Although we had taken our teenagers to Bali Nightclubs last year, this was little Scott's first visit. He has fascinated with the spinning lights reflecting on the dance floor, and it wasnt long before, he turned into a party animal and was dancing out by himself. When he stopped for a brief sip of his drink, ladies in low cut tops and miniscule minis,stopped and asked him to dance. He was having a great time dancing,and it was at this time, shar^kie decided to request Scott's favourite song, Steps -Five,six,seven,eight. Downstairs,he went to the DJ's Booth where the DJ and two mates were standing.Sharkie asked if they had the song,and one of the guy's checked and said yes. He then said how much you want to pay for it to be played. As requests are usually free,shar^kie was surprised but offered 5,000rp but the guy said no. Then shar^kie said 10,000rp. The Guy refused and said it was 100,000rp for a request($20!!!!!!!). Shar^kie said that was ridiculous and again offered 10,000rp. The guy said to shar^kie .."Well Get F###ed then". Shar^kie,who thought he hadn't heard right asked him to repeat which he did and Shar^kie hadn't heard wrong. All this time, the DJ was playing songs,and it was his friend's talking. Shar^kie,thinking that being abused for being polite and being asked $20Australian for a request outrageous, asked a waiter to see the manager. Suddenly a big nightclub had no Manager,or any duty manager or in fact,anyone in a managerial position.
He spoke to one person, who said shar^kie could come back next day and the situation sorted out then, but no-one else was prepared to do anything at the time. We decided to leave as the incident had left us feeling out of sorts. We did note however, only the DJ was left in the booth and his extorting,foul mouthed friends gone.

Back into the taxi , shar^kie suggested we take a look at Jimbaran Bay before we went back to the Hotel. It was around 5pm by this stage and when we got there , took the taxi driver for a drink. Again he turned his meter off and told us to have something to eat if we liked. After bartering down the menu price for a small lobster (shar^kie was certain their scales were out as the lobster was nowhere near what they said) , we found a good position on the beach and watched the sunset.This was the best sunset we had seen our entire trip , and we were lucky to view it from that wonderful position. It was my first trip to Jimbaran Bay and I was impressed by the scene. Shar^kie said his last visit there, was when it was just a small fishing village with no beach restaurants. At the time , he persuaded a local fisherman to take him out to catch some fish. They caught a tuna type fish (this WAS a long time ago and shar^kie's memory is faded) and when they got back to the beach , the fisherman cooked the fish over a fire on the beach. Now that would have been something special.

All this time whilst we ate,Scott again made many friends,and spent a large time in the kitchen with them,when he wasn't chasing spider crabs along the beach. By now it was dark,and it was back into the cab and back to the hotel. We gave our excellent driver a tip,translated a letter for him, bought and helped him send a postcard to a lady in Australia who had requested him to drive her on her return visit to Bali. We are not surprised because not many drivers would turn the meters off twice whilst they waited. One driver even wanted to charge us 20,000rp for waiting on one outing.

A few hours later it was back out again,and we decided to visit the Maccaroni Club (Restaurant/bar) as shar^kie fancied some more Bali Pizza. The taxi this time,did not go the usual route along Kuta beach as he explained the normally 10 minute trip would take over an hour due to more political processions in that area. I must explain here, these processions are in the form of cars , bikes , and lots of tooting,and flag waving going round and round the streets. They are akin to soccer supporters and the mood is carinvale. We don't see them as a threat or trouble, but we wonder with such fever in their support for their party,what will be their reaction if PDI isnt elected after June 7th.
Anyway,the traffic jams caused by the processions can delay getting to a destination,something worth remembering if visiting Bali.

We had heard some good things about the Maccaroni Club (Restaurant/bar) . It is supposed to have high health standards including electric dishwashers,imported ingredients etc.Not much to look at from the front , inside it's nice and we sat looking up at the moon which was cool.Their chairs are layback and comfy.Prices again, a little higher than some of the small bars/cafes, but when you consider they import ingredients,its very well priced.The pizzas were great and the cheese was tasty which so far has been lacking in the other pizzas we have had. I couldn't resist the baked potato,something I had been craving for some reason. Cost with drinks for all of us was about $20Aust.

Sunday:- I sneaked out at 9am for an hour's shopping before our guests arrived. Great time for shopping as its still cool, but most places don't open till 9.30am(including Matahari) so don't go too early. I browsed some stores until I could change money at Matahari's(Kuta). I feel safe changing money here and it usually offers a fair rate and give you the large notes that so many other money changers(offering a higher exchange rate) do not have. We suspect that this is where the changers can cheat the average tourist as when they offer only 5,000/10,000rp notes,it is very easy to miscount especially when you change $100Aus at a time. We have yet to find one single moneychanger who offers a high rate of exchange(with no commission)with any notes of demoninations over 10,000rp.

Today's exchange rate was 5250 compared to 5300 yesterday. I bought a supply of indonesian lollies for our girls back home as they enjoyed them so much last year when we brought them with us.I love buying a huge grocery bag of lollies from Matahari's Department store and it costing me only $6!!!! I bought some music cds for the girls,and a couple of computer cdroms for sharkie. Office2000 professional edition for $12(60,000rp) and a utilities disk with the full release of win98 as well as heaps of other programs for the same price. We have our notebook here, but not having installed a decent virus scanner, we will wait till we get home to check the quality of the cds. Next time though I will remember the virus scanner so we can check the cds whilst we are here. Will let you know how they go when we get back. I bought these from the first music cd shop on the right heading towards Bemo Corner from Kuta Square.(round the corner from KFC). Their prices for Windowss programs are much better than the $20 they ask for in front of Mataharis.Sneaking in some terribly rich and fattening(Im at the who cares stage)jam donuts from Dunking Donuts,I caught the taxi back to the hotel and we spent the rest of the morning/early afternoon entertaining some Indonesian friends.

This will be our last posting before we head home as we want to spend the last full day,last minute shopping,packing and worrying about the weight of our suitcases.For those who have emailed us, thanks for them and we will answer all on return home to Melbourne and reality.

We would like to thank the Bali Forum administrators and staff for enabling us all to post information to our fellow travellers.Without such a forum,a lot of visitors to Bali would miss out on some of it's hidden treasures and would not be aware of some of the scams that exist. With the forum, everyone has the preparation and knowledge to enjoy their Bali Holiday.