during our 3 weeks in bali we did a few trips.
Nusa Dua was the first trip to do the water sports. we got a fairly good deal through a friend and i chose to do the parasailing and trip to turtle island. turtle island was ok, had monkeys on my head, held turtles and birds but thats about all there is to do there. parasailing was the most fun i have had in a long time, the wind was poor on the day so we got taken by boat into the middle of the water, told to jump out and helped hold the parasute up for the others, while the time in the air was short the time in the water was so much more fun! highly recommended.
our next trip was for a day to the GWK cultural park and Dreamland beach.
the GWK cultural park is an amazing place, and quite moving, as the ampethearte was the venue for the first bali bombing memorial, quite a sad feeling imaging such a huge place filled with so many griving people. there is a massive statue that is located at the top of a hill over looking bali (kuta area), it was a pitty about the weather but the veiw was still amazing.
we then got our little blue bird taxi driver to take us to dreamland beach, for those of you who have ben there you can imagine the craziness of the situation when the driver decided to take us as far as possible in his little car, we held on for dear life and tried to convince him we were happy to walk, it was only when our little taxi nearly got bogged that he said "yes ok you walk now"
dreamland beach is gorgeous, we paid 10000 each for a banana lounge which we could use for as long as we wanted and stayed for a couple of hours, once again we had bad weather. that sand is clean, theres no hawkers and just a beautiful view of the coastline with cute little warungs and a small amount of accommodation. we payed 150,000 for the trip between 3 of us so there were definetly no complaints.
our other trip was to the monkey forest and kintamni volcano. a friend from kubuku took us as a guide and organised us a driver, we payed 300000 for three of us for the entire day, we could go where ever we wanted and have the driver for as long as we wanted.
we stopped near celuk on the way to look at a wodd carving and stone carving place, the next stop was an art gallery, we were lucky enough to be shown the painting which is not finished yet but it is being done by a famous balinese painter depicting the bali bombings, it is a large painting, so detailed an very moving, we felt privlidged to see it and wish we could see the final product, we spent alot of just looking at the one painting.
the monkey forrest was good as usual and kintimani was were we all got a little sick. we paid 50000 for a buffet lunch, the flies there are unreal and i think this may have attributed to our illnesses latter that evening. never again.
we also went to jimbaran bay to watch the sunset. hahahah worst weather yet again, a blue bird taxi picked us up took us to a restaurant where we were ushered in without choice. it was pouring with rain and there was no sunset. my friend was horrified as we were asked to pick our live seafood for eating, we were given some suspect looking soup and potatoes and then some measly looking prawns. we kept our aussie sense of humour and saw the funny side of the situation, while we thought we were paying a fortune, realisticly it was not much and it was worth the laugh. sunset was non existent and i think me and my friends along with 5 other people were the only ones inthe places that night. good ol' bali!
well thats about my lot... any questions ask away.