JBR: 21st Feb - 8th March
Organised our second Bali trip in August last year getting some cheap flights on Jetstar and some half decent accommodation deals, due mainly to the help of our fellow forumites. Started off with 4 people and this turned into 18!! 14 first timers!!!
Departed from Melbourne on Jetstar with our duty free scotch each and had a great flight and arrived in Bali to that smell, our driver Benny picked us up and our two mums went to BGH and the rest of us went to the Bounty. I will go through our favourite activities and restaurants etc, down a little further.
Lets start with the hotels, Bounty Hotel, many people on the forums said its too loud, too roudy, cant sleep etc, I was expecting a hole but to my amazement we had a ball there, our room was very close to the main party pool and there was no problem sleeping, the room was a deluxe, our friends had a double storey room for four people (409) with two bathrooms etc, and it was a great room. We met heaps of people, drank with heaps of people, everyone was happy and everything was great, breakfast was great, sometimes ate it as we arrived home from the clubs or other hotels. We paid AU$52 night in August last year, but some people we spoke to paid over AU$100/night a week before they arrived. We went to the Barong for a few drinks and the atmosphere was no where near like the Bounty, for anyone who wants to party and kill it, i wouldnt go anywhere else!!
My partner and I joined our mothers at the BGH for the second week, the new pool area was great, room 336 (mums) was renovated with ocean view so ask for that one as ours 338 was not renovated but still had ocean view, and at AU$65 night it was great value, met a lot of nice people, 90% of people were from Australia. Great hotel for families aswell, lots of area for the kids, waterbom across the road etc..
Activities - We done Quad Bikes, White Water Rafting, Water sports at Nusa Dua, Temple Tour, Safari Park, Three Island Cruise and Waterbom. Prices have gone up, Quads were US$70 with See Bali (definitely the best), WWR was 250,000 with BIR, Watersports were the same 250,000/dive, 100,000/parasailing etc, Three Island Cruise was US$71 with Bali Hai and Waterbom was 200,000/person. All of these were organized by my mate and driver Benny, so email me for more info. All were good, Quads were best once again, my mate's throttle got jammed at full speed in 4th gear and it was either a collision with the riders who stopped up ahead OR full speed into a rice paddy, it was the rice paddy and all of us were gasping for breath and crying from laughter, funniest thing of the trip by a mile!!! Waterbom was fun, atleast we didn't need to wait like you do at Wet n Wild, the kids there were all having a ball.. WWR was mad, wish there was more water but its always beautiful, there was around 20 of us from Bounty smashing each other all the way down and spraying ourselves, we stopped half way had a few bintangs and then climbed the waterfall and got some wild photos, had a nice meal at the end and slept all the way back to the bounty in the van..
Restaurants - I will go through a few, but we found our new favourite!!
: NERO - jl Legian, across from Aromas - new favourite and we found it in the last week, ate there three times!! It's a Mediterranean restaurant, best pasta in bali, ravioli mushrooms was a beauty as was the carbonara, and that's coming from my picky Italian partner. Average cost was 35,000 for starters and 45-55,000 for mains. I highly recommend this place.
: GOSHA's - jl Melasti - favourite from last year but this year I was a little disappointed, they had my chilli mud crab but it just wasn't the same, Jerry is still a champion. Prices have also increased a fair bit
: Warung 96 - lj Notsure!! - Cheap and good, very dark in there but most meals are 20-30,000
: Warung JB27 - Poppies II - Cheap and better than Warung 96, ate lunch here a fair few times as was cheap and delicious, Club sandwiches, hamburgers and pasta marinara were great here, no tax, meal for 2 and bottle of water for under 50,000.
: Rainbow Café - Poppies II - Across from bounty, another cheap option for good club sandwiches and burgers, not as good as jb27, but when hungover easiest place to get too..
