In Reply to: possum_b, some questions for ya.... posted by majik on Thursday, 1. September 2005 at 19:37 Bali Time:
Hi, the law has only just come in to have seatbelts in the front seats of cars in Bali so you might find as we did only the front passenger gets a belt...so we just held on to our 3yr old. The Balinese can't figure out why we are so worriedd! hehehe... anyway I dare say that they are much better drivers than we are as they acually concentrate and whatch what is happening around them! Putu is a fantastic safe driver and has a 3 & 1/2 year old daughter himself. He doesn't take commission from shops and will even help you out by telling you how much you should be paying for things (mind you, you have to bargain hard as a tourist to get close to those prices. I will go and find you his website address :O)
Garuda makes you check in your carseat with your luggage so presumably it is part of baggage weight allowance. We took the infant carseat over there and left it with Putu to help him with his bussiness and also so we didn't have to carry it home (baby was old enough to move up to our other carseat)
The exchange rate was fantastic... when we first got there it was 6450 rp to the kiwi dollar, when we left it was 6980 and my parents in law stayed on another week (just got back 4 days ago) and they said it went up to 7200. Considering last time we were in Bali 4 years ago the exchange was something like 4500. We took nz$2000 worth of US travellers cheques for 2 weeks and we came home with $100US and I did alot of shopping so the $ certainly goes far. I probably won't bother with travellers cheques next time- $100 NZ notes are just as good, just keep them locked in the hotel safety box.
I didn't get any extra vaccinations- just made sure they were up to date with standard NZ ones. I don't have any regrets about that. Get some good citronella oil for mozzie repellant and put it on them at dusk. Try to not let them handle the money and buy some hand sanatiser from your pharmacy- doesn't require washing hands and kills 99% germs. Make sure they understand about NOT drinking tap or pool water. I think I worried needlessly before we went... the kids didn't get sick at all- their immunity is probably better then ours anyway from playing in the dirt at home.
Have fun- the kids will love it :O)