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Day Five - Just Chillin', Snoozing, and Money Stuff

I'm awoken from an extremely deep sleep to our breakfast arriving. We celebrate our first full day here with continental breakfasts in our room, thankful that the gnawing creature from above didn't find his way through to us.

We spend a first couple of hours by the pool, relaxing and reading. It's sunny with a slight haze and not too searingly hot at all - certainly not compared with the dangerous sun of Barbados, where I still managed to get burnt the previous year on the penultimate day of our two week break.

Late afternoon we wander back to the Galleria to change some money and inspect the shops properly. There have been some substantial changes since last we were here two years ago. The Galleria has now developed fully and has non of the empty sites we saw before. It's good to see this and feel that the area is blossoming. Around 25 years ago, Nusa Dua was considered to be one of the poorest regions on the island - now one of the richest thanks to the international hotels.

The increased business here causes a long wait at the moneychanger of about twenty minutes, whereas before I would have been served promptly. It's funny to look at the rates, and work out in my head the differences. Had we have changed all of our sterling in Singapore to Singapore Dollars, I could change them here to Rupiahs at the rate of about 14,000RP to £1. £1 sterling however is only worth 12,000RP - that's a sixth extra we could have got. But hey, if you don't know this... And anyway, don't forget; the value of money may fall as well as rise.

The second major difference is the price increases here. As a rule of thumb, many prices have doubled in less than 24 months. It's not that the economy is stronger, just that the prices have gone up. Where one a pack of local cigarettes would have cost 7p, they're now 30p. Our money isn't going to stretch so far, and we're certainly not as rich (relatively speaking) as before. Whether this is unique here in Nusa Dua, it's impossible to tell yet, and I'm interested to see what it's going to be like outside and around the rest of the island. We're both already a little restless and keen to see outside and decide tomorrow afternoon to take a trip to the mental town of Kuta...

After yet another late snooze, we didn't get back to the Galleria until 10pm to eat to find most restaurants shutting. We race around to find one serving still and enjoy an excellent meal before going back to the hotel for cocktails (and one too many at that). We really need to get our body clocks sorted to Bali time so that we function better early in the morning (no mean feat at home at the best of times, let alone on holiday).