Just back last night from Bali after 11 fantastic days.
Fifth trip for me (the last one was only 6 weeks ago!) but a first time for my friend S.
Garuda flight from Perth on the Sunday was great. Very smooth flight, good service. It was also S's first plane flight, so a very exciting trip for her. From the time we landed until we were waiting outside was only about 15 mins, met up with Gusti and headed off to Kumala Pantai.
Well, what can I say about this hotel that has'nt already been said?
It was a lovely hotel and will definitely be going back there again. We were in the new section (S Block, Room 24). Lovely big balcony and with a beautiful view of the new pool. The only downfall was that we did'nt have a hairdryer in the room, also not available at Reception anymore! Headed off to Carrefour to buy one after a couple of days, picked one up for 49 000rp and all my hair problems were solved! The humidity in Bali does'nt do a thing for my curly hair, but if I can straighten my fringe a bit I am happy, just one of my funny little fetishes! Breakfast was good, only actually went to brekky four times as we just did'nt feel hungry in the mornings but the food was very nice.
We mainly ate at the restaurants on the beach near our hotel in the evenings - Lanai (good as ever), Zanzibar, also tried the Italian Restaurant at KP which was great. Steak at Yutz was a good as ever. S was a little sick the last few days of our trip, so we tried Room Service which was also good (comes from the Italian Restaurant anyway!) Also had great corned beef and salad baguettes at Tommys (across the road from Yutz).
I did'nt buy much this trip (had bought all I needed last time but still managed to come home with about 120 DVDs, Sony games and CDs. S had a field day, halter dresses, clothes for kids, shoes, pendants for daughters, DVDs etc.
We did a day trip to Ubud and Tanah Lot, it was nice to just sit in the car and relax. Also went to Denpassar for the morning to look at the gold shops, this was something I had'nt done before and we both enjoyed it. Did'nt buy anything, prices did seem quite a lot cheaper that home.
S had a visit to BIMC on our fifth day! In the evening after our day in Ubud, she came out of the bathroom and said to me "Do you think my forehead looks swollen?" I said no, your're just imagining it and went back to reading my book - great friend I am! Next morning she said it still felt strange, we went shopping and after about 15 minutes walking around in the heat her eyelids started to swell. We were on the way to Waterbom for the day but decided to go back to the hotel and spend the day by the pool as we both thought maybe this was a reaction to the heat! To cut a long story short, we went to BIMC as by this stage she was quite concerned and so was I. We had about a 10 minute wait, the Dr asked a few questions once we got into Emergency and they said it was an allergic reaction to calamari (she had this the day before for lunch in Ubud). This did seem strange to us as she has eaten calamari plenty of times at home with no reaction. When we were at Tanah Lot, it was pouring with rain, we both had thongs on so a lot of dirt had been flicked up on the back of our legs. S thought when she washed the dirt of her legs that maybe she had wiped her face and some of the dirt had gone into her eyes, but the Dr was adamant that it was the calamari, she explained an allergic reaction can happen at any time, also the calamari eat different things at different times of the year and this is what causes the reaction. S picked up her medication, we both felt relieved then and went shopping! The medication started to work basically straight away and by the next evening the swelling was nearly gone. She did'nt have a headache or feel sick at any stage, just the swelling on her forehead and eyes. We were both very impresed with BIMC, very modern and clean. The total cost for her consultation and script with around 820 000rp.
Did heaps of relaxing the last half of the holiday, we both came home with good suntans! Went to Briella Spa across the road from KP, very nice. S was a bit sick the last three days, we had only planned to relax the last few days so this did'nt change anything.
Exchange rate fluctuated between 7100 and 7500 so we were really happy with that.
The first day at KP, we bumped into a friend of my sons who is from the town as me - very small world!
Gusti arrived 7.30am on our last day to take us to the airport. We arrived there around 8.00am, said our goodbyes and off we went to catch the 10.15am flight. Got to the counter and were told our flight had been cancelled and we had been rebooked on the 2.00am flight the next morning! We looked at each other and could'nt quite believe this was happening. We were told the 12.30pm flight was fully booked and were offered a hotel, meals etc as compensation for the 2.00am. I said S had been sick and we really just needed to get home as quick as possible so they said they would put us on standby for the 12.30 - I kept checking with them (S was laying down on the chairs by this stage!) I was hoping by saying she had been sick they would get us on. Around 11.30 the Garuda guy came up to me and asked to see my friend, I said "Are we on the flight?", he said that we were but he needed to see S to make sure she was'nt too sick to fly! S was fine to fly so off we went to the Departure area. We were both thrilled to be getting home, we have a four hour drive when we land in Perth so we would still arrive home at a decent hour.
All in all, the trip was great. S loved it and said she will definitely be back. Hope I have'nt raved on too much!
Thanks.