Finally, it’s a free and easy since we came to Kuta. 100 Sunset only provides shuttle drop off service to Kuta beach at 9.30am, 2.30pm and 4.30pm and there’s no pick up service back from Kuta beach.

The shuttle coach stopped us right in front of Matahari and we were ambushed by a group of conmen. One of the man showed us his ID that was written ‘Official’ (or is he trying to spell ‘Officer’?). He blocked our way and gave us a ticket to tear open, which we did. No surprise that I won the ‘one and only big prize’ which was a camera, 5 day free stay at 5 star hotel or 500USD cash. And there’s no surprise that it came with Terms and Conditions – we have to board their car to pick up the prize at their HQ in a hotel.

I’ve heard about this kind of scheme too many times : they’ll either bring us to a remote place and rob us OR take us to some timeshare company and insisted we listen to their marketing plan. If we don’t wish to sign up for their membership, they’ll charge us a hefty transportation fees. We told the guy that our tour guide is picking us up very soon and slipped away.

Kuta beach was boring to us.. Shopping was more expensive and there were dead fish here and there due to the pollution. The only fancy shopping mall – Discovery Mall promised very little things to buy except for a food court and some restaurants with good view of the beach.

We had our lunch at Solaria in the Discovery Mall foodcourt. Luckily the food in Solaria was still acceptable with average price. My Nasi Goreng Petai (stink bean fried rice), had considerable amount of petai and chicken in it, making it a wonderful ‘stinky’ meal, much to CS’s irritation. :p

The chicken chop rice was ok. We had started to get used to these overcooked meat in Bali.

We soon got bored and sleepy in Kuta but decided to hang out at McDonald until it’s time for dinner at Bamboo Corner. Recommended by our friend, Bamboo corner was a homely but stuffy shop nearing the end of Poppies Lane 1, opposite a cyber shop

The menu for the day was Deep Fried Whole Snapper set for only 25,000Rph. It was very crispy but too bad it taste too bland for me, would have been great if there’s more sweet and sour sauce with it.

They were out of pork ribs, so CS took a wrong turn for sirloin steak which was too thick, too chewy and overcooked. We came to the hypotheses that pork seems like the only meat the Balinese don’t overcook, which we were adamant to prove it tomorrow.

When it’s getting dark, we tried walking back to our hotel and it took us 20 minutes through Jalan Legian. It’s a way of saving money since the taxi meter will keep jumping due to the bad traffic in Kuta. The bad thing was that we had to cross some really busy roads and through some dark roads with uncovered manholes.