Hopefully, I'll make this short & sweet...well, at least into one posting!!
Left Sydney on Good Friday, flying with Australian Airlines for our (my sister & I) third trip to Bali. Thought the flight was pretty good and the service was great...pity they are shutting down operations. Plane was full, which was a good sign and, even though the flight was going through to Singapore, I didn't see too many people transferring through at the airport.
Arrived in Bali at the same time as two other planes landed, so it was pretty busy. However, we were put in row 12 (don't know how that happened; first time ever we were in front of the wings!), so we got through VOA (paid in aussie $), immigration, baggage collection pretty quickly. Got a taxi to Legian (50,000Rp) and were at our hotel within an hour and a quarter of landing. A group of people behind us in Sydney were staying at the same hotel as us, but they arrived an hour after us!
We stayed at The Lokha Hotel in Legian in a deluxe room. Thought the place was lovely; lovely staff, rooms, pools, & fellow travelers. We have previously only stayed at the Legian Beach Hotel, which is huge, so it was nice to stay in a small hotel where the staff remembered our names and made some really great people. Yes, the bathroom did flood, but once we strategically placed some towels around the bath, it didn't flood as much. And yes, we were on the top floor, but we thought that the 2 flights of stairs (39 steps in total...hey, I am an accountant, of course I was going to count them!!) was good exercise for us. I would definitely stay there again & totally recommend it to anyone. Location was fantastic and everything we needed was so close.
Since we had done most of the touristy things in our previous 2 trips, this holiday was more of a relaxing/shopping one and to celebrate my birthday. Had many highlights though, and they included:
* Bali Budaya Bike Tour: recommended on the forum & by our travel agent Nicki. Was a bit apprehensive, as I do not really ride bikes at home. However, it was fantastic! Mostly down hill with only a few up hill parts and the only place I had to get off and walk up was towards the end, where there was a hill, followed by a short flat part, & then another hill (got off on the 2nd hill!). But it was fantastic! Day included a breakfast at Mt Kintanami, a tour through a coffee & cocoa plantation, bamboo weaving demonstration, lunch & a tour through a Balinese compound. Very educational but very interesting as well. Awesome when kids came running out of the village yelling out 'hallo, hallo' and trying to give us high fives...I was too scared to take my hands off the handle bars! There were 4 other people on the tour (2 Dutch, 1 American & his friend from Lombok), so it was a nice small number.
A fantastic day...except my sister fell off her bike into a ditch by the side of the road early into the ride and suffered from a few scratches up her arm & some bleeding; she was very lucky that she wasn't seriously hurt & she was attended to straight away with alcohol, betadine, etc. However, it destroyed her confidence, so she followed us in the van & got out when we did tours. Her wounds quickly healed and she is now fine.
* Orphanage Visit: this was organized by Sammy's (of S & S fame) brother Ketut and we were driven there by Sammy & Susie's kids, Nyomang & Made. We went there with Travella (who we met at S&S) and his wife Louise. First, we went to Makros and bought up big on food, rice, milk powder, toothpaste, etc to take up to the orphanage. For the quantity of food we got, it cost us very little. Not too sure whereabouts the orphanage is located, but I know it's in Sammy & Susie's village and that we did pass Sanur on the way and took us about an hour from Kuta to get there. The orphanage had around 120-200 children (we got a different answer every time we asked!!), with 7 adults looking after them, but they looked very well looked after and very happy. We handed out lollipops to them (lucky we bought them lots of tooth paste!), which I don't think they knew what they were at first, but once we showed them how to open them, they loved them. It was very rewarding for us.
* Hulu's: Never went before, but it was very funny and I swear that you wouldn't be able to tell if they were guys if you saw them on the street. They targeted one guy on our table (who shall remain nameless...he will kill me if I name & shame him!!) and we got some great photos of him being mortified. Very funny.
Other than that, we had massages or some type of treatment pretty much every day. We went to Melasti Spa, Ambiente, Green Garden Spa (had the 3 hr royal package for him, even though we are female....bliss!) and our free 15 min massage at the Lokha Hotel. Our favourite is still the Melasti. Had our finger & toe nails painted every couple of days by Louise, who came to our hotel & did a terrific job; even the massage lady at the Melasti Spa was very impressed.
