Parting

My final day in Bali wasn’t in Bali all that much. I’d organised to get on the resort’s airport shuttle at 8am to give myself plenty of time to catch my 11.40am flight; Balinese traffic can waylay even the most forgiving plans. But the traffic was obliging, and I was at the airport before 9am.

While passing into the check-in area, I noticed that the Jetstar staff were weighing carry on luggage as well as checked luggage, so I quickly weighed my bags to make sure that my off-brand Japanese Lego hadn’t pushed me over my 7kg limit.

7.16kg. Bugger.

However my laptop’s power supply was sitting near the top of my tech bag, and it was weighty but small enough to stuff into my pants pocket. When I re-weighed my bags, they’d dropped down to 6.8kg. Ha! Take that, you conniving Jetstar bastards!

Naturally when I reached the front of the check-in queue, the agent asked me if I was checking any bags, I said no, she printed my boarding pass and sent me on my way, all without weighing my bags. Sigh.

Once I got on my flight, it was the usual spread of barely tolerable Jetstar discomfort. I was on an aisle seat (that I’d paid $12 extra for), next to a sleepy young man who was over 5’5” and therefore too large for his cramped middle seat, whose gangly arms and legs tended to spill over into the neighboring seats. I leaned away from him, into the narrow aisle, but then I tended to get a faceful of arse fat every time some old woman who’d let herself go tried to squeeze past to get to the toilets. Of course Jetstar flights don’t have entertainment systems, and it wasn’t possible for me to hold my laptop far enough away from my face to watch something on it, so I read a book for a while, then watched sections of ‘The Gentlemen’ and ‘Extraction’ that someone was watching on a hired iPad two rows ahead on the other side of the aisle. I was quite enjoying the latter, right up until a set piece climax, when the screen was blocked by the vast beer belly of an old man in cargo shorts who joined the back of the toilet queue.

Our departure from Bali had been delayed by half an hour, as some unnamed bogan had checked his luggage then vanished, (he’d probably hit one of the airport bars and fallen into a drunken stupor), meaning that his luggage needed to be identified and removed from the plane’s hold. However, the pilot managed to catch up 15 minutes during the flight so we were only slightly late into Perth. Once there, we learned that apparently there’s an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Bali, so all passengers entering from Bali needed to undergo extra security screening, disinfecting the soles of their shoes and being interrogated over whether they’d walked within 500m of a cow. I tiredly told the agent that I hadn’t left Seminyak the entire time I was there – the closest thing I’d seen to a farm animal was the horse on the Ralph Lauren Polo logo - which seems to have been exactly the right answer as he instantly bypassed the screening areas and sent me back out into the real world.

Once home, I could finally sink into the peace of duty-free gin and building my off-brand Japanese Lego. Home is indeed sweet.

Whoo

Today’s venue from the List was the Woobar at the W Hotel. The W is expensively lavish and lavishly expensive even by Seminyak standards. From what I saw around me, it’s popular with senior Indonesian bureaucrats, Indian industrialists, and the chubby wives of members of the Chinese Communist Party; people who’ve done very well from populations that haven’t done very well.

Just sitting on their oceanfront deck is a minimum $200 spend. Fortunately you can sit a metre away, under the cover of the bar’s roof, for free… apart from your premium-priced cocktails, of course.

I tried a Rumba Smash, which is a terrible name when you consider that they could have called it the Basiltini. It’s just native basil syrup, vodka, lemon and three drops of basil-infused coconut oil. And it’s superb.

It was so good that I decided to have a second drink, and this time chose the Markisa Shrub… which is basically a Passionfruit Margarita. They really need to get someone more savvy on their cocktail names.

Since I was near the ocean, it seemed like a good opportunity to finally allow Cory and Cody to hit the waves. I’m not sure their forms are all that, but surfing is hard when you don’t have knees or functioning elbows.

In the evening I was introduced to a Southeast Asian chain store called KKV, which is so adorable that it’s actually kind of oppressive. As I said to a friend, “This is what happens when you weaponise cuteness.”

If it weren’t for luggage limits I’d have spent a fortune there; you don’t get to purchase weaponised cuteness at reasonable prices every day. As it was, I had to restrict myself to a single box of off-brand Lego based on the civic mascot of Kumamoto Prefecture. And before you ask, there were a lot of different sets based on the civic mascot of Kumamoto Prefecture. He leads a full, and popular, life.

