In July 2001 we spent 6 days in Bali using the Grand Hyatt hotel in Nusa Dua as a base. We were vaguely planning to go somewhere in the Whitsunday Islands, but I accidentally noticed temperature charts for the region showed average temperatures of about 24-25°C, and considering it was only about 18° in Melbourne, what was the point of going all that way for a few extra degrees. The local travel agent suggested Bali, as the best hotels are less than half the price of similar Australian ones, it's not much further to fly and the temperature was around 30°C. I didn't like the idea of pumping cash into a corrupt dictatorship in a place that is famous for hosting hoardes of drunken backpacking Australians, but what-the-hell, the very best hotel (the 5-star Grand Hyatt) was only about $AU200 per night.

My unforgettable thanks goes to Justin Merlo of Great Holiday Escape who advised me to buy some wine at the duty free on the way out and take it to the hotel. If not for his advice, it's quite possible that we would have had nothing nice to drink for most of the holiday except a bit of the local very sweet rosé ($20 per bottle) which must be served very cold to be palatable. We smuggled 5 bottles of wine into the Hyatt and took them down to the poolside or had them with room service meals. As an aside, this leads me to wonder why wine costs more in the Melbourne airport duty free than it does at our local bottle shop.

The Denpasar town centre in Bali is squalid, noisy and cramped. You will find a few glistening modern shops surrounded by a jumbled mess of streetworks and crumbling buildings. All of the locals are on the hustle and the endless haggling about prices and service is tedious beyond tolerance. The famous Bali Kuta beach is interesting to walk along and it has beautifully formed surf, but it's jammed with tourists and perstering hawkers.

There are only two regrets about the trip: (1) We didn't go for a swim in the curling waves at Kuta Beach, as the ocean down at Nusa Dua was very choppy and dull (2) We didn't sample the fresh seafood at Jinbaran beach, where we were told the freshly cooked portions or lobster and fish are cheap and incredibly large.

The Grand Hyatt Bali

There's no doubt about it, it's an absolutely beautiful hotel and the room rates are less than half the price of lesser quality Australian ones. The flower gardens, paths and swimming pools are like something out of a fairie tale. However, the price of food and wine is crippling.

The price of drinks and food inside the large hotels is absurdly inflated (and why not, they've got you trapped). We actually couldn't afford to eat at 3 of the 5 restaurants in the Hyatt. The price of Australian wines is typically multiplied by a factor of 8-10. No...I'm not joking! A $10 bottle of Penfold's Rawsons Retreat chardonnay that is barely drinkable at home costs $95 in the hotel. It's wise to leave the hotel and go to one of the rather boring and commercial Gallerias where food is about half the hotel price and wine is only up by a factor of 4-5.

The Day Trip

All visitors to Bali should reserve a day for a trip through the countryside up to the volcano. It's a long day, but it's a great way to get out of town and see the interior of the island.

The first stop in the early morning is a small amphitheater to see a Balinese play with traditional themes, costumes and music. Be warned that the "orchestra" of about 20 people who pluck, blow and bang things is the most unbearable, ear-shattering, tortuous, cacophony I have ever heard. When they started playing, for a moment I quite seriously I thought that someone outside the theatre had crashed a truck full of pots and pans. I could find no recognisable pattern or tuning in any of the "music" or the usage of the instruments. I found the experience similar to listening to the random noise in an industrial workshop. After about 5 minutes in the 2nd row of the theatre I could take no more and I had to leave or risk a serious headache. As I left my seat, 2 people eagerly leap into the space I vacated, so it seems that some people were really enjoying the show. I was expecting the gentle tinkling of gamelans, but now I realise the Balinese music has little relationship to Javanese music.

You will also see an ancient Balinese temple, silversmith shops, traditional paintings, wood carving, a marketplace, rice paddies and the Mount Batur volcano. All along the way you will be pestered to buy some of the grotesque over-priced wares which would be the centre-piece of bad taste in any normal Australian household.

Ku De Ta Restaurant

On the recommendation of a lady who used to work at Great Holiday Escape we took a 15 minute taxi ride to the coast north of Kuta to a restaurant called Ku De Ta. The restaurant has its own website at http://www.kudeta.net which should get a prize for overkill with Flash animations and music. This fabulous restaurant is constructed in an open-air modern Egyptian style with a courtyard facing a grass lawn area directly in front of the beach. If you time your arrival well you can be served some cocktails and watch the sunset before moving back to your table for dinner. Despite the intimidating appearance of the restaurant, the price is no worse than an equally good restaurant in Melbourne and the diverse menu is full of tempting and tasty items. They even made a special vegetarian dinner for Marcia without any prior warning.

The Harbour "Cruise"

Jam a hundred people onto a two storey boat, give them a smorgasboard, a bad taste mimed "dance spectacular", a cover rock band and then cruise around and around in circles in the harbour going nowhere. The cruise operators know that most people will be so stonkered after an hour or so that they won't know they're going nowhere. Well, it wasn't that bad really, as the food and wine prices were tolerable and the cover rock band were really quite tight and funny. It fills-in a night in Bali.

Bonus Photos