2012-06-21T23:45:00.000-07:00

What a shocker first night's sleep.... My pillow feels like its full of crumbed rubber, all lumpy balls, I fight with it all night, trying to punch it into some sort of shape to support my head. Must remember to ask housekeeping for a better pillow in the morning.

Our neighbours have come home from a night out giggling & slamming doors. I make a mental note to slam my door on the way to breakfast, but karma will get me for sure if I do. Finally I get a little sleep then wake up at sparrow's fart. My roomie is awake too, so I decide to get up & have a shower. I open the wardrobe to get some clothes & there's this lovely looking plump pillow staring at me - how stupid of me not to check the wardrobe last night!

Breakfast doesn't start until 7am so we decide to take a walk along the beach. We meet up with some of the girls who also couldn't sleep in & they join us for a morning walk. I love this time of the morning, watching all the locals setting up for their day. We walk for about 30 mins & turn back, by this time my stomach is screaming as my body clock thinks it 9am.

The Puri Raja's restaurant faces the beachfront, a perfect spot to enjoy your breakfast while watching the waves roll in. I've never been able to get my husband to stay in Legian, but judging by the waves & the amount of guys I've seen surfing this morning, I think I could persuade him to stay here! Breakfast is from the menu, not buffet & there's plenty of choices. By the end of the trip, I'd tried most of the items on the menu & all were pretty good.

Our brekky view

After breakfast we all went separate ways. The four girls who had arrived 2 days earlier had organised a day trip to Ubud with my driver friend Wayan. Some of the other girls went for treatments at Carla's Spa which was only a few minutes walk while my roomie & I hopped in a Bluebird taxi & headed to Bintang supermarket for sim cards & supplies.

We arrived too early for the phone counter, it didn't open until 9.30am, so we just went into Bintang picked up some snacks, mixers and toiletries. I usually don't pack much in the way of toiletries so I pick up some small bottles of Sunsilk shampoo & conditioner, Citra body cream and facial products by Sariayu by Martha Tilaar.

Cleanser & moisturizer 10K ea

Once our shopping was done, we headed back to the hotel & dumped our bags & headed straight for the pool closest to reception. This pool was always much quieter and was a lot closer to our room as well.

After a little relaxing, swimming & reading we decided to head off to do some shopping from one of the fixed price market stalls. I always like to do this first as it sets a benchmark for prices if I decide to buy from any other market stalls.

On the way, we found a money changer who also sold sim cards. My roomie's phone was set up in no time – 25K for the sim & 50K worth of phone calls & text. My iphone was a different story & it took the girl 3 goes of cutting a sim to size before one fit properly and she got it working. I felt relieved that I now had contact with my family. While she was waiting, my roomie went across the road and bought a lovely pair of black sandals.

Now off to shop. We started at Ketut's, but I didn't find anything I really liked, so I sat outside as it was getting really busy & hot in there while my roomie tried on a few things. She only came away with a cotton shirt. I'd read about Miss Debbies on TA so went through the notes on my phone & with a bit of help from another shop owner, we were lead down a laneway & out the back to Miss Debbies. She had a lot more stock & it was set out into sections – homewares, dresses, short & tees... so much more organised and definitely a lot cooler. I still didn't find any dresses that grabbed me or when I did, they didn't fit right. I ended up buying a few shell & mirror mobiles 40K, a tin & mirror elephant mobile 40K, a fish mobile made from coloured material 75K, and a headrest for the plane 75K. My roomie found a few nice dresses, caps for her kids, some cushion covers & other assorted homewares.

Heading back we stopped in Gong Discs for a few DVD's and music CD's. My roomie was happy she had a new dress & sandals to wear to dinner tonight. I was disappointed as it was Day 2 and I still had no new clothing or shoes. I had packed pretty light, so if I didn't find anything tomorrow I'd be wearing the dress I wore to dinner the night before (not that there's anything wrong with that, but I wanted something NEW to wear!)

By now breakfast had worn off & I was starving again. Roomie had stuffed herself silly at brekky and wasn't hungry yet, so I went in search of the others & found them by the pool. They were ready for lunch too, so we headed out the hotel on the beachfront & walked a few doors up to the Hitana Restaurant which is within the Bali Niksoma Hotel.

Lunch at Hitana

Some of the girls had gone to dinner here the night before and had really enjoyed it. The restaurant overlooks the beach & is lovely and clean with modern furniture. We chose a long table with cushioned benches down one side that was closest to the front & enjoyed a lovely breeze off the ocean. 2 for 1 cocktails, good food at reasonable prices & split bills (great when there's quite a few dining) what more could you want?

Our lunch view

After lunch we headed back to find roomie still by the pool. We stopped & chatted with her and she was telling the other girls about her purchases from Miss Debbie's, only she referred to her as Miss Daisy (this would become a running joke as roomie also called her Aunty Betty one day – she could never get the name right!) Anyway, she offered to take the others there as giving directions was proving too hard.

I walked with them part of the way and then stopped in at Santai Spa. I was lucky enough to get in straight away as you usually have to book ahead. This place was lovely & serene with extra special touches like a cold towel & hibiscus tea on arrival. For my first treatment I chose a full body massage - from memory it was around 85K?? You are offered the choice of 2 oils, I chose 'energize' then I was lead behind the curtain and into the treatment rooms. Walking over polished pebbles you are seated on a bench & your feet & legs are washed in a bowl on the floor before being dried then put into some funny looking thongs.

