I enjoyed the '84 JBR below so thought I'd do one too :)
April 5-11,1986 Bali
Our first overseas trip and belated honeymoon by 3 years. I was 23 and Les 32.
Did the whole duty free thing,it was such a big deal then. 24 years later we still have the special edition congac. I believe it is $45 a glass at top nosh eateries. Bought a carton of Dunhill cigs but they tasted crap and a bottle of Bourbon.Les bought a $200 seiko watch!! He still has it today,still looks fancy .
Booked using Hervey World Travel agents, from memory the Bali on a Budget price was $1300 for 7 nights/8 days,staying at Kuta Palace , it looked pretty flash. We were a bit worried about far from Kuta it sounded.
We flew Garuda , staff wern't as friendly as they are today. We sat in the non smoking section, even though I smoked,to give hubby a break,which was funny as two rows back the smoking section started!It was first flight for Les and 2nd for me, the first being when I was 10 with something happenning with the plane on the return flight ,( a school excursion to Canberra ), and there were fire engines and ambulance waiting for us on the tarmac,so even though I don't have a clear memory of it, it still stuck in my mind and I was hanging on for grim life when the plane took off and landed.
We arrived on the tarmac and left the sour faces on the plane. We had to wait near the plane for airport staff , it was so hot, we thought it was the heat from the plane engines. I was wearing jeans, it had been cold in Sydney , I was sweltering already. The staff arrived and we were walked over to what appeared to be a large tin shed with armed guards outside.
We headed to immigration, waited in the long line and when it was our turn, I was pulled aside and taken to a side room. My Womens Weekly magazine in my hand had raised hackles as pornography, when I said it was just a womens magazine, they were concerned it was political. Very scary standing next to the Polisi with the machine gun, luckily Les was allowed to accompany me or I would have been a puddle. In the end my magazine was confiscated and I was allowed to go through with a warning of not bringing pornography or political items into Bali. Phew.
By this time I had to pee, so found the loo. Oh what a shock. Squat toilets and some sort of western style , like a modified squat, but no flush. A bucket and dipper. I grew up with worse as a kid, but that was a long time ago and a shock when public loos in Australia flush and dont normally smell.
Got our bags and headed out into the heat and the smell.
OMG soooo hot...and what is that weird smell? We had organised transport from Kuta Palace and made our way to the front of the airport, which was a small narrow road being retarred, by women. That was another shock in the 80‘s, women doing the heavy work, not unusual here now but was then and I remember thinking how awful it was.The smell of the tar and the incence from the offerings was overpowering ,Les remembers covering his nose with his shirt.We also noticed the smiles about now, apart from the so serious airport staff, all the Balinese were smiling at us and saying hallo.
It was a bus that picked us up and while waiting on the bus, got our first experience of street sellers, young kids trying to sell us postcards through the window. I think I bought a few from memory and imagine I paid too much. Kuta Palace seemed a long way from the airport and there wasn't much around it, maybe one or two hotels,some restraunts, I remember the walk to Kuta was past little homes and farms, chickens and pigs roaming and women washing clothes in little creeks or puddles.
Other than the children near the airport selling postcards we didnt see children the whole trip.oh , early one morning we saw some in school uniform, but that was pretty much it,we wondered where they were.
The bus driver had told us to only eat in the hotels, dont buy the soft drinks off the vendors, dont drink the water, dont even brush your teeth with it, and avoid green snakes, if you get bitten you die.
Kuta Palace, was our first resort stay so we had nothing to compare it too and we thought it was pretty flash.Bummer ,we got single beds, we didn't know then we could have asked for a room change. I can still see the bones of Kuta Palace when I visted Jayakarta recently. There were 2 pools, the large one and the kiddy pool. The dining area is still where it is today, but it was just wooden with a thatch roof. Wooden tables and chairs. Breakfast was bacon and eggs, and nasi goreng.Always,every day. The bacon was piled a foot high , Les loved it. The tea was awful, powdered milk, lumpy urgh. There were candles lit on the tables for breakfast as the flies were so bad of an early morning.We ate only at the hotel(10% dearer than everywhere else) ,we took the bus driver at his word, we were so scared of Bali Belly. The food was mainly Indonesian, I remember my first Nasi goreng, it had a weird smell, spicy, I thought I couldn't eat it, but thank goodness, it didnt taste like it smelled, still not sure what this spice was, 23 yrs later I didn't smell it, and I love Indonesion food.
