Well im back in the REAL world and this is my overview.
Hubby Wez and I planned to travel to bali with our Perth friends and met up with friends from Melbourne and Sydney in Legian
We were having our home on the market whilst we were away and didnt go to bed the night before so we could finish all those little jobs that needed doing so when we hopped into the taxi at 11.30am we were very relieved and exhausted and excited to be going away.
PERTH AIRPORT wasnt busy (Thursday 30 Oct)when we arrived, we had our luggage smartwrapped for $10 a bag then checked in with Garuda over 3 hours before flight time 12pm,for 3.25pm flight, all very quick and when we turned to go to departures there was quite a queue.
DUTY FREE we went to purchase a Camcorder and were dissapointed with the prices. My son works in Harvey Norman and we found everything overpriced. We had no choice though as we needed a camera to go away with so talked it through with my son and chose a camcorder that we were happy with, next time i will bargain at the Department Stores. Alcohol and Perfume were well priced.
FLIGHT was delayed but all in all was pretty quick and i was surprised that bar was open at the back last hour or so in flight where passengers helped themselves. Everyone was well behaved.
ARRIVED at DENPASSAR at 6.30pm and we forgot to change our money to american $$ at Perth airport (mmmm started those bourbons a bit too early hehehe) anyway they accepted aussie $$ and we had brought plenty of change so we had the exact amount and saved about $13-15 not having to change money. Went through VOA very quickly and met with our friend Oka at the airport who took our friends to Legian Beach Hotel (yes they were overbooked and they only had one double bungalow left with a private pool for them and they were upset for half a millisecond and went to their room lol) we drove on to our hotel...........
The BALEKA BEACH RESORT where we were taken to our room, just after we said hi to our friends the Gibbos from Sydney who arrived the day before. We looked at our room, turned airconditioner on and went to meet up with the Woodsies for Dinner. (well that was the idea but it never happened as Oka our friend misunderstood us and didnt pick them up and we couldnt contact them to tell them what happened) Ahhh i need a sim card.
I will do the rest in point form rather than day by day from here, ill start with the most important things first......
COCKTAILS
We drank cocktails everywhere but the best by far were at the Mandira in Legian over looking the beach on the big comfy lounges during Happy Hours (5pm-7pm) where you could actually taste the alcohol. Putu our waitress told us we broke the record for happy hours drinks , id really reccoment the hic ummm errr the Mud Wrestler. We sang a lot by the end of happy hours and our apologies to anyone that could hear us ;-0 Ps; The first day we went they didnt have all the alcohol needed,so there were only 3 cocktails on the menu that we could have. we must have helped them a bit as the next day they had all of them.
RESTAURANTS
These were our favourites in no particular order
YUTZ'S - really nice food, excellent service and open later than most places and good place to watch people go by
UNCLE NORMS- cant beat them on ice cold beers and a varied menu, we had pizza, chicken snitzel and fish
SHEPPY'S- we went here for lunch twice and had iced coffee,cold bintangs, wedges,nachos and tasting platter (yummy) and the extras were cold towells whenwe arrived which we didnt get as much this time.
LEGIAN SNACKS- well what can i say this was a real find,(thanks BTF for reccomendation)
the nasi goreng here was the best! and so was their spring rolls and ice cold beers. Very cheap.
BLUE OCEAN BEACH- This place was average price but the food was very nice, cocktails were ok, i had the snapper and it was beautiful (spicy) with my new favourite thing RED RICE it was devine , hubby had been drinking most of the day so he had a very light meal,so for 2 of us with a few drinks came to about 275,000rp plus they taxed us 10%
WAROENG TROPICAL(thier spelling)
this place was another great find, really friendly staff, nice food, good service and very cheap
No service or taxes added on also.
ZANZIBAR
We went here for a snack in the early afternoon, i had a fruit salad which was huge for 27000rp which was nice my cocktail a cosmo was strong , hubbys chips were great, only let down was the warm beer which gave wez a stomach ache (lucky he only drank half) we had a service charge of 6% here
KU DE TA
Well this is as our friend Jody from Melb said it would be 'The place to be seen!' And they sure did see us, we went here after our cocktail hours at the mandira. As we made our way to transport there was a light shower so by the time we got to Ku de ta i was feeling sticky wet and i didnt want to be seen hehe. Most of us oredered light meals,one ordered the seafood platter and it was huge,this place is pricey but very nice food and great service.
RESTAURANT JIMBARAN BAY
We loved this place first time around ( it used to be called the sea view restaurant) and i hate to sound cliched but it wasnt the same(seafood a bit dry, calamari over cooked and tooo hard) the atmosphere was nice though.
