Dear Aussies.....

Dear Stan, Junior & Mel (and any other Australian),

I write to you seeking cultural clarification on a confusing issue. Having recently encountered some (well, actually thousands of) people of Australian breeding in a small town called Kuta in Bali, it has left me utterly confounded. Firstly, may i say thank you for teaching the Balinese how to speak English so well, we have not met someone yet who cannot speak to us in our language which is convenient to say the least. However, i wonder why they seem to have this tic where they attach the word mate to everything? 'How are you mate?' , 'Need a taxi mate?', 'This sarong is very nice, comes in 3 colours and seven sizes mate'. I assume this is an Indonesian word that has yet to be translated.

But i am really perplexed as to why Australians come to Kuta? Is it for a love of the uniform that they seem to have to wear here, the Bintong beer logo seems crass for a child of 5 but apparently no-one is exempt from wearing it? Or is it because there it is compulsory to walk around with a full beer and cigarette firmly grasped in one hand, whilst the other is used for balance (usually along walls)? Or is it for the beach? Upon which i saw a DEAD rat on, not even an alive one, a dead one, even he didn't like Kuta beach. Or is it the rubbish and the small waves? From what I've heard Australia has all these things: beaches, the sun and the surf (and from what it looks like on Home and Away yours are so much better) so why come here for less of the same?? Dont tell me Home and Away lies!

I know that Australians are lovely people, i often (compulsively) watch the documentary that is Neighbours about real Australians lives. I know they can be somewhat hectic what with multiple marriages, near death experiences, illigitimate children arriving and not to mention that most Australians lose their memories at least once in their life. But really you are lovely people, who just want to help each other and can often be caught standing around a street party singing Christmas songs together.

So why go to Kuta? Please explain.

Confused English woman

LE

Balmy Bali Beaches

So Thailand (the land of backpackers) would not let us stay anylonger. So despite wanting to volunteer at the Zoo for 3 weeks, we had to leave after two. The only way to get another Thai visa was to fly back into the country from somewhere, so we have flown to Bali. But since we thought we would like to actually see Bali now that we are here, we are not returning to Thailand.

We have now also booked flights to go on to Singapore and then to fly into Cambodia. When we left Thailand they seemed to be disagreeing (with some guns) with the Cambodians about the borders around an old temple, so traffic to Cambodia and back was limited, thus flights were deemed necessary. I hasten to add that this disagreement is far away from where we are going and has already calmed down.

So now we are in somewhere unexpected. This is a nice change as our route has been set for so long, and now we simply changed it. Bali seems lovely, there are numerous structures around which look like they have been made out of terracotta Lego bricks, and everyone speaks English (well apart from all the Australians - I am sure they are making up words!) We haven't done much yet as lots of sleeping and bodily cleaning has been required since the Zoo work. But today we are off to explore.

Dreaming of Britian

More accurately, Xss and I have been discussing food at length. These are the final and much discussed short lists of what food we want most:

Xss
1. Flaming Hot Monster Munch
2. Cottage Cheese
3. Salmon fillets
4. Cookies (White chocolate and Raspberry from Sainsburies or Double Chocolate from Tesco)
5. A smoked Salmon and cream cheese wholemeal bread sandwich (that's cheating)

The Geek
1. Humus
2. A whisper
3. Cadbury buttons
4. Ben and Jerry's ice cream (cookie dough and brownie twisted)
5. chocolate milk with a Cadbury flake chocolate dessert (if he can cheat so can I!)

Opposites attract. Well they do on magnets but in humans they constantly challenge each other. In our case, in a good way.

Talking with Blue

This is Blue the Macaw. He speaks English and Thai. Yesterday when i was cleaning him out, in a small 2m square cage, complete with numerous poles, platforms and bars (fun for him, difficult for me to duck under), he was following me around and quite often getting quite close to my face. Eventually this got too much, so i said directly to him, ' Look Blue, I'm sorry but i cant understand if you are being nice or horrible?' to which he said perfectly clearly, 'Horrible'. So i got out the cage.