I think Kuta has become my new favourite place for people-watching. There are so many drunk Aussies roaming around that it never fails to be amusing. Last night I was sat by the beach trying to get the Wi-Fi signal from McDonalds when a fat, blonde, drunk Aussie pulled up on a motorcycle with two skinny Aussie girls riding pillion.

The fool tried to park in the middle of the road and got shouted at. The got off and he then tried to move his bike, pulled the throttle too hard and did a rather comical wheelie about 10 metres up the street. I don't know how he didn't fall off.

He then pulled into the bit where all the bikes are parked, crashed into the motorcycles on either side, knocked his own bike over and then picked it up as if nothing had happened.

The muppet shouted to a man passing by, "I paid your dad 50 bucks to XXXX in his mouth in the Philippines."

This charming individual next went into McDonalds and came out to proclaim to the world that he and his girlfriends had bought three triple cheeseburgers and a fillet-o-fish.

"Let's get more beers," he yelled.

I’m not particularly keen on the whole “travelling” thing. There’s something I don’t enjoy about the feeling of being in a place and having no idea where to go or what to do. When I see backpackers traipsing around with their guidebooks in hand and huge bags slung over their shoulders, I feel sorry for them because they may as well have a sign floating above them that says, “I need help, I don’t know where I’m going.”

So for those reasons, I try and avoid any form of excursion or trip or sightseeing outing organized by a tour group. Call it irrational, ridiculous pathetic — sure — but that’s how I feel. I do make exceptions, of course, like when I went to Viqueque and stayed at my friend’s eco-lodge.

Anyway, I was in the far-northern part of Bali this week, in a place called Lovina, next to Singaraja. It’s a quiet place with few tourists, although in Lovina there’s a little spot full of guesthouses and bars and people offering “transport!” and “bakso!”

Somehow, I’d let myself be persuaded to go on a dolphin hunt. The idea was that we’d get up at 5.30 am, go on a boat and see some dolphins. I wasn’t enthralled about the idea. Nothing against dolphins, but I just don’t find them particularly exciting.

It was, however, worth paying the six bucks to go out in the boat and just feel the sea breeze. The only problem was that there were about 30 other boats full of people with similar ideas. It was most bizarre. There were all these outrigger boats and each time there was a dolphin sighting, all the boats would speed over to them same place.

It’s true that dolphins are exceptionally smart. Those little porpoises have made a game out of leading a bunch of idiots around the sea for an hour every morning. The dolphins have it sorted: they show up at the surface for a few seconds, wait for the frenzy to begin and then go off and hide for 10 minutes while everyone frantically tries to get their cameras out to take pictures.

It was a really sad spectacle. We saw more boats than dolphins. It became rather exhausting after a while and I eventually forgot all about the dolphins and started daydreaming about nothing in particular.

We were back on shore by 9 am and hounded by locals trying to sell us small wooden dolphins. I’d recommend paying someone to go out on a boat, but forget about the dolphins and just cruise around for a bit.

Incidentally, it only takes a couple of hours to get from the Kuta area to Singaraja, right at the top of Bali. It’s a pleasant ride of about 90 kilometres and we did it on a moped.

Oh, and there were some dolphins…

It was my last night in Dili and a few of the guys from my street wanted to have a small get-together. Unfortunately for my Timorese compatriots, they’d lost all their money at the afternoon’s chicken fight, so the elaborate feast that had been planned was reduced to three packets of instant noodles – and several bottles of tua sabu (palm brandy), of course.

The night wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. We ate, drank, talked and chilled. By the end of the evening I’d been given an Indonesian military hat and two T-shirts bearing the logo of a popular political party. It was a fitting way to end my first stint in Timor.

I was, however, exhausted. Earlier that day I’d walked about 10 kilometers to an interview. After that I had walked for another 90 minutes trying to find my new house, which I hadn’t fully moved into yet.

Though tired and sunburnt, I still had fun at my farewell gathering. About halfway through the night, we were joined by a guy, 28 years old, whose arms were covered in scars. He was also completely deaf. As far as I’m aware, sign language isn’t commonly taught in Timor. One of our group had known the deaf guy for years and so the two of them were able to communicate with a very basic form of signing that they had developed over time.

“I just know what he means,” said my friend. The deaf guy mostly signed about fighting and having sex. His arms were twice as big as mine and his pecs looked like rocks – a decent ally t have on the street.

A slightly awkward situation arose when one of our friends showed up, drunk and stoned, and tried to get me to go with him back to his house. There was a lot of tension between the deaf man and the newcomer to the party. Eventually the new guy left and there were a few dark words spoken and signed.

Even on a street as supposedly safe as ours, there are still dangers. It’s good for me to keep that in the back of mind. Problems seem to mostly occur when certain people get drunk, which is regularly. It happens in every country. The majority of people get drunk and just act dumb or fall asleep, but occasionally you come across someone who becomes very aggressive.

So that’s it. My three months in Timor have come to an end. I’m in Bali right now. I’ve been lucky enough to have been given a place to crash for a few days. By some strange coincidence, I was in Dili one day at my friend’s house, when a man and a woman came and spoke to us. The lady turned out to be a writer visiting Timor for a few days, so we swapped emails.