B COUPLE BAR
We had dinner here and everyone had seafood baskets(85000rp) i had really nice nasi goreng, service was very slow cocktails very weak until we told them and the next ones had some grunt.Pricey , we had a service charge 10% and tax10%
BALI DENTAL CLINIC
Dr Rudy was on time, very professional. I had a repair filling and clean and hubby had the same. Im very happy and would recommend him.
PRESCRIPTION GLASSES
Mr Honeyman came to hotel through our friends the Luvies from Melb, i got driving and reading glasses and im very happy with them.
DVDS and TOYS
I met this guy Roger at our hotel through one of the guests staying at the baleka (who has bought from him for years) and he went all over the place to get me my DVDs. i was replacing all my old videos and he found 70% of them plus all the latest releases (over 300 in all) very honest and reliable.
TATTOO
Hubby had his first and last tattoo at Buddy Marley's a Band around his bicep, we went there after seeing his work at our hotel. He was professional, clean and a true artist.It took 2 hours. Then after some egging on by hubby, silly me ( all 43 years of me) had my one and only tattoo it took 20 min. For those who say its addictive....YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING!!! LOL
LAUNDRY
DEVA laundry service in legian, this lady was much cheaper than the ones my friend went to. Its further down the road and down a lane from our hotel.
MOBILE SIM CARD
We bought an XLsim for 50000 and topped it up a few times with 100,000rp, it worked well for us.
SHOPPING
KETUTS this place is great, big sizes for men and women , fixed prices and large stock. I kept going back there
GENEVA is great for presents ,housewares ,jewelley and knicknacks i spent about $40 AUS and had a huge bag of goodies including a nice pashmina for mum
BINTANG SUPERMARKET
great place for snacks such as chips, coke ,water and REDBULL!
CIRCLE K
we found to be cheaper for water and chips than bintang market,
WHAT WE DID
MELB CUP DAY
We were invited by the Luvies to Sanur at the Senia Hotel where they raised money for the John Fawcett Foundation and had ice cold beers , a nice luncheon and good music. I left earlier than my hubby Wez, who stayed on with the Luvies and arrived on our hotel doorstep later in the evening , worse for wear and told me they raised almost 10 million rp( i hope he was right lol)
BALI SAFARI PARK
We had our driver take us to the park early before it got too hot we got there at 8am, it cost us 250,000rp each and we got a welcome drink. we were told that the price can go up after 10 am;
We had photos taken with the baby orangatang and lion cub. we enjoyed the Tram tour and the show was ok. we got some great photos of the rhino,white tiger we fed the elephants and all in all had a great day and left around 2pm
BALI BAIK TOURS
We rang Wayan direct whilst in bali and we were picked up at 7am by our driver and INyoman was our guide- The breakfast was breathtaking overlooking the volcano and lake and it was interesting to learn about the coffee and i can now actually say that ive tasted S##T coffee from the beans that have been pooped by the Indonesian wild cats lol The views were awesome along the way and i learnt a lot more about the balinese culture , religion and rice. It was interesting and a lot of fun .
Lunch was in Wayans family compound,there was plenty of food and he was very warm and welcoming as was all his family, his mum is lovely and has a true serenity , take a look around after your lunch. We really enjoyed the day and would recommend this for all the family.
DRAG SHOW
At the Bali Beach Shack was hillarious, we booked for a meal and then show, a must see. It was even more hillarious when my hubby got pulled up on stage. It was a good night! Please note that the show is only on fri sat sun ;-)
BALEKA BEACH RESORT
As ive said before in the forum we complained about our room the next day as our bed was very hard and air con wasnt working and we were moved to a downstairs room that we were happy with, it was roomy and clean. The people staying there were very friendly and made the atmosphere really happy and fun and that was all ages.I loved to be able to go for a swim at midnight which i did most nights. The breakfast was basic and ok, a choice of fruit or eggs(any way) on toast (some days we had both) and fruit juice.We have stayed 5 star b4 in bali and this was 2 so you get what you pay for. Our friendswere upset when they had one night in a standard room(not superior like they paid) and then were moved to the new section but there was noise coming from the building work so the last 5 days they moved to the Niksoma, our other friends were fine in their room.
Id prob stay there again as i loved the atmosphere and have made some friends there and am sorry i didnt get everyones numbers.
We had a great time i wasnt worried about security, we went and had a great holiday.It was a little eerie the night before the bali bombers were executed as it was raining and a lot of shops closed up Earlier in the evening there was a convoy of police cars and bikes riding through Legian, other than that we were fine. Our families (our kids) were the ones messaging to see if we were ok and we were great!We drank rasberry juice morning and night this time and there was NO BALI BELLY, we had mortein zappers for mozzies and aeroguard and the little disinfectant hand wash which came in handy when we couldnt wash our hands
Any questions please ask
Sorry for rattling on....The End ...Cheers!Suzy