Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Trip to Bali- Day 1

My husband & I went for our first trip since we were officially married.

We made a trip to Bali, Indonesia. We spent 5 days 4 nights there and we decided that we would love to make Bali our "annual trip". We pretty much covered most of the "must see" places but there are still places that we have yet to visit.

Han bought tickets to fly to Bali last year. Took advantage of the Air Asia free tickets. We got return tickets at RM 511 for two persons. The price includes the check-in baggage fee and meals for two for both trips.

I was afraid that there will be a delay as we didn't take the first flight on Monday. Luckily, there wasn't any delay and our plan for Day 1 was on schedule.

Gate T10.
We were waiting for a good 20minutes for it to be opened.


Han can't sleep in the plane. So he reads.
As for me, I dozed off the moment the plane took off and woke up just for food! :P


FOOD!
We ordered 1901 hotdogs and bought a bottle of Lipton Clear Green Tea.

We arrived Bali at 1.30pm and we took a taxi to our hotel, The Oasis Benoa, Nusa Dua. (It cost us IRD 105,000.) As we were on our way to the hotel, we witnessed a Balinese ceremony. A bunch of people from a village nearby the Nusa Dua beach was walking towards the beach with their offerings. We were told by the taxi driver that it is a ritual for every village people to walk to the nearest beach and perform a ceremony at the beach before Nyepi Day. (I'm going to tell you more about Nyepi Day on my Day 4 post.)

If you can see the village people dressed in white.
They are carrying a long cloth that looks like a flag. Comes in various colours.


The ladies are carrying fruits/food on top of their heads and the men carrying "umbrellas"

It usually takes about 40minutes to reach the hotel from the airport. Because of this ceremony, we took nearly 2 hours to reach our hotel.

This hotel was recommended by a close friend of mine. I chose the Superior Room which cost us USD 55 ++ a night. (Please note that service charge & tax is 21% of your total bill.)

Our welcome drink!
I like it cause it's sourish & not very sweet.

Han was admiring their furniture.
He's even planning to buy furnitures from Indonesia.

Our room is just by the pool side!

I like their mineral water bottles.
It's not plastic!


A beautiful view from the lobby.

Since we had lunch on the airplane. We decided to just chill in the hotel room until 4pm. I scheduled for us to go for a spa. Since Han was busy before the trip, he didn't have much time to plan the trip with me. So I made all the arrangements so that he could have a relaxing holiday.

I've decided to treat him for a spa on our first day at Bali (I have to admit, it's for me too! :P). We went to Sekar Jagat Spa, Nusa Dua. It was rated as one of the best spa in Nusa Dua by members of Trip Advisor. We were greeted by a friendly receptionist. She gave each of us a welcome flower (Frangipani) and a cup of Black Tea.

Me with the Frangipani.

Han with his.
Well, he does look weird with a flower.


Black Tea!
I love this tea. I found out the ingredients from the receptionist.
It's Black Tea boiled with slices of Ginger, Honey & Lemon! YUMMM!

I opted for the Balinese Spa Ritual which cost IRD 1.5million for two persons. For 3 hours, we were pampered with a traditional massage (which they used Frangipani fragrant lotion), body Lulur (Body scrub. They used rice as a scrub. It gives your body a cooling feeling.), Mandi Bunga (flower bath. We were also given a slice of swiss roll & black tea while we were in the tub.) and we got to choose between a traditional hair cream bath or a facial treatment. (Han chose the facial and I opted for the hair cream bath.)

It was a very nice experience as we have not gone for a spa. We enjoyed it and I'm glad to have chose to "relax" before we started our sight seeing & shopping.

After the spa, we headed for dinner at Bumbu Bali. It was recommended by my colleague and Trip Advisor.Lucky for us, it is located just next to our hotel. The place was very crowded and even though I made a reservation a few days in advance, we still had to wait for about 10 minutes to be seated.

We were greeted with a very loud "SELAMAT MALAM" by these staff at the grillers and also a welcome flower.

The view of the restaurant.

A little right up on Bumbu Bali on it's menu.

Welcome drink!
It's Yoghurt Banana drink. Taste YUM!
We were served this welcome drink while waiting for our seats.


Keropok with Sambal served as appetizers.
The sambal is very nice & spicy!

My drink. Organic Wild Berry Tea.

Han's drink. Soursop with Natural Yoghurt.

They serve 3 types of rice.
Nasi Minyak, Nasi Putih & Nasi Merah.

Our main dishes.
The curry is named Hasil Laut Bumbu Kuning. It's assorted seafood in turmeric sauce.
The Sates. The darker one is called Sate Lembat Bebek: Minced Duck and the lighter coloured one is Sate Lilit: Minced Seafood on Lemongrass.


The other main dish.
Be Celeng Base Manis: Pork in Sweet Soy Sauce


Us before we started our meal.

We didn't really enjoy the food there. It was very salty and I was still recovering from my food poisoning, so Han had to finish up most of the salty food. We left the place wondering why there are so many people dining there. Perhaps our taste buds are different. I have to say, we payed for the environment.

The dinner came up to IRD 444, 000.

We then headed back to the hotel and decided to take a walk by the beach. The sand was not as fine as the ones you can find at East Coast of Malaysia. However, the waves are much stronger.



The night view of our hotel. This is the main entrance.


The night view of the pool.


It is just by the beach.

And us!
You can see that Han still has his flower from Bumbu Bali. Mine is hidden.


We got someone to help us take a photo by the pool.
There's a HUGE tree right in the middle of the swimming pool. :)

We decided to call it a day early. Our tour guide was scheduled to pick us up at 8am the next day.

Our recommendation after Day 1 at Bali:
-Always carry enough small change in IRD so that you can give tips easily. I didn't prepare enough small change as the money changer gave me all IRDs in 100,000s.
-If you have time, go for a spa before you start your journey.
-If you have the love for very salty food, you may try dining at Bumbu Bali.

5 comments:

Ee said...

AAAAAAAAH Bali!!! My paradise!!!

I want to go there again....for the 3rd time!!!! and many more times!!!!!

Spin Me Silly! said...

heyy, day 1 looks pretty good so far. can't wait to see the rest! what are the prices like equivalent to RM? :P

Jimmy Lee said...

Hmmm...Nice trip...
The bumbu bali food seems so much different than the one at Puchong...There seems nicer...lol

cikumuffin said...

Syaza, I didn't have a calculator with me when I was updating my blog. So didn't convert everything to RM. Anyway, IRD 100,000=RM31.45 :)

Slasher, I don't know about the Bumbu Bali in Puchong. Shall try it and let you know whether there's any diff. :)

Stay tuned for Day 2-5!

Jimmy Lee said...

ic..maybe you can give it a try. the food there is OK i can say and the environment quite nice also. But the one at Bali seems more tempting. Maybe there are more variety there compare to here.