Ahh, feels good to be back.

It was quite a hectic week. My internet connection decided to break down at the same time as when my immune system was attacked by this unknown entity.

Being tortured by the long wait in government hospitals, being going for blood testing for several days, being suspected of dengue, being out of touch with the internet, being grilled in interviews, all of these in just one week. What tough luck.

Glad everything is back in working order now except for that niggling sore throat and cough. Don't worry, not spreading it around so its safe to call me out.

It seems I am running out of free time.

I would be pissed if I was told that I had to pay an admission fee to walk into a freaking watch shop in a mall!

All those hard work. Late nights. And bucketloads of sweat, tears and of course cash.

For this sheet of paper.

Now I have it, what now? Is it worth it?

Time will tell.

You see, I have this bad habit that seems impossible to get rid off.

If you had paid full attention to my blog (not that you should anyway), you would have realised that whenever I meant to type/write the word "you're" , I would end up with the word 'your' instead.

I'd realised this mistake for a long while but somehow, someway I kept repeating the same mistake unknowingly. It is like the word 'your' is fused into my brain no matter what.

The same happened a while back with my mispelling of 'definitely'. I would tend to type 'definately' unconciously. But due to my pure grit and mental strength, I managed to overcome the problem now.

Is this a common recurring mistake to make? Does this happen to everybody? Should I maybe see a psychiatrist perhaps? Just in case. Please advise.

Day 6

Guess it's about time to wrap up the Bali trip. Final day, didn't wanna leave when your bloody enjoying your wonderful vacation but unfortunately the wallet had ran dry.

The final day was spent going places that was originally on the itenarary but didn't had time to do so. Quite a scramble really.

Went to the famous Bali Ibu Oka restaurant for that sinfully signature dish of Babi Guling. You have never been to Bali if you have not try a babi guling.

Succulent, tasty and cheap to boot. The roasted suckling pig was served with a plate of rice (wonderful for us rice lovers) accompanied by a blood sausage, crispy pork skin (yummy), and some fried internals which even I, can't identify.

Hello there, blood sausage!

But who cares what you're eating as long as it tasted awesome. Nothing is more satisfying than tasting Bali's signature dish. Did I mention it was cheap as well?

The plenty pig statues at the warung

After a wonderful lunch, we headed to the Sukawati market to scour for souvenirs. This is the best and cheapest place to buy your souvenirs from if you are in Bali. But as usual, remember to negotiate. At least 70% off the price they quote and work from there.

Locals and their strong heads near Sukawati market

They probably hate us cheapos Malaysian students there. Much to my astonishment, the exact souvenir would cost at least double in other parts of Bali. I'd heard that vendors from other parts would purchase their goods from Sukawati market and resell them elsewhere at a higher price.

Beautiful paddy field behind Warung Ibu Oka

Too bad we didn't have enough time to shop there hence the lack of souvenirs. I assure you this is not a well thought out excuse. Ahem.

Honing his wood carving skills. Look at how detail the carvings are. All these by hand.

On the way, we dropped by a wood carving art centre or gallery of sorts. The wood pieces there were creative, nice and dandy. But way too expensive for us to purchase. It was interesting seeing them carve those art pieces that probably need a bundle of skills and patience. Some big objects took them months if not years to complete. Hence, the hefty price tag.

Mesmerising sunset beside Discovery Mall

Before our evening flight, we headed to the Discovery Mall in a last ditch effort to prevent having our meal on AirAsia. RM 9 nasi lemak doesn't seem tempting if you can have better food for an equal price.

Randomly chose a restaurant named Bali Colada overlooking the beach with a reasonable menu. I must say I was pleasantly surprised that the food was pretty decent. Sorry, but I'm more of an original unhealthy hawker food fan rather than the fine dining kind. Classless I know.

Refreshing Avocado Juice

Especially the avocado juice. For a anti-greens person like me, it was shocking that I enjoyed that refreshing drink so much. I have been craving for it ever since. Me and avocado? Can you believe it?

