Sunday 17 March 2013

June 2012 - DAY 1 - Getting There


BALI

Day 1.. Getting there

This trip had been planned for close to 6 months. We had managed to convince some amazing friends to accompany us to bali for 10 days and between us, we researched everything we could about the island, where to stay and things to do etc. We created a special facebook group for the 4 of us to log info as and when we found it, and lo and behold, its generally full of tripadvisor links.

Accomodation was the first puzzle. I spent a while at Travel agents looking for deals at resorts, but they were way too expensive. A mate of mine, Brett, suggested looking at Villas, and the hunt was on. We are all mad foodies, so based on what we read, Seminyakwas the place to be for our very first trip. We past around Villa after Villa for a few weeks, and kept coming back to Villa Kupu-Kupu one of the Villa bugis properties less than 100m off "eat street" in Seminyak. We booked it, then looked for flights. coming from Brisbane, the only one that suited was with Jetstar leaving Friday 15th, with a layover in Darwin...................

Shoot forward to NOW....

So, we took off from Brissy on time at 11.40 for a 4 hour flight to Darwin. Totally without fault, the full flight was budget, tight, but cheap....ish.

Landing in Darwin with 3 hours to kill, we went into town and "crawled" Mitchell street for beers and food. Our late lunch was cold and doughy pizza at some pub, and not quite the food "orgasm" we were hoping for on the rest of the trip.

back to the Airport and boarding the packed flight to bali was simple and easy.

*YAWN* ARE WE THERE YET ?? Asked the spouse 1000 times, so excited to be away from work.

Landing was a breeze. We were through in around 40 mins, and "Made" was waiting for us with a sign with my name (spelt wrong) and we did the walk of shame up the covered area to the car park. We waited a while whlist he fetched the van, the whole time mesmerised by the absolute chaos of the carpark. I have travelled widely through Asia, but this chaos even amused me. When we managed to load the van, we then had 20 mins of push and shove to get out of the airport. I asked 'made' how much for parking, and the 1.5 hours for 20cents amused me considering that would have been $10 on the Gold Coast.

We had a dream run to seminyak and to our villa, taking around 30 minutes. Once we turned into 'Eat Street', we were 3 mins from then turning into "gang bugis" and our home for 10 days. Our Villa is 100m from the street and right in the heart of Seminyak. After all my research, to look and see all the familiar names was absolutely AWESOME.

Ketut met us at the door, offered a lovely lime and ginger drink and cold towels. He then showed us the Villa and all the features. All 4 of us just looked at each other and shouted..... HELL YES !!!! We had "done good". for our first trip, this WAS the place to stay and be located. Within 5 mins of unpacking, I was in the pool, swimming to the edge to grab a gulp of my cold Bintang..................... I had arrived !

Sleep didnt come easy for me, I can tell you. We didnt crash till close to 12.30pm. With what I had read from the forums, Myself and the spouse, put our earplugs in and tried to drop off to sleep..................Now, about those bloody Roosters !!!!