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Published: June 21st 2010
Wednesday16th June 2010 An early start as the flight left Perth at 0930. We were there about 2 hours beforehand to be faced with an empty terminal. We later found there was only our flight out this morning.
We enjoyed our home made chicken sandwiches on the Jetstar flight to Bali. The plane was nice and new and we scored Exit row seats so we had plenty of leg room. Judy read some course materials for a course she is enrolled in with RMIT and then watched a movie on her new laptop and Rags spent his time either reading or snoozing! We never sleep well the night before an early flight.
Apparently, a computer upgrade was the reason it took a long time to get through immigration in Denpassar but when we did we found a driver from Kuei Condominium dutifully waiting.
It was after an interesting drive through the back alleyways of Sanur that we finally reached the condo. It was a quick reminder of the general heat and griminess of Bali. The Condo sat like an oasis in the middle of it. Modern and spacious and mostly clean. We had our own kitchen and separate
bedroom but aircon only in the bedroom, a ceiling fan in the living area.
After a quick unpack we set off to check out the nearby Hardy's Supermarket and grab a bite to eat. We'd just fallen into a couple of seats and ordered when Rags remembered we had to meet Wayan, his cycle tour organiser, at 5pm so the food was put on hold as we raced back to the Condo. Just as well as Wayan arrived soon after and we were able to have a good chat about the tour. Not sure how much of the chatting was understood by either side though?
After we had eaten we turned in for an early night as we were both pretty stuffed!
Thursday 17th June 2010 Today was spent wandering along the beach and chasing up a bank where we thought we'd be able to transfer some money to Wayan for the cycle tour. Rags had expected to pay him via Paypal but Wayan would prefer a bank transfer because Paypal took a rather large slice of the deposit. No luck at Central Asia Bank so we registered for International Services through our Internet banking but
the message said this wouldn't be available until after midnight so we spent the rest of the day relaxing by the pool, catching up with online work or emails.
In the evening we went looking for the Shindhu Night Market. We found it but it was pretty pathetic so we looked for somewhere to eat and found a place that served a ristaffel for 2. It was massive and we couldn't eat it all. It was like a huge tasting plate with soup first then chicken satay sticks, chicken curry, a noodle dish and rice.
Before going to bed we explored options for our last 3 nights in Bali which we hadn't booked. We decided to book the J Boutique Hotel - I think we liked the name and it had a special on a 3 night package.
Friday 18th June 2010 This morning saw us catching a taxi to Denpasar when our attempt to transfer money via an International Transfer failed. We went to the ANZ only to discover they were ANZ Asia and not in any way connected to ANZ Australia - they couldn't help us.
Luckily, our taxi driver was still waiting,
Cocktails In the pool
Lisa, Judy and John enjoy a few drinks at the pool bar.even though we had told him not to as we were going sightseeing. Rags was annoyed with the bank problems and neither of us felt like touring.
Judy sms'd our friends John and Lisa who'd arrived in Bali yesterday. We set off to visit them in Kuta and found them relaxing at the Bali Patra Hotel. After a quick catch up, with time for a couple of duty-free scotches, we decided it was time to head out and find some lunch. It seemed we went in the wrong direction for restaurants and had to walk for ages to find anything. Lisa's shoes were rubbing and hurting her so as soon as we found something that looked a possibility we went for it. It was near the Waterbom Park. They had jugs of cocktails. The girls started sharing one but ended up ordering another. They were soon happy, as were the guys after their second large Bintang. Food was a pleasant experience and it was almost 3pm when we left. We shared the taxi back to the Patra before heading off in it to Sanur with plans to meet tomorrow for a swim and dinner.
Saturday 19th June 2010 Bali Bird
A family of these fellows came to check us out during breakfast. Success! Judy got the International Transfer to work using another one of our accounts. Thank goodness for her persistence, Rags was close on spitting the dummy!
The morning was spent with Judy having her fingernails done whilst Rags had a great Bali Massage. By this time it was lunchtime but we ended up eating a fairly ordinary meal. This one reminded us of the meals we had here in the past, some places have now improved the quality of their meals but some are still as dull and uninteresting as they were.
John & Lisa were in the pool when we got to Kuta just in time for Happy Hour. Several drinks later we set off, in a taxi this time, for Kuta central, where we found a great table outside a cafe in Poppies Lane. Here we shared an interesting selection of food before continuing down the lane and then walking alongside the beach to their hotel.
The hotel is the last one before the airport, the runway visible from the pool, so once again we trekked on, the landing planes showing us how much further we had to walk. As it was a cool
Outrigger canoes
Sanur Beach is full of these canoes. night we didn't worry too much, the only motivation we had to walk a little faster was that John wanted to watch the soccer game between Australia and Ghana. His support didn't help them anyway!
Taxied "home" and crashed after another enjoyable day.
Sunday 20th June 2010 Today was an 'easy' day, getting ready for the main reason we're here, cycling.
After a late breakfast we sat outside in the shade whilst the room was made up, spending the rest of the morning reading and catching up with online stuff.
At lunchtime we headed out, picked up 3 million Irp from the ATM as we don't know how easy it will be to get cash once we leave the tourist centre. After this we did a bit of browsing before settling in at a busy cafe where they have a chef in for a Sunday special, chicken quesadillas.
These were delicious, and this fact was obviously well-known as the place was packed, most other cafes only having 1 or 2 customers.
Repleted, we returned to our room where the afternoon was spent swimming and sitting around the pool with our books. The place is still very quiet, we've only seen one other couple here in the last 4 days.
We have texted the other cyclists but don't expect to catch up until tomorrow.
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Bali Banks
You sure had a bit of stress over getting your hands on a few Bahts. I can understand Rags getting peed off . The weather sounds exactly as I think it is.........ugh !! I hope you stayed sober on those humungous Cocktails !! Couldn't say you didn't get value for money !! Enjoy the Bike riding. Catch you on the Web Jude. Bye now