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Bali Day 3: Ben Chong has a different meaning in Bali

satkuru — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 17:59:37 +0000

We headed back to Sri Ratih Cottage after dinner on the 2nd night. We were all free to do anything for the night and so the guys and got into the pool. The ladies on the other hand decided to stay dry and conquered the lobby area hogging their wifi spot; facebook-ing, tweet-ing. It’s like as though we were the only residents in the whole cottage.

We all went back to our rooms after an hour or so for a good night’s sleep. The next morning we had our complimentary breakfast before heading to Kuta Beach for our final night.

I realized i left out pictures of the rooms in Sri Ratih Cottage. Here they are

The rooms are very spacious, in fact too spacious lol. Good thing if you have big backpacks like us cause you can just lay them anywhere. Same goes with the bathroom. There’s just ample of space in the room. Never bothered checking what channels were available cause i immediately dozed off once i got onto the bed.

I highly recommend this place to anyone who is putting up a night in Ubud. Remember Sri Ratih Cottage.

After breakfast, we packed up and moved towards Kuta town.

On the way we stopped at Goa Gajah.

Goa Gajah or Elephant Cave was built in the 9th century and it’s listed as one of UNESCO’s heritage site, thus being one of the must visit places for us

After putting on our sarungs, we took a short walk to the cave.

It’s not some huge cave with bats hanging upside down and funky smell but it’s more a man made cave i think. It’s quite small with deities places at every corner.

One thing that i never did in Cambodia was to camwhore. I didn’t have much evidence of my face in any of those places. So this time around i tried to snap more of myself, though most of the time it comes out crappy.

It was very dark in the cave and i forgot to lower down the power of my flash thus Daniel and David giving the WTF look at me. Hahahaha sorry guys ROFL.

Lingas in one corner of the cave in Goa Gajah.

There was also carvings of Buddha on limestone but i could hardly see it.

Some of the smaller temples in the compound were destroyed during the last major earthquake. So only the remaining ruins were left on the site.

After Goa Gajah, we moved on to Pasar Seni Sukawati.

We never bought any handicrafts or shirts along the whole journey here in Bali. Simply because this very market which is away from the main Kuta area sells very much cheaper.

We only had 30minutes here but it was the worst 30 minutes in Bali. We all spread around and tried looking for things that interest us. Most of us wanted the local shirts and while bargaining i found out one of the stalls gave us a very good deal.

So i went to the rest and told them that the other stall was cheaper and asked them to go there. The owner overheard and shouted at us, saying who said there cheaper? The daughter also joint suite and were babbling their lungs out. Ai Ling, Angeline, Emily and I got a shock of our lives but being Penangites, we maintained cool and said the other lady did offer cheaper and we walked off. I glanced back and the lady was still fuming.

After purchasing from the other store, a total of 30 plus shirts, we purposely walked in front of the other store where the lady shouted. Hahahahahahahahaha. The lady stared at us as we walked off. Well she deserved it. I was paying for my shirt and i have every right to choose another stall if the price was right. She and her daughter had no reason to shout at us.

In our van, we laughed our lungs out talking about the expression of the her face when she saw how much we actually bought.

Don’t play play with Penangites!

After half an hour we stopped by Pondok Kuring for lunch.

While waiting for lunch to be served, some of us took time to clean our camera gears. For some reason that lens looks like mine, lol

We had pigeon their local chicken specialty for lunch. We had extra portions because Wai Seng couldn’t make it for the trip, just like how we had an extra room while in Mount Batur. So we gave the extra portion to our driver who has been excellent during the whole journey. He opened up to us especially me after we showed that we are a happy go lucky bunch of travelers.

I could remember how many times he asked me if i was really giving he and Yoga the extra room as well as this lunch

While waiting for the rest to finish, i roamed around the restaurant and this flower which was hanging above my head at the entrance caught my attention. I haven’t really mastered macro or close up shots but i think i am getting there. Lol self confidence kicking in

Slowly one by one appeared at the entrance and we got into our van before heading to The Oasis where we will be putting up for the night.

