2009-08-23 Kuta

After breakfast, we took a cab to Discovery Shopping Mall. This plaza is about half the size of previous Gurney Plaza (If you do not stay in Penang, probably do not know that Gurney Plaza was extended). It is around 3 to 4 level. It is new, chair is provided for the public (This is very important especially when we travel with seniors :) ), with clean restroom, water dispenser and paper cup was provided outside of the restroom, so nice :D

I bought a pair of New Balance jogging shoe at RM 72 :p It is stated at the box that the sport shoe is for Indonesia market distribution only.

I am also happy to see WWF counter there also :) To support green effort, I bought a t-shirt from them. 20% of the price will goes to WWF fund.

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After that, we walked to Hard Rock Hotel for lunch. Of course, at Bali, we will try to walk at the beach if possible :)


A lot of people with surf board to start their exciting game.


Quick glance on the street. Now you see the road condition, when there is more car or more people, it will move very slowly :)

We reached Hard Rock Mega store before the cafe. I am surprised the merchandise is quite costly. A normal t-shirt is around RM 90+. *whew* Luckily I am not a fan of Hard Rock t-shirt. Anyway, just to share with you, there is another smaller Hard Rock merchandise shop just behind the mega store, you may take a look first before buying any from the mega store. There seems to have more design, and slightly cheaper.

Here is the Hainanese Chicken Rice we ordered in Hard Rock Cafe. We also ordered other food e.g. BBQ rib, but I think this Hainanese Chicken Rice is special to share :)


The rice is fragrant. NC said it is not as tasty as 8 years ago.

After lunch, we walked to the beach in front of the hotel. Look at the surfer enjoying their moment, and we also enjoy the breeze and environment :)


After that, we got a taxi to go back to hotel. It is one way road at that area, but still traffic is moving very slowly. If you know the direction, I would suggest to walk to somewhere two way road near Matahari Square, it is not too far, smoother traffic.

After that, we took a cab to Geneva, a handicraft center. It is around 15-30 min drive from Kuta, depending on the traffic. It costs around IDR 30K+ to reach there.

I bought most of the souvenir here at Geneva. The good thing is there are lot of choices, I don't have to bargain hard on the price :) If you are looking for home deco item, can consider to come here too.



By the way, the first few taxi driver we approached doesn't know how to come to Geneva. But they told us frankly and we get another one. Taxi e.g. Blue Bird is almost everywhere in Kuta. The start up price is IDR 5K.

2009-08-22 (6) Palm Beach Hotel and SA Cafe

The traffic is smoother from Uluwatu to Palm Beach Hotel. Palm Beach Hotel is very just opposite of the beach. We stayed for two nights here, by paying USD 45 per room per night.

Here is the room, with balcony.


One interesting thing is the antenna below :D


Frankly, the room is old, the hotelier really need to put some effort to maintain the business. I would not recommend it if it is not renovate/refurbished later.

After that, we walked to SA cafe nearby for dinner. This seems to be quite popular among foreigner and we found the food is quite tasty also. From ice cream, clockwise.

1) Ice cream
2) Grilled seafood brochette
3) Fried vegetable
4) Grilled Chicken Alasa

The dinner costs IDR 188K (~RM 67). We walked back to hotel after dinner. Parent did not feel comfortable to walk on the street at night.

2009-08-22 (5) Uluwatu, Bali

The traffic was terribly jam on our way to Uluwatu. Well, the road in Bali is narrow.

The driver shared about Balinese name with us. Dislike Chinese nor western country, Balinese name doesn't include surname in it. The name is usually in a form of "Name I (or NI) BirthSequence". For example, let say the name is Arya, and if he is the first son, it will be Arya I Gede. The middle alphabet represents sex, 'I' for male, 'NI' for female.

Luckily, we still manage to reach Uluwatu before 5pm. I cannot remember the entrance fee, if not mistaken is either IDR 3K or 5K.

Always good to read notice board at the entrance :)



A funny notice at the bottom of picture above. "Kalau anda bukan orang sembarangan, janganlah buang sampah sembarangan", it means "If you are not a simply human, don't simply throw rubbish'. From the upper part of the notice board, it was mentioned monkey will grab things. Well they really do. There are a lot of monkeys there, look at the entrance below, how many monkey can you spot?

We found out the monkey like to grab 'fling', shining or things that they can easily grab, for example, cap, glasses, necklace and camera strap. Really, watch out when you are here, the monkey movement is very fast. When it is closer to sunset, there are monkey came out and join the crowd. I didn't stay long and quickly keep my camera into bag. I scare of monkey.



