Actually got back a month ago but have been flat chat catching up on work ever since.
It was my 5th time, hubby's 3rd and 8 year old daughter's 1st trip. Absolutely fantastic. Although it was 8.5 years since our last trip (when I was 6 months pregnant) it felt so comfortable and wonderful to arrive back in Bali - just like going home to use a well-worn cliche!
We are not Kuta-minded people and headed straight for Ubud as we have in the past. This time to a rented house in Penastanan. The house was wonderful with terraced gardens leading down to an in-built pool. Managed by a wonderful couple Ketut and (hubby) Made who soon became part of our family (or is it that we became part of theirs?)
We made a couple of overnight trips which were to become special highlights of our time in Bali. The first was North to the Singaraja area where we toured The Helen Flavell Foundation learning Centre and met our sponsor girl and her family for the first time. What a humbling, awesome and at the same time rewarding experience that was! Very hard to put into a few lines how we felt and what we experienced there. I will be happy to expand on this if anyone needs any further information! Basically schooling is not compulsory in Bali and so many families find it difficult to keep their children in school with all the associated costs etc. We also took some school stationery items to the school and then sent on some more items that they just didn't have the resources for (which are so easy to take for granted here) such as balls for the kids to play some sports with. we are now putting together a Christmas box to send over with more goodies for the school and our friends there.
The other trip we did was to the Bali safari Marine Park (thanks to the postings on the forum). It was worth staying overnight in the superb accomodation overlooking the savannah area! We were also treated to the Hanoman show which was in it's last couple of weeks of production there at the time. We played with the orangutans, patted the lion and tiger cubs. It is a very hands-on experience of the type we just don't have on offer here in Oz (not without the huge prohibitive expense anyway). The water park and theme park were greatly enjoyed by our daughter and we plan to stay there for 2 nights on our next trip.
We ate a varied and provided breakfast at the house each day and usually ate out for lunch and dinners. All the usual wonderful foods with the local warungs near the house serving up a main meal for about $1.50 - $3.00 a serve. The Bridge restaurant (at the Campuan) was another fave when we wanted to dine out as well.
In Ubud our faves were Ibu Rai restaurant where the food and the staff are wonderful. Also enjoyed our times and chats at the 3 Monkeys. Both of these are on Monkey Forest Rd.
The Milano Salon was as good and relaxing as we remembered from our first visits there 12 years ago! We pampered ourselves with a couple of spa treatments here (not nearly enough as my hubby points out).
Well it's not the 7 piece JBR that I envisioned writing in detail but as I stated before - if anyone would like some more info on anything then drop us a post.