Mao's Indonesian Nasi. Very alike Nasi campur

My tom yam-ish fish with rice

Thus, that was our last meal in Bali before ending our 6 day vacation. Bali was just an amazing place. Knowing how to speak Malay did give us an advantage when negotiating is concerned.

Would definitely return one day if I'd the chance. 6 days is not enough to fully explore this beautiful island. The next time round, surfing and perhaps the amazing nightlife would be on top of my priority list. Sad to say we didn't really have the chance to explore the nightlife there during our 6 day stint. Nightlife sometimes ain't everybody's cup of tea.

So, what's next? Should I return to Europe or proceed to Krabi? Hmm..

Day 5

If there is one thing you must definitely try in Bali, it is surfing.

It doesn't matter whether you can't swim to save your life or your only surfing experience was tumbling on the sand with a boogie board, trying to surf should be on top of your priority list in Bali.

I never thought I would dare to try surfing knowing that I suck at balancing and would probably drown in those crashing waves. Thanks to some persuasion and the relatively cheap price to rent a surf board and learn to basic surf for an hour, I just had to give it a go.

And didn't regret one bit. In fact, it was the greatest moment in Bali for me.

You could easily find instructors along the beach of Kuta ready to rent surfing boards/gears and teach some basic surfing moves. Haggle for a good price and your good to go. It costed us just approximately RM 10 for an hour if I'm not mistaken.

The Kuta beach is a good place to try surfing. You could see plenty of amateurs strutting their stuff or falling over like dominos. Made you feel right at home straight away. Besides, the waves are decent and not strong enough to crush your ribs and send you tumbling to the great abyss of the ocean if you fall over. Perfect.

After wearing our surfing gear and choosing our respective boards, we were taught by the instructors how to paddle, stand and balance yourselves on the board. For a good 5 minutes before we head out to the unknown sea.

Nothing feels better like the real thing.

Contrary to popular belief, the hardest part of surfing (for me of course) was NOT balancing on the board, but the beginning part where you paddle hard enough to ride the wave. My lower centre of gravity and lightweight body probably help the balancing part, but hell, I struggled at the paddling part.

Not knowing how to swim of course doesn't help. I had to rely on the instructor to give me a push whenever a wave approaches. If not, the wave would probably just swallow me whole, along with my cute board.

The feeling while standing on top of the wave was amazingly fun. However, an hour was just not enough for us. While we just got the gist of it, the sun sets and it was all over for us.

Definitely one thing I have to retry the next time I set foot on Bali. Maybe the second time I would be able to paddle and ride the wave myself, swerve some corners, and maybe do a few somersaults. Yeah.

One can wish.

Day 4

Time to hit the beaches!

Started the day off with a trip to the Sanur beach. This time with a new driver - Pak Wayan, as Agus had other commitments.

Sanur beach is a quieter beach aimed towards the locals compared to the overcrowded Kuta. Despite having a few resorts nearby, the place looked rather empty and deserted.

Well, not hard to see why. The beach was nothing to shout about. This would probably be a good choice if you would like to avoid the rowdy crowd in Kuta or too shy to put your fit and nicely toned body on display.

Phoon overlooking the sea

There are certain water sports available on the beach including snorkelling and seawalking but all we did was just stroll along the white sandy beach and ignore the hagglers.

We headed towards Nusa Dua next - the place where all the rich people with their private beaches and loaded wallets belong. Whereas paupers like us would have to make do with window-hotel-shopping on our vehicle like a curious dog in a car. Wonderful.

Then, we reached Dreamland. Now this is what I call a good beach.

White soft and sandy beach. Crashing waves. Not too crowded. And cheap boogie boards for rent. Ok, a couple of bikini babes too.

Despite having no experience in boogie boarding or surfing, we decided to make full use of the decent wave by renting a few boogie boards and humilate ourselves.

