Arrived home yesterday at 5.00pm into Perth with Garuda.
Had a fantastic 13 days in Bali staying at the Kuta Town Houses.
Didn't get much sleep the night before leaving Perth on 10th January, after reading on the forum that the Garuda 9.00am flight had been delayed the two previous days - so was expecting a call from Garuda through the night - but there was no delay, in fact we arrived 20 minutes early.
Kuta Town Houses were very nice and spacious - having two children aged 9 and 6 we really appreciated that. Our room was downstairs right near the pool so we could sit on the balcony and have a bourbon or two and still watch the kids at the same time. Yes there is a construction site next door, but my Husband being a builder himself was absolutely fascintated watching the way these guys worked, pulling buckets of concrete up by a hand pulley to pour the slab after the concrete been made by hand downstairs - no concrete trucks on this building site!
Went to the Safari Park - absolutely fantastic - the kids took a real fancy to the Orangutang "tsunami" and he took a real fancy to my son taking his hand and trying to take him away - so cute, they also got to hold a lion cub and I got to stroke a white tiger - where else in the world could you do that!
After a few days my daughter got an ear infection from too much swimming in the pool - so that put a bit of a damper on the holiday for a few days - try telling a 9 year old that loves swimming that she can't swim in the pool after a few hours of shopping in the humidity.
Trying to find things to do that doesn't involve water or driving up hills was a bit hard, I was quite happy to do more shopping but the kids were fed up of that. Anyway got talking to a lady who has retired to Bali for the past 12 years and she suggested the "Matur Suksma" indoor snow and ice sculpture place, only 10000rp to enter and they give you a big jacket and in you go -20degrees - snow, ice slides and ice sculptures - so my kids first experience with snow was in Bali, we went down the slides a few times looked at the sculptures and tried to have a snow fight but hands got too cold, we were in there about 10 mins and had to come out. At the exit you could buy gloves for 6000rp a pair and you could also buy a hot chocolate or coffee or soup which believe it or not we needed, so we had a hot drink and bought some gloves and went back in and had a proper snowball fight - you can come in and out as many times as you want. Not many people know about this place as we were the only tourists there the rest of the people were the locals.
Finally ear infection cleared up 2 days before leaving so the day before we left we went to Waterbom - a new slide has been built since last time we went "the boomerang" after going on that the rest of the slides were a breeze.
We were really lucky with the weather - mainly raining at night - we only got caught once in the rain, we were having dinner at Havanna's - new restaurant just opened on Poppies 1 opposite Secret Garden - (very nice food, I had lasagne and it was really nice)anyway the rain wasn't going to stop, the kids wanted to get a taxi back to our hotel about 2 minutes walk away, the sellers wanted ridiculous money for the umbrellas - so we just walked in the rain and it was wonderful.
Anyway that's all for now.