Ok This is my first time doing a jbr, will see how I go..
My boyfriend and I flew over to Bali on 26th October from Adelaide - very excited as this was our first holiday overseas.. We had booked to stay at the Kuta Lagoon Resort, we had a pool access room which we had absolutely no complaints about. Comfy bed, very clean bathroom with a 'western' toilet which by the way I had no idea how much I'd appreciate by the end of the holiday!! and very cold air-cond.
First day there we dumped our bags and went for a wander down Legian St, and the first shop we went to was a tattoo shop. (Boyfriend has a tattoo on his arm of a skull - 17 and pissed, wanted to get it covered up) The tattoo shop we stopped at was the Tattoo Gallery, Tattoo's by Gungde, the guys we met there were excellent. I have no doubt that if we had stopped at another tattoo shop that our holiday would have been completely different to what it was. They showed us around their shop and explained how they are 'safe' to use, with fresh needles and fresh paint every time, and we made a time to come back the following day when the artist would design a tattoo to cover up the old one.
After we left the tattoo shop we went for a walk down to Edward Forrer to buy some sandals.. Shoe heaven! That was it for the first day as it was all a bit overwhelming..
The next day we went back to the tattoo shop where they designed a traditional balinese tattoo to cover up the old one, and started to work on it. While my boyfriend was being tattooed on, the other guys from the tattoo shop took me out to show me the local places to eat, shop etc.. The tattoo took up much of the day, so I ended up going for a walk down the beach and getting a bit pink on the shoulders..
That evening we ate at the hotel, and although it is nice that these places do make western food, it's not quite the same as home, and we definitely preferred to eat local. After eating, the guys from the tattoo shop had invited us to a party, so we ended up drinking plenty of bintangs and absolut vodka and staggered home trying not to trip over the broken sidewalk!
Did the usual shopping stuff for a couple of days, and then boyfriend had to go back to the tattoo shop to have some more work done on the cover-up (it was a 12 hour job, so a lot of rest in-between). Today, one of the guys from the tattoo shop took me down to Kuta square to do some more shopping while the tattoo was being done. I've never met nicer people in my life, Oscar (or little mouse!) tried to pay for the cab down there, then insisted on carrying my bags for me while we walked around. Pity boyfriend is not so gentleman-like!! :)
Walked back to Legian later in the arvo, just as tattoo was finishing, so the guys from the tattoo shop (sorry I forgot to mention their names are Agung, Gesang, Bobby and of course Oscar)took us out for some more traditional balinese dinner.
Couple of days rest after that, and some more shopping, the usual watches, dvd's, cd's etc.. Found a shop on Legian - Bintang DVD-they did DVD's/CD's 10,000 each or 25 for 200,000 (5 free). Thought this was a pretty good deal.. It's amazing how quickly you can forget you are bartering over a couple of bucks!
Couple of nights later, and more tattoo work later we managed to take out the friends we'd made at the tattoo shop for dinner - on us this time. Had a nice meal, then took them to the Bounty - where me being a proud Aussie chick entered the drinking competition and won by a mile.. Later won the drinking competition at the Harley Davidson convention on the beach too!
Other things we did:
White water rafting, it was absolutely breathtaking. I'd go again in a second. We went with Sobek, and our guide was so funny. Word of advice if anyone does go, take some cash with you to buy some souvenirs from the locals on the climb up after the rafting.. They had some amazing things like hand-carved chess sets and those elephant carvings and some beautiful sarongs.. they were asking prices like 1,000rp for them! If we'd had money with us we would have paid 10 times what they asked, the work was so intricate and beautiful.
Monkey Forest - had to see it of course, it's a bunch of monkeys in a forest being naughty! It was worth it to see a tourist with 5 monkeys climbing on him (2 on top of his head) because he was hiding bananas in his bag!
Elephant Park - thought it was over-priced for riding the elephants, but went in for a look anyway, had some great photos taken of us up close with the elephants, sitting on their knees etc..
We also had some tailored suits made. We got 5 suits, 3 ladies 2 piece and 2 mens 3 piece for $480. Heard of people getting them cheaper, but we thought it was a fair price. We were very happy with them, only thing I would do differently next time is perhaps take fabric with me, as it is very difficult to choose from a tiny swatch of fabric in a book.. But the suits are lovely.
The day before we left we had dinner at Jimbaran Bay, watched the sunset, ate fresh fish - it was amazing. They have two different price lists at most of those restaurants, one for tourists and one for locals.
On the last day of our holiday, the guys at the tattoo shop did me a tattoo as a farewell gift, and that was the end of the holiday.. Unfortunatley. The trip was such an eye-opener, and we came back home on 5th Nov with a completely different outlook on life. We are hooked, going to the Bali Travel expo this weekend to book our next trip and hopefully eat some more balinese food.. nothing here tastes quite the same now!
Cheers!