Hi All,
We are back, and after potting around the house feeling sad about returning from what my husband & I thought was ‘Paradise', I have found a quiet moment to sit down and write my JBR about our first (hopefully of many) family trips to Bali.
I would like to start off by thanking everyone who answered my questions about Bali. I admit I was your typical neurotic mother, fretting about things like milk, whether to immunise, nappies etc. After all this was my first O/Seas holiday with my 2 young children.
Day 1
Our day started off checking in with Garuda at Sydney airport and all was fine, they even let us take our back pack baby carrier on board with us, which did make our life a lot easier. We did our duty free shopping once we passed through customs. My only word of warning is that if you have bought something that you want to claim with the TRS, do that first. We got so caught up with the children and the duty free, that by the time we got to the TRS counter, they would not process our claim as it was right on 30 minutes prior to departure. We did not know that. So be aware that they will not process any refunds if it is 30 minutes or less to your departure.
The flight to Bali departed on time and was uneventful. The flight staff were great with the children and at one point they took Sofia, my youngest (16 months) for a walk & Isabel (5 yrs) followed and they went for a walk through the plane. That was to be our first taste of just how wonderful the Balinese are with children. My only gripe about the flight was that the audio was not working, so we missed out on a movie and being able to listen to music. That was the extent of it. I was happy with the service otherwise that Garuda provided.
Once we got there around 1pm, we went through the VOA really quickly; I would be surprised if it took us more than 15-20min until we were claiming our luggage. The porters were a bit on the cheeky side and in the end we got our own luggage. They wanted $20 AUD per suitcase, I was not prepared to pay $20 per suitcase when I could see trolleys no more than 5 m away from me and the exit so close. One of the porters opened his hand to show me about $30AUD, as proof, I think, that that was the price to be paid for them to carry our suitcases. I just smiled and said ‘No thank you'. After that they left us alone.
Our trip to our hotel was fairly quick as we were staying at the Bali Hai Resort & Spa in Tuban. The resort is lovely, the rooms are a little dated but having said that we did see on our last day that they were painting a room, so I am not sure if that is the beginning of a renovation or just a one off touch up. The check-in was quick and they did not ask me for my credit card, which I found surprising. After taking advice, I had called my bank advising them of my traveling plans and in the end I did not use my C Card in Bali at all. They told us that our room the ‘kiddy suite' was not ready and they will put us in a temporary room until 7pm. I was not to keen on that, as Sofia was desperate for a nap, & I was ready to kick off my shoes, un-pack & get our holiday started. So we dumped our stuff in the temp room and got a cab to Kuta Square (6000Rp) to buy our supplies from Matahari. We did get caught with one of the guys, 'Not selling Ma'am' trying to give us T-shirts or something. I smelled a scam, so we kept telling him no thanks. But he followed us for a while and then caught up with us as we walked out of Mataharis. We changed our money at PT Central just out of Mataharis and to your left. The exchange rate was pretty good and ranged from 6400Rp/$1AUD to 6750Rp/$1AUD. We stocked up on milk (Pura Milk is from Mel. 15,800Rp), water, soft drinks, mosquito spray & mosquito coils. Once we got back to our room we went for a swim & a wander through the grounds. The grounds were great and so is the location, the beach was relatively peaceful, apart from the hawkers and the water was calm. Just right for our girls to swim in. We were wondering where we would have dinner & even though the resort was having a Aussie BBQ theme buffet, I was reluctant to have an Aussie BBQ for my first nights dinner.......I wanted local food, so we headed off to Pantai.
Now I know Paintai is a bit of a BTF favourite, & I might get shot down for saying this, but I was not impressed by Pantai, I was left disappointed. I found the service really slow and after such a long wait, the food, I thought, was mediocre. I do not know why it took so long to get our order, & what was ticking us off more I guess, was that we kept seeing other people walk in after us, taking their time ordering & then watching them get their food before us. All in all I think we waited about 45 min at least to get 1 pizza & 2 satays, we had to ask about our order & when it finally came, not a word was said about the delay. I do not know what was going on, we did not go too late as Sofia was tired & we were all hungry and wanted to head back to the hotel by 7pm to get our room. Sorry guys, but Pantai was not on our list of places to eat after that & we would not return. We ate at other spots because my husband refused to head back there, & we found other spots that had really nice food.
