Even though I failed to get a beach body before coming to Bali, I had no choice but to wear an effin swimsuit. lol! I don’t know if all those extra fats were caused by the birth control pills I took for 6 months to unconfuse my hormones—just stopped taking them last June. Or because of the lifestyle I’m having here in Dubai. Anyway, i’m being too defensive. I’m fat. That’s basically it. Gaah! lol!
Bali, Indonesia August 31-September 3, 2011.
Initially, my sister and I have planned to go to Sydney on these dates. Unfortunately, it’s peak season so my visa application is still yet approved. We have booked a hotel for the trip and had to cancel it the last minute.
Focusing our minds to Sydney as our final destination, we didn’t have plan B nor C nor D. One week prior to our scheduled departure to an unknown destination, we still tried to come up with something. Choices: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Koh Samui, Thailand.
Saturday, August 27. We have set our minds to Koh Samui, Thailand despite the long train travel with bus and ferry transfers. Not to mention the fact that it’s cheaper to go to Thailand, we also wanted to relax and enjoy the sea breeze plus all the pampering. However, the next day, when we were about to shop for swimsuits and did crash diet, which btw didn’t work, a Thai friend of mine told me that this is not a good time to go to Thailand because it’s monsoon season and we won’t be able to enjoy the trip. And so, we shouted, “Rio, here we come!”
Rio de Janeiro is a good destination because we need not to apply for a visa to enter the country as tourists. Being there, we can actually witness ourselves if the people who live in Brazil are tremendously handsome—we were in for a hunt for hot men.
Thinking that Rio is our ultimate final destination, I spent so much on winter clothes—boots, sweaters, pants, jackets and cute winter hats from H&M. BUT shit always happens. I’ve read on wikitravel about Rio and how scary it is to walk around without men around. Again, change of plans. No more Rio. Oh, my winter clothes.
Monday. August 29. We opted for Bali without even thinking how much we will end up spending for the whole trip. After work, I met up with my sister and drove ourselves to the mall to buy some stuff we will need for the trip. But then, we both realized, we have no money for it. We have to take whatever we have in our closets to Bali.
Tuesday. August 30 at 1 am. We left my sister’s flat and took the cab to the airport. There we booked the flight to Jakarta leaving at 4:55 am. Good thing I will only pay 10% of the return ticket. A few hours later, we left Dubai.
Arriving in Jakarta, we booked a flight for the next day going to Bali. And having done this, it cost us $$$!!! So, we just shut our eyes, mouth and everything else and pay. We had no choice. We’re bad travelers. We sucked at planning.
Me and my deformed hat.
We stayed in Jakarta for the night. Tried to book a hotel prior to our arrival in Bali—yet another fail. Without any hotel to stay at, we just took a deep breath and board the plane to Bali.
Welcome to Bali!!!
Luckily, there are booths at the airport where we were able to book a decent and clean hotel in Legian beach.
My Ate is so cute. lol!
But before we checked-in, we searched for a spa and had a Balinese massage, pedicure and manicure for 150,000 INR. BTW, we were millionaires in this country and it feels so weird to buy something that sounds to be too expensive! After the massage, I braved the sea, kidding, I got rid off my fear for short hair. Hence,
I, enjoying Magnum icecream at Legian beach.
Everyone in the salon, from the customers to the masseuse and beauticians, was so affected. I chopped off ~12 inches of my wavy hair and surprisingly, I don’t miss it—at all.
Before checking out the beach, we picked a local place that caters Balinese food and found ourselves sitting inside this restaurant.
The place looks really old. The kitchen’s too old. But whatever, we have to experience the taste of Balinese food. Ate ordered Nasi Goreng, see picture below.
Does not look enticing at all. lol! I, on the other hand, ordered chicken curry and played safe. But in my surprise, the moment I put the food in my mouth. I couldn’t bear the taste. It’s too different. I told my sister I won’t be able to eat it. So we switched.
After eating in that restaurant, I’m pretty sure no one will come back for Nasi Goreng nor Chicken curry. I wished I ordered fish and chips instead.
Despite the awful experience, this was our only consolation. Oh, deep fried peanuts and beer!
On our first night in Bali, we hopped on the back of a local who drives a scooter. This form of transportation in Bali is called ojek or motorcycle taxi.
And he was sort of “banlag”, we just realized that when we were browsing through our photos.
…We’ve reached the busiest place in Kuta where several bars are located.
We haven’t had dinner so we looked around for one of the clubs/bars that serves food as well. However, we were in the area where alcohol is the sole thing that bars sell, aside from i-dunno-what. lol!
We saw this restaurant across this discotheque and ordered the safest food, pizza!!!
And so I met…
And fell in love with it. Both of us had two bottles cause it was buy one take one. lol! Then we tried to have fun and went inside the Sky Lounge bar. Where we stood next to the pole dancing performers and Ate and I were the only girls who were staring at how the pole dancers do their thang. haha!
