We started day 7 with a coffee at Gloria Jeans in Kuta Square. Probably just as expensive as home, but it was nice to have a real coffee. A nice touch was the cold towels offered to patrons as they sipped their coffee and read the Australian papers to catch up on what's happening at home. This turned out to be a good place to go to catch up with fellow Aussies and compare experiences.
Being a Sunday, we decided to try out the Yum Cha at the Chinese restaurant at the Dynasty, as we had heard good things from the BTF. Perhaps we have been spoilt by the offerings of Perth's Chinatown, but I didn't really enjoy it that much. It was roughly half the cost of what we would pay at home and the quality was probably half also. Towards the end of our meal we discovered a dead bug (I think it was a small cockroach) in our food, so that ended the experience altogether.
We then headed across to Diane's shop (Jenny was closed for the holidays). Diane is excellent to deal with, great with the kids and we couldn't find lower prices for comparable quality anywhere we went after. She and her husband has us all fitted up in an hour with complimentary cold water as we went.
For something different we tried KFC for dinner and sampled the local menu. Not bad, but again cheaper prices for lower quality than you would expect in a local KFC. Then we went into Discovery Mall and picked up a Nintendo DS chip for the boys at the Kids Station toy store. A 128 game card was 350,000 RP and 90 game cards were 310,000 RP, much better value than the smaller chips on offer at Matahari's. A word of warning - test each chip and sample the 'feature' games that you are buying the chip for as a number of the games are not in English and therefore unable to be played if you can't understand the instructions.
An early night to bed in anticipation of our Bali Baik adventure tomorrow.
Day 8 - Bali Baik Tour
This was to be the best day of our holiday by a long way. We were picked up at 7am and 2 hours later we arrived at the Kintimani volcano for breakfast with spectacular views. Much has been written elsewhere, so I won't go into the detail, but this is a must do for anyone coming to Bali.
Apart from the great experience of seeing Bali life and villages first hand, three things made a distinct impression on me from the tour: I loved walking through the lush rice fields, watching the families work in traditional ways, hand cutting and thrashing the rice, yet then suddenly stop everything to answer their mobile phone. It occurred to me that even Bali's remote mountain districts they have better mobile coverage than that of Perth!
The second ironic observation when riding through the simple villages was the shops selling PS2 games and consoles along side basic staple items.
The third was our guide Nyoman explaining in graphic detail the coming of age ceremony -filing down of the six front teeth by the village priest with a metal file which is compulsory for all family members and the need to stay awake for 24 hours prior to the ceremony to ward off evil spirits.
I learned more in 6 hours than anything I could read in books and our guide Nyoman was exceptional in his knowledge and explanation of bali tradition and culture(he has only has sight from one eye so you will know if you have him as your guide).
If you like the coffees on offer at the agri-tourism stop, save your money and buy them for a quarter of the price at Carrefour or Bintang supermarkets.
Again we all slept well that night. I must have been tired, because I missed my 4am prayers the following morning
Day 8 Safari Park
We had previously arranged a driver Buda on the advice of DidiAust and Buda was early for our 8am pick up in a shiny new Suzuki APV. What a lovely guy. He took us to the safari park, through pouring rain and flooding streets. It looked like we were going to get soaked, but as we arrived the rain cleared and we enjoyed three hours at the Safari park. Had photos with all the animals, the lion and tiger were both incredibly drowsy, but the orangutan was adorable. The baby elephant was the highlight for us. A bit pricy for what it currently offers, but not a bad place to go. Something you only need to do once.
After that we headed to Ubud to the monkey forest. The best value and honest money changer is right next to the entrance where you pay for your ticket.
On the way home we stopped off at Carrefour for things we wanted to take home. Buda happily waited whilst we shopped and kept an eye on the boys. I would happily recommend Buda to anyone - a very courteous and safe driver and nothing is a problem. Fair prices as well for a new vehicle.