Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Things to look forward to in Bali

It was a well worth holiday after all, am back with 1000+ photos, fond memories, a lousy sun tan (which is more like sunburn), braided hair (nope, am back to the long straight hair), and souvenirs hehe. Bali was amazingly beautiful, and has so much to offer, no wonder so many people get married/honeymoon there.







1. Nick's Pension
A quaint little chalet we stayed in when we were in Ubud. Bali is famous for it's carving industry, and you can see tons of statues like these everywhere in Bali. And I notice they tend to pop in a fresh flower on all the stone carvings. And the room at the back of the statue is our room, overlooking paddy fields which is oh-so-pleasant, and definitely reasonably priced.





2. Wood carving
A major population of balinese are trained to be skilled in carvings. People there are so skilled they can just carve the wood just like that!! I was very impressed with the houses there, all so well built, unique in it's very own way.

4. Fres Tea!
(: My favourite. I drank those like thirsty fishes all through the trip till my dad ban me from it, quoting I will get diabetes if I kept on drinking it. So sad ok, because it was so thirst quenching, and travelling around can get you to sweat a lot. I kept one bottle and it's back here in my room, for memories sake. (;



5. Sukawati Art Market
If you're a fan of art, you will definitely want to check out the Sukawati art market. Wide arrays of art works, of any kind can be found there at a very good price (yes you got to bargain to at least half the price if you're a foreigner). They have clothes (mostly homogeneous though), slippers, paintings, wood carving and all sorts of things. Cheap, yes, very.


6. Jatiluwih
It was heavy ok! (: Paddy ready to de-husk to become rice. And boy, Jatiluwih has one of the most amazing sight of landscape, a whole mountain terrain-ed nicely to grow paddy. Yes, I could tell that Balinese are hundred percent more hardworking than Malaysians, making use of every land possible.






7. Botanical Gardens
Only paying a small fee for entrance, you get to breath fresh cool air and gaze at their very well maintained huge garden. Flowers of all kinds grow in abundance in there, very pleasing to the eyes. Spotted many locals having their picnics over there, heh, and the food was so tempting okay.







7. Kuta Beach
It's where you get those beautiful sunset views, and also try out surfing! (: Initially I was rather reluctant to try it out, but hey ho, we were bombarded by more than ten people trying to teach us surfing for a small fee, so why not eh? Swallowing gazillion billion sea water, having my knee bruised because of the wrong technique, and falling of on my butt and numerous attempts, I'm proud to say I managed to stand for quite a few seconds on the surf board in a mere one hour's time. It really wasn't that hard after all, the harder part was the balancing actually.

Eye candies were everywhere! Hot topless surfer dudes, carrying their surf board everywhere they go, drools*. Bad thing is I went during Indon's school holiday and the beach was so packed that every photo I take has at least ten heads in it. The above sunset photo is prooof. So potong in a way.







8. Para-sailing!!!
Whoop-dee-doo! Absolutely loved it to bits. I will definitely be doing it again when I get the chance to, the feeling of soaring high overlooking the small details on earth is such a mind blowing experience, okay, maybe I'm exaggerating it a little, but these are things you must do before you die.





9. Foooood!
Muuust try the pork spare ribs at Naughty Nuri's Warung, Ubud!!! BEST ever, gosh, I'm hungry now thinking about it, I didn't have my dinner ): And Babi Guling is one of the famous Balinese food, where they roast the pork skin to perfection. Urgh, not really my type of taste bud though. Looook! They even have starbucks in bottle form, I was pretty much tempted to buy one to keep, but I'd prefer freshly whipped up ones.


10. Trinklets
From belts, to beads, to bracelets, keychains, necklace... and the list goes on and on, you can get them all at markets anywhere, and they go for very good price when you bargain. (: I know, so tempting to just get the whole bunch of it.



11. Culture dances
Balinese people are rather steep in their believe, and they practise lots of traditions. Managed to catch the Badong and Kris dance, which is a battle between good and evil. Got to give credits to their effort taken to make those costumes, and I'm surprise to find myself in tune with Balinese music.


Diving, for beginners without experience, it was good. (:




12. Nusa Dua
Is where all the water sports take place, as Kuta Beach's wave is way too strong for these activities. Banana boat, parasail, jet ski, diving.. oh yes, we were on a roll man, SO FUN! I lovelovelove water sports! Oh, and we ticked off white water rafting off our list too!


13. Jimbaran Bay
Seafood on the beach itself. It was very romantic actually, but then with family no romance hahaha. Candlelight dinner, with flowers, cooling sea breeze, sound of the wave, and musicians going from table to table to perform, very very very nice place to be at. I already mark it down as places to visit with the significant other in future. Hehehe.



14. Roxy, Billabong Factory Outlet
All branded surf brand items are very reasonably priced there in the factory outlet! (: It's not dirt cheap, but given a very good discount for last season items. Too bad I didn't have much time over there, so I didn't get to buy bags and bags of stuff. Not sure whereabouts? Just hop on to one of those taxis and they will gladly send you there.



15. Mt. Kintamani, Lake Batur and Uluwatu
I supposed you can possibly read all this up in Bali websites. Mt. Kintamani is one of the active volcano around in Bali, and we got the perfect view from Mt. Batur, which has a very pretty sight of the volcano overlooking Lake Batur, with absolutely chilled weather that makes me shiver up my spine. The best place to be at to watch sunset would be Uluwatu, where you can get the best view ever. We missed the sunset by minutes when we reach, which was a big waste, sigh. ):



My hunger pangs are getting onto me. Am too lazy to get down and whipped up maggi, so I shall go read on bed, and sleep away my hunger. Hurrah to me for waking up early this morning to jog, which can be added to accomplishments in life. ( I know, jia and ziyan are so proud of me) Too bad my efforts pretty much went down the drain when we gobbled up our delicious brownie after jogging, how can.