Bali Trip 2017
There's no Japan trip this year for me because the budget has to be allocated for hometown trips (dad is getting old and in constant need of monitoring, so I need to chip in as well, as much as I can), but I'll be damned if I literally not going anywhere for my own sanity this year. Going back hometown (included the 5 hours minimum drive aka stuck in traffic horror) doesn't count for vacation because family quality time is not equal to relaxing and winding down time, and definitely it's not translated to 'me' time. It does translate to 'tummy is happy' time but that's a different story. Anyway, this year I decided that it's time to pay my due to visit Bali... after almost 30 years. I've been reluctant to go to Bali because the air ticket for that 2 hours flight from Jakarta is not cheap, and it's never cheap especially if you're flying direct from Singapore (add 200$ more and you got your ticket to Tokyo for goodness sake), and let's be real, you don't really want to go to Bali, alone, not worth the hotel (not even talking about resort here) and driver expenses. So, this year my brother volunteers to be my escort to my little excursion, hence the trip. We went for a 4 days 3 nights free and easy aka with no real agenda and solely relying on our driver's suggestions.
Wallpaper picture perfect at the click of your mobile phone
For lots of people, non Indonesians, when it comes to Bali, it's all about the beaches, the nature, the craft and arts. But for us, Indonesians, Bali is about THE FOOD, BABI (porky stuffs), BEBEK (the duck stuffs), THE MASSAGE, THE SNACKS (goodies), and then the sight seeing, a completely different priority order. So obviusly, sightseeing is the last thing that I have in mind when I'm boarding the plane to Bali. I did ask my friend on what can we do when we're there (she goes to Bali so often just for relaxation and stuffs and she knows what I like), and most of her list is about food and snacks, little about the sight seeing part. That also means that I went to Bali without hat and sun glasses, yep, I know, a completely wrong move and I paid the price dearly.
There's one thing about travelling to Bali especially when you take the first flight and reached Ngurah Rai airport at 9am. Not so much places are open yet, and given airport location itself, the first thing that the driver will suggest you is beaches. So here I was, along with my brother, fresh from the airport, with not much sleep on the express beaches tour for our first day. We went to literally 5 beaches on the get go. Why is it 5? It's because we just dropped off the beach, took pictures and off we went to the next beach.
One interesting aspects that we notice from those 5 beaches that we visited is each beach has its own distinct characteristics and purposes. We visited the following (in order):
Tanjo Benoa -- this one is solely for water sports. We're not allowed to stroll across the beach because each spot is occupy by 1 water sport company, hence if we want to move to a different spot, well, we have to move our car and park on a different spot. Definitely NOT for picture taking and the water is dirty too, obviously.
Pandawa -- this is a relatively new beach. It's a cliffy beach, tons of resorts still under development, but all of them are on the top of the cliff, you still have to drive to get to the beach which is on the bottom of those cliffs. Thank goodness for that. Since it's relatively new, everything there is still relatively clean, and less people. BUT, our local tourists are already literring everywhere with their cigarretes butts (oh I hate these types of people so much). I seriously hope that they maintain this beach because this beach is my favorite among the rest. Another thing about this beach is there's almost to no waves here, so definitely it's not ideal for surfing.
Padang Padang -- this beach is one of the crowded beaches. The sand is less smooth and comes with more pebbles. It has mild waves, hence you see lots of people surfing and sun bathing. Obviously not my favorite LOL.
Wonderland -- I think this beach is for surfers, proven that they're holding the Rip Curl championship there. The beach itself is even more pebbled than Padang Padang and it's rocky. Plus, there're monkeys there too.
The monkeys are westernized too, this one is snacking on Lay's
Uluwatu -- If you go to Bali, this is one of the must see destination, but it must be towards the sunset. Why? Because it's damn magestic! Uluwatu is basically cliffs, you don't have beach to stroll across, but you have Pura (Hindu's praying temple of places) at the tip of the cliffs, which change the scenery completely. In a way, it's similar to the Seven Sisters cliffs in Melbourne. What makes Uluwatu special is also they have Kecak dance performance. Lots of people I know don't like Kecak dance because it's haunting (no music), but if you never see one, this is where you want to see. There're lots of Kecak dance performances in Bali, and some of them performed at the beach, BUT, only in Uluwatu you get to see the Kecak performance, close to the cliff with the sunset, and that's why the performance is always full house and jamned pack.
