Journal 20 May 19th, Kuta, Kedin's Inn

I don't know why I took a tip on lodging from two college "guys" who are back-packing it around the world, on a minimal budget.  We really don't need to be on a limit of $6 per night.  Maybe it's because of our eye-opening experience staying with the Balinese family.  Realizing we just don't need much and that we already have everything.  Nonetheless, bought toilet paper, a cheap towel to share,mosquito coils and pulling down the bed-cover only to discover no sheets!  

It's a bare mattress.  While flipping it over I gave Morgan the talk about what "crabs" is.  We used our beach sarongs to sleep on.  The fan barely worked so we sure didn't need a cover!  We splurged on a good dinner instead.  Needing some comfort food we ate up a lovely pile of excellently prepared gourmet pasta at a very classy Italian restaurant.  


I'm beginning to see why the town of Kuta is so popular! 

Thursday, May 20th etc..., Kedin's Inn
SURFED ya baby!!!!  Ok, rented boogie boards.  This beach is the most incredible place to learn to surf, huge waves, big curve, not much of an undertow and shallow going way out there. NOW I know why the younger tourists never get away from here.  Great food, cheap lodging and awesome waves!  We actually decided to stay in our cheap Homestay at Kedin’s partly because we were too sunburned, tired and bruised from out-of-control boogie boards to move our stuff and we were getting comfortable with our location near Internet, good food, movie cafe and even our funny little room.  
Wasted away a few more days here (which is VERY easy to do) getting a little better at boogie boarding.  Red-flags out or not, everyone is out there.  We are beginning to see the patterns in the times of day with the waves.  Sunset swim... surf is out, less work for us and don't have to wear the sunscreen.  Never brave enough to rent the real boards though.  I can see why the Aussies come here and never venture beyond this busy fun little beach paradise.

Iketut met up with us the next morning.  I had decided to set up a bank account for his family.  We'll deposit a little every month for use in schooling, learning English etc. Hoping this will improve the odds for his adorable little boys and they might have a few more choices in their futures.  Just $50 doubles his monthly income from the Hotel he's worked at for 11 years, in housekeeping.
On a sudden impulse we bought him a DVD player thinking of how cute that big village family will be watching movies together (on their rented TV ) and it may help them learn English, which could help their futures.  The great selection of DVD's including Shrek 2 (which I don't think is out in the U.S yet?!) were a friendly pirated-kind-of-price at $1.50 each.  I think they will have to watch
most of the comedies we choose for them at least 50 times before they 'get it'.   Iketut didn't know any of the movies  so Morgan and I choose a stack of comedies and family movies and he picked out a handful of music videos, which was a very interesting variety.  Considering if you like one of these you surely would not appreciate the others.  Buy hey you’ve got to try everything out before you know!  Bon Jovi, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Brittany Spears.
We Invited Iketut, his wife and kids to join us at Kedin's Inn in a few days.  Knowing the boys (7 & 9) would just die for a chance to be in the very cool Kuta and playing in the surf.  It gave us the great excuse to stay on and be Kuta bums for a little longer.