Day 1
It's our first trip to Bali and also our 6th anniversary celebration! The day before we departed, we also made a selection for our BTO flat, so I had a very fulfilled and happy feeling going into the holiday.
And this is also the first time we are bringing our new Olympus EP3 for a trip to capture beautiful memories. So the pics here should be eye candy. LOL.
Airline: Singapore Airline: miles claimage
Accomodation: Astana Batu Belig in Seminyak. $700++ for 5 nights
Our SQ flight. Travel in luxury bro! But the the meals were bad : (
And at 9.30pm, we reached Bali to be picked up by our friendly driver from the resort, who even produced two ice cold bottles of mineral water for us. Much appreciated, even though it was a cool night. After a 30 mins drive, we arrived at our villa! This is the kitchenette.
And then the bedroom area.
Toilet area
And the best part: the pool!! And my fav part of the design is how you can enter the pool through the bedroom. Heh.
Day 2
Breakfast the next day! Looks yummy but taste all right only. Still, I don't have much complaints about it.
My banana pancakes. The only reason I'm including this pic is I think it looks very pretty here. Hahaha.
We took the hotel shuttle out to Seminyak Square after a morning swim, and walked down the roads around it to explore the area. Lots of pretty shops around with nice stuff, but they are expensive.
After a tiring walk in the hot hot sun, we settle at Tratorria for lunch. But we were so tired and bothered that we didn't enjoy the food as much as we should.
My squid ink with cream pasta. Quite yummy, though a bit jelat after a while.
And our dining companion throughout the whole trip. There are so many flies in Bali and meal times can be a headache with them flying around to share your food.
More pictures from our exploration after lunch. Lots of families have their own padi fields in Bali for self sustenance.
We took a cab back to the resort, took a rest and went out for dinner at the opposite Naughty Nuri's. Best ribs in Bali and probably the best I've eaten, for the price. The pics we took were quite grainy due to the dim lighting; more pics on it later for our second visit back there.
We tapaoed nachos back for supper as it was still early by the time we finished dinner, and had it by the pool. Finally fulfilled my dream of eating and chilling by the pool. Heh.
And on a side note, I love the paper bag they gave. So nice and big. I know, that sounds lame.
Day 3
The interior of the restaurant, which was quite nice.
After lunch, we went to the Ubud market to shop. It was quite an unpleasant experience. The place was filthy and boring, with beggars approaching tourists.
One of the beggars with her child. When Dear took this pic, the woman immediately stood up and brought her child away.
Next we visited the Tegallalang Rice Terrace. It was just after harvest season when we visited, so the the rice terraces were 'botak'.
And making a debut on the blog is: Boofie. He was a present from Dear from London. I decided to bring him along because he has not travelled with us before. Heh. Dear insisted on bring Chel Chel along, so we ended up with having two more friends on the trip.
A few min away from the rice terrace is a luwak coffee plantation where we had our first taste of shit coffee.
This little friend here, called a luwak, likes to eat coffee beans and the locals will collect its shit, which has the coffee bean in it, to make coffee from it. Because of the limitd supply of the coffee bean (as you can imagine), luwak coffee is the most expensive coffee in the world.
1 small cup of the coffee was S$7.
The entreprenuring Balinese also served us an assortment of drinks (for free), hoping that we will buy them back from their merchanise shop.
Being the glutton, and how can we miss out on their famous crispy duck as well, we bought a takeaway back to the resort. (I know the pic doesn't really look appetising)
It was really yummy! There wasn't much meat but the chilli that accompanied it is very shiok! Makes me feel so sad that I didn't have rice to go with it. : (
Dessert of the day was Magnum which we bought from a convenience store. Dear had much joy buying the cheap Magnums and devouring it.
Found more outlets of my new fav shop and bought the dress that I was looking for : ) Too bad the shop's clothes were quite ex and I couldn't get more stuff.
I have realised that the nicer clothes in stores in Bali cost much expensive.
Walking up the difficult-to-walk streets of Legian, we arrived at our choice restaurant for lunch: Ryoshi. Indeed the food was rather decent for its price.
And our seafood spread. Which was average only. Guess the money paid was really for the sunset.
Blue sky and sea. And the sand was freaking hot.