Note: now they don't allow drones on Uluwatu's sky, so please respect the place because afterall, there's a Pura there. *side eyeing my friend who went there with drones years ago and probably the reason behind that 'no drone' sign*
So, after all those walkings, naturally, my legs were jellied, and blessed my brother who purposely booking a hotel room with a bath tub (he knows me well), that at least my leg sores were not so bad the next day, but it didn't help much because the we went to Ubud on Day 2. Ubud is 1.5 hours drive from Legian (where our hotel is), so to optimize the time that we have, we have to do everything that we want in Ubud, in 1 day. There're lots of cafes sprouting everywhere in Ubud and definitely lots of backpacking places there, but the reason why we wanted to go to Ubud is the rice terrace (yeah that Unesco World Herritage stuff). It's beautiful, magestic, and it's hella hot when we got there. Not learning my lesson, obviously, I told my brother since we're here, let's do the trekking. There're lots of trekking route towards the rice terrace, and when you're there, you may want to take picture on the rice terrace, not from across the rice terrace. So, yeah, we went up and down the valley and through those slick and not so safety proofed trekking path, and yes, I gave up after saw we still had to go through another up and down and up of the valley to get to the middle of the terrace. And my friend judged me when I told her my predicament as in 'why do you even bother going through the suffering and just take the damn pic from across the terrace?', yeah this is coming from a fellow non outdoor person, just like me. While the other ourdoor-sy friend just LOL-ed at my story, literally.
This is what you get when you're sort of in the middle of that terrace
And this is what you get when you're ACROSS that terrace LOL
After 2 days of 'intense' outdoor, it's not like our driver to give up on us not to suggest anything outdoor. He must think that we're the bunch of most unenthutiastic lot to come to Bali just to eat and eat. To prevent such predicament, he practically listed what we have to see, to say that we've been to Bali, and another must see is Tanah Lot. Tanah Lot is another cliffy beach with Pura, but unlike Uluwatu, the Pura is located on 1 cliff of the beach that you can only go there when it's low tide. Having said this, you need to time your arrival if you want to be able to walk on the beach and get close to that Pura. I couldn't do that as it's high tide when I reached there. But it doesn't diminish the beauty of that place. And... that's the LAST bit of sight seeing that we had in Bali and off we went to spa, and after 2 hours, I felt so much better.
And yes, we left Bali on the first flight too LOL. So not so much we can say about our last day in Bali.
What I like about beaches in Bali is that it's symetrical, the sea is clearly divided from the sky and it has color gradients. I guess this has to do with where the island is located as well, but damn they're pretty to look at.
Tanjong Benoa
Pandawa
Padang Padang
Wonderland
These staircase is a torture especially if your legs are sore...
Uluwatu
Tanah Lot
A lot of things had changed over decades on how these dances are performed. In the past, it's purely the arts, hence Kecak dance is literally eerie and Barong dance is equally eerie too. But now, they incorporated jokes and interacting with audiences, and also changed the dialogues as well. In a way, it becomes more commercial and less artsy and that's probably better reaching for a wider range of audiences (not all tourist going to see these dance, coming for the arts of it).
The costumes change too. In the past, traditional masks are made of woods and the costumes has TONS of mirrors attached to it for glitter effect, but now, they're gone (except for the Barong costumes, on the pic below) and replaced with a more modern costumes (less eerie and scary). Maybe it's for practicality and easier to clean as well.
Kecak dance at Uluwatu
Barong dance - We saw Barong dance in the morning, part of optimizing the timing that we had.
In the past, when there's a silver workshop, it usually consists of 2-3 old men on their work table and a small shops selling the goods on the front, and the jewelry and other craft ornaments etc are purly made of silver, period. But now, it's completely different, they have a huge building as a shop gallery and practically shop assistants capable in multiple languages. Time has changed, not sure for the better or worse. The crafts have changed as well. Now they incorporate lots of stones that it's very difficult to just get the simple bracelets or earings that are made of silver only, no gems.
