Day 2, Wed 17th Nov
For those unfamiliar with my family, we are:
Me/Dad/Pete (42)
Mum/Wife/Julie (36)
Jamie (9...boy)
Ky (5...boy)
Tara (5...girl) yes, twins.
This was our first real trip to Bali.
We endured a stormy, rainy, thundery night for our first night in paradise. We kept our A/C firmly set at 20° C overnight, and it kept the room comfortable (and mozzie-free!)
Due to our time-shift, the kids woke at 4:00 am, ready to get up and into it. (At home, they usually wake between 6 and 7am.) We tried to put them back to sleep, but by 5:15 we'd had enough, and let them get up and watch TV. We were aware of others in nearby rooms though, and tried to keep them as quiet as possible. We stretched out the time a bit by putting them in the bath as well.
At 6:30 Julie (a very avid health and fitness junkie) headed to the resort gym, and I took the kids for our first look at the beach. (I figured that was another safe place for early in the morning...by ‘safe' I mean not upsetting other people!) Met a couple of the beach sellers, who had not yet set up, but made us promise to come back (a promise we later kept.)
At 7 am we all hit the Dynasty breakfast buffet. We had not included this as part of our package, as I had decided it might be nice to eat around a bit for brekky and not restrict ourselves to the one place. In hindsight, this was a mistake. The buffet at the Dynasty was HUGE, it was convenient to just stay in the resort, and it had everything our kids would eat. It cost us 190,000 rp each day, but that consisted of 95.000rp each for Julie and I... the kids ate free. Expensive by Bali standards, maybe, but it was easy, and the cost just went ‘on the bill', which made it even easier.
By 8:30 am we were in the pool, and might I say, not fighting for room! The low occupancy rates were very sad. While we were there, they were sitting at about 20 - 30% occupancy.
While we swam, the family all got their hair braided (except for me... with a no.1 buzz cut, they didn't have much to work with!).The price was fixed, but as the boys only wanted a few beads in their hair, we negotiated 55,000 rp each for Julie and Tara, and 45,000rp together for Jamie and Ky. Total of 155,000 rp (about $22 Aus). Finished our swim and headed back to our room so the kids could admire themselves in front of the mirror!
Got ourselves ready, and ventured out of the resort onto the streets for the first time. We stopped to look in a few little shops, and the kids wanted to buy things with their pocket money straight away. We had spoken about this (not buying straight away, but looking for the first day or two...) so wouldn't let them part with their hard-earned. (well...maybe not hard earned!) Mean parents!!!
On our way to the Discovery centre Julie was stopped by a man in the street. 'I'm not selling anything... here, just take one of these... when you get to Discovery, open it up, and if you are lucky, you might win a prize...' Does this sound familiar to anyone? My alarm bells were ringing, and the kids were getting hot and fidgety (it never took long for that to happen!) I asked him if this was time share; he assured me it wasn't. (As it turned out, I think he was trying to drum up business for another resort) Anyway, he opened Julie's ticket... the one he had handed her, and was HUGELY surprised to see that she had WON !!! HOW AMAZING!! 'Ahhh... it must be your birthday!! You have won $1000US cash!! All you have to do is come with me for a minute to claim your prize!!
Well, that was enough for Julie. She quickly told him we weren't going anywhere except shopping with our kids, and dragged them up the street, leaving the poor man looking crestfallen behind us. He had gotten so close! Oh, well... will just have to look for another sucker.. ummm ..customer.
We finally made it to the air conditioned comfort of Discovery centre, had our bags checked on the way in, (very reassuring), and then stood there in the doorway, feeling very ‘out of sorts'.
Eventually we made our way to BreadTalk, much discussed on this forum, for some lunch. This was one of the cheapest lunch options for us, and we used it frequently during our stay. The bread is mainly sweet bread (closest thing I can relate it to is egg loaf) with all sorts of wacky toppings. If you are just after more regular tasting bread, go for the long breadstick, and share it between a few. Very reasonable prices. Here is a sample:
French garlic Pizza roll: 7,500 rp ($1)
Blueberry or chocolate muffin (large): 6,000 rp (80c)
Tuna lover roll: 5,500 rp (75c)
Cheese stick roll: 4,500 rp (60c)
Baguette (breadstick, large): 11,000 rp ($1.50)
They also sell sweeter cakes etc if you are interested. Highly recommended.
