The OzMcPs: Lenka, Lisa and the kids in Bali

I always feel like a bit of sun at this time of year to warm the bones and Jules always needs to work, as does Craig, so Lisa and I decided to take the kids to Bali for a week of sun. We stayed in an amazing villa in Seminyak, an easy walk from the main strip and lots of great restaurants. This is important because you do not want to get in a car in Bali. Not only is the safety highly questionable but the traffic is so abominable that it is almost always quicker to walk.

Still trying to master the "selfie"

The central living area of our villa overlooking pool 1

Pool 2 at our villa

We arrived very late on Sunday morning so planned a day of finding our bearings and relaxing on Monday which involved spending a lot of time at a nearby spa getting feet nibbled by fish, manicures, pedicures and hair braided.

Fletcher, Tom, Hunter

Having a fish foot spa

Tuesday was our big day where we set off early to visit an elephant sanctuary which took us 3 hours (!!!) to get to rather than the 1.5 hours promised. Luckily it was amazing once there and we were able to ride the elephants in their little lake, see a 21 day old elephant and wash an elephant who was 18 months pregnant - we could see the calf moving inside her tummy - amazing! We then headed to a monkey forest stopping via some rice paddies where the kids had a go on a giant swing. The monkey forest was nice and quiet and we were pretty much the only ones there. If there are 7 people visiting a monkey forest, and one of those 7 is Tom, who's going to get peed on by a monkey? Seriously I couldn't make this stuff up!

Darcy and Tom

More grimace than grin?

Tess and Fletcher

I love this excerpt from Darcy's scrapbook!

A giant swing - attached to 2 palm trees with fraying ropes. OH&S is not a top priority in Bali.

This is not the offending monkey

Wednesday was another recovery day after our sightseeing the day before so we headed back to the spa for more treatments followed by a spot of shopping. Tess has her first formal coming up in September and I decided it would be fun to take her to a "Blow Bar" to get her hair blow dried in a curly style to see if she likes it. The idea is you have cocktails whilst you get your hair done - very civilised. Tess loved her curls!

Before with her mocktail

After!

Ready for dinner

Bali has one of the largest water parks in the Southern Hemisphere which was our destination for Thursday. I had booked in advance to ensure that we had a cabana that Lisa and I could relax in whilst the kids went on all the scary rides. We had an extremely odd experience where we noticed a middle eastern family scoping out our cabana and the ones nearby. The family consisted of mum, dad and 5 kids including a very young one who was asleep on dad's shoulder. After about 5 mins of the family wandering around they came up to Lisa and me and asked, in fairly broken English, if they could leave the sleeping child with us in our cabana. We were so shocked that parents would leave their youngest child with complete strangers (although as they had 5 perhaps they had decided they wouldn't miss one!) that we stared at them for a few minutes with our mouths open. They clearly meant it, "you're mothers too" the mother said to us by way of explanation! They said they would go on 1 ride and then return. Lisa promptly named the child Jeremy, we covered him with a towel and kept our fingers crossed that he wouldn't wake up. 45 minutes later the parents still had not returned and Lisa and I were beginning to wonder what we were going to do with this additional child! We eventually managed to track them down and insisted that they needed to remove their child because we were leaving the cabana unattended. We were clearly more concerned for the child's welfare than they were!

Lisa and I in our cabana at the water park

"Jeremy"

Tom surfing the wave machine

I decided that we needed to try and understand a bit of Balinese culture so organised for a driver to take us to a royal temple on Friday. We saw a very different side to Bali and the temple grounds were very peaceful. As a sweetener for the children we then headed to a Beach Club. These are every where in Bali and are a bit like hotels without the hotel bit. They have lots of swimming pools, lounges, bars, music and dance floors and are where people go and spend the day drinking and swimming in "style". Our style was a little cramped by our 5 children - we hadn't realised Beach Clubs were quite so adult focused - so we stayed for lunch and then headed home.

At the beach club

There is amazing wall art everywhere

"Disco chickens" for sale at a market. They are coloured like this to amuse the children.

We only saw a very small part of Bali and Seminyak is known for being extremely busy. My overriding impression is that people go there to shop and eat with a bit of pool side relaxation thrown in. We certainly ate at some incredible restaurants for very reasonable prices and Lisa and I attempted a bit of shopping but bartering skills are essential and sadly not something Lisa or I possess. The kids had a ball. They are always happy when the 5 of them are together which made life easy for me and Lisa.