Busy like mad $*^#*$&@#(*
Day 2 @ Bali!
They assigned me to sit beside Dewa because they assumed I will ask him a lot of questions and thus preventing him from falling asleep while behind the wheel (roll eyes). But I'm not complaining... prefer the front seat if anything. Better view, less motion sickness :D
Again, the ride up to Bedugul took forever (close to 2 hours coz traffic jam) and it drizzled!! Again! The rain didn't stop... Fog 360 degrees. So darn disappointed ;( First
Mount Batur, now this. And after the very long ride! Really disappointed
max.... The other lau langs too. Sigh. Asked Dewa if the weather is like this all the time or we were just plain unlucky and well... most of the time it's foggy :(
Bedugul to Bali is what Cameron Highlands is to Malaysia. Located on higher grounds and also home to various botanical gardens, strawberry and fruit plantations.
First stop, strawberry plantation! Didn't take much shots on the 'plantation'. Only a small area with dismal amount of strawberries growing hehehe. Cameron Highlands one more impressive lol. Nevertheless, all of us felt hungry already (was only 11am or so, the cold must have triggered our stomachs hehe).
Ordered strawbri pancakes and the others ordered strawberry shake. I had a hot chocolate! Papa was super chillax, got his book out to read while sipping on his drink :O
So anyways, it was foggy as ever so we definitely will not be able to view the 3 mountains (Mt Batur, Mt Abang & Mt Agung) from where we were T____T. After the long drive $*%#*$@)(% x 100000
MCC wanted to have bakso, which is really like chicken meatball soup and Dewa said he will bring us to a place which he recommends. Unfortunately (I feel like this word is being used over and over again way too often in my Bali posts grrrr) it was closed! Probably because it was a Friday and likely due to prayers. So Dewa brought us to Plan B.
You seeeeeee all foggggggg $&garrhhhhh;%($&#$#;%(#$@)
See if you can spot the couple taking pics with those poke head through board prop. lol.
The restaurant is sort of linked to a hotel called Bedugul hotel. Very touristy sort of place, but it's mostly the locals (Indonesian) that seem to fill up the area. Digressing, we later went to the toilets in the hotel and my goodness, the horrible state it was in :\ Let's just not think about how our food was prepared....
Ordered this drink called 'soda gembira' which should be enough to induce the diabetes in you. The white liquid stuff filling a quarter of the glass is condensed milk. Yep. Just thinking about it gives me toothache.
If that's not sweet enough, the high sugar content Fanta soda will be sure to bring forward your next visit to the dentist.
Soto ayam! It's pretty good, if I may say so myself. Maybe I'm starving, maybe it's cold but I downed everything! Slurp slurp slurp :D Some more my order came first ahead of everyone else hehehehhe and I was about to finish the soup as well when mum stopped me saying MSG bla bla bla.
Another round of gado-gado! This was one of the best gado-gado we had in this trip. Ingredients are very simple, but I suppose that's the winning combo. We quickly placed another order for the same dish as they took a reaaalllyyyy long time to arrive. Sad thing is, the second order wasn't as good as the first one. This place is just weird.
Finally the other's bakso orders arrived some 30 minutes later, after a few rounds of complaints... lol. I didn't particularly enjoy this bowl. For me it felt very MSG-ish, like dumping 3 packs of Maggi mee seasonings along with a few pieces of chicken balls. The chicken balls also feel very processed and bleargh. When I asked MCC why she likes bakso so much since it felt so Ajinomoto-ish, she said yea it's famous cos it's very Ajinomoto. LOL....super roll eyes.
Finally the fog cleared a leeeetleeee bit and we can finally see the shore across the lake! There's also another temple on the other side which we can only catch the barest glimpse of it.
Botanical gardens next. Don't ask me why it's even in the itinerary lol. I suppose MCC and I decided to put that in since the lau langs like to take pics with flowers lol. But it's a pretty good decision! Beautiful place.
Also got some sort of extreme sports here like flying fox. Papa super adventurous! He wanted to go but no kaki with him.... Then he asked me :( and I said raining woh :( So he ended up not going :( Becos of me I think :(
Bedugul's very own cactus farm.
Bought this hibiscus prints shawl at the Bedugul restaurant cos it was c-c-oo-ld!
Bunch of immigrants
Rice terrace
Then finally to a temple! Probably one of the most photographed places in Bali - Tanah Lot.
See la what happens when you get a lau lang to take a photo of you.... they completely crop off the monument of interest -.-
The waves go really high up and you get a great view of the surfers.... Looks like fun!
So crowded! See the line coming out of the temple? It's where you are blessed with holy water or some sort (according to MCC) but we weren't keen to queue, so just waited around and watch the sun set.
Papa's default bag position is very -.-
One of my favourite shots.
Lots of shots on the sun set progression...
From this...
To what looked like a wolf gorging the sun whole...
To what Mum described to be Buddha's palm (phwarrrr) lol
And that's it! I was a little cheated that we didn't get to explore any of the temples while we're right in the heart of the biggest Hindu population in Indonesia... Then I started badgering MCC for more temples... and well, we'll leave that for the next day ;)
Bali's version of onde-onde :D
With the sun setting and the moon rising, we were whisked off to some good ol' pork ribs! Another recommendation by Dewa.
It looks more like an ang moh place.... but don't judge too soon!
Oh, did I mention? Every night for the 3/4 nights we were there, we bought chilled Bintang beer to drink while munching on Indonesian keropok by our private pool in the villa ;) ;) ... heavenly! Bintang is my newest addition to my list of fave beers, very smooth and easy to drink.
Apologies for the side-tracking... more lemon squash!
Grilled chicken with a sort of mint sauce dip. Chicken was very well tenderized. Loved the marinade and smoky flavours.
The meat... so tender and succulent.... just falling off the bones, literally.... This is bad.... the ribs have heightened my expectations of what pork ribs should be, darn it! How to beat this!
Not forgetting our nasi goreng special hehehe.
Mixed with sweet dark sauce and sambal on the side. Yummy, yummy. Another good recommendation by Dewa!
Next post should be the final installment... Hopefully I can jot it all down before it escapes my poor memory! :S
A bit disappointing lar... all the way there already but didn't explore the temples! Wasted only. Some more fog all the time
ReplyDeleteThink it will be nice to stay for at least 2 weeks there to really absorb all Bali has to offer and to wait for fog to dissipate
A vacation must have pic - lau lang titok picture
Yeah, that was a big blow to us. Especially MCC said the view was really good when they were there and you just thought why me ?! sort of way :S
ReplyDelete2 weeks is a really long time, but if you're there for the more off the beaten path, then I guess there's more than enough time to cover the essentials of Bali.