The loot! The right side is the usual traditional silver craft that I expect to see in a traditional shop because of how the silver is polished and how they carved the bangles. The fight side on the other hand is the more modern one that you'd expect to see in modern silver shops, it's a lot more like Pandora. And these are difficult to find now.
As I mentioned, we came to Bali for the food, mainly, and the main topic is definitely the BEBEK (duck) and BABI (pork). Bali's unique dish is ayam betutu, but I lost focus not to get this one because of the porky stuff (porky is definitely more interesting than chicken). And the duck is just well, you just cannot resist those thick greasy skin, right?).
2 interesting places that I went this time is the food places with literal meaning. The first one is Bebek Tepi Sawah, literal translation is the duck next to padi field, literally. They served lots of dishes, but we got the duck, the fish and the satay lilit (basically satay with lemon grass used as the stick instead the usual bamboo stick). But what's the best of this place is the sambal (chili sauce)! Yes, the duck maybe grilled perfectly, crispy, tender, succulent etc, but sambal is the art!
Next, the place called Sate Babi Bawah Pohon, literally means Pork satay under the tree, as the place indicates. I gotta tell you, I'm not super fond of pork satay because, there's no sauce! Unlike chicken satay, pork satay is basically a barbecued marinated pork meat in a steak, and I like satay with the sauce (preference, I know). But I have to say, this one is different. The satay is sticky and tasty (gotta be the marinate), and it tastes different from the pork satay I had before. There're queue and I came in the afternoon, after lunch time, and there's still queue. You can have your satay with rice or with lontong (compressed rice). I very much prefer lontong because of convenient, you can just poke them with the satay stick and leave your hand clean, and no need to ask for spoon (messy).
One of another famous porky stuff from Bali (aside from Babi guling --> I didn't have this one this time) is the pork ribs. The famous one is Naughty Nuri's Rib, but we already have this franchised in Melbourne, and I already went there. Hence, we went to the next in line competitor, Hogwild, and they don't disappoint. The difference between Nuri and Hogwild is the BBQ sauce, Nuri is utilizing the more traditional mix while Hogwild is more westernized, but the ribs? Fantastic.
On the side note, this point is kind of surprising for me. While you're in Bali, you may want to try their fine dining as well. I know, I know, why would you want to get fine dining in Bali. Well, one thing is, the place is damn nice. You have the land, and labor there hence you practically can do a lot of things there. We went to 2 places, Cuca (it's a tapas style but it's damn yummy) and Merah Putih (more Indonesian dish convert to fine dining style, the portion is quite big though). Personally I like Cuca better because the food suites my pallate better. The other reason is... it's relatively cheap from Singapore standard of fine dining with the similar quality plus you have great service too. So, why not?
You can get 90% of snacks and goodies to bring back from Bali in the huge goodies shop called Khrisna. The notable snakcs are peanuts (Bali peanuts is different, just try it, most people I know love it, I bought the brand 'Matahari', the package is similar, so you need to literally read the brand). Then, the next is pie susu (basically milk pie), the famous one is Dhian (comes in green packages, again, read the brand).
Bali is also famous for salak. There're 2 kinds of Salak in Bali, Salak Bali and Salak Gula Pasir. Salak Bali is HUGE in salak's measurement, but you will still get that sour and rough aftertaste, but you'll only get sweetness from gula pasir, which is also smaller than the normal salak. So it's up to your preference, really, on what type of salak you'd like. Khrisna also sells salak but at a very much more expensive price, 3 times to be exact, so if you pass by those road side stall, you can ask the driver to help you buy (please ask your driver, else you'll get ripped off because you're not a local).
Another famous snack is pia legong. But you have to queue for hours to get this, and there're lots of scalpers for this snack. Personally, I couldn't care less for this because, at the end of the day, it's still a bloody pia. But if you're a diehard fan of pia, then you may want to get this. How to get this in a more convenient way? You can pre-order, basically email the company 3 weeks (YES, 3 weeks) in advance, and have it deliver to your hotel via gojek (oh the Indonesian convenience), and you save the heartache of queueing.
