Left Brisbane on Thursday 23rd December for Xmas in Bali. Our first time away from home for Xmas. Left our 20 year old son at home so was feeling a little sad on the trip to the airport. Myself, hubby and 13 year old son went. We flew Pacific Blue and had an excellent flight. No problems at all. Straight throught the airport in approx 20 mins. Stayed 5 nights at the Hard Rock Hotel. WOW... amazing hotel, loved it. Staff excellent, room spacious and clean, pool AMAZING. couldnt fault it. We hit the ground running and mainly shopped, shopped, shopped and ate. 13 year old loved the Bali kids and one night we went to Billy's in garlic lane and he had a great time hanging with the local kids (after they realised he wasnt going to buy anything from them..lol) while we had a lovely dinner. We tried lots of places to eat. Our favourite was this food court type of set up about 20 metres from the hard rock. You select a table and all the people from the food stalls scream at you to choose them and wave their menus at you yelling at the top of there lungs. They dont approach you until you point at the winner and they come over and give you the menu. We had probably the most delecious food of the trip, not to mention the entertainment. Ate there 2 nights out of the 5. Had fantastic massages in a little massage shop in the same food court. we did waterbom park and the bali baik tour. Both were the hightlight of our trip, especially the bike ride. A excellent day out, and even an old chook like me rode the 23 klm's without any problems. Fantastic guides, great information and senery and an amazing lunch at Wayans house afterwards. We moved to Sanur on day 6 and booked into Segara Village. Our room was very tired and in need of some TLC but in saying that it was clean (very importamt to me) and roomy. The pool and grounds more than made up for the room. My husband couldnt get over the gardens and has lots of ideas for the garden of our new house we are building. We met up with friends and they took us to segawati (hope I have spelt that right) markets. Needless to say our new house is now looking very balinese. How we got all our homewares and carvings and beautiful pictures home without anyting getting broken is a miracle. 2nd miracle was we were not over our baggage limit. Dont know how that happend.. Up to ubud and to the monkey forest were this horrible monkey decicded it would be a good idea to pull my dress down. My husband came to my rescue and the monkey turned on hubby and attacked him. Holly crap those teeth are huge..needless to say we got out of there as quickly as we walked in. Had a lovely lunch in ubud and made our way home. The rest of our trip was spent lounging by the pool and long walks along the beach front. My hubby is a target for the beach ladies and they would not leave him alone. Especially this one lady. She was ruthless..lol... So each time we went out we challenged him to get past them without being spotted.We had great fun watching him devise his master plan of deception. Never had any trouble with changing money, caught taxis without any dramas and never got pooey or spewey. Got back to wet brisbane on new years day and have already booked next trip. 52 sleeps to go....cant wait to go back.