The Bali Trip. An often infamous but necessary rite of passage for young Australians and their friends.
The appeal of Bali is obvious. Fantastic weather, beautiful scenery, incredible people. Don’t even get me started on the luxurious hotels and the opportunity to experience another culture (…and party). You can imagine why young Australians choose Bali as their preferred holiday destination. I know I certainly did.
When I think back to my early-twenties, one of my favourite memories was the Bali trip I went on with the boys. There were six of us all on our first overseas holiday without our parents. What we got up to was ridiculous, and insanely enjoyable. We spent two weeks travelling around Bali, splitting our time evenly between eating, swimming and drinking. The trip is nothing but good memories, and the memory of a pretty hectic sunburn and the intense need we had to get matching tattoos.
Getting matching tattoos to commemorate the best boys trip of all time, makes sense right? It does to us at least. We did what any young person would do when they want to obtain information quickly… we used our cunning local knowledge and sleuthing skills to look for tattoos done in Kuta. It doesn’t get much easier, and we were all tattooed up before we the night was over. It took us all night and it was definitely the highlight of the trip. I’ll never forget Jarrod biting his fist trying to ignore the pain, it wasn’t that painful mate.
Five years on and our matching tattoos are still a major talking point. There’s nothing better than having a couple of beers with the boys and then laughing at our tattoos and all the memories that come with them. I wonder if tattoo studios around Melbourne see as much action as those in Bali. I doubt it. The bali studio definitely didn’t know what was about to hit them when we walked in the door. I wonder if they’ve ever met a rowdier group since.