Back to Bali

2009 New Year's Eve

Many of you know my great friend, Whitney.   We have a funny yet slightly embarrassing story about how we met.  We met on a message board on theknot.com while planning our weddings (they were two weeks apart!).  When we finally decided to meet in person at a bar, she brought a friend in case I was a nutjob.  I brought no one, because I am naive and stupidly trusting by nature.  Luckily, she wasn't a nutjob either.  That night was the start of a great friendship.

The reason I mention Whitney is that she is responsible for my latest job.  We both quit our "real" jobs when our eldest children were born - I started my Baby Sophia Gifts business and she wisely chose to enter the new world of blogging.  She has had great success with Mommies With Style, and has subsequently ventured into a second blog, Family Travel Diary.  Yours truly is proud to be an Asian correspondent, along with Jason!
 

So when I was contacted by a PR person about reviewing two new hotels in Bali, I jumped at the chance.  We paid for our own flights (sooo cheap to Indonesia from here) but were set up with rooms for two nights at the Sheraton Bali Kuta and one night at Le Meridien Bali Jimbaran.  Breakfast, two dinners, airport transfers and two spa treatments were also included.  Lucky for us, both hotels were fabulous so I was able to honestly write glowing reviews.

Read the full reviews of the Sheraton Bali Kuta and Le Meridien Bali Jimbaran!

The first time we visited Bali, we pretty much just laid at the pool and the beach.  This time, we decided to actually DO something.   The one thing we did repeat though, was a visit to the Waterbom Water Park in Kuta.  I just cannot emphasize how much I love that place.  For more info, visit our post detailing the first trip. It just has the best slides and is very classy for a water park (I know that sounds strange!).  Cooper, however, was not acting "classy" in this picture.

We also visited the famed "Monkey Forest" in Ubud.  It's official name is the Monkey Forest of Padangtegal, and it's a sacred Balinese Hindu site comprised of a few temples and about 700 long-tailed macaques.  Locals sit at the entrance and sell bananas to naive foreigners, who in turn get seriously accosted by hungry monkeys. 

Here are two videos to give you a glimpse of the monkey forest shenanigans:

1.  Monkey thief!

2.  Beetle Ball - we were mesmerized by what the monkeys were doing with this huge beetle!

After finishing up our tour of the Monkey Forest (and after a somewhat traumatic experience for Cooper involving a monkey and a banana - out of respect for him I will not post that video) we were hungry!  Our driver took us through "downtown" Ubud and eventually found a restaurant, Adi Asri,  that a friend had recommended.  It was a perfect combination of local yet Cooper-proof.  I had chicken curry (so good, I am shockingly a fan of Indian food in general) and Jason had Nasi Goreng, which translates to "fried rice" and is the national food of Indonesia.  It's not as basic as it sounds, and usually includes a meat and fried egg. (I will also not hesitate to order this whenever I see it!)  All in all, it was a great end to our day of touring the area.

The next day we were ready to check out the famed Jimbaran Bay area.  Jimbaran Bay used to be just a tiny fishing village, but is now home to many high end resorts and villas, lending it the nickname "the Beverly Hills of Bali".  

The beach and string of seafood places were adjacent to our hotel, so we skipped on over there and randomly picked a restaurant, the Menega Café, for lunch.  At these restaurants, you just pick your fresh seafood from a huge display, and they grill it right then and there on a bed of coconut husks.  We chose lobster, red snapper and prawns.  We added some french fries for the Coops and Bintang for the adults for a pretty darn perfect meal.  I will let the pictures speak for themselves!  (The price in USD for the seafood meal for two in the menu picture is $45 total - check out what you get for that!)

 

 

So after a very busy yet fun three days, we were forced to go home.  It's not too hard to go home though, when your view is still palm trees, and it's warm and sunny most of the time (it is definitely warm ALL of the time!).  As with everywhere else, we hope to return, but even if we don't, we have plenty of great memories to always remember Bali!

Next up - Sri Lanka!