Summer In Bali

This summer I have a promise to keep with my son. I promise that I will bring him to Bali for a vacation, because he's been begging me after he saw how nice our belated honeymoon in Bali last year. But this time my parents, my kids and even their nanny will come with us.

The planning was not hard. I just went back to the same travel company that I used for our honeymoon. But at that time because the travel agent that took care of me was on her holiday, another agent handled my case.


So she book 2 bedrooms villa at this secluded hotel in Uluwatu. This hotel owned by Koreans as a result, their breakfast menu is heavy with Korean cuisine. The most obvious clue is the Kimchi off course. Even for breakfast, they still serve Kimchi. Fortunately, my family loves Kimchi....


If I compare this villa with Aston Pradha Villa, this one seems more luxurious. It takes us 5 minutes to figure out how to use their high tech toilet bowl's manual. Yes, they have a manual stick to the wall to teach us, country bumpkin on how to use the toilet ! But I think the worker who built the villa where we stayed did a bad job because every time we had a shower, the bathroom floor will be flooded. Despite the top of the wall is open, somehow there was not enough air circulation, so the bathroom smell a bit all the time. But maybe that was just our villa only. Maybe other villas are fine.

LL was very excited and a little bit scared too in the airplane but because the flight is only for 40 minutes, she was fine. She fell asleep.


The kids were very excited with this trip. as you can see on the photos. But once they saw the swimming pool in their villa, they just became crazy! KK just dive directly to the pool !

Another thing also that maybe it's my fault. Because on the last day I found out that if I need to cook, I can ask the room service to deliver a small gas stove to my villa.This villa has a kitchen but the kitchen is empty except for it's fridge that has free drinks that will be refill on daily basis with juice and sodas. Because the location is so secluded, there is no restaurants around the hotel, you unless you have a rental car, you are pretty much stuck with the hotel food. Yes, they have shuttle car, but the schedule is not too flexible because it is far to go anywhere from this villa. So we ordered in food from room service. Guess what, a plate of fried rice/noodle can cost Rp.100.000 or US $ 10. Yikes ! So the next day we went straight to Papaya supermarket and stock up on instant noodle that can be cook with just pouring in boiling water. At Aston Pradha, my kitchen is fully equipped home style kitchen complete with a full size cooktop and utensils.


The rest of our stay in Bali, my family kept complaining to me that I chose the wrong villa this time because we spent too many hours on the road to go anywhere..... arghhhh.......

Sometimes I feel that maybe it is not a good idea to mix grandparents with grandchildren on a vacation. The grandchildren wants to stay and play on the beach as long as possible but the grandparents can not stand the heat etc..... So at the end, I sent the grandparents back first to the villa with LL, while KK stayed with me and his dad.




Because it's too far, this time I can not go shopping as much as I wish. Like last time, I mean. But my wonderfully understanding husband who happen to love shopping to, haha, took me for a shopping trip alone with him, without the kids. The kids are happier actually, because they rather stayed-in the villa with the swimming pool and the PlayStation. I love buying Bali style children clothes because they are usually made with soft cotton that can keep the kids cool and comfy. They look so cute too! For me, I love buying those ethnic necklaces, they are cheap and colorful ! They are playful. For hubby, he will just go straight to those DVDs stores and go crazy.

And since this time we went with my mom, so we made several stop at some gift shops. She bought so many snacks to give to everybody back home until we have to packed and shipped them first. My mom is expert on this though. she always do this everywhere she goes.

To keep the children happy, I brought them to Bali Bird Park, and Bali Safari and Marine Park.


For LL, since she can not remember the time when I brought her to the parks in Vancouver, this is her first experience and she was loving it! She is very curious yet scared too because there are many exotic birds running loose on the ground, such as albino peacock, etc. But for KK, it was so wonderful to see him running around full of curiosity to see both the birds and the vegetation. It's just like watching him back in VanDusen Botanical Garden again. Both of our kids love animals so much and especially for KK, he also loves gardening too. He loves gardening so much that he doesn't like to pick flowers, he likes to admire them while they are still alive. On the other hand, I still have to train LL not to pick my flowers from their branch, sometimes before they are even blooming.




Actually next to the bird park there is also Bali Reptile Park, but after spending some time there the grandparents started to tell me that it's time to go back, the kids must be already dead tired, let's go back now .... etc...etc.... (sigh)


The next day was the same again, but this time even I have to agree, we were too tired walking around the Safari. This place is huge! My father especially was so impress with this place. My parents are no very curious people. They have been to Bali many times but each time are always the same. They go there either because they have to accompany guests or a family wedding. So all they do in Bali was just stay in the hotel, go shopping , eat local food and that's it. My father has this image that Bali is still using a local standard on everything, and now he is in for a surprise, the old Bali is gone, and the new and more International standard Bali is in ! He just keep on saying how impress he was with Bali now. This Safari place really makes us feel like we are not in Indonesia anymore. Even R was impress too by this place. The food court also great, it cater to all kind of taste. Wait a minute, why do I always tells you about the food first? Hmmm.....

I guess it's because I forgot to tell you that included on my package to stay in our villa, we also get a seafood BBQ dinner cooked right in our yard next to the swimming pool that I and R missed completely due to our shopping spree .... you know what I mean right.... too much fun.... forgot about the time.... To be fair about this villa, they know how to spoil people in term of food. This is to offset my complain about their location and bathroom, so here are the photos of the seafood BBQ ...



Anyway, next time you go to Bali, bring your kids to this Safari place. You can spend the whole day here and most likely you still can not see everything they have, that is why people.... I am going back here again soon, on December, not only to finished what we missed, but we will stay in their new hotel in the middle of the safari, think of me sitting in my bedroom and I can watch lions outside my room, hahaha.... I am not kidding.....stay tune for my future update about Mara River Hotel ....

And now, I will let you enjoy my family vacation pictures .....







Bali Bird Park

Jl. Serma Cok Ngurah Gambir
Singapadu, Batubulan - Gianyar - Bali
Telephone: 62 361 299352
Fax: 62 361 299614
E-mail: sales@bali-bird-park.com

Bali Safari and Marine Park

Jl. Bypass Prof. Dr.Ida Bagus Mantra Km. 19,8
Gianyar 80551 - Bali - Indonesia
Telp: 62 361 950 000
Fax : 62 361 950 555





















Pic: Believe it or not no body teach her to swish her hair like that in the camera. Sigh.... I guess for some people it just comes naturally .... and all this time I thought my son is already great in front of camera and here she comes ....