Sorry if i bored anyone with my last JBR but i really do talk to much - or so everyone says that.
The Beach along Kuta & Legian when we saw it on Friday (flew in the night before on the evening flight from Perth) was a disaster. Have some pics on my facebook page if anyone wants to have a look. friday was mainly changing some money, laying around the pool and going out for a bit of a look around and unpacking our suitcases.
Friday night we went to the best restaurant (in my opinion) called Ultimo in Seminyak. I had the Lasagne and it was seriously the best i have ever had, and my Mum, aunty and Italian friends can really cook a good one, but thi just seemed to melt in my mouth.
Saturday we went to Made Warung in seminyak. We had been told that it is the best Indonesian in Bali and you had to book to get a table as it was packed! Reasonable prices but all the food is quite hot with some of the dishes we had making everyone who ate them sweat as if they had a heater above them. i think there were some sore bums the next day as well, but good to kill any bugs that may have already been lurking in our stomaches.
Sunday was Ku Te Da. Nice food and atmosphere. Very upmarket with everyone getting really dressed up in there. Had budgeted for $100-150 per head but it ended up being only $75 a head - only 3 bottles of wine drunk between 8 adults. Kicked on here until about 12:30/1am.
Ok so monday we had booked in for Quad Biking. As the Balinese always say - it's just up the road or just north of Seminyak. We had booked for the afternoon tour which picked us up at 1pm from the hotel. As i thought it was just 'north of seminyak' none of us had any lunch as we thought we may only be gone for a 'couple' of hours. So.....about an hour in the 2!!! hour drive up the mountain, we asked how much further and our driver said about another hour and we all laughed and said yeah right, really how long we need to go to the toilet. He said - no not joking another hour. Well, was everyone dark at me then. So we arrived at our destination at 3pm. Bear in mind that it is New Years Eve!
Ok - Quad biking, it did say bring a change of clothes and wear closed in shoes. I had my nice runners, my fiancee had his good ones we bought up and Rachelle had her nice slip on shoes as well. Dad bought some across the road about 10 minutes before we left for 50,000. Anyway, we got used to the bikes and i had to go tandem as one of the bikes broke down from earlier. Broke down? How did that happen i thought but was happy to go tandem as i could get some great photos and video. So off we go (5 bikes in total with our group having 3 of them) and we start going through the nice rice fields and down some tracks and i thought wow this is nice! Easy! Soothing! Until......All of a suddern we came down this steep hill towards the thicker forest away from the rice fields. Now with all the torrential rain you must of all heard about, the mud and water was horrendous. at this stage, we new why we needed closed in shoes and a spare change of clothing. From that section on, our shoes were wet with mud all over them, our clothes had mus and so did our tops. Morale of the story, if it has been raining and you want to go on the Quad biking, best you go and buy some very cheap clothes! My shoes still have brown stains and my fiancees's grey shirt (was a Billabong one bought there last year) looks grey & Brown.
Needless to say i have never laughed so much in my life and yet another bike got broken (something about a ball joint snapping!) My Fiancee is a mechanic and he just laughed when he saw the Balinese trying to tie it with a piece of string. Anyway, the moved it off to the side of the track and we kept on going. I think they had just about as much fun as we did because of all the rain. For $85US each, it is not cheap but so worth the money!
Anyway, we left there about 5pm and got back to the hotel in time for the New Years Eve party at 7:30 so a quick shower and up for dinner.
I'll post about the New Year Eve Dinner in my next one....
Stay tuned!