July 2011

Hi all,

Well Teo was not too well last night and he has a tummy bug ... not too bad though as he is now happy as Larry in the pool having a swim ... on bread and rice for the day which I will tell you is not that difficult here as we have rice every day anyways!...

We think it was the water as he has been drinking a lot of the pool water inadvertently as well as drinking the tap water while brushing his teeth instead of the bottled water...

He knows now so we should be fine...

Hi all,

What can I say ... I must have been struck by lighting or something ... but I have decided to rent a car for 4 weeks so that it gives me more flexibility...

At present to go anywhere a little far I need to get in the street and bargain for 10 to 15 minutes to find a driver .. with the kids in tow and let me tell you that I don't finish hearing the end of it for hours on end ... which to be fair I can understand...

So I thought about hiring a chauffeur with a car for 4 weeks to take us wherever we want to go ... but then the price is crazy ... so then I thought I got an international driving licence so I might as well use it!!!

I am kind of apprehensive and excited at the same time ... apprehensive as there are mopeds with kids, adults, logs and all sorts everywhere cutting you off and doing all sorts of interesting driving!!!

But I am also excited at the idea that if I want to go and see the sunset somewhere I can just go on the spur of the moment .. it will also be easier to follow Isabelle and Xavier around when they arrive and it will make it more possible to meet for dinner and all the excursions... I also really want to see the little villages inside the land so it will be easier to just go and drive...

I will take a picture of the car when I get it and show you the before ... we'll see for the after!!!

Another interesting fact is that the cost is dead cheap .. a month for 300USD about £180.... and excess of only 100USD and all cash in hand so no CC in case of trouble ..

The website I used was balicarrentalonline.com

See you later..

[img=https://photos.travellerspoint.com/397154/SAM_0011.jpg

HI there at last in a nice hotel with pool, AC, great hosts (some guys from Australia who have moved here 5 years ago with their daughter)...
The beach here is not great for snorkelling as there are not that many fishes but at low tide there are lots to see .. we saw star fishes, sea cucumber, bernard lermite and lots of snails ... fun to play and safe ...
Market is cool and everything is real cheap so I might get something else than a white skirt to travel in!!!!
Some pictures of pool and stuff...
Trying to sort out getting to the North shore to do some scuba and snorkel with kids... speak soon ...

Hi there all,

We have just had the longest journey we could think off before reaching our first stop over Bali!

We left Heathrow in the UK at 21:00 on Monday 25th July....

Arrived in Mumbai after 9 hours flight...

Slept in the airport for 12 hours as there is not that much to do there !!!

Then we took a 5 hours flight to Singapore....

Where we spent another 5 hours having breakfast and then when it came to board the plane they did not have our booking .. showed the itinerary from Round the world expert and they still did not have our details so we just had to pay another 780 singapore dollars to get to Bali..

Once in Bali I thought we would walk through the gate with no problems so we queued with our 60 days visas in our passports thinking we would get through quickly...

But hey ... we had an issue with our Visa as they issued me with a visa on date of request which means that it had expired on 30th June... crazy I did not even check!!!! oh well will learn from now on .... better check the one for Nepal then...

So we had to queue again and get a new one and then queue again to get through customs!!!!!

We thought we would never get there!

This photo show Teo and Hayden in the Singapore to Bali flight... they had enough!!

Kids were great and we had a few games of Cluedo, Connect 4 (thanks Karen) and cards...

Take care next entry will be about the 1st hotel in Bali in Sanur...

Well, I think I have been planning this for the past 8 months and there are a lot of things to think about if you have kids who are in school, are working, have a house !!!

Jabs...
We have had to do a few jabs, Typhoid (that was an horrible one and the kids were in tears on the floor and I was a little sour myself if I can say so... so just bear that in mind when getting jabs done ... might be better to do that one last!!!), Hepatitis A & B (there is a combined one that exist which is better ... this one you need 3 jabs), Yellow fever (another 3 jabs), Rabies (another 3 jabs)...
We have not taken Anti Malarian tablets yet but will be buying Malarone as it is the only one you take less of.... however it is the most expensive one... Some of the other tablets cannot be taken by kids either....

House admin...
Watch out for insurance, mortgage, council tax, phone, TV licence, post .... lots of things to organise before going... also if you are intending to rent you house better to take an agency to manage it whilst you are away to avoid to have to deal with broken dish washers when you are at the top of Kilimanjaro!!!

Travel Itinerary...
Well there again you need to consider weather ... we chose to follow the good weather as we do not want to carry winter, autumn, summer and spring gear altogether!!!
But you also need to think that the cheaper tickets are for round the world tickets and you cannot go back on yourself...so for instance I wanted to go to Nepal after Bali so I could not take round the world ticket...
You can save a lot by buying a year in advance.... they will reserve the travel and then confirm at a later stage the exact date of departure....
Check the Itinerary before buying .. I had a nasty experience with round the worldl experts who claimed to give me a good deal but then I have to do 2 stop overs 1 of 15 hours in Mumbai and one in Dehli for 5 hours... even though the guy knew that I was on my own with my kids....

Packing....
I have bought the kids some wheeled luggage of 30 litres so small enough for them to carry and then a day rucksack.
I have taken for me a 65 litres rucksack and an additional one of 20 litres that can zip on it... either at the back or at the front .. handy when you need to also carry kids stuff!!
The packing needs to be light ... we went with enough for a week and we will just buy there ...
Another great idea is compression bags that do not require a hoover to pack... they can gain lots of space!

First aid ....
With kids you need even more gear than if you ever can think of.... headache, cut, bruises, vomiting, travel sickness, mosquito stuff,... so much so that my 65 litres rucksack is half loaded with mosquito nets and first aid kit!!!!