Hi all, here is my first JBR hope I dont bore you all. I will do it in parts as I have heaps to tell you all.
21st June 2007
After the long countdown we finally arrived in paradise for 24 days of bliss. There was around 43 of us travelling to Bali this year. Paid our US$25 visa each in American dollars (with the rate now I thought it easier to get US$ and take rather than aussie dollars for the visa). Had a little wait at VOA but overall not too bad. Couldn't wait to get outside to see the beautiful smiles from our 'balinese sons'Arya & Yodi (a lot of you will know the boys from the dynasty - Arya (Harry) spent 3 weeks here in Australia with us last March and Yodi is a regular visitor and his australian girlfriend is my friends daughter).
The Villa.
After the handshakes, kisses and cuddles we went to our Villa. Every year we have stayed at the Dynasty Resort but this year we decided on a Villa as my girlfriend had purchased it last year. The Villa is in a 24 hour security complex called Kuta Royal Villas, which is only a 5min walk to the Dynasty Resort in Tuban. When we opened the door and walked in we were all very suprised (we shared the villa with our friends so there was a total of 9 of us staying in this villa), it was enormous & absolutely beautiful, 3 large bedrooms all with ensuites & an extra toilet downstairs. The back wall downstairs is all folding timber doors which we would open every morning onto a lovely small backyard, where many bintangs and southern comforts were enjoyed.
A maid Susan and her 3 year old son Alex would arrive every morning to make our beds and clean the villa. By the time we left little Alex loved vegemite on toast so we left vegemite for him. Susan's husband is Jack who does the temporary tatoos at the dynasty. Susan was a gem, it was lovely to see her each morning and spoil little Alex.
Yodi lives in his own private quaters at the Villa, which is great as sometimes you need some 'bali advise'from a local (more on this later). Yodi also does shopping trips, surfing trips etc as he and his girlfriend Ashlee own thier own export business to Australia - fantastic if you are looking at shipping furniture etc home in a container, yes I have some things on the next one heheh.
There is also a beautiful resort sytle swimming pool in the complex, it is currently being re-vamped, however they must do most of the work at night as it didn't interfere with us at all. It is 3m deep at one end so quite a few diving instructors give lessons there, again this didnt interfere with us it was quite good to watch. Our villa provided lovely chairs for sunbaking around the pool aswell as pool floats and lounges. There were also 2 push bikes we could use.
To sum up the villa experience, I highly recommend it. This Villa in particular is on the web. The photos on the web are great however it really does it no justice, so much bigger than we thought - other friends were in another villa at kuta royal, which is also on the web and it was very very small. If you would like more info and prices please email me and I will help you all I can. We saved quite a few thousand dollars staying at the villa rather than a resort and actually liked it more.
1st week
The first week was really spent relaxing and catching up with our balinese friends. I couldn't wait to get down to the beach in front of the dynasty to see Lilly, Amy, Yogi and Bobbie, we keep in touch throughout the year so it was great to see them all again. Im sure Bobbie was pleased as at the end of our holiday I had bought around 50 pairs of sunnies off him, not to mention what our friends bought aswell, Im suprised he had any left hehe.
We took all the kids to the waterbomb park, have been there many times now but still love it, especially when there were so many of us - a great day out.
Had breakfast at Daddy's Cafe one morning but didn't think it was as good as previous years. So mostly had toast at the villa, although by the 3rd week we ended up buying vouchers for breaky at the dynasty - thier breakfasts are to die for.
Didn't really bother with lunch most days (unless too many bintangs the night before & you just had to eat!!!). Dinner was always nice, ate at many places but still found the Green Garden fantastic and quite often picked up takeaway to take back to the villa. There is also a new restaurant across the road from the dynasty called Il Cielo, its a pasta / pizza restaurant but also does a great steak, all meals were excellent and we ate there a lot, but get there early as they tend to get confused when the place is full heheh. The Thai restaurant next door is still excellent but even if you dont like thai, go in and check out the toilets, theyre awesome!!! Steak on the hotplate at Tropical Cafe in the dynasty is still one of the best aswell as all food at Gracie Kelly's.
There were a few nights where the kids didnt want to come out for tea so they all stayed home and ordered Macca's, thank god we dont have home delivery here heheh.
Went to dreamland for the day and as usual was beautiful. However this year there was security at the entrance and we had to pay. As there was so many of us we had 3 bemo's and it was a joke to see how much each van load cost, must have been up to the driver and how good he was at getting the price down. Ramen met us all at the top (as they do) & took us down to his beach chairs and showed us his cafe. Had a nice lunch but really had to barter for the chairs (as we thought 20,000 each for over 30 of them a bit rich, we ended up getting them for 15,000 each heheh didnt save much there)
Scooters
This year we all decided to hire scooters. My family hired 3 and paid only 25,000 each per day. I know a lot of people say dont risk it but honest it was the best thing we done. Ive never been on a motorbike and just loved it (well I admit theyre not as scary as a full motorbike). Hubby and I found shops which I never knew existed up around Legian, so was well worth it (girls you know what I mean heheh). We did take international drivers licences but were never pulled over by the police. I realise that we did take risks by hiring the scooters & that we were not covered by insurance but with a lot of common sense and care on our part we will definately be doing it again next year, I now want a vesper heheeh.
Hope you enjoyed the first part, it gets a lot more interesting believe me,eg: bali mafia and more heheh, will do part 2 over the weekend.
Cheers Trace.