Our family arrived back into Perth last night at 11.15pm, on Garuda.
15 minutes early! Kids LOVED flying.
DAY 1-Flew out Sat 4th at 1.55pm on Garuda. Also arrived 15 minutes early.
Good flight, average service. No smiles, full plane.3 year old Pip on taking off-"I love what we're doing Daddy" at the top of her voice!
VOA easy. Line up, hand over 100 US, get little bit of paper saying you've paid. Line up again for man to put in sticky label visas (like you used to get when travelling in France.) Next man, stamps passport & takes immigration card. Get luggage, straight through customs no questions (2 little kids helped heaps) Round the corner to that wonderful Bali smell. Forgotten how much I'd missed it after 10 years! Blue taxi to Dynasty 20,000.
Kids eyes glued outside! Quick security check of car before arriving at front steps.
We stayed in a Family Room and it was huge. We were room 830 at the very end of the hotel overlooking front lake/bridge. We tryed for an upgrade, but the hotel seemd quite full.
Unpacked & met up with friends. Dinner up the road at Mudi's. Friendly, cheap & easy with kids.
We found the streets very quiet. Resaturant quiet. With a group of 25, we made the owner very happy!
Bought 2 singlets for hubby next door-50,000.
DAY 2-Sunday brekky at hotel-easy for kids. Nice big buffet, kids eat free. They love pancakes! About $23 for family.
Walk into Matahari's. Streets still quiet! Stopped at new Discovery Shopping Mall, next to Discovery Hotel. Big, flashy and so un Balinese! Bought some toys for the kids and a couple of playstaion games.
Matahari's has a Body Shop. Cheaper than home.Pub for lunch. Still great satays! Bought a really nice silver bracelet for 250,000 (about $35). Wanted 550,000.
Back to hotel. Friends wedding renewal vows at 6pm. Absolutely beautiful. The hotel sectioned off a little area in the garden and decorated it so beautifully. Big crowd of guests came to watch. Had a buffet dinner up the back near the lazy pool. Fantastic food too. We also celebrated the wedding couple's, daughters 21st birthday.Just a wonderful evening.
DAY 3-Brekky across the road. Jaffles, 3 pancakes, 2 milshakes, 2 very nice lattes-128,000-$17.70. Next door for DVD's. Buy 10 get 4 free. Found Dora the Explorer DVD's that you can't get in Oz. Kids happy!! Bought heaps.
Left kids & hubby at hotel.
Went with the girls to shop. Back to Centro Shop in Discovery Mall.
Diadora flip flop slip on things for hubby. 99,000-$12. Real too.
Found shoes for my big feet(US45) in the mens section. Hush Puppys 229,000-$32.50. Mataharis had more Dora stuff. Backpack 44,500-$6.20, very happy daughter. Girls sandals-$5.00.You can just about buy anything you need on the ground floor supermarket bit.
I got Tiger Balm for $1.30. You can buy milk, biccies, chocolate, chips, all toiletries (including Pantene) bum wipes, nappies, bandaids, berocca, panadol... all cheap.
Markets-Surf shirts 30,000-$4.20. Sad though, because my purchases at 12.30pm were most peoples first sale for the day. Cheap bags too.
Pink girlie beaded ones 25,000-$3.50.
Kuta Kids next, at bemo corner. Went sick. Bought heaps of clothes for the kids. Fixed price, very good quality.
Bought the obligatory fake watches on the street for 35,000-$5.00.
So far so good and waterproog too (have tested).
Got CSI (Competitive Shopping Injury). Pulled a mussle (?) in my leg from all the walking!!
Day 4- Whole group took a big bus trip to Celuk, Monkey Forest & Volcano. 50,000 each for the bus (including water & Bintangs). Girls bought some beautiful silver & gold jewellery. They also found other pieces they liked and if they have money left at the end of their trip, they can phone and the shop will deliver to hotel!
Monkey Forest is not my thing, but the kids liked it. 10,000 per adult/5,000 per kid. Take your sunnies & hat off. They will also try to steal your water bottle if you are holding it.
Off to Volcano. About 1 hour from monkeys. I forgot how beautiful it is. You literally drive around a corner and their it is. Buffett lunch at place on the right over looking it. Nice food. Mugged by sellers as soon as we got off the bus. Quite pushy too, even when 6 year old is having a serious tantrum.
Back at hotel by 3pm. Hired a DVD player for kids for 24 hours. 300,000 deposit, 30,000 hire fee. Checked all DVDs and the quality was good except for 1-Kingdom of Heaven. Got Madagascar. Hand held in movie theatre. Only saw a head once and good quality. Funny, funny film. Also bought Cinderella Man and some others only just in Cinema's. Room service dinner for tired kids.
Day 5-final day. 6 year old wakes me up at 3.45am by being sick in the bathroom. Bless him, as he made it from his bed to the b'room without throwing up on his sleeping sister! Nothing serious, as he was asleep & feeling better by 9am. Other people with us also sick, but over by the end of the day. Left hubby with sleeping kid to do one last power shop. Markets/Kuta kids/Mataharis.
Hung around the hotel till Putu our gorgeous driver, picked us up for the airport. Good flight home, newer plane, smiling staff. Kids asleep an hour into flight until landing. One of the best landings I've experienced in Perth too.
Picked up duty free, straight through passport check. Took a while to get luggage. Straight through exray thingy at customs and home by 12.15am. Pretty good as the plane landed at 11.15pm.
Happy to be home but missing Bali. Won't leave it 10 years before our next trip.
Couple of tips:
*Exchange rate 7200-7275. Kodak shops good. Nothing dodgy.Saw no better exchange rate on the streets.
*Batering- Do't be too hard. 10,000 is only $1.40. It is nothing to us, but so much for them. We generally paid more than the going rate for taxi's/bemo's but who cares?
*Taxis-some are metered (7200 from Matahari's to Dynasty) some you haggle.
*Going with kids. Go with the flow. We used a points system with our oldest (6). One point for good behaviour/doing as told, 2 points for being a git/ not listening. He had to get to and maintain, 20 points to get to the Volcano on Tuesday. It worked quite well and we are continuing at home.
Take their favourite snacks. We took big bags of little chips, tiny teddies & biccies. Lollies they didn't eat at all. Take crayons and coloring in books. Our 6 year old made his own book, of things we did in Bali to show his teacher. Take bum wipes for mess & stickyness. Take a little packet or tissues in case of no toilet paper. We also took red cordial (just cottees-no Bali belly)panadol, disolvable gastrolite, chewy vitamins, lollypops for the plane (although they had no problems while asleep and landing)Dettol to splash in the water while bathing.
*Take extra undies for the kids as they get hot & sweaty and appreciate clean ones during the day. They take days to dry if you hand wash them
*Toiletries-take your almost empty/finished stuff and leave there or give away. Saves on luggage space.
*Always have a bottle of water to drink. You get a sweat up real quick!
I think that's about it.
We had a great trip and would definately recommend the Dynasty to anyone with kids. It is so well set up for kids and adults alike. All the staff were very very friendly and we even had them teaching us Balinese. Do try to learn some of their language. It shows you making an effort and the kids love it too!
Please ask any questions you may have and I'll try to answer them.
Cheers
Kate