Excursion: BALI

I hate winter. Im pretty sure thats not a rude thing to say and that a lot of people will agree with me. In the freezing cold morning, its usually raining and your alarm goes off. Vrooom vroooooom vroooom - thats my alarm noise.

You battle with snoozebrain for 15 minutes and then you drag yourself to the bathroom and cling on the heated towel rack while you brush your teeth and think about what kind of non track pant looking track pants you can wear to work.

But it gets worse. When you are a florist you have to do it at 4 am. And while you are standing there clinging to the heated towel rack you are not only thinking about non track pant looking track pants, but you are also thinking about a whole outfit that doesn't make you look like an overweight homeless burglar. The flower markets are actually the coldest place (after antarctica) in the world. 5 am and the trolleys crashing into your shins, other florists are hurrying past and accidentally sticking sticks of cherry blossom in your earhole and while thats all happening you are trying to avoid being watered down by growers emptying streams of water from their flower buckets straight through your shoes and into your socks. it really socks. (funny / not funny)

Oh, and I bet you didnt know this -  as you are bending down to take a whiff of those creamy jonquils, their little petals are actually shooting out tiny beams of electrifying frosticals that burn your nose hairs and give you an ice cream headache. 

So to avoid all of this hideosity, I  fired winter and WENT TO BALI!

Theres not a huge flower scene over there, but I will tell you theres a huge lets have a lot of drinks and tiny tacos at Mexicola scene and thats exactly what I was after. 

But then I met Wyan.

This is Wyan and his tiny pineapple.

This is me having the time of my life

Worlds tiniest orchid or worlds largest hands?

I stumbled upon Bali Orchid Garden, and thats when I met Wyan. 

My awkward orchid tour guide. 

At first I thought he had memorised a script and maybe we both had no idea what he was talking about... but quickly I figured out that he was in fact very hilarious and very awesome. On more than one occasion he would sing out bad girl RiRi's 

SHINE BRIGHT LIKE A DIAMOND! (and RiRi, you better look out. Wyan's got the moves)

Thank you Wyan for telling me about so many wonderful things that I might have already forgotten, and showing me flowers that have now been filed into my floral rolodex. Teeny tiny orchids, black orchids, furry shiny leaves, sniffy vanilla orchids, peacock trees and devil orchids. 

Orchids, orchids orchids.

Enough. 

CENTRAL MARKET

The big market in Denpasar was a bit of a let down. I went up and down the levels and poked through stalls of spices, bamboo thingies, jewellery, fabrics and meat. The cranky lady in the mauve top (who seemed a bit over dressed for the heat) led me to the flower area and when I got there I just thought.

IS THIS IT?

I bought a couple of bunches from the lady in the very large hat and went back to Mexicola.