After a full 12 hours of traveling (boat, bus, ferry, bus), we arrived in Kuta and checked our email, only to find out that Monica had already left town and would be returning the next day to celebrate Andreas's birthday. Damn. We were a bit deflated to say the least, since we were looking forward to a big reunion and a nice hotel, but resigned ourselves to an evening of looking for somewhere to stay and getting some food. No easy street for us tonight.
Kuta was a big shock! It's busy, and full of tourists, so we took a reliable Bluebird taxi outta there (cost Rp 13,000/ EUR 1, rather than the Rp 150,000/ EUR 11 quoted by the horse and cart guy!) to Seminyak where Andreas is staying and decided to find somewhere cheap to stay then find Andreas in the morning, and meet up with Monica.
We walked, and walked between nasty, cheap hotels, until we were too tired to care, and ended up staying in a horrible little hovel called Purnama Hotel (Rp 75,000/ EUR 5 a night) on Double Six. I was so exhausted, and so disappointed with the whole situation, that I started crying, so we cheered ourselves up with some food and beer in a local warung.
Anyway, things got better the next day. We woke up bright and early (thanks to our noisy neighbours - "Hemingway and Wilde") and ended up checking into the luxurious Green Room (Rp 235,000/ EUR 18 a night!), where we were delighted to discover Andreas was also staying. Talk about serendipity. Monica, who was back in town, hot footed it over for some morning bubbly, and we partied the night away in Seminyak. Love it!
All in all, we were super unimpressed with Kuta/ Seminyak. It has become one of those faceless, commercial beach towns which could be pretty much anywhere in the world. We headed off to Ubud to see a little bit of Balinese culture, glad to be leaving the grim-faced sex tourists behind in their seedy little world...Debs and Ben
