My sixth visit to Bali, my wife's fourth and my three kids first. We also took two of the kids friends. Their ages range from eighteen to twenty-three.
I'm going to break my JBRs down into categories. First up....
HOTELS
First up was Bali Ayu in Petitenget. First time here, a bit out of the way but quiet enough for the kids to get grounded before venturing out. Nice staff and good food plus a lovely pool.
Next was Puri Bali in Lovina. Have stayed here several times before and really enjoy it. Good value for budget price and again nice staff. The wife had been unwell since arrival in Bali and following my request the staff contacted a doctor to drop in and see us. He was there within ten minutes and his knowledge was up-to-date on complex medical conditions. He supplied medication from his kit and charged 600,000 Rp (quite reasonable I reckon) which I will be claiming on travel insurance. The treatment worked and the wife recovered.
Then onto Ubud to the Tjampuhan Spa Hotel. We have stayed here several times previously and we really like the place but I do have a couple of gripes about this particular stay. There are many steps in this hotel and if you are allocated the rooms down near the river it is quite a physical ordeal to manage these several times a day. We did have rooms down the bottom and in hindsight I wish that I had requested a change of rooms- next time I will request them in advance. Nevertheless it could have been a good thing in preparing us for the many steps we were later to face after WWR. The other gripe I have is that a couple of the staff were angling for us to do tours etc. with them personally. I have absorbed these approaches in the past without grievance but on this occasion I really wasn't in the mood and I felt that we should have been left to relax on our verandahs without having to explain our plans and movements. I was further perturbed when one of these guys approached my youngest son when I was half passed out and he pulled the 'me poor, need to buy rice for my family' routine. This might sound harsh but we had just been to visit some seriously poor families in Singaraja and our hotel guy was obviously doing much better than them. This encounter had strong implications on my son's view of things and there were some very deep discussions to be had trying to assuage the boys temperament, particularly with regard to his further encounters with these types of approaches. I think that the hotel workers in the bigger places can get into trouble for doing this sort of thing and so I didn't report it for fear of costing the guy his job. Instead I dealt with him in my own partially subtle manner which was by booking the elephant tour etc. without his involvement and letting him know up front. The ensuing forced smile was sufficient proof to me that I had gotten my point across. I hope he was grateful that was all I did.
Finally to Villa Coco in Seminyak. First time here and we really liked it. It is close enough to Jl Double Six for convenience but still quiet. It has a nice pool, friendly staff and good room service. We were able to book one of our villas for a half-day for us to have somewhere to chill before our evening flight home which was really convenient. For our stay we had two double-storey villas so there was plenty of room for us all to get some personal space, something that had been lacking in Bali Ayu and Tjampuhan. That was no fault of those hotels, rather the configurations we had chosen to accommodate seven of us without blowing the budget.
It wasn't easy to figure out who was rooming with who especially when allegiances became frayed. Overseas travel can bring out the best in people as well as the worst. I thought I knew my kids well enough to accurately predict likely dynamics but a few things caught me by surprise both pleasant and not quite so welcoming but I'm not gonna air our dirty laundry here, let alone risk getting advice on how to make it smell of roses lol.
More to come later