Starting at 5.30 am, arriving at the airport, all out excitement was put on hold as out flight was delayed 6 hours! decided might as well stay there instead of unlocking the house again. After 2 hours i'd had enough, theres only a certain ammount of time you can sit in duty free for. Finally the airplane arrived and with some cheering we boarded the plane, A short time later we finally arrived. The bali smell is wonderful,heat, cigarattes and incense, feels like arriving home :)
HOTELS: stayed at the dynasty hotel for one night with family then moved to the adhi dharma hotel with boyfriend. After staying 1 night in the hotel we asked to move to the cottages as coming back late at night and walking down a dark alley way was quite unsetteling to get to hotel,( there was also a scary ammount of security guards - all in different uniforms laughing and jeering outside the main gates, when we got near they abruptdly stopped and just stared!) I would reccomend the cottages as they are beautiful rooms and great surroundings ( right on legian street)
SHOPPING:
CARREFOUR:
Been there a few times and its absolutley amazing! there is the most wonderful supermarket on the top floor where you can buy anything from live turtles( we found at the back of the store) to traditional indonesian cuisine straight out of the pan, And theres a whole floor just for food, with the best pizza i've had in my entire life :).
MATAHARIS:
Also another centre that im accustomed to, has the most amazing shoes(although i only brought one pair as they as have such tiny feet and im size 10!) and good quality, reasonably priced clothes.
STREET SHOPS:
This can be good fun or just plain terrible. After a few days of being hassled on the street where everyone says there stock is 10,000 rupiah, then you go inside and the price suddenly jacks up, we'd had enough. The last straw was when we were sucked into one shop down an alley was off legian street where a man promised 10,000 rupiah once again, As my bf is half indonesian himself the man started out quite generous offering us free necklaces and whatnot, until i picked up the bintang towel.We started bartering at 25,000 as its only a small towel, thats when he got nasty, screaming "this is bali mate! you expect 25,000 for a towel" after a few yelling matches between my bf and the man we gave up put the stuff on the table and tried to leave, this is when he started screaming for us to put the towel back in the plastic cover( as bf unwraped it to check the size) when we tried and couldnt get it EXACTLY right for him we put it on the table and quickly hurried out pulling the bf along with me, if i didnt i would hate to think what would have happened, god they were mad!
RAMAYANA - DENPASAR
This one was new to us, 4 floors , women, men, supermarket and gaming/arcade. We went twice, once ourselves and once with family. On the top floor there is a reptile shop with wonderful snakes, gorgeous small turtles and squirmy lizards, you are able to touch anything in the shop, but i wouldnt touch the amazonian snapping turtle or the huge tarantula haha. Went on the bumper cars and bowling also on top floor.
EATING:
Posers: this is an amazing little restaraunt on padma st, their beef stroganoff was absolutley amazing, we ate there 4-5 times, once twice in 1 day it was so good. Well priced also
Indonational: this is another great restaraunt on padma. They serve all types of food ( hence the name ) and they are fairly cheap, the restaraunt is owned by a lovely aussie couple who come and chat to you to make sure your meal is up to standards, ive been going there for years.
BALI ZOO:
We went here just as something to do one day, thought we would be proper tourists haha, it was great seeing all the weird and exotic animals and so many monkeys, We got to play with a baby lion, hold a monsterous iguana lizard and a small furry monkey-looking thing.
MONKEY FOREST: UBUD
i have one tip, do not hide the bananas from them, THEY WILL FIND THEM! altogether it was funny to watch them scurry around picking up bananas.
All in all this was a fantastic trip and one i would deffinetly do over again,
i hope this has given some insight into what bali is like for those who have never been and some not-known info on others who have, any questions you have i will be glad to answer
cheers for taking the time hearing me ramble on :)