Dec 2008

Once again I did very little homework before flying to Bali, in hindsight not a smart move. Upon arrival at the airport I was asked for a donation of 250,000 rupees, of which I had none, and in fact I didn't have any cash of any currency which caused a few problems. I had to queue up at one of the immigration counters behind the air crew, leave my passport with the guy, go through security and then get some money out at the ATM. The first one didn't work - oh dear - but the other one did and then I had to make the tricky decision of how many rupees to draw out - I hadn't even checked to see what the exchange rate was. I went for the max, one million rupees (sounds a lot), and then made my way back to join the longest queue in the world for a temporary visa. Eventually I got through, grabbed my bag, and then lost it again as a couple of guys at the security desk took it off me. But no, they weren't security at all, just randoms in shirts who carried my bag no further than 10 feet and then demanded payment. Jeez, Bali might be tough to take. I paid well over the odds for a taxi to my hotel - still no idea what the exchange rate was - but was glad to get there at just after midnight. The hotel looked okay, although my room had a funky smell to it, and after a quick stroll around the nearby main street and a trip to the supermarket I went to bed.

The weather in Bali was great for most of the time, I had about three off days and seven good ones. The rainy season starts near the end of September - during my stay - but it's a popular time at the moment and given how late I booked it I ended up in an average hotel paying a lot more than you would elsewhere. But I'm at the stage now where I don't really care and I've got a permanent eye on the trip back home, which I'm not looking forward to for more reasons than one. Anyway, in the morning I had a look on the internet and discovered that the exchange rate is about 19,000 rupees to the pound, which means that one million rupees is about £50. Ha. Therefore I paid £13 to enter the country and £5 for my taxi. For a ripoff, that's not bad.

Bali is, quite frankly, a nightmare, particularly if you're on your own. The main street runs from Kuta to Legian (I stayed in between the two) and further west, and is simply a massive run of stalls and shops with hawkers and money changers as far as the eye can see. There's no escape from them, even a simple walk to the shop over the road is like running the gauntlet and it really gets you down. Very quickly. If you look at them, you're theirs, if you don't they'll follow you down the street or grab you by the arm. And there's about three or four per stall so don't think you're getting away. If you show an interest in something then you'd probably like two of them. Or maybe ten for the price of nine? One day I was having lunch in a restaraunt and someone came up to my table, sat down next to me and started showing me some DVDs. When I ignored him he started tugging at my t-shirt. I can't explain how irritating that is, but rest assured it lasted the whole time in Bali.

The hotel seemed strange to me, not sure if it was empty but there was hardly ever anyone around and I spent most of my nights on my own, apart from a couple of nights with some Australians who were decent enough to invite me out. Not exactly an ideal way to spend the end of the trip but again I just didn't care and wanted to get the flight back (sorry, flights) out of the way. Unsurprisingly with so much time on my hands I read a lot of books and watched a lot of films in my time there, not great fun but the time went reasonably quickly and it's pretty cheap living there. The food is okay but very small portioned, you need at least three meals a day here to avoid extreme hunger (well, I do). Traffic on the main road is a problem, moped and scooter riders pay no attention to pedestrians and will often go hell-for-leather the wrong way down the street on the pathway, which can catch you out when you're innocently walking along. Oh, and the 'taksi' drivers beep at everybody to see if they want a lift 10 yards down the street. It's not for the faint-hearted.

I guess I should talk a bit about Bali and Indonesia in general. Bali is a small island resort that forms part of Indonesia, the world's biggest archipelago (collection of islands) and also home to the world's biggest muslim population - the total national population is about 260 million, of which about 220 million are muslims (Bali is a Hindhu island). It's a surprisingly big country. The capital of Indonesia is Jakarta, while the island of Java is the most populous island in the world with about 130 million people living on it. Famous Indonesians include...no-one. Unsurprisingly with so many different races and religions squeezed into lots of different islands Indonesia seems to lack a single identity and is also very dangerous in certain parts such as Sumatra. Bali is extremely popular as a holiday resort, particularly with the 'nearby' Australians, because it's cheap, sunny, most people speak English and the surf is apparently very good. You'll find Europeans here too but the Bali bombings of 2002 and 2005 were undoubtedly aimed at Australians. There's a memorial on the main Kuta-Legian street for the victims although I somehow couldn't find it on my walkabouts.

