is Chris’s list:

• The stores that sell movies are selling pirated movies and TV shows. It’s pretty obvious but I’ve seen a few people walk out saying “wow I can’t believe I got *movie x* for so cheap!”
• “Terima kasi” is thank you in Indonesian. It’s good to know as you’ll be saying it a lot.
• As opposed to India, don’t negotiate a price for the taxi ride before you get in. Just hop in and ask for it to be metered. It’ll end up being a lot cheaper than what they quote.
• Wear a rash shirt when surfing. This is just general knowledge but Chris didn’t think about this and is still suffering the consequences.
• You don’t have to bring a lot of belongings to Bali if you intend to buy them here because it’s so cheap. But don’t bring so little that you find yourself buying important things days after arriving.
• Laundry is super cheap if you find a good place. They’ll iron and fold the washing for you and it smells amazing! I’m considering sending my washing from Australia to Bali once a week.
• I haven’t researched but I’m assuming fireworks are legal in Bali. They would go off every night at around 7pm outside our hotel.
• The working days are shifted in Bali. Stores open around 10am and close between 6-11pm. The streets and stores are empty until around 12pm. This is great if you’re deciding to be sober and active in the mornings.
• The people are generally nice and will do a lot for you. But you will bump into people that do not like you, whether it’s because they’re in a bad mood or because you’re Australian. Some will love you as an Australian. Some won’t want anything to do with you.
• All pools and water parks are really pools of chlorine with a bit of water added. Bring googles!
• The price of items is cheaper at markets than shopping centres but not always. It may be best to look around the first day before buying anything.
• It’s hot! Like….really hot! The humidity is incredible and the sun rays will burn you very quickly. Australia can complain all it wants about being a hot country but my hottest days have been in Singapore (especially at the air show) and in Bali.
• Alcohol can be fairly cheap. Especially with cocktails. There are many places that do happy hour for multiple hours and it can end up being ~$4.50 AUD for a cocktail if you pick a good time.
• Chocolate is expensive. This nearly ruined my holiday.
• Coffee is fairly weak, even at coffee chains like Starbucks. As a substantial caffeine addict, I was beginning to get caffeine migraines due to the lack of caffeine available. On another note, there is Panadol+caffeine tablets available which fix a caffeine migraine and provide a caffeine boost. I’m yet to find out if I’ll gain an addiction to this new drug or how many years it will take off my life.
• The Balinese depend upon tourist money to survive. If you walk past a market or stall don’t pretend you’re interested. It’s wasting their time and they’ll only hound you and follow you. If you’re half interested definitely talk to them as you might be able to drive the price down to a point where you’d like to buy it. If the price is too high, tell them you’ll walk off and they’ll lower their price to get the sale.
• There might be more bogan’s in Bali than in Australia. If we would like to solve the so called “boat problem” we could let the refugees in and send the bogan’s off. Such beautiful poetry like “1.8 metres? How big is that? That’s as long as this bus right?” and “giraffes aren’t natural. Not in Australia at least” and my favourite “why are there so many taxi drivers in Bali? Can’t they get a job?” are my favourite.

I believe that’s all I’ve got for now. Some of that is a bit of a rant but it’s just some of my observations over the last week. We’ve had a lot of fun and look forward to coming home to our own bed, shower and of course our two cats.