Pardon the male model, focus on the waves please

Frankly, for the entire hour, we were stumbling around with our boogie board like clueless dimwits. Although the wave wasn't that strong, all we did was get washed up to the beach or performing unwillingly somersaults - underwater.

Hagglers renting Mao boogie boards

I have got to say it bloody hurts when the wave hits you unexpectedly and all your body parts starts grinding against the coarse sand while you are tumbling forward like a battered fish. But great fun and experience nonetheless!

After drying ourselves up and nursing our sores, it was time to head over to Pura Luhur Uluwatu - a tourist attraction famous for its breathtaking views of the cliff,

..beautiful sunset,

...and a whole lot of smart monkeys.

Seriously, these monkeys are trained to snatch everything they can from dumb tourists. Be it your camera, phones, caps, or glasses, they will take it and demand for food in exchange (which you have to buy from the locals of course) or just dump it down the cliff just because they can.

Itchy balls perhaps?

So, either we walk around half blind and unable to admire the beautiful scenary without our glasses, or we will have to hold onto our glasses for dear life all the time looking like freaking Cyclops.

Proud to say the humans outwitted the monkeys this time around. No loot were lost.

While the sun sets, we sat ourselves in a mini open-aired auditorium to witness one of Bali's cultural dance - the Kecak dance...

Ciak ciak ciak

..which involves a crowd of topless male backup sound effects screaming 'ciak ciak ciak' the whole time, a couple of dancers performing slow-mo dances ala Matrix and monkeys kicking at fire. Not a real monkey of course.

Red monkey god

Honestly, I can't really remember the story other than some evil man kidnapping the princess and some hero acquiring the help from magical monkey gods to save her. Furthermore, the 'ciak ciak ciak' was pretty distracting. My friend kept commenting that they are asking us to eat (in Hokkien).

Which we did after the show, in Jimbaran where seafood were made fresh from the aquariums and we get to enjoy them on the beach as well. Nice touch.

Lia's Cafe at Jimbaran

But we smelled something fishy even before we arrived at our restaurant. You see, we have always wanted to go to Lia's Cafe which was recommended in forums for decent seafood for a cheap price. However, just like any driver who gets a commision, our driver decided to give suggestions by suggestions to go to this place that he recommends instead. Fishy, no?

Mao & Li-ann sharing a tender moment

We did stay stern and firm on our choice in the end. Guess that is what you have to do to prevent falling into the persuasion of your driver. The place they recommend you would probably overcharge you.

4 plates of these

Had a seafood overload from fish, clams, prawns, crabs and those puny things you call lobsters that tasted just like prawns for just RM 20 per person. Feels good when you are not overcharged.

I am stingy like that.

To be cont..

Thus, my final results are out.

Neither did I screw it up, nor did I perform a miraculous comeback.

Day 3 - cont

Temples are everywhere in Bali. It would take ages to actually explore every single temple there is on the island. That's why normally we don't. Except for a few famous one that is.

Right after the invigorating spa session, we headed towards our first temple for the day - Taman Ayun Temple.

It was actually refreshing to see there were almost no tourist in this Balinese temple with a landscape garden. We weren't allowed to go into the temple itself due to the perserving the temple's holiness but a tour around the outer yard was actually suffice.

After all, what we wanted was just to admire the pagoda like multistoried roof of the structures and have some quiet time away from all the tourists amongst all the greenary. And of course, a little posing here and there is inevitable.

A Bali shirt for a Bali sight

SF looking over the garden

Before heading towards another temple, we stopped by a modest restaurant which overlooks a paddy terrace with no customers at all named Warung Sedap for lunch.

Danny enjoying the greens

Despite having no customers, the food was reasonably tasty and valued for money. As usual, when food is cheap, we will usually gorge. We spent around RM 6 per person ordering a few ayam perceh, ayam lalapang, mee goreng, nasi goreng along with our drinks.

