Pura Luhur Uluwatu and Jimbaran

We had a relatively early day (if midday constitutes as early) on Tuesday when we went looking for a driver.


Walking down the road from our villa.

It took us way over an hour (and lets not talk about walking in the heat and bright sunshine) - where were the people accosting us for taxi van services when we needed them?! After we finally found a driver with a van and negotiated the price for his services we were off.

Built in the 11th century, the temple is set high on the cliff overlooking the indian ocean on a large limestone peninsula. One has to be properly attired for entrance, so they provided sarongs or sashes to anyone without.

The temple is inhabited by a large number of monkeys. They (as warned by our driver) are extremely adept at snatching visitors' belonging; bags, cameras, glasses, jewellery - or anything that is shiny, actually. Besides a couple of aggressive ones, most of the monkeys were just chilling out and eating their fruit in the shade. I'm guessing the fruit comes from the do-gooder tourists who think its cute to feed the monkeys - but it has become an issue because it encourages the monkeys to steal.



After a little walk up the hill we got to a clearing, and a local family selling all manner of things under the only shelter had a captive audience.



The view of the coast and the large blue walls of water violently crashing onto the rocks was a splendid sight.







There were these strange little asian girls doing poses for the camera at practically evert step they took. They lay on the ground and kicked in the air and etc - it was hilarious watching them.



Back down the hill we headed up the steps to the temple.












Lennox making a good impression of Spider Man.

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We stopped at Jimbaran for a very late lunch. This is a fishing village with a beautiful white sandy beach and amazing predictable waves. We went to the New Moon Cafe.





After lunch the kids played on the beach. Kien climbed into that boat and "fixed" it for almost an hour. The people putting up those decorations took a heck of a lot longer.







Our adventures continue...

Holiday bliss

Being on holiday is like one very long day that blends into another and its very hard to tell which day is what at any given point in time. I feel like I have been here forever and yet only got here yesterday, and the jetlag has affected me in a big way; 4am Bali time is when the roosters are crowing, (mind you they crow at all hours) and my body clock is telling me to get up and start moving, and I'm forcing myself to stay in bed and try to get one more sleep cycle, please! Anyway, wow whee, I'm complaining about having jetlag whilst on holiday - could I be any more obnoxious?

Okay, so here are a few holiday snaps then. I must say, this is the holiday where I've taken the least amount of photos. Everything feels the same and yet different, so I've not felt the need to pull out (any of) the cameras.

So after spending 1 night at the 1 bedroom villa we were moved to the 4 bedroom villa which I had booked for 2 nights for when my friend Lynette and her 2 boys arrived on Friday. The management team just wanted to move us early so we could be all settled in (but also because they were fully booked and I guess needed our 1 bedroom suite). Hey, no skin off our nose - this place was exactly the same as the last place only x2, and Kien loved this outdoor shower even more so than the last.

We had a nice maid who adored the children, and on the last day we were there (Sunday) we wanted to take pics of all the kids with her, but do you think Kien would oblige? Yeah, no, here she is with Lynette's kids instead.



On Sunday we moved to the Rumah Colonial villa, where we will stay for the remainder of our holiday.











That night we went out to a local BBQ joint and had a great meal. I made sure mine constained grilled lobster since I have been craving it for days prior.





On Sunday my friends Nikki and Andre with their two boys were also in Bali, and on Monday we caught up and had dinner on the beach at their resort.



Beautiful BBQ on the beach, with an awesome band.

Bali Emerald Villa in Sanur

We arrived late last night to Denpasar and queued for what seemed like an eternity through imigration. But once the whole airport experience was over (approx 2 hours of it at 2am NZ time) we were taken by our driver to the Bali Emerald Villa in Sanur. As soon as we got here and put Kien to bed we washed away all of the badness by going for a swim.

So here we are at our beautiful one bedroom villa. This morning we got up at 6am local time and went for a swim.

It's such a hard life being Kien. He has to hold his own toast while lying on the lounger next to the pool.

Breakfast and a bit of catching up on the interwebs this morning, and then we'll head out to check out the sights of Sanur.

I really do feel like we are in paradise right about now.

Farewell to the Queen of the Skies

We were privileged to be able to properly have a sentimental up-close-and-personal farewell to the iconic Boeing 747-400 wide body commercial airliner from the Air New Zealand fleet on Saturday.

Gosh, I remember when I first flew on a jumbo jet and just walking down the aisle was an amazing experience. I was so small, and it was so big! 3-4-3 seat configuration - mindblowingly wide.



I've also been very fortunate to have travelled upstairs in the iconic "hump". I've got one specific memory when I was on one of my business trips to India and being stuck on the tarmac because of a delay. One of the cabin crew had the decency to open up the bar, and I knew for a fact that they did not do that downstairs. We were very grateful, and not phased at all by the delay :-)





It was neat to be be able to sit here, right at the front of the plane.





Then when we were at the back of the plane we discovered an area that was quite a surprise - the cabin crew resting quarters. For some reason I thought about the mile high club when we were here.







We were able to explore the aircraft at our leisure, and it was good to be able to do so, since we would probably never have the opportunity again.













We were taken on the tarmac via bus that was escorted by a security van. I would have preferred to walk the 500 meters, but I guess it would be too difficult to control.





We had waited a fair bit prior to boarding the bus out here, but it was great that AirNZ treated us like customers and provided snacks and beverages identical to those in flight.







Thanks, Air NZ - and farewell to the grand Boeing 747. It's the end of an era.