Enter Into Ming Dynasty: Follow The Journey: Bali, Indonesia

Changi - Depensar (Bali)
Fri 28th March 19:10 - Mon 31st March 02:10

What a journey it was to Bali! It started from bad to better. The beaches were a hundred times more beautiful than I'd imagined (depending on which beach you go) and I loved the shopping in Bali mostly things for the house. Very cheap and very arty farty! The food was however, very disappointing .. we still prefered Thai/Viet over Balinese food any time!

Here are the highlights/Learnings:

1) I never knew Bali is actually the name of the island (ie. there's actually no such city called Bali) & within Bali are all these little towns (eg. like Tasmania, and within it you have Hobart, Launceston etc).

2) When we arrived in Kuta, we checked into our Melasti Resort (which we later found out it's the first & oldest resort ever built in Kuta) only to be horrified with the quality of the room. Mind you, we paid US$30 per night (which is a lot in Rupiahs) but the room had very poor air conditioning, no towels, no free drinking water bottles, stank of cigarettes & basically was very run down! It was nearly as bad as the room my family & I stayed in Lumut Malaysia. We waited for nearly half hour waiting for the hotel staff to come to our room to check out why we had complained. The room was like a sauna & plus we were so exhausted. It was nearing midnight! Finally, 45minutes later, they decided to upgrade our room to the deluxe suite which was a hundred times better! Thank God!

3) We shopped like crazy in Bali but mostly on things for the house. These included paintings (yes a must buy in Bali, very cheap & the artists are extremely talented). If you love arty farty sculpture things, then you will love Bali. We bought a lot of wood hand crafted items on avg for only SG$7 each & in Australia, it would be at least AUD$30 each! My other favourite item were soft wooden placemats which had such a pretty design to it. I bargained it down to AU$2 each & I bought 8! BARGAIN I tell you!

4) in Bali, they don't speak Bahasa - the national language but instead, they speak Balinese which is completely different.

5) Majority of the ppl believe in Hinduism (which was a big surprise to me as I thought it was mostly Islam).

6) Bali truly is like a mini Australia as every 2nd person you meet is Australian. The shops even sell some local Australian goods (Eg. Uncle Tobys, Tim Tams etc).

7) We absolutely fell in love with Karma Kandara Resort which wow'd us at every turn. It's probably one of the best resort we've ever been to (second to Maldives of course ;)

Tips to Bali:

1) Get a local tour guide & driver who should not charge more than 250,000 Rupiah per day (SG$40) and he can drive you everywhere in the island. Usually they will have their own tour route which has all the local attractions, however if you don't like it, you can always tell the driver & he can suggest other places to take you. If you can, pick up an independent driver from the streets who will be begging for business. Don't do what we did which was to go to a day tour counter (they will charge you 350,000 Rph instead!). We book the driver on our last day so he could also drive us to the airport as well which was at 9pm (and he started 8:30am too)! So it was well worth our money!

2) If you do decide to go on a day tour with your own private driver, he will take you the rural areas of Bali. You will most likely be pestered by village people who will be taking one, two or three items in their hands ready to sell to you especially when you are about to get into or leave your car. Don't avoid them, have a look at what they have on offer cos the chances are all the local hand made goods they are holding will be sold at a much cheaper price vs a shop! (Eg. Kelv bought his Woodcarved Harley Davidson for AUD$7 and in a shop it's at least AUD$20).

3) Don't Stay in Kuta which was where we stayed if you're intending to have a quiet & relaxing getaway holiday. Kuta is more expensive than the outskirts of town. The beach is very dirty and I would not recommend anyone swim in it. However, if you're a shoppaholic like me & don't mind the crowd, then do stay there as it's the most happening city in Bali.

4) Carry USD if you can as the Balinese will quote most things in USD (especially accommodation). Otherwise if you want to pay by Rupiah, they will give you a bad exchange rate!
5) For all Aussie passport holders, you can buy a VISA on arrival for US$10 which entitles to 7days stay (once again I recommend you to pay in USD which was what we did).

6) Indonesia is probably one of the cheapest countries in the world to buy 'movie DVDs' for about SG$1.10 or AUD $0.80 each & it's not bad quality too.

7) If you're ever bored and wants to get a free tour around Bali, then make sure you go to any happening places (eg. Sogo Shopping Centre in the heart of Kuta). Before you enter the shopping centre, there will be many ppl telling to pick up one of their cards which will have a prize in it. They will make you open the card and peel off the prize. Kelv had 'a free Tshirt' while I won '7 days of free accommodation at any two of Bali's Royal Resorts'. The catch is that you will have to spend at least 1hr to listen to their holiday club product (eg. like Time Shares). For Kelv & I, we were happy to get a free ride to the resort seeing all parts of Bali as well as an exclusive tour to their elite resort which are only open to millionnaires (ie. even if you have money to rent a room for a night, you won't be allowed to!).

