7th May - 24th May 2010
Myself, hubby, 3 daughters and a friend all aged 16 - 21
3rd time for hubby and I, 2nd time for the girls.
Had a fantastic time, a really lovely family holiday and had some funny times and made lots of memories.
Stayed at Puri Raja in Legian....loved it... and then Besakih Beach Resort in Sanur...my favourite place.
We flew Virgin Blue via Melbourne from Sydney. The flight was originally booked direct from Sydney but was changed by Virgin. ggrrrr
Our daughters friend traveling with us was flying Jetstar later that afternoon.
We were almost at Sydney airport in our Limmo and our neighbours rang to ask us should there be a suitcase still in our driveway?????????????? Omg NO NO NO. It had hubbys clothes (not too important) and the laptop charger, phone chargers, camera charger, our medications etc.
After many phone calls our daughters friend went and collected our suitcase and managed to fit it all into her checked and hand luggage without any extra kgs to bring with her later that night...thank heavens.
Virgin flight was uneventful and transferring at Melbourne was a breeze. Boarding passes for both flights were issued at Sydney and bags checked straight through to DPS made things easy and problem free.
Took 2 airport taxis to Puri Raja. Have not stayed there before but will for sure stay there again. We had 2 upstairs triple rooms and whilst they were not huge they were big enough. The 4 girls kept all of their stuff in the one room with one of them sleeping in with us at night, i felt sorry for the person cleaning that room as oh dear what a mess!
The rooms were clean however our bathroom was a bit smelly and could have done with a good scrub but the girls bathroom seemed fine. The gardens are beautiful, breakfast was not buffet but you could have fruit or juice, eggs bacon, danish (yummmmmm) toast, pancakes, croissants, it was fresh and plentiful and the staff are just lovely.
Most of our time there were no pool hogs, I know can you believe it, however the last 2 days a new crowd must have moved in because we were surprised to go to breakfast one morning and all the chairs had towels, oh well it was nice while it lasted and there was always somewhere to sit at the other pool. We met some lovely people staying there and there is a huge cross section of people, young, old, couples, families, groups of ladies...and a few of the obligatory idiots drinking drinking drinking and having domestics at 3am or jumping off balconies!!! oh well you find that everywhere these days. Overall Puri Raja is in a great location, has lovely grounds and staff and is a great place.
The first day there we took the girls into Kuta and helped them get their bearings, then we headed to Ketuts fixed price in Garlic lane and shopped back to Puri Raja, after that the girls were pretty good at heading out for shopping and finding their way and working out what they thought was an ok price.
My daughter got some amazing thigh high boots made for $100 aud and two leather jackets, I also got a leather jacket made for about AUD $80.
Highlights of week one.
Mothers Day treatments at Melasti spa - hot stone massage and facial.
Mothers Day dinner at Koris in poppies 2, yum.
Almost daily massages at Inner Glo, just around the corner from Puri Raji in the same spot as Petit and Wali Warung and near the entrance to Nikksoma.
Dinner in any of the beachfront restaurants were good although our last night we went to Lani again and it was a bit disappointing.
Bali beach shack, the drag show there is not for children, lol, although it was entertaining, even though some over middle aged australian woman who was very drunk decided to get her top off and get on stage and show off her old white sagging breasts under the assumption that the audience wanted to see her naked!!! All I can say is OMG and for days afterward I threatened to get my boobs out constantly, I have not laughed so much in a long time. 3 of our girls loved it, one of them thought she would give it a miss next time, especially the part where her father was targeted for some onstage attention, oh dear, lol.
We returned there for the sunday night roast dinner, pork, beef, lamb, baked vegies, gravy the girls said it was the best meal and they were craving meat and veg.
Ate a few times at Wali Warung and Patricks and Petit.
Lamonde upstairs was nice also. Actually all our meals were great and lots of variety to suit everyone.
Mug shot great spot for coffees and free wifi.
