"BALI" a Bali Travel Page by Cathy&Gary

We have always loved our holidays to South East Asia but had never been to our closest neighbours Bali. So in 2004 on the spur of the moment we decided we would go and see what it was like.

We went for 8 nights at the beginning of May and stayed at Bakung Beach Cottages. As soon as we pulled up we were disappointed. The reception area was tiny and very run down. Our room was tiny and smelly. Breakfasts which were included in the price of the room were horrible, we only ate there once. The pool was nice, only problem was the water was green with slimy tiles. (Two days before we left, we woke up to the smell of chlorine and the day we left the water was clear!!!)

We tried to make the most of our 8 days and did see some beautiful sights, the best part was we met Made Wilasa who worked at one of the tourist information booths and he ended up being a good friend.

There are some fantastic restaurants and meals are very cheap, so are drinks. Some we recommend are Pantai, right on the beach, Raja's, (sadly no longer there) the Stadium Cafe, a great place to people watch, Bonsai at Sanur.

We found quite a few of the hawkers to be very aggressive, sometimes it seemed to border on assault, they just would not leave us alone. By the end of our 8 nights we were well and truly ready to come home.

We had only been home a couple of weeks and we were thinking maybe we had been to negative regarding our first holiday to Bali. So another spur of the moment decision, we thought lets go back and give it another try. So we researched loads of hotels and decided to stay 3 nights at Besakih Beach Hotel in Sanur and 10 nights in a deluxe room at Bali Rani in Tuban.

Besakih Beach Hotel was lovely, great staff, everything was clean and the setting was perfect. We really enjoyed our time here. (Though we were not that impressed with the beach sellers or markets, still very annoying and aggressive, even abusive if you didnt buy from them!)

Then it was off to Bali Rani. Another fantastic hotel and the deluxe rooms were huge and beautifully decorated.

Did lots of shopping, normal touristy type stuff is very cheap, copy t shirts, copy shorts and shirts $3 each, caps $1, Dvd's about $1.30.
The Athlete's Foot in Mataharis has great specials, came home with a few pairs of runners, Nike, Adidas, Spalding.

Once again we met up with Made Wilasa and went to the Bali Bird Park, we were surprised as it was really nice, lovely tropical grounds and the birds all seemed to be in good condition. The Reptile Park next door was ok, nothing special.

Its also well worth going to see the Rice Terraces, they are truly beautiful, though once again be careful because as soon as we got out of the car we were swamped by hawkers, shoving things in our arms, pulling on us, not nice at all. I also really enjoyed the Monkey Forest, make sure you hang on to everything or they will steal it.

So our second trip to Bali in less than 6 weeks was a success, we met some wonderful Balinese people, we were really happy with our choice of hotels and went home very happy, never realizing we would be back again in less than 14 weeks!!!

We had some friends going to Bali for 3 week's in September and they asked us would we like to go as well. Of course we had to say no as we had already been to Bali twice in the last few months.

Anyway the more we thought about it, we decided to go and just surprise them. They thought my sister and her husband would be in Bali and so we arranged for our friends to meet up with them. Of course it was going to be us they met up with.

We booked for 3 weeks at the Ramayana Hotel, a different hotel to our friends and turned up for the meeting. It was fantastic, they couldnt believe we pulled it off without them finding out.

So we are back in Bali for another 3 weeks and it was a great holiday. The hotel was beautiful and one of our favourite drinking spots is at this hotel. The Stadium Bar.

We did lots of fun things, like Cycling tours, white water rafting, massages etc. Have a look at my tips page, everything is described in detail there with lots of photo's.

While you are here you might as well check out my info on:

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