Had a pretty good time in Bali. Stayed in the Bali Gardens in Tuban. Nice place but I wouldn't class it upper class or anything - a little overpriced I reckon. Picked a deluxe room, so my balcony wasn't facing the street. I had free breakfasts orginised but only made use of this twice. The food wasn't anything special. Plus I usually slept in so missed out on it.
The first day I hung around the area until later when I decided to check out a few clubs down on Legian. It was the first time I went clubbing/drinking in Bali. Checked out Paddy's Bar and then Bounty. Beers were around 15krp iirc. Went back to hotel at around 3am.
Woke up with a hangover and didn't get out of my room till around 6pm..time for breakfast.
As I was searching for a place to eat I did some shopping - a couple of tank tops (fck terrorists, jiggy jig (50krp for both)), a pair of 'ripcurl' denim short (150krp - later found out only worth 100krp). A leather belt and also a wooden dragon. All this before breakfast :)
Third day I shot off to Denpasar in the hope of buying some needed clothes. I visited Ramayana and then tiara derwita (spelling?) checked out reno/rino(?) to see if there was any good PC software. Only bought three shirts. The shirts are a 'Laruso' brand. There was a large selection and the discounted price was 59krp a piece. I must say I hate clothes shopping though...
Next day I hired a driver from the hotel and went to Ubud. Checked out a Barong and Keris dance at some joint along the way. I'm not too sure what it was all about especially when they try and chop a part of the monkey's anatomy off at the end...
Checked out monkey forest; tagged along with a group of tourists who were being escorted by a guide. I figured yeah why not listen to some commentary. The guide was talking about how the monkey represents good sex or something along those lines..
Next day again and I'm off on a BaliHai 'reef cruise'.. Lets just say I was throwing up the whole trip there. Wasted a good hour on the sun lunges on arrival to the pontoon just trying to recover. For lunch we caught a boat to the 'baliHai club' on the island. Nice pool and a nice lunch. On the way back we jumped on a half submarine type vessel. Pretty dodgy really, couldn't see bugger all and it just brought back my sea sickness. Back on the pontoon I decided I had to do at least one activity form everything on offer - banana boat, paragliding etc So I just did the snorkeling - this was probably the main thing that I wanted to do anyway. I was a little disappointed - not much to see and the water was a little murky. Incomparable to the Gili's off Lombok. Still enjoyed the day.
Ok they were the main things that I did.
A few restaurants that I went to were, Bubba Gumps, where I had the bucket of boat trash and the cookie shake. All very nice but rather expensive. The lady showed me a card trick at the end. I had seen it before years ago, but nether the less. I only wished I had my video camera with me.
I ordered room service which was from the "batan waru', A serving of satays and spicy chicken wings- Good but again quite expensive.
Pappa's reteraunt was good as well. I ordered a pizza and garlic bread and ice coffee. Some one ordered a 'volcano' pizza and I was amazed at what I saw. Basically a large dome made from pizza crust which sits on top of the pizza itself. Never seen anything like it before..
I love chicken wings so on a number of occasions I would go into 'All American' and 'KFC' and just order a couple of wings here and there. I think they were 8krp a piece.. Not authentic Balinese cuisine I here you say but oh well nice and tasty either way.
Shopping wise I bought a few clothes, a few glasses from around the place - About a dozen cheap (but classy) watches for my mum and dad - I think these averaged around $5AU a piece. A couple of huge (30-40 cm) wooden dragons with wings etc. I bought these down the art markets (?) (The lane that lead to the beach from Jalan Kartika. Nearly at the end there is a small shop which is packed with wood - don't mistake this for the large 'expensive' looking shop closer to Kartika. I bought the two dragons for 270krp for the two. Very good price. As a single dragon goes for around 700krp in the big stores such as centro. The bloke was very cheerful and told me that his family does the carvings and that they sometimes deal/export some place in Brisbane. Anyhow this dude was good..unlike the half a dozen other shops that I went to which had overpriced/damaged stock.
The markets on Melasti I bought a nice painting in a wooden frame probably 50cm diagonal in size. This wasn't one of those with the tiny, finally painted people on it etc, but rather the ones with the rice paddy, leaves, flowers and birds. Really nice though. I talked the dude down to 100krp with the frame. Oh btw those dodgy looking ‘tanah lot' etc paintings on canvas were going for 15krp. I bought some weird blow up balloons (in a tube) from the same bloke 15krp for two packets.
That's it for shopping really.
One night I shouted a couple of locals to a few bintangs. Iirc one of the dudes was ‘steady eddie' and his cousin ‘Andi' both from Java, now living in Bali. It was an interesting talk with them. The Eddie dude showed me a ‘Western Union' cheque from a lady that he met some time ago. He told me he would love to marry her and maybe move to Australia someday. I sympasised with him but also tried to make him understand the the grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence..
Walking the streets by my self I had many offers of ‘woman', ‘hashish' etc. What can I say, I didn't entertain the idea for either of these. For starters I wasn't prepared to sit in Jail for the rest of my life on some conspiracy charge just for sharing a joint. Oh and I was too bankrupt for a ‘woman' :D (so I told them either way).
Garuda messed up my flight. Had to stay another day (oh no (...)) But had to go back to Adelaide via Brisbane. Customs in Brisbane were fine. They weren't worried at all about alcohol or dvd's. They were only curious in the wood. No probs at all though..
Well that was my trip; first trip by my self..I think that I budgeted 50-100$ a day, but I think it ended up closer to 200 a day -damn credit card.