But when we landed in Bali I still wasn't gone from Australia because my hotel was packed with Aussies shuffling around the hotel grounds - blokes in VB singlets with Warnie sunglasses wrapped round their heads, looking like giant futuristic blowflies. Women in knock-off Crocs and tight denim mini-skirts with ROXY scrawled across the bum, so when they bent over it spelt POXY. And mocktail-swigging mums and dads sunburning in lounge-chairs, yelling: ''BRAYDON, BRENDAN, BRYDEN, GET OUTTA THE POOOOOL AND FINISH YOUR SNNNITZEL FROM THE BUFFFFET! AND YOU, TOO, TAYLAAAA!''

But that was OK, too, because I was going to get out of this hotel and visit the local street markets to get a taste of the real Bali.

But when I got to the street markets of Bali I still hadn't left Australia because the stalls were selling loads of Aussie stuff: Billabong boardies, Rip Curl T-shirts and souvenir boomerangs (traditional Balinese ones that said I HEART BALI in Aboriginal dot-painting). And the Balinese shopkeepers kept asking me: ''Where you from?'' Because they're the nicest, friendliest people on the planet who want me to buy things from them. And as soon as I said ''Australia'', they instantly, instinctively, pulled big happy ocker faces and drawled: ''Oiiiii maaaate, bluddy Aussie, good onya, mongrel.'' And when I walked away without buying anything, they pulled a less-happy ocker face and mumbled: ''Oiiiii maaaate, bluddy Aussie, good onya, mongrel.''

But that was OK because I was going to get out of town and visit the authentic Balinese villages of the highlands.

But when I got to the authentic Balinese villages I was still kind of in Australia because the main street was lined with Aussie sports bars hosting AFL nights, and restaurants done up in green and gold serving ''Auzzie roast, meetpies, french flies''. And in the courtyard of the local Hindu temple, a gamelan player played a haunting melody on his bamboo xylophone that invoked ancient spiritual rituals, which on a closer listen turned out to be Waltzing Matilda.

It was then that I realised I could never escape everything Aussie on my Aussie-escape holiday because this was Bali.

But that was OK, and on my last night I was enjoying a beautiful Balinese seafood meal on a sunsetting Jimbaran Beach, and a strolling troupe of musicians were going around to all the tables of Aussie tourists, playing Land Down Under over and over again. So when they stopped in front of me and said, ''Where you from?'', I couldn't take it any more. I said, ''Canada'' instead, and they said, ''We play Ca-na-da song for you?'' And I said, ''Yes please, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, that'd be great,'' but they didn't know who any of those people were and for the first time in my holiday I wished I could be Aussie again because I was stuck there, listening to 20 minutes of Bryan Adams's ungreatest hits.