Hi forumites,
This is my first posting on this forum but i have been reading it for the last few months and the tips from here really made our 1st trip to Bali that little bit more enjoyable.
Travelled with hubby with jetstar and returned march 5.
Jetstar were fine except for when we arrived back in Sydney ont eh monday morning only to be put on a 30 year old bus that was flooded from the air cons.Quite a few people got wet on the short journey from the plane to the terminal.
Accomadation:Stayed at camplung mas hotel in legian for 6 nights followed by ubud village hotel for 2 nights.
The staff at camplung mas were great but the hotel is looking abit rundown.Breakfast was pretty average but didnt really expect anything more for the price.
Great swim up pool bar.
Ubud village Hotel:Great hotel in the centre of ubud.We went to look at champlung sari(camplung mas' sister hotel) but decided the walk up the hill look abit too daunting)
Restaurants: As it was our first time in Bali and fearing the dreaded bali belly we only ate at a handful of restaurants.
Indo-national was delicious and always busy.Ate at the restaurant down the road from camplung mas just near melasti street,Not sure of the name but it is owned by an aussie couple...great steaks and seemed to have a mostly japanese clientele.
Also ate at rumours,ultimo and sharkeys in Jimbaran Bay.
Shopping:As we have recently purchased a house in sydney we decided to go all out and buy enough furniture/stone to fill a 20' container.
My parents also wanted some stone pieces and a 3x3m gazebo.
While we were in Ubud we hired a driver who took us around for 2 days.We paid him 300k per day plus we paid for him to eat lunch with us both days.
Bought quite a few bits a pieces from ubud markets to fill up the spaces in the container including some frangipani paintings for 250k.
After lunch on the first day we decided to have a look ar aussie garden where we bought quite a few stone statues.Alot cheaper than what they are going for in australia.
Bought our gazebo and most of our furniture from a young guy named steve at urbanbali furniture down the road from four seasons.They didnt have a great selection to choice from in their showroom but the pieces we did see looked like good quality so we decided to choose several peieces from their cd catalogue.Steve and his business partner whose name i forgot were really helpful and we ended up having babi guling in Ubud with them and our driver ketut.Cant remember the name of the place but the babi was delicious.makes my mouth water just thinking about it.
Also bought quite a few paintings from the big 3 storey market in Denpasar which had a better choice than the ubud markets and was also abit less touristy.
The container will be arriving in a few weeks time so fingers crossed everything arrives in one piece.
Was quite suprised by the lack of aussies around the place which is really sad for the locals.
Had a great time in Bali and felt safe the entire trip...Cant wait to get back next year.
Linda