When I landed in Bali in 1994 it was all a bit unexpected as we had arrived in Singapore by bus from Thailand at about 4am. After sitting around for a bit we found somewhere to get a coffee and found a free newspaper which had some accommodation adverts and the big jump in price was a shock.

One thing we had heard about Singapore was that you could buy cheap electrical goods so a Walkman was on the list but after the Sapphire “investment” funds were more limited. This coupled with the fact that it all seemed so ordered, tidy and pristine compared to Thailand made us hop in a cab to the airport within four hours to arrange to bring our next flight to Bali forward.

Our thoughts about Singapore not being the right place for us at the time were confirmed when we saw a succession of wedding parties coming into the airport to take photos in front of the world clock. Huh?

We flew out the same day and landed in Denparsar with zero research or knowledge about Bali. We got some currency by handing over some Thai baht and asking for “some of your money please”, as we had no idea what it was called. We then got in a tuktuk and asked them to take us to a hotel in our price range (I think about £5 a night from memory). For that price we got an air-conditioned room with a pool.

“Reverse keeping up with the Jones’s” part 2

The humble brag here was people saying they were living on £1 a day for food, mainly rice and water. Why? We had a seafood basket with lobster, prawns and much more for £5. It was a long time before I could afford to eat lobster in a restaurant again.

We basically spent a week in Kuta partying hard with a lot of Australian and Dutch people from memory, not that I have many memories from that time. Too many cocktails drunk out of cannonballs at the Bounty club!

Kuta had a great beach at the time although some of the hottest sand I have ever stood on. It did seem like an Indonesian Costa del Sol for Australians, particularly those from Perth as it was only a 3 hour 30 minute flight.

Now the beach at Kuta is much diminished as the sand has washed away and it seems short term gain has been far more important than long term thinking. Kuta is massive now in comparison to 1994, and the traffic is some if the worst we have experienced, even compared to cities. There seems to be a negative reputation forming about Bali, despite much of it remaining beautiful, and a hankering for somewhere less developed. I hope Lombok learns from the lessons of Bali.