JustGo

Not everyday you see a full hot meal on a domestic flight, that is one of the things I like about flying asian and middle eastern companys.
Garuda seems like a nice company to fly.
Thanks for sharing.

antebellum

After a 40 minutes drive from the airport (traffic was heavy, and our driver didn't bother with going on toll motorway), we arrived at Conrad Bali. To be clear, that was in nearby Tanjung Benoa rather than Nusa Dua (which is pretty much a gated resort compound), but still a great hotel nonetheless.
I booked four nights in renovated base (garden view) room at A$230 per night (with free breakfast, courtesy of Gold status), during one of those Hilton Asia Pacific member sale, sounds good, But I was pleasantly found out that our room have been upgraded to lagoon access rooms displayed on Hilton app, definitely a big plus. ^



More security checks before entering, no, this is nothing like Jakarta. Cool Balinese-style design.
While most of their renovation works have completed, the main lobby hasn't. As a solution, temporary lobby now in a restaurant called Spice.



Keep going, until the lobby. I must admit this garden design is beautiful. Wow.







Temporary lobby in the restaurant. It was quite a bit of wait, given there only three desks and a lot of activity.



After 20 minutes wait, our turn. The agent confirmed our upgrade, and gave us a 2PM checkout, then quickly dispatched a bellman, who carried our bags all the way to our room.



Welcome drink. Iced homemade lemon and tamarind tea. Delicious and refreshing.



Our room, 1105, for next four nights. Conrad Bali have done a great job in renovating the rooms, very nice.
They even had bluetooth speakers, great for a little ambient music before sleep.



Bathroom. A slightly weird triangular shower room and a big tub.



Toto bidet, no electricity needed for this. @:-)



Looks like they're handing out tons of water. 6 bottles by default (2 in the bathroom), more by request. Nonetheless a very nice room.



Views from our room. Take a dip anyone?



Oh hey.



You're better off grabbing your Bintangs elsewhere.







Relaxed and unpacked, I then headed off to buy SIM card (since the previous one no longer works) and find some dinner off-site. Did a simple Google search, which said there's decent Indian food nearby. I'll be happy to take anything though.





Dinner place. Outdoor seemed to be the more popular choice tonight.



Some (free) pappadum to start. I wasn't expecting this, this was actually spicy.



Butter chicken. While oily, it was still good.



Lamb mince with peas, it was also good and packed with flavours, but again, oily.



Best served with some saffron rice. Overall a satisfying meal.



There's few wedding events here every night, I called the concierge one day, and they said this, "Infinite Chapel are fully booked until early November."
May John & Karen (as said on the board) live happily ever after.



I then took a swim in the lagoon, all the way across several blocks, before call it a night.



Next: Relaxing in Bali.

antebellum

Oh, what a beautiful day. I took a walk around the hotel's beautiful grounds (and facilities)







Some (late) sunrise from our hotel's beach.



Apparently there's three pools in Conrad. A main pool, a massive lagoon (which our room have direct access), and a suites guest only pool.



Wedding reception and planning room. It appeared to be locked (but not), I strolled in and had a sneak peek into it.
Wow. This room looked like living room of friend's house, there's a residential feel about it.





Wedding reception rooms, depends on your oneworld status. LOL.







I then went off to the gym for some morning exercise. This is certainly a decent-sized and well-equipped gym, and I never saw more than five people using it.



Nice tropical garden views. ^



Lagoon side "beach".
There's rarely more than handful of people in the lagoon, while the much smaller main pool are crowded, especially in the afternoon. I don't have any clues about that.





Mmm.







Oh, wake up to another amazing breakfast, with an impressive spread. I'll remember this one for a long, long time.
Staffs proactively offered cappuccinos every morning. They were great, even by Melbourne standards. I wasn't expecting that.





More sushis. Those were actually good.







Jamu, or Balinese wake-up shot, made out of ginger, turmeric, lemon, and others. Delicious, and quite healthy too.



On the other hand, these are not-so-healthy.



Indonesian sweets.











They had legitimate bacon, unlike the "beef bacon" in Jakarta.
I pointed out some mistake here, they labelled pork as "beef" (and the other way around for beef), but staffs were extremely apologetic and quickly fixed that.







Fried rice and rice noodles. Yum.



Another highlight is the live cooking station. They'll happy to make everything from noodles to waffles, pancakes or eggs.





Kitchen at work.



In addition to this massive spreads, there's even (paid) premium selections to indulge on. I'll pass that.



