Day 1 - 4am get up to travel to Sydney airport - Brenda flying in from Canberra and Zelda travelling with Happy Cabby from Newcastle.
Finally on board a full AP flight, leaving on time I knew this was a good start.
This is Brendas 1st time and my 3rd time to Bali, during the flight I was is giving Brenda all the low down especially on arrival at the airport don't let the porters take your bag.......
Arrive VOA was quick immigration was slow
No need to pay in US$ as they take all types of currency even pay by visa if you like - next time I wouldn't bother changing into US$ as the $25 cost us $41 .
Ok so now we are through all of that we need to find our bags as while waiting to get through immigration more flights have arrived, meaning more bags.
I find my bag and dont allow anyone to touch them.
Brenda on the other hand is asking anyone for assistance to locate her bag, bag found by airport porter who starts taking off with her bag, Brenda is a bit hysterical by this stage and kept repeating where is he taking my bag, I told her to follow him.
He wasn't letting go of her bag until she paid......... I haven't got any aus coins only notes will I give him this $5 ...I said no give him this $1............he was happy but I think he may have had his eye on the paper money which would have made him even happier.
Found our transport and on our way to ALAM KUL KUL............on arrival we were greeted with cool towels and juice everything was organised and luggage was being taken to our room, how easy was this.
The room was ground floor, bright, clean with the pool right outside our door with a outside sitting and sunbaking area, plenty of pool chairs.....bathroom was large with jasmine shampoo/conditioner, bath gel supplied. , as well as other odds and sods , toothbrush, shaver, cotton buds, sewing kit etc all in a nice basket on the bathroom bench we even found and electric mossie coil thing.
A quick unpack and off to change some money as we were ready to shop.
Hotel rate was not as good so we ventured out on the street in search of Kodak shop which as it turned out was not very far away in Melasti street.
Alas they didn't have any money and told us to go to the other Kodak shop in Padma street.......
Does anyone feel our pain at this stage.......stall holders seeking sales and us not even game enough to stop and look as we had no rupiahs on us at all.........
Found the Kodak shop ................no money for 1 hour.................................
Found ATM and withdrew enough to see us to the end of the street at least we had to buy something.
We made a mental note not to change money in the afternoons ....found our way back to the first Kodak shop and WOW they had money
By this time we were pretty exhausted after a very early start to the day and it was already 8pm
We opted to have dinner close to where we were staying , right out the front was Papa's café where it was all happening, music, laughter, so plenty of atmosphere but as usual it came with a price, I had a pasta dish and Brenda had a Volcano Pizza which when it arrived I felt a bit embarrassed that this monster of a thing was on the table, anyhow they cut the lid off the reveal the pizza which apparently is all cooked together .very nice.................. price for diner and drinks was $363500 including tax $50 approx, we wont be eating their again said me
We drag ourselves into our beds and that's it for day one.....stay tuned for day 2