We arrived back from Bali the day before yesterday. It was our first time, and although I've gained A LOT of info from this forum before going, there were still some things we were unprepared for, or didn't really know about. Especially since we are a family with 3 young boys, I have some info to share specifically for families with young children. I thought I'll post something every day or so on a different subject for those who are interested. As I am a family man, I have nothing to share on the subjects of bars, nightclubs and the such, but I do have quite a bit of info on shopping, activities, etc. for kids.
First of all, for anybody still worried about going to Bali, don't be. It was a fantastic experience, and we were not worried about our security at all.
First subject: DVD's
We talked about this before, and I was a firm believer that you should not be unduly worried about bringing in DVD's from Bali. I asked Customs about this while checking through on our way out of Perth. The guy's response was "go wild, have fun, just don't bring back any live animals or BB guns". So we did (have fun shopping), and we brough back close on 300 DVD's (movies, music, PS2, Xbox and PC). I divided the DVD's between our five suitcases so that it wouldn't appear as if we want to start a DVD shop this side, and we did not have even one comment from Customs on it when arriving back in Perth.
They really don't care about it.
We've found that the best places to shop for DVD's are:
Movies, PS2: Star Disc in Legian. There are 2 of them in Legian, but the best one is the one in the same street as the Indo National restaurant, on the same side of the street, just a few shops to the north. They advertise for 15,000 rp each, with freebies for quantity, but they're quite willing to settle for 10,000 rp each if you buy more than 40 or so. They are very honest and will tell you which new release movies are not good copies as yet, and you can test any DVD you want. For example, they told us that Shrek 2 is a "80% good copy". We watched it last night, and the only things 'wrong' with it, are that the colour is a tiny bit off on the darker scenes, and that it doesn't have the full surround sound soundtrack. The latter is due to space restrictions in fitting the copy on one single layer DVD. Other than that, no problems with it at all, and it was a pleasure to watch. They don't sell any "cinema copies", it's all DVD copies. The kids watched a few more movies, and no problems at all so far. Star Disc also sells music DVD's and Xbox games, and we bought a lot from them, but we found that regarding the latter, Sakura (just south of the Kuta Centre) and SoftComp Centre (opposite side of the same street) offers the best variety of music DVD's, Xbox and PC software. We've tried a few PS2 and Xbox games, and no probs so far. Xbox games go for 30,000 rp.
I hope some of you found this helpful. For those that's interested, I have some interesting info on surf-brand T-shirts, which I'll post tomorrow. In the meantime, if you have anything to ask on the subject of DVD's, please do.