Sunday – Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo I don’t want to go home. Why do holidays have to end? 🙁

We were flying out at midnight so had the whole day to fill in and our last chance to see everything. We got a late checkout so we didn’t have to leave the hotel room until 5 pm which was going to be handy, we could leave all our stuff there & wander the streets and then have a shower and get changed later in preparation for our departure.

So we had our last breaky feast, sniff, sniff, goodbye banana pancakes oh how I love you, sniff sniff. 🙁

After I dragged myself away from the pancakes we headed over to the beach for a wander. We didn’t get bothered by the ladies on the beach so much any more and could just have a joke with them. They still offered up a manicure, a bangle or a massage but it was like they had a sixth sense that told them you had been there and done that by this stage of the holiday. They gave me hugs good bye, didn’t know any of them but once you say you are going home they say “you come back again” of course the answer is “yes”. All those women on the beach terrified me the first couple of days but you really had to admire their work ethic.They are on that beach everyday from sun up to sunset. No such thing as weekend over there. We saw the ice getting delivered to the drink boys and it comes in big blocks no crushed ice here and they just carried it in on their shoulder. Breeeeeeewwwww made me chilly just looking at it, but it did a great job of keeping all the drinks cold.

We just wandered around soaking in the essence of the beach. Ladies cutting fruit, kids playing, guys waiting to give surf lesson to who ever wanted to get their feet wet. We came across a group of beginner surfers from one of the many surf schools & there were 10 of them and one instructor and they were about to all head into the surf. The instructor gave them one more set of instructions and off they went. Oh my God you could see this was going to be funny. They all scattered and went off in different directions and the instructor was having a world of trouble trying to keep them all together it was like herding cats hehehehe it just wasn’t ever gonna happen. He was yelling at them and they were ignoring him. He was giving extra special attention to one girl though … was it coincidence that she had a pretty good body on her? Hmmmmm ‘course not’. Anyway I would say they were in the water a total of no more than 10 minutes and then he got them all out. He stood them on the beach yelled at them and then they all walked back up the beach carrying their surf boards. Wow not much of a lesson but with that many students a couple more people helping would have been a better idea.  I guess you don’t need to have a Cert IV in surfing training in Bali hehehehe. We wandered down the beach some more and found an old man trying to sell some beautiful puppets to a couple laying on the beach. I thought to myself I wouldn’t mind some of them but really they would end up dust collectors so even though they were pretty I didn’t buy but got a picture (of course) .

We decided to head back up into the streets of Kuta now for some more sight seeing and photo taking. It was still relatively early in the day so the traffic wasn’t too bad yet (well for Kuta) so we decided to explore a lot of the little lane ways off Jl Poppies One. We got a good glimpse of every day life just happening up these lanes. We saw everything from old ladies with cleavers chopping up chickens to young girls filling glass bottles with petrol to sell to the Motor Bike riders, ladies carrying chicken eggs on their head & a guy playing a guitar everyone was busy doing what they do. Many people were making their offerings for a prosperous day and flicking the Arak and swirling incense in the air & it was so fragrant. It was thirsty business so we decided that we would have a cold drink and some lunch. We went to Mades Warung and had our last Bali Lunch. We just sat and watched the world wiz by. There is never any shortage of things to see. After lunch we head off again exploring the streets & Robbie found a beautiful leopard skin suit. I tried to convince him to buy it but he didn’t. Don’t you think he would look good in it? We didn’t want to do any more shopping but a couple of ladies convinced me that I needed two more dresses and Robbie got some fishermen pants. I also bought an over night bag didn’t really need it but it was cheap. The store owners were determined we should spend the last of our Rp with them. They all joked with us so how could we say no. Robbie was busy snapping pictures of the sales ladies and one of them sprung him hehehe she gave him a funny look and then laughed her head off. I didn’t even try to barter left it all to Robbie. 🙂

It was getting on time wise so we went back to our room to pack and get cleaned up. Gee we still had room in our cases we should have bought more hehehehe. 🙂

We just relaxed for a while and then it was 5pm so we took out bags to the concierge and put our valuables in the safe at reception, so we could explore Kuta some more before we headed for the airport. We could not fault the service we got from the hotel staff they accommodated our every whim.

We decide to go and spend the rest of our time hanging at the Beach. The beach was absolutely packed it was crowded with families enjoying the surf, bus loads of tourists from Java and school kids in large groups. We wandered amongst the crowds just snapping some more shots. We got hassled a little bit to buy stuff as we must have looked like we had just arrived as we had our travelling clothes on now and not beach attire. Anyway wasn’t too much of a drama.

We ran into Miss Novia and one of her Friends and Robbie used his Indonesian language to speak with them and Novia was very proud of him as she had been our teacher . She gave us a hug good bye and with her lovely big smile wandered off with her friend. 🙂

Robbie got approached by a couple of students again wanting to practice their English and they had a nice long chat their English conversation skills were very good they were lovely friendly kids. They were telling us that they did not know how to swim which seemed bizarre for a place that is surrounded by water. They were giggling at Robbie’s Indonesian and giving him some new words to use and told us all about their studies. They thanked us and again asked for a photo so we obliged and then got a photo of them. We wandered around the beach taking photos of all the families and kids and beach life this was the most crowded I had seen the beach maybe Sunday is the only day the locals can get to come to the beach.

We decided to have a bit of a snack so I got a triple choc ice-cream sundae and Robbie had a mushroom pancake. Mine was ok but got a bit sickly after awhile I think I would have been better going for the savoury option as Robbie’s’ pancake was delicious.