8) If you want nice beaches and not too crowded , do visit Nusa Dua which is about 15mins drive away from Kuta Beach. If you want to see spectacular sunsets, then go to Tanah Lot which is about 1hr drive away from Kuta. Sadly, we ran out of time to visit these places, but we will definitely return again to utilise our 7days free accommodation which we've won!

9) Make sure you get the hotel to give you a free airport transfer to your hotel especially if you're staying in Kuta as it's only 10mins away.

10) You always have to bargain wherever you are (except for shops in shopping centres). Start with half the asking price first & then slowly make your way up. For me, I just quoted the price that I would be willing to pay (usually a little bit just over half of the RRP). If they don't like it, walk away and most likely they will call you back. If they don't, oh well, move on.. there's bound to be another shop who sells the same thing you're after.

11) Cheap Balinese/Java Massages - Massages in Indonesia in general are dirt cheap. If you're lucky, you can find massages for SG$20 for two whole hours!! Heaven..! Sadly massages are banned from pregnant women... NoooOOOOO!!!

12) If you do decide to fly to Bali from SG on budget airline, take Jetstar as they give you the same baggage allowance as major airline carriers (eg. 20kg vs 15kg on typical budget airlines). Trust me, you will need the excess weight especially since there's so many things to buy! Return airfare from SG costed us $350 (AUD$277) per person which is avg price. You can get it cheaper when Jetstar is on sale. The journey takes 2.5hrs and Bali shares the same time as SG/MY.

13) Make sure you still have approx SG$25 per person for airport tax!

*The Order of Photos start from the last day to the first day*

Final Day: Sun 30th March
Dinner at a very local restaurant for Babi Guling (Roasted Pork - Balinese Style)
introduced to us by our driver & boy we're we up for a shock of our lives!

Ubud - a very arty farty contemporary shopping town
40mins away from Kuta (a lot of expats live here)

Kintamani - View to the Dormant Volcanoes
Typical local shop in the villages

Our Restaurant for lunch (Above the clouds)
with the view of the dormant volcanic mountains & sulphur lake

The Balinese buffet lunch only costed SG$20 pax

The view from the balcony of restaurant
Mt Batur

Mt Abang

Visit to a local Farm
Mangis aka Mangosteen before it turns purple (my fav!)

Salak Fruit grown from the base of the plant
(first time I've ever heard of this fruit which tasted like pineapple mixed apple)

inside the Salak Fruit (very nice in deed!)

Left: Cinnamon (from the bark!), Right: Mr M grinding the coffee beans

Mr M's first glance of Cocoa & Cocoa beans

Sampling the local coffee/ginger tea/gingseng coffee/cinnamon produced at the local fruit farm while enjoying the serene view of the greens...

Whenever you get into the car of a tourisy place, there are all the ppl from local villages trying to sell you things (which mind you are much cheaper than the shops itself). So if you like it, Bargain it down & buy on the spot straight away before other ppl bombard you with more things!
Mr M bought his handmade wood sculpture -
Harley Davidson bike for SG$9 (AUD $7)

Balinese Rice Paddy Fields

Balinese ppl are very talented in all sorts of handy crafts like Paintings!
(We bought 3! approx price of each was about SG$50 & it's very big too!)

L: Balinese Dance R: Weaving Cotton into Batik clothing

Balinese Women - painting Batik on the material with what looks like Henna ink

Balinese are also very good at WoodCarving/Sculpturing.
Kelv fell in love with this life-sized Old Fisherman made from
100% Mahogany Tree Trunk - Costs USD$1K

First Day - Saturday 29th March
Jimbarang (famous for seafood by the beach)

Local Boys going for their Daily evening swim

While all the local village fishermen comes home from a whole day of fishing which is their main source of income

Their Wives and daughters will then collect all the fish from the net

Blue Marlin Restaurant which is a very popular Tourist spot in Jimbarang where we had dinner on our first night

Selecting our 1kg king prawns & 1kg lobster

It is then brought to the open kitchen for grilling

While waiting for dinner, we ordered our Pineapple & Honeydew 100% Juice which only costs SG$1.50 per glass! cheap as chips!

Voila! Our dishes has finally arrived - This costed us a whopping SG$60 pax!

There is always room for dessert at where else but A&W (Balinese style root beer float is with soft serve vs normal vanilla ice cream!) plus our all time favourite Roti Boy Coffee bun! hmmm.. gosh we've missed roti boy!