Left at the ungodly hour of 4.50am 15th May on AA arrived in Bali 20 mins ahead of schedule . From the time of landing to exiting immigration and customs was in all a very long 30mins . Whilst I do not agree with the VIP thingymegig I can understand the use of it late at night when there are 7 arrivals all within the space of 40min . Having had my say on that subject it's time for the more important things in life .
From the time we exited the arrivals area I felt as though the stress of the last year and a bit leave my person or was it the humidity that made me weak at the knees one will never know but jeez it felt great . My poor Danish mate wondered what the hell had hit him in arrivals with the tinker , tinker ,bing bong music , I told him to get used to it as it is nearly everywhere you go . We were met outside of arrivals by 2 drivers from the Aston in TB as they thought there would be 6 people instead of 4 so one car each and off we go . I didn't think for the life of me that motorbikes could reproduce but I swear there seemed to be a dramatic increase in the motorbike popuation from 18mths ago .
Arrived at the Aston at 9.45am to find the smiling faces in the next piece of our travaling party waiting for us . Lucky A & L had already spent 7 days in Bali before our arrival . After checkin and welcome drinks , smiles and the comments of nice to see you back Mr Ron , her in doors and I started to give our companions the grand hotel tour to aquaint themselves with the facility , needless to say I demanded the payment of the guided tour ( 1 bintang and 1 cocktail ) very early in the piece 20mins into the tour .
We wandered down to the famed TREE for lunch what a nice setting . I ordered the Nasi Campur and was suprised by the size of it for a light lunch dish . After introductions to the chef (Made) and a few more cold Bintangs and cocktails we decided to meander back to the Aston for a swim and chill out . Cost for lunch including drinks was roughly 200,000rp per couple from memory.
For dinner the first night I had booked into COCO's across the road from the Aston as I have been raving about this to our freinds . I can't tell you how bitterly dissapointed I was with the food . The entree of chicken ,cucumber salad was as I remember and bloody nice , then for mains I ordered Duck baked in bananna leaf so did my Danish mate on my suggestion . Talk about having egg on your face , my dish came out so cold it was near on frozen so I asked them to take it back to the kitchen and bring out a fresh one. 20mins later my dish arrived back at the table lukewarm and as tough as old boot leather , needless to say I wasn't impressed and sent it back and told the waiter who was very apologetic I was not happy with that dish and duly wasn't billed for it. I am not saying don't eat at COCO's as in the past it has been excellent food wise and apart from the 2 duck dishes the others were good . As explained there has been a change in chef so this could have something to do with it .
It has been a long day being awake for what seemed a lifetime so we all decided to call it a night at 10.30ish . I went to bed dreaming of the anticipated battle with the toast nickers and the poollounge hogs in the morning oh what pleasant dreams. More to come when the Bintang haze lifts ...Cheers Ron
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