We decide to have the buffet breakfast again this morning. After the success of the previous night's dinner, I decide to stick with Asian food. I tried the vege mie goreng, the nasi goreng and some of the Chinese dim sum. The prawn & pork dumplings & the mie goreng are delicious. I finish off with rice pudding topped with fresh mango for dessert :-)
Miss 5 has already asked if she can go into the kids club after breakfast so we drop her off & then jump in a taxi and head off to Tanjung Benoa. The traffic into TB is horrendous, the taxi driver tells us it's because of all the tourists from Java who are here for NYE and are off to do the watersports.
I've done a bit of research on the Bali Eats website so we ask to get dropped off at Tao (Thai restaurant) which is across the road from (& operated by) the Ramada hotel. We decide to book for dinner, they are having a buffet incl. a drink for RP 450,000 per person (kids 250,000 incl. a softdrink). Tao has a terrace overlooking the beach & a swimming pool so we think it'll be a child-friendly option for us, plus they offer free transport to/from Nusa Dua hotels.
We walk along the beachfront from Tao and the amount of people on the beach, plus the boat/jetski traffic on the water is unbelievable! It's like the Swan River on Skyshow day. We head up the beach as far as the Novotel Benoa & walk through to the lobby to ask if we can see one of the rooms.
For those interested, the Novotel TB is smaller than the one in Nusa Dua. "More intimate" as my hubby described it. The pool is at the beach end of the hotel & is fairly small (especially compared to ND).
The buildings are a bit rustic & have more of a Balinese flavour to them, as did the room we looked at. The restaurant area looks to be recently refurbished & was really nicely done. There are some rooms in the "beach wing" and other, cheaper ones, directly across the road. These are the deluxe rooms & are about $50 per night less than the ones on the beach side of the road. We looked at a Tropical Terrace room, which was very nice - especially liked the bathroom. Price to stay in one of those at the moment was approx. RP 1.6M with no breakfast incl. I would definitely join the Accor Club for Asia Pacific before staying at the Novotel again - you pay RP 1.6M for membership & get 2 nights free accomm. plus 50% discount at the restaurant, plus kids eat free when 2 adults purchase breakfast. It pays for itself in 1 night's accomm.
We wandered down the main drag of TB after leaving the Novotel, just to get a feel for the place. We were getting pretty hot though as the sun was out between showers so decided to head back. Had a lot of trouble getting a taxi though & we got as far as the Tree pub/restaurant without any luck. Let's go in for a cold beer & ask them to call us a taxi I suggest to hubby (I'm the brains of the outfit LOL). 2 Bintangs and a packet of Mr P chilli peanuts later, lunch is over & we are heading back to Nusa Dua to check on Miss 5.
She has had enough of the kids club for the day so we hit the pool for the afternoon while hubby has a nanna nap upstairs.
By the time we head back up to the apartment around 3.30pm I've decided that I don't want to venture as far as Tao for dinner tonight, plus it's been raining on & off all day & if we can't sit outside it defeats the purpose of going. I wanted to go somewhere where Miss 5 can play in the sand or run around on the grass & if we are sitting indoors in a restaurant we may as well do it nearby.
I phone Tao & cancel and call Nyoman's Beer Garden to book there instead & arrange for a pickup at 6.30pm. I am pleasantly surprised by Nyoman's (a sister restaurant to the Tree in TB, Posers in Legian amongst others), the service is great and the food was good & reasonably priced (something I've found lacking in Nusa Dua!).
We have a Blue Margarita, a Vodka Lime Crush, 2 softdrinks, a shrimp cocktail, kids fish & chips, a serve of Babi Guling and the Rijstaffel (the kids meal includes an icecream for dessert & the Rijstaffel a coconut pancake with choc sauce). Total bill RP 506,000
The Rijstaffel was excellent, one of the better ones I've tried with a big variety of dishes on the plate. I was too full to eat my pancake & Miss 5 was tired so they gave us the desserts to take away.
We are back at the hotel in time to see all the guests arriving for the cocktail hour on the lawn behind the lobby. There's been some great people watching at this place - the lady at breakfast the other morning in a shiny blue cocktail dress & leopard print platform wedges, the Russian woman wearing a skin tight jersey dress with no bra (not a good look for an overweight woman in her 50's!), the little kid in red shorts & a matching shirt, orange knee high socks & pink ankle boots. There have been some serious crimes against fashion in this place LOL. Lucky I wear sunglasses :-) I don't know how the women are going to go on the lawn - it was muddy & slippery when I walked across it in my thongs earlier, some of them are wearing 5 inch stillettos!!
We put Miss 5 to bed & sit out on our balcony having a drink & listening to the music and watching the goings on. They all head into dinner around 9pm & we can hear the complaining voice of a loud Aussie woman.... "there's a f**ken line, aaagh for F**KS sake, you're jokin me. There's one in every crowd it seems.
I head off to bed around 10pm. Although I'm a night owl at home, here I seem to wake up at the crack of dawn & go to bed at Nanna o'clock! It is pretty noisy, I can hear the band but still manage to get a couple of hours sleep in before being woken by the countdown to midnight & the sound of fireworks going off around me. Miss 5 sleeps through it all!
Happy New Year everyone :-)