That first night was good…for Ate. lol! She was so drunk. haha! I remained sober so I can see the faces of the men approaching clearly.
Come next day, still glued in our bed, we forced ourselves, got up and had breakfast at the restaurant of the hotel, Lip’s Restaurant.
Didn’t you just pout your lips? lol!
The food was average. Nice fried rice though. We couldn’t help but eat a lot. And failed to have a flatter stomach. lol! In our defense, we were there not just to lay on the beach, we were there to experience Bali—from their food to culture and people.
After eating, we rented a scooter for INR 55,000. My first time to ride one. There we started the ride of our lives.
I’m so fat.
With 3 liters of petrol, we drove all the way to Kuta for 5 hours at 25 km/hr and back to Legian for like 2 hours. I’ll tell you the story late on how we managed to cut 3 hours from our trip back to our hotel.
On our way to Kuta, my sister couldn’t move that much, so she had the camera in her hands before driving and took these pictures…
I’m guessing, with the number of scooters in Bali, it’s not impossible that every household or two has/have a scooter. They’re just everywhere!
Balinese structure.
Finally have reached Ubud! Bliss!!!
Not knowing where we really were heading, I saw this museum and turned left. We stopped for a while to take these photos, used the loo and then took off to look for Ketut Liyer.
(C) tripod.
…. dun dun dun
Finally! When I saw this place, I felt like crying because I was literally shaking because of extreme fatigue and stress!
EAT, PRAY, LOVE!
I dragged her into this. And Ate, I’m terribly sorry if I was cranky at times. :P
Ze entrance.
And I met this Balinese guy who was the driver of the Spanish father of two.
Because I’m awful when it comes to remembering names, let’s just call him, Kahim. He told me that Ketut in the movie, Eat Pray Love, was just an actor because Ketut is old and he cannot act for the movie anymore. I think my Ate and I were the only ones who doesn’t know that fact. Which would pretty much come from a person’s common sense. It was a movie. !@#@!$! lol!
There were 5 people who were in line for Ketut, 3 of them were men and two women, including I—though I don’t believe in it, I was there already so might as well try.. I was surprised that these men were interested in reading their palms… I wonder what was their reason for having their palms read…
My sister sacrificed and allowed me to have my a session with Ketut. We didn’t have enough rupiah for the both of us. A session cost INR 250,000 and we were INR 7,000 short. Baaa!
What he told me was not that grand. What really registered to me was that he predicted that I will tie the knot when I turned 23 or 24 which is a year/two years from now! No waaaay!!!
That guy is Estonian and he was the reason why we managed to go back to Legian at an earliest time. I asked him if Ate could ride with him so we could drive faster. I had to follow them and drove at 50-70 kph. I almost lost them once, but I followed my instincts and took this turn where everyone was going. It was an adventure. When we got back at the hotel, we took a power nap plus a shower and went out. To my horror, I found this!
Battle bruise! I had another bruise on my left leg but not as huge as this one. It was hard to balance when you’re driving 10kph on a scooter. I always had to carry both my sister and my weight. But It was okay. The least thing I would like to have are scratches or worse, WOUNDS!
The next day we had a chill day. We walked on the beach and bought some pasalubongs/souvenirs.
We tried the fish doctors.
It felt this weird.
We witnessed the sunset in Bali. Pretty.
Come night time, we settled for a swim in the pool and played music while drinking Bintang by the pool.
We’re crazy like that. My big sister’s (Ate) idea.
We did something crazier than this though. lol! way way crazier.
The next morning, on our last day, we woke up early to have some pictures taken at the beach. We didn’t even swim or anything. haha! Though we walked on the beach and met some Spanish “football” players.
Because our stomachs were full. lol! I cropped the picture.
Some people were watching us do our silly poses. And the local balinese gave us this comment:
“Nice modelling”. lol!
And then we were off to the place where they make ginger tea, bali coffee and kopi luwak and sell them at a ripped off price. But we like them so we had no choice but to buy some ginseng coffee, ginger tea, etc.
Lemon grass tea, ginger tea, bali coffee, choco, ginseng coffee.
Tagayatay vibe.
After dropping by this cozy beverage shop, time to water raft. I was so competetive that time. We were so close to attaining the first place. This muscular father was too powerful so we just placed 2nd. Not bad. :)
We bought those ugly sandals fearing that we will lose our slippers while rafting.
Row row row! Forward!
My team! That local grabbed my ass while climbing up the flight of stairs after the raft. Err. He did a full on ass grab and pushed me going up! BV.
Stopped by to take photographs of the majestic falls and drank beer to boost our energy ;)
And we were extremely hungry after the adventure. We went back to the hotel, checked out and took a cab to Denpasar airport.
End of our trip…
flight back to Jakarta.
Shall we come back? Yes. Maybe.