Here are the only shots I manage to take.

2009-08-22 (4) Tanah Lot

It took us around 1.5 hours from Bedugut to Tanah Lot.

In these few days, we always saw bus with name Pariwisata and thought it was a company name. After refer to the driver only we know pariwisata means tourism. It is similar to Bas Pelancongan we always see in Malaysia :)

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After paid IDR 10K per person and a car park fee costs IDR 5K, in total IDR 45K (~RM 16), we still need to walk a bit to reach Tanah Lot. Follow the sign board as shown below:



If you lost direction, the hawker is very friendly to answer your question :)

A cliff:


Tanah Lot temple:


Aug is surfing season, look at my 'standing hair' and the strong wave :D


A panaromic view of Tanah Lot. Unfortunately the color settings run when I took the panaromic picture, maybe due to the direction and sunlight.



It will be enjoyable to have a coconut drink there, but we not manage to find any table with good view, thus we give it a pass this time.


I am curious the purpose of the additional 'accessories' at some of the motorbike. Want to take a guess? But I do not have answer though :)


Tanah Lot is famous for sunset too. But we decided to go to Uluwatu for sunset, to save tomorrow time from travelling.

2009-08-22 (3) Strawberry Stop

Not very far from Lake Buyan, we reached Strawberry Stop. There are few strawberry plantation here and the driver brought us to this one.


Very huge strawberry :O Just a joke ;)



Must try: Strawberry juice.


The strawberry juice costs IDR 8K (~RM 3). It is thick, fresh, no sugar (If you would like to have less sugar, mention "sikit gula', if no sugar at all 'tak mahu gula' ). I would say this is the best strawberry juice I have ever had, and especially the price, very good deal. I hope the juice price and quality in Bali remain in the future :D

We took light lunch here, after the brunch at Buyan Lake. It costs only IDR 90K (~RM 32) for 6/7 cups of strawberry juice, one fried noodle, one fried rice and one mixed vegetable.

Have you ever see any red banana? Here you go :D

2009-08-22 (2) Lake Buyan and sight seeing

On our way to Tanah Lot, we passed by few places e.g. Munduk. It is high attitude, fresh air and lower temperature, like that of Cameron Highland of Malaysia :)

We saw few cemetery at the roadside. The driver told us the dead body will be buried for only 5 years, after that the skeleton will be collected and I can't remember what they do with it. The driver made a joke that, if the cemetery is not re-used, Bali will be fulled with only cemetery and no place for alive people to live :p Another joke he also made is, if road in Bali is big, then they will have no space to live already *chuckle*. In fact, there are still quite a lot of forest in Bali, and according to the driver, those are reserved forest to keep Bali green.

At Munduk, there are few 'stair paddy field', as in picture below:

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If I forgot to mention the kids here walked to school everyday, some even need to walk for hours. Here is a picture they walked to school/home, with their school uniform. I remembered in parent old days, they have to cycle for hours to go to school. Well, I felt appreciated that I am able to take bus to school. When I grew up, there is limited toy, clothes, electricity and etc, in short, limited resources, thus I always support recycle concept and don't be wasteful. But look at the youngsters today, they will never able to imagine that, hopefully they will appreciate what they have :)


We reached Puncak Bagus and stop for short break. Here we find view of both Buyan Lake and Tamblingan Lake.


Lake Buyan.


Lake Buyan and Lake Tamblingan next to each other:


Some snack we ordered from Puncak Bagus Cafe:


Nice ginger tea and cocoa hot drink.


Fried banana with cheese and chocolate syrup on top. The french fries is fresh too :) The brunch costs us IDR 210K (~RM 75).


A decorated pura. These few days seems like a good day for wedding, we saw at least 7 wedding ceremony on our road. The engaged couple need to pray at their house, village pura and also other pura e.g. district pura :)

At Munduk, there are quite a few of homestay style accomodation available, a place to stay connected with the green mother earth.

The driver also share some Balinese culture with us. One of it is Balinese calendar. One year is 12 month, 1 month is 35 days. Their new year is called Silent Day. No light nor electricity is allowed. Thus the whole Bali is in dark. Even if you are staying in the hotel, you will get only few candles to survive for the new year day. Besides, Balinese can only stay home on Silent Day, then of course all the shop are closed :) Visitor is advised to stay inside their room also. It is a really silent Bali on Silent Day :) Be sure to check the date of Silent Day before you plan your visit to Bali :D

2009-08-22 (1) Holy Hot Spring

After checked-out from Aditya Hotel, we went to Holy Hot Spring.

