Tuesday 21 June 2016

Seminyak

Seminyak was mine and Brad's first stop in Bali! We arrived in at midday and you immediately felt the heat as soon as you got off the plane. We made our way through the airport and found a taxi. Brad was horrified at the fact we handed over 200,000 rupiah to go to our hotel as we just couldn't understand their currency so agreed to any price; later realising it was only about £10. We had our first experience of the roads in Bali which are horrendous. There's so many scooters and there's literally no road rules. Cars were in the middle of the lanes and there's no indicating, you just have to hope the cars around you are paying attention and psychic. We saw so many run down looking hotels and just prayed ours wasn't any of them. We drove past an amazing looking hotel and just as Brad said how nice it looked the taxi man told us it was ours, thank god! It's so hard finding places to stay in Bali because although nice hotels are only about £30 a night, you know that's expensive for Bali. We had no clue what ours was gonna be like but when we turned up we had people take our luggage out the taxi and had a welcome drink. It was amazing and I am so glad we booked it! We waited to check in and had some cocktails, whilst the barman put on a show for Brad; throwing drink bottles and glasses around. We were taken to our room and we were instantly amazed. The bed is big enough for about 4 people and we have a balcony that gives you a nice view of Seminyak. We spent the rest of the afternoon having a little stroll round the area and getting some dinner in the hotel restaurant! 
The next day we headed to Potato Head Beach club, which is so popular with tourists in Bali and it definitely was one of my favourite spots. It's beautiful and has a huge pool, lovely workers and expensive cocktails!  We underestimated them and ended up drunk at about 11am- oops. It was such a good day and we ate there too, which was pricey but lovely! I even had a little nap there which was perfect. We decided to head home after being there all day to shower and grab dinner. Our last day in Seminyak together was spent grabbing some lunch from Cafe Organic, which was my favourite place to eat in Bali! 

Two weeks later we were back in Seminyak with Dan and Kyle, as we'd booked a villa there for 4 nights. When we arrived (after spending so long in a taxi trying to actually find the villa) we were so happy because it was such a nice place! We had all actually forgotten what it looked like we'd booked it that long ago, but we weren't disappointed. It had 3 bedrooms with ensuites and a lovely open plan kitchen that was opposite the pool! We spent most of our days in the villa in the pool, to top up our tans :). We also went on a trip to Canggu; just north to Seminyak. You can easily ped it there if you're brave enough to get a ped in Bali that is! We just got a taxi there and sat in Old Mans bar for a while, which was really nice. Then we walked down the beach, for a lot longer than we expected to and 45 minutes later we stopped off to try and gather a sense of direction and find somewhere to go. I had heard of a nice restaurant along the beach so we hunted for that. We walked along the main road where there was no pavement and oncoming traffic was getting annoyed at us, because we were causing traffic jams where people were trying to pass us, oops! It definitely was dangerous and when we told the restaurant staff we walked they all looked so shocked and were laughing at us- typical tourists. We had lovely little starters there as it was more of the pricier restaurants in Bali, but we just chilled there for a while and had some drinks! When the sun had gone down we got a taxi back to Seminyak for proper dinner; we searched around for so long and ended up going to a place called Pit Stop which was so cheap and so good; they had the best burgers! Every night we just chilled in the villa, either in the pool or on the sofas with some Bintangs and every night without fail I would fall asleep on the sofa- typical me. Our full day in the villa we went to Potato Head beach club again, Dan and Kyle hadn't been and we knew we would all enjoy it. We had some cocktails straight away and chilled in the pool. We did that for a few hours till we decided to grab a late lunch from across the road. We went to a place called Fat Turtle which was actually really nice! I would definitely go there again in Seminyak. Then we went back over to Potato Head and we had a bed waiting for us- the waiting list is literally all day for one! We chilled on that and ordered some more cocktails, waiting for sunset. All of a sudden the 3 girls we had met in New Zealand (Liv, Ali and Taby) arrived! They had just landed and we had no idea we were gonna bump into them, so it was such a lovely surprise! We all chilled with our cocktails just catching up! After sunset we went back to the villa and waited for Naz and Sophie's flight from Singapore to arrive! We spent the rest of the night catching up with them with a lot of drinks which was nice.

I loved Seminyak and have a lot of good memories from there. I would definitely go back as its so close to the airport and it's where most people start their Bali trips! There's so many luxury villas and hotels and such good places to eat so I'd definitely go back for a holiday, when I have a lot more money to spend!

Sanur

Sanur is a little relaxing place just on the east coast of Bali. It's away from all the party places and it's not too busy so Brad and I decided to go there for a few nights to chill out! We stayed in a hotel in the middle of a main road which was quite annoying because you couldn't really get anywhere without a taxi! There was a small pool but we didn't go in it. Luckily our hotel ran a shuttle to the main centre of Sanur to its sister hotel- which we wished we'd stayed in. It was right on the beach front and there were so many other hotels and restaurants next to it. We went there everyday in Sanur and our first day there we walked along the beach and somehow ended up in a 5* resorts swimming pool, which was lovely, until we went to order drinks and told we weren't meant to be there! We just sunbathed along the beach and it was lovely to chill out. I wish we had stayed in a beachside resort, but I do think they're quite pricey and there was quite a few older people as I think it's one of their main spots. It was really nice to chill out and get a tan but I would only come back if I had an amazing resort along the beach to chill in, as there's not much to do in the main centre.