Bali Day 8: Guys In Undies, Rice Dunce Caps, and a Lot of Naughty Words

I'm not trying to start this post off with a whiny first world problem sort of complaining rant, but when you book a week in a fully equipped apartment with a kitchen, making breakfast shouldn't be this hard. There's no coffee maker and there's no toaster.
To be fair, bread is fairly uncommon on Bali. The locals prefer rice and bread is only available in tourist stores and Indomarets, which is where I bought the 1/4 loaf that I am trying to toast a piece of this morning. So, I didn't really expect a toaster, but I was hoping for some sort of coffee maker because EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD DRINKS COFFEE!! And Bali is known for its coffee.
I tried dumping some grounds in a paper towel and putting that in a coffee cup and pouring hot water over it. I succeeded in getting a cup full of coffee-flavored paper pulp and I made a mess of the counter. Balinese coffee is ground to a powder so I eventually decided to just put the coffee in the cup, add the water, stir it, and let it settle.
It wasn't the world's greatest cup of coffee, but the thick silt of grounds on the bottom provided some extra incentive to drink it slowly and attempt to savor it.
For my toast, I added some coconut oil to a pan and fried the toast - sort of like making a grilled cheese sandwich. But with one slice of bread.
And no cheese.
I've had worse breakfasts.
And I got to enjoy it on the balcony with my new friend.

Far, far from the quiet footfalls of the mysterious dudes with machetes and the gentle mooing of the cow next door to the villa in East Ubud, our balcony is one of about 75,000 balconies in this resort. The German guy on the balcony, clad only in his saggy, black briefs (not tighty-whities; saggy-blackies?) spent the morning smoking and coughing and trundling over to the edge of his balcony to hawk chunky, ropy gobs of his blackened lungs down onto the patio of the villa below us.
It was a less soul-satisfying morning than the quiet ones we had at the villa, but it's going to be great here.

We spent the day bobbing around in the pool and, occasionally, chatting with other guests. Most of them are Australian. Australia is very close and Bali is very inexpensive so Australians flock here the way some Americans, for reasons known only to themselves and their god, flock to Florida or The Caribbean.
Australians, on the whole, use the word 'fuck' more often than most people breathe. I was delighted listening to casual conversations between friends that were so peppered with fucks, that it was occasionally hard to follow the story.

"I was fuckin' down at the fuckin' pool and fucked if the fuckin' fucker there didn't fuck with my fucking Bintang. No fuckers fuck with my fuckin' Bintang. You fucking know what the fuck I mean?"

No. Honestly, I don't. There's rarely animosity attached with it. They use it the way some people use "like" or "umm" in conversations. Sort of a placeholder. It was fucking charming.

An Australian couple we chatted with told us all about all the incredible restaurants just a block away from the resort.

"The what, now?" I asked, thinking back upon last night's abominable dinner of the damned.
"Oh, yeah," the wife said. "A whole fuckin' street full of fuckin' restaurants. And there's a big, fuckin' Cocomart if you want fuckin' groceries."
"Where?" I asked.
"Out the back of the resort and take a right. It's like 100 fuckin' meters away. You can walk there in 5 fuckin' minutes."
To get to the convenience store last night, I had walked out the back of the resort and turned left and walked 100 meters.
Left.
180 degrees separated me from delicious food.
Kerri eyeballed me. Clearly last nights dinner had made a similarly profound impact on her.
"And," the husband added, "On the way, you'll pass fuckin' Lover's Massage. It sounds dodgy, but they give great fuckin' massages."
His wife eyeballed him then and Kerri and I excused ourselves so the couple could fight in private. At the pool.
We had dinner to find.
And maybe a massage.

The supermarket and the restaurants were, as fuckin' promised, very close and very safe to eat at.
It was only getting there that was challenging. Here are two short videos of the street we were on and the quietest moment we saw at  the traffic circle we needed to traverse.

And here are some more scenes from our big night out.

A temple, built right on the traffic circle. I assume it's for pedestrians to pray for their own safety.

So, you want to get to the restaurants? Fine. But first, you must run the gauntlet of vendors!

This shop owner had upped the wooden dick game and added chrome ones! Fuckin' fancy!

Yes. We flew half way around the world and ate dinner at a German Beer Garden. Shut up.

Every business, including this restautrant, has a temple. I will hope it is not a portent of suffering to come.

I will hope the same thing about the cat that was hiding under our table.

Most of the tourist restaurants have a startling array of foods. Kerri was looking for a break from Indonesian food.

I was not. And, in my book, if your food comes with a dunce cap, you're living large. A delicious Indonesian curry.

About 1.5 second before the cat ran our from under the table, almost scaring the curry our of me.

After dinner, we went to the supemarket. Here is a very nice warung where locals eat.

This was the biggest, nicest barber shop we saw in Bali. Most businesses are very small and dark and attached to peoples' homes

As we were leaving the Cocomart, a trip of dancers in traditional outfits was exiting the store.

This doesn't happen at the Market Basket at home.

They very graciously posed for a photo for us. Seriously. All the people in Bali are so kind.

Next door to the restaurant, two musicians were doing a creditable job singing Margaritaville. Especially for a couple guys who likely speak very little English.

I've mentioned before, and it bears mentioning again, making an effort to learn a bit of the local language has paid such huge rewards. People are genuinely happy to hear you mangle their mother tongue. It never fails to get a smile and a warm response. It's only when they assume that I actually speak Bahasa of Balinese and start a conversation that it gets challenging. I have to learn to say, "Sorry! That's all I've got!"

Back at the resort, we sat on the balcony with a cocktail and listened to the old guy next door cough and spit. It was very romantic.

Today was the restful day we needed. Tomorrow, we're templing again!