24-26th Feb 2006 Bali
The flight with Garuda Indonesia was quite enjoyable. After landing, immigration was quick and painless. You have to pay for a visa for the weekend on landing but for a weekend that's only USD$10. I gave them SGD $50 and got 180000rp back! Hmmm, tomorrow I'm off to become a millionaire! Woo hoo! I like this place already :-) A taxi ride from the airport cost only 30000rp (fixed price thankfully) or 2.75 Eur.
My hotel, the Green Garden, is lovely! I booked it through octopustravel.com and paid only 45 Euros for the weekend including breakfast. The hotel has a small but lovely pool. Time to check out the bar. Obviously I was fatiged with all the travelling ,.... :-) A local whisky in thw hotel restaurant cost only 9900rp or .90 Euros :-) After Singapore it's so lovely and cheap! I'm in heaven! Then I noticed something.... Maybe ordering a double whisky wasn't such a good idea..... Maybe I was hallucinating but I could have sworn that I was seeing Boney M's greatest hits on the TV in the bar..... Maybe the plane went through a time warp.. That would explain the cheap prices too!!!!
Saturday
Time for a wander along the beach.. The only problem here is that everyone is trying to sell you something and it can get rather annoying when everyone is trying to shake your hand/shout taxi at you etc etc. Time to become deaf or to pretend you don't speak English.
I would have done something more interesting att this point but the sky got darker and darker and something at the back of my brain said something about it might rain and I rushed back to my hotel but didn't quite make it. It rained so heavy that I expected to see scuba divers swimming doown the main street and start to ask for directions. I'm afraid that my photos don't do the rain justice. I eventually wimped out and took a taxi. The water came upto the wheel arches!
I waited the rain out (almost) and went out when it was just European rain ;-) Time for food! Papa's is rated in the lonely planet. I was impressed that they had Hoegaarden Grand Cru in a bottle for 37000 rp or 3.40 Eur. Not bad for an Italian restaurrant on the other side of the world!! They did ask me for water which I assumed would be tap water but got bottled water (8000rp or .70 Eur)but then again the water quality here isn't great I hear. The food looks good :-) As an added extra, there was live music in the background. I was also impressed with the decor and staff friendliness.
Sunday
My flight left at 2:55pm so I didn't have that much time. Just enough to pack, buy some DVD's and go to the airport. A pit really as it was a gloriously sunny day! The hotel took me to the airport and I got chatting to a girl from Ann Arbour in the US who also lives in Holland. Small world, eh!
