Well, here goes part 3...
First of all, I'll give you Erik's details as per his business card:
514 Shop (name of the shop)
Jl Padma Utara Pertokoan Padma Jaya No. 6 Legian.
Mobile 081 338546437
Also, forgot to mention in my previous shopping JBR we bought pearls from Ali, as recommended by Katgold in July. We called him, but he was in Lombok getting more pearls & he came to our hotel a couple of days later. Between my sister & myself, we bought a lot of necklaces (4 or 5 I think) and one set of earrings for approx 650,000 RP. We wanted to get a pearl necklace for our mum, but what he had would have been too small for her. 'No problems' Ali said and then proceeded to make a new necklace right there on the spot for us, as we were going home the next day. It was fascinating watching him do a knot after every pearl; he somehow had the string wrapped around his big toe and tying the knots that way. I will take a photo of the pearls and if anyone is interested in looking at the photos, just email me using the above link (remove the no spam part).
I also forgot to mention we ordered DVDs from Helgie, who came dropped them off at the hotel on our second day.....they came in handy when my sister was sick & spent a day in bed (more on that later). The LBH had recently installed DVD/CD all in one systems in all the cottages, so the DVD's did come in handy. So far, all DVD's are good. We only got about 30 this time (last year we bought heaps!) and had no problems getting them through customs at Sydney.
Ok, I think that's the shopping section completed!! Now with the remainder of my JBR...
ACTIVITIES
* Bali Hai Ocean Rafting - last year we went on the beach club cruise, but this year thought we would give the ocean rafting a go, as it included more snorkeling. Well, I am glad we did this, as I felt it was miles better than the beach club cruise. The day we went out, I think the sea was pretty rough, as the waves out on the ocean had white caps on it. I think on some occasions we got air borne, but it was great fun, especially at the front of the boat! We visited 3 islands; Nusa Lembongan, Nusa Penida, and Nusa Ceningan. The cliffs at Nusa Penida were spectacular, except since the boat was rocking really bad in the ocean, Jodie got sea sickness twice & nearly had us joining her! We snorkeled at Crystal Bay and at Nusa Lembongan, which was both spectacular. Lunch was included, had a tour of a village in Nusa Ceningan, and then back at the beach club on Nusa Lembongan for a couple of hours. We ended up playing water polo with a couple of guys from The Netherlands, which was very funny! You could also go for banana boat rides, but we opted out as we were too busy playing water polo & Jodie was still feeling a bit queasy. I think we paid about $65 US at a tour stall on Jl Melasti. We thought this was ok, seeing the price advertised on their website was $73 US.
* White Water Rafting - we went WWR with Telaga Waja Rafting. We booked at Bali Aussie on Jl Melasti for 225,000RP, which we later found to be a great price, as others in our bus paid in the vicinity of 350,000RP, which included transfers & lunch in a restaurant on a hill overlooking all these beautiful rice paddies. We had wanted to book with Unga Rafting as we had heard that there were no stairs at the end of the rafting, but because its not the wet season and the river levels were low, they weren't running any rafting. Was told that Telaga Waja Rafting didn't have that many stairs. In actual fact, there were exactly 75 stairs down to the start (yes, I counted them....I am an accountant after all!! ;)) and about 300 stairs at the end (stopped counting at about 100...had to concentrate on the breathing!!!). Although, its not THAT bad...about 100 steps till you get to the showers & change rooms, & then another 200 steps to the top. After rafting on the Ayung River with Bali Adventure Tours, where there were 300 steps at the beginning and the end, we couldn't walk properly for days afterwards, this was so much better.
The rafting itself was great as was our guide, whose name I think was Devak. He was a cheeky bugger as well, trying to push me out of the raft in between the rapids, making us go through a waterfall twice, & constantly splashing us with water. He was great fun and also stayed with my sister while she was slowly climbing the stairs at the end. I thought that the Telaga Waja River was a lot better than the Ayung; there were more exciting rapids and the river water was a lot clearer. I have been rafting a few times, both in Australia, Bali & other places in the world, so I kind of know what to expect. The drop at the end was great.....even though I was petrified, which comes through on the photo taken of us. Very funny! It was a great day, even though trip to and from the river is close to two hours each way. This was made a lot more bearable due to the friendly people on our bus that we met & chatted the whole way!
