We flew from Perth with Garuda and our flights both ways were great - they seem to have lifted their game.
For our first 4 nights we stayed at Kebun Impian, in Seraya Barat, which is about 30 minutes east of Candi Dasa and about 1km past the Ujung Water Palace. At present Kebun Impian has just 2 rooms available - beach front room and the round house room, along with a small restaurant also open to the public. We enjoyed our stay in the beach front room which looked across the garden and pool and out to the ocean. The only surprise was that there was no hot water, but I got used to that - it didn't worry my husband. There is a great bale right on the waterfront with views to Lombok. We spent much time watching the ocean come crashing in at high tide, the local fisherman going to sea, sunrise etc etc. Kebun Impian is owned by John and Wayan who made us very welcome. Wayan is a great cook and we ate all our meals there, which along with the drinks were very reasonably priced, along with unlimited tea and coffee.
2 afternoons each week you can watch the local children practice their dancing.
One afternoon we walked to the now UNESCO restored Ujung Water Palace which is very pretty and quite impressive. A number of locals were taking their exercise here. I also went with Wayan to the morning markets at Amlapura where she did her fruit and vege shopping. Day trips or transport can be organised as required. They have just started building 2 more rooms near to where the round house (room) is situated, but they do not have ocean views. I'd definitely recommend the beach front room. This is a great spot to relax and we only had to share the pool with one other guest and a few lunchtime guests who had a quick dip.
http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/Indonesia-Bali/holiday-bungalow-Bali/p65990.htm#unitAmenities
We then travelled to Ubud and stayed at Samhita Garden Hotel on Jalan Bisma where we have stayed previously. They have maintained this small hotel very well and once again we enjoyed our time there.
It is situated next to our favourite restaurant, Café des Artistes - their steak and lamb medallions are excellent. Bookings are recommended if you wish to eat there in the evening.
We had lunch and dinner at Tropical Bale which is also highly recommended.
Others we ate at were:
DragonFly which was good.
Casa Luna - one meal great / one meal not so great.
Pignou Di Penyu - a new French Restaurant - great potato gratin, but sadly the pork was very tough.
Hibiscus - we choose tapas which were OK.
Coffee & Silver - lower Monkey Forest Road - we had a light lunch here in pleasant surroundings.
I always go to the Ubud Bodyworks Centre on Jalan Hanoman - it's not flash, but if you want more than a rote massage, they are very good. Also had a facial at Bali Botanica Spa which was peaceful and quite pleasant.
Apart from a little shopping, we walked the Tjampuham Ridge and had a good rice paddy walk.
We had contacted our driver, who lives in Singaraja - Nyoman Ariana - a really nice family man who speaks very good English - recommended if you need a driver up this way - ariananyoman@yahoo.com or Mobile 081 558 700 099. He collected us in Ubud and drove us to Pemuteran where we had 4 nights at the new Sari Amertha which is on the beach front. Loved this place - we had an ocean front villa with shared plunge pool and a great vista across the lawns and out to sea.
I had a massage in a waterfront bale for Rph 150,000 which the hotel omitted to include in our account and emailed us requesting payment. We then put the money with a letter in an envelope and posted it to them from Legian, however, the letter arrived without the money! Apparently you need to wrap any money in carbon paper so it is not detected. - Lesson learnt.
We took a sunrise traditional boat ride at 6am and it seemed as if we were the only ones on the ocean. We took some great sunrise photos and a plus was seeing a group of dolphins which are not often seen so far northwest. We also passed over some of the coral reefs which we could clearly see and of course the Bali coastline and distant Java looked great in the morning light.
Another morning we took transport to Gilimanuk - the western point where the ferries cross over to Java. The wharf is a busy area with a continual stream of boats in and out of the harbour. I've never seen so many motorbikes, cars, trucks and buses loaded into one boat for the crossing which takes about 30 mins. Amazingly you could see many different kinds of fish swimming in relatively clear harbour water.
From this great spot, Nyoman again met us and we drove to Legian where we stayed for 4 nights at the Bali Niksoma - a great hotel.
A different restaurant we tried in Legian was the Mannekepis on Jln Legian, near to Made's Warung, which is run by a Belgian guy and plays Jazz and Blues Music (live on Thursdays). The food was good.
All the local restaurants, Seaside, Zanzibar etc were very busy.
Hope there's been some info of interest here - and a big thanks for all the information given by members of the forum.