Denpasar dodgems

After several hours with no tummy problems, we decided to drive into Denpasar, the capital of Bali, where the locals go to shop. I wanted to buy some fabric and Sulawesi Street is the place to go. Bali is one of those places that offers many different experiences depending on your preference for a holiday. You can do the complete luxury thing where you stay in a 5 star hotel complex and experience Bali luxury hotel style. The Balinese are very good at that. The hotel takes you to and from the airport and provides a multitude of entertainment and activitiy options to keep you busy throughout your stay. On the other hand, you can do your own thing, even leaving your accomodation until you get here. We like to play it safe and book our accomodation before we leave but apart from that, we like to mix with the locals and do the local thing as much as possible.

The hubs drives the hire car. You have to have nerves of steel to drive in Bali because the locals are insane on the roads. Most of them ride motorbikes and they double, even triple on the one bike at times sans helmets, weaving in and out of the traffic, totally ignoring any road rules or polici! As always, the journey there is a gut wrenching dodgem car ride.

Surprisingly, we get there safely and without causing any bodily harm to anyone else. Sulawesi Street is steamy, dirty, smelly, yet buzzing Aladdin’s cave of exquisite treasures. Down each side of the street are fabric shops crammed full of beautiful materials; traditional Balinese batiks, ikats and laces, silks from India and China, cottons, linens, beaded lengths, saris etc. It can be pretty overwhelming.

This pic shows just a tiny selection of some of their laces.

I was on a mission to buy some fabric to freshly cover my chaise lounge. My old one, which I had made in Bali on a previous trip, has faded from the sun. The place that will make it up has limited fabric choices so it’s always best to BYO. There are usually women around Sulawesi Street who will act as unofficial guides, taking you from shop to shop and negotiating prices. They generally want you to have a look at their shop at the traditional market down the end of Sulawesi Street but if you give them a little money, they’re happy if you buy your fabric and run. Of course, you can do it all alone but these ladies usually know the stock in each shop and will save you heaps of time if you are after something in particular. Today my lady found me the fabric I was after, got me amazing prices without any haggling, and was happy with Rp10,000 ($1.20) for her trouble. I ended up buying 3 metres of pale creamy yellow with gold brocade and 6 large beaded lengths for belly dance costumes for under $40.

Then home for a foot massage and manicure.

Merry Christmas for tomorrow!

PS. I took this pic in Denpasar because the doors and window frames reminded me of the "New Orleans green" I saw so many doors painted there.

Charlotte has pudding in her Prada

Oh yes, I laughed when Charlotte had her little ‘accident’ in Mexico in the SATC movie despite being so careful with her packaged pudding diet. Poor Charlotte, imagine the shame of pooing your pants in public. But it’s really not so funny when it happens to this Charlotte! Oh no no no, not funny at all.

I don’t carry around pudding in my Prada but I’m pretty careful in Bali and in all the times I have been here, I’ve never had Bali belly….until yesterday. I will spare you the gory details but let’s just say that it comes with NO WARNING!!!!!! One minute you’re standing in the restaurant waiting to be seated and the next minute you’re wondering how on earth you’re going to get out of there with any shred of dignity left. All I can say is thank the Lord I chose to wear black. So, I’m staying close to the hotel today, just in case I need a quick getaway. I think I’ve been scarred for life…seriously.

In the meantime, some more food pics. I don’t even want to contemplate that one of these may have been the culprit.

This morning’s banana pancake, post ‘belly’ so it wasn’t the culprit. It came with coffee, toast, orange juice, a fruit platter and a 2 egg omelet. $2.50

The biggest suspect, a very strange, runny crème caramel from the evening before my ‘incident’.

Chicken satay that hubs and I both ate. $3.50 He was fine so I’m guessing it was fine too. It was so delish.

Bali shopping

I love to shop in Bali because the Balinese are amazingly creative and most things are so inexpensive. I've ordered a bunch of jewelry from my favourite silversmith which will be ready in a week. One of the things he's making for me is a big chunky cocktail ring with an oval blue topaz...can't wait and will definitely post pics when it's done. I had a wander in the local markets yesterday and bought this dress/top thingy. It's very sheer so I'll have to wear a slip under it but I love the way it's cut.


Adding things as I'm buying them. Love this 3 pearl leather and silver necklace. The pearls slip into the silver ring and it sits as a lariat.

Day 2

This morning hubs left at daybreak to go surfing at Kerimas, a black sand beach about 15 minutes drive from our Sanur hotel. I know I should be the good surfer wife and go with him but I just can’t get into sitting on that hot black sand swatting flies and constantly being asked to buy drinks, have a massage, plait hair, buy carving, sarong etc etc etc. I did that once upon a time but these days I prefer to hang by the pool and read a book or have a massage in the pretty hotel spa. This morning I slept in instead. Hubs returned mid morning ready for a breakfast feast and feast we certainly did. He had a huge omelet with ham, bacon, onion and tomato, 2 pieces of toast, 2 croissants, 2 danish pastries, a muffin with jam and butter and a pot of Bali coffee. I had a fresh fruit platter (mango, grapes, 3 kinds of melon, pineapple and papaya), coffee and what they call ‘creamy of oats’ (cooked oatmeal), which I could only eat half of and had to give to hubs to finish, which he did! It all came to $10.

