They say knowledge is power and that a little knowledge is dangerous. I reckon I fall into both categories.
For the 3 months before heading to Bali I've been teaching myself Indo via a program I bought off the internet (Before You Know It). I've practiced my very basic Indo on any and every person who looked remotely Indonesian within a 50 kilometre radius of Perth. (That made for some strange looks and funny comments) Like the girl at Subway Bentley. I was sure she was Indonesian so ordered my foot long Teryaki Chicken in Bahasa only for her to look at me with a puzzled look on her face and then to tell me she had no idea what I said because she was Chinese........oops.
After the 0400hrs wake up, an uneventful flight on Garuda (except for the hand brake needed to stop the plane) the family arrived safely. We were met by Raceng, who drove us around last year. He's got a new 7 seater with great aircon. Nice guy. I bent his ear with my pigeon bahasa. He said I pronounced everything well and I think he was very diplomatic when he said "most" people will understand 'most' things I say......Did I mention he was a nice guy.
We're staying at the All Seasons Tokyo, sorry Legian. Nice hotel. Good location but Spartan. Imagine having a camping trip in an Ikea store. Well that's pretty much the All Seasons. It's not Balinese in the least but the rooms are very clean and the service has been great. It helps when you hold a doctorate in foreign languages. Yes, I'm kidding.
The hotel and Bali itself is pretty quite. There are tourists about but mostly Italian and Japanese. There are heaps of young Japanese at the All Seasons but they're really quiet.
Apart from the 3 months torturing my kids by refusing to speak English to them, the wife and I scoured the forum for every good restaurant, eatery, clothing store and supermarket within cooee of out hotel.
If your Indo is as rudimentary as mine then don't try to get directions from the front desk to the Bintang Supermarket (which is great by the way). It.........IS..........NOT........NEAR.........the All Seasons. Get a taxi!!!!! There and back. And if when you ask someone where it is and they say it's a long way away and they offer you transport........take it!
The wife and I were worried that the first 1o things on our to do list involved bakeries and eating, well I reckon the 10 kilometre walk to the Bintang Supermarket more than made up for the visit to Bread Talk and another awesome bakery near the hotel and New Zealand Ice Creamery and the pizza for dinner and the Pocari Sweat (yes it tastes like sweat).
Weather is great. 29 degrees and no idea what the exchange rate is because we brought some quids with us.