Hubby and I in mid 40's. Left 3 teenagers at home and had our first holiday without them in many years.
Our 2nd trip to Bali, our first being in 2005.
The journey
Flew Garuda out of Sydney direct. Flight eventful in that some morons were smoking in the toilets. I finally managed to fall asleep only to be woken by a random announcement from the captain to remind everyone that smoking was prohibited on the flight. I noticed all the flight attendants walking around checking everyone out when next thing you know there is a bit of a Benny Hill moment as some guy comes out of the toilets and he is chased/circled by the staff. Not sure why they had to give chase, not like he was going anywhere lol. I saw them take his passport.......not sure what happened to him and I think the woman he was travelling with was also caught smoking as well, so a nice bit of drama on the flight.
Anyone have any Idea what sort of penalty this person would have faced?
Apart from that the flight was full and I remembered how much I detest flying and having to sit still for sooooo long!
Arrival at Denpesar
What can I say......hectic. I chuckled at handing in the swine flu forms to the masked people and they didn't even look at them, couldn't really see the point, but oh well.
Onto pay the Voa, paid in Aussie dollar and got back change in Aussie dollar and rupiah, we just went with it and after when we worked it all out we had paid the correct amount and not been ripped off. Except that we started to walk away when I realised we didn't get our paper work, when I questioned the clerk he indicated we had the paper work but then quickly handed over our receipts when we went moving.
Onto the immigration line, at which point there was no distinction between the VOA and the immigration line, I felt sorry for anyone not knowing what to do as there were quite a few lined up for immigration with their USD $25 sticking out of their passports, other tourists were helping them out and pointing them to the correct line. The airport was absolutely packed.
Then our next bit of drama was a small but loud fight breaking out in front of us as someone was accused of pushing in (they had been to pay VOA and returned to their mother waiting in the immigration line). So a few tense moments with me standing right in the middle of the drama and not wanting any involvement in it. LOL. A young girl was very irate that someone had pushed in and was not having any of it.
That same young girl was also loudly complaining about paying in USD and we had just come from Australia and it was Bali and she wasn't happy, etc etc. Again I am standing trying to avert my eyes not wanting to be involved in the conversation but It was difficult as she kept telling me all her problems.
Once she got to the counter it appears she didn't have 6 months on her passport and was quickly whisked away when voices were starting to be raised..........so I spent the whole holiday wondering if she even made it into the country!!!!
What does happen if you don't have 6 months, I cant imagine she would have paid under the counter to keep things smooth as she was not happy. Last I heard was 'but I am only staying 7 days, what are you talking about this is ridiculous! '
Some how we were lucky enough to have the majority of people behind us in the line and it was a very very long line, and took us just on an hour to get out of the airport which I thought was quite good considering how chaotic it was.
Sanur
We had heard so many good things about Sanur that we decided as we were looking for somewhere to relax it sounded great, and we wernt disappointed.
We stayed at Besakih beach resort for 3 nights and it was lovely.
We had a standard room which was at the back of the resort with a quaint thatched roof. The room was big, the bed was fantastic, the bathroom could have been a bit cleaner but we loved it.
The location is 5star and perfect. The pool ends and the beach starts. Breakfast was in a lovely beachside setting, chairs on the beach for hotel guests, you could walk for miles along the beach path,staff were all very friendly. At the road exit to the resort is quite a bit of shopping. All the normal stores and so many restaurants.
I knew there were a lot of restaurants in Sanur, but seriously if you are going to Sanur don't worry you will find a million places to eat and be spoilt for choice!
We ate at Donalds on the beach, Bennos, Bonsai, too many to mention, all of our meals included a couple of Bintangs, entrée main and often a desert and were all around 140000 - 200000rph we didn't have a bad meal and loved the luxury of eating on the beach with the sand between our toes. My favourite desert was the fried coconut and Banana at Bennos and we went back there for our last lunch just to have desert again.
The Hardy's supermarket is great, and has everything, and was an easy walk there and back from the Besakih. This was our first place to visit as we had left the teenagers home alone the first thing I organised was a Bali sim. Walk into Hardy's and there are stalls selling sim cards, the lovely girl set it all up and wrote down clearly for us the prefix to use for ringing cheaply to Australia and how to sms and check credit, fabulous! I believe it was a simparti card? she asked us which country we would be ringing and we went with her recommendation. We left it with our friends to use who stayed on after we came home. It was easy to recharge anywhere and we just asked when we recharged if they would do it for us and no problems.
We went to the fixed price shops at the Sinduh beach markets and they were fabulous, I brought a heap of stuff there, just so easy. We did struggle to find the fixed price shops so for anyone interested they are up the laneway in the markets located right next to Bennos restaurant. We wandered up and down a bit before finding them.
I am giving my honest opinion on the following as I have seen it discussed on the forums before we left.
I found the girls outside the markets to be quite aggressive, I am very good at saying no thanks and still being very polite, but after a while it did get a bit much, if they hadn't pulled me by the arm and told me I promised them when I hadn't even seen them before I would have done some shopping with them but there were maybe 3 girls who just attached themselves to any one walking past, grabbing your hand, linking arms with you, rubbing your back and actually getting very snooty when you didn't go with them, we sat having lunch in one of the beach restaurants one day watching all the people getting dragged into the markets. lol. I know they are trying to make a living I 100% get that, but the bit I didn't like was that they got quite rude when you didn't go with them, after the first few times they left me alone but I have never before experienced getting a dirty look off someone I didn't buy from when I walked past next time, with one of them telling me how horrible I was for not buying form her and that I was not a nice person!!!!
Anyway it was all part of the fun, hubby and I retained a good sense of humour about it all.
So in summary, we would go back to Sanur in a heart beat, loved it so much, it was very busy when we were there with lots of restaurants very busy and lots of tourists on the beach and out and about in the streets. The beach path is fantastic, I even went for a jog two mornings and the sunrise was beautiful, hubby took many pictures.
The footpaths in what I call central Sanur, just because it is in the middle of the long stretch of beach, were great compared to Legian and Kuta, so that was a bonus.
We also went out on a traditional boat along the reef and that was a lovely way to fill an hour, the guys on the beach who take the boats out were not pushy at all and were very friendly.
We had a good poke around some of the other beachfront motels and would certainly stay beachfront again.
Next up Anika cooking school and Legian - Jayakarta.