Joshie darling, on the other hand, missed his comfy bed and was so happy to be back home. I can't blame him - the bed and pillows at Hard Rock Hotel Bali gave us neck-aches every morning. The other complaint was the salt-water supply turned my tresses as stiff as rafia strings.
The holiday was spectacular! We moved at snail's speed every day - there was no need to rush for anything! We sought out dining pleasures and shopping bargains. We lay out to bake in the sun as long as we wished. And we took over 300 photographs! I can't ask for a better holiday.
On the first day in Bali
As there were no more day-time direct flights from Singapore to Denpasar Bali, we chose to transit in Jakarta and take an afternoon domestic flight into Bali.
Josh met with a little trouble at Jakarta airport - apparently, this symbol is not welcomed in Indonesia. A lady customs officer asked Josh to change out of it to avoid offending anyone. Unfortunately, we had checked in our luggage and the shops in the airport were a real tragedy. There was no way I'll let Josh wear an awful Batik shirt that is highly favoured by old Singaporean men who thronged Batam for prostitutes, much less one that is sold for a whopping US$120!
Anyway, I could not understand what was offensive about this symbol of old Soviet Union. Was it because of its Communist roots? Strangely, no one else gave us two hoots about his shirt. It seems that the lady at the Customs was the only jittery one.
We had two hours in transit and we went window-shopping in the sad Jakarta airport. The shops were poorly maintained and not much variety of products were offered. The duty-free chocolates were priced in USD and not cheap at all!
But I did find pleasure in taking a bite out of this gigantic Toblerone bar - pity it tasted a little bland and very plasticky.
The airport staff were also a sad bunch. They hung out at the smoking lounges for far too long. Don't they need to work?!
And the smoking lounges were very abused too. It is obvious that nobody took their warning signs seriously.
We finally arrived at Hard Rock Hotel Bali close to 5pm. We stayed here two years ago and loved it for its beautiful beach pool, live-wire Centrestage - a bar where live bands performed every night, and perfect location in the heart of Kuta.
While the rest of the hotel was painted in bright multi-colours and decorated with an impressive array of signatured guitars of music superstars, the bedrooms were a subdued pastel of pinks and whites. The rooms were themed as various music genres like POP, RAGGAE, ROCK N ROLL and ALTERNATIVE.
Two years ago, we stayed at the POP block. This time we stayed in the ALTERNATIVE block. It's disappointing that the hotel did not do much to decorate the rooms enough to match the themes. All the rooms were pink and white and the only difference was the photo of the musician on the wall. For POP, we had Elton John and Janet Jackson on our walls. In ALTERNATIVE, we slept with Nirvana's Kurt Cobain.
I love Kurt! Alas, this is going to be the one time I will get to sleep with him.
Not wasting any time, Josh and I freshened up and headed to Kuta's streets in search of bargains and a good dinner. Surprisingly, Josh still remembered how to find his way around!!
Mama's German Restaurant is quite a long walk from Hard Rock Hotel but it did not deter us from heading its way for dinner. It serves pretty good German food at VERY cheap prices - even for Singapore standards.
Sheesh, the menu always had me stumped - too many choices! And since everything is so cheap - main course grills costs only S$8 to S$11 - I want to order EVERYTHING!
This 1.5 litre jar of Bintang beer (an Indonesian beer that tastes almost as good as Tiger) costs us only S$9!
We ordered a Potato Cream Soup, Pork Schnitzel with Mushroom Sauce and a platter of mixed sausages. The simple Potato Cream Soup almost murdered us - it was SO good! There was also generous slices of sausages in the soup, yet it costs only S$4!
Total damage for dinner: S$40.00 (inclusive of one huge jar of beer)
On the second day in Bali
We simply explored the hotel, roamed the streets of Kuta and took LOADS of photos - only a few shall grace this post though.
There were long stretches of touristy shops that sold all sort of stuff, from wood carvings of penises to Bintang beer shirts to branded fakes. While in Bali, I would stock up on beach wear. With Kuta being a surfer magnet, Ripcurl, Roxy, Volcom and more chose to set up shops there. They have a more extensive range than you would find in Singapore. Prices are the same, however.
Immediately above is the picture of the tribute site to the victims of the first Bali terrorist bombings.
After shopping for a couple of hours, we decided to cool off over ice-cold drinks at Apache Bar & Restaurant. It opens mid afternoon for drinks and snacks, then blossom into a rowdy dinner place where a live band performs raggae. Further back of the restaurant is a pub where surfer boys and babes like to hang out late into the night.
Apache offers a shady retreat from the hot Balinese sun and the drinks are priced like any regular cafe in Singapore. My Pineapple Dream costs less than S$4, but it tastes like soda with canned pineapple syrup. Their menu is extensive and are priced like Mama's German Restaurant. Unfortunately, the food quality is crap - I will bitch about it later on.
