Was down at Bali with Immi over the weekends for an unforgettable 4D3N adventure. Bali is truly an amazing place to visit, extremely rich in culture and arts, with the friendliest people you will ever meet (even more so if you take the initiative to speak Bahasa with them), and blessed with gorgeous beaches and scenery.
*Note* Very long post ahead with tonnes of photos. Photos with a maroon border around it means that they are click-able if you want to see a higher res image.
Day 1
The flight there took us about 3 hours. The plane was packed - not a single seat was left empty.
Along the way, we actually managed to see 2 volcanoes - one of them in the midst of an eruption!
We stayed at Hard Rock Hotel on Kuta Beach for the entire duration of our trip. Lemme just add by saying that Hard Rock Hotel was a great choice - you can’t go wrong it. 
That’s our cozy room with 2 huge queen sized beds. The pool was so jaw-droppingly magnificent, the above picture doesn’t do it justice. It extends further to the left with a section for water polo, more sunbathing lounge chairs, and even a man made sandy area for beach volleyball…
Grabbed a quick late lunch at a nearby deli, then headed to the beach to sit down and..
.. watch the sunset
Checked out some commercialized shops just behind the hotel, grabbed some groceries, and almost got conned by a ’scratch and win’ promotion scheme… (don’t ask). Took a cab to look for Immi’s old friend Leslie at his workplace - Hu’s Bar - in Seminyak. A classy place with what one of the best outdoor garden lounge designs I have seen…
L-R : Pia, Leslie, Immi & FoOie
After a lonng chat (thanks Leslie for the drinks!), we headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest..
Day 2
I took my time to wake up this morning, the bed was just way toooo comfy. Immi managed to squeeze in a breakfast session all by herself, and even a short swim at the pool while I only got up just in time (Yeah, I can be quite the sleepyhead)to get ready for our white water rafting trip!
Bad traffic conditions (road closures and construction) caused a major delay in our ETA, and it took us 3 hours to get to our drop off point at the Telaga Waja river. However, we managed to see some interesting sights along the way..
Balinese women have an incredible ability to balance crazy heavy loads on their heads. And I NEVER saw any of the men doing the same…
A collective community cremation. That huge tower is called a “wada” which houses the body of the deceased and is carried by the villagers to the cremation site. That small shelter on the left houses a huge black bull - symbol of the Brahma caste, which will house the sarcophagus of the body just before it is cremated.
This small lorry was carting THREE cows in the back.. I tried to take a picture as we drove past - but obviously, it didn’t quite turn out right. Poor cow on the left, forced to endure his partner’s u-know-what…
Of course, there were many more interesting sights and sounds that I didn’t manage to capture on camera. There was a man shepherding a whole flock of ducklings on the main road (bloody cute), an old lady bathing topless by the roadside, kids waving and shouting hello to the van (cause there were some foreigners with us).. etc.
We eventually reached our destination, was introduced to our guide - Johnny, and the fun begins..
The river is located deep in a valley, which required us to hike down some steep steps in order to reach it. Beautiful, peaceful and idyllic scenery here…
One of the rest stops, with a gorgeous waterfall..
The valley itself is filled with waterfalls, each one of them cascading over the tall edges. Johnny purposely took us under the one ahead in this photo, and got us all drenched.. 
A photo of us taken by a professional photographer. That’s Johnny sitting behind us, doing ALL of the work.. 
Along the way, its not surprising to see some natives washing their clothes by the riverside - or more commonly, bathing - stark naked. When we pass by, they’d abashedly curl up and sit down in the river to hide themselves with a sheepish grin, while the women will cover their breasts with their hands..
When we passed this bunch of bathing kids, they cheekily splashed water all over us! Not before I managed to take these 2 photos.. Hah!
After having our simple meal after the rafting adventure, we started our journey home. Due to the earlier delays, I reached back too late to try out bungee jumping - which was initially on my agenda.. 