Once we got back to the hotel we eventually got our kiddy suite, room 1125. The room was fine, considering that we had to fit in a cot as well, we did not feel so crammed in. The only thing that disappointed us was that we had a courtyard, but it was all of stones. Definitely not the courtyard & garden I had in my mind after wondering through the grounds of the resort. Not even a chair or table out there either. So my advice is, if you are going to a Kids Suite at the Bali Hai, ask for one with a balcony, because the ones with the courtyard are useless. We had plans to sit outside and have a quiet drink and talk about what we had done & what we will do, whilst the girls were sleeping inside, hence the mosquito coils, but that went out the window with the room. But in the scheme of things the room was alright and the service of the staff at the Bali Hai was great.
Day 2
We called Lembi Leather to see if they can come and measure us for some jackets, and Gede came that very day, about 2 hours later in fact. Before we knew it, he had measured us, we chose our styles and choice of leather and we agreed that we would pay in AUD. We got 2 leather jackets for $200AUD. They are both great and we are very happy with the jackets. We will definitely go to Lembi Leather next time we are in Bali. Lembi leather has moved from Tuban and is now in Kuta. I have his new addy is anyone wants it.
Helgie also arrived later on that day and delivered our DVD order and installed the DVD player. He was great. At one point we had a problem with a couple DVD's and we were sure if it was the player or the DVD's because they kept on freezing at different spots, and he came the next day with another DVD player and took 1 DVD to replace. I highly recommend Helgie to anyone who is heading off to Bali and wants to purchase DVD's. He also gave us a hard cover zipper case that holds 80 DVD's. I will definitely use Helgie again without a doubt. It was extremely convenient as we did not have to shop around for our DVD's. We paid 10,000Rp per DVD and 35,000Rp per day for the player. The Bali Hai hires the players out but they cost 100,000Rp per day.
Later on that day we went for a walk around Tuban to see what we had around us and despite warnings about turning left as you walk out of the Bali Hai, we did. It is not so bad, the only thing is that there are no shops along that stretch of road and there is a concrete, door less, smallish, elevated house looking thing, which the locas use as a garbage disposal area. On very hot days it tends to smell as you walk past it, and it is not a pretty sight, but don't let that put you off walking that way, because it is the easiest way to get to Samudra Lane.
This is a very small & quiet lane that has shops of various types. We did some great shopping down this lane. The prices were cheap and the quality quite good, to my surprise. We bought 12 pairs of Nike socks, and 2 sarongs, (the nice embroided ones) for 120,000Rp in one shop. Also 2 stone carvings of a Balinese girl with her head tilted, really very pretty for 60,000Rp. We also bought beaded thongs, a LV Bag, LV glass case etc. and an extra bag to carry our stuff home. They really do have nice stuff, it was like a mini Kuta. I originally went down that lane looking for Top Jas Tailoring, but I could not find it. I wrote down all the details but I had no joy in finding them. When I asked one of the ladies she told me that they had closed down & started talking to another shop owner in Balinese. The only words I could make out were ‘Top Jas'. In the end, I do not know for sure if they did close down, I went down that lane pretty much on a daily basis and did not find them.
One jewel I did find, was a little Laundromat, it is opposite a hotel that has an entry via Samudra Lane. ( I am absolutely awful with names, both peoples & places!), but if you walk from Tuban beach up Samudra Lane it is the second Laundromat on your left in between a small local convenience stall and an internet/money exchange stall. Anyway, the name of the place is W.Sadia Laundry Service. I still have one of her laundry slips with all the prices if anyone is interested. She did a wonderful job and even gave me a discount. She only charged me 500Rp per item of children clothing. Now with 2 kids, I was going through a lot of clothing. We always gave her more than what she asked because she did such a wonderful job & the clothes were all smelling so nice and beautifully pressed and packaged in those clear plastic packets. When we left we took 2 bags of washing and it was great to just pop those packets of clean clothes in our suitcase.
That night we had dinner at the hotel, it was the Mongolian BBQ Buffet. It was a very interesting concept. They had bowls of raw veggies and bowls of raw meats which you placed on your plate, and then you waited in the queue for the chefs to stir fry them on a Mongolian BBQ hot plate. They had prawns, chicken, beef, lamb, fish, calamari, you name it they had it.
That is it for this installment. I will see when I can get a chance to finish itThanks guys.