Ok as I said in one of my previous post my English is so so but I'll try to give a shoot at this JBR thingy, so please excuse all mistakes, typos...
I'm just back from 3 wonderful weeks in Bali, it was my 3rd trip there, first time was with my brother (2001), second time with my GF (2004) and this time it was brother (19), mom, dad and me (24) (no holidays this summer for GF sniff).
I'm from Europe, so traveling to Bali is quite an adventure by itself, we flew from Geneva (Switzerland) to Zurich (Switzerland), then Zurich - Kuala Lumpur and finally Kuala Lumpur - Denpassar, all together it took almost 24hours from home to hotel. We flew Malaysian Airlines and it was very good, personal TV with +/- 50 different films/TV show including Madagascar, Monster in law and a bunch of other classics. Food was ok, average food you get in any airplanes, crew was very nice and helpful. Mom got sick due to very cold AC during the flights.
No problem with VOA, took approximately 30minutes, luggage were waiting for us when we arrived, then transfer to the hotel.
We decided to pick an hotel in Nusa Dua, mainly because when it comes to holidays I'm not really into meeting other people and partying since I do it the whole year, I like to relax and I don't find Kuta very relaxing... so we picked the Nikko Hotel, I stayed there with my brother back in 2001 and we loved it, here's a quick overview of what we think of it :
Nikko Hotel (9/10)
+
- Very Calm & relaxing
- Amazing view on the sea (hotel is built on top of a 40 meters cliff)
- Lovely & Helpful staff
- Huge breakfast buffet
- Yummy room service foods
- Beautiful Gardens
-
- Guns & Roses + awful 80's rock music by the pool area
- Japanese are very noisy when drunk
- Actually Japanese are very noisy
Even if we end up going almost everyday to Kuta, this hotel was a great choice and it was very relaxing, anyway taxi to kuta is 20-30min and cost around 40-50'000 ruppiah
I'm not going to do a day by day JBR, but here's what we did.
We had 5 free excursions included in our package, brother and I did 3 and parents 4.
I would highly recommend to see the Volcanoes and the lake, we visited a temple which was on the lake side and it was beautiful, can't remember the name, we went to Tanah Lot as well and I was not very impressed perhaps because you have to be there for sunset and we were there in the morning it was packed with tourists and even if it was very nice I enjoyed the temple on the lake side much more.
We went to Jimbaran to have sea food and loved it amazing view and amazing sunset, you should go there with your hubby/wife or BF/GF very romantic.
I don' t remember any restaurant names but we mainly ate in the Kuta/Legian area, if you stay anywhere in Nusa Dua don't eat in your hotel prices are way to expensive and you can find yummy food for nothing in Kuta.
If you have children go to the Water Bom park, it's a very nice place we went there with brother and we had a blast, if you go there plan to stay the whole day. They have some kind of 2nd day pass and it's much cheaper for the second day.
But what we did the MOST was shopping, I spent SO MUCH money, my brother and I mainly bought clothes and DVDs, I didn't bought any fake t-shirt or clothes all of them we bought in surf shops, except 2 fakes Mont-Blanc belt for 150'000 each, here is a few prices :
T-Shirt: from 110'000 to 220'000 for the most expensive one (Paul FranK)
Levis: from 350'000 to 650'000 depending on the models
Backpack: 80'000
DVD: 10'000 with the usual the more you buy the more free you get
Paul Frank Winter Jacket: 1'100'000
I don't know about Aussie prices but prices in Bali concerning clothes were 3 times cheaper than in Switzerland.
I also posted about Anika Tailor I had 4 suits made there and I'm very happy with the result, they did a wonderful job and they were very helpful / friendly It costed me 200$ per suit, that's mainly because I only picked designer fabrics. If you're looking for some business suits to be made go there you won't regret it.
As of Bali Belly, if you read this forum and never went to Bali you prolly think that you will die in a tremendous amount of pain on the toilets and only if you were lucky enough not to get arrested because of a weird drug dealer from Bali decided to put 50kg of cocaine in your handbag, guess what it's a lot of BS, forget about the raspberry juice, forget about all the weird pills, just be careful with what you eat and wash your hands 5 times a day and you will be just fine.
Here is a little advice for you guys don't steal anything in Bali, we were shopping in a random surf shop on Legian, when we heard people shouting, when we get there a Balinese guy was getting beat up by two of the shop staff, they were punching him in the face and he was heavily bleeding. It was obvious the guy get caught stealing in the shop and it was obvious the guy did that only to buy some food. I felt very sorry for him so I stopped the 2 guys from the shop, asked them what he stole... I paid for the t-shirt he stole I gave the poor guy a few ruppiah and I told him to get the f@## out. Then I discussed with shop guys and they told me they have a lot of problems with thieves and if they call the police they don't do anything and they are back stealing again a couple of week later... so if you don't want to get punched in the face don't steal anything.
Ok I think that's it, if you need any more info just leave a msg, I'll check forum from time to time.
Just hope my English was ok, if you notice some mistake just let me know.
Bye