Well here goes my first ever JBR, I have been an avid reader for about 5 years now and only posted a few times. Its a little late but I have been suffering bad case of Bali Blues and had a terrible week last week with a friend's young child passing away on our return.
Background Info - I travelled with my very anxious flyer of a husband, this was our first visit in 4 years. Purpose of visit was lots of relaxing, shopping and our friends wedding.
We flew AP leaving on time at 10am out of Perth, we had requested certain area of seats due to my hubbie's fear of flying so they seated us in the middle, row 4, the seats on either side of us are supposed to be blocked off but I ended up with a very upset lady next to me as we were perparing to take off. Great a freaky flyer on one side and a teary lady!! BUT the flight was great, service was good, my husband got through things with some spray thing he was onto.
VOA was quicker than we thought, considering that no other planes had landed. That fist view of paradise as you come into land was bliss!!
Our good family friend (of 11 years) and our driver was out to meet us. I can thoroughly recommend him to anyone, Wayan Budiarta, if you want further details to contact him just let me know. His partner is Aussie and they have two children together. He takes to places that most tours dont, my family and I have been to his families village on many occassions.
We stayed at the Bali Dynasty, cant recommend this hotel enough, our friends from Adelaide arrived the next day and they did their best and had us all on the same level,which was great considering there was 20 of them. The brekkies were great, loved the pool and the massages by the pool were fantastic. We used the spa villa on many occassions and they were great. I did the 3.5 hours pamper with my friend who was getting married and it was very relaxing....watch out for the ice cold yoghurt they coat you up in at the end before your bath!!
Favourite Restaurants - Bubba Gumps....great service and food, Kori.....my favourite restaurant food was awesome, everyone in our group of 30 thought so. Probably more but I cant remember.
Did lots and lots of shopping too much to write about, but my fav was Matahari's kid section for my 2yo daughter....so many shoes!!
The Wedding - Saturday 1 October coordinators Angie from Bali Paradise Weddings. Our friends got married at the Dynasty late afternoon and the setting was awesome. I was one of 5 bridesmaids, the hairdresser came to us which was great and Angie & Ally came by as well with the flowers......I loved these!!! Photographers were good, little disappointed that they spoke only a little english but we managed to get through. It was very well organised!!!
Ma Joly's was the setting for the reception and this place was beautiful, food was amazing, cant recommend this place enough if you are considering getting married here.
Alas that night we all know what happened, I am not going to rehash it, I felt the hotel we stayed at handled the whole security thing very well.....even the 2am call in the morning to see if we were all ok. We were always kept up to date with stuff from the Consulate and didnt feel compromised with our safety. Although very quiet a lot of people appeared to stay and not to be in a rush to get out.
We were due to go home on Tuesday night but our plane got cancelled, we only found out when we tried to reconfirm on Sunday...I wonder if they would have let us know before we rocked up on Tuesday. Anyway we were put on Monday's flight, we could have stayed and extra day but it wasnt guaranteed to be leaving then and we had our child at home to get to.
Flight home was great we upgrade to Super Economy...$100 one way to Perth and the service was good. My hubbie did his usual freak out thing even though I didnt think the turbulence as that bad. Customs stuff was quick......Federal Police thing was a little time consuming and I would like my digital camera memory stick back sometime soon...considering I probably had 3 pics from our trip to Jimb Bay the Wednesday night before the bombs went off.
Anyway a little long...probably boring....but any questions please ask.