Benidorm 1: First Night Out with Beautiful Strangers

BEST DEAL ONLINE: BENIDORM

One of the greatest thing about living in Europe is that the distance between countries is not so much to bare. The most beautiful cities in the world you see on postcards are much nearer than you though. Gosh, you have no idea how much I miss those good old days. Especially, when the trips are on low-season promotion.

“Do you know what to see in Benidorm?” Assuming I’m a very keen traveller, she expected me to know many names of places on earth.

“Huh? What is that? Haven’t heard before.” I replied.

Then, I checked the fantastic offer to Benidorm on internet: € 150 per person, including return flight from Amsterdam – Alicante, shuttle bus to Benidorm that takes an hour journey,  apartment for 3 persons for 3 nights.

I was like, “Really? This isn’t happening!” None of us had any idea what to do and see in Benidorm, yet what we really care about was to click the offer before it was gone.

FIRST NIGHT OUT: KFC AND SANGRIA

The most proper way to describe our apartment is we got what we paid. It was as simple as a spacious student flat with a huge balcony on 15th floor facing other hotels, swimming pools and a glimpse of sea water a few hundred meters from us. The kitchen utensils were adequate to save our budget on food and KFC was just across the street.

As we decided not to take the balcony for granted, we bought a bucket of fried chicken from KFC, large coke from the mini mart and cooked rice with my own portable rice cooker. Oh, FYI, I purposely bought a small pack of rice in a supermarket in Holland the day before departure. Other people’s tea time was our first lunch time we had after checking in. It was the best lunch time experience ever!

As the sun went down, we started our night life with a typical Spanish drink: a pitcher of Sangria!

We took a long walk along the street with rows of bars, restaurants, cafes, pubs and discotheques on both sides opening until dawn, some are even closed at 5 am or 7 am. Asian tourists were very rare. Most probably we were the only ones that night. Well, the town is more popular among European visitors than Asians. Unless I lived in Holland, I would think Benidorm is a canned food brand.

Finding pubs with great music, lovely atmosphere and decent people inside all at once wasn’t as easy as we thought. There was a pub with decent people, but the music didn’t really suit us. There was a quite nice bar but we felt like power(less) puff girls entering a Mexican drug cartel community. Finally, we left that place in less than 30 seconds without ordering any drinks.

There was another bar where an Italian guy asked me to dance with him after my 2 gals refused him. He was not bad. The only thing he did was to make himself foolish by asking a silly question like, “Will you marry me?” only 15 minutes after meeting me. Was he spontaneous or drunk? Regardless, my gals somehow regretted refusing him after being approached by another scary pervert guy who seduced them while I was dancing with the Italian guy.

Finally, our night life ended up in the western food restaurant where we ordered fish and chips as our supper. I think that was the only place we felt more secure and comfortable. There were only 2 seats occupied, including ours, since less people eating heavy meals like steak and fish and chips after 1 am. For sure, nobody bothered us at all.

BEAUTIFUL STRANGERS

Strangers in Benidorm love camera. They did not hesitate to appear all of the sudden in front of my camera lens by the time I got the right angle. I couldn’t tell their nationalities. I only knew English was not their mother tongue.

Sometimes we felt like tourist objects rather than tourists. Some people looked at us, wondering how we ended up in the beach town whose name sounds foreign among Asians. So who were the strangers actually? People in the photographs or the photographer and her gals?

It won’t be necessary to fly or drive to Benidorm just to enjoy night life. However, strangers we met on or off cameras, they made the difference, adding more colours of our travel experience.