Immi went for a spa at night, while I went for a walk around town…
Interesting piece of info gleaned from Immi’s masseuse - Traditionally, girls in Bali (and Java) apparently get married as young as 13 years old, and for a woman to reach the age of 20 without getting married means shes usually not wanted. Some of them won’t even go through the marriage ceremony unless she can prove that she can get pregnant - which means the guy usually gets the girl pregnant first. Men there also practice polygamy. A waitress we spoke to confessed that she is her husband’s 3rd wife, and he sits at home while all 3 of his wifes work and bring home the income.. haha. (I’m SURE this doesn’t apply to ALL Balinese :P)
Followed by a mini night picnic by the beach side..
Day 3
A very early morning start, as we chartered a private van, with a driver and a guide to take us on a full day tour around Bali…
The first half of the trip was us checking out the arts and crafts for which the Balinese are renowned for..
Our first stop was to see how the Balinese do their hand weaving using a loom (on the left), and using wax to dot out the outlines in their batik (on the right).
We also stopped by to see how handmade wood carvings are done, as well as visit a painter’s house.
It was at the above painter’s house that the traditional Balinese home structure and architecture was explained to us. After entering their narrow front gate, you will often see a wall called an ‘aling-aling’ meant to ward off evil spirits. The remainder of the house is divided into separate compounds - one for praying (usually in the direction facing Mt. Agung), a central court for ceremonies, single story blocks to house different family members (husband-wife, kids, grandparents, etc.), and a cooking area.
The Balinese are very spiritual and religious - each household has an entire area filled with altars dedicated to their respective Hindu Gods and ancestors.
Sights like this are very common, especially in the town of Batubulan which is famous for its stone carvings.
We also stopped by to visit a silver & goldsmithing shop, and we got to preview some of their silverware pieces - many of which are really tribal and aren’t easy to find in Malaysia.. Didn’t have much time to shop though, there were still tonnes to do for the rest of the day..
Me and Immi were also curious to see if we could locate any Kopi Luwak during our trip there, and we asked our guide to take us to look for it - hence the next stop was a coffee and spice garden..
A guy demonstrating how beans are roasted and pounded, while the pretty young lass served us our coffee..
Just in case you didn’t know, here’s how Kopi Luwak is made.. A sample of 2 coffee cherries. Green ones are unripe, while the red ones are ripe. The civet cat (aka luwak), eats these cherries, and digests the fruit except for the seed (coffee bean) which passes through its digestive tract and undergoes certain chemical and enzyme changes. It’s PooPoo is collected, and the beans processed into the famous/infamous Kopi Luwak - the rarest, most novel and most expensive coffee in the world..
I spent almost RM100 on 2×100gm jars - relatively cheap, since according to Wiki, a cafe in the States were selling a cup of kopi luwak for USD99 each..
OK, next up - drive to Kintamani for lunch while gazing at the spectacular view of the still active volcano - Mt. Batur, and the largest lake on Bali - Batur Lake.
Took me an hour to piece this panoramic shot together, but at least you can also now appreciate what I saw there. The black streaks down the mountain sides are old lava flows, which is mostly harvested for the sand and volcanic rock for Balinese construction and agriculture..
If you squint, you’ll see a small white stretch on the right of the volcano, across the lake. This is the ancient village of Trunyan, accessible only by boat, and the only remainder of the original Balinese settlers which have not been influenced by the Javanese Majapahit in the 14th century. One of their unique cultures is that they do not bury or cremate their dead, but instead leave them in the open under a Banyan tree to decompose. The Banyan tree surprisingly eliminates any odor from the decomposition. I would love to go see this macabre bone filled cemetery myself one day..
Okay next up! A trip to the largest temple in all of Bali, the mother temple of Besakih. We all had to wear a sarong before being allowed into the temple, both as a sign of respect and to cover our knees.