Went downstairs to the supermarket to pick up a few essentials. Prices we paid, for those who are interested:
Diet coke, 1.5 ltr,: 7,900
Fanta can, 330 ml: 7,000
Vodka cruiser, 275 ml: 25,250 (about $3.50)
Large Bintang, 620 ml: 12,000
Small Bintang, 330 ml: 7,000
Water, 1.5ltr: 2,000
Water, 6 ltr: 15,350 (just over $2.00)
Low fat UHT milk, 1 litre: 9,950 (about $1.30)
Nescafe coffee, 100 gr jar: 18,000 (about $2.50)
Rockmelon, (called ‘emerald melon'), ½ a melon: 6,675 (about 90c)
Fuji apples, ½ kilo: 9,261 (about $1.20)
Cavendish apples, 550 grams, 7,645 (around $1.00)
No, I won't give exact prices for EVERYTHING we bought in Bali, but it is one of the things I found very helpful when planning my holiday, so I hope it is helpful to others, too.
By now we were sick of shopping (yes, that happened frequently!) and just wanted to get back to our room. Headed back down the street ('no, thank you'... 'no, thank you'...) and stopped at the little store outside of the Dynasty to get some AC power adaptors so we could charge uo our phones, video cameras, etc. Bought 2 adaptors for 10,000 rp each (bargain!) Well, not such a bargain. When we tried to plug our things into them, the plugs were loose and floppy, and didn't ‘click' in.. just fell out. Completely useless. For 10,000 each, I couldn't be bothered walking back up the street, so I just binned them.
TIP: We had brought along a 6-slot powerboard, and I discovered that at the Dynasty, you can plug an Australian electric shaver into the point in the bathroom. So instead of the shaver, I plugged in the powerboard, and ...voila! A place to charge our bits and pieces. Worked a treat.
Headed back to the pool, had a couple of large Bintangs (73,000 rp... about $10.00 for two!! No wonder people wait for happy hour!), and had an argument with the kids about hats (it's amazing the things you can argue with kids about!)
See, now that they all had their hair braided, they risked getting sunburnt heads. So the option was to get sunscreen put into their scalps (which we had forgotten to do) or wear their hats in the water (not a great option when you are trying to dive down and stuff). Anyway, just another little hiccup on the ‘paradise highway'.
About now, Ky started getting cramps in the tummy (oh-oh...). I took him back to our room for some cool, quiet time, and to drink some bottled water (none of the kids were drinking much, and we thought dehydration may have been the problem). After an hour or so of television and lying in bed, he sparked up, and we headed back to the pool.
After a few happy hour large Bintangs (now ½ price...much more reasonable!) We walked out the back of the resort to the beach. The lane is covered in market stalls, and the ladies caught us. After a few beers, Julie was in the mood for bargaining!! You should have seen the looks on the kids' faces. They didn't know what was going on! Even though we had explained to them before we left Aus that this was how buying worked, they still couldn't cope with it. Anyway, she got some billabong shorts for Jamie for 25,000 rupiah (not the denim ones.. the boardshort type), and then the lady in the next stall said 'you buy from her, you buy from me!' She tried to sell us shorts for Ky for the same price as Jamie's. ( Ky is 5, Jamie 9) Julie haggled with her for 5 mins, but the kids were getting really antsy by now, so I took them around the back way to the beach. The lady followed us and gave us the shorts for 20,000.
On the beach, the sellers were very persistent. Not mean or nasty, but a little desperate (not surprising, considering the tiny number of people around.)
Julie was going for it, and bought 5 x beaded necklaces for 100,000 rp (too much, we found out later) and sunglasses, kids Oakley, 3 for 100,000rp. More wanted to sell us stuff, but we were out of cash, and the kids wanted to go.
Went back to the Dynasty, swam until dinner, which tonight was a buffet by the pool. They have theme nights, and tonight was satay night. Very nice, and kids eat free with the adults. Dinner tonight, including drinks, cost us 294,000 rp (about $40)
Back to our room and put the kids to bed by 8pm. We had asked for the fold out bed to be made up, and the kids rotated through the bunks and the fold out. Only problem was that the fold out was right next to our bed and the TV, so while they fell asleep, we went out to our balcony and got eaten alive by mossies for 20 mins or so, until they fell asleep.
Julie met a friend of a friend who was a tailor, and arranged to have some clothes made. The whole process was easy, showed her some clothes, discussed material and settled on a price, and she was gone (she came to us each time on her motorbike; we never had to go to her.) Very happy with her service and product; if anyone wants her details I have her card here.
Spent ½ hour or so flicking through 37 channels of rubbish, then fell asleep about 10 pm.
Tomorrow... first crack at money changing (guess what???) and Waterbom park.
Hope I'm not boring you all to tears!!