To be continued. Safe to say I'll definitely return to Conrad next time in Bali.

antebellum

After a filling breakfast, I decided to head out and explore. I got a bike from the spa for Rp 80k/2 hours. Should've gone for a motorbike, which is apparently cheaper.





Continuing with renovations. This is just the spa reception, and your massages will be in some beachside cabanas.



Infinity Chapel. How beautiful is that?





I went down the path, tried to take the bike all the way to Mulia and Hilton. However, the roads do get confusing as it gets closer to cliffside, and I was told off by security guy from St Regis, who said "this is a private beach for guests only", which is clearly not, given the sign they erected. Oh well.



I stopped at water blow at the tip of Nusa Dua, for a quick visit. However, no water was blowing.







Now, the (not so long) way back. My speed was pretty fast, despite few hurdles that separates hotel's beaches.
Okay. There's too many Marriott properties in Bali. I counted four in my bike path alone.







AFL Grand Final live in Westin Bali. What a concept. ^ I remembered watching Grand Final two years ago in the Victorian alps.





After the ride, I ordered a fresh coconut to drink. Boy, that was nice and refreshing after a ride.



It even completes with Conrad Bali logo! @:-). I returned every afternoon for something else to drink.
The setting and view is perfect as well.



I walked alongside the beach after dinner for some sea breeze and exercise. Looks like there's quite a bit of beachside party going on in Sofitel!

antebellum

Looks like Tanjung Benoa beach is very popular for water sports. I didn't dare to try jet ski, for that matter.





Instead of staying in hotel for another lady day, I decided to go to Ubud and rice fields for a tour of the inland Bali. My friend went together, and arranged a driver (who was super friendly, and sometimes actually bit hilarious) for 8 hours that took us to Ubud, and stopped at Jimbaran on the return for some seafood as dinner. Looks like Bali is giving a good run for Jakarta's money in terms of traffic. 60km equals to 2 hours worth of driving, seriously?



At least there was a tolled motorway for few kilometres.



First stop, Ubud Palace. It was a historical palace that belonged to Bali Kingdom, an independent Hindu kingdom that existed until early 1900s, when the Dutch established their administration over Bali.
Impressive Balinese structure. Personally loved it very much. ^










One of the gates, seemed like it was always closed.



This one looked like some temple or ceremonial grounds (if anyone know what is its true purpose, please feel free to correct me )



Another ornately-decorated gates, completed with mythical animal figures.





The outside. I then headed out to the market and bought a Bintang T-shirt as a Bali souvenir, for about A$6.



Next stop, rice fields, looks like Bali needs improvements to road infrastructures. 8km took us 30 minutes on the road.
Some rogue bus drivers deserves credit for slowing your journey. LOL.



On the way down. There was some random guards there who directed us to a ticket window and buy tickets. However, there was no gates or anything whatsoever to check the tickets across the road to the rice fields. Maybe that's how to buy tickets, or just some locals asking for money from visitors.



Inside the fields. Okay, this one seemed much more like a tourist attraction than a proper rice fields that grows rice. There's not just one, but two operators of giant swings.



But still, building tiered rice fields is a smart idea! @:-)





Some rice plantations.





Now on the even longer way back, because again, traffic. Before heading back to hotel, we stopped at Jimbaran and asked the driver for some recommendation on seafood places.
LOL on the name of this shop.





Again, there was a "security guy" who asked us for money when we left the car, crossed the road, and headed to the beach. I don't know if that is counted as parking fee or ticket. Either way, it sounds very dodgy to me.
Wow, that is a lot of people. I counted at least 300.



An Emirates 777 on AKL-DPS-DXB flight. I like a good fifth freedom flights, maybe one day I'll try that.



About 15 minutes later, the crowds began to leave the beach in droves (or rather, tourist buses).
Things got much quieter by then, beautiful sunsets and views for dinner.



We ordered a seafood sharing platter, which also included some rice and two bottles of Bintang. When in Rome...



Our sharing platter, with crab, few prawns, grilled local fish and clams. Sorry for the blurry pic.



With a side of calamari as well. It was an amazing meal. I have to say the driver really recommended a right place. Great setting, food, and hey, live entertainments to top it up.



After a great, albeit, short day of exploring Balinese culture in Ubud, and a great dinner by the beach, time to rest. I fiddled around with the channels on the remote and saw this ... Protesters blocking motorways in Jakarta, and even the Indonesian military got involved. Luckily I got out of there before some dramatic events! What I saw few days ago in Jakarta was the more peaceful stage though.

antebellum

I apologise for not finishing this post, but it's still good to pick up again and probably dreaming of going on another holiday again, given the pandemic.
Well, going to Bali means it's mostly relaxing and not much touring otherwise. Forward to fourth day, or the getaway day. Given the 2PM checkout and 10PM flight, the hotel gave us a room key to access the gym, should you need a shower before flight. Very nice.
Just another afternoon at Bali beaches. I definitely missed that.



