Beautiful Bali -Day 1 and 2
After a delightful Dubai trip, we were excited to enjoy another trip, a relaxed one to Bali, the largest tourist destination of Indonesia known for it's highly developed arts, traditional dance, culture, sculptures, music, paintings, gold and silver. Those of you who read my dubai blogs, this is the surprise I was talking about in those posts till the end :)
We left to Bali on the 16th of August 2014. Our flight was at 9am. We left home at 6 am, parked our car at one of the airport parkings and took their shuttle to the airport. We checked in around 7am and then had breakfast at hungry jacks. We weren't so worried about the travelling part to Bali because it's only 6 hours from Melbourne and it was a direct flight. We boarded the flight around 8.45 am. Flight was supposed to leave at 9 am but there was a 30 minute delay. We left at 9.30am with lots n lots of excitement. Though we left late, we reached Bali on time at 1.15 pm. The Ngurah Rah airport at Denpasar, capital of Bali was a nice and a different kind of an airport. Ours was a visa on arrival and costed $35 USD pp. The visa and immigration process went really quick.
We had booked a one bedroom pool villa at Kayu Raja Villa, Seminyak and the villa people were there to pick us up. So we left the airport around 2.30pm. Unfortunately the day we landed was on the eve of Indonesian Independence Day. So all the roads were jammed and there was huge traffic everywhere. Seminyak is supposed to be 30 minutes from the airport but it took us almost two hours to reach the villa. We checked in around 4.45pm. The villa was very beautiful with a big private pool, a living area, open kitchen plan, spacious room, beautiful deck and a separate massage room on the terrace. We relaxed for a while and in the night had dinner at a place called The Deck. That was our first day in Bali.
Second day we had a tour booked- Ubud village tour. Ubud is another place which is around two hours from Seminyak. It's known for its tradition and a few years back Ubud won the award for being the worlds best traditional city. Day 2, we left the villa around 9am. We had a private tour with an english speaking guide. Initially he briefed us about Bali and it's culture and told us many facts about the place. Bali has 90% Hindus but the gods they worship is different from our hindu gods. Our first destination was a place called Anom Jewellery. Bali is famous for silver and gold because all the ornaments here are handcrafted and not machine made. We were shown how people handcraft it and it's amazing to see so much talent. We did a bit of shopping and then left to another jewellery store known as Prepen jewellery. This was a beautiful store with great ambience and very nice jewellery. We had a demo about how jewellery is made. The silver is melted into long rods, cut into medium rods and once again cut into small rods and finally reduced to small and very small silver balls. Once it's done they attach them to a round moulded silver or other shaped silver to make a piece of jewellery. The glue they use is of a seed which they call pili pili. The seeds are crushed and made to work as a glue. After a nice walk around the shop, we left to Tegalalang rice terrace which was an amazing sight to watch. Agriculture is of great importance in Bali and rice is like their staple food. We saw many rice fields and rice terraces. It's wonderful to see how the rice terraces are built.
After spending some time here , we left to the most awaited place, Ubud monkey forest. This forest has thousands of monkeys which are known to be sacred and are worshipped by the people. They are left free and they roam everywhere. They come and sit on us, they climb on our shoulders and heads. The more we feed them, the more time they spend with us. We can buy bananas inside the forest and feed these little ones. I was initially scared because I haven't had a monkey encounter till date and all the monkeys I have seen in the cities are always busy snatching food and taking away many things. But these ones were very gentle and they come and sit on us like little babies, eat their food and go away. They don't harm us unless we treat them badly. It was their world and we felt like we were in cages because thousands of them walk past and look at us. We loved our encounters with these monkeys.
From the monkey forest, we then headed to a restaurant called saren indah. Most of the tours in Bali have either lunch or dinner included. The restaurant was very good because it has an open ambience and its built amidst greenery. We were served with welcome drinks, soups, rice and curry and fried bananas with fresh fruits. The food was really good and so was the service. After a scrumptious lunch, we headed to our next spot which was the Deva Putu Toris painting museum. When we heard we are going to a painting museum we weren't expecting it to be this good. The museum blew our mind with their spectacular display of paintings from all over the world. Photography is not allowed inside. Its definitely worth visiting and also we can buy the paintings if we like it. The prices are in USD. There were small paintings starting from $45 to huge life size paintings with a price tag of $35,000. It was unbelievable and the best thing was we could haggle the prices. There is a small temple inside the museum but to enter it we should wear Balinese costume called Bulang which is nothing but a sash to be tied like a belt.
Our last destination was Windhu sari art market where we bought a few souvenirs. When we visited the art market, everything looked very different and we felt like buying all of them. The handicrafts are very different when compared to India or any other place. This market was our last destination for the day and we were dropped to our villa around 6pm. We took some rest and then went out for a walk and had some Mexican dinner at Taco Local. The day ended with a good night's sleep.
