Hello,
Back again... We finally made it to S & S on our last day. We tend to stay away from the beach in Legian as I hate being bombarded. Everyone seems to be doing it really hard at present and I don't blame the hawkers for being so persistent, I just find it full-on and confronting. Same down Jl Legian - people are desperate for the money - we just tried to share it around a bit. Anyway, we finally met Sammi and Susi. What lovely people they both are. Susi is pretty frank which I enjoyed and appreciated. We were the only ones there - apparently their first customers and it was 2pm. We took stuff for them to keep for Smudge. Smudge turns up most days and collects any items people drop off. Next time we go we'll take a couple of Robi Combs and batteries to help him combat the lice problems - he was unintentionally funny when he told us how when he picks up kids etc from the village, he de-lices them on the way down by putting Licecream on their hair and putting shower caps over the top... he has a great fear of getting lice himself - it wasn't until we had our daughter and she got her first of many doses of nits that I learnt to be less afraid - happy to say Mark and I never caught them...but Smudges face was a picture at the thought of him getting them. (sorry Smudge!). We'll also take tea tree oil, antihistamines, size 2 - 8 childrens clothes, crayons, gel pens and colouring books plus whatever else we can think of - not trying to sound like a do-gooder, it's just the stuff that Smudge said could be really helpful. Also, he said that the guest stuff you get in the hotels goes down a treat - ie shower caps, shampoo, conditioner, sewing kits etc just pop it into a bag and drop it down to S & S. If we're brave enough, we'll visit the village in June and see things firsthand.
We made a concerted effort to learn even more indonesion prior to this trip, which was a fun way to prepare. My husband has never learnt another language, but really took this on board and reaped the benefits in Bali. People there really appreciate the effort we made. Again, Komang Bajing ended up being our Bahasa Indonesia Guru. We learnt so much more. We're going to keep speaking it within the family and even try to learn some more. We also learnt a few phrases in Balinese which was in some ways even better - the suprise and joy on peoples faces was priceless. THanks to the lovely waitress at the Fookin Inn - she taught us Matur Suksama (thank you), Sing ken ken (no problems) and Sing Ngelah Pipis (no money). Each day we'd go for walks around the streets, we'd always acknowledge each person, even those persistent & pesky timeshare people with at least a basic greeting. Sometimes we'd joke ie say 'Sing Ngelah Pipis' - they'd smile and then we'd have a chat. Not eveyrone is Balinese though - so some people just looked blank. One day we took the small gangs from JL Padma Utara to Jl Legian, we just couldn't face saying 'no thanks' to anymore people..it was lovely to walk down the little lanes, seeing the locals going about their business, not getting hassled. In fact, people were incredibly friendly and helped direct us if we reached a dead end etc. it's another side of Legian so close, yet we'd never seen before.
The roadworks are an absolute pain in the proverbial. However, they are neccessary and are being done at the best time (low season) and should finished in approx. 2 months. Jl Melasti, Garlic Lane, Padma St, Padma Utara are an mess and driving around the area is fraught. Direction seems to change from one hour to another in some parts. I felt so sorry for the workers on the last 2 days as we had some heavy rain and the holes in the road were full of water and had to be pumped out. The roadworks is making a tough time even tougher for the retailers, so we made sure we brought things mostly from this area. Walking down Jl Legian between Melasti St and Bemo Corner was full-on, we got severely hassled and therefore didn't walk that way again until the last day - just couldn't face it.
We made it to Aroma's for coffee on our first day in Legian, but the coffee machine was broken. Finally made it back on our last day but it just wasn't the same as before. We didn't get the little cinammon stick stirrer and it was lacking something - although I couldn't really tell you what. The loo's were still pretty good though.
Our second last night we went to Indo National for dinner. The new place is much nicer than the old one - far more spacious and airy. The food was piping hot, very tasty (best nasi goreng I had all trip) and reasonable priced. Kerry & Milton are great hosts. They also handed out a map of the area and on the back had a heap of useful phrases in indonesian - a great idea. So if you're going there and want to check out some more Bahasa Indonesian, just ask for one of the sheets. The only downside was being near the front and being hassled by hawkers to buy DVD's, CD's, Scary looking baby dolls that moved from side to side, sparkling lights, newspapers, magazines etc. It got pretty boring after a while and it was hard to enjoy the meal with a whole crew of people desperate to earn a buck.
Komang Bajing beat me fairly and squarely at Yahtzee... I think we've created a monster! All my luck left me in Amed. We've nicknamed Jl Padma, Yahtzee St. Some of the Japanese guests must've thought we were murdering each other from the sounds coming out of our courtyard at the Padma - all good fun though.
Mark brought some amazingly priced Asic Gel Sneakers from the Athletes Foot in Kuta Square - 1/2 price approx $70 AUD. Retail in Aus for nearly $200.
Komang Bajing took me to a place just outside the Bintang Supermarket to get a SIM card for my mobile. I paid 100,000Rp and got heaps of credit. It was a SimPATI card and all worked a treat.
I indulged myself on the last day and had a pedicure at the Mandara Spa at the Padma. It was blissful. My feet have never looked so good. They did an amazing job, and even lent me a pair of thongs so I could walk back to my rooms as I'd worn Crocs. Speaking of which, I brought a pair of cheap crocs for each of us prior to going to Bali and we wore them every day, all day. How comfy are they!!
It was hard to check out of Padma Hotel, but knowing that we were going back to Bali in June helped a lot! KB took us to the airport, it was pretty hard to say goodbye to him, he's become a dear friend to us all. We checked in but even though we'd requested seats and received proof of allocation we were given other seats. One thing which annoyed me was the people quarreling over excess baggage, they held up the line for ages. Everyone knows what amount you can take, so why argue? People were being so rude to the check in staff.
Rather than spend 3 hours trawling around the airport we checked out the Premier Club. Wow, it was 300,000rp well spent. I know it sounds expensive, but for the 3 of us it was a haven from the rest of the airport. We had a drink & snack. Hannah played games on the internet and Mark had a massage. Flight left 40 mins late as previous flight was delayed. I tried to sleep on the way home, but dozed only. We got to Sydney late and were worried about our connection to Sydney. We got off the flight and were told by 2 scary, intimidating Qantas women that we need to get ourselves over to the domestic terminal, that our flight had changed and was leaving an hour later - they said it like it was our fault we were late!!! Getting through customs would've been a breeze except for those bloomin' mozzie zappers. They look like badminton rackets, but zap mozzies with an electric charge. They work from a rechargeable battery. As I said before they were seized by customs, but they were pretty good anout it. It felt a little like a scene from 'Border Security'! Got the transfer bus (the free one, not the $5 one we nearly got conned into) and go to the domestic terminal only to find that the connecting flight hadn't even left Melbourne left due to some problem and would be delayed another 1.5 hours - joy! To be fair though, Qantas offerred each passenger an $8 credit at any food place in the terminal so we could get refreshements which came in very handy. Finally made it to Melbourne 2.5 hours late but got through really quickly.
Didn't have much washing to do as we'd gotten most of it done in Legian. We try to do thi each time for 2 reasons - firstly, why do it when I can pay someone else and also it gets ironed and packaged in plastic making it easy to pack. Actually there's a third reason - it smells like Bali! I even brought some of the ironing spray so that I can pretend I'm in Bali when I wear my freshlly ironed clothes. Actually, I'm so bleedin' organised, that I've put all our 'Bali Clothes' in a hand luggage case for our next trip in June.
Haven't started the countdown, but will see to that at work tomorrow.
Hope this isn't too boring, it's been fun writing it.
Cheers,
Andrea