Friday 23 August

Today was our last full day in Bali… we’ve had a blast. It’s certainly been a different experience to our self-indulgent holidays of past, but it was a heck of a lot of fun too.

I mentioned in the last blog that I didn’t want to say where we’d been planning to go for dinner tonight, in case I jinxed it, and yet it still didn’t go as planned – it turned out to be a much longer drive (due to traffic) than it would have been worth – instead we went to Breeze by Samaya Resort, which was actually absolutely perfect – beautiful outlook onto the ocean, coupled with a gorgeous sea breeze… just what we wanted.

I also got to catch up with a couple of the girls I worked with in my previous job as a corporate travel agent – they are here hosting a group, and so it was really great to be able to see them… Craig was kind enough (as he also knows them) to stay behind with Jessie whilst she napped. I have to say, it was nice to be able to walk down the streets only having to worry about your own safety.

Jessie went right to sleep tonight, without any fuss at all, which allowed us to slip out (with our baby monitor) and have a drink by the pool… there was live music (which was slightly Ken Lee a libidiba dowchoo-esque, but I still bopped along to Mr Big’s To Be With You, with my Bintang in one hand and the monitor in the other.

Tomorrow we check out of our villas at 1.00pm, and head to the airport for our 5.30pm flight – we are hoping that Jessie will sleep the whole way, as we will land in Auckland at 5am, which will be 1am Bali time… it could be an interesting few days, but hey, at least we will see Jessie’s precious Bunny again (we had two – one for daycare and one for home)… hopefully he will accept that he must now be accompanied in bed by Bubbys 🤣

The following is a compilation of my likes and dislikes:

Likes (this list could go on and on, but just as a token gesture)

• so much variation in the areas you can visit – jungle to beach, and even between the neighbourhoods

• Surprisingly clean for South East Asia.

I imagined it to be similar to Thailand, but there certainly isn’t much rubbish to be seen (in fact, they have wheelie bins!)

• They are very clean and green

I don’t think I came across a single plastic straw, and plastic bags are banned

• Soooo many amazing eateries to choose from

There really is something for everyone and I’d love to come back just to spend time going around all of the awesome restaurants *side note to this – the restaurants’ ice is regulated by the government

• Shopping galore

again there is something for everyone, from markets to high end designers, as well as your stock standard malls

• The people are absolutely amazing – incredibly friendly, lovely to children and they just seem so genuine

• I felt safe

At no point did I feel like anyone was going to try and grab my bag, and I would quite happily walk the main streets at night on my own

Dislikes

• The traffic

The population of Bali is around 4.5 million, and that doesn’t include the constant tourists. The streets are narrow, and a lot of the time there will just be one road in and one road out wherever you might be going. As such, the traffic is almost constantly in a jam. This is not great if you are travelling as a family, and therefore are not able to jump on a scooter, which seems to be a million times more time efficient than travelling my car. A number of times we got in the shuttle to go out for dinner only a couple of kilometres away, and ended up getting out and walking. It definitely makes life hard when it comes to going out in the evening especially.

• The copy cat taxis.

The reputable company is Blue Bird – they have a distinctive logo (funnily enough a blue bird), and other signals to let riders know that they are legit, and they use meters. There are a couple of other companies who try to trick you into thinking they are blue bird with similar coloured cars and when a super similar logo. I would avoid those ones as they definitely rip you off. It’s annoying at night as you can’t tell until they are close whether they are legit or not.

• The footpaths!

How I am not leaving Bali with a broken ankle, I have no idea… I have fallen over once and had many many other close calls – they are narrow, uneven (which I imagine is due to taxis driving up onto the footpath due to the roads being so narrow), and have a weird slope to most of them (might be due to drainage). In saying that, I am glad we had a travel pram to push Jessie in – there was some lifting over things but we still think it was worth it.

• The beach (at least in Seminyak/Legian/Kuta areas)

The sand is lovely and they are clean, but I would never swim in the ocean here – the waves are unbelievably huge! And there seem to be lots of rips as well. As such, I wouldn’t stay anywhere that there wasn’t at least a resort pool, but preferably a private pool as part of the room.

Overall, I think Bali is a wonderful place… I’ve heard so many mixed opinions, but I think it’s great and I certainly intend to come back one day. But next up for us will be Fiji (yes, Fiji again… they should probably give me a loyalty card) and then Greece. Bring it on baby!

Until next time, and thanks for reading!

❤ Laus