Let's start at the beginning. We woke up to housekeeping knocking at our door at 8 am asking if we needed our room cleaned. I hope that doesn't happen every morning! Anyway we said no since we had been there approx 9 hours. On to the breakfast buffet!! By 9 am it was already very hot and sticky! Alexa had the omelette station-why not?- and I had some sort of traditional English breakfast.
First order of business, exchange our money! We may have been ripped off but we triple counted the bills so hopefully not. The conversion is basically ten thousand times 1 USD. So something that costs 10,000 rupiah is one dollar. Crazy. We exchanged our money for a million dollars!! Woohoo! Were millionaires!! High rollers.
Next we planned a trip for tomorrow. This involved getting a few price quotes and pissing off one travel agent in particular but oh well. We got the deal we wanted with a discount and we are going to an animal Safari tomorrow with a water park. We will be riding elephants and having a photoshoot with orangutans!! Why not?!
Then... Shopping time! We got practical items like sunscreen and then moved on to more fun shopping! I can't give it all away because a lot of things are gifts but basically haggling is expected and it's rude not to go back and forth. They say "for good luck name one more price" and just when we are walking away we get our price! Very nice. Things are so cheap here it's great!! I got 2 dresses for $7 each and that was with minimal haggling! I should have fought harder....
Anyway we treated ourselves to a very nice long lunch at a highly recommended restaurant. For about ten each we had iced chocolate, lime soda, big entrees and strawberry tiramisu!! Why the crap not? It was so hot and the dining area was in the shade with a fan and free wifi. We were pretty pleased.
After a very relaxing lunch we wanted to keep the relaxation going and went to a spa!! I've never really been to a spa. We had heard about fish that eat all the dead skin off your feet. (our feet have traveled a lot so they deserve some help...) we found one spa that would let us have 15 mins with the fish for 3.50 usd. That seemed manageable so we tried it out. Gotta say it was not easy to stick the first foot in. Basically there was a bench with cushions set up next to a fish tank aquarium on the ground. Tons of tiny little guys swimming around and when the foot was over the water they knew! They all came to the surface! Yikes! But we did it and it was so cool. Felt like our feet were vibrating from all the little fishies nibbling away! We loved it and we were about to leave the spa after when they started asking if we wanted massages. An hour long full body massage was $5. I thought we would want to go but I looked at Alexa and she didn't seem to be in a hurry so I said "ok...?". Once the words were out of my mouth I knew this was a very very good decision. My first massage!! An hour of pure heaven. We got a couples massage...it was great! And we even got free water, and no tipping!! America should take some lessons.
Speaking of America. It's great! Balinese can't distinguish our accents so they always say, you are from Australia? Then we say, no America. Then they say (always) oh! America.... Obama!! And have a big smile. They love him! It's great I want to write him a letter and tell him that poor people working in handbag stores in Bali know and love him. Also someone thought Alexa was mexican because of her name hah. That was a first.
After the spa we went back to the hotel to regroup and take more money out of our security box... Then we headed towards the beach which is about a 15 min walk. Or more if you get distracted by shopping... On the way I bought said dresses. As I paid one woman I turn around to see Alexa having her nails painted by another. Who knew they were so versatile?! By the powers of Balinese persistence we ended up with our nails and toes painted before we really knew what was happening. Why not...? Except we learned our lesson. Don't accept services before learning the price. These ladies were smart and knew and charged us American prices (because american nurses get paid well according to them...) despite a lot of attempts to haggle. Drat! Oh well, they do look nice....and they'll touch them up for free before we go home!
Then we walked to the beach for a beautiful sunset. We are currently at hard rock cafe where we had happy hour and some good ole American food and music! Watching the sun set over the beach from a rooftop while drinking $5 margaritas...what could be better!
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