We started this trip in style. A limo to Tulamarine. Well worth doing and it only cost us a smidgen more than catching the gull bus.
Cut it fine though. By the time we got through check in and got our American dollars to pay for some accommodation we didn't have time for coffee and breakfast !!!!!! Disaster!! So on the plane we got - hungry and no caffeine - LOL
The trip over was fine - flew Garuda - apart from the 'party goers' up the front of the plane with us. 3 of the girls got to sit up the back, nice and quiet!! My friend and I copped the front - 2 rows from where the toilets are. There were quite a few couples around our age 40-50 who certainly made use of the free grog!! Don't get me wrong, I am no party pooper but they were wearing thin. I felt really sorry for the hostesses as they were clogging up the walkways - drinking in the aisles then all decided to go and congregate in the food prep area!!!! Easy access to more bintangs
Anyway I could see it coming - as I was sitting in the aisle seat, I said to my girl friend 'I am going to wear a drink soon'. There were 2 guys that kept walking past and had the stumbles up a bit. Sure enough - my 'mate' goes to sit behind me and as he goes to sit down I feel a cold sensation on the top of my hair - going down my back and dripping onto my nice white pants!!!! Scotch and coke. Thank you very much!!! I was pretty 'p'd' off as you could imagine. He was full of apologies and his wife then came along and said 'he is mine - sorry sorry'. I was a bit over sorry and just wanted them to go away. They emptied the plane of bintangs. On you guys!!!!! Nice way to start my trip with sticky smelly hair and stained clothes.
Had organised vip voa through hadi. All smooth - out of the airport in record time, no cold drinks etc though. Just quicker to get through basically. We felt it worth the money
Off to Villa Padi in Canggu for our first 4 nights. I highly recommend this villa. My second stay here. The staff are fantastic, rooms beautiful, for the money it is fantastic value. I won't ramble on about it too much - post any queries and I will be happy to fill you in. They provide a driver for 8 hours per day who will take you anywhere in Bali which is a huge plus. Also a computer with internet available 24/7 which was really handy to contact home.
While we were there we did the Sunday Echo Beach night. What a hoot!!! Had a great time, beautiful meal, they made a great mahito and just got into the dancing and they wound it up!!! Oh well back to villa padi for some home made pina coladas.
We also planned a special night - a grand ristajfel dinner at Hotel Tugu Canggu. This was a 'wow' experience. Cost $95 per head with corkage (we took our own duty free wine as their wine list was very $$). 12 courses served by 12 waiters in a room that was set up especially for us 'private dining experience'. They printed out menus for us with 'Miss Mandy' on the top - very nice. It was well worth the money - we dined in a room full of antiques - marble dining table, it was absolutely beautiful and the food was to die for.
Day 5 - picked up to go to Villa Tania in Seminyak. We walked through the gates of this villa and all went 'wow'. It looked good on the internet site but it was a case of being better in real life. Absolutely beautiful. The staff were wonderful, it was absolutely spotlessly clean, pool magnificent. We didn't have anything we could fault really. I would definitely go and stay there again. The standard of how it was kept was 5 star.
We really just relaxed, shopped, spent some time at Miracle clinic. This place is the best I have been to for treatments. We all had an hour and a half special facial and some of the others had manicures etc. (The manicure was done at the same time as the facial). The facial left my skin feeling totally rejuvenated. They used pulse machines on our faces and also did 'blackhead removal' which was quite funny and a bit painful - LOL. I also had a deluxe pedicure here and wash and blow wave. I wouldn't go anywhere else now. Very professional, spotlessly clean and well priced.
Two of the girls in our group got sick. One lost probably close to 2 days off her trip - severe vomiting and diarrhoea which hit hard in a restaurant in seminyak. Thank god for spotless toilets with clean white face washers. It was luckily the most stunning toilets we had been to for the whole trip. She did spend a bit of time there before she felt well enough to travel back to the villa.
After she recovered - a day in bed and being unable to eat etc - No 2 went down. Unfortunately Denise stayed extremely unwell for the rest of the trip. Three of us flew home on the Sat night and the other two had booked a further 3 nights to relax and enjoy!! Well it didn't pan out that way at all. They were booked into the all seasons legian for their last few nights. Denise spent most of it in bed or just lying by the pool, she was unable to eat and had severe diarrhoea. Finally they called a Doctor out on the second last night - she gave her a shot, antibiotics and something else!!! On arrival back home she went straight to a local Doctor. He looked all of the medications up on the internet and suggested it all go in the bin!!! This was a bit of a worry. He said nothing was appropriate for treating what she had and we all wonder what the hell she was given for the injection?? After taking a test she was then put on a strong dose of appropriate antibiotics for a parasite in her bowel. She is still far from 100% - lost about 5-6 kg in weight which she couldn't really afford to and was dehydrated.
I have been to Bali around 15 times and Denise is a seasoned Bali traveller too. We all ate at the same places, all had wipes and dettol hand sanitiser - and the ones that got sick never even cleaned their teeth from the tap!! So it is truly the luck of the draw.
It was a really horrible ending to their trip and the flight home was pretty stressful for them.
Since I have been home I was spoken to quite a few people that have been to Bali over the last month or two and many of them got a severe dose of bali belly.
My sister and her friend had an experience at All Seasons Legian. They had a leak in their room so had asked to be moved. Some guys came in and plugged it up so they decided to save packing things up as Denise was unwell they were happy to stay in that room with the leak fixed. They advised front reception and left the room for about an hour. On return they unlocked their door and the room was totally empty!!!!! They freaked a bit and found that the staff had moved them to another room - packed all their belongings including toiletries from the bathroom - medications etc etc and EMPTIED THEIR SAFE. Not happy Jan !!!! They let management know this was not on and they had asked to stay put. Set their heart rates going a bit. They don't believe management really understood it was not the thing to do
We used the all seasons for a day use so we had somewhere to store our things - shower and get ready for the trip home. It was great and economical to do this.
All in all we had a fantastic time - even with girls getting sick at the end.
I went to Joy Jewellery as suggested on the forum and ended up buying nothing. In the same street there is a jewellers called Perlu. We all spent up here - it was absolutely beautiful jewellery and I found it really hard to make a decision as there was so much I loved.
Phones - we purchased numerous sim cards this trip and had nothing but trouble. Really bad connections and our credit went with just a couple of calls!! Last year the one lot of credit - I think around $20 lasted for ages. We were doing everything correctly so don't know what happened there.
Any questions on accommodation etc I would be happy to answer.
Hate being back here with tops of 11 degrees - BRRRRRRRRRR
Hope I haven't rambled on too much
cheers
mandy