The next two days of our trip were quite interesting. Keep reading :) thank you
We left to Bali on the 16th of August 2014. Our flight was at 9am. We left home at 6 am, parked our car at one of the airport parkings and took their shuttle to the airport. We checked in around 7am and then had breakfast at hungry jacks. We weren't so worried about the travelling part to Bali because it's only 6 hours from Melbourne and it was a direct flight. We boarded the flight around 8.45 am. Flight was supposed to leave at 9 am but there was a 30 minute delay. We left at 9.30am with lots n lots of excitement. Though we left late, we reached Bali on time at 1.15 pm. The Ngurah Rah airport at Denpasar, capital of Bali was a nice and a different kind of an airport. Ours was a visa on arrival and costed $35 USD pp. The visa and immigration process went really quick.
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| @ Melbourne International Airport, all set to leave |
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| @Ngurah Rah International Airport, Denpasar |
We had booked a one bedroom pool villa at Kayu Raja Villa, Seminyak and the villa people were there to pick us up. So we left the airport around 2.30pm. Unfortunately the day we landed was on the eve of Indonesian Independence Day. So all the roads were jammed and there was huge traffic everywhere. Seminyak is supposed to be 30 minutes from the airport but it took us almost two hours to reach the villa. We checked in around 4.45pm. The villa was very beautiful with a big private pool, a living area, open kitchen plan, spacious room, beautiful deck and a separate massage room on the terrace. We relaxed for a while and in the night had dinner at a place called The Deck. That was our first day in Bali.
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| Villa 14 |
Second day we had a tour booked- Ubud village tour. Ubud is another place which is around two hours from Seminyak. It's known for its tradition and a few years back Ubud won the award for being the worlds best traditional city. Day 2, we left the villa around 9am. We had a private tour with an english speaking guide. Initially he briefed us about Bali and it's culture and told us many facts about the place. Bali has 90% Hindus but the gods they worship is different from our hindu gods. Our first destination was a place called Anom Jewellery. Bali is famous for silver and gold because all the ornaments here are handcrafted and not machine made. We were shown how people handcraft it and it's amazing to see so much talent. We did a bit of shopping and then left to another jewellery store known as Prepen jewellery. This was a beautiful store with great ambience and very nice jewellery. We had a demo about how jewellery is made. The silver is melted into long rods, cut into medium rods and once again cut into small rods and finally reduced to small and very small silver balls. Once it's done they attach them to a round moulded silver or other shaped silver to make a piece of jewellery. The glue they use is of a seed which they call pili pili. The seeds are crushed and made to work as a glue. After a nice walk around the shop, we left to Tegalalang rice terrace which was an amazing sight to watch. Agriculture is of great importance in Bali and rice is like their staple food. We saw many rice fields and rice terraces. It's wonderful to see how the rice terraces are built.
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| Prepen Jewellery Store |
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| Tegalalang Rice terrace |
After spending some time here , we left to the most awaited place, Ubud monkey forest. This forest has thousands of monkeys which are known to be sacred and are worshipped by the people. They are left free and they roam everywhere. They come and sit on us, they climb on our shoulders and heads. The more we feed them, the more time they spend with us. We can buy bananas inside the forest and feed these little ones. I was initially scared because I haven't had a monkey encounter till date and all the monkeys I have seen in the cities are always busy snatching food and taking away many things. But these ones were very gentle and they come and sit on us like little babies, eat their food and go away. They don't harm us unless we treat them badly. It was their world and we felt like we were in cages because thousands of them walk past and look at us. We loved our encounters with these monkeys.
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| @saren indah restaurant |
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| Painting Museum |
From the museum we left to Teba Sari, a place where we could taste the world's most expensive coffee and even buy them. This coffee is called the Luwak Coffee and it is made from the excreta of an animal called Luwak. The animal is left in the coffee fields and it searches and eats the best coffee beans. The next day when they excrete, their excreta is collected and coffee powder is prepared with it. This coffee is proved to have many medicinal values and takes a long time to prepare the powder hence the price is so high. The taste of this coffee was very bitter but that's the taste of a pure coffee-bitter. To make it feel better, coconut sugar may be added. This coffee is cheap in Bali when compared to other countries. We were told that in US, one cup of coffee is around $50 and in Japan it's worth $90. One more attraction of this place is their herbal tea. When we visit this place,they make us sit in their open lounge and serve us with 14 different types of teas and coffees. We thought we wouldn't like it but the tastes were so refreshing and new that we ended up buying the tea powders.
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| Herbal tea and coffee |
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| The Luwak Coffee |
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| The animal, Luwak |
Our last destination was Windhu sari art market where we bought a few souvenirs. When we visited the art market, everything looked very different and we felt like buying all of them. The handicrafts are very different when compared to India or any other place. This market was our last destination for the day and we were dropped to our villa around 6pm. We took some rest and then went out for a walk and had some Mexican dinner at Taco Local. The day ended with a good night's sleep.
The next two days of our trip were quite interesting. Keep reading :) thank you
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