Bali Bali Bali

Well so I turned 43 in Bali - not monumental in itself as birthdays these days just come and go (to be forgotten to be honest), but what an amazing trip it was. Very good friends of our ours were also getting married "again" (remember the best mans speech blog). So we had a double bubble holiday of wedding, birthday and well just enjoying the beautiful Bali.

I booked an amazing villa, originally a 2 bed thing but luckily we ended up with a 3 bed. All en suite with outdoor shower/bath, kitchen, living room, chill out room on 2nd floor and private pool. Oh yes living the dream guys! Actually we checked in and they did not have 2 bed available so put us in 3 bed for one night, the next day we were supposed to move to 2 bed but we were going out for the day to safari park and I kicked up a stink that we had wedding dresses and suits etc and I was not happy to keep putting them in suitcase as they would get creased, and it is not my fault that they did not have our room ready for the first night etc etc, picture me now with angry face ha ha, and I got my way and we were allowed to stay in the 3 bed. Just beautiful place. You drive along Seminyak High Street and it's all boutique shops and then turn off down a side alley and you're like oh my gosh where are we going and then hey presto Shangri La, the beautiful Desa Muda Villas - WOW!

Amy was a flower girl for the wedding, pictures to follow, and what a proud Dad I was as she nailed it. So cute! OK she did occasionally "drift" off the frangipani path, but she was concentrating so much on throwing the flowers from her basket. But the lovely Sophia, a friends girl, was always on hand to drag her back to the path. What a lovely day was had by all, lots of friends of Barrie and Bing from Australia and family of Bing from China. A lovely lovely day and what a beautiful setting as you will see from the photos.

Birthday was spent sat on the beach at a wonderful restaurant, seafood cooked on a BBQ of dried coconut husks, see my foodie blog for more on that. Just amazing - lobster, snapper, prawns, crab all as fresh as can be as you literally sit and watch the fisherman catching it and then it is virtually straight to the table. They go horizontally to the beach one way laying the nets, then back the other way banging drums to scare the fish in to the nets. The to the tanks to choose the fair you wish to eat, almost looking like the fish will start flapping in the ice as so so fresh. A few large Bintans and just gorgeous food all thrown on the table and dig in, no etiquet here, just dig in!

Do I spy one photo of Ollie with a Bintang beer, yes indeed I do - BUT phew it was a non-alcoholic beer, but still I think he felt like he was 18 years old at the time, ha ha!

More of this one on the foodie blog, but we went "local" one day and had this pig food Babi Guling, basically ALL the bits of a suckling pig with chili - soups, fried, stewed, organs, sausages etc. but AMAZING, my hero Mr Bourdain went to one similar in Ubud and said best he has ever had. I have to say this one we went to round the corner from the villa was just superb. Spit and sawdust and all that, but wonderful food. Mental note to self and anyone visiting, go to the toilet before you go - according to Mary that was an experience all on it's own!

Eating eating, drinking drinking from Balinese, Indian, Western you name it we had it. All good, cheap and delicious!

What do you think about Ollie's joke telling skills? I won't upload the previous attempts to get the punch line right, but the final go he had I think is quite impressive, you should be on stage young man - made me laugh, ho ho!

Trips to temples on lakes, waterfalls (yes actual name was Git Git - just loved that one), rice paddy fields in the mountains, swimming pools, food and more food, religious festivals and basically just FUN was had by all. If you have never been to Bali I recommend it to be one of those "I must go there before I die" places. It is truly one of my favourite places in the world, and I think from the photos following you'll see also it is a favourite of Ollie, Amy and Mary. What a lovely lovely holiday we had.