another new day dawned in Bali. unfortunately ( or in my case fortunately!) it was raining! we were booked to go on a beach fishing trip, which i had booked before we got here. it was a four hour beach fishing trip at Sanur. Hubby is a keen fisherman, so it was a sort of 'pay off' for the fact that we would be doing so much shopping!
The fishing company had called and left a message to say that they had changed our trip to 'trolling' rather then beach fishing. (the trolling was not what we wanted and was a lot more expensive) so we declined that offer (!!!) and cancelled because of the rain.
so we had to come up with something else to do. let me think for a minute!!!!hmmn how about shopping!
so after breakfast in the main street ( Porch Cafe opposite Griya Santrian did a wonderful breakfast) - our driver picked us up and took us on a little jaunt around.
He took us to a couple of different fixed price warehouses. it is amzing the difference in prices in some of these places for exactly the same thing. so if you want your money to go futher then do shop around.
I bought table runners, incence, frangipani hair things. lots of little gifts oh and some necklaces. most of the necklaces were about IDR 15,000 or 20,000. hair things were only about IDR 15000 - 25000 depending on how many in a pack. I wasnt buying anything large as this stage as we still had plenty of shopping days left!
Then we drove into Kuta to show Hubby Kuta beach as he has never been before. It was so so busy, I dont think he ever wants to go again. the traffic was unbelievable, and I suggested to jimmy the driver that he could let me out and I could walk through all the shops and meet him at the end of the street. I would have got there way before he did! I was quite glad we were not staying at Kuta over Christmas!
The traffic is the worst I have ever seen and I have been travelling to Bali since 1985. We went to the DVD store there and bought DVD for 10000 each, buy ten and get three free. for that price, I wondered what the quality would be like but they are great!
After a tour of Kuta, and Kerabokan, then back we went to our Hotel for a rest! sitting in that traffic is hard work!
After a swim and a rest, time for dinner.
back into the main street - surf and turf for dinner for about 80,000 IDR and hubby had steak and pepper sauce. my steak was not cooked enough so I sent it back ( it was too rare for me) but it was no problem and they bought it back to me perfectly cooked.
After dinner we walked back towards Jl Sindhu looking for Tootsies fixed price store. I stopped in a few shops along the way, but I am already a bit over the haggling. The shop owners had been complaining how quiet it had been before christmas, but I found their starting prices so high, that I have been there all night haggling.
We found Tootsies and it was great to just get into the shop and relax! Ketut was helpful and I managed to buy a couple of bags of things, ranging from tee-shirts for my adult son IDR 40,000, polo shirts in large sizes (XXXXL) 50,000 dresses 70,000 - 80,000. sandals for 45,000. I always buy a few pairs of these sandals to bring home. she only had a few in the large sizes. The same product at Hardys was 75000. ( still dirt cheap!)
Then we walkes along the walk way back to the Hotel. of course all the ladies from Sindhu beach markets wanted us just to have a look in their shops. But I had more then enough without any haggling, so I was very happy with that.
Walking along the beach walkway, it is starting to get really busy as people arrive after Christmas.
Back to our room and a lovely swim in the pool to cool down.