Posted by Sandra on Wednesday, 24. February 1999 at 15:10 Bali Time:
On the 6th of February the 6 of us jetted of with Qantas from Sydney to Denpasar for a great time. This was the fourth trip for my husband and I we took with us four friends that had never been before. We arrived in our hotel at Ubud (Padma Indah Cottages) at about 1.00 am exhausted but found the accomadation terrific except for a female traveller with a fear of frogs whom discovered several in her open aired bathroom - consider this if you have an adversion to our amphibious friends when booking. Ubud was lovely and gave a great opportunity to introduce our friends to the subtle art of bartering tricks (which has now become more like a fight for survival so be prepared for them to start up to 4 times higher than the buying price and not the accustomed twice). After two nights we were transferred to the Hotel Intan Legian which had great staff as balinese in general are wonderful people but was in need of some general repairs, one of our friends lucked out again in the bathroom department and whenever she let the bath water out a indescribable smelly green substance ouzed through the drain hole in the floor. The money changers in the Kuta/Legian area were extremely difficult so count your money several times before leaving the counter and ask for large notes before accepting the transaction. My general rule of thumb became that the higher the rate they offered the greater the chance of loosing - you will only receive the same rate as the others are offering after they have deducted their "NO COMMISSION" commission so find an honest changer and stick with them. The trick for newbies to watch for is the difficulty in dealing in the large denominations i.e. $100 AUD to rupiah at 5500 should have been 550000 but they will try to give you 505000 so change only in one hundred lots until you are use to it. That's it for now will write more on watersports, Lombok, white water rafting,etc later.