Friday, May 6, 2016

Bali: Day 1

Hello, everyone!

Finally a long awaited blog post on travel. The last time I went on a vacation was to Macau a few weeks before Chinese New Year last year. For our anniversary trip this year we went to Bali! It's my first time to Indonesia and I am truly amazed with their culture. Before I continue further, a word of advice would be to research about the culture and festivals of your destination. The most exciting time to visit new places is during their festive season but the downside is most attractions and shops will be closed.

As for Bali, they have Nyepi which is a "Day of Silence", a Hindu celebration to commemorate every Isakawarsa (Saka new year) according to the Balinese calendar. Nyepi falls on 9th March in 2016. Our actual date for the trip was 6-11 March but we changed to 6-11 April due to clashing with hubby's colleagues' trip. Nyepi is an Earth friendly day but not tourist friendly where everyone is not allowed to be outdoors, no electricity for 24 hours and no flights on that day. Huge thanks to our tour guide for the detailed explanation. 

A compulsory OOTD shot....or shall I say OOTF (outfit of the flight).
Flight will depart from Penang at 1:05pm with MAS. Most of you readers know I dislike AA.

We miss Holland. Technically the country is called Netherlands and Holland is just a part.

Have you ever had the same dish over and over again at the same restaurant unintentionally? This always happen to both of us and we totally had no idea till we refer to old pics. Good thing about foodporn is we can track what we ate.

A very short 45 minutes flight to KLIA. We actually booked window seat but two elderly mistakenly sat on our places. We decided not to trouble the ladies and told them we will sit on their places instead. Though hubby missed the chance to shoot the "snakey" 2nd Penang bridge due to sit on the wrong side, little things like this makes us happy.

Arrived KLIA around 2pm.

My fav bear shop! Nope, actually it's a souvenir store cum cafe that serves coffee, tea and even beer lol!

Depart from KLIA to Denpasar at 3:15pm.

Vain shot while waiting for departure. Don't all bloggers do?

Another 3 hours to go.

We got the front row just behind business class. Leg room was huge af!


Customs declaration or I call it the arrival card.


For teabreak, hubby had fried mihun while I had roti jala. The food and presentation need improvement so bad.


Enjoy my roti jala while watching cartoon.

 We got so excited seeing those mountains. Means we are on top of Bali!

If you look closer, the waves were terrifying.


I know it's redundant but welcome to Bali!


Quite empty space when we arrived but wait till you see the luggage collection.

Creative looking wall art.

It was 6:40pm after we collected baggage.

Our trustworthy and very friendly tour guide, Agus patiently waiting for 4 of us alongside other tour guides.

The whole airport is larger than expected and filled with traditional culture of Bali such as this statue and the main entrance on the right of this photo. By the way the sky is already so dark at past 6:30pm.

First meal in Bali at Malioboro. What's special about this place?

It serves ayam tulang lunak which is soft boned fried chicken. Basically you can eat the bones of not only the chicken bt also duck and fish in this restaurant. I have no idea how they prepared it.

Here's our entirely edible chicken. We find it too salty and oily.

Bones of this steamed fish not edible tho.

Another signature dish is bandeng presto dalam sarang which is even oilier than the ayam. The fish is like canned sardine that you can eat the bones, wrapped in egg based batter and deep fried.

The only taste close to home is stir fried tauge.

Hubby munching on the bone.

We checked in Kutabex at 8:25pm.


The main lobby. This hotel is linked with The Kuta Beach Heritage Hotel by Accor so make sure you enter the correct lift or will be lost like us.


It was so noisy and happening at the bar the moment we stepped out of our vehicle. Lots of angmo guys to see.


Our rooms are located at the basement.


Clean modern room.

The toilet boleh tahan la.



We were told to redeem our welcome drinks at the rooftop bar (4th floor).


Very cool hipster buffet counter. Those industrial bulbs are so in right now.


View from poolside.

Four choices of fruit drinks and I chose pink guava.

 Oh, this hangout spot named The Seven Bar.


It's already 10:30pm and we really gotto sleep because we had to get u by 2am to go all the way up to Lovina Beach for dolphin sighting. See you on Day 2 where all the adventure begin!


For full details on itinerary and budget of this trip, please click HERE.

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