One other snack that you may find it weird to get from Bali but I find it to be important, it's chocolate. I'm particular with my chocolate. I hate milk chocolate because it's a blasphemy altogether to the holy chocolate. I like my chocolate dark, with a bit of after taste, and it's a lot of fun to eat when you have the non usual flavor of dark chocolate. Well, Bali has some, and yes, not cheap (it's 1.5 more expensive than Lindt), but man, the quality is good, even better than Lindt! The ones that I bought is pod. I love the ginger lemongrass flavor. I find that Indonesia chocolates (these type of boutique chocolates) dare to experiment with wide range of combination and even more creative than say, the western counterpart. I found the chocolate with rendang flavor on my way back to Singapore, I didn't buy because it's too adventurous fo me, but it does exists.
Unless you know your well 100% in Bali, do get a driver to drive you around. Roads in Bali are small, which mostly comprise of 2 lanes for 2 ways, and even that it's crampy most of the time, and traffic in Bali is BAD. Not as bad as Jakarta (the ultimate traffic jam in Indonesia, if not in Asia), but for an island, yeah it's bad. Most drivers would know the alternative ways to get to the same destination and will not hesitate to use jalan tikus (those small dodgy allies) to cut the heartache of traffic, so do not freak out when suddenly your driver drive you through a very small not paved road because it's normal there. They're also experienced with ordering your travel destinations to optimize your time for the day because well, back to point 1, there're jams and even though it's an island, it's not that near to go from point A to point B. Hell, it takes 3-4 hours from 1 corner of the island to another corner of the island, so manage your time well.
Choose your hotel wisely. Our hotel, Sol hotel in Legian, is practically NEW. Yes it's nice. What we didn't realize is there's a pura near the hotel. The thing with this fact is that when they suddenly have a prayer in a Pura, they'll literally CLOSE the whole road there an nearby roads as well and you have no way to go in and will end up stranded on the road for hours, which was what happened to us. Plus, do not come nearby Pura when such procession is on the way (please don't indulge your couriosity), people will prevent you to get close by anyway, but in case you manage to slip by, please don't. Why? Because there're lots of dark magic that may possibly involved in the process and you definitely don't want to come across those. I heard enough of these stories in the past that it still freak me out when I recall those stories. So, DON'T!
You'll notice that there're LOTS of stray dogs in Bali, but none of stray cats. I did ask this question to our driver when it becomes so obvious, and quoted: Cats are mostly kept in the house, and there's no cat around because people will catch cats and kill them (for food and what not)... yeah, it's the same as treatment to stray dogs in Java island, but I bet it's less inhumane killing than what they did to the dogs, and don't start the argument of inhumanity with me, I'm just as disgusted with such practice, but it's still being practiced.
So, till next time, in Bali, I'll be sure to eat that nasi campur (mixed rice with tons of porky).
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Wallpaper picture perfect at the click of your mobile phone
For lots of people, non Indonesians, when it comes to Bali, it's all about the beaches, the nature, the craft and arts. But for us, Indonesians, Bali is about THE FOOD, BABI (porky stuffs), BEBEK (the duck stuffs), THE MASSAGE, THE SNACKS (goodies), and then the sight seeing, a completely different priority order. So obviusly, sightseeing is the last thing that I have in mind when I'm boarding the plane to Bali. I did ask my friend on what can we do when we're there (she goes to Bali so often just for relaxation and stuffs and she knows what I like), and most of her list is about food and snacks, little about the sight seeing part. That also means that I went to Bali without hat and sun glasses, yep, I know, a completely wrong move and I paid the price dearly.
There's one thing about travelling to Bali especially when you take the first flight and reached Ngurah Rai airport at 9am. Not so much places are open yet, and given airport location itself, the first thing that the driver will suggest you is beaches. So here I was, along with my brother, fresh from the airport, with not much sleep on the express beaches tour for our first day. We went to literally 5 beaches on the get go. Why is it 5? It's because we just dropped off the beach, took pictures and off we went to the next beach.
One interesting aspects that we notice from those 5 beaches that we visited is each beach has its own distinct characteristics and purposes. We visited the following (in order):
Tanjo Benoa -- this one is solely for water sports. We're not allowed to stroll across the beach because each spot is occupy by 1 water sport company, hence if we want to move to a different spot, well, we have to move our car and park on a different spot. Definitely NOT for picture taking and the water is dirty too, obviously.
