This holiday was mainly to relax with family and friends. Arrived Sept 27 on Air Asia from Perth - flight was good, arrived a little bit early, which meant that we just beat the Garuda flight so visa on arrival etc was very quick.
We were staying in a villa in Canggu so took some food supplies from home. Also took my usual 4 bottles of wine in my case and purchased 3 bottles of champagne duty free. We declared the food, our cases also had chalk mark crosses on them but when we handed the declaration to customs they just waved us straight through.
We hired a car through Trisna car rentals and they brought it to the airport for us. We needed the car for 16 nights and got a good rate at 150,000rp per day including insurance for a Toyota Avanza
Accommodation:
1st 11 nights at Villa Rumah Basar on Ummulas 2/JL Bumbak in Canggu. Got a really good opening rate. The villa is lovely, 5 bedrooms but we only used 3. 4 of the bedrooms have king sized beds and own bathroom and one of the bedrooms is more like a kid's room - it has 2 bunk beds plus TV/playstaion/DVD player. They have a website but as the villa is brand new the photo's on the website were just taken by the owners before the villa was fully finished and do not do it any justice. I think they are getting professional photos taken in the near future. Pool lovely and warm, breakfast (lovely) and daily laundry included. The staff are just wonderful. We had a car but my brother was catching taxis before we arrived and he only had to wait about 10 minutes for a bluebird. Villa is about a 5 min drive from Jl petigenget.
We stayed in Canggu for a couple of nights in April and hardly saw any taxis but now there seems to be plenty around.
Last 5 nights at the Bali Dynasty. We usually stay here at some point during our trip as the kids just love it. It is very busy at the moment - 99% full.
After been up in Canggu which is so lovely and peaceful it really appears busy down in tuban - people and traffic everywhere. Another thing I've noticed is that Canggu seems quite a bit cooler with a lovely gentle breeze.
Food:
Ate a quite a few favourites, which I won't mention as they have been written about numerous times but have eaten at some new ones too:
Sea Food House - Kartika Plaza just up from the stadium. We've eaten here twice. The food is fantastic. The Beijing duck is great 150,000++ for a half, which easily serves 2 people. They make the little pancakes and then you can choose how to have the remaining duck cooked. Also the noodle dishes here are very good.
Chandi: Another great restaurant on Laksmana Seminyak. We ate here at the beginning of the trip and can't really remember the cost of the food but it was very reasonable. Everyone enjoyed there meals and will definitely go again.
Meads @ Karma: We've eaten here twice, once for lunch and once for dinner. Food is fantastic. Oysters lovely and fresh but expensive - between 38,000++ & 52,000++ for one. Surf and turf about 150,000++ and most of the other main meals are around the same price. Also best garlic bread I've ever had in Bali. Wine very expensive $90 for a bottle of goundry unwooded Chardonnay. At lunch we meet Warren Mead but he wasn't around at dinner. It was very quiet but I'm sure a lot of Perth people will probably go and check it out.
Listari @ Umalas Stables - this was just down the road from the villa. Lovely setting next to a swimming pool, food is lovely. You can see the horses walk by. I'm not a horse person but they are beautiful and obviously well cared for.
Shopping:
We haven't done much shopping but one thing we have bought is some towels. The towels at the villa were probably the best towels I've come across so we found out where they bought them from and went and bought some. They were 101,000rp per bath towel. We also bought 6 of the pool towels that all the hotels have - they were 114,000rp each. I mainly bought these as my kids at home just seem to grab any towel for the pool, use it once and grab another. Now we have these I will make sure that these are the designated pool towels, which will hopefully save on the amount of pool towels we go through at home (well that's the plan anyway LOL)
2 more nights to go. Rate on the streets still around 8400. Weather was fairly cool for the 1st few days but has been sunny since then.
Will need to get online now and upgrade my luggage to cater for the towels!