Who - myself (MUM) and two sons and their partners and two friends all late 20's
Staying - Bumi Ayu at Sanur
Bali Zoo
Bali Zoo had been off my list of places to visit for several years but as I had been hearing of the improvements we gave it a go. It is hugely improved with many of the animals having much better conditions.
One of the changes is the system for having an interaction with an animal or two, starts at 1pm. When you sit in the huge restaurant area you are given a ticket and while you wait for a turn you can order food and drinks, ours were ok. We stayed for three animal visits, a crocodile, a tiger and a binturong and got some great photos. Some tourists were not very responsive to requests about where they should stand in relation to the tiger which was a little worrying.
A monkey I was holding a banana for pretended he couldn't reach it and as I stretched to pass it he pretended again and then grabbed my hand at my third try - frightened the life out of me!
Some other unusual moments at the zoo were feeding a chicken to the crocs and meat on a pulley to the lions and meat on a stick to the tigers.One of the kids was involved in the birds of prey show also. Not my idea of fun but the others enjoyed it.
Echo Beach
After the zoo we headed to Echo Beach for dinner. As it was the Sunday it was packed. DJ and a band playing but where we sat it didn't make much difference so I probably would go on a quieter night next time. We ordered a huge variety of foods cooked on the BBQ including a lot of seafood and many cocktails and we thought it was a great meal, great prices and overall a great outing. Too much cloud for one of the spectacular sunsets.
Back to Sanur and we split up for massages and so on.
Next morning we wandered down to Swastika Bungalows for breakfast - it's not in the restaurant on the street but down the lane towards the rooms.We went because the teenage girl we have been sponsoring was doing training from her tourism high school (5 months of training)and was helping with the breakfast. However for a cheap buffet breaky ( I think it's 25,000rp and 250rp tax) it was very good value. Pancakes and omelettes especially good but also have croissants, toast, rice or noodles, fruit, black rice pudding,other style eggs, juice, tea and coffee. Our friend looked so confident and it made us feel so happy to have been able to keep her at school for the last few years.
Dolphins
Next day we went to the dolphin interaction at nearby Serangan. One of the group was a first timer but most had done it at least a couple of times and I was up to about 6 times.
I had booked it back in January with Ecky who is one of the trainers. He gets a small cut for taking bookings and collects the money from the guest or at the hotel's reception desk two days before and leaves a receipt. I just confirmed by sms once in Bali. I also got a single tourist a booking at short notice to celebrate her birthday.
Ecky can be contacted on +6281337000569
This was an eagerly anticipated day and it fulfilled all expectations.There had been a moment when the wedding day may have needed to change to accommodate the dolphin visit but all ok.
Had lunch at Flapjacks with 2 for 1 cocktails. Had been looking forward to some fried spinach ravioli with salsa since January and was very disappointed that it was off the menu. Kids liked the mohito.
Tried on the dress at the tailor's I was having made for elder son's wedding next day and was very pleased.
Ordered some gorgeous tropical flowers to be delivered to the bride and groom after the wedding and while out ordered a leather jacket from Full Collection. When my luggage looked like it would be underweight later in the trip I actually went back and ordered another - one pink and one turquoise. Very well made and $110 each.
The Wedding
It had been a short turn around from the engagement in May to adding a wedding into the already planned trip and although there would just be the 7 of us we did need the wedding planner to organize the paperwork, ceremonies and photographer. Some planners did not reply to emails, maybe as it was a small wedding. We used Bali Wedding Butler, in part from forum recos. Deasy was very prompt with replies to emails also.
I had a small hiccup at the hairdressers as we had not specified what each of us wanted and so the curling irons were in greater demand than expected. All four girls hair dos turned out extremely well but as the last to finish I was almost running back to pick up the dress (just next to hotel) and get ready to leave. I had booked the bride and groom in to the Intercontinental at Jimbaran for the wedding night and so we checked them in there and then had a light lunch round the pool. The groom got a swim but the girls were maintaining the hair styles. It was a shame we didn't get there earlier to make more use of all the lovely facilities.
The room I booked was lovely with a mezzanine bedroom. Once we were all ready we waited in the lobby to be picked up. (Bali rubber time, even on a wedding day).
The ceremonies were about ten minutes away on the beach in front of one of the strip of seafood restaurants - an option was to eat there but we chose to go back to The Intercontinental. The wedding set up on the beach was lovely with arches,flowers, umbrellas etc. We had a few drinks while waiting for the celebrants or the sun - not sure which. I would recommend a beach wedding is held before the sun is so low that everyone is struggling with the glare. The religious ceremony first which was Protestant, not that the kids are religious, it is a legal requirement to have one of the five religions on offer. Then the legal ceremony. The kids walked down a path of petals and stood on a large red petal heart. It was all very simple and beautiful.
We had baskets of petals to shower them with and my bubbles which just disappeared into the breeze.
After the signings and a few photos we sat round for cocktails in coconuts while waiting for the sun to be low enough to get great sun setting shots. The photos are really great, even the ones with all of us jumping in the air in the shallows. The kids said they weren't very good at the posing - they knew this because after each photo the photographer and the wedding planner would look at it and laugh and say try again. Apparently it is quite hard to 'almost kiss' and 'almost run to each other' on demand. We amused ourselves by copying their moves until it was our turn to join in.
It was a very happy wedding with the focus very much on the couple.
Back at The Intercontinental we took pics round all the great backdrops and then had a meal near the beach at the Sunset Bar. I had the best cocktail of the trip here, a Pina Colada in a pineapple with a jug of refill.
We left the couple to their one night of luxury and returned to our simple but lovely hotel.
Unfortunately, the newly-weds slept too well in the comfy bed and with no sunrise peeping in to wake them (not used to being that side of the island) they missed breakfast and didn't even get a swim before needing to checkout!
I was exhausted next morning so I had a gentle massage which is the opposite of what I usually choose at Ayu Spa and then had a restful day as I had organized a big suckling pig dinner at our hotel with our local friends.
Jan