I insisted to eat the bakso noodles for lunch. Yummz!
Dinner was at a warung near our resort. But the food was only so so. Best thing, as usual, was the satay.
So we took the shuttle bus out to Seminyak Square for a light lunch before going back to do a massage again.
Then we went for an early dinner at Naughty Nuri's.
The communal pub feel of the place.
The famous ribs. So tender and smokey. And it had a smashing sambal chilli sauce to accompany it. Yumm!!!!!!!
Dear prefered the pork chop, which is another favourite of the restaurant. It was good too. Looks like a piece of meat from the dinner plate of the Flintstones, ya. Hahaha.
After a tiring walk in the hot hot sun, we settle at Tratorria for lunch. But we were so tired and bothered that we didn't enjoy the food as much as we should.
My squid ink with cream pasta. Quite yummy, though a bit jelat after a while.
And our dining companion throughout the whole trip. There are so many flies in Bali and meal times can be a headache with them flying around to share your food.
More pictures from our exploration after lunch. Lots of families have their own padi fields in Bali for self sustenance.
We took a cab back to the resort, took a rest and went out for dinner at the opposite Naughty Nuri's. Best ribs in Bali and probably the best I've eaten, for the price. The pics we took were quite grainy due to the dim lighting; more pics on it later for our second visit back there.
We tapaoed nachos back for supper as it was still early by the time we finished dinner, and had it by the pool. Finally fulfilled my dream of eating and chilling by the pool. Heh.And on a side note, I love the paper bag they gave. So nice and big. I know, that sounds lame.
Our Indonesian breakfast
After breakfast, we went for our daily morning dip in the pool before going on a tour to Ubud. Our driver took around an hour to reach there because the roads were jammed with some roads being closed for Obama, who was also visiting Ubud that day!
But we didn't get to see him.
Our first stop was the Tegenungan waterfall, which Dear requested the driver to bring us to. When we reached the viewing deck, Dear saw some people at the foot of the waterfall and thought it would be easy to go down to take a close look at the waterfall.
We climbed down the stone steps leading to the foot of the waterfall, only to find that it seems neverending. Dear later estimate that the steps were about five storey high.
And when we finally reached the ground, we first realised that it was quite rocky and difficult to walk to the waterfall, and that the people we saw were Balinese who were adept at navigating these nature areas.
So after taking a few photos, we went up and this is the worst part of the trip for me. I was out of breath and had to pause on the steps to catch my breath! Grr.
The sombering thought of how out of shape I am was not helped by the face that we are going next to eat suckling pig for lunch. : (
The sombering thought of how out of shape I am was not helped by the face that we are going next to eat suckling pig for lunch. : (
The interior of the restaurant, which was quite nice.
Random temple-like architecture along the streets of Ubud.
After lunch, we went to the Ubud market to shop. It was quite an unpleasant experience. The place was filthy and boring, with beggars approaching tourists.
One of the beggars with her child. When Dear took this pic, the woman immediately stood up and brought her child away.
Next we visited the Tegallalang Rice Terrace. It was just after harvest season when we visited, so the the rice terraces were 'botak'.
And making a debut on the blog is: Boofie. He was a present from Dear from London. I decided to bring him along because he has not travelled with us before. Heh. Dear insisted on bring Chel Chel along, so we ended up with having two more friends on the trip.
A few min away from the rice terrace is a luwak coffee plantation where we had our first taste of shit coffee.
This little friend here, called a luwak, likes to eat coffee beans and the locals will collect its shit, which has the coffee bean in it, to make coffee from it. Because of the limitd supply of the coffee bean (as you can imagine), luwak coffee is the most expensive coffee in the world.
1 small cup of the coffee was S$7.
The entreprenuring Balinese also served us an assortment of drinks (for free), hoping that we will buy them back from their merchanise shop.
The nice fields at the restaurant = photo opportunity
We ordered the Dirty Duck set (it serves two) to share. It was quite good.
But I think the satay that came along with the satay is better. Haha.
Being the glutton, and how can we miss out on their famous crispy duck as well, we bought a takeaway back to the resort. (I know the pic doesn't really look appetising)
It was really yummy! There wasn't much meat but the chilli that accompanied it is very shiok! Makes me feel so sad that I didn't have rice to go with it. : (
Day 4
Based on the recommendation of our driver, we went to the Legian area to shop after breakfast.
