My husband and I with our two children aged 12 years and 9 years old, left Sydney on July the 19th flying Garuda, for our much needed quality time together, holiday, 17 nights in Bali, my 4th time, hubby's 3rd and the kids 1st.
Firstly I hate flying, we have travelled a bit, and it has never stopped me going any where, but it is a pain in the butt spending hours on hours thinking you are going to die, it is not a great start to any holiday. So off I go to the doctor and asked for "Valium please" doctor replies " 5%OK ?" (or some thing like that),I don't know I've never had it, Valium just sounded good to me!! Doctor ended up giving me XANAX, yes it made me sleep but I woke up before we landed, this was not good. We had the best ever flight and landings both ways was near perfect, kids as usual little angels. But if you are like me get VALIUM, been sleepy was not enough although hubby laughs at me and says I was asleep the whole time, this is not true I remember some of it!
So we get to Sydney airport I pop my pill, then feel a headache coming on, I rarely get headaches and just thought it was stress so I pop some panadol, flight over was great.
We had contacted Dewa Parwita to pick us up but he was busy and said it would be his brother, no worries as I had read he was just as nice, ended up with his cousin,he was lovely but he couldn't speak English very well, so it was difficult to talk to him on the long trip to Candi Dasa.
We hadn't been driving for more than 5 Min's when Ry my 12 year old announces, "I like Bali heaps more than Thailand!" (this had been a running discussion between my hubby and I for a while). We asked him how he could possibly make that statement so soon "Look at it" he said "it's so different, you can really tell your in a different country, look at all the buildings and every thing, there is so much decoration" 9 year old pipes up in agreement and their love of Bali begins much earlier than most peoples I'm sure!.
The drive up was full of oohs and aahs with much pointing and talking about what we were going to do.I still had a headache so popped some more panadol.
Arrived at Candi Beach Cottages said good bye to our driver, and checked in, I had booked this through Sawadee on the net. who I've used before and have complete trust in, but the desk staff seem to find it unusual that we were all in one room (saved a lot of money).
Once we got to our cottage I could see why, it was a fair size room for a queen bed, and 1 single bed fit nicely in the corner, but our 9 year old would have to sleep with us (at no charge),I don't think so, I made up a bed for her on the huge day bed by the window using the sheets they used as a bed cover, worked really well, they left the sheets there, but they never made up the day bed, just the queen and single, fair enough we weren't paying for her bed and I was glad they left the sheets for me to do it.
We had a quick walk around the grounds and I showed them the room I had stayed in 2 years before, then into the pool to swim, had dinner at the hotel that night food nice enough but would rather eat out, still had a headache so more panadol, figured it was from the XANAX and it would wear off.
Next day got up went for a swim before breakfast, then caught the free shuttle bus into town,as we walked around the lagoon I explained that this was a place believed to help with fertility, and the temple across the road is dedicated to Hariti the goddess of fertility, this lead to a question and answer time about fertility and a 9 year old who didn't like the lagoon so much after the answers !
We got an XL sim card here for our phone, it cost us RP 15,000 but we had to top it up the next day, we only topped it up the once I think for RP 50,000, and it lasted us the whole 18 days and worked every where we went.
Meet lots of lovely locals just walking around, kids wanting to high five us as they walked home from school, people here are very gentle, still asked transport etc. but in a less invasive manner.
We had a long talk with a guy we met sitting on the shop steps while the lady did our sim card, started off what's your program ect. but as we had our program all figured out we just started to talk about life in Bali now, he was a lovely guy and one thing he said to us that was repeated by other Balinese during our trip was basically that Kuta had lost it's soul/heart, and was no longer strong, he hit his fist over his heart as he said this, we asked about Sanur and he said "Sanur is good, a lot of tradition in Sanur it is strong". He also said that the reason there had been plane crashes was that there were to many planes in the sky and the gods were balancing things out (oh great, I hope there finished I thought), also the police didn't find the Bali bombers it was the priest in the temples who prayed and knew where to find them escaping to Java. I wish we hadn't had a programme and could of used him as our driver and I wish I had got his card, but I still had that headache and couldn't think straight.
We went and looked at The Shangrilla? I think that's the name, the time share place? I was glad I didn't book it as there was just to much cement for my liking, I'm sure it's nice as a lot of people seem to like it, but it has the smallest pool and no trees, I really couldn't see the attraction, the beach out front was no better, if as good as at Candi Beach Cottage.
