I’m not sure why, but the better half persuaded me to take the family on a holiday to Bali just before the demersal ban when the big pinkies are around?  Still here, but come home on Sunday.

Having never been to Bali before, I must say it is a lovely place with fantastic people and culture.  We have had a driver so have been to many places and seen many things and I am sure to want to come back in the future.  There are a couple of observations that I wanted to pass on so Members were aware if you decide to visit.  I am certainly not trying to be negative as it is an awesome place with awesome people.

The first observation is about the seafood restaurants and  the need to be vigilant.  We decided to head to Jimbaran Beach for dinner one night, and to watch the sunset.  What a great location.

As it was a seafood restaurant and I don’t eat seafood, I had to go up to order my non-seafood meal with one of our guests.  At this place, you can select your fish, prawns or squid from the ice slurries and they are weighed and passed through to the kitchen for cooking a variety of ways using different methods.  All good with excellent looking meals being prepared.  So, my friend asked me what fish to pick and the old story “if its red its generally tasty” came to the front and I picked what seemed to be a red snapper in good condition of about 300mm long.  Then came the shock when he put it on the scales.  Now I have weighed a lot of fish in my day, and observed them being weighed on certified scales, and generally have a pretty good idea about what a fish weighs.  Now this little red snapper of about half a kilo somehow pulled up on the scales at 1.3kg.  I looked at this guy and told him he had to be kidding!!!!

Needless to say he was very unhappy with my comment and asked me how would I know.  I do have an “arsenal” of photos of fish on my phone and showed him a photo of a 50cm+ KG that weighed about 800g.  I also showed him a photo of a pinkie that weighed 3kg and was 5-6 times bigger than the little red snapper.  He said I didn’t know what I was talking about and told me how little my fish were.  Time to inspect the scales.

For a start, the scales were showing 200gm with nothing on them.  Add the metal bowl, and the fish, and you got to his number.  Why do we have to pay for the weight of the bowl I asked, and you have not even zeroed the scale?  By this time he didn’t like me at all, and was getting quite hostile, so he reduced the fish weight to a kilo (still double what it was in my opinion) just to get us to go away.  With a few people in line it was time to move on.

Being the OCD type of person that I am, I stewed on this rip off over dinner (which was pretty good I must say).  I had to see if I was right or fish are just really heavy here.  So the cunning plan was to get a bottle of water (330mL) and weigh that when dinner was over, and no one was looking, and see what it was on the scales.  What do you know, about 350g of water and bottle weighed about 700g on the scales.  Much to the embarrassment of my family, me and our dinner guest (that can speak the language) took them to task over this.  To their credit, they didn’t question us and refunded half of the cost of the seafood to ensure we didn’t take it any further.  I don’t know how many people pick these things up but there is clearly a lot of extra cash coming in, or in the alternate the prices on the menu are too cheap per unit of weight.  We got a reasonable result in the end and I guess the message is to watch everything that is going on when people are trying to sell you stuff.

The next observation made me sad.  When we first got to Bali, I asked our driver to take me past the memorial and site of the 2002 atrocities.  For understandable reasons, some members of our group did not want to dwell on the event so we just drove by.  I know the impact that the event had, and still has, on many good people and started to do some research on it with many hours of reading about how wrong it all was and what great people were taken.  I had to go there and in a way pay my personal respects to those that were lost, as my readings had brought me close to the event and the people involved.

With the family wanting to go to Kuta for the beach and shopping (we are staying in Sanur), it provided me the opportunity to walk the couple of kilometres from the beach to the site and have the time to myself to reflect.  The memorial at the site of Paddy’s is an awesome thing and the governments and people involved should be proud of what they have done.  It is a fitting tribute at the site that was Paddy’s Bar. 

The Sari Club site is a different thing altogether though.  It is located across the road from the memorial and is currently an unsealed car park.

I wandered into the site to have a close look and I must say was not particularly impressed with what I saw.  The rear of the site is basically a bit of a rubbish dump with the remnants of the tiling of the old toilets still affixed to the boundary walls.  This area is generally derelict.

The front is the car park area with a couple of shop booths near the entrance.  I didn’t ask how much it was to park but I suppose it would provide a service for those wishing to attend the memorial across the road.

Probably the most disturbing thing is saw was someone using the site as an open air urinal.  I had read a number of reports about this practice but to see it first hand was disappointing.

The site was also “home” to some underprivileged people that had erected temporary accommodation.  I guess this is just an opportunistic use of the site.

I read a lot about the issues at the site, and the efforts of some Australians to have the site turned into a peace park.  It seems that the site owner is willing to sell it, but at 5-6 times the market price.  Also, the guy that has a 30 year lease on the site is unwilling to relinquish it.  To its credit however, the Indonesian Government appears to have placed a moratorium on any development of the site.  It could potentially compulsorily acquire it but this would no doubt be a political nightmare that would have to be funded from somewhere.  So, I guess it is a stalemate and it will continue to be used as a car park for the foreseeable future.  It is unfortunate as it would be good to see a respectful use at the site rather than what it is now.

As noted above, Bali is an awesome place and the above is not intended to be a criticism.  It is just a couple of observations that I thought Members may be interested in.  I will certainly be coming back and encourage people to do the same.  Hopefully the wind is kind on my return and there are still some pinkies with my name on them before the ban.