After being an avid BTF reader before our holiday I was determined to post our experiences of our trip, it has just taken a while to get to it, still in Bali mode, our wok and blender have been the only things working overtime since we came home.
We (me, hubby and 2 girls 8 & 9) decided early last year that we would like to spend Christmas in Bali, we have been several times before the last time 2001 with another family, who we travelled to Vietnam with in 2004. Bali was beckoning again and we wanted some time on our own as a family.
Booked and paid very early with Air Paradise - by 19th August, if you don't mind - to receive a discounted price!!!!!!!! As we all now know not so cheap. Started counting down the days, then one Sunday morning news of the 2nd bombing, felt sick and sad for the victims, but decided that we still wanted to go. Then just as we could just about taste the trip, the news that AP had gone belly up. Much more discussion, blah, blah, blah - and yes forked out another $3800 or something like that, we were determined to go. The week before we left upgraded travel warnings - second thoughts about taking our girls, were we being selfish etc. Family and friends telling us we were crazy, "I would never take my family there".
Finally took off 19th December with Garuda(one bonus was when we rebooked our flights received two extra days). The flight was full, mainly Indonesians travelling to Jakarta, I think only about 15% of the flight got off in Denpasar. Had an experience through customs, we had bought from home a 2 ltr cask of chardy as well as our duty free, when reading the customs declaration discovered only 1 ltr each could be bought in, wondered wether to declare or not, decided to er on the side of caution. The delcaration states that the goods will be destroyed, so declared the wine, happier to let that go then duty free. The customs officials said we have to destroy and pointed to the form and what it said, we said that is fine, then he called me over into his office and told me we could have it for $20 AUD, surprise surprise! We were in holiday mode, we had finally arrived in Bali and we could smell the smells, we were happy.
We spent the first 8 days in Sanur at Gazebo cottages, we have stayed there before and the double rooms and the location are good for us. The rooms are pretty old and I found them this time very dark, the family room that we had didn't have a balcony or any outdoor area so felt a bit hemmed in, but didn't spend too much time in the room anyway. Sanur was a perfect start to our holiday, nice lazy days between the beach and the pool, couldn't get over how good the beach was there, alot of work has been done since we were last there.
It was very very quiet when we first arrived, and after wandering towards the art market were accousted by just about every stall holder with tales of how bad things have been and many told us they had not made a sale for weeks, managed to make it back to the hotel without buying anything but promises of hair braiding go to just about every shop in the market.Headed out that night to Bennos and dived straight into a Ristafel, cocktails and Bintangs - ahhhh it was good to be back.
My girls were agog at the DVDs and made firm friends with most of the stall holders. We pretty much left the kids to do their own bargining and talking when they were buying stuff they learnt pretty quickly how it all worked, which was great to see. My eldest is 11 and I am sure she grew a year in maturity while we were away, the lovely nature of the balanise gave her the confidence to chat away with people she had just met. Every day we were away I was glad that we came.
We didn't do too much while we were in Sanur, we had taken a racing mal over (we are mad lifesavers from QLD) and hubby and I took turns in heading out to the reef for a surf, then the girls would float around on the board in the bay looking for star fish and coral. We spent a lot of time chatting to the locals on the beach and hubby would join their 5 o clock game of volley ball. Felt very safe there with all the locals on the beach knowing everyone around. One of the balinese made the comment that as the Gazebo was owned by a muslim family it would be safe - don't know how much truth there would be to that. We used a driver while in Bali that a friend from OZ had recommended, got a bit of shock when he collected us the first time as he is 6ft 6, and lifts weights. He was great it was almost like having a body guard as well as a driver.
We went to Dreamland for the first time, we were pretty disappointed there was heaps of rubbish on the beach especially syringes. The surf was average with a shocking shore dump. We were probably just there on the wrong day! Went to the cultural park with the huge garuda and others which was ok. We passed thru Noosa Dua, which was like a ghost town, until we walked throught the Conrad which is huge, and there were heaps of people at the buffet, we saw more people in one place there than we had so far. Checked out their New Years Eve entertainment, dinner and champagne - $180 US pp!!!!! I think we fed our family of four for a week on what it would cost us to go to that. As beautiful as the hotel was, spending a holiday encased in it I don't think you would get the Bali experience.
We took our hotel bikes and rode the bike path the length of Sanur, got sore bums, and checked out some of the other hotels. Towards Christmas more people started to arrive but hardly any Aussies, mainly Europeans and Canadians.
Spent Christmas Day having a picnic, after heading to Hardys to pick up supplies - was esctatic to sniff out a bottle of Omni champagne for $22 (would normally pay around $9) so happy bought two bottles. We decided to give the traditional Christmas lunch that most of the places had on, a miss, as that is what we had escaped from, and spent a lazy day eating and drinking - decided to save 2nd bottle of champagne for New Years Eve.
Christmas shopping in Bali for 2 kids one of whom believes (or pretends to believe) was no mean feat. After planning to go to Tootsies in the Sanur Art Market, to avoid the time consuming bargining to buy up, I had to somehow navigate my way into the market without attracting the attention of the other shops who would undoubtedly tell me I had to buy something from them today, as I bought from their friend yesterday blah blah. After ensuring the kids were appropriately distracted with Dad, set off, decided to circumnavigate the market and come in from the opposite end that we would go normally. It worked a treat although was an extra couple of kms walking (but had loads of Bintangs and Pringles in the fuel tank), after buying up loads of the right name shirts, skirts, bags etc, set off to leave the market of course now being accousted by the other stall holders, bought more so called original label stuff, many of which were hidden away - can't understand why!! And paid way too much - but in the scheme of things what the hell.
Made it back to the hotel without being spotted by kids, who were still floating around on the bay, now just needed to make sure the stockings were filled before the duty free kicked in...........
Had a fabulous time in Sanur, ate at many great places that of course forgot to write down and wound down completely, but it was time to move onto Legian, only 7 days left, only 7 more breakfast of Nasi or Mee Goreng left - booohooo.