All the places we ate were fantastic, though 9 times out of 10 we were the only ones in the place, which was a bit sad. Anyway, we ate at:
•Bobby's - Jl Padma, opposite new Indo National restaurant. Very cheap & they also did our laundry, which was cheap as well.
•Indo National - Jl Padma. New place very big and they were always busy.
•Drops - Jl Padma. Really nice food & scrumptious desserts. Not cheap compared to Bali prices though
•Kori's - Poppies II. Went there for my birthday dinner. Very nice restaurant and excellent food.
•Billy's - Jl Sahadewa. Good atmosphere and friendly service. Good prices too.
•La Lucciolas - Seminyak. Went there for my birthday breakfast. Word of warning though; they do not have their full breakfast menu on week days, only on the weekends. Pretty disappointed, as I was hanging out for the Sweet Tooth's breakfast & their weekday menu mainly consists of eggs, which I don't eat. Oh well, next time I'll know to go on the weekend!!
•La Porchetta - Jl Legian. Nice food, but very quiet.
•Green Garden Café - Tuban, opposite Dianne's shop. Great food & we got a free t-shirt from them!
•Goshas - Jl Melasti. Great place for seafood and their cocktails.
•Papas Café - Kuta Beach Road. Had the infamous Kintinami Volcano pizza, huge & very nice.
•Jonis - Jl Padma. Love their potato skins.
•Bamboo Corner - Poppies I. Very cheap.
A lady at our hotel wanted to do a cooking class, so the staff at the Lokha set up a table poolside to learn to cook & another table all to eat from. It was fantastic & another example of how the staff went out of their way for us. Ended up being around 20 people for dinner and the lady who originally wanted to cook was too busy socializing & drinking Bintang to do any cooking!! This was on Thursday, when there was a bomb threat for that day. Even though we already had plans to stay in the hotel that night, it was even more of a reason to stay put. Apparently there was a big dance party up at Double 6 club, with about 3,000 people attending, which I am assuming would have been the original target. But, as with all specific bomb warnings, nothing happened and, other than that night, we felt very safe.
As for shopping, we bought the usual things ie DVDs, clothes, jewellery, watches, sunnies, etc. Mainly shopped along Jl Sahadewa, the Legian Art Markets, Ketuts shop, Dianne's shop in Tuban, Geneva Handicrafts, and along Jl Padma. Bargain of the trip was a Louis Vuitton cabin bag with pull trolley for 200,000Rp...we both bought one and they are great. Also, went to the Billabong sale and got some great bargains.
We went to S & S a couple of times & met Travella & Louise, Smudge UK, Scully, Heatherbelle, Nicno (our travel agent), and Brian B. It was very quiet down there as well, which is pretty sad. Still a nice place to relax, drink some binnies & watch the sun go down.
Our first morning there, it poured down with run until around 10 and then the sun came out and was very humid. I think it rained most nights, but was sunny & hot during the day, so it didn't really bother us.
We left on Saturday night and came to the conclusion that 8.5 nights is definitely not long enough! We were a couple of kilos over with our luggage, but they were put through without a question (PHEW!!). Security was tight with AA. Before checking in, all our bags were swiped with the wand thingy & before we boarded the plane, everyone's hand luggage was checked & everybody was patted down. Didn't notice any of the other airlines doing this, but it did make me feel very safe. Arrived back home to Sydney to the coldest day in history...great welcome home!! Even though Sydney Airport was very busy, we got through within an hour of landing, our fastest time ever.
We had a ball & now have the Bali Blues big time...especially with this cold weather that has hit Sydney. Yes, it is very quiet over there at the moment, but I was told that it was busy the week we were there due to the Australian school holidays. I was expecting to be really hassled by shop keepers, but we didn't experience any of it and found that most of their starting prices were quite reasonable and sometimes accepted it if I thought it was a good price...good for you, good for me!
Not sure when we are going back, but we will get there again one day hopefully very soon. Hopefully I haven't bored you all to death, but if you have any questions, please feel free to email me.
Cheers
Bec