Hohoho..Fourth day! Last Day! Well, half a day at least. Last chance to jalan-jalan,shopping-shopping, and taking pix..We decided to first go to the beach. One last time la, since hari tu pergi dah lepas senja. Wanna see if there’s anybody surfing ke.. On the way there, we explored some other nooks and cranny of Legian Street. We found this beautiful piece on the wall of corner shop. Cantik gila, because it summed up everything that was unique about Bali. But that goofy face my wife is making is priceless. Hee hee.

As I’ve said before, Kuta beach isn’t really a beautiful beach..just look at all the crap laying on the beach. I don’t know whether that’s intentional or not, but I have no idea why’d they put those things along the beach that way. Anyway, we took turns taking pix with some surfboards and didn’t stay there long. We stopped by a convenience store to buy some stuff and it started to rain. The wife made me wear the plastic bag we got from the shop to cover my head from the drizzle as we continued our walk back.

So we bought a couple of stuff and went straight back to the hotel..packed everything, got ourselves cleaned up and had our last breakfast. Checking out felt bittersweet. We’re going home but we didn’t really get to explore everything Bali had to offer..maybe next time eh? And we HAD to take a photo with our driver, Pak Hendro and his trusty Vios Dugong.

These were the last things we bought at the airport. But let it be known that we hunted for it (we knew of it cos my brother and sister in law brought the bottle back from Bali before) everyday around our area. Langsung takdak. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Except ada that one time we found expired ones. And then, tengok-tengok kat airport berlambak. Cis. And we nyaris couldn’t bring it with us back. We got back two bottles (we bought three and finished drinking all of them at the airport).

And then, balik….back to reality..til our next trip to wherever…

..But! Before we end our multiple posts of our Bali Anniversary, there will be..

THINGS WE SAW AND BOUGHT IN BALI!

To be continued! Ha!

Day 3..and we basically have had enough of temples..No offense, it’s like my brother said, “Once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all”.

So..we didn’t go through any specific tour, but instead, asked the driver (Pak Hendro) to drive us back to Kintamani (yes, Malaysians are deprived of volcanoes. We want to see one, dammit!), and to either Tanah Lot or Uluwatu to watch the famous sunset by a Bali beach (since our Kuta beach looked meh)

During the long drive, we kept nodding off again..but kept our spirits up since the weather was still okay..But then, as we were getting closer and closer to Kintamani, rain started to pour again..sigh. As you can see, visibility was not zero like the day before, but the fogs were like pieces of huge cotton candies, taking their turns to cover up the sky.

We had the perfect spot where we could see the volcano and the lake, at this non-halal restaurant (which meant that we couldn’t stay there for lunch). We were so determined to catch a glimpse of the top of the volcano, so we waited. And waited. And waited.

..For hours! We got hungry and couldn’t take it anymore. So we asked Pak Hendro to bring us to somewhere we can eat (the poor guy pun sure also dah lapar and boring, punyalah lama kena tunggu). It was a nearby restaurant, but across the street from where we were just now.

The food was better than the day before, and we could eat outside at the terrace. You can see Mount Batur at the back in the photo, still obscured by the fog..
s-l-o-w-l-y looking clearer now.. I continued taking pix of whatever I can occupy myself with at the meantime. I caught the attention of some of the hecklers down on the street trying to sell off t-shirts and souvenirs. Boy, were they persistent. Especially that one lady with the blue t-shirt.

And finally, it happened! We could see the top of Mount Batur! Some small leftover fogs were still looming around, and it looked as if it just erupted and puffed the fog out, like in the cartoons. It looked awesome.

Another round of sleeping in the car and we were on our way to our next and only other destination that day..Uluwatu. It was either this, or Tanah Lot. These were the two ideal destinations to watch the famous Bali beach sunset. But the weather hasn’t been really sunset friendly, so our driver reckoned it was better to got to Uluwatu than Tanah Lot because at least there was also the Kecak Dance there. And monkeys. This place had lots and lots of monkeys. Thieving, conniving, sea monkeys.