Pandawa -- this is a relatively new beach. It's a cliffy beach, tons of resorts still under development, but all of them are on the top of the cliff, you still have to drive to get to the beach which is on the bottom of those cliffs. Thank goodness for that. Since it's relatively new, everything there is still relatively clean, and less people. BUT, our local tourists are already literring everywhere with their cigarretes butts (oh I hate these types of people so much). I seriously hope that they maintain this beach because this beach is my favorite among the rest. Another thing about this beach is there's almost to no waves here, so definitely it's not ideal for surfing.
Padang Padang -- this beach is one of the crowded beaches. The sand is less smooth and comes with more pebbles. It has mild waves, hence you see lots of people surfing and sun bathing. Obviously not my favorite LOL.
Wonderland -- I think this beach is for surfers, proven that they're holding the Rip Curl championship there. The beach itself is even more pebbled than Padang Padang and it's rocky. Plus, there're monkeys there too.
The monkeys are westernized too, this one is snacking on Lay's
Uluwatu -- If you go to Bali, this is one of the must see destination, but it must be towards the sunset. Why? Because it's damn magestic! Uluwatu is basically cliffs, you don't have beach to stroll across, but you have Pura (Hindu's praying temple of places) at the tip of the cliffs, which change the scenery completely. In a way, it's similar to the Seven Sisters cliffs in Melbourne. What makes Uluwatu special is also they have Kecak dance performance. Lots of people I know don't like Kecak dance because it's haunting (no music), but if you never see one, this is where you want to see. There're lots of Kecak dance performances in Bali, and some of them performed at the beach, BUT, only in Uluwatu you get to see the Kecak performance, close to the cliff with the sunset, and that's why the performance is always full house and jamned pack.
Note: now they don't allow drones on Uluwatu's sky, so please respect the place because afterall, there's a Pura there. *side eyeing my friend who went there with drones years ago and probably the reason behind that 'no drone' sign*
So, after all those walkings, naturally, my legs were jellied, and blessed my brother who purposely booking a hotel room with a bath tub (he knows me well), that at least my leg sores were not so bad the next day, but it didn't help much because the we went to Ubud on Day 2. Ubud is 1.5 hours drive from Legian (where our hotel is), so to optimize the time that we have, we have to do everything that we want in Ubud, in 1 day. There're lots of cafes sprouting everywhere in Ubud and definitely lots of backpacking places there, but the reason why we wanted to go to Ubud is the rice terrace (yeah that Unesco World Herritage stuff). It's beautiful, magestic, and it's hella hot when we got there. Not learning my lesson, obviously, I told my brother since we're here, let's do the trekking. There're lots of trekking route towards the rice terrace, and when you're there, you may want to take picture on the rice terrace, not from across the rice terrace. So, yeah, we went up and down the valley and through those slick and not so safety proofed trekking path, and yes, I gave up after saw we still had to go through another up and down and up of the valley to get to the middle of the terrace. And my friend judged me when I told her my predicament as in 'why do you even bother going through the suffering and just take the damn pic from across the terrace?', yeah this is coming from a fellow non outdoor person, just like me. While the other ourdoor-sy friend just LOL-ed at my story, literally.
This is what you get when you're sort of in the middle of that terrace
And this is what you get when you're ACROSS that terrace LOL
After 2 days of 'intense' outdoor, it's not like our driver to give up on us not to suggest anything outdoor. He must think that we're the bunch of most unenthutiastic lot to come to Bali just to eat and eat. To prevent such predicament, he practically listed what we have to see, to say that we've been to Bali, and another must see is Tanah Lot. Tanah Lot is another cliffy beach with Pura, but unlike Uluwatu, the Pura is located on 1 cliff of the beach that you can only go there when it's low tide. Having said this, you need to time your arrival if you want to be able to walk on the beach and get close to that Pura. I couldn't do that as it's high tide when I reached there. But it doesn't diminish the beauty of that place. And... that's the LAST bit of sight seeing that we had in Bali and off we went to spa, and after 2 hours, I felt so much better.
And yes, we left Bali on the first flight too LOL. So not so much we can say about our last day in Bali.
