Just back from 8 days/7 nights in Bali. Flew Garuda from Perth.
HOTEL - We stayed at Puri Raja. Located in a good position in Jln Padma Utara between the MBR and the Niksoma. The Niksoma was out first choice but couldnt get in there due to it being booked out. I am soooo annoyed about that cause we had a gander in there and it looks great. Well the PR, cant say too many fantastic things about it. The staff were very friendly and accomodating but the biggest things that were annoying was the Pools were HOT! Yes HOT, it was like swimming in a warm bath. We had to move rooms as well because the window of our first room was getting eating out by termites!! The staff were great about this though, and got us a room immediately. Both rooms had a hard bed. My other half hardly had any sleep while we were there. We were defintely not used to not having a buffet breakfast, you have to order off their menu. We got used to this but we prefer a buffet thats for sure.
EATING - We must say that we ate very well while there. All restaurants were great (even the warungs in the middle of nowhere!!). The best meals were had at Indo-National (ALL FOOD WAS GREAT), La Monde (FANTASTIC spinach ravioli) & Golden Lotus (FANTASTIC Peking Duck!!). We also absolutely love the LAKSA at the restaurant at the Kumala Pantai. Ady the chef there is fantastic and even though we werent staying there, we always go back there for lunch and the laksa is the best!!
SHOPPING - As we are currently building an outdoor entertainment area, my other half was shopping for his bar mainly. Bought some lovely things from Geneva as usual. Also bought some silverware from Golden Buffalo. The Bintang shop is also open at the Discovery Shopping centre, the other half had a ball there, bought shooter glasses and beer glasses etc etc. I bought shoes as usual cause i have small feet and also underware cause it is soo cheap. Bought lots of boardshoarts and t-shirts, sarongs, dvd's, watches, mother of pearl earings & pendants, gucci & lv bags etc etc.
TOURS - We have been to Bali several times but have never done White water rafting. It was FANTASTIC. I really enjoyed it, the other half thought it was great too but said it needed more drops. We booked from a stall on the road, paid 220,000 each for the one at Telaga Waja river from Bali Rafting. Highly recommend it.
We were about 10kgs over but that was OK, had no trouble getting that through cause the flight was half empty going home. Were just about nabbed by customs for being over on our alcohol allowance. We are not big drinkers, so we bought one bottle each going there and our allowance of 2.25L each on the way back (as we normally would). But because we dont drink much out of the bottle we always declare we are over and have never had a problem, but the customs guys said next time we would be paying duty on it all. You are definetly only allowed 2.25L each on the way home - no more!!