Well, apologies for the not-very-interesting finish, I am of course writing these musings retrospectively from Alton so my enthusiasm isn't as high as it once was. I might return in the future but for now this blog is closed and I've become one of them again...a normal person...like you.

Wow. September just so happens to be Singapore's hottest and most humid month, what a time to visit. The temperature and humidity don't actually vary that much - it's always hot and sticky here with a good chance of rain - but at least I know that I got it at its worst. I arrived at 5pm and after the usual faffing about at the airport I got to my hotel - a cheap little affair about 3 miles north of Orchard Road - at about 7pm and feeling pretty sleepy. My first excursion out of the hotel was to get some food, and I soon realised that my time in Singapore would be a pretty harrowing experience. I have a Lonely Planet guide and it recommended eating at Hawker Centres, big market places with lots of little stalls selling cheap food (it really is cheap - less than £2 for a meal). I ordered some beef with rice from one of the stalls, which also came with a side dish of chillies, a bowl of soup and a spoon, and of course some chopsticks.

Chopsticks really are a stupid invention. Culture? Tradition? Class? Eloquence? Forget it, they're stupid. I eat to live, not live to eat, and I just want to get it down my neck - even the best chopstick user in the world can't match me with a fork. I looked around on his stall. No forks. I asked him for a fork. Still no forks. So, I sat down, finished the soup with the spoon, uselessly pawed at my food with the chopsticks, and then grabbed the spoon and used that instead, to the horror of all the locals sat near me. Who cares - chopsticks are stupid. I usually deal with facts to back up my smugness so know this - China alone chops down 33 million trees every year for producing its chopsticks. Now try and tell me they're a great idea.

After a heavy, hot day and an early night I slept pretty well and left the hotel raring to go at 10am. Lots to do and see, my guidebook pointed out loads of things that I managed to plot in an orderly line on my map. I didn't have to wait long for a taxi - about half a nanosecond - and in no time at all I was standing outside Lucky Plaza on Orchard Road, just one of many centres in Singapore's famous shopping precinct. I had a quick look around, added an Australia-to-Singapore plug converter to bolster my impressive collection of wires and things, and then set off on my whistle-stop tour of Singapore city centre. And here's my Gordon Ramsay style description of 'Singapore in a day'...

T-shirt. Light trousers. Trainers. Backpack. Taxi. Orchard Road. Hot. Walk. Raffles Hotel. Unimpressed. Use the toilet. Leave. City Hall. St Andrew's Cathedral. Theatres on the Bay. Impressive. Merlion Statue. Weird. Sweating. Badly. Keep walking. Old Parliament House. Old Supreme Court. Grand Prix spectator stands. Fullerton Building. Grand Prix adverts. Lau Pa Sat Hawker Centre. Soup. Spoon. Done. Move. Thian Hock Keng Temple. Sri Mariamman Temple. Clarke Quay. Fort Canning Park. Dripping. Smelly. Disgusting. Keep going. National Museum. Orchard Road. Taxi. Shower. Hawker Centre. Food. Eat. Slowly. Watch football. Liverpool. Two. Man Utd. One. Bed. Done.

Sorry about that, I watched an episode of the F Word a little while ago and it was in my head. My flight to Bali was quite late in the afternoon the next day so I decided to entertain myself by visiting Little India and checking out some of the giant gold Buddha statues in the temples there. This turned out to be a very bad move as not only were the temples shut but I ended up incredibly sweaty again from all the walking. Oops. Anyway, I was fed up so I got a taxi back to my hotel, grabbed my suitcase and spent the rest of the day waiting in the air-conditioned airport, using their free wireless internet service. All in all, a much nicer experience than walking around Little India, and in fact a nicer experience than most of Singapore which I can't say really interested me very much. Plus it's far too hot and sticky. Next (and penultimate update) is from Bali...