It was with a mixture of excitement and sadness that we left our home of the previous two weeks... Villa Baliana.
This Villa is not custom built as a holiday villa. It is an actual home, with every convenience you would require if you lived in Bali permanently. As such, for the past two weeks we have treated it as home, and will miss its quiet comforts and warm personality.
I had jokingly mentioned to Nyoman the previous day that we would require a truck to transport all of our belongings to the Novotel Benoa.
I shouldn't have joked... we had soooo much stuff!!
Luckily for us, Nyoman was on top of the situation and turned up with his usual van, and a TRUCK. Well... actually, he called it a box car.. though I likened it more to a ute with a big storage shed mounted on the back. Either way, it took a few minutes and 4 men to get the 7 suitcases, 2 duffle bags, 6 bags, 3 boxes, (bubble wrapped) helicopters and wooden panels plus various plastic bags full of dirty washing, swimming gear, and a myriad of other bits and pieces loaded into the ute. Oh... and a stroller. (...)
We filled it. We are also now very very concerned that while our luggage weight should still be within bounds, the volume of ‘stuff' is so immense they may charge us on volume instead!
So the ute set off ladened with our belongings, and after waving goodbye enthusiastically to Made and Viecke we were on our way.
We stopped 60 seconds later to change money. And then we were on our way... again.
We arrived at the Novotel Benoa at 10:30am, and were greeted by our pile of luggage resting in the foyer, blocking traffic, and causing quite a few comments and giggles from the staff.
Luckily for us, despite our very early arrival, the Novotel seems to be a bit quiet at the moment and all of our rooms were available immediately.
I must comment at this point, that despite the huge volume of passengers arriving into Bali each day (and one must assume leaving as well), things appear very quiet.
Yes the traffic is busy, but from what I have observed this appears to be mostly due to a much larger quantity of cars and vans, rather than bikes on the road, than an influx of tourists.
I have spent the last two weeks wondering how on earth all the thousands of small shops survive when they would be lucky to get one customer through the doors per day, if not per week. I honestly cannot figure it out, there simply does not seem to be enough tourists to support the massive tourist industry here.
Anyway, we get ushered to our rooms which are located on the beachside of the hotel, and spend the next half hour luxuriating in the lushly appointed facilities and playing with all the assorted toys, gadgets and ‘things' that a hotel room provides.
After playing with the myriad of gizmo's (as well as the childrens toys provided by the hotel), we conducted a tour, ate a yummy lunch on the beach, and indulged in a three hour paddle around the very nice pool.
Life is so hard. :P
For dinner we hitched a ride down to The Tree Bar and Restaurant. Wow.
The atmosphere, entertainment (live acoustic band), service level, and general comfort of this restaurant is fantastic, but this is nothing compared to the food. We all drooled over our meals, and there was a lot of silence as we savoured each morsel of the generous portions. The food here surpasses anything we have had previously during this trip.
We indulged in starters, mains and a few of us even managed desserts, and it was all perfect. The menu is very diverse, and there will definitely be something there for even the fussiest palate, I found the steak in the best selling Surf n Turf fantastic, definitely the nicest quality meat I have had here.
I definitely recommend The Tree Bar and Restaurant to anyone looking for a great meal and a nice night out, and thank everyone who recommended it to us.
After dinner, we drove back to the Novotel, hobbled, shuffled and groaned our way back to our rooms, and flopped into the giant marshmallow type beds.
Actually that's something I should mention. The King Size beds in the rooms are very soft... like marshmallows, and as the night wore on I found it more and more uncomfortable. I eventually resorted to sleeping on the couch. So if you have back problems, and require a firm bed, you might want to mention this upon booking. I'm sure the Novotel has firm mattresses if required. (...)
Sorry for the late posting.... The Novotel provides free wifi in the lobby and bar, but not in the rooms, and I was so busy yesterday that I didn't get a chance to post. I will try to get yesterdays HNR our ASAP... though its hard to type when your so busy relaxing! :P
xxx
BaliDaze