Day 2 started with a lovely buffet breakfast at our hotel - omelettes and eggs cooked to order, fresh fruit, cakes and muffins, toast, and traditional indonesian breakfast food of noodles and rice with banana things (sorry - never did find out the name of them!). This was included in our package.
My girls were desperate to get their hair braided and I decided to do this at our hotel (the beach people were a little scary!!) so we had this done and paid 70 000 each - they both have very thick long hair) and it took the poor ladies about an hour and a half on each of them! They looked gorgeous though, and even more of a bonus - I didn't have to worry about doing their hair for the next 2 weeks!
Bought postcards and stamps - each card cost 7000 (postage included) to send home. However, none have arrived yet! Email is probably a more guaranteed and certainly cheaper way to get messages home. Discovered an internet cafe just behind our hotel that charged 300rp per minute (minimum 5 minutes) which we used a fair bit.
Went to find Aristo the Tailor at Merry Collections as hubby needed some work suits made. To our delight Aristo was only one block from our hotel so it worked out really well. Gregor had 2 mens suits with an extra pair of pants each in Italian Cashmere (of course he had to pick the most expensive material) for AU$170 each. Fully lined (with Hugo Boss lining and labels - ha ha) and beautifully made. Considering he pays around $1000 each for his suits here, I figure this just about paid for our holiday! I also had a suit made - jacket, skirt, pants for AU$85, two pairs of leather shoes, a pair of long leather boots and a gorgeous red leather jacket. Paid about $340 for the lot. Only thing I would say about the shoes is that when you are there, your feet are a little bigger with the heat. When I got back to Melbourne I found one of the shoes a bit big - but problem was solved with insoles so no major drama. Aristo and Cucuk (the shoe maker) will copy anything from pictures, so you can bring your own or have a look at the folders they have in the shop. Mention to him that you got his name on the Forum. Aristo also knows a great driver called Made (! of course) who is located just across the road - used him for about 4/5 hours one day and cost us 150 000)
Aristo's address is:
Merry's Collection
Jl Padma Utara (opposite Bali Coconut Hotel)
Legian
Ph: 0361 - 745 3145
Mobile: 0817 475 8159
After this we decided to go into Kuta as we needed to get a sim card - and the only place I knew of was the Oke shop at the back of Matahari near the escalators. Cost 50 000 included 20 000 credit which was just enough for the time we were there (12 days mainly messaged but a few calls). Not sure the rate for the calls but messages (even to Australia) were 500rp each.
Got out of the cab (fare was 8000rp from Legian)at Matahari and were accosted by people giving out 'promotion cards'- not really knowing what was going on (they say you don't have to buy anything it's just a promotion) we tore open the cards and won the "Star Prize". Big mistake. Apparently it's some time share scam I think where you win a week's accommodation at one of the Royal chain of hotels (there is one in Jimbaran Bay (?) but you have to agree to be taken to the hotel and sit through a one hour presentation - anyway, we lied to get out of going (the people giving out these cards are REALLY PUSHY and I think they are on some commission deal so they are desperate for their money...). We extracted ourselves with great difficulty, found the Oke shop and snuck out the back entrance of Matahari so they didn't get us again!
Then we walked a couple of streets, bought some watches (30 000 for the ones with batteries and 350 000 for the automatic ones), sarongs (20,000), fixed price shell jewellery at Matahari was 16000 for necklace and bracelet set - BUT DONT BUY HERE, go to Geneva (more on this later).
Met Helgie (dvds) back at Hotel. Had more orders for him. He's lovely and very happy to get business from forumites. Checked the DVDs we got from him, most were great quality. He had a couple of titles wrong (eg Grease 2 instead of Grease)but was happy to come back with the right ones. And 1 or 2 dodgy ones which he refunded because he didn't have better quality ones. Apparently he will post to Australia at $5.50 per dvd (postage included) and less for large orders. Contact him through his email address:
mcshop@hotmail.com
mcshop_bali@yahoo.com
Ph: 7416664
mobile 08179303006
Website:http://www.geocities.com/mcshop_bali/dvd
Had dinner at Wayan and Friends - mee goreng, seafood, fish and chips and beers and softdrinks came to 160 000 for the four of us!Food was fine. Not many diners, but there were not that many people around anywhere.
Next JBR will be about the cycling tour we went on....