Sloth

My relaxation continues apace. I can now go entire days without doing much more than eat, drink, read and nap. It’s a fine art, really.

Today was exactly such a day. Not wanting Sisterfields to take me for granted, I wandered out and chose a cafe at random for breakfast. I was in the mood for a pastry, like a cinnamon scroll or a croissant, although I’d settle for a muffin. The closest thing they had to any of that was individual apple crumble pies, so that’s what I reluctantly had. Not that there’s anything wrong with apple crumble, but first thing in the morning it’s like being punched in the face by sugar. At least the coffee was good, although they were using long-life milk, and we all know my feelings about that substance.

Back at my resort hotel, I just sort of noodled about until it was time for lunch, which was at Kilo, another restaurant not on my list, but which had delicious lamb tacos and a G&T.

The afternoon was whiled away reading by the pool, doing some writing and photo-editing for the blog, and taking a nap.

In the evening I went to the Shady Unicorn, another secret bar located down an alley and up a staircase behind a door that has to be unlocked by the bouncer. At least this one has a small neon flamingo on the street to give you a hint that you’re in the right place. If you imagine fancy glassware, red flocked wallpaper, velvet drapes and Art Deco barstools, you’ll be pretty close to the mark. After a drink there, it seemed only appropriate to drop back into 40 Thieves, just to see if they’re busier at 11pm on a Saturday than 9pm on a Tuesday. They were packed, but the same garrulous manager as before recognised me and raised a toast over manhattans.

My liver may disagree, but this is the life.

Better

Clearly I’ve been going to Sisterfields too often; the staff greeted me with “Welcome back, sir!” when I arrived this morning for a light breakfast. As long as they’re willing to tolerate me taking up valuable real estate for a couple of hours while I update my blog and read the news, I don’t mind being recognised. At least they didn’t roll their eyes and mutter to each other in Bahasa when they saw me, which would have been a less encouraging sign.

I had a light breakfast because I’ve discovered the secret to accessible fine dining in Seminyak: lunch, rather than dinner. That’s how I got into Mamasan yesterday, and how I got into Merah Putih today. You have zero chance getting a dinner seat without serious advance booking, but they let just anyone saunter in for lunch. Instead of eating in the bar area, as I did last time, today I was smack in the middle of the main floor under the largest palm tree sharing the space with only half a dozen other parties.

It’s a shame to miss the magical feeling of the pillars and ceiling lit up from within, but it’s really all about the food and drink, after all.

After Tuesday’s disappointing interaction with Above’s soft-shelled crab, Merah Putih more than rehabilitated the poor crustacean’s reputation. It was so good that, Ozempic be damned, I subsequently order some steamed bao, because I’ve been craving some for days and haven’t seen it on any other menus. They did not disappoint.

To finish, the bourbon, vermouth, peach, lime and honey Earl Grey dessert cocktail. It wasn’t actually listed as a dessert cocktail, but it was the perfect level of sophisticated sweetness for the purpose.

Class

The problem with being on Ozempic is that I can’t eat much. Well duh, you might be thinking, that’s kind of the point. But it means that I can’t bank my calories by, say, having just one decent meal a day. I can nibble my way through half an entree, and then suddenly I can’t eat any more. And I want to eat more, because this is Bali, and I’m in a stunning, internationally renown restaurant that lets riff-raff like me in for some reason.

In this case, the restaurant was Mamasan, which, like Revolver, seems to have had a bit of a glow up since I was last here. It’s all teak panelling, chesterfield banquettes, marble-topped bars, antique mirrors, chinoiserie tables and artful sprays of white orchids. And prices to match: faux colonialism chic doesn’t come cheap. I had a prawn, pomelo, peanut and heritage tomato salad, a highball cocktail and some mineral water, and didn’t get much change out of $50.

Even the light salad was a bit of a strain on my digestive system, so after a little nap back at the hotel, I went out for a massage at an unassuming place that had been recommended for offering serious, well-trained massage.

When I got there I was offered either “Remedial” massage or “Bali” massage, and because I am a man, I chose the remedial massage, even though I haven’t been to the gym in a week and I’ve done nothing here apart from amble between cocktail bars. Bali massage is for ladies who want to be pampered and fussed over. Remedial massage is for men who know they’ve done something unwise to their bodies and need it fixed.

