Hubby's brother and fiance visited last November and we decided to take a trip to Bali. None of us had been before. It was going to be Girl's third birthday - the first one she had in the US, the second in SG, why not the third one someplace else? So she turned 3 in Indonesia.
I liked much about Bali. We chose to stay in Sanur because we heard that it was more laid back. If we had known that Kuta would anyway be quiet during off season, we would have stayed there. It just was a pain to deal with the traffic - Kuta would have been more central to the things we wanted to do.
Hotel isn't much to write about - it was okay. I liked the breakfast. Brother-in-law and fiance decided to have breakfast under a tree one day and some bug fell on them. Sanur Beach was nice enough - a few nice restaurants right on the beach. We celebrated Girl's birthday at one of these restaurants, owned by Ed's family.
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| Chilling on Sanur Beach |
We met Ed when he picked us up from the airport. He seemed a nice guy and spoke good English, so we engaged him to drive us around. It turned out well. He took us on a cultural/shopping trip - batik factory, silver/goldsmith, wood shops, art shops. We stopped at a cafe where you could have kopi luwak - the cat poop coffee. The men tasted it, I think just for tasting it. The women and children watched in amusement. We had lunch at this nice place, surrounded by peaceful rice paddies. I really liked the fresh juices. We also visited the monkey temple, but I had to stay in the van with Girl taking a nap. Which is just as well, because I've heard that the monkeys were quite aggressive.
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| Batik factory |
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| Kopi luwak production |
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| Rice paddy fields |
We spent another day on a snorkeling trip to Turtle Island. The snorkeling wasn't so good though, and Turtle Island was like a private zoo - other than turtles, there were snakes and birds. Donations were actively solicited from the visitors. We also stopped by a waterfall, but did not try to go swimming as it did not look like an easy walk to the water. Some tourist had taken the shortcut and dove down the waterfall. Boy asked why we didn't buy the trinkets from the boys selling them. I had to explain that perhaps we help in other ways, but we don't need trinkets.
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| Snorkeling |
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| Waterfall |
We had dinner a couple times at Jimbaran, simply because we liked hanging at the beach near sunset and then getting dinner right on the beach. The food was okay but the children liked the shows.
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| Jimbaran Beach |
Bali was a lovely place - would love to see it again.
