It's New Year's Eve and Shelley, Jaime, Jordan and I are back at the Hard Rock Hotel on the beach. We thought we would brave the 60-90 minute drive (dependent on the traffic) and celebrate the new year with a pitcher of Heinekin and some American hamburgers (actually Australian beef). We caught the 3 o'clock shuttle and will probably head back to the resort on the 7 pm shuttle that will put us back for about 9 pm. I still plan to call back home about midnight and wish some friends a happy new years from the pool.
Bali has proved to be an interesting place. The island seems to be one huge village with most of the people living on family sustaining rice paddy type farms. We were talking to some of the employees at the resort and it is really difficult to get a job in Bali. All the jobs seem to be farmed out to agents who find the employees and take a cut of their pay. I guess this is because the resort would be inundated with job applicants if they advertised. It really is quite a poor country but you would expect that kind of issue with the size of the country, large population and 37 political parties.
However, there is booming tourism which just adds to the traffic congestion. We have now seen 3 small motobikes (125 cc's) with 5 humans on them. That would be normally 1 adult and 4 children. Apparently the legal limit is 3. Helmets are complusory but half the people do not wear them. The police just seem to ignore the transgressions and I suppose a human life is cheap.
Across from the resort there is a subsistence farm and the family spends there waking hours scaring the birds away from their rice paddies. They have an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys that activate noise makers of many kinds. I guess the birds are onto scarecrows and they do not work. We usually wake up in the morning to roosters crowing.
I think I have already mentioned that the resort is lovely and higly recommended. It is away from the maddening crowds along the beaches and that is a good thing. Most of the torists seem to be Australians.
We leave for Bangkok at 9 am New Years day and check into a hotel that John McGrath has booked for us. Hopefully I will have a decent internet connection connection and I can get some pics uploaded.
TTYL,
Jim
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