Sorry lads I've fallen way behind with updating the blog. The time in Tonga where I didn't get to an internet meant I fell way behind. I'll try to start updating the text with the photos. For now, for my Indian friend. I've updated the cricket entry with an account of the match. So if you want to read that you'll see it under the entry for 27th Feb.
I wake up at 5am after about 4hrs sleep. There's a 5hr difference between Bali and NZ and my body is still in NZ time. I can't get back to sleep so I get up for breakfast at 7am and then head out to see the beach. I stroll for two hours along the 10km stretch of beach but to be honest it doesn't impress. Its full of litter, its commercial, there's sun loungers for rent, surfboards, hawkers selling cheap jewelry and fake watches. Even at 7.30am there's a lot of people on the beach, joggers, surfers and the first of those topping up their tans. The roadside lining the beach is full of designer beach gear and chain restaurants, MacDonalds etc. There's a small army of locals sweeping it up but even so the sand doesn't look appealing. The problem is I'm comparing this to Uoleva in Tonga which was a little Paradise. Kuta Beach just cannot compare. Its probably better than my opinion of it...... but when you've been to paradise!!!
I leave the beach with a mission, to find a bar showing Cov v Chelsea in the FA cup quarterfinals. Its 11yrs since the sky Blues reached this stage of the competition and now they have the formidable task of beating the Blues to reach the last four. Hope springs eternal. I head back up along Legian, through the familiar chorus of hawkers offerering whatever. Its only 10.30am and even this hour the "Jiggy-jig" girls are promising a good price. "Jaysus love will ya at least let us wake up. You may be calling the tune but I aint dancing.!!!". I find a bar advertising the game for 8.30pm tonight....Sorted. Later I sort out a trip into the interior of the island for tomorrow.
I spend the day looking around Kuta. Its just a big resort. Its exotic but still just a resort. It could be Ibiza, or even Bundoran for that matter. In the evening I get to the bar in time for kick off with a large bottle of Bintang in front of me. There's a number football heads in for the match but also a number of Aussies drinking here. They show a lot of Aussie rules here and when the staff switch the large screen from Aussie Rules to the Cov match the Aussies begin to drift away, Not content to have to sit through "Kick-and-Giggle" as they call football. Who cares the Sky Blues are on TV, there's a record crowd in the ground and, who knows, we might even win!!! MMmmm, 90 mins later the picture isn't quite as rosy. Reality bites as the predictable result pans out with a relativley easy win for Chelsea 2-0. Cov lose again. At least they put in a good efort.
I'm sitting beside An Indonesian chelsea fan who thinks its quite funny that I follow Cov. He has a friend who follows Southampton and thinks thats absolutely hilarious. Still, he's gracious in victory. We end up chatting and drinking through the night as Spurs v Sunderland and then ManU v Fulham are shown. As the drinks get knocked back the Indonesian lad gets drunk and wants me to sort out his love life. He's fallen for an older English woman he works with who's leading him on. She was with another Indonesian guy who's now in jail but she wants to remain with him when he's released. She was previously married to a third Indonesian but is now divorced. It's plain whats going on. Cov have lost, I'm half drunk and I don't really give a...... so I tell him to steer clear, that she's only going to break his heart. Its not really what the lad wants to hear and you can see the young fella is hurt. She's playing him for all he's worth. Perhaps I should have made up a fairy tale ending for him. By the end of the night its the Chelsea fan who's singing the Blues not the Cov fan!!! Ahh well, I suppose you win some, you lose some.
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