Bali

As with most things, there are 2 different views you can take about Bali.

A spoiled resort almost exclusive for Australians, full of fake branded goods and surfing shops with many annoying local people on every street trying to sell you anything and everything and on top of that, a stupidly humid weather that makes you sweat as you have never done before in your life.

Or, you can see a unique and beautiful island proud of its religion, music and culture (that is different from the rest of Indonesia), full of life with people that do their best to accommodate and please the 50-times-their-salary tourists from around the world.

We arrived at the Depansar airport in the middle of the day and got the first climate shock as we walked out of the plane’s air-condition. It took only 3 seconds to break a sweat, which is my personal new record.

As we got out of the airport to get a taxi, we realised that we forgot something very important.

Although I have with me enough electronics to be able to digitize my entire life (documents, emails,  photos, GPS maps, sms, etc) we still managed to forget where we had booked accommodation in Bali.

There was an email, somewhere, but none of us could remember the date, email account or any other details so after spending 1 hour at an internet café guessing possible hotels, we finally gave up and booked another one in Legian (north from Kuta).

As always, we only had 3 days available to see Bali but, if you book the right tour, you can get a personal driver for a full day to get you to most interesting places.

Our tour included the traditional welcome Balinese dance/play, a drive through villages dedicated to stone and wood crafting (thousands of handicrafts mainly for export), the famous monkey forest with monkeys all over the place trying to steal your things, lunch with a view of the main mountain/active volcano (Mount Batur) and the weird Kecak & fire dance (people in a circle making funny noises while waving their arms). The photos will give you a better idea of our tour.

The next day we did the “lazy” tour. We walked 5 minutes to the beach and stayed there until the afternoon. Then we walked to Kuta town-centre (most Americanised down town ever…) where you can find every brand shop and food chain known to man full of stupid tourist who come to Bali only to visit the Hard rock café and eat in MacDonald’s.

If we knew better, we would probably skip the beach hotel and try to book accommodation in a village further inland in order to avoid the tourist traps and get a better taste of Bali.

By the 3rd day the locals started to get annoying, as they would not give up asking you if you want to buy fake sunglasses, fake cloths, fake watches, fake bags and other fake accessories.

I think here they have everything that is ever made, in a fake cheap version.

Making fake things is a whole industry in this place and I bet if you can give them anything original and ask them to make you a few fake copies they will happily do it.

I thought of getting a fake Dora, just in case (you never know) but I am not sure I could get her through customs.

Our time in Bali is up.

The speed travel continues with Hong Kong as the next stop.

I can’t wait to see who is actually has been making all the things I bought online over the past 10 years.