It was like being viciously beaten for an hour by a gang of hardened lemongrass stalks. I smelled amazing, but my calves burned and I shuddered as I walked. But my spine had popped satisfyingly when the masseuse had yanked on my right leg, so I guess mission accomplished.

Once evening fell, I visited the next bar/restaurant on my list. This was La Favela, a spacious but gothically gloomy establishment with a Día de los Muertos vibe, mixed with 70s soul music. They also had tasty but highly specialised cocktails that I couldn’t replicate if I wanted to, unless I suddenly work out how to make popcorn or cashew syrup, or what kemangi leaf is, or discern the secret of “kaffir lime sous vide dry gin” (is that just putting kaffir lime leaves in a bottle of cheap gin and leaving it on a sunny windowsill for an afternoon? That I can do).

Afterwards, I actually had dinner. I haven’t had dinner since Sunday, getting by on bar snacks and the miraculous hunger-quashing powers of Ozempic. I went to a joint I’d noticed on my way to my massage, which, judging from the facade, I’d taken to be a Japanese-style listening bar. But it turned out to be a fine-dining Italian restaurant… with a big vinyl collection and a DJ. Go figure.

Bearing in mind what I know Ozempic does to me, I ordered the smallest actual meal I could see on the menu; lasagnina, which I guessed was to lasagna what Keighleigh is to Kayley.

But this, it transpired, was a proper Italian restaurant, and that means Extra Food. Before too long my waiter shimmered up with an amuse bouche of pumpkin soup, a tiny bowl of fennel tarallini, and a basket of fresh breads. I ate the soup and the tarallini and limited myself to nibbling on a single piece of foccacia, and felt digestive foreboding.

Lasagnina is actually not just lasagna that wants to feel unusual and different. It’s crisply baked lasagna noodles, stacked with meat and bechamel sauce in between them. It was of a modest size, but even so, I was full before I was halfway through it. However, I’d already raised eyebrows among the staff by ordering just a single course, and I suspected that would progress to active insult if I left half of it on my plate. So I struggled on, giving up at about 90%, and spreading the remaining 10% around the plate so that it gave the impression of not existing.

My waiter took my plate, looked downcast when I passed on anything more, and allowed me to settle my bill. Then, in a final act of Italian cultural defiance, returned with my receipt and two tiny artisanal chocolate truffles on a little plate.

Which I ate. I am not a monster.

It was a little over a kilometre back to the hotel, and I needed every metre of it to burn off the excess calories. This did not sit well with the scooter guys. They are one of the nuisances of Bali, beeping at you if they’re riding past, or saying “Ride, boss?” if they’re sitting by the roadside, trying to persuade you to ride instead of walking. Every encounter is merely a vague speck of annoyance… but you cannot walk 20 metres without being accosted. If you’re out for a nice evening stroll and forced to say, “No thanks!” every ten to fifteen seconds, those specks of annoyance pile up.

I deal with it by remembering that two pronounced traits of the Balinese are their peacefulness and their work ethic. This is why they’re trying to sell you a ride as you totter down a narrow, unlit street, rather than, say, shivving you and stealing your iPhone. You rarely see beggars and you even more rarely feel unsafe. A little annoyance is a fair price to pay.

The scooter guys are also less irritating than their (thankfully less common) female counterparts; the massage touts. These are hard-faced women who screech “MASSAGE?” at you as you wander by, often repeating themselves if your negative response isn’t absolutely unarguable. Some of them mangle those two syllables so badly that you have to take it on faith that it’s a massage they’re offering: one of them squealed at me first thing in the morning and I literally couldn’t tell if she was saying “Massage?” or “Breakfast?”. I may have turned down bacon by mistake.

Then there’s the shadiest of the touts, who masquerade as scooter guys but, when you get close enough, mutter “Cialis? Viagra? Ladies?”. I always feel like responding, “Sir, this is Seminyak. I’m wearing a belgian linen shirt and hand-rubbed Italian leather shoes. I am not some horny, morally-compromised bogan interested in your drugs or women, both of dubious hygienic provenance. Please learn to read the geographic room!”

