Our first day in Indonesia was not quite as exciting as we would have hoped. Laura had begun to feel ill the night before and had spent the night on the plane hugging a sick bag. So on arrival our first aim was to find decent priced, reasonable looking accommodation. After this was achieved Laura promptly passed out for the rest of the day.
After an hour or so more sleep myself I decided to explore our surroundings. It’s safe to say I want blown away with what I found. We appeared to have landed in yet another beach town, this one was just noticeably filled with more Australians and Australian themed, or owned, vendors. The beach was also surprisingly dirty, and filled with Indonesians trying to sell beers, surf lessons, umbrellas and chairs, and anything else they could think of, removing any idea of relaxing beach time from my mind.
My view of the place greatly improved when I first tasted Indonesian food. The first dish I tried is named Gado Gado and is a cold dish involving tofu, Tempe, vegetables cooked and then left to cool, all covered in an amazing peanut sauce.
Laura felt more perky the following day and joined me for another small bout of exploration. We reached the beach and, despite the wind, decided to settle in for the afternoon. Everything was calm and uneventful until around 5pm when a group of Indonesian girls approached us to have their pictures taken with Laura and I. Unknowing what madness was to follow we consented. Over the next hour we had a constant stream of people asking for us to join them in photographs, at one point reaching a peak of around 20 people surrounding us whilst their friends snapped away. It’s safe to say after this we had a new level of sympathy for celebrities and their lack of privacy!
After heading back to ‘de-beach’ our plan for the evening was to indulge in the famous nightlife Kuta had to offer. We began our evening in style with a cocktail at The Hard Rock Cafe, which each individually cost more than our room. They were wonderful cocktails though, and the atmosphere of the bar and live music we enjoyed whilst there more than made them worthwhile.
We then moved onto the main street filled with bars and clubs, and preceded to have a funfilled night. Although we had been warned about being overrun with Australians whilst in Kuta, we found the ones we met to be nothing but fun, and a lot less troublesome for us than the Indonesians!
Poor Laura – hospital visits in Bangkok! And not being well again! Sounds like she recovered in time for the photoshoot though 🙂 . The pictures you sent of The Hard Rock Cafe and the band playing looked good. Looking forward to your next post. 🙂