This is a JBR of sorts, not a day by day detail of what we did or where we went but rather, a general description about things we saw and did, where we ate and drank, what we bought and MY VIEW of Bali. Flame away if you feel the need but I have to tell you, I have skin that is thicker than a boarding house custard so if you don't like or agree with what I say, no problems for me! Also, I won't spell check or even go back and read so any grammo's, spello's or crappo's, please ignore.
Okay, flew with Pacific Blue (Virgin) there and back, flight was okay, nothing bad or good to say except that the plastic card swipes were not working so we got free movies (etc) there and back. Can't be bad. Bought a couple of drinks, I think the little bottles of wine were $6, nothing flash but decent enough for a flight. Planes left and arrived on time.
CONDOMS.
Yes, this is what a lot of the bar people call stubbie holders (and for non aussies, the rubber things that hold your little bottles of beer). So, when you go to a bar, you can request a condom OR you can take your own as Harry did, he said the condoms there were stinky and every time he tipped up his bottle of Anker (his preference rather than Bintang), he reckoned it stunk like an old mans socks so he took his own.
BEACHES.
Kuta, Legian and Seminyak beaches were very clean, must have had a clean up since many of you had spoken about the rubbish. Lovina beach was pretty clean too, black volcanic sand though, very hot! Sanur and Nusa Dua beaches were lovely and clean too as was Tuban, Echo Beach and Double Six. No probs anywhere. However, I was in a bar somewhere and a guy was telling us that he had been swimming off Legian and got tangled up in some plastic bags, nearly drowned he reckoned. Take care, those plastic bags are mongrels.
EATING.
Wow, so many places to eat and so much choice of style and costs. Okay, big faves were Blue Ocean (or is that Ocean Blue?) at Double Six beach. I had a seafood stew (hot hot hot, chilli and heat) and Harry had nasi campur which was great. Went back again another night and we shared a few plates, was a bit pisst so can't remember what we had but remember it was great. Another big fave was the Indian restaurant at the Dynasty, absolutely fab, really enjoyed this, ate there twice too. Good size meals (suited us fine), and they also do a takeaway and, wait for it, a delivery! I had the prawn makhanwala (only because I had never heard of it and figured it would be good to try) and it was fabulous. Had it spiced up a little bit, really nice. Harry had a Mutton Handi, reckoned it was great. Not into mutton myself, sort of like aboveground rabbit to me but he said it was fabbo. Next time we went, I had chicken something, cant remember but it was really good and Harry had something that was really hot, he sweat bucket loads, a good look. I had a couple of cosmopolitans there, thoroughly enjoyed them, was loving myself sick. Strangely, another good place we found to eat was the Bali Colada at the Discovery Mall. Its up on the first floor I think, outside overlooking the sea, food was great and really nice cocktails too! Harry scoffed down a few more Ankers there, only 13k rupiah! Had a great meal in Kori's (Poppies Lane 2) and they make a mean caprioska. Harry ate one day at Bagus Bar just up the lane, god that place is feral (ha) but he said his nasi goreng was pretty special. Anyhow, I went there a few times (to use the loo, have a drink, watch the world go by etc) but it is feral. Some really feral Aussies in there (you know who you are), ha ha, made me laugh a lot though, blushing for us. We roamed the beach front at Sanur one day, stopped at Benno's on the beach (literally), huge menu, the food we had was great, we shared some ribs and then had some nasi goreng and some sate's, cocktails list was good too, range from about 30k rupiah. The sate's came out on a little coal rack thing, cute, tasty. Harry had a rending there later, said it was pretty good. It's at no 42 Shindu Beach Market, if anyone is interested. Oh yeah, I mentioned about Blue Ocean at double 6 beach, was great. Kid friendly for anyone contemplating taking rugrats, no problems there. It's full of what seems like rich hippies and Europeans which was kinda good to watch. Harry said the nasi campur there was 'kick arse', the best he'd had. We also had a meal at lunchtime at Mama's, the German place on Jl Legian. Good food. I like this place during the day but not much at night, it's a bit slimey for me on a couple of levels. Spirits were about 45k rupiah, cocktails about 55k, small bintangs were 15k and they also do big steins of beer of course. One lunchtime, we had a small meal at the Stadium Bar, Harry wanted to see cricket, football, soccer and anything else involving balls, plenty of food on the menu and loads of drink options, good place to sit and watch the world go by too. Have I mentioned the Beach House at Echo Beach (Canggu?), can't remember and too lazy to re-read what I wrote. Sorry. Okay, this was great. We went on a Sunday night (per the forum's suggestion) and it was a good move, got there early though, just to make sure we could get a good table which we did. Lots to see, do, eat and drink there. Great signs inside the bar, be sure to have a read if you go there, one I can remember read 'It's your local, even for Seminyak wa*kers'. Made me laugh. They do a big seafood bbq and also a normal menu. Good spot. I describe it as the place 'where Bintang singlets meet Euro trash'. Well, that's my view.