Uluwatu was really beautiful. We don’t get a lot (are there any?) of high cliffs by the sea back in Malaysia, so it was breathtaking. There was (of course) a temple on top of the cliff, and the Kecak Dance place was on the other end of the cliff.

Like I said, MONKEYS. Fast, rabid, shrieking, psycho monkeys. Elok-elok dok control nak bergambo tetiba sekor-dua muncul dengan niat nak meragut nyawa. Kemudian ku mendakap isteriku demi keselamatankunya.

On to the Kecak Dance. It was quite enjoyable. The dancers chanted “cak-kecak-kecak” over and over in numerous rhythms and made formations and all sorts of crazy.

And then these guys came on the show and all hell broke loose. That white monkey particularly caused a frenzy with his fireball kicking. I couldn’t capture much of it all so I photoshopped the mayhem a lil bit la eh.

And then it was over…It got dark during the show, it was so cloudy that we didn’t get to see any pretty sunsets. Nasib baik jugak la ada Kecak Dance. We hopped into the cab back to our hotel, and had dinner depan tv again and packed our stuff a bit because the next day would be our flight back already. Part IV will squeeze in what we did last before heading home.

Happy new year everyone! 1430 AND 2009! Now, on with the pictures.

2nd day in Bali, and we started the day by going to a Barong show. We got there quite early, the show pun belum start, the place was still empty, but they were playing the music already (imagine live lounge music) and by the looks of it, boy do they look bored. Tengoklah pakcik tu, sure bosan hari-hari buat main lagu samaaa aje. Sure dia nak break into The Final Countdown or Eye of The Tiger or sumthin.

And then the show started and it was freaky.

That door we posed at was the same one, except my wife posed inside the barong show’s place, while i was standing on the outside.

And next we went to this small temple in Ubud for sightseeing and phototakings. It was small, and we weren’t too bored of seeing temples yet (because honestly, that’s ALL you see here), so we had fun. We got to really start using my new camera tripod.

Rasa macam Indiana Jones dengan Lara Croft aje. At the temple of doooom~~!

And then after a little souvenir shopping at Ubud, we went to the famous Tegalalang rice terrace place..It was beautiful, but the paddy had already been harvested, so it wasn’t as green as it could’ve looked. I tried out making wide, panoramic pictures with the tripod this time, and well, ingatkan tak jadi, but hey, not bad eh? The weather was not helping though, cos as we were taking the pictures, rain started to pour. Fast.

We went straight to Kintamani in hopes of getting to see Mount Batur..Wikipedia says it’s an active volcano, but our driver says it’s last eruption in 2000 IS the last. But we couldn’t see a thing! It was all foggy because of the cold weather and rain. See how unhappy and ugly i got over it? We ended up just spending the afternoon there having our lunch in the cold..looking at fog.

It was a long drive down from Kintamani, so me and the wife slept through in the car all the way..We specifically asked the driver not to bring us to any more temples, but the sneaky Pak Hendro..Bangun-bangun aje dah sampai temple yang ni. I was really cranky because of that, I didn’t even get my camera out, only my wife took pics. Plus, this time we had to PAY to enter the temple. Grr. The only unique thing we saw at this temple was that there was this bath place for the public to soak in. Some kinda cleansing ritual. Entah. And the rain stopped. Just in time for another temple. Not a volcano. A temple. I was cranky.

After that, we headed straight back to the hotel. We hadn’t solat yet, cos the restaurant in Kintamani kinda had a bad, dirty, and no water, surau…so we were rushing for our jamak ta’khir of asar and zohor. It was close to sunset when we decided to walk to Kuta beach. They say it was only a 15 minute walk, so what the heck. I think it took us 20 minutes. Felt longer though for someone carrying his camera gear and tripod and a 4 month pregnant wife. At the beach we saw some people surfing and then we took some pics there until it got dark.

..After the beach we went around Jalan Legian again. We tapau-ed our dinner from this minang place which was way more sedap than the place we ate before and then makan depan tv in our room watching hilarious Indonesian ads and a funny movie called Pretty Boy. And that is the end of day 2.