An Afternoon Stroll Through Bali

A long beer stroll down the main street of Kuta in Bali, Indonesia

I was on my way to visit some friends in another part of Bali yesterday, about an hour away from my hotel in Uluwatu. I first got dropped off at what I hoped was my bank’s ATM inside a 7/11 lookalike store.

I had a slightly odd feeling as I had searched Google maps high and low for one of my two banks’ ATMs and hadn’t seen this one. Anyway, I chose to venture inside to grab some cash and a brew.

Trying out this weird version of my foreign bank atm, I had the lovely surprise of crashing it and getting the famous blue screen! Great!

Somehow I still got some money out (choosing to ignore the fact that my bank card might’ve just been copied). At least the counter cashier was nice!

So I walked out after buying a beer and immediately was given a “Hey man!” with the accompanying upward chin nod. “Coc*%#ne?!” he yelled, in the middle of the day with several people around. I just laughed and shook my head no.

So away I went, beer in hand, flip flops clacking on the tiled sidewalk.

The first amusement I passed was a very awkwardly placed water tower. Now I’m not talking about a 100 ft high one, this thing was maybe 15–20 ft tall, and right beside the sidewalk over an entrance way. The other reason I noticed it is that it was pouring water out like crazy! Please sign me up for that hotel next trip.

I continued on walking, slipping slightly yet too focused on my surroundings, when I passed by a massage parlour. Oftentimes, these places during daytime will have staff sitting out front beckoning the customers with such elegant sayings as “massaaaaaage?!” and “helloooooo!”

As I was listening to music and don’t usually enjoy engaging and listening to music, I simply smiled and said “no” with a shake of the hand. I then properly slipped on the tiles with my freshly wet flip flops and tried to ignore the laughter of ten rejected workers. The bruised stubbed toe was my just desserts for not responding I suppose.

Later down the way, I walked past a temple with some lovely xylophone music playing. Curious as to who or what this music was coming from, I peaked in the doorway only to find a room full of very chubby kids in orange sashes banging away on instruments staring at me. I shuffled on by before I laughed.

There was also another interesting part to this temple (and several others I saw later):

Yikes!

I next ventured past an old familiar sign from North America! Or so I thought:

I wonder if we can still call him the Colonel? (The J stands for Java for those wondering)

Next up on the roster is possibly one of my favourite store names I’ve ever seen!

Who says there isn’t any truth left in advertising? Unfortunately I haven’t found time to go shopping there. But I’m 100% fairly genuine I will return some day.

My last stop I found before grabbing a taxi was this quaint little boutique store. Just look at the amazing hand woven fabrics of the purses! It’s not very often you see purses so openly displayed like that!

After that, I finally got a taxi for the remainder of the trip and ended up at my friend’s amazing villa which he rents year round:

An absolutely gorgeous place, which I later found out can be built for under $50,000 USD! (Time to rethink the next country to live in perhaps?)

More importantly, it also came with a free horse:

And I got to top it off with some amazingly tasting turpentine!

(Seriously though, it is quite nice)

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