Bali Travelogue – Part 1

I can't believe I'm up typing this at 6am! I'm on holiday for goodness sake! The sun rises (and sets) early indeed in Bali and our room amidst the paddy fields of Ubud is such that the rays of light shine in right through the tops of the windows. It's bad enough I had been sleeping late every night for the past week, thoroughly researching Bali on the net and trying my best to make sure my family and in-laws have a good time. Some of you would say "Are you crazy? Mixing your parents and in-laws on an overseas trip? You call that a holiday?"

Anyway, our "holiday" began with a bad start with our Air Asia flight being delayed 25 minutes. Then, we boarded the plane but half an hour later, the plane had still not started moving and we were all steaming in the stuffiness of the cabin as the air-cond was not turned on. We were then asked to disembark and wait in the waiting lounge again. We finally took off 1 hour 45 minutes after scheduled departure time.

Our driver, Tut Nick and his friend Kadek were at Ngurah Rai airport to pick us as arranged. As it was late, we decided to skip checking in to our hotel till after dinner and headed for some tea. Not sure if Nick thought we were Muslims but he brought us to a Halal restaurant called Mardiana which served so-so food. Told him afterwards that we love pork so he need not bring us to anymore Halal places.

Headed to Uluwatu to watch the Kecak and Fire Dance at sunset. There wasn't much time before the show so we skipped going up to the temple. On my previous 2 trips here, I watched the Barong and Keris dance which I found rather boring and was sort of expecting the same of Kecak. However, it was a refreshing experience with the show being staged in the open atop a cliff by the sea. Instead of the usual Gamelan music, the acoustics and vocal accompaniment to the dance were provided by about 40 men who sat encircling the dancers. Hot wisps of air emanating from flaming torches mixed with the cool twilight breeze and together with dark clouds looming in the sky lent the atmosphere a touch of drama. The 1-hour show climaxed to a superb finale with a brave display of pyro. Surprisingly, Nat sat through the entire 1 hour without fuss and even obliged one of the “creatures” with a hand shake and allowed him to carry her, garnering laughter and applause from the crowd.


Darkness had fallen by the time we left Uluwatu for dinner at Jimbaran Bay. Nick brought us to Melasti Cafe and our first impression was “Uh-oh. Major tourist trap!". Ambience was undoubtedly nice and a dead giveaway was the cultural dance being performed on stage. When we went to pick our seafood, we found it way overpriced, even by KL standards, so I told the restaurant manager that we simply could not afford to eat there. He offered a 10% discount and when I appeared unimpressed, he promptly raced to find Nick. Nick then explained that the restaurants along the whole stretch were controlled by the government and the price would be the same at any other. Of course! Do I have the word "SUCKER" printed on my forehead?

We then checked out a few of the other restaurants and settled for Bali Cafe 21 (Kedonganan Beach) but not before we negotiated the prices down to half. The food was not fantastic but not bad either and we got away with a bill of 1,000,000Rp for all 9 of us. Certainly not cheap by Bali standards. It's so strange though as Keat, Khim and I remember having dinner a few years back at Jimbaran at a shack of a restaurant for a song but yet all the restaurants on that stretch looked catered for tourists.

Finally checked in at Saren Indah at 10.30pm, exhausted, unimpressed and feeling rather apprehensive about what our next 6 days in Bali had to offer.

Blog was written on 2 Dec 2008 but no time to post till now.