HATI HATI. Don't eat at Aditya Restaurant at Lovina. Against my better judgement, we ate from a buffet (only thing on offer) and about 2 hours later, well, let's say the toilets on the way home were working overtime. The dude gave us a drinks menu too, so as I contemplated what to have, Harry ordered a beer and then the guy tells me 'we have no alcohol, too expensive' - what? Obviously beer wasn't alcohol to him, but anyhoooo, there was a choice of beer or beer. All in all, it was a bad experience. It was the only bad one though.
Ate at La Lucciola, very nice place, silver service, my napkin fell off my lap at one stage and the guy swooped it up before I could bend down and had replaced it with a new one! Ooooo, I say! We shared a seafood antipasto, excellent, Harry had a mushroom risotto which he swooned over and I had a gnocchi and seafood dish which was yum. Can't remember the prices (could check my plastic card though), more expensive than most of Bali of course but its good for a special night. Service was impeccable, but there were no overhead fans so it was bloody hot. I slapped my leg at one stage and the waiter came over very promptly to offer mozzie repellant. Didn't like to tell him I was slapping my leg laughing at something probably inane! Ha.
DRINKING
Did loads of this, from the little warung to the Bagus Bar to the swim up pool bar to Ku De Ta and beyond! Best drinks I had were a berrytini at Blue Ocean, a blueberry marguerita at La Lucciola (with fresh blueberries), the bellini's at Ku De Ta were excellent as usual, the capiroska at Kori's was sensational, the cosmopolitans at the C-Bistro (double six beach) was brilliant. Oh yeah, if you are looking for a nice little bar overlooking the beach, C-Bistro or C-Bar (not sure what it was called, something like this, its attached to the Outrigger there) was worth it, great specials at happy hours from 5-7pm. You can sit on the day beds out the front or long tables inside or at the bar, guys are great there, good fun and friendly, had some great chats, went there a couple of times. Oh yeah, the berrytini, it consisted of vodka, black currant liqueur, fresh lime and cranberry juice. Drink of the gods. On our travels, we stopped one day at Swell in Poppies 1. Cheap bali moon cocktails and they are huge. Bintangs were 15k. We shared a banana pancake there, fab. Also dropped into the Treehouse Bar in Poppies 1, it had a nice atmosphere (no Midori at that time), lots of German backpackers, had a cocktail of some description, it was very small and was 40k. Food looked good although we didn't eat. Beach House at Echo beach, loads to drink there, mmmmm. On a walk along the beach at Seminyak, we had a drink at The Legian (bar out the front on the beach), very nice but expensive. Cosmo was 90k and a little Bintang was 45k. Nice though.
HOTEL.
Stayed at the Inna Kuta. Got upgraded to a cottage. Rooms were nice, nothing to write home about, bathrooms were tired and needed a good nap. Good location though, suited us. Breakfast was okay, eggs, bacon (that icky bacon), sausages, fruit, pancakes, pastries, toast, you know, all the usual stuff. No probs.
IMPRESSIONS
Bartergaining (new word, just made it up, it will make everyone happy who likes to refer to bartering or bargaining). I got better at this on this trip. I decided to make out I was a pro (professional, not prozzie, not this trip anyhoo.....) and so when the seller quoted me a price, I roared with laughter and said 'you are very funny'. They ALWAYS responded well to this. So, let's say I was happy to pay 60k for something, they just about always quoted something like 200k, I laughed and said 'I don't want to pay any more than 25k'. Their turn to laugh at me, this was good, we both got a laugh. They put the price up to 100k (already good, we've dropped a cool 100k) so I upped it to 40k and said 'nope, that's my last price' and they would say 'c'mon, you have to give me a bit more, blah blah blah' and so I would go to 45 and eventually to 60. If they said no, I said 'okay, thanks, bye' and I think this worked every time except once. In most cases, I knew I was overpaying but hey, its buggar all really and I reckon we need to pay a little more at the moment, things are tough there but each to their own in regards to prices. Some of the people there are quite good at sounding genuine about hard times, some are crap. It's hard to decipher who is really doing it tough but probably nearly all of them. I had no probs paying over the mark for probably everything we bought, I tipped EVERY taxi driver, every restaurant and bar, some were good tips and some were just a bit, depended on a lot of things but mostly about the person themself. That was my choice. I tipped the young trainees in the hotel, they don't get paid apparently while they are trainees and so although they didn't provide specific services to us, we gave them a good tip on our last day much to their delight.
DRIVING
Still crazy, saw a woman on a scooter with a little child sitting behind her seemingly holding on but not as tight a grip as if it were me! She also had a child in front of her who was half standing up but was fully asleep! Only saw one prang, 2 scooters collided, couldn't see the actual damage as there were a heap of rubber neckers standing around.
RAIN.
