Most of this trips I've had terrible sleep, I just keep waking up & have trouble falling back asleep. So last night I took a phenergan (normally taken for allergies) but they do help knock you out so to speak. I woke once last night and slept in until 7am.

This morning on the way to breakfast, Roomie & I grabbed a pool towel and put it on a sun lounge (now I'll be the first to say, I hate it when people do this & the Puri Raja has a 2 hour 'towel on sun lounge policy' - what a great idea!). However, we were already dressed for the pool – swimwear & beachcovers – and had planned to relax by the pool straight after brekky.

This morning I had a fruit platter & bali kopi to start, then mie goreng & a watermelon & pineapple juice. I love the way they put some lime on the plate with the fruit platter – the fruit tastes so nice with a squeeze of lime!  I also love the little dish of kecap manis with fresh chilli that comes with the mie goreng.  That reminds me of a challenge I set myself last year.....The Chilli Challenge!

The Chilli Challenge was set after my first breakfast when I asked the waiter for kecap manis (sweet soy) and chilli sauce - to have on my mie goreng.  He brought out a small jug of the soy with heaps of fresh sliced chilli - seeds and all.  I thought 'wonder what would happen if I ate all this chilli'?  Anyway, I ate it all and waited until the next morning.... nothing happened.  

So I thought 'I wonder what would happen if I ate chilli with EVERY meal'...... (By now you all probably think I'm a nutter)..... So I did for 5 days and STILL nothing unusual happened.  Then on day 6, something DID happen..... & it almost happened  somewhere that had no toilet paper (some of you might remember my blog about trying to find the toilet in Hardy's & getting locked in!)  Anyway, in the end, I worked out it wasn't the chilli because my hubby got it too & he didn't even do the Chilli Challenge!

 

Yummm... Mie Goreng... I could eat it for breakfast, lunch AND dinner!

While at breakfast we catch up with our families via Viber, then head for the pool. There's already a few other lounges with towels, but nobody else is around. We love this time of the morning at the pool closest to the beach – but come later it tends to get too crowded.

Roomie goes for a swim while I relax

 

Restaurant where we have breakfast in the background

 

We laze by the pool for a while, jumping in for a swim when we gets too hot. Roomie has a pedicure, the lady does it for her while she's sitting on her sun lounge (it's the 2^nd one she's ever had in her life – the 1^st was also in Bali a few years ago). We read our books for a while then a few of the other girls stop by. They are keen to do a bit of shopping and I mention a place I'd like to check out called Krisna.

Girls all ready for another big day of shopping!

We get changed and jump in a taxi heading over to Krisna Bali Craft Centre on Sunset Road in Kuta. It has gifts, clothing, homewares & some food. We all grab some good bargains. This place is really cheap – one of the shell mobiles I bought was 20K and it was 40K at Miss Debbie's fixed price shop. I also bought some cotton dresses for around $5 and some little girls dresses for $1.80! Only downside is there are no change rooms.

When we'd finished we decided to cross busy Sunset Road to the other side to wait for a taxi. We stood there for about 10 mins. Every taxi going past already had people in it. Just typical when you have your bags full of shopping! So we started walking, we got as far as the next intersection when one finally came along.

Next stop was the Rip Curl outlet. We'd seen a huge sign advertising a massive sale. From past experiences, I've never found much from these outlet stores, but today would prove different. I bought 5 tees which I love, priced from 100K – 140K. Also a beach bag 50K, cap 25K, tights 100K and tee for my son 110K.

I will do a separate shopping blog with photos of all my purchases later.

By now we'd had enough so we taxi back to the hotel.  Roomie's friends from Sydney, who are staying in the Pullman have organised a visit to an orphanage. They pick up Roomie then head for the Bintang supermarket & pick up some big bags of rice and some toys for the children. Upon arrival at the orphanage they talk to one of the nuns & were very impressed how well looked after the children were. They didn't even need the toys as they had too many already. The nun said their toys would be sent to another orphanage in Java.

The children having afternoon tea

The other 2 girls & I head off for lunch at Hitana.  I ordered a caesar salad with chicken which was really nice and the girls both ordered tempura vegetables.  We washed it down with some large Bintangs.

 

 

After our lunch we head back to the room & change ready for the pool. We meet up with 3 of the other girls who have just come back from a day trip to Ubud.  

The sun would be setting soon, so I decided to watch the sunset from the hotel restaurant.  Roomie came back from the orphanage & filled me in about her afternoon there.

Sunset at Puri Raja

 

We head back to the room to get ready for dinner. Tonight the girls didn't feel like going too far, so we dined at Hitana. I know it probably sounds crazy having lunch then dinner at the same restaurant, but this place is such good value. The food & service had been consistently good and the prices more than reasonable.  For dinner tonight I had the ribs - they were so tender the meat just fell off the bone.

At dinner I receive a text from some friends back home, they arrived yesterday & were keen to catch up for a drink.  I suggested we meet them after dinner at the SOS Supper Club. 

In the meantime, the 2 Sydney girls had dinner at Mama San, they said it was really good - it's another restaurant on my list and I just hope we make it there.  They also send a text & we agree to also meet them at the SOS.

We finish dinner and there's 3 of us walking up the beach path to meet the others for a drink.  When we arrive the place is dead - I feel a bit silly organising to meet the others there and there's not even any live music tonight.  Not too worry, we have a few drinks and it was nice to catch up.  We told them about Mixwell, which is just up the road.... I was almost keen to go again, but Roomie talked me out of it - thank god, it would of been another huge night!  Don't know what happened to the Sydney girls - they were due to fly out at 2am tonight - we didn't end meeting them at SOS, but we did receive a call to say goodbyes.

It was time to head back.  Roomie & I had hopped on the back of moped together with a driver a few nights ago, & our other friend was keen to try it out.  So we negotiated a price with 2 drivers and off we went, zipping through the streets towards our hotel.  We could hear our friend squealing with delight on the back of the moped.  

Arriving back at the hotel, we called it a night & headed of to bed.....