What I like about beaches in Bali is that it's symetrical, the sea is clearly divided from the sky and it has color gradients. I guess this has to do with where the island is located as well, but damn they're pretty to look at.
Tanjong Benoa
Pandawa
Padang Padang
Wonderland
These staircase is a torture especially if your legs are sore...
Uluwatu
Tanah Lot
A lot of things had changed over decades on how these dances are performed. In the past, it's purely the arts, hence Kecak dance is literally eerie and Barong dance is equally eerie too. But now, they incorporated jokes and interacting with audiences, and also changed the dialogues as well. In a way, it becomes more commercial and less artsy and that's probably better reaching for a wider range of audiences (not all tourist going to see these dance, coming for the arts of it).
The costumes change too. In the past, traditional masks are made of woods and the costumes has TONS of mirrors attached to it for glitter effect, but now, they're gone (except for the Barong costumes, on the pic below) and replaced with a more modern costumes (less eerie and scary). Maybe it's for practicality and easier to clean as well.
Kecak dance at Uluwatu
Barong dance - We saw Barong dance in the morning, part of optimizing the timing that we had.
In the past, when there's a silver workshop, it usually consists of 2-3 old men on their work table and a small shops selling the goods on the front, and the jewelry and other craft ornaments etc are purly made of silver, period. But now, it's completely different, they have a huge building as a shop gallery and practically shop assistants capable in multiple languages. Time has changed, not sure for the better or worse. The crafts have changed as well. Now they incorporate lots of stones that it's very difficult to just get the simple bracelets or earings that are made of silver only, no gems.
The loot! The right side is the usual traditional silver craft that I expect to see in a traditional shop because of how the silver is polished and how they carved the bangles. The fight side on the other hand is the more modern one that you'd expect to see in modern silver shops, it's a lot more like Pandora. And these are difficult to find now.
As I mentioned, we came to Bali for the food, mainly, and the main topic is definitely the BEBEK (duck) and BABI (pork). Bali's unique dish is ayam betutu, but I lost focus not to get this one because of the porky stuff (porky is definitely more interesting than chicken). And the duck is just well, you just cannot resist those thick greasy skin, right?).
2 interesting places that I went this time is the food places with literal meaning. The first one is Bebek Tepi Sawah, literal translation is the duck next to padi field, literally. They served lots of dishes, but we got the duck, the fish and the satay lilit (basically satay with lemon grass used as the stick instead the usual bamboo stick). But what's the best of this place is the sambal (chili sauce)! Yes, the duck maybe grilled perfectly, crispy, tender, succulent etc, but sambal is the art!
Next, the place called Sate Babi Bawah Pohon, literally means Pork satay under the tree, as the place indicates. I gotta tell you, I'm not super fond of pork satay because, there's no sauce! Unlike chicken satay, pork satay is basically a barbecued marinated pork meat in a steak, and I like satay with the sauce (preference, I know). But I have to say, this one is different. The satay is sticky and tasty (gotta be the marinate), and it tastes different from the pork satay I had before. There're queue and I came in the afternoon, after lunch time, and there's still queue. You can have your satay with rice or with lontong (compressed rice). I very much prefer lontong because of convenient, you can just poke them with the satay stick and leave your hand clean, and no need to ask for spoon (messy).
One of another famous porky stuff from Bali (aside from Babi guling --> I didn't have this one this time) is the pork ribs. The famous one is Naughty Nuri's Rib, but we already have this franchised in Melbourne, and I already went there. Hence, we went to the next in line competitor, Hogwild, and they don't disappoint. The difference between Nuri and Hogwild is the BBQ sauce, Nuri is utilizing the more traditional mix while Hogwild is more westernized, but the ribs? Fantastic.
On the side note, this point is kind of surprising for me. While you're in Bali, you may want to try their fine dining as well. I know, I know, why would you want to get fine dining in Bali. Well, one thing is, the place is damn nice. You have the land, and labor there hence you practically can do a lot of things there. We went to 2 places, Cuca (it's a tapas style but it's damn yummy) and Merah Putih (more Indonesian dish convert to fine dining style, the portion is quite big though). Personally I like Cuca better because the food suites my pallate better. The other reason is... it's relatively cheap from Singapore standard of fine dining with the similar quality plus you have great service too. So, why not?
