My wife and I just got back from our 17th trip to Bali on Saturday and this is my first JBR to the forum.
Our Australian Airlines flight from Perth was delayed due to late arrival of the plane. Unfortunately we had to spend an extra half hour in the Qantas Club lounge drinking free Chardonnay and eating canapé what a bummer! We finally embraced the 21st century and bought a digital camera (duty free) from one of the large camera shops near carousel to capture the holiday snaps. I thought I'd get another 256MB memory card at the airport duty free as a spare in case I really got carried away with the technology. What a rip-off! The same card sold retail in the camera shop for $60 and yet they wanted $79 duty free at the airport - That should tell you something about airport duty free stores!!!
Arrived in Denpasar rather late but got through the visa queues in good time but had to wait ages for our luggage. We declared the extra alcohol (4 litres of wine each) and nibblies (peanuts & crisps) and unlike previous trips we didn't get taken away to the 'little room' for interrogation. The customs guy asked "is it a cask?" to which we replied "yes" and he said "OK" and waved us through. It pays to be prepared though - we buy the wine when on special and take the receipts (one for each cask) with us as proof in case they need to value any duty payable.
After a short 55000Rp taxi ride to our hotel in Sanur, we were greeted by the staff (it was our 13th stay) and in our usual 'Regency Club' room, unpacked and in bed by midnight.
Our stays in Sanur pretty much follow the same routine each day:
- up at 6am for a 6km beach walk
- early morning swim and jaccuzi
- get towels and book our favorite chairs (there are a lot of Europeans there and if you don't - they will!)
- breakfast (in the club lounge)
- go beach side for sunbathing
- adjourn to the pool side under the shade of a palm tree (and fall asleep)
- go down to the local beach front bar for lunch (very cheap and yummy)
- have a dip in the pool
- go and have a 50,000Rp massage (1hr) in the huts on the beach
- degrease and have pre-cocktail cocktails on our veranda
- go to the club lounge for free 'cocktails' and canapé
- go down the main drag and find a new restaurant for dinner, and
- stagger home to bed in our hotel.
It is basically lots and lots of relaxation - very little shopping.
We checked out Hardy's Grosir (after previous advice from the forum) as a source of Australian wine in the event that we should run out.. As advised by the forum, we found casks of Renmano Chardonnay for 217000Rp ( ~ $30), Yalumba Colombard Chardonnay for 232000Rp and bottles of Chardonnay from Wolf Blass, McWilliams & Queen Adelaide for around the 200000Rp mark. The only problem you may have, as we found in 3 restaurants and bars, is that the casks may have past their use by date and have started to turn into sherry (yuk). Casks don't have a long shelf life.
Our only problem we had with our Sanur hotel was a couple from the UK that had bought their obnoxious, snotty nosed kids with them and let them scream and carry on in the adults pool - no thought for all the other guests that has spent thousands travelling half way around the world for rest and relaxation! This was despite the hotel having a special pool and shaded lounge chairs reserved for parents with children.
When our favourite (and trusted) money changer ran out of money we had the usual foray by 'authorised' money changers in trying to shortchange us - but to no avail. That's the benefit of only cashing $100 at a time - its easy to put three zeros on the back and count it!
I found 'Nina', my favourite massage lady - elderly, thin, buck teeth, but the best massage in Bali. She and her mates spotted us from nearly 50 metres away, and called our names, as we walked toward them down the footpath by the beach. That was despite us not having visited Sanur on recent trips in past three years. We had massages nearly every day but on the second day as we walked past to go for lunch at a local beach front bar (the Banjar), Nina asked us to wait and she returned with presents for us - a surf tea shirt for me and a sarong for my wife. We were gob smacked!
Overall it was pretty quite in Sanur. Our hotel only had 55% occupancy and many of the local restaurants said that things had never recovered since the bombing.
