Bali Travel Diaries – Jimbaran…No More Luxury!
As our trip to Gili T was cancelled we booked a last minute hotel in Jimbaran which was a round the corner from Rimba and let’s just say we were quite spoilt from our luxurious stays at Peppers and Rimba that Gending Kedis didn’t quite live up to the expectations we had. We paid £360 for two nights which is freaking expensive for the standard of living they provide. As we didn’t want to stay in the hotel for too long we decided to use our time wisely and explore places on our bucket lists.
On the first day we headed to Jimbaran Beach where 6 portions of fries and 6 soft drinks cost us £33 – daylight robbery or what! We weren’t having much luck with the hotel and then this so after that experience half of the group decided to visit Uluwata Temple to see the sunset and evening dance show. We walked up the road from the beach to get a taxi for 6 people and we were blessed with a driver who went above and beyond to make sure we had a great experience. He got us there in time for sunset, helped us buy our tickets for entry to the temple and dance show. Walking through the temple you have to be careful as there are monkeys there ready to snatch anything they think is worthy of having such as carrier bags and sunglasses – cheeky little monkeys! The sunset at Uluwatu Temple was simply sensational and the one hour show about Rama and Sita was worth watching too – we missed the first 20 minutes due to wanting to see the sunset and the show did seem quite long but it’s worth staying until the end as that’s when it gets exciting.
As there weren’t many good vegi options around the temple area we went back to Ayana for dinner at Sami Sami which is Italian food, where we were also serenaded by some sweet singers.
The next day we had a 10 hour tour booked at 9am for the whole family (yes we really didn’t want to spend any time in the hotel). The tour was arranged via the hotel and I must say their service was impeccable at arranging 2 cars to accommodate 14 of us to visit some great places.
First stop was a small temple, which was similar to Kew Gardens but didn’t really take more than 30 minutes to explore. Next stop was Git Git Waterfall which was quite a walk down some steep stairs and hills but it was an amazing experience. I personally didn’t swim but a few of the family did and they really enjoyed it. After a trek back to the top we earned a fabulous lunch at a local restaurant which served Asian inspired food which was really tasty.
The coffee plantation was the next stop where we tasted different blends and flavours of coffee – the main one being the “poop” one, yes that’s right “poop” coffee. It’s where racoons poop out the coffee – there’s more to it than that but that’s the gist of it. It was actually quite tasty that we bought some to take home as gifts – seeing as it’s meant to be the most expensive coffee in the world.
The last stop was Tanah Lot Temple where we received a blessing and experienced another sensational sunset. Word of warning, the toilets here are terrible and they even have the cheek of charging you to use them!
Guess where we went for dinner that evening? Yes you guessed correctly, back to Ayana! This time we had Indian food (yes we were missing some good old home cooked style food after a week away!). We went to Padi and were completely blown away by the amount of food you get and the quality was outstanding! I would compare it to The Punjab in Convent Garden London. We had the dhal and paneer dishes which were mouthwateringly delicious that we gobbled it all up and raved about it for days and for an Indian to be impressed by Indian food in a restaurant is a big deal!
So even though we were missing the luxuries of the resorts we still managed to manifest them in to our lives somehow!