After that, a ginger lemonade to cool down that afternoon heat, with a view.



BONUS: the bartender knew it was my getaway day, so after an hour relaxing by the lagoon, he generously prepared a surprise for me, strawberry lemonade, for free. Wow.



Preparing for another wedding parties. They must dealt with at least two of those every night, and a lot of Chinese tourists here too (because of they're celebrating the national day, which I almost forgot, but Trump did send a Tweet congratulating the 70th birthday of China. LOL. )





Temporary lobby waiting for checkout. Two counters means heaps of waiting time.



Then a 25 minute drive to airport. Despite local warnings forbidding Grab or Gojek (I learned that's merely a threat to protect local taxis), my driver showed up with zero problems.







Impressive Balinese-inspired decor. Unfortunately the terminal is just hot, way too hot.







Busy as usual Australia-bound check in. No Velocity status means I'm relegated to to regular Y lane, and absence of OLCI lanes. Handfuls of VA counters was dealing with 3 flights at same time (BNE/SYD/MEL) and few JQ pax who were rebooked on VA because their flight to MEL (a full 787) was CANCELLED for the night, the agents have zero clue how to rebook and check them in. What a zoo.



JQ cabin crews waiting for updates on their cancelled flight. One could imagine how long the delays were.



Facial recognition boarding pass check. Cool.





Another dreaded forced duty free before you reach the gates. I'll pass that.







Time to find the gate. Monitors swapped the gates few times, and finally there after half an hour of walk and search. Typical additional checks on LAGs heading to Australia means my jumbo tub of sunscreen need to be confiscated by DPS security.









Apparently gates were mixed here at DPS. This is clearly the domestic terminal on the right.



Traffic jam happens when you only use one door to board a full 737.





Good news, there's Gogo 2Ku wifi. The high speed wifi is legitimately fast, with no data caps. Indeed it's good for streaming, as what it says, despite tons of people logged into the wifi at same time.
It's leaps and bounds faster than OnAir on GA or SQ.



FA handing out our dinner. It's a chicken and quinoa salad or "beef rendang". Nope, it's not beef, this is chicken, and it tasted nothing like rendang (or even the rendang on GA CGK-DPS). Super salty as well. Yuck.
The chicken quinoa salad wasn't good either. Three thin slices of chicken on top of entire box of salad.



Just before landing, the PA said "looking for a doctor on board", as someone probably fainted in the front cabin.



Quarantine and Queensland Ambulance taking that patients off the place, which took 20 minutes.



Never ever seen this before. Nauru Airlines 737-300.
Apparently they only have 5 destinations (Brisbane, Kiribati, Nadi, Majuro and Honiara). Oh yeah, fly from Honolulu to Brisbane for 8 days on United Island Hopper and Nauru Airlines. too out of schedule for me.



On the other hand, every major Australian airports get to see this thing daily (before COVID-19)





Since our FA only loaded about 20 immigration cards, we have to get off the plane and fill our own. BNE is a total mess at this hour.





Forced duty free on arrival.



SmartGates are inundated with that much inbound pax. Although the lines are pretty civilised and it's done in 20 minutes.



Baggage claim. Again, full of people at this hour. They would randomly pick someone for secondary biosecurity. Another 30 minute wait just to get you're boarding pass checked with the border force.



Finally back in Australia. Now go to domestic connection check in, which is conveniently located in the arrival hall.





Short ride on the free shuttle bus.





BNE VA terminal.





Finding a bite to eat. Although nothing appealed to me, no thanks.



Theres better ways to spend your bitcoins than this. LOL.



Now onboard the second flight to MEL. This one was full again, but pretty uneventful, although no wifi, IFE streaming worked perfectly.



Rear door boarding if your seats are at the rear half of the plane.





Finally home, to MEL.





Thanks for following this report. Again, I apologise for writing the report 7 months later than usual. The coronavirus situation is just terrible, and hopefully once the lockdowns are over, we'll be back to skies again and travel to more new places.

lamphs

Thanks for completing it. An enjoyable read!

Redmax

Thanks for sharing!. Great report. I was planning to see CGK but after all the traffic. Will definitely go straight to Bali and relax more.

zip10001

Great report which brings back fond memories of my 2 stays in Bali, especially grilled fish by the beach