Oh hells bells, when it comes down in Bali, it comes down. Coming from a drought region, that type of rain was quite daunting! Anyyoooo, we popped off to Double 6 beach one afternoon, sitting having a drinkie poo (unusual, I know) and it started to rain, just sort of ‘normal' rain. So we moved under cover and watched as the rain came down, harder and harder, eventually turning into sheets of rain. I reckon if I had been standing in it, I would have been pounded, it was so heavy. So, we head off, through a break in the rain, and ran to Ocean Blue for dinner, got a table inside (for obvious reasons) and down it came again. Well, it didn't stop, I don't know how long it rained for but it was hours. Eventually, we thought we should take our chances and try and grab a taxi and head home. Oh, I should explain that cars can't come down the main street, only scooters. So we did a 10 minute dash down the street in the pouring rain (no umbrella) and by the time we got to the end of the street, we couldn't have been wetter if we had jumped in the sea. Taxi? Nope, nowhere to be seen, the street was virtually empty. A man approaches us and offers us a ride back to Kuta for 100k. No thanks we said, we had only paid about 20k to get here! He wanders off, probably smirking for he knew what was coming up. So we hovered under a tree for about 5 minutes hoping to see a taxi, no luck so looking up the street, we see a bunch of taxis sitting up there, so we whistle, wave our hands to no avail. Bummer, we'll have to walk up there. So off we head again in the rain, get to the taxi guys, ask for a tax, 'no sorry, no taxi'. What? They don't seem to be moving either, don't want to take us, unheard of in Bali, you get tooted for a cab every 2.5 seconds on the street! Mmmm, so what to do? Harry heads back to Mr Smirkface and engages his services for the van, off we head up the street, we come to a huge expanse of water in the street and Mr Smirkface just stops, says nothing but just stops. Go through it man, I mutter under my breath, it cant be that bad. Nope, he ain't movin'. Eventually he says 'no sorry, you have to get out and walk, I cant take the van through that water'. What? Well, I said, if that's the case, we have only driven 20 metres, we won't pay you. Okay he says. So out we get and start wading (by the way, the footpath had disappeared so there was no chance of taking refuge on that). I had thongs (ie flip flops) on my feet and I was up past my knees in water so opted to take the thongs off for fear of breaking them, it was a gamble, didn't have a clue what I might walk in or fall down but I couldn't walk in all that water. So we trundled through the water, getting deeper and deeper (derrr, I thought, no wonder the taxis didn't want to proceed) until I was about thigh deep in water. Now, I'm no Jack the Giant Killer but in old terms, I'm about 5foot 6 or maybe a smidge more so I'm no midget either. Harry was dipping the hem of his shorts in the water, well and truly and it didn't matter, we were absolutely drenched, a couple of rats (ohhh, rats, there is another story, remind me to tell you about the rat in the Bagus Bar), anyhoooo, we eventually wade through this water, took us about 15 minutes (it was a slow treacherous wade) and hey presto, Mr Smirkface pulls up alongside us and smiles, 'hop in' he says! Yep, he had watched us walk through the water to know if his van was to make it, decided it could so all was well. With him! Grrrrr. Then, he has the cheek to ask us for another 50k. Two chances mate. You know what they are. We took the van, as much as I didn't want to and in fact, wanted to flip Mr Smirkface the bird but we had no options. We laugh about it now of course and in fact, we sort of laughed about it at the time, Mr Smirky was enjoying it and said 'don't worry, you clothes dry soon', yeah mate, IN YOUR VAN!
RATS
Big stinking dirty rotten rat ran across the bar at Bagus while I was sitting there, it nearly touched my arm. Totally EWWWW. Ick. Hated that. Dreamt about it that night, that it was nibbling at my wet clothes.
STICKERS
Shame shame shame on you Aussies whoever you are, the ones that had those naughty naughty stickers for sale in Poppies 2. The most disgusting things I have ever read on a sticker, I can't repeat here of course. I laughed a lot, I'm ashamed to say and yes, I bought a dozen of them.
TOILETS
I found that the toilet situation had improved in Bali, hardly saw a really rotten toilet, some were better than others of course. Toilets were great in the usual spots, Ku De Ta, La Lucciola, Kori etc etc but even in the more ‘casual bars', the toilets were acceptable. Oh yeah, the toilet in Indonational was good too (and they advertise something about Australian owned with Aussie hygiene) but they had hand towels to wipe your hands with, not keen on that, not like you had a towel to yourself and then put it in the wash basket, this was one or two towels hanging all day, ick. Each to their own I guess.
I went to a revolting toilet in a garage on the way home from Lovina (when I had eaten the rotten buffet food), a drop toilet and it was bad. I made it worse so I guess I can't complain.
CARREFOUR, MATAHARI AND DISCOVERY
Did a bit of shopping here, some great bargains to be had. Everything you could want from a toothbrush to a scooter! Cheap toiletries and stuff as well, very good, cheap cameras etc. Three floors of stuff. Matahari in Kuta Square is still good for some things, plenty of stuff in there too. Discovery Mall is good, some great bargains if you shop around.
I think that's my lot really. Sorry, I waffled on quite a bit, just stuff off the top of my head mostly. Huge thanks to everyone here who offers suggestions and options, I used so much information it was fabulous. Big thanks to you and give yourselves a big pat on the back.
*clink* and cheers.