fuck terrorist

Kuta is to Ubud what the Gold Coast is to Noosa. But the poles are much further apart. Taking a leisurely stroll down to Kuta Square yesterday... "You buy sunglasses!" quickly turned into "You want woman? Beautiful girls from Bandung and Surabaya! Cheap price!" A Balinese man introduced himself as Tony Macaroni before making the hard sell. And I had women latching onto my arm offering "special massage in private room". I could only laugh because it was so absurd. I'm sure Kuta has always been like this but it's taken me by surprise. Even later, on Jalan Legian, at the memorial to the first Bali bombing, I couldn't have a moment of reflection for all of the street-hawkers. I became very flustered, having not expected to be so moved by the sight of this tiny memorial. I had dinner at an American-style burger-bar, where you get curly fries and a big frosty mug full of root beer. It was by far the worst meal I've had so far in Bali. A surreal experience though - every single staff member said "Have a nice day" as I was leaving. So, as long as I was behaving like a Kuta tourist, I spent the rest of the evening in a surfers' bar, watching King Kong with funny subtitles (Jack Black said "break your heart" and the text read "solve your liver", among some other gems). Today is Idul Adha, a muslim holiday, and many of the shops here are closed. Certainly public transport is thin on the ground. So this morning I caught a taxi into Denpasar, turned left at the big statue and found my way to the Bog-Bog Cartoon Arcade, which is far less impressive than it sounds. It's just a small brightly-lit room full of Bog-Bog merchandise. I bought a t-shirt and the guy behind the counter introduced himself as Chocolate before asking me to contribute a cartoon to the next issue of Bog-Bog magazine. I thought this was strange, given that I hadn't mentioned that I like drawing funny pictures... I suppose there's a shortage of aspiring english-language cartoonists in Bali. From there I had some yucky Chinese food, and explored Pasar Badung (oldest and biggest market in Bali). It was big and smelly, and a woman chased me around the entire top level trying to sell me things. I eventually lost her with the help of some fancy footwork between stalls. I caught another taxi, the driver insisted on wearing my sunglasses and stretching my conversational Bahasa to its limits, and I bought my bus ticket for tomorrow morning to Probolinggo (East Java). God knows what I'll do at the end of my ten hour bus trip... I'm glad I'm going eksekutiv.