In our trips, usually the final day we would stay in a slightly better place and The Oasis at Kuta beach was hit all the criteria; not blood sucking expensive and superb environment.

All rooms face their gorgeous pool which runs from the lobby to the end of the building. Here’s the messed up part, i never had one decent shot of their pool !!!!!!! Sigh. What a waste !

From Sri Ratih Cottage to The Oasis, we were back to the usual size room which was better. Sometimes too big a room can be a bit eerie in the middle of the night XD

The room had oldish-slab-of-stones as their tiles. There’s a third bed, sofa-like, which could easily be used by another person. Everything here was compact and clean. After washing up, we gathered at the lobby before walking to Kuta beach to meet up with Yoga.

There was a miscommunication before we gathered, so i would like to apologize to Jess and also Steven

From the Oasis to the Kuta beach, it was like a 15 minutes walk where we would pass through the main shopping district. Everyone was going like oooo aaaaaaa and couldn’t stop looking around lol.

We finally met up with Yoga and we were off to Tanah Lot !

To Tanah Lot, it took us like half an hour but luckily there wasn’t any rain.

Unlike other places, we needn’t wear sarung.

Unfortunately the temple on this cliff was closed.

We had our wind therapy again. Loved every second of it. Just make sure you have your sunnies or cap or hat intact, if not it will just take off without you knowing.

We then walked to the temple you see above. The temple is on the right side, near the water. It’s said that below the temple has a water source which emits pure clean water though it’s near the sea. Not really sure about it but we didn’t get close to the temple as it was really crowded.

Seriously, the breeze at Tanah Lot was just fantastic. I would have equally enjoyed the breeze at Uluwatu if only there wasn’t any rain in the first place

Moments after i took this shot, i saw Aaron with a bloody leg. It seems he slipped when he was walking towards us. We then moved on to a nearby restaurant for dinner.

On the way there, Yoga was telling us about the Ah Gua (tranny) that we see a lot in Jakarta and Jogjakarta are actually called Ben Chong in Bali. HAHAHAHA. So we immediately turned to David whose surname is Chong and told him, whatever it is don’t name your son Ben ! ROFLMAO

Yoga suddenly starting feeding a fruit bat out of a sudden which scare the few of us, LOL.

After a short walk we reached our makan place.

When the workers at this restaurant saw Aaron walking awkwardly, they realized of his bloody leg. They immediately brought him in and took out the first aid kit box. They cleaned his wound there and then. Talk about excellent customer service

The table that they arranged for us was damn long. It gave the impression of the Last Supper, hahaha.

Each dish slowly made it’s way out of the kitchen and before you know it our tables were jam packed with food. We stuffed ourselves to the max and then left early to Legian area.

There we were shown where the Bali bombings happened. We were dropped at Legian itself. Some of us, decided to have dinner again and some of us decided to walk. Ai Ling, Emily, Angeline and i decided to walk. In fact, we just kept on walking to God knows where. After a while we realized we reached Kuta area. We stopped by Mc Donalds for desert before heading back to the Oasis.

After dropping our stuffs, we walked again and suddenly Ai Ling mentioned about Vingie challenged her to do a tattoo. So Ai Ling got curious and asked one of the nearby shops about getting one.

She decides to have her name tattoo-ed on her hand but this tattoo is only temporary

I tell you the time we took or rather the time Ai Ling took to decide on whether she should do the tattoo, we could all have done a few laps in the swimming pool. HAHAHAHA. She just looked so tensed when deciding whether to go for it.

After that, we called it a night.

Final post of Bali and our wonderful journey in Indonesia will be up soon. Stay tuned

Redang – Nipple Island

satkuru — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:13:55 +0000

After riding on the boat for about half an hour, we finally reached the resort that we were gonna stay for the next four days and three night. Redang Kalong was the name, RK for short. Not to be mistaken for RK House – No Pork, lol.