Found more outlets of my new fav shop and bought the dress that I was looking for : ) Too bad the shop's clothes were quite ex and I couldn't get more stuff.
I have realised that the nicer clothes in stores in Bali cost much expensive.
Walking up the difficult-to-walk streets of Legian, we arrived at our choice restaurant for lunch: Ryoshi. Indeed the food was rather decent for its price.
We also got a grilled platter to share.
After lunch, we walked around the streets for a while more before taking a cab back to the resort to rest before dinner.
And this is when the first (and only) hiccup happened. It seemed a little too good to be true that our trip has been uneventful so far in a kind of place like Bali.
Dear counted the wrong taxi fare when making payment and gave the driver much more than he should receive. I noticed something was wrong but everything was happening so fast and the many zeros of the Indonesian currency was just mind boggling.
The driver took our money, and lied to us when we asked if the money given to him was correct. I think he saw us as mellow Singaporean tourists who did not know better.
It was only after getting down the cab when I told Dear that I think we gave him the wrong amount that we concluded a mistake was made. *angry*
We were cheated of more than $10- good money that could be used for our cab fare to Jimbaran for dinner that evening. So moral of the story is, must really count properly and double check.
After being cheated of our money, we took the hotel shuttle bus to the furthest point where it would drop us and take a cab to Jimabaran for dinner. No choice, have to save money already.
And when our cab reached Jimbaran Bay, we couldn't find the restaurant that we wanted to visit, because it had good reviews online. Naturally, the staff of the other restaurants, and I suspect, our cab driver, did not try too hard to help us find it even though we tried to ask them for directions.
We were told that maybe the restaurant had closed down. I checked out the directions again after I came back to Singapore, and realised we had a problem with the directions because our cab driver told us that was the only stretch of seafood restaurants in the area.
So we got off ourselves and walked around to find a reasonably priced restaurant.
By the way, the touts were very scary. As our cab stopped to ask for directions, the touts would open the car doors and invite us to get down and go their restaurant. That was pretty scary.
Nonetheless, the sunset view was indeed very pretty.
And our seafood spread. Which was average only. Guess the money paid was really for the sunset.
While expected, it was indeed another pain when we finished our dinner and wanted to go back. Few cabs drive into the area and those who came in, for some reason, did not want to take passengers.
We were left standing in the dark for 15 mins, suffering the pestering of the tout drivers before a cab driver agreed to take us. Phew.
Day 5
We visited Kuta and its beach in the morning before popping over to the shopping centre for air-conditioned comfort.
We visited Kuta and its beach in the morning before popping over to the shopping centre for air-conditioned comfort.
It is amazing how one can just drip sweat the moment one stands on the streets.
Blue sky and sea. And the sand was freaking hot.
I insisted to eat the bakso noodles for lunch. Yummz!
Dinner was at a warung near our resort. But the food was only so so. Best thing, as usual, was the satay.
And after that it was back to watching movies in the resort. Dear watched soccer while I fell asleep, and woke up (cleverly) at half time to eat the potato chips we bought earlier in the day. So shiok to be fed potato chips in bed and then going back to sleep again. Hahaha.
Day 6
It was our last day in Bali. Too bad our resort did not allow us a late check out, so we couldn't stay in our room the whole day to enjoy the facilities for one last time.
Day 6
It was our last day in Bali. Too bad our resort did not allow us a late check out, so we couldn't stay in our room the whole day to enjoy the facilities for one last time.
So we took the shuttle bus out to Seminyak Square for a light lunch before going back to do a massage again.
Then we went for an early dinner at Naughty Nuri's.
The communal pub feel of the place.
The famous ribs. So tender and smokey. And it had a smashing sambal chilli sauce to accompany it. Yumm!!!!!!!
Dear prefered the pork chop, which is another favourite of the restaurant. It was good too. Looks like a piece of meat from the dinner plate of the Flintstones, ya. Hahaha.
With our tummies filled, we then took the airport transport by the hotel to catch our flight back. End of resort living and dipping in the pool everyday!
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