Day 6, Mon 21st Nov
(I think I got a bit mucked up with the days before, but I'm back on track now!)
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.
My photos are now uploaded; you can view them at:
http://community.web shots.com/user/bigpete3941
just remove the gap between ‘web' and ‘shots'.
Overnight we had a little drama in our room. We had the A/C running constantly in our room, set at about 20°C, ever since we checked in. Well, I think it all got a bit much for the poor thing! At about 2 am, we were woken by these weird ‘crunching' noises coming form the A/C unit. It sounded to me like ice was forming inside, breaking off, and landing... somewhere! Kind of like an old style fridge defrosting. I got up, switched it off, and went back to sleep. For about an hour, until the room got all hot and sticky! I decided that it had RESTED for long enough, and switched it back on. It behaved itself for the remaining 2-3 hours of the night, but the next few days, it was periodically doing the same thing; (as well as dripping puddles onto the shiny tile floor).
Eventually, (2 or 3 days later) we had the sense to mention it to reception, and it was fixed that day. Perfect.
Anyway, that morning, we were all up by 6:30, and Julie decided NOT to go to the gym. (Yes, miracles DO happen!) Had a leisurely wake up, and coffees while the kids watched ‘Skyhigh' on DVD. Actually wasn't bad for a kids movie!
By 8:00 we were all hungry and wanted to go to brekky, except for Ky. Had to deal with another H-U-G-E temper tantrum, which ended up with mother and son both in tears (happy holidays!!) Finally got our act together, headed to the brekky buffet, and had an uneventful brekky before getting back to our room to finish watching the movie.
This morning we were going shopping (an unusual thing to do in Bali, I know...), and needed to stop at the money changer on the way. Before we left, Julie wanted to take Travellers cheques, and I wanted to take cash. So we had compromised and taken half of each. We also decided to sign half of the cheques each, in case we were separated and needed to get some cash.
The Kodak shop just next to the Dynasty offers the same rate for TC's and cash; this was the only place we came across which did. I had brought along 2 x $100 AUS TC's, and my passport (not even a copy... I didn't want to have any trouble!)
Well, I asked them what I needed to do; they told me to sign on the bottom section and put my address on the back. I did this, gave them to her, and waited for my cash. She studied them carefully, then noticed that I had accidentally grabbed one of mine, and one of Julies. Now I had signed the bottom of both of them. Well, this threw them into a flurry of fast Indonesian to each other, calling over of the boss, much consternation.
They tried to explain to me what I had done. I treid to keep calm; explained to them that, OK, it was my mistake, what do I need to do to fix it? They kept saying (in badly broken English) that ‘wrong signature'; ‘big trouble' yada yada. Well, they finally made it known that we had to go back to our room and get Julie's passport, otherwise a report would have to be made (a report? To who? )
So, we dragged the kids all the way back to our room (it wasn't safe to leave them there, even with one of us, for 10 or 15 minutes... too many breakables in the shop!) grabbed Julie's passport, and trudged back to the shop. Now there were about 3-4 other people in there, so we had to wait. When it was finally our turn, we gave them all our documents; both our passports, all the travelers cheques. They looked at everything, had another quick meeting in Indonesian, then told us there was nothing they could do. If we wanted to get any action, we needed to go to the bank. I bit my tongue; Julie didn't. She relatively ‘lost the plot', couldn't understand why we couldn't just countersign it, cross it out and start again, whatever. After her little tanty, I explained to her that we had enough other TC's and cash to not worry about it... we would take it with us back to Australia and sort it out there.
Julie's biggest concern, and on this I agree with her, was: why did they make us go and get her passport, when they couldn't do anything for us anyway? We tried to ask them this, but couldn't get them to understand us (convenient?). I didn't want to get too angry with them, since they were so close to the Dynasty and I knew I would be using them again; so despite all of this, I smiled and said ‘thank you' as we left then shop; Julie with big black smoke coming out her ears.
TIP: Don't take travellers cheques!! As much as they provide security if you lose them, they are really more trouble than they are worth, and most places give a slightly better rate for cash anyway.
Continued (finally!) up the street, and bought some music CD's, T-shirts and greeting cards (these are also really cheap in Bali, and you can find some cute and very different ones to home; good to stock up on for birthdays, etc).
