Life's been busy since part 1 - mostly getting ready for trip 5.
recap of part 1 - self, son aged 24 and his fiancee 23, 12 nights in Sanur doing lots of different activities and taking stuff to orphanages etc. See 4th Trip was fabulous - Part 1.
We ate at a number of places at Sanur. Our hotel (Bumi ayu) was very cheap, quiet and lovely food - it was one of the kids favourites and they loved having room service meals and also eating by the pool. Mona Lisa was a favourite just a few minutes away, at dinner you get a complimentary loaf of bread and a little salsa appetizer, they had great seafood, sensational lumpia in a little basket of spring roll wrapper, divine mango juices and so on, friendly staff, great presentation of food and a glass walled kitchen to see the cooks in action.
Another night we went to a Legong dance and dinner at Kalpatharu, the young girl dancers were beautiful and loved our meals.Wondered if the bat dropping on son's head was a blessing as the previous night while drinking arak at JJ's when a rat sent the temple offerings spilling on to his head the staff deemed it good luck!
A few years previously Retro was a favourite but we had a lot of trouble choosing something on the menu that was availble, finding it open and having enough Indonesian to make our requests clear.
Pregina was cheap and good, as an aquatarian (that's a fish eating vegetarian I found out in Bali)had some great meals such as a divine stuffed tofu entree, kids ate Indonesian with meat and also good.
Went to Cafe Batujimbar a few times but we were dissapointed each time with food and service and yet it is often packed out and has a large menu and they have a popular Sunday morning market. Reason for return visits was the salsa dancing, great to watch the teachers and also got a dance one night which was one of my highlights.
Shopping was a mixture of tailoring, bargaining and fixed price shops. Future daughter in law only keen on fixed price and as a tiny person found plenty of places to shop.
We both had a number of clothes copied at Goning Tailor which is across lane from our hotel and the results were excellent.Described fabric wanted/chose from swatches and Mina sourced them in Denpasar.
I had a pair of sandals copied when mine wore out from all the 'jalan jalan' and also two leather jackets made at Jinggo's - one red and one a teal/green colour, both excellent quality, fit etc.
Purchased a number of lovely jewellery items (edged in silver) at Abadi shop and found the prices great after a little bargaining and the guys great to deal with.
Went upstairs at Hardy's supermarket in Sanur regularly to see a different free dance performance each day.
About half our luggage was filled from items bought at Geneva, Son wanted pairs of carved iguanas, komodos, crocs and masks and also a lot of homewares and gifts for my class and family.
Everyday was fabulous, coming home was a little sad - hence my booking within a week for another trip, which is now only a week away -yay!!
Next trip will be on my own - a first, staying at Bumi Ayu again and so a lot of the familiar restaurants and shops to visit again and dance shoes and another jacket to be made.
Taking about 20k of resources for the little school in the Kuta dump I found out about last time - The school I work at has fundraised over $1000 to support the Bali school and also given me heaps of great books to take - anyone going Adelaide to Sanur in the next two weeks and like to help take some stuff over please let me know.
I will be doing a different bike ride this time just for variety - I wonder if Bikebaik has the kid doing the boob high five (See part 1).
Also going to go to Tulumben for another snorkel and maybe the Safari Park again if the orangutan is out for a visit (only lion and tiger last time).
Looking forward to seeing old friends and I'm taking prints of all the photos I took last time with locals in to give them copies.
Got a lot of new ideas from BTF, my nightly read, and so happy to be able to put many of them into practice so soon.
Tomorrow's task is to learn how to make an origami box (to hold a frangipani flower) out of a rupiah note - one of the BTF ideas for a gift for cleaning staff and then it's just packing......
Cheers
Jan