Bali Trip -1st Day (17.07.2007)

Travel and Leisure Magazine named Bali as the World’s Best Island. Sounds interesting? Book a flight and head on there. That’s what I did with the free seats offered by Air Asia last year. Looking out from the plane’s window, the Ngurah Rai Airport - Bali’s only airport (sometimes referred to as being in Denpasar) seems to be built beside the sea! The weather was a mixture of cool and hot due to the strong winds.





Headed to their town called Kuta, the only place in Bali, which you can find Hard Rock, McD’s, KFC and other famous branded outlets. The currency used here is mostly in US Dollar, however, in other places up north, the Indonesia Rp takes over. Didn't really went into Hard Rock though.





In Kuta, there are plenty of hotels along all the main roads with the price ranging roughly between Rp50, 000 till USD 150 and above per night. Needless to say there were a lot of drivers and taxis around honking you and asking if you need a ride. Checked into a mid-budget hotel and called for a driver. First destination was to the Pura Luhur Uluwatu, which is near the Suluban Beach on the far south of Bali.

There’s not much traffic lights in Bali but there’s sure a lot of roundabouts (big and small ones). At each of these roundabouts, you can spot a statue or figurine in the middle of the road, which are being prayed by the locals.

It was a breathtaking sight at Pura Luhur Uluwatu. The Pura (which means temple) is one of Bali’s holiest and most important temples, which is situated on the tip of a rocky cliff roughly 70m above the foaming surf. In the compound of this temple, the locals have built a small stage to perform the Kecak Dance (sometimes called as the monkey dance). The dance represents the main episode of the Ramayana story, where the demon king Rawana kidnapped Sita.






The dance took quite a while (from evening till night). It was time for dinner! The famous seafood dinner by the beach would be in Jimbaran. There were so many seafood restaurants beside the Jimbaran Bay. Looking at the menu, some of the seafood has 2 options – either fresh or live. You will need to choose for example live prawns or fresh prawns and how many kilos and how you want it cooked. The environment there is the perfect picture of a romantic dinner. Imagine, candlelight dinner by the beach, wind blowing gently, stuffing yourself with the amount of seafood and musicians playing beside your table (yes, like it or not, you will need to pay for the musicians as they will go to each table regardless if you call for them or not). Weirdly, there are small carts by the beach as well selling steamed peanuts and roasted corns.


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