2nd april 2007

Bali Langit Biru!


By the time we got up and bathe, it was almost noon, and half of the troop had started on their part of the trip. it's a free & easy thing, i heard some went to the kuta beach, which was just behind the hotel, to bake themselves, and some had already went to a nearby drinking place to get to know the locals.

with a map on one hand, and a lonely planet guide on the other, me and a'in embarked on a cultural hunt, wanting to see more of the place, rather than wasting time sun tanning at the beach. besides, i bet it's infested with surfer doodes anyway so i rather do a lil exploring or shop.

i noticed the locals placed a small plate (made of banana leafs, and in it are flowers - frangipanis, some nice smelling leafs and at the tip of the plate stood three joss sticks) at the entrance of their homes and shops, and when asked why, they unfolded that the offerings were made to ward off evil spirits and to seek protection for their deities. klutzy me almost step on one of those while walking, and a'in had a great big laff seeing how scared i looked after dat. heh.

stumbles on a passage way to a shop that sells handcarved monuments. but it was the doorway, with carvings encrypted on the wall that had lured me, and we went triggering happy. heeh.

in awe

the long passage to the shop

after three hours of long walks and prancing around legian, it was already 4pm. though we were tired from all the walking, a'in still wants to shop. and that day she found out how annoyingly it can be shopping with ME. heh.

a'in: man, you shop like a guy siah. i never get the chance to really look at my stuff in the shops tau. you took only five minutes to look at yours, five minutes to try on anything and five minutes to end up at the entrance, looking impatiently at the next shop window display. STREEEESSSS aku!!

me: *biggoofysmile* sowie. i'll go slow next time k. sheeeeeeesh.

which i really did. hee. but it only lasted half an hour and after that i gave up and left her to take her time in mooks. i only bought some stuff from the persistent vendors who managed to convinced me. heh. across the store there's a wooden booth promoting the interesting places and activities in bali. after browsing through the pamplets, we decided to climb mount batur and signed ourselves up. paid the guy, and was told to be ready at our hotel lobby at 2 am.

time checked: 5pm

which means we still had about 9hrs. the vendor of the booth told us about a great place called jimbaran, an hour drive away, where we can have a sunset dinner of seafood. the kind soul even offered to drive us there for free, but we declined and only accepted after he agreed to do it for a small fee.

pak mader: kalian dari mana? org malaysia ya?...

we: eeeerrrr bukan pak... singapore..

pak mader: oooooh singapore ya... bagus org singapore... bery friendly gitu..

we: pak pernah ke sana?

pak mader: ooh enggak pernah... kita disini jarang skali pergi ke luar negri.. org sini kerjanyer untuk tampong perbelanjaan anak-anak, sembahyang dan seremonies saja...

a'in: ia pak? org disini tak berholiday gitu? (by this time i was tired from haggling in bahasa indonesia)

pak mader: betol nyonya.. kalau mahu holiday pun ke jakarta saja..

we: oooorrhhh...

he went on telling us a lil about his family and how he got to work at the booth, which belongs to a friend of his, and he's helping the friend to run it.

we got to jimbaran just before sunset and ordered massive seafood dinner, since both of us had skipped lunch and i can't seem to stomach padang food which tasted jelek and unforgiving after a few bites. soft local luau was played at the background, and infront of us, the view of the settling sun.

how cool is that - wish charmingeyes was there. soooo romantic. heh. oh well!

candlelit the sunset

we sprawled ourselves on bed after returning to our room at 10.30pm. pak mader dropped us off at the lobby and reminded us to be ready by 2am. for a moment we psyched ourselves about going mountain climbing later and dozed off after setting alarm at 1am.

p.s: im climbing up mount batur on my 27th birhtday! Whoooooooo-hoooooooooo!!