Monday, September 15, 2008

Bali Rendervous

Its seem my travel to Bali has not been updated. Sorry about that folks.

Bali land of paradise have so much to offer. As I told you earlier, I chartered a van to bring me around as I prefer to explore Bali at my own leisure. Here are the places that we visited.

Our itinery for the first day were as follows:

We were picked up by Mr Suweca at our hotel in Kuta at 10 am. Our first stop is at a Batik Shop cum Factory. Here we learned how batik is produced with handwritten or block imprinted. Then, we proceed to silverware making. Seriously its for the commercial side that they are promoting not exactly for the arts of making batik or on the minting of silverware. We decide to skip the wood carving item as we are more excited to visit Kintamani.

We proceeded to Kintamani with a stop over at Bali House. Here Mr Suweca explained on the fundamentals of the positioning of a Bali House. At the main gate, there is a board inscripted with the number of people who stayed in the house. The layout of the rooms in the house compound is very unique. A kitchen is separated from all the bedrooms. In the centre of the compound, there is an open bedroom which comprised on a double bed and a curtain surrounding the bed. This normally will be reserved for the elderly (parents or parents inlaw) of the head of the house. Unmarried children are supposed to sleep with their parents until they reach the age of puberty. Balinese are very staunch Hindu. Every household will have a mini temple in their home ground. When we were here, we got the privileged to learn on the Balinese culture based on their calendar. Its very lengthy to explain it here, so if you ever visit Bali, try to ask the local to explain about their calendar. It very interesting how they see the calendar for birth, marriage, special occasion and so forth.

Our next stop is the Kintamani area. From here, we can see beautiful scenery of Bali. We had our lunch at the Halal restaurant there. Amid those illegal hawkers who were touting us to buys the goods that they peddled, otherwise this place is awesome for the view and the cool breeze. From where we sat in the restaurant, we can see Mount Batur and Lake Batur. The scenery is so beautiful. I just cant upload the photo here in this blog cause I think there is some problem with blogger. Couldnt see that upload image icon...:(.

After battling the touting hawkers to get a good spot for the scenic photo, we rushed back to our van to avoid the hawkers from touting us further. Ah! this is what I dont like about Indonesia. Anyway, just be careful when you are approach by them. One thing to remember, Never ever look at the item nor ask for the price if you are not interested at all. Once you open your mouth to ask or take a good look at the goods that they are offering, they will keep touting you until you suffocate. If you really want to get the goods that they are peddling, bargain as much as 70%. If you cant get at that price, leave them. See if they are willing to let the goods change hand at that price. You will be surprised!

Next we stop at the herbs and coffee plantation. Its is not big actually, but it is worth visiting. You can see all those herbs tree. Cocoa and local indonesia fruit tree are also planted here. Bali coffee which is famous is being serve here together with the local cocoa. There is a demo on how coffee being roasted the traditional way. A small shop selling coffee, cocoa and some spices can be found if you want to get that for souvenirs. Honestly, I find that their cocoa taste better than the coffee. So we decided to purchase 2 packet of cocoa to bring back to Singapore.

Our last stop for the day is visting Sukawati Market famous for their souvenirs. Time is quite limited there and we had no time to really explore the shops. But we manage to grab a few bags and tshirt for souvenirs. Anyway, no regrets though cause most of the shops are practically selling the same items.

Before heading back to our hotels, we requested that Mr Suweca drop us at Jimbaran for the sunset dinner. But we were late and missed the sunset. Anyway, we enjoyed the seafood and the atmosphere dinning at Jimbaran. We were then sent by the guy from the restaurant to our hotel after that heafty dinner.

On our 3rd day in Bali, we decided to explore the nearby area on our own. After breakfast, we walked to Kuta Beach which is only 10 mins from our hotel. But we didnt reached Kuta beach in 10 mins cause on the way there are shops selling DVD's at a very reasonable price. We stop at a few shop but decided not to get anything cause we do not want to burden our hand while strolling Kuta beach. It was at about 10 am, Kuta beach was already crowded with Bule (Indonesian slang for Whiteman) Wah! Its too crowded until you really got no nice spot to sit and enjoy the sound of the waves of Kuta. We strolled until our feet sore and decided to return to the hotel for a dip in the pool.

We had a short nap after swimming and then return to Jimbaran for the sunset dinning again. This time round we did see the sunset but its for a glimpse. Ah ha, I didnt realised that the sun set to fast and never wait for anyone. Serve us right for taking a nap after that lapping in the pool.

I had to stop now and will continue on the next posting. Got to run some errands ...laterz.

2 comments:

sky said...

if there is attachable picture, better kakak..!

Admin said...

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