Well have just come back from 12 days in Bali and this time would have liked to have stayed longer, although my husband was ready to come home!
We stayed at the Puri Raja for our 4th time and were really impressed with the renovations that have taken place and really nice to see that they had retained most of the same staff, we had requested a standard room to get there and be given a superior room, I have to say thatI didn't think there was a heck of alot of difference although was not going to complain about the upgrade.
I found that this time round our holiday was very much more relaxing, quite a few of the shops were opening later and closing earlier due to the lack of tourists on the street, good for us as we spent more time around the pool, but very sad for the Balinese.
In all the trips I have made to Bali I had never used a local Laundry outside the Hotel - this time we did and they were fantatsic really cheap and all our clothes came back beautiful and clean, I would recomnend people to try this and it helps the average person too!
We didn't really go outside of Legian/Kuta, went up to Ubud for the day shopping, which I always do and enjoy as I usually find something different up there which I have not seen elswhere.
Generally we found that the food was fantastic we ate out in a different restaurant most nights, we didn't really go out nightclubbing as such as we found that we were up at 6am and by about 10pm we were tired - must be getting older!
Overall I have to say that this trip to Bali was my most relaxing, and I would like to take my hat off to the Balinese people more than ever because they are doing it pretty hard and they are still generally the most lovely people that would probably give you the shirt off their back.\
One last thing whilst there I went to a Toy Shop to buy a birthday present for a friens child in bali as I know she has very little in the way of toys, well after going in there I know why - they were really expensive even to me, so they are out of reach for the average balinese to buy, so next time I am over I am going to get all my friends to clean out their childrens toys and take them over, even to give to children on the street, I hope other may consider doing the same thing as the Balinese Children really appreciate a toy!