Dugite's a married 47 yo male from WA.
I've been to Bali 4 times now with my first trip in about 82.
Anyhow here's my first JBR.
GETTING THERE AND BACK:
Went with Garuda travelling on a 737-400. Some turbulence midway up the WA coastline and I was suprised that the pilot didn't put on the seat belt sign. My wife and I sat in row 11 which is the emergency exit and we had a ton of leg room and room in general. The flight was no where near full. While you get a lot of leg room in rows 10 and 11, the seats don't recline so keep that in mind. We were ok because it's only a short 3 or so hour flight. Blasted off at 0800 from Perth and the service was ok but after the intial breakfast the cabin crew went awol. The Purser looked like he had just got out of prison and still looked pis*ed off with the world. Some of the cabin crew had cute butts and hey even the female attendents looked good :)
No hassles at the Denpasar airport. We travelled real light and had no baggage to check in or wait for at the baggage collection. Customs was slack as anything and the three customs blokes were yacking with each other and just took our pass and waved us through. There were no other customs or immigrasi elsewhere. It made me wonder how Schappelle got done over?
Just for the record I packed 3 pairs of shorts, 3 tee shirts, 1 pair sandles, camera, a Lonley Planet Bali book and that's it!!.
We brought the rest of the gear over there as we were only going to be there for a week. My wife was near in tears as we packed, because she packed similarly and for the female species to travel the world this light was akin to some medievil torture, but she survived.
Returned in the same fashion, by travelling very light (although with a few extra clothes)we raced through Perth customs and were first out of the box. No hassles at all. As a person who travels a bit, minimal times in airports is a bonus.
The flight back was cruisy with the plane only half full. It departed Denpasar at 2000hrs and was a 3 hour 16 minute flight. How they determine the exact minutes always gets me. Plenty of grog on board and the food and service was a good deal better than the trip up.
PHONES:
I have read the forum many times prior to the trip and seen all the tips about phones.
All we do is use the Wartel places. The trick is to keep the call real brief. "Hows the dog, cat, mum, dad, kids, love you bye". This costs about 13,000Rp for a minute which today is $1.80 aussie. Hey your on holiday so cut loose for $5 and have a few minutes. I found this to be a hassle free way of getting in touch with home. No phone cards, no reverse charge, no setting up deals prior to the holiday. The trick is be brief. Ladies you may have trouble :) :)
The actual design of the Wartel phone shops helps you in keeping your calls brief because when you step into a glass phone box and the humidity is 90% well you know its gonna be hot. So as the sweat runs down the crack of your b*m you really don't want to be talking on the phone for hours, so you'll save money that way as well.
TUCKER:
Ate plenty. No bali belly. Didn't eat off the cholera carts this trip but have done so before and had the squirts. Didn't worry about rasberry juice and other witchcraft but used my brains (rare event) and ate washed fruit, drank bottled water, drank a lot of spirits , drank a lot of beer and this seemed to keep the Nasty Goreng and Mei Goreng under control. As such the hotel saved on toilet roll costs. Hey I like to do my bit :)
HOTEL:
We stayed at the Resor Seminyak at you guessed it Seminyak. Quiet place but the pool bar is great and the crew there are very friendly and enjoy a laugh. The service was very good and the standard room we had was more than comfortable with a verandah, satellite telly, fridge and so on. We used a tip we seen on the forum here and left 20,000Rp on the pillow each day for the room crew. Not sure if it was psychological or not, but the room always seemed to be that bit better when it was made up each day. Caron a forumite has mentioned room 310 as the best room and I would agree. We tried to get it but missed out. In fact I would recommend rooms 310 and 316 as perhaps the best although 312 and 314 also have fine views. Definately I recommend these 4 rooms in the standard range. I tried to have a look at the Deluxe rooms but they wouldn't let me. I must be honest and say that the rooms can get a bit noisy but I countered that by getting drunker each night until I woke the neighbors with my snoring. Ah revenge is sweet. The missus was spewing and I was "on the dry" the next day :(
LA LUCCIOLA:
Superb!! I am typing this and looking at the bill which was 753,000rp ($104)and I notice that the bulk of the bill is for drinks. The actual food cost was 338,000Rp. ($47). The food was excellent. Dress should be neat casual with long trousers for the guys. There were some people there in boardies and thongs and in amongst such a fine setting they seemed a little out of place. Each to their own though. I recommend this place for a nice wine and meal.
DRIVERS:
Outside of the hotel were a group of drivers who sat in a small hut each day waiting for customers. I walked over one day to negotiate a deal and noticed that the hut (sorry I can't think of a better way to describe it) had a colour telly, radio and fan. I asked about this and they explained that the hotel is working with the local community so they erected the hut and kitted it out for the drivers. In return the drivers do the right thing and don't hassle out the customers and in general do a fair and decent trade.
The cost from the hotel to the guts of Kuta was 20,000Rp after some mild negotiating. We also managed to arrange for a 40,000 per hour rate which was handy when we didn't know where we were going on for how long. We ended up cruising out to Ulu Watu and sussed out some beaches and ended up spending about 120,000Rp for just over 3 hours. I am not sure if this a good price but is suited us.
That'll do for now. There is of course heaps of info to share but my fingers are numb. In short we had a leather jacket made, changed money, went to the mountains, brought clothes and had a good time.
If you want some more info just ask.