Editorial. This week in Bali.

I went for two short cruises around town during the past week, one in Batu Bolong and the other, Petitenget/Seminyak. It was pretty quiet everywhere, but I suppose that is to be expected in the first week of March. Black Sand was rammed, though, last Friday evening and looked like from the clientele and design we had been transported to Freo or somewhere in Australia, but we arrived too late for the happy hour – I’m sure it used to go till 7pm not long ago! After a drink, we went down the road to check out Old Man’s – yes, I was with out-of-town tourists and they wanted to see it. I didn’t realise Old Man’s was so dead at sunset. There were only a few people, as in 4 or 5 scattered about the enormous space. I suppose with so many small beach bars perched right on or over the beach in that area nowadays it doesn’t stand a chance competing with them at that time of day. We then moved over to the famed Lawn down the lane, which was still rather busy, but thinning out as sunset moved to evening. Lawn remains a beautiful spot and the food, drinks and service is nothing less than exceptional. We headed up Jalan Batu Bolong again to one of my fave restos in the area, Mason (or is it called something else nowadays?). Once again it was a great dining experience and as my visiting Australian family companions said, it has so much more value than back home. I thought it was rather expensive, though – but, I am a bit of a lokal.

That was Friday night and we ended up taking our guests down to The Iron Fairies in Petitegent later, where my son, PAPÜ was spinning tunes. Needless to say, he was slaying it with his cut back, minimal house bangers and the crowd was rocking it – even my hard rocking, live music enthusiast, family visitors in the end. BTW The Iron Fairies and Who’s Your Daddy are celebrating their first anniversary tonight (Friday March 15) with special guest, the boys and girls from Airplane Mode, including Shammui. Should be a big night. We ended that Friday night at Morabito back in Berawa, which is always a stunning beachside venue, and so awesome on a Friday night, with visiting guest DJs from around the world.   

Move forward to Wednesday sunset and I am meeting an old buddy at KUDETA. It still remains one of the fanciest, but not pretentious at all, high-end venues on the beach in Bali. After a couple of bevies we decided to go for a cruise and jumped on the bikes, heading thru Eats Street and kept on heading south along Jalan Basangkasa and Seminyak Raya. Gil suggested to stop at a fancy, speakeasy bar out the back and upstairs from the Vietnamese restaurant, Bo & Bun. It’s called District 1 and like most speakeasies it means a walk down a non-descript side lane and up some stairs to a stylish lil bar with fancy cocktails on the offer. There was a large table of guests there when we arrived but it is said it gets busy later at night and especially the weekends. We kept on moving until we got to a friendly little sports bar near Bintang Supermarket. I had driven past this place many times and heard the cranky stories about the noise from my friend Michael Travis who lived across the road, but I had never stopped in. Apparently, they have toned the noise down over time and live in peace with the neighbours nowadays. So, we stopped in for some beers and ended up becoming great friends with the happy staff members and even ordered some pizza. You know, sometimes we don’t need the fancy shmancy venues to make us happy and it is always good to remind oneself that the majority of visitors to this island, in my opinion, anyway, are really quite happy with the simple things in life that Bali still provides in bucket loads. With a beer in your hand and the cheerful smiles from the Balinese staff, it really doesn’t get much better.

Here’s cheers to the weekend.

Check our latest chat with local DJ, this week Aza Sirelis. Check it right here.