September 2011 (Backdated post) - Continuation
(Club Med Bali Poolside bar during sunset)
With the MATA fair promotion earlier this year, we managed to secure a pretty cool deal from Club Med. Buy One and FREE ONE! Pretty cool huh? And children got to stay, eat and play for free. Suits Ryan just fine.
I have never been to Bali before and the last trip my wife made to Bali was decades ago. This is also my first trip to a Club Med and I have heard raving reviews of how fun staying at Club Med can be.
I must said that I was not every impressed upon touching down at the airport and got a pretty nasty experience taking a taxi from the airport to Club Med. I made doubly sure that I purchased the taxi coupons from proper counters set up within the airport. Friends were telling us that it was pretty easy to get a taxi there and is much cheaper than ordering one from the hotel. (Honestly, I prefer to have one from the hotel waiting to pick me up when I arrived especially if I'm travelling to countries in Asia than trying to arrange one when I arrived). Anyway, after agreeing on the price and since currencies in Indonesia runs into hundreds of thousands and millions (which take some adjustment to..hey..I'm not used to be a millionaire ok), I paid him in big notes (mistake that I made when I change my Ringgit at KLIA for not asking for smaller notes). The taxi counter conveniently `forgot' to give me back my change. Although after conversion, it is still a relatively small amount , RM2 or thereabout, the impression is that the locals are out to swindle tourist like us in whichever way they can....
OK. I can live with Rm2 poorer. One guy from the taxi counter guided us to the taxi which was parked at the airport parking lot. Upon loading all the bags, he expressly now asked for a tip. My wife and I were like..."Huh? Tip again? for what?" Realizing that we were reluctant, his face somewhat changed from the `smiling..hello tourist' look to 'hei..I don't work for free' look....
We looked into our wallets and realised the smallest Indonesian currency we had were 100,000 rupiahs! I have a couple of USD in my wallet and ended up giving him USD5. Expensive tip!!!
Trip to the hotel was uneventful and honestly, I am still smarting from having to pay such an expensive tip.
Club Med is definitely a welcoming sight.
The rooms ....
The poolside and the poolside bar ....heavenly ...
View of the poolside bar from the beachfront ...
The mini golf course....6 par 3 holes ...
The beach ....
Sunrise at Club Med Bali beachfront
Did I like Club Med? Of course. I enjoyed the good selection for food available for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I enjoyed that I got to order any drinks that I want. I had countless glasses of Bali draught beer, wine both and red. I enjoyed the games, the activities and the nightly entertainment put up by the resort staff themselves. (They are indeed a talented lot). I enjoyed the sight of many beautiful bodies and pretty faces..ahem....
But above all, I enjoyed the company of my wife and Ryan as we got to do things that we have not done before...(more of that in my next post)..
The only sore point that I had with this resort is that the GO (Guest Officers) were paying too much attention to guests of their own countries. There were many Koreans, Chinese nationals from China, Japanese and Aussies...but unfortunately, throughout our entire stay, I guessed we were the only Malaysian and we have only met one Malaysian GO lady from Penang. So, we were kinda of left out and were pretty left unattended to ..though we managed to meet and got to know three rather cute and hot GOs from Korea, Japan and Bali herself...(all thanks to Ryan who has the tendency to attract pretty gals without much of a problem with his cheeky smile and bold moves in approaching them...I guess Daddy would have to learn a trick or two from him soon...)
Ryan showing off his kung fu within the temple grounds of Mengwi Temple.....