You can get 90% of snacks and goodies to bring back from Bali in the huge goodies shop called Khrisna. The notable snakcs are peanuts (Bali peanuts is different, just try it, most people I know love it, I bought the brand 'Matahari', the package is similar, so you need to literally read the brand). Then, the next is pie susu (basically milk pie), the famous one is Dhian (comes in green packages, again, read the brand).
Bali is also famous for salak. There're 2 kinds of Salak in Bali, Salak Bali and Salak Gula Pasir. Salak Bali is HUGE in salak's measurement, but you will still get that sour and rough aftertaste, but you'll only get sweetness from gula pasir, which is also smaller than the normal salak. So it's up to your preference, really, on what type of salak you'd like. Khrisna also sells salak but at a very much more expensive price, 3 times to be exact, so if you pass by those road side stall, you can ask the driver to help you buy (please ask your driver, else you'll get ripped off because you're not a local).
Another famous snack is pia legong. But you have to queue for hours to get this, and there're lots of scalpers for this snack. Personally, I couldn't care less for this because, at the end of the day, it's still a bloody pia. But if you're a diehard fan of pia, then you may want to get this. How to get this in a more convenient way? You can pre-order, basically email the company 3 weeks (YES, 3 weeks) in advance, and have it deliver to your hotel via gojek (oh the Indonesian convenience), and you save the heartache of queueing.
One other snack that you may find it weird to get from Bali but I find it to be important, it's chocolate. I'm particular with my chocolate. I hate milk chocolate because it's a blasphemy altogether to the holy chocolate. I like my chocolate dark, with a bit of after taste, and it's a lot of fun to eat when you have the non usual flavor of dark chocolate. Well, Bali has some, and yes, not cheap (it's 1.5 more expensive than Lindt), but man, the quality is good, even better than Lindt! The ones that I bought is pod. I love the ginger lemongrass flavor. I find that Indonesia chocolates (these type of boutique chocolates) dare to experiment with wide range of combination and even more creative than say, the western counterpart. I found the chocolate with rendang flavor on my way back to Singapore, I didn't buy because it's too adventurous fo me, but it does exists.
Unless you know your well 100% in Bali, do get a driver to drive you around. Roads in Bali are small, which mostly comprise of 2 lanes for 2 ways, and even that it's crampy most of the time, and traffic in Bali is BAD. Not as bad as Jakarta (the ultimate traffic jam in Indonesia, if not in Asia), but for an island, yeah it's bad. Most drivers would know the alternative ways to get to the same destination and will not hesitate to use jalan tikus (those small dodgy allies) to cut the heartache of traffic, so do not freak out when suddenly your driver drive you through a very small not paved road because it's normal there. They're also experienced with ordering your travel destinations to optimize your time for the day because well, back to point 1, there're jams and even though it's an island, it's not that near to go from point A to point B. Hell, it takes 3-4 hours from 1 corner of the island to another corner of the island, so manage your time well.
Choose your hotel wisely. Our hotel, Sol hotel in Legian, is practically NEW. Yes it's nice. What we didn't realize is there's a pura near the hotel. The thing with this fact is that when they suddenly have a prayer in a Pura, they'll literally CLOSE the whole road there an nearby roads as well and you have no way to go in and will end up stranded on the road for hours, which was what happened to us. Plus, do not come nearby Pura when such procession is on the way (please don't indulge your couriosity), people will prevent you to get close by anyway, but in case you manage to slip by, please don't. Why? Because there're lots of dark magic that may possibly involved in the process and you definitely don't want to come across those. I heard enough of these stories in the past that it still freak me out when I recall those stories. So, DON'T!
You'll notice that there're LOTS of stray dogs in Bali, but none of stray cats. I did ask this question to our driver when it becomes so obvious, and quoted: Cats are mostly kept in the house, and there's no cat around because people will catch cats and kill them (for food and what not)... yeah, it's the same as treatment to stray dogs in Java island, but I bet it's less inhumane killing than what they did to the dogs, and don't start the argument of inhumanity with me, I'm just as disgusted with such practice, but it's still being practiced.
So, till next time, in Bali, I'll be sure to eat that nasi campur (mixed rice with tons of porky).
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