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Published: December 3rd 2007
The Formality Shot
I had this photo as my wallpaper at work (without me in it) - I was told I had to do this.Bali, a tropical island at the end of the Indonesian archipelago. Lots of Aussie tourists love to come here for a cheap holiday, not so much so these days since the Bali bombings a few years back. Schapelle Corby is their most famous resident at the moment because her boogie board could really get you boogying 😉
Why have we never been here before? I guess it’s too close to home really…it’s in Australia’s backyard and there’s too many Aussies here. We like to go a little further out of the way - off the beaten tourist track.
So why are we here? Our friend’s are hosting a set of 40th birthday party celebrations. Wayne (the best man at our wedding, and I was best man at his wedding) has his birthday on Dec 7th. Cathy, his wife, serious party animal and chef extraordinaire had her 40th back in August. This is the follow-on from my 40th party in the Canadian Rockies on Dec 31st last year.
The trip (for me) didn’t really start until we were actually in the airport. We were buying up big for the celebrations to come and generally trying to take it
Relax!
Some Yank had to ask what "Relax" meant. easy as possible. We found our gate and the status on it said “Relax” - an American came along a little later who seemed a little confused and asked the gate staff - “What does ‘relax’ mean?”. Yanks! - proves they just don’t know the meaning of the word, do they?
We even caught up with Eva from work. She was departing for a new life in New Zealand at the same time we were departing for Bali. She came into the departure lounge to see us off with the promise that she’d catch up with us for my 41st birthday on Dec 31st in New Zealand. She is a great IT asset and going to be sorely missed at Challenger.
Jetstar? Having never flown Jetstar before, I had no idea what we were going to get. Is this a scummy second cousin to Qantas? I was pleasantly surprised by the whole deal - sure you have to pay for everything as you go, but the staff were very upbeat and presented a wholly positive vibe…so we didn’t feel too put out by paying the A$45 extra to be fed.
Club Intercontinental I must admit, the
Our View
Looking over the Club Pool from our balcony key reason I chose this hotel and level of accommodation was the promise of being “handled” as soon as we stepped off the plane. I was not disappointed! We were met by their representatives at the bottom of the escalator off the plane. We had been sitting down the back of economy class and although nearly the last off the plane, we simply walked past all the queues for the Visa On Arrival, Immigration and straight into a cosy lounge to a nice welcoming drink of lemongrass….yum! In the meantime, their staff hurried off with our passports and US$75 in cash to take care of the formalities for us. 15 minutes later we received our passports back with visas attached, our bags had been retrieved from the carousel and we went off in search of our transport to the hotel. My God…I wish every airport arrival could be like this!!!
The drive from the airport to the hotel was amazing! We drove in a minivan in a cloud of motorbikes. I’d heard tales of how it is in Bali with motorbikes, but they didn’t prepare me for what I saw…thousands of motorbikes, little 2-stroke jobbies that just “blend” with
Gardens
Beautiful Landscaping the traffic and fill every available space. A foreigner with little motorbike experience could get into a lot of grief here…but I felt that it was all safe, cars and bikes seems to co-exist harmoniously. Insert arrogant foreigner and the balance could easily be ruined.
We arrived at the hotel to the scrutiny of guards with mirrors on sticks and torches inspecting the underbelly of our van…never had that experience before! Mind you, I only found out about 2 weeks ago that there is a major UN conference on in Bali at the same time we’re here! The first thing I did was to make sure it wasn’t happening in our hotel. That would have been tragic!
I have no bed…Kid 😞 Once safely cleared by security and in the safety of our bunker…er….hotel, we performed the ancient check-in rituals in the comfort of the Club lounge with drinkies and moist towelettes at hand. That done, we headed for our room and found out that Lauren had no bed!!! We’ve now stayed in hotels in most corners of this planet and without fail - they’ve almost always overlooked providing a bed for Lauren! The only exception being
Zen on steroids
There's a bit of OCD going on here! the Nexus Resort in Karambunai, Sabah, Malaysia (love that place!).
There was a teensy bit of confusion over Lauren’s bed. The hotel was initially very happy to want to charge us US$100 for a rollaway bed (PER NIGHT!!!). Kicking up merry hell and pointing out that we’d paid for 2 adults + 1 child should have everything covered.
They dropped the rate to US$75 per night - still not happy. I said I would contact my travel agent back home and sort this out - but they took the initiative and contacted them on our behalf and indeed - the bed was included in the rate. Yay!!!