* Quad Biking - we went with Bali Quad Discovery Tours and booked through the same booth as we did for the ocean rafting above and we did get it for a bit cheaper than what it is advertised for (cant remember the exact amount). This included lunch and transfers as well. It was good, except they only had one automatic quad bike and us three had to fight over it. I thought I could handle the manual one....after all I do drive a manual car back home & I have gone quad biking before (albeit on an automatic bike). Boy was I wrong! On the practice track, I was going everywhere but the track! I ended up getting one of the Balinese workers to tandem with me to help me to control the bike & help with the gears. It's a good thing he came with me, as I got stuck going up a few hills & would have panicked if I was by myself. Towards the end, I was getting the hang of it. But I felt that I was too stressed focusing on driving & watching for all the potholes on the tracks to appreciate the beautiful scenery that was surrounding us. Next time, I would probably go tandem with someone & appreciate the view whizzing by me.
TOURS
We booked Made Mangku for the day and he took us up to North Bali, which was a long, but spectacular drive to make in one day. First stop was Lake Bratan and we visited the Pura Ulun Danu Bratan temple on the lake. Word of warning about the toilets, they are squat toilets that you actually have to pay to use (1,000RP).
We then went further north to the Git Git waterfalls. Along the way to the waterfalls, we stopped off along the side of the ride to see some monkeys. The waterfalls were really beautiful & the water was crystal clear. We were able to swim in 2 of the pools...and boy did we need it after the hike to get down there. We hired a local guide and to get us back up the quickest way, he said we had to go 'trekking.' We were only wearing thongs, so I thought he was joking, but trekking we did go! He led us up this jungle like path that had steps made from fallen tree logs. But he was right and it did get us back up the top a lot quicker that it would had we have gone up the way we came down. We ended up giving him 50,000RP (I think the usual fee was about 10,000RP) but seeing that he was carrying my sister's bag while climbing back up and was with us for 1.5 hrs, we felt this was well deserved. Made waited in the car for us
After this, we drove through Singaraja and went on to have lunch at Lovina. Had a bit of a look at the beach and then went on to the Hot Springs at Banjar. Cost 3,000RP to enter. It was interesting to bathe there; the water had a greenish milky tinge to it and when you got out of the water, a brown film clung to your skin & cozies. People with white cozies on looked like they were wearing orange ones! We saw some sights hear, but the water temperature was very nice, even though it made us very sleepy for the drive back; both Larissa & Jodie fell asleep, much to the amusement of Made!!
I could not believe the windy narrow roads around the mountains. Numerous times I thought we would be gone, especially if a car or truck came screaming around the corner! But Made is a terrific driver & got us safely back to our hotel at 7.30pm that night.
We hired Made for another half day tour to Uluwatu and Dreamland beach. The temple at Uluwatu is amazing, although the monkeys here are very big and scary looking. We hired a guide in order to ward off any potential monkey attack! The views down the coast were absolutely beautiful.
We then went to Dreamland Beach, which I wasn't too impressed with. Sure, it looked beautiful, but the waves were dumping right on the shoreline and it had a very strong current. After being dunked numerous times for the couple of minutes we were swimming, and copping a bag full of sand in my cozies, I'd had enough and headed back to the beach. We each hired a sun lounge for 30,000RP per lounge, but after an hour or so in the sun, we were keen to get back to our hotel pool to cool off. We also felt a bit uncomfortable at the beach, which was very European and had many ladies sun baking & even swimming topless and in very brief cosine bottoms. Now, don't get me wrong, I am in no way a prude and each to their own etc, but I just thought it was a bit disrespectful towards the Balinese, as (please correct me if I am wrong) I read somewhere that this is the case. Maybe they are used to it, but I sometimes wonder if they think we come from a different planet!! Anyway, Made was waiting for us with icy cold water (as usual!) & dropped us back at the hotel.
That's it for tonight. The next (and hopefully the last!) JBR will cover eating out and going out. If you have any questions, please email me. I do hope I am not boring you to death!
Cheers!
Bec