Fish market in Jimbaran

While in Bali I asked our guide and factotum Putu to take us to the local fish market. I was only too aware of how much both Max and his dad would have appreciated visiting the local market and taking home some prized specimen to whack on the BBQ. He looked at me quizzically and asked me if I was sure. "Well naturally I am sure, why wouldn't I be?". He replied that in all his years of serving visitors staying at the villa nobody had ever asked to go to the fish market preferring the glitzy shopping centers of Kuta and Seminyak . "Sorry to disappoint you but nothing could be less interesting to me than wandering through endless tourists traps buying useless trinkets" said I and once again I was left wondering if I am normal though after all this time I should know the sad truth.
So early on Sunday morning we hopped in our car and sauntered off to the small village of Jimbaran located at the end of a lovely bay and garnished by rows and rows of small fish (really, no way?!) restaurants hanging off the fish market.
Fondly remembering my beloved Billinsgate in London I imagined a refrigerated building with rows of white tiled displays and fish mongers in white overcoats.
Well, I did not really get that but I got so much more.
Colored little boats filled the bay and when one would move close to the shore the men would run to it and spend the following 10 minutes transporting wicker basket heaving with fish to the stalls. The stalls were either overturned wooden fruit crates where the fish would lie in a neat row on a plastic sheet on the beach or, if you were really big in the fish world, concrete tables in a dark, dingy, hot, low ceiling-ed (as Max pointed out on more than one occasion after banging his head a couple of times) corrugated-iron sheet covered structure where the fish mongers would sit with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths waiting for punters and small babies would laughingly play with slimy water made bloody red by fish heads and severed tails.
Rows and rows of tuna, mahi-mahi, barracuda, snappers, groupers, prawns, crabs and lobsters adorned the tables and we could not wait to lay our hands on such a bounty. In the end we left with 4 lobsters, 2 snappers, 2 Kg of giant cockles and a small tuna for sashimi feeling very satisfied with ourselves and eager to get our treasure as close to a BBQ as we could. Putu, always close by, took the fish to the car and we wandered amongst the boats and stalls, admiring the nets heavy with silvery sardines and rushing over to see what the next boat was bringing in.
A walk on the beach and then back to the villa ready for a mouthwatering feast.