For my birthday we went to the Village restaurant for dinner as it had been a previous favourite. We couldn't find the place because they had built a new one on the other side of the road. What a disappointment! They had ruined what was a beautiful open air restaurant, with just a touch Europe in Bali and replaced it with an air-conditioned, glass fronted affair that could have been from anywhere else in the world. Like they say - if it ain't broke! The food was excellent though and the $50 bottle of wine superb.
For the second week we moved to Legian for a bit more action. Our regular driver (for more than ten years) picked us up from the hotel lobby and took us over to Legian and our second favourite hotel where we had stayed seven times previously. Had priority check in their 'Club Lounge' and were accommodated in the beach front cottage that we had requested.
The only difference to our daily routine (compared to Sanur) was to go shopping in the afternoon and enjoy a bit more nightlife.
We went down Garlic Lane to find our favourite tailor to have the usual business trousers made and low and behold - they were no longer there! We managed to track them down - they had changed names and taken a lease in the same street, just different premises. Their workmanship and fabric quality is great - we paid them 30% more for good luck.
The next day's shopping took us to our favourite DVD store again in Garlic Lane. Bought 70 DVDs (in their cases) which all fitted in our hand luggage with room to spare. Picked up another 10 from the store down near the Art Markets. I was amazed at how many people were buying new release stuff that was really poor quality.
Went to a lot of great restaurants for dinner like Poppies, Uns, Padma Club and La Louchiola. One night after dinner we went to a poolside restaurant and bar in Padma street called 'Joni'. We had been there twelve months ago with friends and saw a newly formed group with a lead singer called 'Boy'. Over a few drinks (after our friends had got up and sung with them) Boy asked as if we could think of a good name for his new band. I suggested the 'Black Shadows'. And a year later - you guessed it, they kept the name. They play at Joni's on Saturday and Wednesday nights. One night Boy and a couple of his band members came back down to the 'Hulu Club' to watch the TV cabaret show. They really are worth going to see and at least half the audience were (real) women.
We caught up with Ketut at the 'Pub' Bar one lunch time - I think she must be friends with most of Australia. We had a good catch up chat and gave her our usual 'remembrance'.
One afternoon we went shopping at Galleria (on the bypass road, near the huge roundabout statue). The usual great bargains in Mattahari.
With both our suit cases and hand luggage all slightly overweight, we checked out at 11am on Saturday to go to the airport. No problems with excess baggage - I think they felt guilty because they couldn't give us a lounge pass. Obviously a lot of Qantas Club members have complained. I didn't think it was worth paying the lounge attendant $50 so we just sat in the 'Priority Lounge' and had lunch and a few scotchs.
Again the bloody Australian Airlines plane was late arriving from Melbourne and so the flight to Perth was delayed by half an hour. Eventually we boarded the plane, only to be told that they were waiting for nine passengers to still check in. I don't know why if nearly 300 people can get to the airport in advance of their flight time, why should the plane have to wait for them!!! I feel a letter of complaint coming on. The late idiots finally got on the plane and then we were told we couldn't take off the Indonesian President's plane was just landing and no one could move for security reasons until he was whisked away in his limo.
Had a speedy flight back - the pilot made up more than half the lost time. As usual had no problems with customs or quarantine other that having to find all the junk we declared among our cases (I should have made a list of what I packed where). A quick taxi ride home, partially unpacked and went to bed. Awoke the next morning to find that our wonderful electronically temperature controlled hot water system had pooped itself while we were away.
All in all, the usual highs were the friendliness of the locals, good weather, hotel staff service , shopping and the 'Black Shadows'. The lows were too many noisy kids, people taking their bloody 'floaties' with them to use in the hotel pools and just a few ugly Australians.
PS. Checked the DVDs out and less than 10% of them are less than top quality. All having been bought without hiring a DVD player (for heavens sake). We just ask the staff at the DVD store to go through our selection and tell us which ones are not best quality recordings from 'original' DVDs. Mind you, half of them wouldn't play in the $1200 Sony DVD player but they would in the cheap $50 unit.