We were then given a short briefing by the owner of the place in terms of timing of the meals and time for check-in/check-out. Then the keys were given out and for the next four days i will be staying with William, Aaron and Hugo.

What i liked about this resort was that the rooms were all wood based, giving you that you-are-now-on-island-and-everything-is-better-in-wood feel. Surprisingly the rooms were all fitted with airconds. Water heater was also installed in the bathroom but only a lucky few would experience it. During my four days there, i never got to bathe in hot water …. not even once -_-”

So after unpacking our things, we rushed down for the first snorkeling session. So we waited for the rest and turned out that the girls took an extra ten minutes. We later found out that they were busy applying mascara and foundation. Not like anyone is gonna recognise them once they are in the water, lol.

So since we missed the first snorkeling session, we did the next best thing; snap pictures. I took this opportunity to learn more about my polarizer and William was kind enough to show how to use it. The girls appeared not too long after and everyone just lazed on the beach chairs and hammock.

The next snorkeling session was at 2.15pm, so some of us took a short nap and some just hung around till lunch time.

Each time there’s session for snorkeling, diving or meals, an old skool bell is rung around the resort to alert everyone about what is happening. It’s something you don’t experience often.

The girls werent’t late this time and we manage to get into the boat in time. I entered the water without any life jacket thinking how hard could it be swimming in the sea …. but i was wrong @_@ With the strong current around, i spent most of the time trying to maintain my spot rather than swimming around. That wore me down and in the end i retired and got back to the boat.

We returned to the resort after two hours and since some of us still had some energy left in us, we decided to canoe.

About two kilometers from the shore was an island which had nipple shaped stones all round it and that’s where we decided to canoe, lol. So imagine this, canoe-ing at 4.30pm under the hot sun in the open sea @_@

Please take note, pictures from here on were shamelessly hijacked from William, LOL. I edited the pictures a bit so that it won’t look as nice as how William had posted in his blog

It took us about twenty minutes to reach the shore of Nipple Island and from there on we decided to hike up the breasted hills, hahaha.

Now here’s the best bit of the whole canoe-ing expedition, see the picture above ? check out the person on the far left and far right …. noticed anything missing from these two macho fellas ? they were both slipper-LESS >_<”

Now why is that the best bit of the expedition ? You see from afar, the island looked like it had a beach with white smooth sand and …… Aaron and I decided to leave out slippers behind. But that was a wrong move, i mean a WRONG MOVE. When we got there, the blardy beach was covered with blardy dead corals and it was blardy pain walking barefooted on that island. I was literally screaming like a small boy in me cause it really hurt badly. So much so that my feet did bleed at one point -_-”

After hiking for a short distance, we finally reached the place where it resembled erected nipples and boy oh boy were we surrounded by so many of them, lol. Notice how macho the front two fellas are ? That was the few seconds that i smiled before moaning in pain again. And if the pebbles weren’t bad enough, the ants just made matters worst.

We carried on climbing to the top …. yes barefooted some more. Real stim ler. The view from the top was really breath-taking. We sat down for a while to enjoy the cool breeze blowing from all directions. Then we slowly hiked back down.

About two hundred meters from Nipple Island was a patch of white sand shaped like a crescent and we decided to canoe there and run around on that patch of sand.

… and that turned out to be a bad idea for me and aaron @_@

It wasn’t just white sand but it’s AGAIN covered with dead corals @_@

Check out the two fellas on the far left ler, macho-ness on its highest level. Hahaha.

We didn’t spend much time on this crescent looking patch of sand cause first it was covered with dead corals and second it was getting dark. So after snapping a few pictures, we canoed back Canoe-ing back was another issue.

Upon reaching the beach, Aaron and i canoed into a super low area and scrapped corals along the way. It came to a point where our canoe actually got stuck and had to force our way out with our oars -_-” And that was another experience that i will never forget.

After dinner, we walked to Lagune beach. This was probably the maddest part of the day for me. I was literaly a walking zombie and was dying to go back to the resort. When i finally got back to my room, i dozed off within seconds upon lying on the bed