Well we've been back for over a fortnight now and I'm almost back to normal. I didn't keep a journal this year so I'm just going to ramble on about what comes to mind from the trip.
We headed over to paradise on the 30th of December and started our trip off with a decent Garuda flight all round, including the food and movie (My Super Ex-girlfriend) and the bintang was nice and chilled. Without booking a transfer we just jumped into the voucher line and got a blue cab to Tuban for 30,000 and it was all too easy.
The Garuda flight home was a little dodgier, with horrible food, tv's that didn't work and one huge check in line! Seats on the flight had been double booked so there would have been a few unhappy campers shuffled back off to who knows what hotel for the night as they were putting on a second flight the next day to get everyone home.
We stayed at the Bali Garden Hotel for the first 4 days of our trip and were pretty happy with it for the price range it fell into. The pool and breakfast couldn't be faulted and were easily the best I've tried for this price range. The rooms we a little disappointing as the deluxe rooms with double beds we had requested weren't available and it just plain sucks having to push the singles together. The bathrooms were pretty tired too and we were never able to get pool towels and on the odd occasion couldn't even get fresh bath towels either.
The pool was always full of Aussies and we met most of them around the pool bar.
(to the forumite who recommended the bloody lovelies, you were so right! They are the best cocktail in Bali!)
The weather over these first few days was pretty rough as we copped the edge of the cyclone that was causing havoc over WA. New Years Eve was really windy but we still spent it drinking and setting off fireworks on the beach with locals. It was an awesome sight when midnight ticked over and you looked down the beach. It seemed like every one of the thousands of people gathered there all had mobile phones out and we taking photos at the same time.
We were supposed to be heading over to Lembongan Island on the 4th of Jan but due to the bad weather we were called by our resort on the island (Waka Nusa) and told our transfers had been cancelled and we couldn't get there until the 6th at the earliest. So after numerous phone calls between totally useless travel agents in Perth and Sydney, a confused Indonesian travel agent and an ironically marvelous insurance company representative (CoverMore), we were shipped off to the Melasti Beach Hotel.
At first we were a little disappointed because our next stop after Lembongan was to be at the Padma Hotel, which is right next to the Melasti, but we were told they couldn't get us in there early.
Then a day or so after we checked into the Melasti we were really disappointed. The breakfast was shocking. The worst I have seen in any hotel anywhere in the world. The pool was as cloudy as it has been described on the forum and the staff were less than friendly.
Luckily the rooms were a definite improvement on the Bali Garden and we basically only slept at the hotel, choosing to eat anywhere else for breakfast and lazing by the Padma pool instead with my parents.
The Padma was where we moved for our last week and it was paradise. There is not one single fault any of us could find. From now on it is where we will always stay.
Our days were filled with trips to Ubud, Tanalot, various beaches, white water rafting, shopping, drinking, eating, talking and lazing by the pool.
We ate at a range of different restaurants this year as a few of our favorites seemed to have gone off a little. Those that stood out as usual or were a new and positive experience for us were: Un's (down lane off Poppies 1 at the Jl Legian end) as superb as usual and our favorite restaurant in Bali; La Lucciola (Seminyak) beware the rip-off drivers in this area, they'll give it a go, but the view and service is worth it; TJ's Mexican (down Poppies 1) we ate lunch here a lot, delicious food; Indo National, great for a meal any time of the day; Bella Rosa (beachfront of the Padma Hotel) a new favorite for food and ambiance for us; the Niksoma beachfront restaurant, again another new favorite; Warung 96 (down lane off Poppies 2), still as good as ever for food, service and cheap prices, they sell bintang now too; Mamma's (on Jl Legian) great service, food, German beers.
That's about the best of them this year, the rest don't deserve a mention really and I'd rather not bag out any off them on this forum, because its hard enough to fill a restaurant over there at the moment as it is without me negatively advertising.
It was easily the quietest New Year period compared to our 2006 and 2005 trips. Sellers seem pretty desperate and we often paid more for things than what we thought they were worth as it felt like the right thing to do. It was rare to see a full restaurant and it was often the more upmarket places or those inside hotels that seemed to be moderately to actually busy. We went to Paddy's one night and it was so quite that we decided it really wasn't worth it, preferring to enjoy our meals out and retire for duty free and drinks by the pool or lounge bar of our hotels.
Even though it was sad to see Bali in this state, we'll still be returning next year as we do every year for New Years now. We'll just definitely be staying at the Padma and probably spend more time heading further out of Legian/Kuta/Seminyak and into the 'real' Bali (definitely Lembogan, weather permitting lol).