Extremely spicy ayam perceh (not sure of the exact name, I conjure the name out of nowhere)

Ayam lalapan

If you love sirap bandung in Malaysia, you will definitely love the soft drink equivalent in Bali. They mixed their condensed milk with soft drinks such as coke, sprite, fanta, etc. Nothing more diabetic inducing then a glass of these soft drink bandung.

Look at the amount of condensed milk

Even a guy with a sweet tooth like mine can't finish this awfully sweet drink.

Next up, another picturesque temple. This time on a lake.

With its tiered merus (all the Balinese temples looked similar), the Ulun Danu Temple in Bedugul is situated on Lake Bratan surrounded by beautiful flowers and was indeed a magnificent view.

Time to go snap happy again. There was this German tourist who we pestered constantly to help us take a group photo, in front of the temple, beside the temple, behind the temple, on the pier, jumping on the pier, etc. Suffice to say the German was: 1st time friendly, 8th time and we see him scurrying away whenever he sees our shadows.

Friend of the German

We saw some locals performing rituals over at the temple that is only accesible by boat. Must be cool to pray knowing that no nosy tourists would step foot on the temple whenever they like.

After Bedugul, we proceeded towards Tanah Lot which offers one of the best sunset views in Bali. And we almost bloody missed the sunset. Thanks to certain traffic complications and the unbelievably long journey.

Our traffic complication - a religious parade which went too long

We were in Tanah Lot for approximately 15 minutes before everything around us was pitch dark with nothing more to see. The place was littered with people feasting their eyes on the amazing sunset view.

Amazing view

From my brief sunset experience, I would say it was well worth it. Too bad I didn't really have the time to visit the place and take some memorable photos during the process.

Mao & LiAnn acting all couply

Certainly a place I have to revisit if I ever return to Bali.

Since Ubud is too far away from all the happening places, we moved to Kuta on the third night. It is a reasonable thing to do if you prefer a happening night life, plenty of eye candies and a lot more fun! If you enjoy sleeping early and hearing crickets chime, then Kuta is not the place for you.

Street of Jalan Legian. The happening area filled with clubs, pubs and drunken Aussies.

We checked into a modest inn called the Secret Garden Inn for 3 nights along Poppies Lane before heading for dinner. Cheap, decently equipped, free breakfast, CHEAP, what more can we ask for right?

The Bali bombing memorial

However, cheap can't be said for our dinner in Made's Warung in Kuta. Deemed a restaurant to try in Kuta, I was pretty disappointed with the food there.

It was rather expensive to start with and the dishes were nothing to shout about. We ordered sate lilit (a seafood satay which tasted like otak otak) and certain variations of nasi goreng.

Sate lilit. Not the best satay

Fried rice with gado-gado

Had our meal, filled our tummy but wasn't satisfied. It might be the wrong choice of dishes or the slightly pricier than normal bill, but the meal didn't made us crave for more.

To be cont...

***

Will be heading to Krabi tomorrow for possibly my last vacation in a very long long time. Have to enjoy it with every ounce of my strength.

Day 2 - continued

Ticked something off my to-do list. I'd officially tasted the most expensive coffee in the world.

Kopi Luwak - Most expensive coffee in the world

For just a sip though. Seeing that I'm no coffee lover, and the fact that the Kopi Luwak technically came through the digestive tract of a weasel/civet/whatever, I should be given a medal for even having a sip.

Thank god the coffee did not taste anything like shit. In fact, it tasted just like any other coffee I'd tasted - Unpleasant.

Doesn't look particularly happy roasting some weasel shit

The Kopi Luwak cost RM 10 for just a small cuppa in a small hut, as expensive as your friendly neighbourhood Starbucks in all its aircon and wifi glory. However, love the free drinks that came with it consisting of ginger tea, cocoa, bali coffee, ginseng coffee etc. Anything free is awesome.

After the coffee experience, we headed off to another Bali famous tourist attraction - Tampak Siring.