Of course I wouldn’t say that. He wouldn’t understand me, and he’d probably break with his normal routine to shiv me and steal my iPhone.

People

I started the day with breakfast at Revolver. I remembered it as a laidback hippie surfer place – I even recognised Indonesian Snoop Dogg working behind the bar – but they had a doorman now, which seemed odd. It seemed less odd when I left and discovered a queue of people waiting to get a table, being expertly wrangled by the doorman.

Later I went to this place.

They had me at “Doughnuts”, not gonna lie.

Surfing is hungry work. As is being my selfie proxy. You wish you could bury your entire head in a mojito doughnut.

As evening started to fall I made my way up to Potato Head, where the ridiculously beautiful and the beautifully ridiculous meet to drink fine cocktails, watch the sunset, and loll about in an Instagramable manner.

From my people-watching:

- Creepy, potbellied Indian men unable to help themselves from standing too close, mesmerised, by almost naked Scandinavian girls.

- Two very large, loud and sweary Australian men who instinctively recognised that cheap beer wasn’t really the go here, and so ordered cocktails of Red Bull, vodka and lemonade: I wanted to implore them not to drink concentrated caffeine, and thus deny the world the chance to be free of them for eight hours a night.

- Chinese tourists not quite sure why they’re here, but stolidly grateful that they can now cross Potato Head off their Bali to-do list.

I watched the sunset with a watermelon mojito and some hummus and crudites, then left to make my way to my next venue.

Earlier in the day, I’d been chatting to a man who’d given me a lift on the back of his scooter, and he’d mentioned that his main job was as a singer in the bar/restaurant. I thought I might like to come and hear that, and he gave me the name and address. From what he said, I imagined something cheesy but harmless; an Indonesian version of a lounge singer warbling through ‘Quando Quando Quando’ while customers sipped cocktails and ate dinner.

I was wrong.

The first warning sign was that, technically, the bar/restaurant was in Legian, not Seminyak. Legian is a sort of demilitarised zone between sophisticated Seminyak and feral Kuta, functioning as a space to tire out wandering bogans before they stumble drunkenly into somewhere too nice.

The second warning sign was when I entered the venue and was almost pushed out by the wall of noise. Between overamplified music and shouting customers, it was like entering World of Tinnitus.

My new friend was a good singer, but his role was primarily a facilitator, assisting beer-swilling low-lifes to bellow the catchphrases to pub rock classics, with occasional episodes of fullblown… shudder… karaoke.

I was horrified by all of the following:

- A man walking about with a slightly stunned baby while some bogan drunkenly shouted most of the lyrics to ‘Sweet Caroline’ into a microphone. Normally I hate kids, but no baby deserves to have its innocent new eardrums irrevocably damaged by overamplified shitty music.

- A morbidly obese grandma, wearing a light tie-dyed sundress that hung down to her knees at the sides and back but rather higher at the front, thanks to her gut, exuberantly shaking what her momma and innumerable carbs gave her to ‘Mr Brightside’, or at least her grandson’s slurred rendition of it.

- The crowd enthusiastically laying into Smokie’s ‘Living Next Door to Alice’, which, like The Angels’ ‘Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again?” has acquired an F-bomb laden call and response over the years. The customers were roaring this into the microphones, while I was wondering, “Am I seriously the only one who notices that there’s a trio of 8 year olds at the next table!?” Although, to be fair, they’d already heard their father call someone a c*nt, so maybe this was just normal for them. Even so, there was one little boy who was cringing behind his menu and glancing sadly and nervously around himself, as if mentally fixing this scene for discussion with his therapist in about twenty years.

I made it through Attack of the Bogans: The Musical! thanks to a huge frozen margarita, three times the size of the one at Motel Mexicola and about half the price. That, and the fact that this titanic, drunken, screaming trainwreck was the best people watching I’ve had since I got here.

Challenges

I started the day quite early, in the Tiffany-blue environs of Sisterfields, the most Australian of the cafes in Seminyak. It’s basically like being at home, with the prices cut in half. I had a Scandinavian breakfast (softboiled eggs, rye sourdough, whipped cream cheese, lemon and herbs), which was served with true Scandinavian minimalism.

