sanantone in bali

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This is our one & only blog from bali as our resort only has wifi in the restaurant area.Lovely resort though right on the beach at legian about 20 minutes from Kuta. The weather here is very nice, warm but not hot as its winter, no humidity.The traffic is worse than Bangkok & the drivers are totally insane especially the motorbikes. They come at you from all directions even on the footpaths which are deathtraps for the unwary as there are giant holes everywhere & very narrow & uneven. Worse than Thailand!!! We had a lovely trip into the centre of the island to Mt Badur, a volcano which rumbles into life now & then, The restaurants at Kintimani have breathtaking scenery & very reasonably priced buffet lunch. The architecture is kind of spanish, up in the hills reminds us of Paronella Park in North Queensland especially as its moss covered. I personally hate it that you can smoke almost everywhere even in restaurants. Someone described Bali as an extended suburb of Perth & you can see why as almost everyone is from Oz & AFL is everywhere as are the Oz tv channels from Perth. mind you we can see why as its a 3 hour flight from Perth to Bali & its cheaper & quicker to fly here than to go to the east coast of Oz.Alchohol is expensive especially spirits but Bintang, the local beer is not badly priced & not a bad drop. Food is very good & reasonably priced. The currency takes a bit of getting used to as there are many zeros to navigate, eg $1 equals 8000rupiahs. You have to be ready to bargain in the markets as the first price will be about 4 times what you should end up paying. We've found the taxis can be a rip off even with the meter on the first time we got one from Kuta to Legian the meter showed 216000 rupiahs when it should have shown 21600 rupiahs but we live & learn!!! All in all we've enjoyed our stay here & could come back one day, especially if we end up in WA. Tonight we are off to an aussie bar showing NRL, Broncos & Titans & Cowboys are playing, all Queensland teams so we've booked a table at a restaurant & hopefully its one near a tv that shows the NRL not ARL which is on at the same time!!! Tomorrow Darrell is back to Oz & we're back to Kuala Lumpur for our last 6 days. Will blog from there. Goodbye Bali.

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