6 of us (2 x 4yr sons, 18yr daughter & her boyfriend hubby and myself) Caught the 4.50am Air Asia flight from Perth. I was secretly hoping the boys would sleep on the plane but no such luck!
Arrived Bali got through VOA quickly, picked up our bags and rushed out to see our faithful friend to pick us up. We dropped our bags at our usual stay BGH and rushed off to meet family and friends for breakfast at Ocean Beach to be told by Putu on the way it was no longer there - I ate there in June and now it has been bulldozed for shops and hotel! I was very disappointed however a few phone calls later we managed to meet up with everyone at sky garden instead (same menu as ocean beach so I was happy to get my eggs benny with smoked salmon) I had been looking forward to my breakfast since I woke at 1.30am hehe.
We went out to Carrefour to stock up before going back to our hotel to check in and have an afternoon sleep. With 4yr old twins we decided to re-introduce the afternoon sleep as a trade off for long swims and later nights out to dinner.
As this was a family holiday and my 3rd trip this year - we fitted in with the kids and judged our outings around their needs. We went to the safari park the kids loved it and there are 2 baby tiger cubs I didn't see in June - Very cute! It was the busiest I have seen. We had to line up for each thing.
I think the most fun we had was the tree top adventure in Bedugal - very exciting! The boys got to do courses 1 and 2 - they thought they were Diego (if you have young kids you will know who I mean) going through the jungle on ‘animal rescues'. I managed course 3 - my daughter course 4 and a very brave/crazy Putu and Chris did all 5! It takes it out of you but lots of fun - if you don't mind heights - ziplining through the trees was fun.
We ate out at our favourite Ketumbar and also the usual places Zanzibar, Indo-national, Echo Beach, Jessons, Dalung and various other warungs along the way.
We went to our friend Putu's and his Mum cooked us her famous sate (she made them for many years at ‘The Pub') It was wonderful seeing all our kids playing together - they had a wonderful time 5 of them for a few hours - not understanding a word of each other but it didn't bother them!
We shopped at our usual fixed price market places Ketut's and Dianne's. I got some wonderful handbags in the arcade around the corner from Ketut. Amazing how the styles and colours have changed so much since June.
My sister in law was a bridesmaid at a wedding at the Mandeira so I was lucky enough to watch that. 2 days later there was a wedding also at BGH so I sat down and watched that one too! Very lovely. I was married at BGH before they renovated - where we got married is now the spa pool!
My daughter, boyfriend, sister in law and their friends all went on an adventure holiday - they went white water rafting, waterbom park, lembongan island.
We all had a fabulous time I have been a huge fan of BGH before the renovations and love it even more now the back of the hotel has improved so much it was nice sitting at the back of the hotel having a meal watching the sunset. The boys had a wonderful time trying to smash a coconut that fell out of the tree while we had dinner - took them ages but they finally conquered it and were so proud of themselves! Kids really don't need much for entertainment!
I noticed this time that I was unable to buy diet coke anywhere but Carrefour. I could buy it in most restaurants but circle K, Foodworks didn't sell it they sell coke zero but not diet coke. I went back to Carrefour and stocked up on diet coke to fill my esky in my room.
We took the boys to the ‘timezone' at Carrefour - for 50,000Rp we got a bag of coins and amused the boys for ages! They had great fun with some of the games and you get tickets for playing that you can cash in at the end for prizes. They got a few cheap prizes each at the end but didn't care they were small they had fun getting them.
We were getting an average of 8500Rp/$1AUS. The best rate was 8700Rp. We changed our money often at the drive through money exchange over the bridge just before Galael. That was the best rate.
Thats all - nothing too exciting for the regulars but a wonderful family holiday on our favourite little island. Cant wait to book the next one.
Di