My favourite things about Bali and our holiday
1. Executive class with garuda. Worth every cent both ways.
2. The initial hit of hot sweet air as you leave the plane. bali still smells the same!!
3. The beautiful brown faces of the Balinese at the airport.
4. Many fantastic places to eat. The Sand Cafe at Kumala Pantai was my favourite. The best fish cakes I have ever had. Its also cat friendly, the kutchings made me miss my cats very much !
Others worth a mention are Jonys at Legian, The Blue Ocean , and Seaside on the beach front at Legian.
5. The coffee at the Melati beach apartments is brilliant. The guys there are fantastic and very adorable. My mum beacame ill during our trip, (staying elsewhere) and we decided to all move into the same area so I could keep an eye on her. We ended up in the penthouse at the melati coffee shop, mum and dad downstairs in a one bedroom apartment. We will be back next year for a return stay.
6. Wolly, our driver. based outside the Niksoma and cousin to Richo, the singing driver (can;t sing for s..t)
7. the beach sellers trying to make a living. Life is tough for these poor buggers, and will only get tougher.
8. Arak and orange juice.
9. Bintang
10. Last but by NO MEANS least, Dreamland beach. Heaven on earth.
The things I disliked about Bali and our holiday
1. The pure evil that lives and breathes the same air that we do.
2. The look on our childrens faces as news of the bomb spread, after we heard the explosions.
3. The night time behaviour of the young men selling in the street stalls. We found that the friendly charming young men that we encountered during the day were replaced by slimy ....... On more than one occasion my husband reminded them at different shops that we respect their mothers, wives and daughters and that they should return the same. Before anyone jumps up and down, I know its a world wide thing. It is just something that we noticed on more than a few occasions, and Im not referring to the joking and mucking about that you have with the shop sellers. Our daughter felt quite intimidated on more than one occasion requiring one of us to step in.
4. SMOKING IN RESTAURANTS what a filthy habbit. Australians galore (and all others) lighting up , blowing smoke around our meals like there was no tomorrow. No-one smokes in Australia in restaurants for a good reason. The cancer stick brigade seemed to relish in the delights of fags in between each mouthfull of goodness. My particular favourite was a bloke lighting up at the next table and holding the gasper up in the air behind his shoulder so as not to blow smoke over his companions eating, but WTF, who cares about the other patrons that copped it. My husband and I decided that the next inconsiderate that lit up was going to be sprinkled with our beers, and then we might say, "since Im sharing your smoke I thought you might like to share my beer". And yes, we were ready to "punch on". Wouldnt you know it, we never got the chance!! Boy I feel better after that. (Keyboard is screaming)
5. Coming home
The care and compassion of the Balinese was brought home to us the day after the bomb. We went to say another goodbye to our favourite beach seller and she saw me coming up the beach. She ran up to me crying and told me that she thought we had been in Kuta the previous night, She asked her husband to text us in English as she can only write in Indonesion, to make sure that we were OK> but as there was no phone service, she thought something had happened to us. I had only known her for 3 weeks, but what a beautiful soul, just like Bali