Monday – what to do today? We were tossing up between going to the elephant Park or the Safari Park and the elephants won out. We got ourselves a driver again and headed out towards Ubud. Our driver today wasn’t too keen on taking us to the elephant park and it was like he was stalling and taking us the long way.
We drove through many villages which were all very interesting, we saw people working in the fields harvesting rice, people carving statues, an many more cottage industries along the way. Now I know where all the stuff comes from in all the designer homeware shops back home ,it is all made here. There is no social security in Bali so if you don’t work you don’t eat so everyone is engaged in some sort of work in order to contribute to the life style of the village.
We suspected that our driver may have been slightly lost as there are no road signs and he kept trying to get us to go somewhere else but we wanted to go to the elephant park and we weren’t going to be swayed. Then the heavens erupted and it began to rain. Well not so much rain but a tropical deluge. Anyway the driver managed to find the road to the elephant park but I think we may have been going in circles previous to this.
We made our way to the park and it was now a torrential downpour. This rain was not going to let up. We had come this far so we were going in by hook or by crook. We had a person greet us at the car with a big umbrella and he lead us inside. He gave us a spiel all about the park he was a funny sort of lad a cross between a poof and nerd. Anyway he told us where to go and we set off out into the rain storm with an umbrella each it was absolutely shit weather.The gardens looked beautiful and I guess it would have been magnificent on a nice day.
We got to the restaurant come gift store and this was an open sided veranda type set up so we basically sat down there and watched it rain we could see people coming back from their elephant rides soaking wet. The rain didn’t even let up for a photo so all our photos were taken from the deck and it was pouring with rain in every one.
There was a cute little baby elephant and I think his parents were trying to teach him to swim as they kept dunking him in the water. They would push the baby down under the water and then his little trunk would come up for air . It was really quiet cute. There wasn’t a lot we could do so went and checked out the gift store. It actually took us 3 hours to get there and we spent less than an hour there. What a waste of time and money that was.
Trip back into Kuta was an absolute nightmare roads were flooded people were driving like maniacs and it was a real white knuckle ride. Some of the water we drove through was running pretty fast and I was really worried that we would get washed away. Obviously we didn’t.
We got back to the hotel and as the day was such a disaster we decided to get stuck into our duty free alcohol as we had hardly touched it. This seemed like a perfectly good idea at the time. So we drank a little and just chatted on our balcony and we got quiet tipsy. Anyway it was Blues night at Hard Rock and we wanted to go to check it out as they were going to have a live band playing. So our plan was to have dinner there and listen to the band. Our dear, in true Godden style though we didn’t quiet get to the eating part of things and got stuck into the rum and the Mai Tais . Yes brilliant idea.
We ended up drinking with a couple of school teachers from Perth and two mothers (Bogans) from Townsville & a couple honeymooning from Finland ( they were like Vikings they were huge) ! It was a big, big night we had a lot of fun and the music was good and when it was time to leave our bar tab was over 1,800,000 Rupee boy are we legends or what ? hehehehe 🙂
I hadn’t had a full meal for over three days because of the Bali Belly so I was rotten drunk, well that’s my excuse anyway.
Robbie ended up having to carry me home I couldn’t even walk. I remember bits and pieces of it and laughing and falling over and someone trying to convince me to get on a motor bike (it didn’t happen). I don’t know how Robbie managed it but he got me home in tact and then I threw up into the bath tub. Robbie stripped me off and put me to bed. I think I went to sleep pretty much immediately.
Robbie told me he was going to go & have a massage and I woke up some time later and Robbie was missing in action I wasn’t concerned he is a big boy so I just went back to sleep.
Next time I woke up it was 7am and Robbie was just bouncing through the door he had had a little adventure. He didn’t end up getting a massage as he jumped on to a motor bike and asked the rider to take him somewhere to get a massage but when he got there Robbie said it was a ‘dodgy as’, he said he thought he would get robbed or killed so he got the rider to get him out of there which he did. So after all that he ended up playing pool at the Paradise bar where we had been a couple of days earlier . 
He said he was playing for beers with one of the local lads and they were on fire they were beating everyone and he was pissed as a parrot. On the way home from there he stopped at the 7/11 to get some coke and ended up drinking Bintang with the staff of the shop. I am sure he needed more alcohol hehehehe. 🙂 He said he was shouting the boys beers and he was thinking he was a millionaire hahahaha. He said it was really good as they just chatted and talked like anyone in a pub would back home. He even got offered some hashish but fortunately had enough sense to decline. He told me all his stories and he had had a grand old time and then he passed out and I went back to sleep as well and we didn’t surface until 11am.
We missed breakfast and we were pretty sick so we just had a very slow sort of day, just doing our best to breath and be alive.