Our bellies full, we’re off to the markets to buy ‘stuff’. Not sure what kind of stuff yet, but I’ll know it when I see it…haha. In the mean time, some more piccies around the hotel grounds.











The hubs pre-lunch Bintang at a little restaurant on the beach.


John, Komang and staff from Laghawa restaurant in Sanur. Yummy food!

Back in Bali

Here we are in beautiful Bali. It's our 15th time and we still love it. There's nothing like walking off the plane and smelling that warm scented Bali air. You really know you're on holiday. We arrived at midnight and woke up to a late brekky at the poolside hotel restaurant. I had a fruit platter and yoghurt for $2, just love the Bali prices. Then off for a manicure and pedicure and swim in one of the hotel pools. Here are some piccies of the gorgeous hotel grounds and pool (with hubs and me swimming).





Lunch was a chicken salad overlooking the ocean.



Dinner was Gado Gado, one of my favourite Indonesian dishes of veges, tofu, boiled egg and prawn chips with peanut sauce.

Loving it and looking forward to tomorrow. Finger's crossed the surf's up for the hubs.

Odd Man Out

This is how I feel sometimes. The artist was my mother in law and it hangs in our stairwell. I love it!

San Francisco and Highway 1

We stayed at the funky Triton Hotel in San Francisco. It was a hotel full of colourful art and great ideas, I really enjoyed it and would highly recommend it as a great place to stay in SF.




Day 2 in SF was the release of the Jimmy Choo for H & M range and I had decided I would like one of the clutch bags from the range. At 10am I wandered down to Union Square thinking I would walk in to H & M, pick up the bag off the shelf, pay for it and go. Silly, silly me, I had no idea of the Jimmy Choo mania going on at H & M. As I neared the store I could see the sidewalk littered with food containers, coffee cups, and the occasion blanket and pillow (!!!!!!). Blanket and pillows meant that people were SLEEPING OVERNIGHT OUTSIDE H & M. I lined up outside the store, more fascinated by the crazy scene going on than really caring about the clutch. Inside the store was insane. People were everywhere and we had to line up to get onto the escalator to go up to the bags on floor 2. I lined up. When I was finally given the nod by the security guard to go up the escalator, I couldn't believe my eyes. There were hundreds of people there, some with special wristbands (were they the overnighters?) who got first pick over non-wristband shoppers like me. Small groups of shoppers were allowed to go and select only 1 of any item. Most likely it would have taken me at least 2 hours to get a chance to choose something, if there was anything left. The 1 item rule didn't stop people from selecting 1 of everything, no doubt to sell on ebay later. Needless to say, I wasn't that desperate for a JC for H & M bag so I didn't line up but I did take a photo as a souvenir of the lengths some people will go. On the way out I watched a group of women standing by a rack waiting for the staff to bring out the JC rejects from the change room. When the rejects came out, it was a crazy grabfest....heeee.


That evening we met up with 2 lovely local ladies Helen and Betty, and went to Harry Denton's Starlight room and after, the Tonga room. I love both places. The Starlight room is very old style glam with amazing views over the SF skyline. The Tonga room is a kitsch polynesian style bar that rains inside every 30 minutes. Love!


Day 3 was spent at the de Young museum seeing the King Tut exhibition. No photos because they didn't allow cameras (or bags held above the waist for that matter, how strange) but I would highly recommend it.

On our final day, I took a walk down to the South Beach area to visit a recommended store called Jeremy's. It's a discount designer store set out like a boutique. It took a lot of willpower to resist the $270 Louboutins that fit me perfectly. Sob...

Jeremy's was on the corner of a place called South Park. No Kyle and Stan that I could see but there were some cute houses.

The next morning we set off on our road trip back to LA to fly home. The roads along Highway 1 are spectacular, if not a little freaky in parts. There are many parts with sheer cliffs and no road barrier. Driving south we were on the cliff side of the road. Don't look down!!!!!!




We finally arrived in Cambria where we were staying overnight at a cute little inn called the Sea Otter Inn. We didn't see any sea otters but up the road a little the beach was full to overflowing with sea lions. Cute, fabulous and oh so very stinky.



We were short on time and unfortunately couldn't take the time to visit Hearst Castle. Instead, we drove by Nitwit Ridge, the poor man's Hearst Castle so they say. It took 51 years for the eccentric Arthur Beal to build this amazing house out of discarded refuse, shells, car rims, shells, tile, car parts etc. I would love to have seen inside.




We made our way south past many gorgeous seaside towns until we hit Santa Barbara which then seemed to blend into LA in one big metropolis. It took about 10 hours of driving over 2 days, with several stops along the way for photos and snacks.


We finally arrived at LAX with our groaning overweight suitcases and to our delight we didn't get charged for our extra kilos. Woohoo!!!!!