The treatment rooms are only separated by curtains but it still feels private and even though I can still hear the mopeds buzzing by outside, it is still a relaxing enviornment. The masseuse applied just the right amount of pressure and I was totally relaxed.... that is until this lady walks in looking for an appointment. She couldn't get in straight away and was uming and arring about what time would suit, 'no I can't come in at 1pm because I will still be at lunch, no 3pm doesn't suit as I'm having my nasal hair plucked, no 5pm is not suitable as I'll be watching the sunset'..... I wish she would just SHUT UP!

After the treatment you are left to dress then lead back to the bench and given a warm ginger tea. I loved the tea so much I had to ask what brand it was. The lady showed me and I bought some similar in the Bintang Supermarket.

Walking back to the hotel I felt totally relaxed. It's a shame my cleanly scrubbed & oiled feet were putrid by the time I got back though. The girls were back from their day trip and the others back from Miss Debbies so we all spent the late afternoon by the pool with a few sneaky Bintangs.

For dinner tonight we had booked Mozzarella by the Sea. It would end up being the only dinner that all 12 ladies went to together.

12 lovely ladies - sorry about the poor photo quality - it was taken on my iphone!

The restaurant is right next door to the Puri Raja so we didn't have far to walk. It looked really lovely all lit up at night & I love the little leaf they used to reserve our table.

Mozzarella also has the 2 for 1 cocktails and splits the bill – each person was given a little card, A,B,C,D, etc... I ordered the nasi campur & was a little disappointed as some of it was just luke warm & it didn't live up to some previous ones I'd had the year prior from other restaurants. Everyone else was pretty happy with their meals though.

Nasi Campur

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and they were having karaoke. One of the ladies really loves getting up & singing, so she provided the rest of us with entertainment while having one more drink.

Chrissie the Karaoke Queen (in the red dress)

By then, everyone had had enough, everyone that is except my roomie & I. We went back to the room to pour a duty free and we could hear some music in the distance somewhere, “I feel like dancing” I said.... then we hatched a plan to go out on the town.

So off we head out the front of Puri Raja looking for a taxi. In the daytime they are a dime a dozen, but of course we cannot find one this time of the night. We could hear music coming from somewhere, so we followed our ears around the corner past Mugshots & up towards the Jayakarta. On the right is Poco Loco Mexican Restaurant – that's where the music was coming from & it was REALLY loud. There was a huge outdoor stage and heaps of people already inside and some lining up. We walk up to see who's playing and it's some DJ from the UK – never heard of him & they want 250K cover charge – bugger that! we say and keep walking....

Roomie wants to know where we are going, we didn't really want to go to a night club in Kuta, then I remembered reading a TA forum member's report a week before my trip (thanks Islandtraveller72) & they had mentioned a place in Seminyak called Mixwell that had great music & a 'lady-boy' show.

Finally a taxi comes along & we head for Mixwell on Jl Abimanyu (also known as Jl Dhyana Puri or Jl Camplung Tanduk). We are driving along & see some 'lady boys' out the front – I guess this is the place!

I have never been to one of these establishments before, so I don't know what I really was expecting, but when we walked in the place had a fantastic vibe with equally fantastic music. We grabbed a Bintang and made our way up the front near the dance floor just as my new fav song by Gotye came on.

We met a lovely couple and the wife danced with us for most of the night. When we left it was leaving long lost friends (funny what alcohol does to you!)

The show was really entertaining & we got to have some photos taken with the 'girls' afterwards.

It was time to head off, we couldn't possibly stomach any more Bintangs and we were starting to feel peckish so we started walking towards Jl Legian in hope of finding someplace still open for a late night snack. On the way we found a billboard with a huge photo of some hunk with a great physique wearing only a tee & Y-fronts. He was lifting up his white tee to expose a six pack & his package was just above our head height. Needless to say we took many silly photos holding up the 'package' (sorry to disappoint anyone, but I thought I'd better not post these photos!)

So off we head on our quest for food. We walked & walked & walked and if you could believe not one moped, taxi or any vehicle passed us. We couldn't find anywhere open to eat either! The only person we came across was this lovely fellow selling potato chip snacky type food from his cart, but this didn't grab us. We stayed for a chat – he hardly spoke any English – but I guess we were probably talking Dutch by this stage anyway, took some photos, then we were on our way.

By this stage, we had given up any hope of finding somewhere to eat. So we decided that the next moped that whizzed passed we signal for a ride. Still no vehicles.... walking, walking, hey I hear the thump of some music... we had walked all the way back to Poco Loco and the place was still going. Not many people there though. Not far round the corner and we are back at the Puri Raja. Little did we know, we could of walked out of Mixwell and headed towards the beachfront instead of towards Jl Legian.... and we would of been home a whole lot sooner! We Walk upstairs to our room and can still hear the music from Poco Loco.

God only knows what time it is. We have a few handfuls of corn chips (the only sustenance in our room) guzzle a gallon of water & hit the pillow for some zzzzzz.

Day 2 goes on & on & on....