TescoValue

Absolutely, I love (trying) to learn the language wherever we go on holiday. I can manage a conversation at the moment, as long as it consists of good morning...how are you...good thank you. Unfortunately at this point I get lost and just keep repeating 'baik' or 'bagus' so they laugh and revert to English.

Having enjoyed the food in Bali so much (and no Bali belly to date), we have signed up for a mornings cookery class tomorrow. Having never done anything like this I am not sure what we have let ourselves in for, has anyone tried it? I love my food spicy (pedas sekali was one of the first phrases I learned), and everything has tasted amazingly good..but I made sure that beef rendang was one of the recipes on the list as it's certainly been my favourite so far!

I think I read somewhere that Cathay have just been voted the worlds best airline? They certainly looked after me when I somehow lost my ticket between the check in desk and the departure lounge, they even booked me an entire middle row as 'comfort' seats on my leg from Sydney to HK after I had caused them so much trouble!

We are currently in Sanur and absolutely love it! It's nice and relaxed, not too busy, but there are plenty of bars/restaurants to choose from. This being our first trip we were not sure what to expect, but would definitely come here again. We also decided to book our taxi man from the airport to take us on a tour of the island. He was fantastic and made suggestions as to where we could go, but left the choice up to us, if we said no then that was that, no pressure at all...he even saved us money by taking us to areas where we could view the rice terraces for free instead of paying an entrance fee. We are not really ones for doing all the tourist hotspots, preferring to make our own way around, but I can say the Monkey Forest was fantastic fun (but very busy), plenty of monkeys to see and very tame. Be warned though, they do like to jump onto your back and lie on your shoulders! Also had a fantastic lunch at the rice fields in Ubud, again one for the tourists but the view was spectacular., with a lovely cooling breeze blowing in from the fields. We were lucky to virtually have the restaurant to ourselves and left just as the crowds began to arrive (we had an early lunch at 11:30, it was filling up by 12:30). Only downside is the fact that my wife has been bitten by the mosquitoes. No matter where we go or the amount of sprays, creams and coils we use, they always get her...and she reacts badly to them. Currently she has two bites that have swollen up, one is about the size of an orange. She is now sat on the bed covered in wet cloths to try and stop the itching. Luckily the chemists here seem very knowledgable and have given her some antihistamine tablets!

Absolutely no problem, apology gratefully accepted, my fault for taking your post the wrong way in the first place!

Blimey, sorry for providing the OP with some valid information by saying it took as a while to get through the airport. If you read my post I didn't moan and actually stated we were possibly unlucky with our timing. I thought a heads up may have been useful thats all. As it turns out I have now managed to speak with some people who have visited Bali more than us, and they say to try and avoid arriving on a weekend as this is when you are more likely to hit the airport queues.

We are in Bali now for the first time and are really enjoying it. One thing to be prepared for though is the airport, get ready to queue and queue and queue! Perhaps we were just unlucky with our timing, but it took us almost two hours to get out of the airport. You also need to buy your visa on arrival, so to make life easier it's good to have $35 US per person so you can quickly get sorted. Apart from that, we have found everything to be fine. We are in Sanur and the people are very friendly, they especially seem to enjoy my attempts to speak their language!