In May 2019, Swee Lee & Alaga (Jas’ parents) invited us to join them and Rob & Jas and the girls at their home in Kuala Lumpur for Christmas that year – we were delighted to accept! Then Rob suggested that we all fly to Bali for a relaxing holiday for everyone at an Airbnb place in Canggu in Bali. They were flying back to the UK on 31st December.
Shortly after this, Roz & Kev (ex Santana) from Darwin suggested that we, and Gail & Garry, all meet up in Bali at the beginning of December. It all sounded wonderful, so Keith and I booked a return flight from Brisbane to Denpasar (Bali) departing on 2nd December and returning on 31st – and another return flight from Denpasar to KL for our stay there from 22nd to 26th. It didn’t seem worth returning to Australia for the period between holidays!
We spent a great 10 days with Roz & Kev and Gail & Garry. Initially we stayed at the Inna Sindhu Beach Hotel & Resort lovely resort in Sanur Beach for 5 days before taking a ferry over to Nusa Lembongan for 4 nights. Roz had organised a cycling tour one day – a spectacular day out – and another day Roz, Kev and Keith enjoyed a cooking class at a local restaurant. On Nusa Lembongan we all enjoyed a snorkelling trip to the local coral reef. We did a lot of partying and had a great time.
At the end of that holiday, the others flew back to Australia and Keith and I spent a couple of nights at a lovely boutique apartment in Denpasar while we organised a car and driver to take us to Permuteran on the north-west coast of Bali where we returned to Taman Sari Resort. We’d loved this quiet place when we’d stayed there earlier in the year on our way from the UK to Australia. I contacted the hotel and asked if we could have the same apartment as our earlier stay, we liked it so much. The resort had a mixture of self-contained bungalows, hotel rooms and the block of studio apartments we’d stayed in. The studio apartments had its own swimming pool, and access to the local village and nearby ‘warung’ restaurants we’d so enjoyed.
We stayed there 7 nights before transferring back to Denpasar for one night before our flight to KL. We booked into a hotel at the Grand Inna Hotel (Kuta) as so many people talk about Kuta, but it certainly wasn’t as nice as Sanur.
Then it was off to KL for Christmas – it was lovely to see Rob & Jas and the girls as well as Swee Lee and Alaga (Jas’ parents). We’d stayed with them several times when we were cruising – particularly when we’d been trying to organise our visas for China and Russia. We had a fun Christmas and on Boxing Day the whole crowd flew to Bali.
Rob had organised a lovely Airbnb with several different living spaces so the inter-generational get-together worked well. It had its own pool with a shallow area suitable for Juno (just turned 3) and a deeper area for the Rosie and the adults to enjoy. I had fun teaching Juno to float and put her head under water, and Keith taught Rosie how to dive for toys on the bottom of the deep pool. We’d taken inflatable toys as Christmas gifts and they had great fun racing them around the pool. All in all, a great time. Our flight back to Brisbane landed at about 11pm on New Years Eve so we were impressed that we’d been able to book a car and driver to take us home!