Not Your Average Weekend

Another interesting weekend; After work on Friday I was persuaded to go to Kampung Bule – the White Village. A collection of bars aimed at pleasing the typical white tourist/resident. We went to a bar with a pool table, which played cheesy pop music and was filled with girls of a questionable moral nature (interpret this however you like), whose job is pleasing bules.

When I walked in all the girls came over to say hello; with their well-oiled smiles and handshakes that lasted far too long for a normal introduction. To be honest, I felt a little uncomfortable there, and I couldn’t help thinking that the girl (personal waitress/woman of ill repute) who was serving me drinks was assigned to me, and I'm pretty sure her ways of trying to distract me when I was playing pool would probably be illegal in Europe. When she asked me to buy her a drink, I originally said no, but reconsidered when I was told it that was extremely impolite not to.

One of the highlights of my evening was seeing my first ladyboy, a sight which I had heard a lot about before I left on my travels. I wanted to take a picture of him/her to post on here, but when I asked, he/she said no. In fact, the only photo I took that night was this one;

Of a rather intimidating ashtray, but if you look in the mirror you can kind-of see both my 'waitress' and the ladyboy. I'll let you guess which one is which.

As midnight was approaching, I started to feel drunk, and my waitress was becoming more forward with her advances, so I knew it was time to leave. While I was on my way home on the back of a motorbike taxi I congratulated myself for leaving that bar/brothel (barthel??) with my dignity intact.

On Saturday I decided again to have a relaxing day – to rest up and recover from my hangover. The only interesting thing that happened was again gecko-related. While I was skyping I spotted a cute little baby gecko running around. I wanted to take a photo, but it kept moving and ran behind a curtain. When I moved the curtain, the mother-gecko scuttled out, carrying the baby on its back. A little later I saw a larger, darker-coloured, gecko, which I think is the father. I’m sharing my house with a happy gecko family!

On Sunday I’d arranged to meet some students from my conversation class to play football. We went to a 5-a-side pitch and played for over an hour. It’s difficult to play in Indonesian heat, and the opposition was very good, so we ended up losing and I only scored one goal, but it was really fun. I was particularly amused by the way my students continued calling me 'sir', so that was what everyone on the pitch called me - every time I had the ball I heard "Sir, pass!" or "Sir, shoot". I think we are going to do it every week and I'm really looking forward to it. After the game my students also showed me a really good noodle bar.

In the evening some of the teachers went out for a meal, because it was Phil’s (an English guy who used to work at the school) birthday. We drove out over Barelang Bridge to Galang Island and went to a restaurant called the Golden Fish, where the tables have a view like this;

We had a delicious selection of dishes, the most interesting of which was sea-snail, and the tastiest was snow fish, or maybe breaded prawns, or perhaps squid. In fact it was all delicious. A portion of the meal and the people are pictured below.

So, well-fed, well-exercised and well-rested, I’m ready for another week of work, although having eaten so many snails, I am worried about waking up with a shell on my back.