A few weeks later I found out that the woman is the ex-wife of a friend of mine, who runs one of the bars in Dili. It’s a small world. I’m staying at the lady’s house now, anyway, along with her 16-year-old daughter and an Aussie dude named Sam.

This lady is perhaps the coolest mum I have ever met – my own mother excluded, naturally. On the first night I was here, Steve Aoki was in town. Had it not been a Tuesday night, the hip mother would have come along, too.

I went down on my own to club Bacio. I don’t know anyone in Bali and I’d only been in town for a few hours. The club was packed with Aussie tourists wearing Bintang vests, so I didn’t feel compelled to talk to anyone there. It was a good release, however, to just drink and dance. Yes, I actually danced. Some people will be surprised to hear that.

Steve Aoki was pretty good until he started playing YMCA, Dancing Queen, Living on a Prayer and Sweet Child of Mine. He butchered his entire set by ending with an hour of rubbish music. You could tell it wasn’t cool by looking around at the people who were enjoying it. I was so unimpressed that I left and went to sit on the beach.

I soon realized that I was very drunk. To have returned in that state to a home at which I was a guest would have been rude, so I decided to wait it out on the beach. I was tired and took a quick nap. When I awoke it was almost morning and people at the house would be getting up for work and school soon. I found my way back and slept on and off for the next 15 or so hours.

Good times in SEA.

I’m not normally much of a beach person, but I figured that while I’m here in Bali I may as well see how the beaches are compared to in Phuket. Jimbaran is located south of Kuta and has a small beach that, as far as I could tell, not many people bother to visit.

The beach at Jimbaran is cozy and clean, with nothing much to see or do except mooch around. Being a small fishing community there are lots of fishing boats and fishermen here and there. Unfortunately there is also a rather strong smell of fish, which may be part of the reason why not many people make it this far south.

Swimming is possible at Jimbaran, although the water isn’t perfect. It’s certainly not suited to surfing, either. As far as sunbathing goes, if you don’t mind sharing the beach with a few dead fish then Jimbaran is pretty good. We didn’t spend long at Jimbaran because the area wasn’t all that exciting and the smell of fish became a bit too much.

There are lots of seafood restaurants around Jimbaran, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend eating at most of them. These are the restaurants that touts take tourists to in order to make a hefty commission on the overpriced seafood on offer. As a general rule of thumb, I’d advise against eating at any of the restaurants around Jimbaran that have signs written in English. This is just my preference because during my stay in Bali I preferred not to be such a big spender at meal times.

Having said that, the food is pretty good, but I have had much better seafood at much cheaper prices elsewhere.

Overall, Jimbaran isn’t Bali’s most exciting beach, but it’s worth making the journey to escape the tourists and to see a slice of local Bali life not far from the chaos of Kuta.

We woke up fresh after touching down late in Bali the night before. Unsure of exactly what the time was, we left the hotel sometime around midday to hunt out a flower shop, where we were to meet a local kid to borrow his motorbike. We walked for about an hour along Raya Seminyak Road before we found the shop. Armed with a motorbike, we filled up the tank (15,000 rupiah) and decided to check out Bali’s most popular beach: Kuta Beach.

Kuta Beach is enormous. It stretches for about five kilometers, but it’s the depth of the beach that makes it stand out compared with the beaches on a similar island, such as Phuket. Like Patong Beach, the road running along Kuta is lined with Pizza Huts and outlets of Starbucks and McDonald’s. If the beach weren’t so huge, the place would be a dump.

The best place I found to eat around Kuta Beach was the seafood food center. Bali has a few of these food centers and food courts dotted around the island. The seafood food center is like a small courtyard with restaurants lined around the perimeter. You walk in and have about 50 people screaming at you and trying to get you to take a look at their menus. You can have a decent meal for about 20,000 to 30,000 rupiah. There are cheaper places to eat, but for Kuta this isn’t bad.

The beach itself is clean and well kept, although the sand is tinged black thanks to volcanic activity. Most people seem to come to Kuta Beach to go surfing or bodyboarding and there are more than enough places to rent boards. One of the plus points of Kuta Beach is the lack of sun loungers. However, there are only a few shady areas, mostly located at the back of the beach near the road. Set foot in those spots and you will be hounded by all manner of touts.

The waves at Kuta Beach are fairly big, so swimming isn’t ideal and is only permitted in certain zones. There are lifeguards keeping watch over the area. To make the most of Kuta, head north along the beach road to the Legian area, where there are less people. You can grab a beer and sit under a parasol at one of the makeshift bars for about 15,000 rupiah. You’ll still be pestered by touts, but there are less of them.

The road along the beach is one-way and is hectic to drive on. If you want to park a motorbike anywhere it might cost you 1,000 rupiah, although the parking “attendants” sometimes play the up-to-you card, which adds a bit of confusion into the equation.

I was impressed by the size of Kuta Beach and how clean it is, but I have found other beaches in Bali that I would rather go to. Like many place in Bali, Kuta seems to have been taken over by the Aussies and the Japanese. If you want to surf, however, this is the place to do it. Lessons cost about US$30.