Day 2 in Bali (Kuta!)

So yesterday we wanted to escape Nusa Dua. It's pretty out here, but the beach isn't the best for swimming and there's actually guards on this part of the island preventing non-tourist or rich folk from coming over. It's a little bit sheltered. Kuta is on the other side of this "penninsula" of the island, maybe a 15 minute drive away.

Breakfast was a pretty extravagant buffet. Eggs, crepes, cheese (they import real cheese out here) noodles, rice porridge, umeboshi (these really sour and salty pickled japanese plums. I'm addicted to them!), fresh juice, the list goes on and on. Juice out here is interesting. In america when we think of juice we think of fruit parts squeezed dry of liquid and the rest thrown out. Here juice is more like a smoothie. The rinds are cut off and it is blended, with the whole shebang poured in as juice. Lots of various melons are pretty popular. And at the bar mango drinks were on special.

Then we headed to Kuta - sure it's another touristy part of the island but it's a different type :) Lots of little stalls of shops, lots of places that sell Ralph Lauren Polo (I swear either Bali has a lot of counterfeit or Polo has set up a second base of operations). Bali is neat because it's a majority Hindu island, so there are lots of little temples everywhere. It makes for very awesome architecture. After walking the gauntlet of "Cheap sarongs!" "looking is free" "what do you want? i have it!" "special price, for you!" we got to the beach. Wow. It was less wide than a florida type beach but was completely flat and stretched as far as the eye can see in both directions. We headed to the little alcove of lounge chairs and parasols.

I made my first mistake of not bargaining with the guy and paid 80kRP (everything here is in thousands of rupees, 9100RP = 1usd) for two chairs. Ooops. I learned my lesson there :) But the beach was gorgeous and darrin rented a boogie board for just 10k RP. Bargaining seems to be life here and the big way to get everything is walk away and they always chase you. Most prices seem to start out about 8-9 times what we paid for them, and I think we are still paying too much. Lots and lots of sellers on the beach keep pestering you! But boogie boarding is fun. Ok, all the cool kids were on surfboards so me and Darrin were out there with the 8 year olds boogie boarding, but it was still a blast :) Pictures coming soon!

A big group of Indian tourists saw darrin and wanted their picture with him! I think he might be the tallest person on the island so he's become a bit of a tourist attraction. After reading, body surfing, and just laying around, we decided to head out. Of the weirdest things to be attempted to be sold, one man was selling bows, arrows, and dart guns, and another was selling little rests for your head when lying on your stomach. You could also put a bag on top of them. Why would anyone buy them? Who knows but I saw a few people with them.

Another interesting thing, we were the only Americans we met in Kuta. Lots of australians, a bunch of germans, and about as many French as Australians, with a mix of Indians, Taiwanese and Japanese thrown in there, but no Americans... er "Canadians."

For a late lunch we got real Indonesian food. Yum! I had a dish sort of similar to a fried rice. Except it was full of vegetables and spices with a fried egg on top. Best "fried rice" I have ever had. Darrin had some sort of stir fry of vegetables, tofu, and tempeh. I was about to lick the plate from whatever they used on it. As it was I scraped the last bits of sauce onto a fork. Plus, they had these fruity drinks they served ina hollowed out pineapple. Like they took the insides, blended them with some other juice and rum, and served it back in the pineapple. I could get used to this :)

Then it was shopping time!! Sarongs a plenty, as well as a bag (we were using a laptop bag as a tote, it wasn't very efficient) and a pair of swim trunks. We started out with people offering us sarongs for about 200kRP, then down to 150kRP (just for us) and our first purchase was at about 45kRP. By the time we left the shopping area we had started paying only 30kRP per item of clothing and I think that we can get it down to 25 or 20 today :) Me and Darrin each bought 4 sarongs. Pretty!!

We got back to the hotel in time to catch the very end of a "parade" they do every night. Then it was dinner time! After having such delicious Indonesian food for lunch, we wanted to get some more for dinner (the hotel indonesian restaurant was very bland). We asked at the front desk, and they sent us to a place which was disappointing. I got a fried noodles dish and Darrin got a mixed vegetable dish. Mine was so bland, I think they put some water spinach with noodles and stir fried it with 0 seasoning, and darrins was just bean sprouts with water spinach cooked in a pan. No flavor whatsoever. Next time we're going to find our own restaurants.

But we did get back to the hotel which was having a neat dance performance on the beach.

So day 2 finished, and right now I am writing this at the beginning of day 3. We're heading to another beach Seminyak, and we already have massages scheduled there. Pictures will be put up soon, I just need to categorize them all!