First time travellers to Bali, with first time views no doubt! Our group - Me the Missus, Our Daughter 16 and her Bezzie friend 17.
Thought I'd try my hand at a 'Here Right Now' rather than a JBR! Memory is starting to go... must be my age! I'll do them as individual days (until either you me or both of us get bored!,as I have a tendency to waffle, as you'll no doubt discover! I also do tend to do 'tongue in cheek' a lot so if that doesn't come over too well on the interweb, then my humble apologies!
Well here goes!
We arrived 20 mins early on the 4.50 Air Asia flight out of Perth. Now... I'm ....how shall we put this..... quite a big bloke and despite numerous negative comments regarding limited space on Air Asia seating, we found that there was ample room, certainly in the seats towards the front of the plane, in the 'Posh End $10 pre-book seats'! Food was a bit Meh! But for 3 bucks not too much of a problem?
Upon arrival there was a fairly restrained 'Mad Dash' to the VOA Counter and as we were the only plane arriving we were through there in 10 seconds flat! Next, which queue to get in for the Passport Control? None were open as yet, so we went with the tried and trusted option of 'get in the same queue as everyone else, already waiting'! As fully expected all the other desks opened and their queues speedily got shorter as ours ours stubbornly failed to move an inch. Still can't complain as we eventually got through to the suitcase carousel, (and after a minor tousle with Balinese All-In Champion Suitcase Snatcher!) were out the door within half an hour of landing.
We were greeted by our driver and he whisked us through the traffic with a joyful disregard of any of the usual road rules, other road users or indeed seemingly the safety of anyone in a 10 foot radius of the car! After an exciting journey that somehow miraculously avoided a major traffic incident, we arrived at our destination, Villa 8 in Seminyak. I prised my fingertips from the armrest and we checked in. As we had arrived about 4 hours before normal check-in, they very kindly allowed us to use one of their other apartments in the meantime. So straight to the fridge for an ice cold Bintang, in no time my first taste of Bintang had erased my concerns with my first taste of Bali traffic and I was in Holiday Mode...........very nice indeed!
After transferring to our Villa when it was ready, a quick dip in the pool and waiting for what seemed like an age for the girls to get ready (that's what happens when you travel with three ladies!), we were off out for some lunch.
After personally looking forward to trying out the wonderful cuisine of Indonesia we wandered down Eat Street and upon perusing the many fine establishments, the 'group' made their decision .....Pizza!! Oooookay..... Still it was very nice Pizza at the Pizza Club, all Pizza's are named after various films which had a link to some ingredient or other in the said Pizza. (Sometimes a pretty tenuous link...... I mean an 'Oceans Eleven' pizza containing garlic prawns and tuna........... surely that an 'Oceans Two Pizza? ) But as a gimmick goes not a bad one! Trying to be exotic I had one called a 'Blue Velvet' which involved Blue Cheese, and I can report that it was far more palatable than the 1986 David Lynch film of the same name! As I said previously though the Pizzas were really good and were priced at between IDR40,000 - 60,000. Bintangs were cold and IDR16,000.
After a quick trip to Bali Bintang Supermarket for some essential provisions (Bintangs and Cheezy Cheese Pringles) we returned to the Villa and another dip in the Pool. Everyone decided they were too tired to go out for dinner (we had been up since about 1.00am!). As a result we availed ourselves of the Hallo Restaurants Delivery Service. We ordered from Goodys as it seemed to have a varied choice of food styles which suited everyone. All their items cost IDR34,000 each, it took about an hour to arrive, but no worries as I said we we're in Holiday Mode. When it arrived, no complaints, it was takeaway food that cost about 4 bucks for each dish and was tasty enough.
After a few more Bintangs from the fridge and one or two 'small' Glayvars, courtesy of Perth Duty Free, we called it a night at about 9.30pm........we know how to partay!
Day 2 to follow......... A trip to Legian, Arranging a Tattoo and amusing incidents involving a shoddily made duck hand-puppet and a potential international incident involving a t-shirt?!!