Bali - Kuta

We slept in this morning and then enjoyed our villas for a few hours before departing from Ubud and making our way to the madness of Kuta.

Along the way we made a few stops for fireworks, some snacks, and some of the local alcohol called Arak.

The firework purchasing was easy and in fact I have never seen so many fireworks for sale at some many places. I think every store, gas station, restaurant, road side stall and half the empty lots had someone selling fireworks. There were thousands and perhaps millions of fireworks for sale near Kuta. When I say fireworks, I mean large and powerful fireworks, not the sparklers and small bottle rockets available in the US. These
fireworks were real firepower and in fact could be confused at times as professional fireworks. We did restrain ourselves though, especially in comparison to the other shoppers that literally bought thousands of dollars of fireworks (more on this later).

We also stopped for Arak which is local liquor made of palm sugar and palm syrup and this stuff turned out to be powerful stuff. It was 80 proof but tasted much less fiery than a lot of the hard liquor we drink in the US. It was also slightly sweet and when mixed with juice you could hardly taste it.

We then arrived at our shared villa, Villa Kresna, around early afternoon and spent the afternoon wandering around town and enjoying the beach.

Around 6pm it started to get dark and we left the beach to clean up and start happy hours, dinner, and New Year's even partying. At this time we started to hear a few firecrackers going off as all the purchasers of firecrackers finally started using them. Let me repeat again that it was 6pm and the start of firecrackers 

We all got showered and cleaned up and headed to the Oberoi for drinks and views. At this point the firecrackers were going off constantly, with constant pops and explosions at least every minute if not sooner. It was around 7pm at this point.

We saddled up to the bar at the Oberoi and could see a couple miles or more down the beach and were lucky to have a slow but steady firework show for the next hour as we sipped our lovely cocktails. 

During dinner we hit a local BBQ joint near our hotel, and it literally poured rain for 30 minutes (which slowed but did not stop the fireworks).

Around 10pm we headed down to the beach to join the revelers that had been partying for hours. The fireworks that had slowed for 30 minutes during the rain were really going with rapid fire cracks and sizzles occurring constantly. There was off and on light rain but we sat down and enjoyed some snacks, drinks, and lots of fireworks. 

New Year's Eve 2011 in Bali

Around 11 :30 we light off a few of our fireworks and waited patiently for midnight. The fireworks around 11 :50 really started going nuts and for miles and miles of beach the fireworks show was absolutely unreal.

You could barely tell when midnight hit as the fireworks had been going for minutes and just kept going until well after midnight. The only thing that changed during this period was that one night club had a professional firework show for 5 minutes and a blazing sign that read 2011.

We light off our last fireworks and headed back to the villa after 1 am, when the fireworks, music, and alcohol were still continuing to flow. It was a chaotic, loud, colorful and fun way to celebrate the New Year. 

We woke up late the next day and spent the next day and a half enjoying the beach, driving around on $5 motorbikes we rented, eating great food at the Legian Hotel, and letting the girls shop in the town of Seminyak. On Sunday we headed back to Singapore already missing the bliss of Bali. 

Our Driver Billy Bali - a Giants Fan!!!!