After a leisurely breakfast I went back to the hotel to drop off my computer, then I went for a wander. I ended up at the Alila beach bar, another one of the bars on my list. This swanky oceanfront bar is part of the Hyatt hotel, at which I am not a guest, but as usual in Bali if your skin in the right colour you’re welcome everywhere. The security guards at the front gate have mirrors on the ends of poles to check under every taxi and van, but I get a polite bow and a murmured “Good morning” as I swan past. No one ever suspects whitey. Probably because whitey likes cocktails and isn’t about to blow up a good source of them.

The Alila bar is expensive – basically Perth prices – but the location is exceptional and my lemon spritz was refreshing in the midday heat. I spent an hour there, nursing my cocktail, and just watching the waves roll in, listening to chill pop, and letting my mind go more or less blank.

This, I contemplated, must be how well-adjusted thoughtless people feel most of the time, without the anxiety and the disaster planning and the picking endlessly at problems and concerns.

However there’s one minor, nagging worry that’s stayed with me over the last 24 hours; my physiological reaction to the Tropics. It has an odd effect on me. Whether it’s my sad southern English genes, better suited to coping with gloomy chill than sunny humidity, or just my upbringing on the arctic-blasted southwestern coast of Australia, I nevertheless find the climate in Bali challenging, in the sense that it’s almost as if it wants to challenge me to a duel. I’ll be absolutely fine one minute, very much enjoying the balmy day, then something intangible will turn, and the next minute I’m fearing that I’m going to be overwhelmed and pass out.

Oddly enough, it was less than 30 degrees, and I wasn’t even sweating. But even so, there was a sense that the weather is just waiting for an excuse to take me down.

At least I have a general idea of what steps to take to pivot away from disaster. From my sheltered position on the Alila’s deck, I could see tourists, probably British, lying in the direct sun, with absolutely no clue as to what the sun does to human skin on this side of the equator.

I wandered back to the hotel, via an opportunity for passionfruit cheesecake gelato, and spent the afternoon napping, reading and swimming in the pool, wisely, may I add, not all at the same time.

In the evening I went to the next bar on my list; the Above rooftop bar at the Four Points Sheraton. When I arrived, it seemed strangely empty for a rooftop bar with panoramic views out over the ocean. But then I did arrive half an hour after the sunset, which is when these sorts of places are busy.

Even so… I started noticing little things. The wooden frame on the menu was broken, and the card within was worn. The battery lamp on my table stopped working after less than five minutes. Some of the potted trees were lit but little spotlights, but others weren’t. Then when my food and drink arrived, the fried softshell crab was grey and unappetising, while my cocktail was a gin, starfruit, rosemary and lemon concoction that had obviously undergone an acrimonious divorce from the gin bottle.

Cory and Cody sought to assuage my disappointment by offering up snacks.

At least it was nice to sit out in the early evening air and take in the view. All up and down the coast, there were kites, more than half a kilometre overhead, with some sort of electrical supply that kept them glowing with red, green or blue lights. I counted more than twenty of them, just barely visible. They were very clearly ornamental, judging from their fanciful shapes, but why? The Balinese don’t seem to worry much about questions of “why” when it comes to design. And it was very restful, watching the distant lights sway and swoop in the breeze.

For one final insult from Above, as I left, I discovered that the lift call button wasn’t working – the only way I got out of there was when some other people rode the lift up to my floor.

Since I was already up in northern Seminyak, I decided to walk over to 40 Thieves, another of the bars on my list. It’s themed as a speakeasy, and accordingly, isn’t signposted or even remotely possible to find unless you know what to look for. The only way I eventually got in was that I remembered something I’d read about it being above a ramen place, and since there was only one ramen place in the general vicinity, I asked in there and was directed up some back stairs into a long hallway lined with wood paneling and framed black and white photographs of people who were probably important, which ended in an ominous arched wooden door studded with brass. I pushed it open and found… no one. Apart from a handful of bartenders wearing yellow and black gingham shirts. The bar had only just opened for the evening, and I was their first customer.

Clearly the bartenders were bored, because they set on me like conversationally starved hyenas. Eventually I was surrounded by four of them, including the manager who had pulled up a barstool next to me, and we discussed the delights of alcohol for the next hour. Apparently the bar doesn’t start filling up until after 10pm, and also it’s Tuesday, and also it’s karaoke night, which is not necessarily a drawcard. But it was fun chatting about booze, the pandemic and hip nightspots while I sipped on an Earl Grey Old Fashioned and sampled a couple of shots of random spirits about which the bartenders were particularly enthusiastic.

