You don't need us to tell you about prices of goods, services, hotels or meals. That is more than adequately covered all over this forum. My wife and I will instead share some impressions and experiences. I hope you enjoy hearing them.
Still dingy from the flights from Denpasar to Singapore to Hong Kong to San Francisco, but my wife and I will both try to share our impressions. First of all thank you to all you guys for the real time information that made everything smoother and more fun. The Bali Bible, Di's Does and Don'ts and Filo's Pages all had great stuff. Combing through the threads provided a lot more, and responses to my posts filled in the blanks.
Ruth here: If you would like an out-of-the-ordinary excursion we found a fun daytrip. Walking down the street in Benoa/Nusa Dua (the only street is Jalan Pratama), we turned down an interesting looking side street. The name of the street is Br Tengkulung. The sign also says ‘400 M'. This little side street is between a yellow Kodak Express store and the Nyoman Bali restaurant/Bar. 700 meters (25 minutes) through the jungle on roads and trails you will hit the beach and turtle farms. This is definitely a secret entrance because the boat excursion costs between $20 and $40 to go there. Once there, the employees are all over you to show you the turtles, eagle, monitor lizard, bats, snakes, toucan and all for a small donation to the animal food fund. The road is an easy one. Walk down Br Tengkulung keeping to the left on the larger road. After a ways you'll make a sharp right on a road that is still big enough for a car. When you see the big buildings with bright yellow roofs and the beach beyond them you'll know you're on the right track. This road narrows to a motorcycle/footpath as you go. Wind your way ahead past homes, pastures, jungles keeping the beach on your left. Don't get scared at this point. Nobody's gonna rob you. Everyone on this road either lives here or they are on their way to work. Eventually you'll emerge at the ruins of an old tourist trap turtle zoo. Empty cages and deserted pond tell the tale of a business unable to raise the $60 a day for animal food. It was the bombing the interrupted the $60 a day flow. I know $60 a day sounds like a lot, but that's for 30 buckets of seaweed at 20,000 rupiah a bucket. We skipped the first operating turtle farm attraction and went past it to the second one. (We had picked up a guide along the way.) After availing ourselves of the facilities and having some refreshment, we met the animals. You can wade out into the pond or just hold the smaller turtles in the holding tanks. I now have pictures of us holding bats, kissing BIG monitor lizards and wrestling pythons. The python was wearing a muzzle but all the other creatures were downright lovable. I enjoyed this simple outing to the adult version of a petting zoo and couldn't wait to share it with all of you. Remember, it's a secret so if you ask anyone they won't know what you're talking about. When you leave you can come back any number of ways. All trails lead to the main road. Happy exploring.
Jingles here: By the time we got 10 meters down this street the tourist bustle had disappeared completely. The people were going on about their lives as if they weren't aware everyone was frantically bargaining and arranging tours and water sports. 20 meters further along came one of those Hindu processions and I realized that the extent that these guys relate to their religion. I am uncomfortable with any religion that requires an intermediary between the people and the godhead. That does not apply here. These people are not only Hindus, but Animistic Hindus. That combination makes for a relationship between the people and the island that makes them completely at home in their environment. It is very akin to the Native Americans relationship to their lands before it was wrested from them. These guys at home, we're just passing through. We met a 33 year old man from Serengan Island who stopped to chat. After a few minutes conversation (he had some English, we had no other language) he asked if we would like to go to his work with him. Sure, why not. He lead us to the paths to the turtle farm where he worked. Interesting talk and explanations of the workings and economics of the farm. We arranged to meet later in the week so he could take us to his village and show us his home and meet his family. I lost his phone number (the pager that his boss had him carry). I'll continue this saga later.
Ruth here; One of my repeated holiday traditions is to have my hair cut and dyed in every country we visit. Don't get scared. As long as your hairstyle is simple, and you bring your own hair color, it's always a pleasure. Be sure and show them which one is the developer, color and conditioner. After that just enjoy yourself. In Bali all the salons offer hand and foot massage, manicure and pedicure. Pamper yourself for a very small price.
Jingles here: I found that at least for myself that restaurant recommendations were unnecessary, because if you only ate Indonesian or Balinese food it didn't matter where you went. It was all great. The lone exception for me was Sharkies in Jimbaran Bay. It was quite a bit more expensive than the surrounding similar restaurants, but you paid for the total experience. And a kilo++ of red snapper and a kilo and a half of grouper plus a couple of big bintangs, the set up, the greens (best I've ever had), the service which becomes personalized by your second trip, the music, the pick up and delivery, and the pre-sundown rush are easily worth the $20US. And that includes the 21% service charge + a 15% cash tip. Viva Sharkies!!! Considering that is twice the price (approx.) of any other meal we had on the island, It doesn't matter much where you eat. Remember this probably doesn't apply to eating Western.
A point of interest is that they do clean up the beach at least once a day, but the next tide brings a new mess. Have you ever caught a freighter framed by the setting sun? If the ship is close to the horizon you can't really tell if it is on the water or on the sun.
We stayed in Tanjung Benoa at the Oasis Benoa. I thought after 2 or 3 days we would have been better off in Legian, but by the time we left I realized we wound up in just the right place. I'm seriously fit 62 year old and my wife is a fitter 52. I like a heavy dose of beach with a cigar in my face, three trips in the Indian Ocean, and a primo massage at least once a day. How come no one ever mentioned that a beach massage involves one lady on each leg and a third on your back. Once you establish that they don't understand hard, but do understand strong and even better strong/strong. Life is perfect. And damn, you can tip 50% and still not spend $5US. As we were racing around to do last minute things I packed up the leavings of our stash from the mini-bar, the soap, shampoo, etc from the bathroom and some other odds and ends from the room and ran totally sweaty down to the beach to leave it all plus a 30,000 rupiah tip with the massage ladies. I figured what the hell and asked my favorite if she would like my shirt and her eyes lit up. (I had already given away my shoes) I whipped off my shirt that was totally sweated up and felt kind off bad that it wasn't laundered. As I raced back to the hotel to lug our bags to lobby I heard her yelling to me and looked back and she was pointing to herself wearing my shirt and smiling so hard I thought her face would break. Nice people the Balinese.