A wedding in Bali? What a fabulous idea... especially if you live in Australia, since everything is so expensive over there!... and if you happen to surf, then it's a real bonus too! Luckily we only had a 2 hour flight to contend with, unlike family members who were brave enough to fly from England with a 7 month old and a 3 year old!! So we all gathered from far and wide to celebrate the marriage of Ken's daughter Cheryl, to Ben.
Since some of our family were not staying where we were we'd hired a car for the duration of our stay as this is by far the easiest way for four people to get around. It can be pretty manic on the roads, but if you drive like they do then you're doing well! It was such a treat being able to spend quality time with family we'd not seen in years.
We stayed at Temple Lodge 3 nights... the accommodation is very different as in pretty rustic. We stayed in the Coral Cave - and it's literally a cave on a cliff top. There is no front door. Or windows for that matter. Just blinds that roll down (not even all the way!). Naturally there are monkeys that wander back and forth through the foliage along the cliff... and yes, they are a slight problem in the resorts. In hindsight, had I known our room had no front door I would certainly not have booked it. The accommodation is not cheap and I was slightly peeved that management had not bothered to even put latches and padlocks on any of the cupboard doors - which meant that absolutely everything had to be packed away in our bags (locked with our own padlocks) all the time. Very very frustrating. There was only one biggish kist that was safe enough to put things into since the monkeys were not strong enough to lift the lid!! We had only one incident. We'd been in the car all morning - hot and bothered - came back at 2pm, just wanted to get into the pool and cool off, forgetting to lock our one bag (which contained 3 sachet drinks of Capri Sonne)... to cut a long story short they'd come in, opened the bag - drank one of the drinks, then decided they didn't want the other 2, so they proceeded to squeeze them out on the bed (!!) - I had a few sachets of brown sugar which they also emptied out onto the bed... the dress I was going to wear was on the floor, they'd tried to get into my matching clutch bag, thank goodness they did not get hold of my Rooibos tea!.... ugh! it was just a mess!! Since they're opportunists, we think that they just happened to mosey on by and thought they'd take a look in the "cave". Well, I never forgot to lock the bag again!
2 weeks before our incident Cheryl and Ben (who were also staying at a cliff-side room) also had monkey-trouble... but far worse than our incident! They had an outdoor shower - there's a small cupboard with only a lock in the middle (management had not bothered to replace the others that broke)... anyway, these little buggers are so clever they pulled the bottom edge of the door open whilst others stuck their little hands in and just grabbed whatever they could lay their hands on: Ben's electric razor (can you just imagine them playing with that!! the thought of it is just hysterical!), all their vitamins were scattered everywhere, Cheryl's fancy face cream was squirted everywhere, listerine gone, facewash gone, deodorant gone... what a nightmare!!!
So after all that excitement we had even more to look forward to, but on a different note.... we were going to be staying at Khayangan Estate. This estate only sleeps 12 and is like 10 star accommodation - our rooms were jaw-droppingly awesome - like I could just move in and never go home awesome!! As far as a wedding venue goes it was stunning, Chimene, the (ex South African!) wedding planner did an amazing job and far exceeded Cheryl and Ben's expectations. We all looked awesome (if I must say so myself!!)... and Cheryl was just THE most stunning bride.
Cheryl and Ken walked down the aisle to "shosholoza" which for me, being a South African just makes the hair stand up on my arms!! It's just so African - I love it! The wedding service was performed by their good friend Marcus. And the reception was just fantastic - incredible food and incredible company. It was a brilliant wedding, an equally brilliant holiday from our holiday.... and a good time was certainly had by all!