Sunday 20th June - Denpasar and Ubud

Nyoman turned up at 9am instead of 10, to take me to Denpasar for Bali's largest Art/Craft Festival/Ceremony/parade thingy.

I was a bit off-put by his earliness and he pretended not to understand me asking why and started humming? lalala.... ?? So he sat on my bed while I finished locking everything up. I made him wait until 9:45. Really, I'm shocked at how dense.. anyway, it's not worth it...

Well I should've known, being that I'm too trusting, that wearing the traditional Balinese outfit was a bad idea, hehe. Not even the Balinese wore it, so I looked like a total freak, but I made the guys I was with laugh, and even though they were laughing at my expense, it was good to have a bit of humour over it. Being in a different country has it's advantages, cos well, I wasn't "extra embarrassed" because, let's face it, noone knows me here, I'm just some stupid western chick in Balinese costume.


As we left so early, we arrived around 11 instead of 12, so I went straight to a hotel near Joni's place instead of meeting him at Ronanan Park (festival).

Then, in true Balinese style, I sat on his (Joni's) bike sideways in my sarong, and we rode to his place which was only about 2 mins away, but we wobbled the whole way due to me not feeling safe :)

Joni's place is pretty cool. 3BR - 2 story, but small. He's renovating, it's going to look awesome when finished, can already visualize.

Instead of taking the bike as planned, we were able to take a car, thank god. Joni's friendly nephew came with us (his name is Gidday but I don't know correct spelling)


This place is closing now.. so will finish this tomorrow...

ok, so it's the next day, I didn't get a chance to update yesterday, all the internet places were too slow to bring up this page, but finally found an internet outpost... back to it then ;)

First stop was Joni's sisters for some lunch. Traditional Balinese food. Don't ask me what it was - I ate it, it tasted good, and I didn't get sick, and that's good enough for me :)
Actually, it was pretty nice; spicy, and it was something like minced pork and spice in a banana leaf? steamed rice, some spicy, oily stuff that turns rice yellow, and some banana tree hot-spicy-soupy stuff which was 'way too spicy' for me. I also had a fruit tea which tasted like black currant, but I'd prefer water!

No-one could speak English, not even broken English, so we used sign/body language which will motivate me more to learn Indonesian when I get home. Joni's sister showed me photos of her children and a recent ceremony involving her 17yo daughter getting her teeth filed straight.

We then went to the parade, Joni thought it started at 2, I thought 1, but it was closer to 3-3:30? by the time it got started, so we were sitting on the side of the road in the blazing sun for all that time. There was to be no toilet stops (unless I felt like peeing in a river in front of thousands of people) for approx 6 hours so I was reluctant drink any water (or anything!).

The street sellers were selling real junk. "$2 shops" eat-your-heart-out, these guys 'took the cake'. Noisy, plastic chipmunk-type rackets for kids, bubbles, balloons, parachutes with plastic army men. Absolute crap.

Though.. it was good to watch Balinese people BUYING things instead of shoving it in MY face. :)

There was also food, mostly junk, everywhere!.. including chocolate, chips, fairy foss, icecream, as well as Pork Crackle, Shrimp crackers, Tofu crackers, Rice, Chicken Satay, Pizza, Coke, fanta, water. But no friggin fans... :)

The parade was great, however there was no "orderly fashion", so for the most part, it was difficult to see anything. There were 1,000's of people everywhere. I filled up my entire digital camera taking photos of all the people in the parade.


Basically, the parade contained all the "regions" of Bali, getting into their traditional costumes, including what a bride and groom would wear in that particular region.



They were beautiful and colourful. One of them fainted from the heat. Japan and Taiwan were also invited to participate and they put on a great (noisy) show, which was much appreciated by the Balinese who clapped them all the way to the end of the parade.

I had a good day with Joni and Gidday, they are just so nice, and Joni's laugh is infectious - and he laughs ALL the time, so we all just joked and laughed all day. Joni doesn't need to drink, he's naturally drunk all the time :)


Joni drove me back to Ubud after the parade, which was so nice of him! I invited them to have dinner in Ubud with me, Joni chose a nice fancy restaurant. Food was nice - we got so full. Mine sounded interesting on the menu but ended up just being grilled boneless chicken with garlic and coconut. The price for all 3 (inc drinks and desserts) was 170,000.

After they left, I lay on the bed to get some rest, after a long day. But all I could hear was the reggae band playing loudly in the distance, so I got up, had a shower, and headed to the internet cafe next door to the reggae place again... but it was closed, so went to another one further down the road until I was kicked out at 11pm (closing time).

I then went back to the reggae bar and Made (sweet Made), got me an Anak/Red Bull and I found Sabrina and sat down and chatted with her all night. Oka was there, but thankfully was pre-occupied with another table, so I spent the evening with Made, Wayan (reggae singer), Sabrina, and a new guy called Ziggy who is a German with a Holland passport travelling solo after living 6-7 years in India with his wife who passed away last year. he is 65ish. Friendly and "clued" on. Raka and Fred joined us later in the evening. I only had 2 Arak's (but more than 1/2 glass full of it, so it was potent to me since I'm not used to drinking).


When it was time to go, Made walked me to a mini-market to get my phonecard re-charged but they didn't have one for my phone company. Went back to my bungalow so we can talk some more, but he was just talking about how he feels so much love for me, etc. I just told him I would send him a sweet girl from Australia, and kicked him out about 3:30am after it was clear he was going to persistently try to kiss me! jeez. It was weird, in the end, he acted a bit desperate instead of the nice, sweet Made I had made him out to be.

That's "that" then -- I'm going back to Kuta, I can't handle this, I don't "want" to deal with it, I just want to have a fun, relaxing holiday. :) Those guys probably do this to every single solo female tourist out there...