The Tampak Siring is a holy spring water temple whereby locals believe to possess magical powers to heal diseases. Hence, it is normal to see the locals clad in sarongs bathing in the spring water and performing rituals whereas the tourists would just linger around the area eyeing the locals and snapping photos.

We didn't try bathing in the spring water as we weren't prepared to be wet. Maybe we should have went into the water. It might solve my baldness issue.

On our way back to Ubud for dinner, we passed by the famous paddyfield terrace called Tegalalang.

Unfortunately, the sky was pretty dark at the moment. Coupled with the paddies being already harvested and my camera giving me a hissy fit, I couldn't reproduce a camwhore photo with me and my borrowed sunglasses overlooking a mesmerising view of terrace paddy fields. What a bummer.

When Mao told me we are having dinner at the popular Dirty Duck Diner (Bebek Benggil), I was half imagining a small stall-like restaurant which serves very sinfully delicious local food with patrons crowding the place and not enough places to sit.

Boy, was I wrong. Not only did the place oozes with class and fine dining poshness (we got a prebooked hut all to overselves!), the food was sinfully delicious as well. We had a feast that night.

Our private hut

To top it off, it was pretty cheap for that much food at a nice place like that. Close to RM 30 per person if I am not mistaken. Bearing in mind we had two freaking smoked ducks, half a crispy duck, a plate of succulent pork ribs, condiments such as gado-gado and satays with buckets of rice, punch and a few bottles of the local beer Bintang.

Best dish of the night, succulent pork ribs

Gado-gado

Two huge smoked ducks

Half a crispy skinny duck

Pretty reasonable price I would say. Apart from the crispy duck which I thought was a little bland, everything else was delicious. 7 of us could barely finish the feast on the table. What a meal.

We ended the night with a couple of Bintang beers (which was one of the better tasting beer IMO) in the room and some silly games which ended up with a neighbour getting pissed at us.

Horrible drink even for a tea lover

Oh, I bought a bottle of Teh Botol just to try it out as it was recommended by somebody. Regretfully, it tasted horrible and I pour the rest into the sink. Who told me this was good?

Day 3

Started off the day with the usual fulfilling breakfast. French toast this time.

And off we go with Pak Agus...to a spa. Not the first thing that comes across your mind in the morning ain't it?

Anyhow, due to time issues in our itinerary, we decided to have the spa treatment first thing in the morning at Moontee Spa for 200k Rp.

Frankly, I believe this is not exactly the best and most value for money spa we could visit. There should be cheaper and better options out there but due to the location and driver's recommendation, we opted for this particular spa.

Nevertheless, the experience was both comforting and slightly hilariously awkward.

To begin with, the masseurs will dip our feet in hot water before scrubbing it clean. Hate it when people scrub the bottom of my feet, bloody ticklish. Lucky it lasted only for mere seconds.

Masseurs scrubbing our feet

Next, we were given this small package (which I have no idea what it was in the beginning) and told to change in the room. 2 of us in a room and we were told to strip ourselves to the barebone wearing the package they gave us - a translucent disposable underwear that looks like a shower cap. Brilliant, just brilliant. Couldn't stifled the LOLs.

How our massage room looked like

The full body aromatherapy massage that lasted an hour and the cooling body scrub that follows was pretty relaxing and comforting. I actually fell asleep at one point. If only spas ain't that freaking expensive. Great source of relaxation.

When the body scrub process was done, two almost naked guys (my friend and I, in case your mind wanders somewhere) were told to bathe in this wonderful flower bath. The problem is: the bathtub fits a single person, and we were supposed to bathe in it, together in our cute translucent underwear.

The little bathtub where two grown adults bathe together. LOL

I swear I never see my friend in the same light again. Guess he feels the same way for me.

Nothing like a good cup of ginger tea after seeing your guy friend almost butt naked

To be cont...

(Next, temples, temples and more temples)