The most relaxing ride at Waterbom - "The Lazy River"
Day 1
Our flight was long and there was no entertainment available, so we were SO glad we downloaded some movies onto my iPad to watch. We watched The Artist and My Week With Marilyn, played some poker and listened to some tunes.
On arrival to Bali I was exhausted already. I had read about the "Porters" in the Denpasar airport that collect your bags for you and carry them to your taxi for a tip. I forgot and when we arrived we weren't sure where we were going so the Porters must have seen us and targeted us straight away. As soon as they picked up our bags I was like "Damn it". The BF thought they were Customs as they had these official uniforms on. I only saw a small "Porter" badge on one guy and then I remembered what it said in Lonely Planet (and also I have had similar experiences elsewhere, especially in Kathmandu). They took us only so far, about 20m, and I stepped in and said thanks but that's enough, here's RP5000 each, which is equivalent to 50c. They weren't happy but I was firm. We found the correct 'metered" taxi place and at least avoided getting ripped off a second time at the airport. We were kicking ourselves in the taxi for getting duped as soon as we landed in Bali, but we were a lot more vigilant for the rest of the trip and avoided the same problem one the return trip.
We arrived to our hotel - I had printed out the address and map and as we used the suggested pre-paid taxi from the airport we got to our destination, The Legian 101, without little hassle. But... once we got to check-in the hotel they informed us that there was some issue with the rooms flooding and we were being transferred to another hotel. Not happy. The other hotel was the same star rating but completely different to what I had wanted for our first night in Bali, which was modern facilities and a view overlooking Kuta Beach. Our new hotel was called White Rose and was spookily close to Ground Zero from the 2002 Bali Bombings, which happened all to recently in my mind. Our room was a twin instead of a double and was quite shit. The pool was ok, the location ok, and the buffet breakfast quite good. I had a mini-anxiety moment thinking about being blown-up by terrorists so my darling BF helped me by pointing out that none would blow-up the crappy dolphin fountain we were staring at by the side of the pool.
(The photo doesn't quite highlight how tacky this fountain was)
We took a 20 min stroll down to Kuta Beach for the sunset only to be so disappointed by the massive crowds down there. We took a taxi back to The Legian 101 and claimed our complimentary meal for the hassle of being transferred hotels. It was quite nice.
(The rooftop restaurant/bar and pool at Legian 101)
Day 2
My over-excited BF was so keen to go to Waterbom waterpark, so we went first-thing in the morning. I had pre-warned him I wasn't keen to do all the scariest rides, so he was happy that I went on four or five of the tamer rides, then took a massage while he went on all the others. He did this crazy water-slide that begins by you being dropped and free-falling a few stories and reaching a max velocity of 80km/hr. Yeh, I preferred the massage. Just watching him do it got my heart-rate up higher than his (I took his pulse afterwards). He said it was so fast with so much water flying everywhere that you can't really absorb what's happening.
That night we had some traditional Balinese photos done (on my request) then a nice seafood dinner. I can't eat much meat after being on a meat-reduced diet for so long (I'm keen to go back raw vegan now I'm home, but more on that in another post). I was happy to have the rice and veges and one prawn but thats about it. The BF got his first experience of lobster and crab.
We took a pony-and-cart ride home.
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