Landed in Bali at 6.30pm and I got conned 5 minutes later... Great way to start the holiday huh? How I got conned? Well I bought the coupon for taxi and these 2 guys started pulling our bags towards the parking area.. got a worried a bit as we followed until we spotted a slew of taxis and we were relieved but after the bags got loaded in the trunk, the 2 guys who pulled our bags asked us for a tip... TIP!!! for pulling my bag 20 meters. I could do that myself thank you... Isk!! I felt so conned... but I relented and gave the fella Rp5000 and guess what... He looked at me and said "This is half dollar" and I just said "and?" and dismissed him... Jeez... even I don't earn half a dollar pulling a bag for 20 meters... Jeez... It is still RM1.75!!! I blame all those Gwailou tourist who goes around saying "Cheap cheap"!
Anyway... we checked into our hotel called the J Boutique Hotel in Kuta which was surprisingly quite nice..small and basic but quite nice... not extremely cheap though since we paid USD70 per room.
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| Quite nice right? All black and white and I love the tattoo design you find all over the hotel walls... |
Then we walked down the street for dinner... Ordered some Indonesian fair to start the night off... Had some otak-otak, fried calamari, grilled chicken, and eggplant balado.
We walked a long long way from our hotel to Kuta Square (about 1.5km away) just to find a Hard Rock shop and bought a t-shirt for Ai May... Ai Li was swearing at me by the time we were back at our hotel.. She was at the verge of being like the Donkey in Shrek.. "are we there yet?" hehe!
Next day and we are off to Ubud... but we took a day tour of Arts and Volcano... We start driving through the arts town; Celuk of Bali where artisans specialising is batik, silver smithing, gold smithing, wood carving, stone carving, kite making and all sort of other traditional crafts were located... We made a few stops but the one that I was most impressed with was the silver smithing.... maybe coz I have a soft spot for accessories... the intricate works really called towards me and my wallet... haha!
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| From pure silver ingots, they add copper to it for strengthening then form them into wires and then into little silver balls/beads |
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| Forming the wires for intricate designs... |
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| A combination of wire works and beads attachment forms this brooch design. |
We then went on up to Kintamani to have lunch while overlooking Mount Batur which is still a live volcano... There is an alternate tour to hike up the mountain but Ai Li refused so Ai Chin no go... :( Next time la... Cross fingers... :)
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| Food was buffet and not great... the only reason please come here to eat is for the view below... |
The view is quite breathtaking if you are lucky... If not then it will be covered by clouds.... There is a small village situated at the other side of the lake at the base of the volcano. It is said that this village's main profession is to beg... They are a village of beggars but what is more interesting than that is how they bury their dead... They dont... they just leave the bodies of the dead on the ground. There is some kind of ointment of sorts which is used to eradicate the stench which comes with a rotting corpse.. interesting huh?
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| A panoramic view of the Volcano and a lake below it to the right |
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| Just the volcano is full view... |
After lunch we stopped by a local farm which grows coffee/cocoa and vanilla... they also have the all famous luak coffee which are coffee beans eaten/digested by civet cats which are then pooped out again.. and we humans roast those beans and make coffee out of it... We are such creative human beings huh? Uuurgghhh... I could not bring myself to even try it...
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| Cocoa fruits |
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| Coffee beans |
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| This was an interesting finding... I didnt know this was how vanilla looked like... I only ever saw the shriveled dried ones.. |
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| Ai Chin the coffee roaster... =D |
We then headed towards 2 temples... Pura Tirtha Empul and Goa Gajah....
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| One of the doorway into Pura Tirtha Empul |
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| Holy water... Locals pray and take bath here to cleanse themselves... |
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| Me in my sarong |
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| Goa Gajah |
We are done for the day now... we head on to our hotel in Ubud... Alam Jiwa... This is my favourite hotel through my whole stay here... the service was fantastic.. they greeted you every time they see you coming and going... they served breakfast and tea directly to the room.. the room was rustic but comfortable... They have a shuttle service to Ubud town that will send and pick you up when you call for them..It only serves the 10 rooms in Alam Jiwa and do not run on a schedule... It's as and when you want it... Fantastic isn't it? I highly recommend this hotel...
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| Entrance to the room... it was lock with just a padlock.. no such thing as key card... |
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| Stairways leading to the room |
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| The room had 2 queen size beds.. Nice!! |
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| Fancy soaking in the tub while overlooking the paddy field? Couldn't find the drain plug though... :( |
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| Garden View from the balcony |
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| Paddy Field view from the balcony..we had the lower floor so the paddy field isn't so visible. |
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| The pool |
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| Breakfast in bed (or on balcony) |
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| Sumptuous breakfast. |
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My favourite breakfast.. It's a really nice toasted sandwich with egg, tomatoes, avocado and cheese. |
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| Grounds around the hotel/resort |
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| More grounds... |
Next day it was just us walking around Ubud town... trying out the infamous Babi Guling at a stall called Warung Ibu Oka which is supposed to be the most famous shop in Ubud serving this dish... It isn't exactly my favourite dish... just found it a tad to porky but it was something worth trying I suppose just for the novelty of it...
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| The Babi Guling set |
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| It comes with pork meat, crispy pork skin, some stuffed intestines, some fried dunnowhat and vege.. |
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| Do I look like I am enjoying the meal? Good acting huh? haha! |
In the evening we attended a cooking lesson to learn some recipes for authentic Balinese food...
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| Ingredients... |
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| Spices... |
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| How I wish my kitchen looks like this.... |
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| Ai Chin the Chef? I am so pretending.. I was even slower at prep work than the guy who attended the class.. :( |
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| Our meal completed.. Yes we did prepare this meal.. Didn't do the actual cooking except some frying but we did all the prep work. |
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| Grilled Chicken Salad |
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| Prawn Cakes |
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| Fried Chicken with Sambal Galado |
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| Stir Fried watercress |
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| Steam/boiled banana |
That ends day 3 of our trip... Now day 4 proves to be an extremely tiring day... Guess what we did? We went cycling!!! Yeaps.. cyling through the hills of the Jatiluwih rice terraces... just like in the movies... =) This is after all a Unesco appointed heritage site.. the view was breathtaking and spectacular but the journey was hell... :( So many uphills that I gave up at the last stretch... just the last 1.5km but it was a bad 1.5km...all uphill without a single stretch of flat land to recuperate... my thighs were so aching...
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| All set to go!! |
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| It's just me, my bike and the hills... |
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| Ai Li gave up on the uphill ride... and after 1/3 of the way she totally gave up and climbed onto the van... |
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| Miles and miles of rice terraces... |
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| Peek-a-boo!! |
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| Panoramic view |
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| Taking a break for some chilled watermelon... So refreshing... |
Lunch was again a lousy buffet... so nothing to show... but for dinner we went to the infamous Dirty Duck to try out the Bebek Bengil... (Elaine's recommendation). Well, I found it to be so so... the little hairs stuck at the pores kinda put me off and the meat was a tad dry but it still had good seasoning and flavours...
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| Bebek Bengil |
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| Fried calamari |
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| Steam fish wrapped in Banana leaf.. (not so great either) |
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| Black Russian dessert.. It has Kahlua and some other liquer... strong.. powderful!! haha! |
That wraps up day 4... Think this posting is long enough... Shall end this as Part 1... watch out for Part 2 for the rest of my trip's details... =)
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