Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Holiday 2005 - Destination Bali

Last week was great. 5 days off work plus 2 weekends. Rest and Relaxation. Had planned to take a holiday for quite a while. Time sure flies, it feels like it was only yesterday that I started planning.

I had me cutie with me, mmm. Yum Yum. I'm glad I could spend my holiday with her.

Day 1
5:30am, that was what I saw on my clock. The day began early preparing last minute stuff and planning. The problem with international travel is that we have to fly to KL 1st before heading for international departures. Was doing lots of waiting for our flight to Bali. 7 hours to be exact. Cutie and me did reading on a bench and also slept on each other's shoulders for a while.

The flight was ok, little turbulance. It took 3 hours for to arrive in Bali, then we had a pickup from the hotel. By the time we checked in it was around 8pm. Stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel! Yeahh! There were autographed guitars everywhere, from Slash to Jimmy Page. All hard rockers! There was a bar area called Center Stage with a live band playing on top.

We headed to Hard Rock Cafe for a rocking Dinner. They had a live band playing on stage too. Really good band too, the 3 singers were great, the guitarist was great when he played one of Santana's Songs.

The food was great too, I had Pork Ribs while cutie had a steak, which was well prepared. We spent a few hours there listening to the band play 3 sets before we left and called it a night.

Day 2
The hotel provided breakfast in my holiday package. So we got up at 8am to have a buffet with scrambled eggs, cereal & loads more stuff. This was our first morning in Bali, so we headed out hoping to walk around but was stopped by a sales person. So we kinda got conned to listening to Time Share Holidays. After 2 hours we made our way around, with the rain pouring down too. A tip for travellers to Bali, do not go at the end of the year, mid year would be best.

We had to run in the rain to get from one building to another, hehe. Got wet but at least it was fun. Ended up in a nice hardware shop, thought of buying an umbrella but after thinking twice, I decided not to. We did buy Microwave Pop Corn, cooked on the spot, we were a little hungry. We got a cab back to the Hotel and took a good rest, the rain really didn't give us a chance to do much. At least the rain stopped in the evening. So we headed into town looking for food to eat. I managed to see a local restraunt with lots of tourist. We headed to Made's Warung (Ma-dae Cafe), suprisingly they served a fusion of local and western food. We had 4 dishes under the local category. A little spicy but enjoyable.

The area we were in was called Kuta, it's a town where the tourist stayed cause it's located near the beach. So there were shops which sold Billabong, Rip Curl & all other surfing gear. Not forgetting other shops like shoes, watches, etc. But still the prices weren't much different from Malaysian Ringgit.

Day 3
We wanted to buy some gifts for everyone back at work. Took a cab to a local market. Bought some souviners and then headed back to the hotel.

Later we decided to hang around today, relax a little and enjoy the swimming pool and the beach. Woha the waves were small but it was really great. I managed to rent 2 wake boards and we hit the waves. After 2 hours we called it quits, drank a little salt water, eeek. I also made dinner plans with some people there to have dinner at Jimbaran where it's popular for Seafood.

I forgot to take photos of the food, DOH!. It was nice, we had a Crab, a fish, some mussels and some calamari. As forcasted the rain came when we arrived, so we didn't see any sunset :(

Day 4
The evening before, we decided to book ourselves a tour so we can see the country side. We didn't know what we would expect. But it was FUN. It was a cycling tour through the country side of Bali, up where the mountain was. It was cooling and a bit chilly. The day started around 8am where we had to take a 2 hour drive up to the starting point. Took some photos of Mt. Kintamani at the background, the view was sepctacular.

Then we started the bike ride after adjusting ourselves to the bike. It's been a while since I've done any cycling, cutie was a little shakey too but she did alright, actually she did great. We went past rice fields, local houses, coffee trees, carvers, temples & ended up at the finish, Elephant Park. We managed to see some of the elephants taking a bath and eating, after the buffett lunch we got a ride back to the hotel where we managed to get a nap before planning to heading out for dinner. We tried Bali food, Ox Tail Soup and Curry Chicken with rice. This was next door to the 2nd bombing spot. Then we walked to check out the local mall where we bought a bottle of local Wine called (will type it down when i remember it). It was cheap. The rain came again. So we hopped into a cab and called it a night.

I planned for a tour to check out some temples and a palce called monkey gardens the next day.

Day 5
8:30am, we left for the first stop at Taman Ayun. It was a temple with a nice park all around it, was a royal temple back in the 16th century. The tour was wet, it was raining. Then we moved to the 2nd stop at the monkey gardens. There wasan't much to do there except look at monkeys and fruit bats. Well one of the monkeys kept holding on to my pants when i bought the peanuts. Geez they come at you when you have anything they can eat in your hands.

The last stop was called Tanah Lot. Its a temple that is built on a rock. Really cool. But we didn't manage to catch the sunset cause of the earlier rain and clouds. Then dinner at a nice restraunt with local food and a dance show.

Day 6
We rented a cabana and decided to laze around the swimming pool. Then we had an appointment for a spa massage. Which was great!.

Dinner was at a restraunt called Bubba Gump. It was a nice place that was themed from the Forrest Gump movie. The people were nice and the food was great. Then I noticed that I had lots of pork for dinner these few days.

Walked on the beach for a while before heading back to pack for the flight the next day.

Day 7
Left the hotel at 11am. Got on board and said goodbye to Bali. Hmm.

Overall it was a really really good holiday. Wished I had more!

Cheers.

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