The entrance to the main temple courtyard. Small statues line both the left and right of the stairs - one side with characters from the Ramayana epics, while the other from the Mahabharata epics. Much of Bali is filled with similiar statues from both these Hindu stories, so having knowledge of both epics might help you identify and relate to what you see in Bali better..
It’s personally my good fortune to be able to visit this temple on one of its busiest days - a communal cremation and prayers day. As it was evening, much of the cremation ceremonies have finished, and villagers from all over Bali has changed into a yellow/white garb to come to the temple and ‘invite the spirits of their ancestors back home with them’.
They pray and receive blessing by touching some rice to their foreheads, heart and mouth as a symbol of prosperity.
We hiked up to the highest temple in the Northern part of Besakih, ‘Pura Gelap’ dedicated to Vishnu, before hiking back down to our transport for a loonng drive back down south to Tanah Lot. We were rushing there so that we could catch the famous sunset there, but along the way, we ended up with a..
…flat tire. That’s Made (pronounced mud-deh) our tour guide waving at the camera, and Nyoman our driver changing the tire..
By the time we got there however, the sun had already set, but there was still a little light left. The temple is named Tanah Lot as Tanah = ground, while Lot is a local pronunciation of Laut = sea. Hence its known as the Temple on the sea.. or something like that..
It was low tide, so people could walk across to the temple to take some photos.. Ordinarily, the temple would seem like its floating in the sea as per its name..
Once it got too dark, we began the final leg of our journey - to another famous spot, the long stretch of Jimbaran beach, which is transformed into a massive dining area by the sea, with delicious BBQ grilled seafood.. mmmm..
Jimbaran
My dinner.. BBQ prawns, squid, mussels and red snapper.. I swear it’s actually a lot more delicious than it looks!
FoOie & Immi
Day 4
Slept in, woke up late, and checked out of our hotel. Nothing much to do in 1 hour, so we headed down to Kuta beach again to lounge there and look at people surfing (there were a lot of them). Most were probably there to train for the Rip Curl surfing competition which was being held that week..
Pinky & Patrick sunbathing
A surfer dude..
Kuta Beach!
Got on the plane, and ordered lunch from AirAsia’s new menu. The pictures on the menu all fake wan! Haha, the actual presentation of the food is a lot less appetizing, but I can assure you - it was pretty damn tasty..
When we touched down, we still had hunger pangs, and had some craving for pork, so we headed to Midvalley’s Mr. Ho’s Fine Foods for some of their..
Sausage Feast & Roast Pork.. YUM.
Lugged our luggage into the cinema to watch a night movie (X-Files : I Want To Believe), before heading home at midnight for some much needed rest…
It was an unforgettable trip. It isn’t often that I get a chance to absorb so much of a local culture during such a short trip, that it actually made me want to dedicate more time to finding out about the Balinese way of life. Sadly, many of the Balinese have been undergoing a lot of hardship since the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings.
Immi was a great travel companion - not many girls could have shared in the spirit of adventure, curiosity and discovery that usually hits me on such trips. She was happily throwing her own questions, joking with, and befriending the natives that we came into contact with. We got so many awkward “Here on Honeymoon? Married? Bf Gf?” questions that we ended up playing along to it just to avoid explaining ourselves (they CANNOT comprehend a girl and a guy who is unattached coming to these trips) - which eventually led to even more unexpected awkward situations:
For example, while taking a photo for us, the cameraman will always go “closer, closer… romantic a bitt” *sweat*
Or we’d end up discussing with our tour guide about HIS personal love problems, about how many kids we should have, the best positions to get a boy or a girl… *sweatx10*.. hahaha..
Would I come back to Bali again? Definitely. One day when I have my scuba license, so I can go check out the shipwreck up north in Lovina, or if I haven’t yet bungee jumped, at least I now know where I can do it. I have yet to taste their famous Babi Guling or Crispy Duck, see the Uluwatu Kecak dance, the many other temples, hike up one of the volcanoes to peer into the crater, etc. And when I have money, I also now know where to get some very interesting interior decor for my future home..
