Just a short and very overdue JBR. I have been without internet for too long (thank you Telstra!) and I miss this forum soooooo much.
This was my second trip to Bali in 2004, but I had bad luck just before leaving on both trips. In May, two days before Bali, a family member passed away suddenly and one day before Bali my fiance ended up sick in hospital for 3 days, delaying my much awaited trip.
Just before leaving for Bali on 27 December 2004, I lost my job after 13 years with the same employer (who went into receivership). It was all just devastating, but I wasn't going to let the situation get me down.
Left Melbourne on the morning of 27 December 2004 flying Singapore Airlines. It's like flying with the Mercedes Benz of all airlines. Great food, service and entertainment, just the trip was too long. The sooner you get to Bali, and the sooner you get to a Bintang, the better I say!
Arrived in Bali about 7.30pm on the same day and it was just pouring with rain. Praying that it wasn't going to be like this for the whole 2 weeks. VOA was about 10 min wait. Paid in Aussie dollars with no problem at all. Our friend Hadi was waiting for us at the airport to take us to the Mercure Resort in Sanur. I had made arrangements direct with the hotel over the net and got a very good rate over the peak season.
Arrived at the Mecure Sanur at about 9.00pm. Very nice lobby, but what!!! no "welcome to Bali"! no "welcome drink"! Okay, so I could go without the drink, but not to get a friendly greeting by front desk staff, whilst being in the air all day was a big disappointment considering we were travelling with a couple of first timers. Paperwork took another 30 minutes and then to our rooms. All rooms are in two storey buildings (about 40 buildings) and there are about 4 - 6 rooms in each building). We had to walk in the rain to our rooms, no umbrellas!
The hotel had just re-opened in November 2004 after many months of renovations. The rooms and bathrooms are so spacious and have been beautifully renovated. Bathrooms a bit smelly, a little too much for my liking.
Cutting it short, the hotel staff were just downright rude, 2 swimming pools the size of my bathroom, breakfast and food awful we felt that we were too far from everything and at paying US$75 a night we checked out after a couple of days.
Ok, so we had a Kijang full of luggage and no hotel to go to. Great move at Christmas/New Year time! Decided that we would go back to the good old Melia in Nusa Dua to see what we could get. My fiance had a chat with the reservation manager for 1 hour whilst myself and the firstimers got happy in the bar trying all the cocktails. We managed to get a great price and with all the little extras. Just heaven! My fiance ended up conducting an auction at the Melia Hotel a few nights later for the Tsunami victims of Aceh which raised quite a bit of money. It was really quite devastating being in Bali at this time, a lot of Balinese thinking that all the tourists would go home.
Next stop MAKRO, yippeee... Could not wait to get to Makro. Amongst all the great things we bought at Marko we discovered Acqua strawberry and orange flavoured water. This to me was the greatest new thing in Bali. My fiance went the following week to Surabaya, Java and Jakarta and has organised a container load to bring back home.
New Years Eve was at Ku De Ta " A night at the Playboy Mansion" was the theme. We had such a great night, even though I was at the beginning of a small case of Bali Belly. There were at least 700 - 1000 people there, great music, but again more bloody rain on and off all night and everything was set up outside! Its funny trying to see this many people scramble for cover all at the same time!
Went to Jimbarran Bay one night for dinner. The water bottle in the scale thing really works. About 3 out of 5 restaurants had "faulty" scales. There wasn't much seafood around because of the Tsunami and if there was it wasn't that cheap. Fisherman were all too scared to go out on boats. Who could blame them!
Went to the new shopping centre Discovery Kartika Plaza (pronounced by the Balinese "Disco-ferry"). All shops are too expensive. It's a big ugly building but in a great location, right on the beach with lots of windows and a great view.
Didn't have much time this trip to organise to bring kids clothes and all the other goodies to Bali. I felt so bad. I just had to scramble up what I could in a short time.
Thank you to everyone at the forum for your lots of different advice. I have been to Bali many times but there is always something new to learn.
PS. Good news is that I managed to change my honeymoon air tickets around and instead of staying in Malaysia for 3 weeks, we are now going to Bali for 1.5 weeks. WOO HOO, I'LL BE BACK IN MAY!!!!
PPS. I would be happy to answer any questions