: Seaside Café - Jimbaren Bay - Best snapper I have had so far in Bali, Red Snapper in Chilli sauce, yummy, it was 98,000/kg and I got myself a 3kg beauty, ate it all by myself and sucked every little bit of meat of each bone. Our driver benny took us here and he got us 20% off, expensive meal but who cares, you need to spoil yourself sometimes..
: Ketupat - jl Legian - Great traditional food, duck soup was gold and had a massive rice, seafood mix main, very nice, very romantic place, prices have risen since last year..
Nightclubs / Pubs
Went out a fair bit this trip, best spot was Paddys, we would start off drinking at Bounty Hotel in the room our nice single malt scotches on the rocks (from duty free :P) and then head to 'The Engin Room', for happy hour 8-12pm, two for one, 2 bintangs for 25,000 and then head across the road to paddys and bounty till sun up, Bounty got a bit feral and towards the end of the trip was mainly full of locals, but there all having fun so its all good. A few places that were DEAD were Apache Bar, MBARgo bar and the bagus pub, usually full but this time really really quiet. The ekspresso bar went off too!! Always full and karaoke..
Shopping
Didn't do as much shopping as last year, most things have gone up and the market people not bargaining as much, basically saying fair enough cant do boss and then yeah.. sunnies have gone up, I was getting 20 for 200,000 last year but best I could manage this year was 13 for 200,000, and these were decent ones.. billabong tops still 30,000 even though they start off at 150,000, bintang/bad bull/footy singlets were 15,000-20,000, once again have to go to a few people to get these prices as their just not interested, and I see why though, I saw a Japanese couple pay 300,000 for two pairs of prada sunnies that I just got for 15,000 each, and even with tops etc, paying 100,000 for tshirts I just got for 30,000.. the girls got some bags (well heaps!!), with nice ones all 150,000 (new prada white/purple/brown) etc, wallets were 30,000 - 70,000..
My mum and I went to Optik Jaya Mandiri thanks to DennisC, we got four pairs of prescriptions for 2 million, that included sunglasses, two transitions and one normal, very happy with them too, picked them up the next day and mum was rapped!! The missus and I got some suits tailored at Janoko Tailor in Poppies 2, 380,000 each, I am very happy with my suits, took a prada design that cost $3k on the net and he made it spot on, 2 button with the two slits in the back in a nice light silver colour. The other was a hugo boss design I showed him in a dark grey with squares, also done a fantastic job. We shopped around a bit, Bali Brumby across from BGH wanted 1.3m for each suit (using wool though) and Milkas tailor wanted 800k for wool so I guess it pays to shop around. A few people in the group got some great canvas paintings done for 180-250k, and they come up a treat.. The missus also got a heap of key rings made in the Kuta Art markets for her business, they were bamboo with her logo burnt in, they turned out really well and she was very happy.
Overall we enjoyed our two weeks there and now dreading going back to work!!! The rate was a lot lower than last year (7600-7700) which contributed to us spending a lot more than last time, also spent a lot more money on drinking out and eating at nicer places. The people are lovely however a lot pushier in the shops, trying to sell stick movies and dvd p0rn to everyone haha!! I think the prices of hotels has to come down and will come down as people stop coming to Bali, it might be busy now but once this GFC really hits later on in the year and tourist numbers free fall in bali they will have no choice but to drop hotel prices accordingly as now its just greedy, hopefully some of the restaurants also drop their prices as some were just dreaming. I will be back and so will 90% of the first timers I took over. Mum was rapped, she was really worried about going but she had a ball at bgh and getting massaged everyday, she wants to book ASAP!! Our plane was delayed 1.5 hours on the way home, luckily there was spare rows on the plane, I took the gamble and sat in a row that was empty while people were still loading on, thankfully nobody else was in the row so I lay down and I slept all the way home to Melbourne..
Ohh, my driver Benny, he is the best his number is 08786 1133 227, his booth is straight across from BGH between the slingshot and bubba gumps and don't forget to say that mladen sent you! His car is new and he knows his sh!t
Thanks for reading!!