A mini Balinese drama

Rozalia and I heard Tirta Gangga was a must see. Located over 30 mins drive away, we decided to catch the local bemo (bus), which is just a man with a van. We sat patiently waiting for a bemo to come along. Since there are hardly any tourists where we are and if there are tourists they rarely take bemos, we stood out like a big red sore thumb and got honked at lots by passing traffic. We even had a man saunter up to us, stick his hand out and demand $1. (What for? Piss off!)

Finally a bemo stopped and asked where we were going. We told him where we wanted to go and he said it would cost $5 each! What?! Piss off! Urgh, I was in no mood to haggle! I got the price down to $2 each and off we went via a 20 minute detour to some old mans house to drop off bags of rice (don't ask).


Right, off we go!
Driving along and all is fine when suddenly the driver pulls over. We have a flat tire. Great, we're now on the side of the road watching our bemo man change the tire with some big rocks and a spanner, no jack. How is he going to get the tire on without a jack? 'You two lift car', he says. He's kidding, right? I'll let you answer that one. So the two of us are trying to lift the van, made out of steel mind you, so he can put the tire on. As you can imagine things didn't go too smoothly.


Re-enacting the car lift

The driver tries to flag someone down to help. We're all trying to flag someone to help when finally some guy with a jack comes to our rescue.
Right, off we go again.
Tirta Ganagga is nestled in the beautiful rice paddies of East Bali and is the site of a sacred spring. There is a holy temple / water palace and is beautiful.






On our way home we try to catch a bemo. Hmm, there don't appear to be any. We start walking down the road just walking, walking, walking. Still no bemos. There's something wrong here. There's not much out here and we are looking stupidly out of place. I stop off to ask some random locals where the bemos are. The guy looks at his watch and says they've stopped. It's only 5 pm!! Well if they've stopped how do we get home? So we beg these random locals if they would take us home. I offer them $2 each to take us on the backs of their motorbikes as far as the closest big town, Candidasa, and we'd somehow make the rest of the journey home ourselves. Deal.

My driver is a young 24 year old english student. He takes his time taking me home. The ride is beautiful as we pass through rice paddies and leafy green mountains. We have a nice conversation when it dawns on me that this guy is flirting with me (even with all the cultural barriers in this world, flirting seems to be a universal language which can be understood by any culture!)
Oh my buddah, shoot me now! I then think, 'how can I turn this to my advantage so he'll take us all the way home to Buitan'.
'We're friends now, right'!, I ask innocently.
'Yes', he replied as he reached back and touched my leg. Oh my Ganesh!, please shoot me.
'So you'll drive me and my friend all the way home to Buitan'?
'Of course'.

On our way back he stops off so we can watch the sunset over the sea. Geeze, I just want to go home now. 'Beautiful sunset', I say. 'Beautiful you', he smoothly replies. Gag, someone pass me a sick bucket. Romantic crap over, off we go again.



Get him to drop me off a little before my place even though he wants to take me to my front door. I tell him I'll walk the rest if the way. 'Can I have your number', he asks. 'No phone mate', I yell whilst running off into the distance.

The end.