We ventured out in a Bemo, my god,so bumpy, it was hang on for dear life, but fun, much more fun than taxi's. Where ever we went, wether 500m or 5km seemed to be $2
Not many Balinese spoke English and we wished we had made more of an effort to learn some of the language. The staff at Kuta Palace spoke English and were very friendly, though shy. I had 'ceramic' nails, which in 1986 were pretty new here,so over there the girls were amazed at them.
We sat around the pool a lot and Les drank a lot of Bintang, the other female guests were going topless, nurses from Perth kids hospital as I remember. We were all reading Stephen King books and chatting which made for some fun moments when Les didn't know where to look.
We walked down through the gardens and went for a swim on the beach.The beach wasn't pretty! Black sand.That was a surprise from the brochures. Parked my bum on a towel and then innundated by Bali women,trying to sell me sarongs, jewlery , hair beading/braiding and massages. I managed to not buy anything!!
Kuta Palace put on a BBQ night , and we spent the evening with a couple we had met from Perth, the two hubbies drank waaay too much Bintang in the pool earlier in the day,so it was a hilarious evening.
I had literally smothered myself in suntan lotion, wore a hat etc, but I still managed to get burnt to a crisp. Even my scalp. I don't know if the sun was harsher then,or the suntan lotion was crap, but I have never been so burnt in my life!! even my lips and I ended up with huge cold sores on both lips and had that duck look that is so popular today.
We went walking about in the relentless heat and humidity, and shopped, T shirts were $1, $2 at most. Everyone was buying the new Dire Straigts Album on Cassette tape and we had to order copies. We had fun bartering, well Les did, I'm crap at it. Everyone seemed to ask us for jeans and aussie tshirts to swap.
We did a bus trip that we had booked through the travel agent, to Kintamni, via a temple. Had the smorgasboard lunch , I think this was my undoing, but hubby thinks otherwise. On the way back I had a migraine of ginormous proportions and it never really left me for the rest of the time there, it was always in the background. I got sick. Bali Belly.Les blames it on the Fanta I bought from an esky, he says they have a soda stream type thing and refill it, I don't know, perhaps its the crud that gets in around the lid while in the esky. But from whatever ,I got sick as a dog. The toilet in the room kept blocking and embarrasingly the staff would come and fix it.
Les had spent a lot of time in the pool and the pool filter was a bit useless and there filtering seemed to consist of pumping it out and then over the concrete tunnel and back in. anyhoo he got swimmers ear really badly and was out for the count and miserable, meanwhile I wasn't getting any better either, we had 3 days to go and neither of us wanted to leave the room,so we rang the travel insurer and organised to see a Dr. The only English speaking Dr was over at Nusa Dua in the Hyatt I think it was back then, Huge hotel, not much else over there then,we also had to pay a fortune to get there and back I think it was $20 a huge sum back then. We don't remember much of the bemo as we were so crook, but I do remember a lot of palm trees as we whizzed by. The Dr was lovely, gave us scripts for the Apotec and signed the forms for us to go home early. We rang the airport, but are pretty much told we have to turn up there and wait for a cancelation.So we did that, packed up and headed to airport, again departures was just one huge room (prob a bit smaller than Canberra departures)with checkin counters at the top and some wooden benches to sit on. I lay down but was asked to sit up. Eventually,I think we were there for 6 hours, they got us on a Garuda flight to Melburne then a Qantas flight to Sydney, Insurance covered it and the rest was sorted on our return, we had no trouble with refunds.Oh, I still remember how rude the Garuda staff were. I asked for a drink of water, I was really ill, I had to ask 3 times as they didn't bring it, and the 3rd time the hostie, slammed a glass of hot water in front of me.Today though,Garuda staff are so lovely , I wish I could afford to fly with them , never a special on when we want to go.
So that was our first and last overseas trip for many years,in the meantime we had 3 children and and had many trials and tribulations.
In 2009 and 2010 we returned, shocked,some things the same , many things changed. Some good some sad. This year we return as granparents !!Going this September for more,we love the place and the people.