Here is how it looks like:



The water is not as hot we I imagine, it is just a bit warm only.


A spa in the hot spring area.


There are few hot spring, and quite a number of water fall in Bali. For Malaysian like me, I am not very tempted to visit those :p

By the way, the entrance fee is IDR 3K. On the way to the entrance, there are few store selling batik and towel. We bought 4 pcs of batik at IDR 200K (~RM 71), typical batik at IDR 80K, normal beach batik cloth at IDR 20K. After we paid, other batik seller think the price we got is too cheap and scold the seller who sold the batik to us. We were shock that they started to quarrel and quickly leave the store. *whew*.

2009-08-21 (6) Aditya Hotel, Lovina

Lovina is a famous place to watch dolphin. But due to some reason, I didn't manage to join the tour... The weather is nice in Aug, clear sky. Let's take a look at Lovina during daytime.


Blue sky, blue sea, black but shining sand.

For a night stay at Aditya Hotel, it costs us IDR 656200 (~RM 235) for 2 rooms. The hotel has its own private beach, where it is fenced, thus outsider cannot access the hotel easily. There is also 24 hours security control in the compound.

This is my room balcony:


The room:


The massage gazebo *chuckle*


The swimming pool:


The dinner we took yesterday night. From left to right, top to bottom:


1) Tom Yam Kung - Quite nice, hehe don't tease me for having Thai food in Bali, this is the only oriental soup available :)
2) Fried kangkung, taste okay.
3) Pepes Ikan Laut (Fish cooked in banana leave) - tasted a bit like otak-otak.
4) Babi Kecap (Sauteed pork with soya sauce and rice) - Tasted okay.


1) Ikan Bumbung Bali (Fried fish with homemade sauce) - We got salmon.
2) Rujak segar (Fresh cut fruits with special sauce) - I still prefer Malaysia rojak :p In fact the sauce taste is not so strong, but still the foreigner next to our table cannot accept it.
3) Bintang beer, a local brand beer.

The dinner is IDR 210K (~RM 75).

2009-08-21 (5) Lovina

We headed to the north of Bali after lunch. I didn't realize when we reach there, because I am expecting a more happening town like Kuta. In fact, this is not as that, the street looks like below:



After checked-in to Aditya Hotel, we order the massage service. It costs IDR 90K (~RM 32) for 1.5 hours. The massage was at the hotel beach gazebo, as that in the left of picture below:



When I first reached the gazebo, the massager asked me to take out my clothes, leave only the inner. I was a bit shocked at first, after few second, I realize all other massagee wearing swim suit for massage. Oh okay, I learn the lesson now. Well, the massager immediately asked where are we from. After knowing our country of origin, she immediately put down the bamboo blind. Well, since this is the culture there, I guess I have no choice but just do it, assuming I am wearing swim suit *blush*. I felt a bit awkward still :p Okay, I am convervative, I admit :p

After massage, I quickly go back to my room and take my camera for the sunset. Now you get the answer, the sunset picture was taken at Lovina :)

2009-08-21 (4) Ayam Bakar Taliwang

When we come out from Botanical Garden entrance, there were few hawker selling strawberry. When we stopped by a market not far from it, the first thing to look for is strawberry :D I just realize I forgot to take picture of the fruits I bought. Anyway, a small pack of strawberry is IDR 5k (~RM 1.80), 2 pieces of corn is at the same price, IDR 5K, around 8 pcs of passion fruit is IDR 10K (~RM 3.60). The best is still the strawberry :D cheap and tasty. We also bought grape, but it is too sour, mainly for wine making.



There are a lot of spices also. I was thinking to bought some vanilla for cooking. But I felt RM 18 for 10 pcs of sounds a bit expensive. I still have no idea what is the best deal now as I cannot find it else where after this. If anyone is going to Bali, please let me know if you can help me to buy some :)

After that we headed to Ayam Bakar Taliwang for lunch, opposite of Buyan Lake entrance. We didn't went to Buyan Lake after that, as the driver said he will show us better view tomorrow :)





This is a muslim store, here is an example of their calendar, so many words :p


Not sure what donation box are those:


Of course, the food :)

1) Ayam bakar taliwang - Very small chicken, according to the driver, this chicken is small in size. Not really surprising taste I personally think. We ordered 4.
2) Tofu - I don't really like this :p
3) I cannot remember the dish name, it is raw egg plant with chili, very spicy :)
4) Satay - I still prefer Malaysia satay :D

Besides, we also ordered fried kangkung which is good taste, fried noodle. We invite the driver to join us for lunch. It costs IDR 179K (~RM 64).