Cory and Cody made friends with the bar’s mascot, and compared notes on the trials of being someone else’s Instagram candy.

Introvert that I am, I wouldn’t have minded slipping away to just enjoy the ambiance of the bar, which is decorated in a style best described a Pop Geek Library Chic. The walls are lined with glass-fronted cabinets crammed full of paperback books, dotted with curios and vintage whatnots, and topped with dead portable TVs, with projectors cleverly focused on them to give the illusion that they were tuned to some weird dreamlike channels, showing dancing roast chickens or imaginary travelogues.

I made a mental note to go back there late one evening, when there are other customers to keep the bartenders busy.

Arrival

It takes almost four hours to fly from Perth to Bali, about half of which is just over the northern expanses of Western Australia, which contains a whole lot of not much. At first glance the landscape looks like a completely uninhabited, barren desert, rendered into a pattern like marbled paper by the seasonal floods; it’s like flying over the frontispiece of a 19^th century book.

But if you look more closely, even here, in this flat, arid, empty landscape, you still see the works of man. The neat grid of evaporation pans at a salt refinery. The rigid straight line of a road, or a causeway, or an airstrip, cutting surgically through the swirls and blotches. The tiny white apostrophes of the wake behind boats, themselves too small and far away to see. It might make the eco-minded froth with indignation, but I find it comforting. We’re here, as a species, and we’re making even the most inhospitable parts of our world what we want them to be.

I landed at Ngurah Rai Airport around 3pm, and spent the next hour and a bit standing in queues waiting for the slow grind of Indonesian customs to drag me through its rusty gears. But I eventually emerged into the balmy late afternoon and found an overpriced taxi to take me to my resort hotel in Seminyak.

I’m assured that Bali has changed in a the last seven years, but apart from the disappearance of the pirate DVD shops, it seems the same to me. There’s a vaguely incense-y smell everywhere that I instantly remembered at a very deep level. The city is filled with a sense of amiable chaos which would be frustrating if you actually wanted to get some work done, but which is charming if you’re on holiday. There’s no graffiti except on long-abandoned buildings, and even then, not that much of it. Any unused space is quickly swamped by exuberant plant growth. The streets throng with taxis, scooters, skinny stray dogs, and the odd random chicken.

After checking into my hotel, and changing out of the winter clothes I’d been wearing in Perth and into the summer clothes I’d brought with me, I decided to start on my List. Before I’d left Australia I’d researched the best small bars and restaurants in Bali, and compiled a list that I could handily reach from central Seminyak. It was disappointing to see that some iconic establishments, such as Metis and Sarong, had closed during the pandemic and never reopened. However others, like Merah Putih and Mamasan, were still in business, along with a slew of new “it” places that have impressed food and beverage critics.

I decided to start with one of these new ones, Motel Mexicola. only 500 metres seaward from my hotel. I had flashes of familiarity as I wandered towards it; the incongruousness of smart shops next to overgrown vacant lots, the absence of sidewalks necessitating darting around traffic on the road itself, the open sewers half covered with concrete panels or optimistically semi-concealed by ornamental planters of bouganvillia or fairylit clumps of bamboo.

The restaurant itself was fully booked – almost inevitable in Seminyak – but I could sit at the bar outside and have drinks and light foods. Which suited me fine. After the deep, abiding cold of the last few nights in Perth, sitting outside in the balmy tropical heat was glorious, and it was gloriouser with a frozen margarita and some chips and guacamole.

Cory and Cody grabbed their boards and hit the closest thing to a wave in the near vicinity. But clearly one of them underestimated the chances of a wipeout.

Love

I was in Italy earlier this year, and now I’m heading to Bali. It’s a good thing I have absolutely zero interest in India, because I’m already two-thirds of the way to being Elizabeth Gilbert. What does it say about my spiritual life that I’ve done the Eat and the Love but leaving out the Pray?

When it came to choosing a Lego minifig to come with me, as I’m heading to a beach-oriented paradise there was only one obvious option. Or, rather, two. Their names are Cory and Cody, although I’m yet to work out which is which.