I’ve been away for three weeks in December last year. I just got back in KL three days ago. For the first two weeks, I was in Kuching (I’ll post about this later) while last week, my wife and I were honeymooning in Bali, Indonesia.

Our arrival at Ngurah Rai Airport at 7pm was welcomed by heavy rain. After a long queue at the immigration due to slow service by their officer (and, No! they don’t smile even when you say thank you ..), we took a taxi to our hotel for Rp50,000.

The weather had been nice to us. We were welcomed and bade by heavy downpour but throughout our five days and four nights in Bali, it’s been sunny!

We stayed at Hard Rock Hotel for the first three days and had to move out to another hotel for the last night. I wouldn’t say Hard Rock Hotel is the best but overall good with excellently warm and friendly staff.

Day 2:

The following day, we navigated along Jalan Pantai Kuta, turning left to Jalan Legian, stretched the street up to Jalan Melasti and made a returning completion along Jalan Raya Pantai Kuta.

We had lunch at The Breeze, a nice restaurant with selections of excellent local Indonesian and western food. I was surprised to see many Starbucks and other international franchises in Bali. Wireless hotspots are also available in most restaurants and tourists attraction areas.

We stopped at Ground Zero, the bombing site that killed 202 victims back in 2002.

Almost every restaurants serves babi guling and Bintang beer! Apart from ayam betutu and bebek bengil, babi guling or suckling pig is one of Bali’s famous dish.

The streets of Bali, well at least at the Kuta, Legian and Denpasar area are always macet (Indonesian for crawling or jammed) during weekdays and worse still during the weekends. The roads are narrow, mostly one way street and not in good condition. We noticed that everybody behind their wheels honk at everything. They honk at blind corners, while overtaking, when the vehicle at the front is slow, when they come across T or cross junctions, they honk all the time, anywhere, at anyone.

Day 3:

We kicked-off day three by hiring a driver cum guide at Rp400,000 for a day trip. Our driver, I Putu Sudiana (find out Balinese names) is a friendly and humble father and husband, born and raised in Bali with 15 years experience in the tourism industry. Interestingly, at the end of our one and a half days engaging Putu, we departed as new friends and came up with a crazy idea to help him promote his driver/guide service on the Internet. If you are interested to enquire on Putu’s service, please visit his blog at balidriver4u.com. Based on our own experience, Putu is highly recommended. He is polite, on-time, flexible with the schedule and most importantly, you feel safe with Putu’s company. Putu also is very well knowledgeable in the history, customs and culture of Bali. Besides his local Balinese dialect and Indonesian language, Putu speaks fluent English while his wife masters English and Korean language.

The first destination Putu took us was to watch Barong and Keris Dance performance. I remembered watching this in one of Jamie Aditya’s Sync or Swim episode on Discovery Channel. Seeing the performance live was different. Firstly, the audience couldn’t hear what the actors were saying. They should’ve put on wireless microphone. Doesn’t matter if they speak Balinese but what important is the sound effect. It’s like as if you are watching TV on mute. Secondly, they should provide a large screen above the stage and display translations as the actors speak. With Rp60,000 of gate collection per visitor, I’m sure they could afford to improve their infrastructure. Thirdly, the English translation is less detail compared to the narration in Indonesian hence foreigners were puzzled on what was going on.

The grand finale of the performance was when a group of men (Rangda’s warrior) transformed into a trance state. They repeatedly stabbed themselves but their weapons failed to penetrate through their human flesh.

Our next destination was to a silver factory (how can I forget to take photos) where items from jewelries to house decorations are handmade. They are sold in USD and quite expensive, hence we didn’t bother to buy any.

Pls proceed to Part II

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