Back to our hotel, swimming in the pools and at the beach then into town for dinner at the "Water Garden Cafe" (Hotel), yum yum, this was really nice, the coconut cream pie YUM YUM. It was here we bought our first purchase, well hubby bought it for me while I was eating pie, a beautiful brass charm of the god IKAN DUYUNG (Water God) a merman! it was RP46,000 and I was sure he paid to much, but we know from experience if you really love it, buy it as you may never see it again, and we never did. We had a look at some rooms here as my mum had stayed here and loved it, the guy showed us the suite room it was two separate buildings in their own little court yard with a pond and bale, one room was a sitting room and the other a bedroom really nice.
That night I woke up with my head pounding and every bone aching, I took my temperature, it was 39.4 degrees, so I took my pathetic panadol(I'm allergic to codine,and can't take nurofen), wrote down the time and went back to bed, at some point poor hubby woke to me burning up, I've never felt anything like it my skin was so hot, it scared the life out of him and he had me in a cool bath to try and bring it down, don't remember much about that night, but for the next three days I didn't eat and was in constant pain, with every bone aching and a head that wouldn't go away with my pathetic paracetamol!
But it didn't stop me, we had booked the highly recommended Ketut Sudiarta, (yes yes he could drive us, yeah right), to drive us up to Amed, the guy who turned up was not Ketut but an employee of Ketut's, Wayan and he was lovely, he spoke great English and he was very funny. We headed for the Japanese ship wreck, we went up the coast road which we hadn't done before and saw a very beautiful but very poor part of Bali, it was a real experience for our kids, at one point when the car had to stop a little boy put his hand in the car and wanted Ry's water bottle, the moment was over before we could react and he still talks about how he wishes he had let him have it.
As we drove Wayan told us about the local villages pointed out villas owned by Aussies and was a great guide, but when we asked about the wreck he was a bit worried with us taking the kids and said we should be careful, we drove past Blue Moon Villas and I said I thought the wreck was before them, ended up pulling over to ask locals and sure enough he was taking us to the US Liberty not the wreck we were after, he was very sorry but also so excited to learn of something new, he couldn't believe he had never heard of it! He was so funny like a little kid.
Before I got in the water my temp. was 38.7 in air con, guess it went up with the sun beating down on my head, there was a bit of swell getting into the water and visibility near the shore was zero, but at the dive site, about 15 feet off shore, it was smooth and visibility was pretty good. We have dived in some pretty amazing places so when we rate dives we are very critical I would say if you haven't dived much or you have young kids this is great don't miss it, and just for fun it's a great little dive, fishing trawler I think?, they have a rope you can pull yourself along to view the reef, some coral and lots of fish. Pick your weather though as visibility went down hill fast and we only had about 30 Min's, maybe we would of seen more on a better day? but with my head that was plenty.
Out of the water and off to Tirtagangga driving through Amend the water was crystal clear and if I had been well we would of dived there for sure,we will next time, had dinner in the grounds of Tirtegangga and Wayan joined us, he told us the restaurant was owned by the same people as the Water Garden Hotel where we ate the night before. We swam in the pools here and it was great to show the kids they loved it, highly recommend doing this.
We were meant to go to white sands beach but I was way to sick so back to the hotel for some rest, dinner that night was at "Kabu Bali" the hotel looked great and I would love to stay here some time, but the restaurant was over priced and the waitress we had was not very friendly, my 9 year old said "I don't feel welcome here mum I feel like she just put us up the front to show people we are eating here" my god how true!, of course she had picked up on us commenting, that place looks nice, lots of people eating there, etc. as we looked for a restaurant, but she was so right, everyone else's waiters looked very nice we just got a lady in a bad mood.
We loved the Candi Beach Cottage the staff were very friendly, the gardens lush and the beach better than not having one.
If you never have been make the effort and go to Candi Dasa it really is beautiful, and leads to so many other places, the people here are so gentle.
We learnt -the reply to "apa kabar" is "baik,baik" "fine ,fine" or "bagus'
-that Tannalee our 9 year old is "cantik"
-the please to use at dinner is "minta" and "minta bon" is "bill please", the kids favourite was "minta eskrim", "ice cream please" I must thank a formite for that one not sure who.
#Balinese gods control the planes