There’s a water shortage back home… Not here! Water, water, everywhere! Don’t think it’s safe to drink, but it sure looks pretty enough! The central grounds of the hotel around the main core are an aquatic paradise - ponds, pools, fountains, waterfalls - lined up, cascading, surrounding - everywhere! Whatever your mood, there is a pool to suit.
We’re constantly thinking of Mim back in Melbourne - she loves frogs, and there are frog sculptures all over the place here - the fountains, walls, showers, foot washers, garden
Statues and Swans
Ornamental pools and bridges - and they stick flowers on all the statues ornaments - she’d love it! I’ve taken lots of froggy photos.
There’s no water slides surprisingly - so a trip to the WaterBom park is on the cards to correct that oversight. Lauren is super keen for that.
Breakfast Club Intercontinental includes breakfast. But, it’s like having breakfast in an S-Class Mercedes. Creamy leather seats, cushions, linen…all the trimmings! It felt wonderful, but kind of wrong! Hey, it’s just breakfast people! And a buffet one at that and it was awesome. I was wondering how many breakfasts could I fit in, in one morning - they start at 6am and go until 12 noon.
Working Brekky Off… We checked out the gym after breakfast, All the good Nautilus gear is there. Nice aircon to keep it all cool - we didn’t use it today…but I can feel that I shall spend a few hours working off some calories tomorrow!!!
Club Lounge Plenty of goodies to keep you amused in the club lounge. Big TV’s, DVD library is impressive (lots of James Bond!) and free internet. One other notable feature is cocktail hour from 5pm - 8pm. I took advantage of this and started
Hungover?
Maybe this guy had a hard night? off with an Illusion, then a Cosmopolitan, then some wicked Vodka/Mint/Sugar drink (Caipirosca), then a Long Island Iced Tea, then a Harvey Wallbanger for the finale. Jane had a jump start on happy hour as I told her to order a drink before it started - the clock on the PC was an hour fast! They gave the drink for free anyway 😊
Adding to the James Bond video collection, I also noticed that they have a massive collection of books in Russian. Makes me wonder if we’ve walked into the middle of a espionage wannabe set.
Kids Club We checked Loz into the kiddy club so she could have some fun with the Playstation, Internet etc. The woman in charge of Club J introduced herself as Grandma Tini…or was that Grand Martini? One thing is for sure, security is a big concern for them, it’s a virtual kiddy-prison. Electric door locks, the sign-in form ran to about 4 pages of information, they took photos of Jane and myself as authorized “pick-up” people.
There are not many other kids in this resort at the moment, so she has no-one else to play with. She’s quite disappointed
Tented
Lay back, relax, unwind and just wants to watch TV all the time.
WaterBom As Lauren had no-one to play with, no-one to keep her company in the kiddy club, I took her to the WaterBom park - Bali’s answer to the Gold Coast’s Wet-n-Wild, not as big but makes up in beautiful picturesque garden settings. We spent many laps in the never-ending river going round and round. It was about 300,000RP (or $40) for both of us for entry. We put 200,000RP on a stored-value wrist band that could be scanned within the park to buy food, drink and knick-knacks. It was 20,000RP to hire a locker, a towel would have been 10,000RP - but really, what is the point? We air-dried at the end - I had clothes to change into and Loz got in the taxi still sopping wet. The food quality in the park is another bonus - there’s the usual assortment of stalls etc, I opted for the Nasi Goreng while Lauren had the usual fries. The Goreng was awesome! Super-quality stuff, not the dodgy microwave stuff you’d find in an Australian park and only $4 for a decent lunch - value! I also noticed they had
Fountains
These babies give good massage for free! the same cocktails the Intercontinental servers for about half the price (except happy hour - when they’re free here :D )
We eventually got tired of the place and headed out. I couldn’t interest Lauren in any merchandise from the store - so no souvenirs. I also found that there is a Krispy Kreme store right over the road from the WaterBom!!! Mmmmmmmm….Donuts!!! Starbucks is next door too! We were only just walking out of the park and I was wondering how soon we’d find a taxi - I then noticed one directly across the road from us tooting his horn asking if we wanted to go somewhere! I asked if it was 50,000RP to the Intercontinental and he agreed - that’s what I paid to get to the park so I felt I had to make sure the price was the same both ways. 😊
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Martin Jones
non-member comment
Turtles and Dogs
Jane and all, I like your photos - turtles all the way down. Just a quick comment to say very quiet here at the office. Just the little Black Dog strolling around outside to keep me company.