After our little snack we headed back over to the beach to get a good spot to watch the sunset however on returning to the beach we could see that the weather had turned pretty crappy and it looked as though the heavens were about to open. ‘Great’, we didn’t have a hotel room to hang out in as we were checked out so we started to head back to hotel to take cover in the restaurant we still had a couple of hours to kill before it would be time to go to the airport.

We had given money to a lot of the mothers and children earlier in the day that beg on the streets on the previous side of the road. On this side of the road we came across some other mothers and kids. There was one girl who was very young herself with a child and Robbie gave them some money but the utter despair in their eyes was heart breaking. I have never seen such hopelessness in my life. We just don’t know how lucky we are to have a government that actually cares for its people (even though we hate them most of the time) no single mum pensions over in Bali. 🙁

A little girl had seen Robbie give this other mother some money so she zeroed in on me & I was now being followed by this little girl about 4, begging for me to buy one of her bracelets. This little madame was very street wise. She shone her big brown eyes at me and it was so hard to say no. She was begging me and then her little brother came to help so I had two of them pleading with me . Then the girl wrapped her arms around me for a hug while her brother went through my pockets.. hehehehe is was so sad and funny at the same time. She was so determined to get something out of us. I told her I didn’t want a bracelet and she just kept pleading with her eyes. She was saying “one dollar please one dollar” . They like getting Aussie coins as they can sell them as people melt them down to make jewellery. I stopped walking so Robbie could get a photo of this little actress and she turned on the saddest most pathetic look on her face, ‘she had done this before’. When we got the photo Robbie gave her an aussie dollar coin and she held it up in the air like she had won the best prize in the world. Her face lit up and she yelled for joy to her mum. She was done with us now she went and found some other tourist to shine her big brown eyes at. We were always going to give her some money but it was funny how she turned on the charm to tug at the heart strings. 🙂

We got back to our hotel and managed to beat the rain but only ‘just’ and then the biggest thunder/electrical storm erupted. It was raining cats and dogs so we sat in the restaurant watching an Aussie show on TV with Indonesian sub titles and it was raining that hard we couldn’t hear the TV so we were trying to work out what was going on by reading the subtitles. I think the staff were very amused at this we could only read a word here and there, they were playing tricks turning the TV off and then asking if we want to see a trick and turning it back on. Hehehehe a hidden remote control was helping them. They were not being nasty just having fun with us. 🙂

When the rain died down a little we needed to get over to the reception area to get our bags for the airport and had to wade through ankle deep water which wasn’t very much fun but one of the restaurant staff held and umbrella over our heads for us which was nice of him but we were seriously soaked anyway, but it’s the thought that counts.
We got the concierge to hail a taxi for us and collected our valuables out of the Safety deposit box & off we went to the Airport. The cab driver said his meter was broken which Robbie had already pre-empted would happen so he had to haggle over the price. By this stage we just wanted to get there so they agreed on the price and off we went. It was pissing down with rain and we couldn’t be bothered going through the hassle of getting the bags out of the cab and the Taxi driver knew that I reckon. The streets were very flooded and this taxi driver thought he was a racing car driver it was quiet a white knuckle ride.

Time to go through customs and you just feel like every eye is on you, it is quiet nerve racking entering the airport, security is every where you feel like a drug trafficker even when you know you aren’t. We got through ok and then headed to get checked in and put our luggage in. That went smoothly but we weren’t convinced the guy knew what he was doing and that our bags would make it to their destination he knew that we knew so we all laughed but there was nothing to worry about in the end. We went into one of the private departure club lounges ( like QANTAS club only cheaper ) you pay about $15 each and you get free food and drinks while you’re in there which is cheaper than grazing in the airport. You also get nice comfy chairs to sit in too. Our Flight was leaving at 12.05am and so it seems was every other overseas airline and they were calling everyone to go to gate 9. What a shambles that was hundreds of people queuing to get through one gate for about 4 flights. There were kids screaming, drunks annoying us and people pushing it in was a most unpleasant experience. We had no idea if we were going the right way or not. We cleared immigration after another search and then we were all herded onto buses there was no one telling us which bus went to which plane and it was pouring with rain. We did manage to get the right bus which got us on the right plane. We arrived soaking wet. Once on board we were told by the cabin staff that they would not be offering blankets or pillows on this flight so if we had anything in our bags we wanted to get out to keep us warm to get them out now. GREAT ! This was going to be a shit cold miserable flight. Bloody Virgin airlines. If we had have known this we would have put something in our bag. ( NOT Happy ) 🙁 🙁

We arrived back in Brisbane feeling very tired and got to customs and found out they were filming Boarder Security for channel 7 we thought this was going to be our chance to be movie stars but no such luck. I even declared some shell souvenirs thinking that would get me noticed. sighhhhhhhh no luck just not the criminal types I guess!

After all the hospitality and graciousness of the people of Bali as soon as we got back to Australia we came crashing back to reality. Our seats that were booked for us from Bali on our connecting flight were given away by Virgin in Australia. We had been given the exit row where you get more space from our friend in Bali, we thought ‘sweet’ but in the time it took to fly us home I guess virgin were able to get someone to pay extra for them so we were delegated to back of the plane with all the screaming kids. Hallelujah welcome home!

Well everyone out there that’s been reading along that was our adventure in Bali I hope you have enjoyed reading all about it.

I would like to also thank my wonderful husband for setting the blog up for me and for putting in all the pictures he is a very patient man.

Now where will we go next time? Any suggestions?