Back to our room at noon, chilled in our nice cool room for a bit, then hit the pool.
Swam, ate, drank. Can't remember what we had, but the bill shows 210,000 rp ($28 AUS). So I imagine it was a couple of binnies, maybe some jaffles and chips, drinks for the kids.
After lunch, we headed back down to the beach to see Michael.
You may remember a few days ago, Julie had bought a special watch from him, specifically to wear in the pool. He promised her it cost more because it was waterproof, and those in the shop (that looked exactly the same, but cost less than his) were not. She bought it, and promised him he would be back if it broke. Well, first time in the pool, the display completely disappeared. Not a happy camper!
So she was out to see Michael, and she was going to win! She had gone over her arguments, what she was going to say, etc.
As we approached the beach, he came running over to us, with a big, Balinese, warm, welcoming smile. Julie jumped straight down his throat, and told him how disappointed she was. He immediately apologized, agreed to swap it over, and became best friends with her again. Well, she ended up doing some huge deal involving different watches, necklaces, sunglasses, a few rupiah, and, I think, our first-born. 'Good for you, good for me'! was the outcome, and all were happy again. Don't you love Bali! As we left, he asked her if he could keep the broken one; no doubt he would try to fix it up, and sell it again. Good luck to him.
After we finished with Michael we were dragged into one of the clothes shops, owned by ‘Lulu/Big Bum + Big Tiit' (sic...as written on her business card!)
We looked at some clothes (Billabong board shorts and started doing the deal, when little Tara got curious and stuck her finger in the fan. Lots of crying (she's a tough little thing, but it would have hurt!) and quite a bit of blood, but it was really only a small cut on the end of her finger. Julie raced her back to our room, while I quickly finished dealing for the shorts (40,000 rp. $5 AUS I'm sure I could've got them cheaper, but my mind was with Tara)
Went back to our room, put a bandaid on it, and she quickly got over it. By now it was about 3:30 pm, and we needed a few groceries before it got too late. Walked the gang up to Discovery (our second home by now!) where Jamie bought the original (not pirated) CD of the ‘Gorillaz' CD. Cost 80,000 rp ((about $11 AUS), but he was determined to have the original, not a copy. So good for him. (still not a bad price by Aussie standards). He also bought the' Batman begins' gameboy game.
Each of the kids had a certain amount of money they had saved up or been given; their aim was to see what they could do with it in Bali. Generally, they had saved really well leading up to the trip, but once we were there, just wanted to go berserk and buy everything in sight. Jamie, however, was very careful; knew what he wanted, and saved his money until he saw it at the right price. He came home with some really good deals, and a bit of money left over. (The other two came home with mostly rubbish. But they are only 5!)
While we were there, we stopped at the supermarket for a few groceries (and some ‘glitter' thongs for Tara), and at BreadTalk for some sliced bread to keep in our room, for those mornings when it was too hard to wait till breakfast, and a peanut butter sandwich was called for.
As we got back to the Dynasty, the kids club girls grabbed us and asked us if the kids would like to be in a ‘fashion show'. Is the Pope a catholic? Does a bear... well, you know. Of course they would! Apparently there is a small clothes shop in the foyer of the Dynasty, and each week, they use kids who are staying there to ‘display' their clothes. Good for the shop; fun for the kids. They were all very excited about it. Got down to the pool for a quick swim, and ordered them some quick dinner to eat by the pool... pizzas, chips and drinks, around 100,000rp.
Got them back to the room, and ready to go, and took them to one of the resort rooms where everyone was getting ready. Julie and I had some time to ourselves, so we headed to the pool bar, (it WAS happy hour, after all!), had a few drinks, then get a good table to eat and watch the show. It was Italian buffet night, so we had minestrone, pizza, pasta, and so on, filled up very quickly, all washed down with a couple of cheap ice cold Bintangs. How good is life right now! Oh, forgot to mention... I started really sweating half way through my soup, so I just jumped in the pool, quickly toweled off, and started again, much to Julie's horror. I told her I was soaked from sweat anyway, I may as well be wet and cool! She just looked at me...
The show was good fun, took lots of photos and video so they could watch themselves back later. Finally got them settled and in bed by about 8:30; we had an uneventful night, watched another half a DVD till we both fell asleep about 11 pm.
Tomorrow: Taro elephant park, one of the highlights of our trip.