Bali

On the beach in Kuta, Bali

 We left the hustle and bustle of India for a relaxing week on the beach in Bali, or so we thought!!  After more than 36 hours of traveling we arrive in a very humid overcast blustery Denpansar and slowly make our way to Kuta, one of the closest beaches to the airport.  We didn't feel like traipsing any further.  Found ourselves a "nice" room, had some food and crashed out for the evening.  Waking late the next morning we went for a wander around to acquaint ourselves and chill out on the beach.  No further than 100 m from the hotel, we were approached by a man with "free" scratch cards and guess what - "we won the grand price!!" Both hungry and skeptical we told the man we'd come back in half an hour and he could drive us to collect our prise then but not before - he tried hard to get us to go then, but food was more important than winning a very "skeptical 500 US dollars or a week free hotel".  We never went back - after breakfast we quickly google'ed and confirmed our suspicions that is was all a hoax, a scam to try and get unsuspecting tourists to buy time share apartments. Phew!!

The next couple of days went smoothly, nothing to strange, not so much sunshine, but pleasantly warm and the sea was wonderful. Day 3 ended sorta pear-shaped :( After dinner we came back to find our room had been broken into.  We'd most of our valuables with us, but we'd left Andrew's Ipod behind charging, and someone (who obviously had access to a key - no forced entry) had taken the ipod, earphones, charger and case - bugger. In short, hotel staff were less than helpful, they're stories kept changing and they wouldn't let us speak to a manager and they wouldn't not call the police.  After a lot of arguing they eventually took Andrew to the police station - where he was kindly (ahem) asked for money in exchange for a police report - a police report which if he had paid more for would still be valid when we get home, but this was goes out of date next month.  The whole system is corrupt if you ask me... neither of us felt that we could stay in the hotel any longer, but we'd just paid of the following two nights.  There wasn't a hope in hell of getting our money back and no sign of any management.  We left lets say a little rattled.  The rest of the stay though pleasant was not as relaxing as planned, we remained on edge, we'd to carry heavy day packs with everything valuable for fear of anything else going missing.   So, unfortunately, that is our tale of Bali, I think I will have to go back and get a better impression.

It is a surfer's paradise!!