Day 115 - Barong Dance, Post Office, Massage and The Bounty

We set off to Batubulan to see if we could catch a Barong Dance. We negotiated with the same driver that that had driven us around the day before. For 200000Rp he would take 4 of us to Batubulan, wait until the Barong Dance was done and then drive us back. That's not too bad at all!

The show was 50000Rp and started at 9:30am. I was very impressed with the costumes that were worn of the Barong and Kris. They were better costumes than what I had previously seen. The theater area was quite large but really empty as it wasn't tourist season. There were only about 20 people in the place that had about 250 seats. The show was actually quite easy to follow with the aid of the program that explained everything. I'm quite glad I made the trek out here for this. It was totally worth it.

That afternoon, I went to the post office to mail stuff home. I brought most of the stuff in my pack in bags to the post office. There, they give you a box to pack and then they tape it up and wrap it in the material they use for rice sacks and stitch it together so no one can open your package. There was no extra charge for this, it's just the way it works over here. It cost about $45 to ship home 8 kg of stuff that will arrive in 2-3 months time. They also provide tracking information. The guy that was working there tried to short change me and tip himself 20000Rp. That wasn't cool. It was really quite sketchy. If you don't pay attention anyone and everyone will try and cheat you out of money.

Next stop was to get a massage. I had a full body massage for 75000Rp. I find the massages here are really good. Almost as good as the one I had in China, which was stellar. There is no cracking involved. While I was there upstairs getting a massage this woman comes in and is just using her outside voice inside. From what it sounded like, she was a middle aged woman who really hadn't spoken to anyone all day long and unleashed her entire word quota for the day on the poor staff at this massage place. It was humorous but really ruined the relaxing environment.

Since it was my last night in Bali we decided to go out dancing for the night. We went to this place called the Bounty on Legion street. Upon arrival we realized it was full of 18 year old Aussies. We decided to go next door to a place called Paddy's. It was pretty much the same except it was full of more 18 year olds, some I'm convinced were 14 and also a bunch of really older men in their 40s and 50s and a load of Indonesian prostitutes everywhere. Great. I'm pretty sure my friend and I were mistaken for prostitutes just because we're both Asian and wearing dresses. I just started dancing and realized people were staring at me in that creepy way. Seriously! Not every Asian is a prostitute and doesn't speak English! It's driving me freaking nuts! But we still had a good time and have another story to add to the pile.