It was Easter & the start of school hols while I was there so I expected to see the usual influx of young Aussies - surfers, families etc. Not so. There were lots of Indonesian tourists as it was an Islamic holiday over the same period and they sorta stood out. Suddenly, one day there were many Americans - mainly young. Japanese of all ages galore, too. One morning shopping expedition, I didn't hear another Aussie voice for several hours!! Never since I first started going to Bali in '83 has that happened. Constantly asked when the Aussies would come back and thanked for being there - my very great pleasure, I always replied, as it was, of course.
Taxi drivers, as is their wont anywhere on the planet, are full of opinions, and I was amazed at how well-informed they were, in general, despite the heavy media censorship there.
The shopping was fabulous - spent more than I should have. Clothes were just great and cheap, ditto things like cushion covers and nick nacks. Loved Bintang Supermarket - got lots of blocks of satay sauce (it comes in small blocks, slice it thinly, mix with a little hot water over heat and it's exactly like you get in the restaurants there - 5K/block), good kopi about a third of the price at Matahari in Kuta Square, got a huge packet of saffron for 10K oh and lots & lots of packets of sauce mixes, spices etc. It was a foodie heaven. Local alcohol was by far cheapest there, too. The small savings all added up with the quantities I bought. For incense, there's a shop on the same side as Bintang further into Seminyak - only 2k/packet - 10K elsewhere - bought heaps.
Customs gave me a VERY hard time about my food items - last Sept, they said such things were OK as long as properly sealed. These were - but I still got a thorough going over - no fun at 1.30 am.
Got to the airport at 6 pm for my 9.50 flight to Perth - standing around forlornly in front of check-in which didn't open til 6.30 - they took pity on me, turned on the Open sign, checked me in then turned if to Off - gotta love the Balinese. The downside was that my bag was the last off. Way overweight but no worries, given that there were so few passengers, I guess.
Went to the Premier Lounge - a pleasant place to be but as someone else said here recently, the food is a big disappointment. Plentiful chardonnay, tho:) A huge minus is that they turned off the departure message speaker - I was quite late boarding and not thrilled. No excuse as I was the only person there - and they knew my flight - just slack. Prada Lounge next time for sure, at half the price.
Garuda flight was sooo empty - the only people sitting together were travelling together - just about everyone got to spread out over 3 seats and catch a few zzzzs. Food was vile, and I'll eat anything.
It's good to be home with my wonderful son and very naughty Burmese cat - more ruined curtains, broken ornaments. Compared with the damage Miss AbbyCat can cause, son's 19th B'day while I was away seems like it must've been a tea-party. Hubby says the surf in Kuta, Lombok has dropped and he is not happy. I sorta feel sorry for surfers being so dependant for a good time on the vagaries of the weather.