Bali Trip – 12th April 2010 – Day 1
Another ungodly start to the holidays.up at 5.30am , ready at 6.30am then at the airport at 8am thanks to the quick but still legal driving of uncle Fulv.
Unlike all the other times at the airport where, I guess, I look like a suspect person, David actually got checked for explosives.
We went thru customs & checked out all the duty free goodies while we waited for the flight to be called. The plane was ¾ full. The plane wasn’t as fancy as the others we have been on.didn’t have individual TV screens, only 1 in the middle for every one to watch (and not a very good one at that), the first movie was a Japanese movie with English subtitles, yes, quality TV, Brendan played his game boy & read a few magazines, but this made the flight seem to go on forever.
We finally reached Bali & got off the plane only to wait for about ¾ hour to purchase the visas needed to enter the country. Then about another ½ hour to get thru immigrations, Brendan was a bit put out as there wasn’t any sniffer dogs like Jarrad told us about. It was hot & stuffy & people were getting irritated, but we held up pretty good. We found our driver & started our ½ hour drive to the hotel. While we were driving a big storm hit.welcome to Bali, Harries family! 
The driver was getting a bit worried, as the lightening strikes & thunder seemed to be right on top of us, the rain pelted down & the roads quickly became fast gushing rivers with water covering the wheels of the mini van in some places. We reached the hotel – just – only to see a torrent of water flowing down the marbled staircase..this didn’t look like a good omen. We checked in and they took our bags – on a nice trolley covered with a black tarpaulin, handed us 3 umbrellas & we paddled thru a foot of water to get to our room, which was no 236 in the first section near pool 1, on the second storey… at least it shouldn’t flood! The room was quite large , all tiled floors – a queen & single bed, side tables, table for TV mini bar kettle etc cupboard & still plenty of room to walk around. All very clean. The bathroom was a large size as well & had American plumbing.
We got settled in & thankfully the rain had stopped, then we had a quick look around the grounds, the second pool was another block of units down towards the beach & had the pool bar, the restaurant was also there & overlooked the beach. We changed clothes (ours were all wet – a combination from the rain & humidity) & set out for a walk to get our bearings. We, well actually David, read it wrong and got a bit lost using Jarrad’s map in the dark but found a mini mart etc & bought a few drinks to take back to the hotel.
It was nearing 10pm Aus time & we were hungry so we stopped in at the INDO NATIONAL an Aussie run restaurant for dinner & a few drinks, Brendan had Green Curry Chicken , David had Green Curry Beef & I had Chicken Kiev – was not cooked properly & had to re-do, but otherwise quite nice, cost around 220,000rp. (Current exchange rate $A1=8,250rp)
Brendan was constantly on the look out for geckos- named chicha in Balinese, they were very quick & they seemed to change colours depending where they were found.
We found our way back to the hotel & were buggered.
