Ralph and Karen's Tours

On Nyepi Day, it is the law that you are not allowed to leave your house, hotel, accommodatIon for any reason. If you are found on the street, the Army who are patrolling the streets will arrest you and throw you in the lock up till the next day – they take this stuff seriously.

We didn’t mind one bit – we had the day hanging in our resort, swimming, reading, drinking, chatting…relaxing! Since when do you relax in Bali?  The restaurant service ended at 6pm, and you had to go to your room before 7pm, turn off the lights and keep quiet.  The windows of the rooms had cardboard boxes over them to stop any light coming out.  The theory is, Bali is supposed to be in total darkness until 6am the next day, so no evil spirits from above can see the island and they will not return.  Nice story.

Food was standard for a resort…typical buffet breakfast with eggs, pancakes, waffles, bacon, rice, fruit, pastries and a bunch of noodles and local stuff.  Awesome.

So we had brought some movies  with us and we had a quiet night in the darkness watching movies and reading.  What a fab first day….although a bit sunburnt..

The Balinese calendar is so different to ours, so Nyepi is also New Years Eve for 1939.  Now that is making a lot of sense…

Overnight rain was cleared by the time we dragged ourselves out of the apartment and headed down to the beachfront restaurants where our biggest decision of the day was which restaurant to visit for breakfast.  Temperature of 28-29c and not a breath of wind, and bugger all humidity was very pleasant.

We took the opportunity to stroll down the beach to Kuta as they had an annual market day on the beach after Nyepi Day. Lots of fun, with the locals enjoying the last of their holiday time. Food, clothing, games, music, jewellery etc.  awesome.

I should mention that this is the quietest we’ve ever seen Bali. There seems like no one is on the street.  Restaurants and bars are empty, which is good and bad.  It’s seriously deserted.  We are guessing it’s the calm before the Easter storm when millions of bogan Aussies invade.  I would come back at this time of year any time.

There was a massive swell running with no one surfing, and the tide was the highest we’d ever seen it, almost taking over the entire beach which was really weird.  It doesn’t stop the very industrious and hard working Balinese going about their daily routine preparing for a new day.

They are setting up their beach bars, sweeping their little areas where their stalls are, delivering ice to cafes, selling newspapers from Australia that are normally three days old and missing half the pages, offering sunnies, watches, hats, jewellery all at “morning prices”.  It’s good luck for them to make a sale early in their day, as they believe it sets them up for a successful day.

So, you hear “morning price, morning price” everywhere…..even at 2pm!  They crack me up.  Their memories are amazing – if you chat with them the first thing they as is “What you name?”.   Later that day, or the next day when you walk past they say “Hallo Steben!”.  Amazing.

A lot of these guys are tricksters, shonky, dodgy but most are loveable hard working family men and women trying to eke out an existence for their families that generally live 2 or 3 hours away in villages north on the island.  They come to South Bali to get money to live, and often share tiny decrepit apartments in nearby Denpasar town with half a dozen others in the same boat.

If they are “lucky” they might make $40 a month after their living expenses to take home to their families on their return visit.

Most afternoons we head down to the beach to the beach bars with pretty funny names like “Suck mor piss bar” or “Kangaroo Bar”, or “Jerry Bar” or “Ice cold piss bar”.  They’ve tidied them up quite a bit since we were last here.  They are scattered all over the beach, and now have tables and chairs and umbrellas, very civilised.  They basically have a massive esky each filled with beers and pre mixed spirits like Smirnoffs, Bacardi Breezers or the Balo knock off version called Mix Max.

One of the bar boys sets you up with a table, then becomes your waiter..beers are $2 (200,000IDR) and spirits $4 (400,000IDR), and you pay at the end so they know what you’ve been drinking.  It gets pretty busy and the atmosphere is fabulous.  Some blokes playing their guitars, some music coming from speaker boxes and everyone laughing and enjoying the amazing Indian Ocean sunset that you get treated to every afternoon.  Lots of stories get told and it’s at this time when if you bother to enquire, you find out the trials and tribulations of these hard workers who never ever complain.

They love to hear stories about Australia – we’ve got a few – because even though it’s only a 50minute flight to Darwin, it may as well be the moon for these guys.

The down side, albeit a minor complaint to siting on the beach with the best sunset ever, is the beach hawkers who can just smell fresh meat – or people who have just arrived in Bali.  They identify newcomers with an amazing talent.  Before you know it, you’re surrounded by a manicurist, pedicurist, hair brusher /braider, massager, “ear gardening” expert, jewellery expert, hat salesman, millions of different clothing options, kite salesman, fairy floss man, peanut dude, DVD seller.  And more….

They descend like vultures on an Aussie carcass.  It’s very funny to watch a family or group arrive for the first time on the beach who are unsuspecting – within 30 seconds they are literally surrounded with everyone trying to sell them something at generally very inflated prices. It can get overwhelming, but once you’re used to it you can just tell them you know their tricks and just want to relax.  Generally the bar boys realise and shoo them away.  One of them, a battle hardened veteran beach hawker called Sully said to Karen “You husban like a duck – he just go quack quack quack….” haha as a result of me shooing them away….

Unless………..you choose to get a manicure for $5 after they want $15 to do it.  Or, you want to buys some bracelets or trinkets to bring home….or like us the other day had a bloke sit with us for an hour or so chatting showing us all his latest gear which included but was not limited to; Cigarette lighters in the shape of a Bintang beer bottle with a bottle opener at the bottom, sling shots, sling shots that light up in the night time (who doesn’t want one?) or our favourite this time was an iPhone with a built in taser!  Now who wouldn’t want one of those bad boys?

We ended up buying a 100% Genuine Fake Copy BOSE Bluetooth speaker with built in radio. It actually works pretty well, so we got it for our daughter.   It’s pretty funny because we’ve seen exactly the same thing in most shops/markets with BOSE branding, BEATS branding, SAMSUNG branding….haha cracks me up.

The bloke selling this stuff was a great guy.  He hadn’t seen his family for over 6 weeks and here he was trudging along the beach with a sack over his shoulder weighing probably 20kgs selling his wares.  He hits the beach at 9.00am and leaves the beach at 8.00pm.  Some days he makes ZERO sales and therefore doesn’t get paid a cent.  And the next day can be the same.  But he keeps coming back because his family needs him to make money for them to live.  And we bitch and moan about how tough we’ve got it….