The girls had a night out at the Bounty and Paddys and then tried to order Maccas to be delivered and couldn't understand what the lady on the phone was saying, so at 1am the reception staff at Puri Raja kindly explained to them that the "lady" on the phone was a recorded message telling them they had run out of credit and not the lady they need to speak to to order a cheeseburger lol, so they kindly rang Maccas for them from reception, how very helpful, lol.
Sadly the girls tell me that out the front of the clubs there is constant offer of all sorts of tablets and the like, they just said a constant no and kept walking, still its a worry.
Another part of my mothers day present was high tea at Biku tea house in Seminyak, 75000 RPH each, wow, a totally traditional English high tea, I am quite partial to high tea and this was a treat, there was so much food and it was one of the best I have had, well worth a trip to seminyak if you are looking for something a bit different to do in Bali. Some of our group also had their tarot cards read as an extra so that was a bit of fun. What a nice thing for my family to think of for me!!!
Rafting with Bali International Rafting, a great day, paid 225000rph each, booked it from Magnums tourist stand just around the corner to the left from Puri Raja road exit. 104 stairs, easy!! Nice lunch and a fair bit of water in the river. Saw a Japanese girl fall out of the boat in front, oh dear I was scared, then got caught on one of those low bamboo bridge things, it snapped on my daughters knee and then got caught on the back of the boat at which stage one of my daughters was screaming hysterically that we were going to die, I laughed and cried at the same time and had a fantastic day!
Waterbomb was a great day, I went down the day before and booked two cabanas, #4 & 5, on the "pleasure pool" and they were great to lay around in between doing things.We ordered food which they delivered to the cabanas so that was a nice treat. Sad that the new climax was not yet open although they were testing it and had a big blessing ceremony for it the day we were there. The cashless system is good however I didnt put enough on there to hire 6 towels and pay for the deposits so I had to put more on there but at the end of the day they put the deposit for the towels and the cabanas back on the arm band and I got over 500000rph back in cash so it all worked out in the end......I think. lol We brought our tickets from a tourist stand in Legian and got a 5% discount.
Bali Baik, what a great day!! So informative. Booked it from home via email.
Breaky at the volcano was good and the view was stunning. Apparently they were busy the day we went but we went in a group of 10 and didn't see any other groups until we got to lunch at the family compound. They cooked a separate meal for our daughters friend who has a peanut allergy to assure her that it was ok to eat.
I can not recommend this trip highly enough, we learnt so much about everyday life and travelled through lots of villages and rice fields stopping along the way to learn interesting things. It was so hot the day we went and the small uphill bits are at the end, i was pretty much exhausted at the end and a bit of rain was a welcome relief.
General impression of Legian.
The rate stared at 8200 and dropped to 7500 by the end of our 17 day trip.
Lots of free wifi everywhere so a big bonus as I had my Iphone with Bali sim and two of the girls had ipod touches so it was easy to use Internet in lots of places.
I thought the restaurants had mostly all improved, especially the toilets in general are getting better.
Many many comments directed at our girls, hmmm, some not so appropriate, but some very funny and in good fun. The girls tell me that when they were out on their own they did feel a bit hassled at times but that can happen here at home as well. Still it did make me worry a bit when they were out.
Taxi drivers were mostly very friendly and chatty and only one did not want to put his meter on and charge us 50000 to go from Kuta to Legian so we just used the next one that came along.
Lots of ceremony days while we were there and lots of traffic! It was a pain getting from Legian to Kuta and we went a different way every time as traffic was heavy.
General impression of Kuta.
The two times I walked down there along the beach in the morning the beach was filthy with so much crap on the sand it was disgusting, such a shame.
Made a couple of visits to bread talk at Centro, yummmmm.
Watched a funny exchange in Gloria Jeans where a Japanese girl was trying to order coffee from a local girl and they were both using english, as the only english speaking person there it was funny watching them both communicating in an uncommon language and saying totally different things to eachother but agreeing with what was said, let me put it this way I am pretty sure the Japanese girl did not get what she ordered but that the Balinese girl thought she got her order correct. LOL
Oh dear I have waffled, sorry very long and I have left a lot out!
I know that I pour over JBRs before I go, so hopefully some one will get something out of my info.
Will do the rest of Legian and Sanur later.