In Bali, most people preferred to walk because the roads are all one-way and tendencies to get stuck in a traffic jam is high. One could also take the horse carriage or a taxi if one's desired destination is very far. While there are many taxi companies in Bali, only the Blue Bird taxis go by metre. The others charge an exhorbitant S$8 for a 10-minute ride! We would always try to bargain it down to S$5.
The horse carriages are pretty much a tourist attraction only, I suppose. They won't take you beyond Kuta and Legian. I pity the poor horsies cos they have to ply the same streets day in, day out. Even in the middle of the night when they are asleep, their owners would wake them up just to give tourists a ride.
We were tired of shopping by 4pm so we headed back to the hotel to rest and wash up in preparation for a good dinner at Jimbaran beach where stretches of seafood restaurants vie for tourist dollars. Most restaurants there offer free two-way tranfers from hotels to get tourist into their premises.
One could catch a good sunset at Jimbaran beach, so we timed our dinner at 5.30pm. With quite a bit of time on our hands, we indulged in a long bubble bath with a ciggie in one hand, and a bottle of Bintang in the other. Heh.
Since there were many seafood restaurants down Jimbaran, we asked Hard Rock Hotel's concierge to recommended one that serves good food. We went to Sharkey's two years ago and the grilled seafood was too dry and not tasty enough. We were told to try JBS Bambu Bali Restaurant.
The seafood were live and sold by weight. We picked out a crab, six river prawns (cheaper and smaller but sweeter than those big ones), and a red Snapper. We then decided how we want them cooked - often by grill. The meal comes with complimentary welcome drinks, rice, fried kangkong and peanuts - but I'm sure they have worked the costs into the prices already.
JBS is pretty expensive by Bali's standards and we were quite alarmed when we first saw the menu. Prawns costs S$4 per 100gm, crabs at almost S$48 per kg and the red Snapper at S$2 per 100gms. And I bet they rigged their weighing scales! Even the drinks are expensive - Fantas at S$2 per 300ml bottle. This is as pricey as dining in Singapore!
But we must admit that all our orders were very fresh and cooked very well - even better than those grilled seafood sold at Singapore's Newton Circus. The delightful sunset also made it less painful on our pockets. :)
Another good thing - we could bargain on the bill.
Total damage for dinner: S$97.00 (inclusive of a bottle of beer and two soft drinks)
Then in the middle of the night, we got a little greedy and skipped over to Dunkin' Donuts and got ourselves a late-night sweet treat!
On the third day in Bali
We spent our third day laying out in the sun all afternoon like salted fish. Hard Rock Hotel Bali's pool is utterly charming! They have a man-made beach area for beach volleyball, a little shack smack in the middle of the pool where you can swim over for a chilled cocktail, and several pretty cabanas for rental if you liked privacy at the pool.
And when we were dehydrated, we called for fruit smoothies which were served to us by Hard Rock Hotel staff on uni-cycles. Nice.
For dinner this time, I was yearning to return to the romantic cradle of La Luciolla at Seminyak. La Luciolla stole our hearts two years ago with its sea-front dining. Unlike Jimbaran's seafood eateries, La Luciolla was high-end dining by Bali's standards. Even Seminyak's beach was more refined and quieter than Jimbaran.
What a pretty sunset. It does look fit for a postcard! We strolled the beach while waiting for the sun to set. And when the sun was almost down, we headed back to the restaurant for our dinner.
La Luciolla is set in rustic style with palm trees, fire torches and lots of wooden touches. This is a fine place for romance over a drink if one is worried about the pricey meals served here.
Ah heck! Even the toilet is lovely!
I always like a Mojito, whenever possible, to get my appetite going. La Luciolla presents their Mojito nicely, but it is not as strong as I would like it to be.
Josh had a tasty Baby Octopus Salad - a delightful mix of barbequed baby octopussies, slices of chirozos and rocket salad.
I had a Soup of Mud Crab which came with generous servings of crab meat, cubed snapper fish, prawns and sweet tomatoes.
For mains, I chose a Risotto of Prawns and Josh took a humble Prawn and Snapper Pie. My risotto's texture was just nice but it could be a little more tastier. Josh's pie, however, packed a punch despite its simple appearance! The filling was hot and creamy with large chunks of juicy Snapper meat and prawns!
After filling our pampered tummies, we hopped a few steps over to La Luciolla's wine lounge, the relaxing Frangipani Lounge. Like its name, the lounge area has large vats of water with Frangipanies afloat.
While some lounges offer peanuts and crackers as bar bites, Frangipani Lounge serves up these:
We spent the next hour or so over beers and cocktails, and talking about all things under the sky. Then I nicked a Frangipani from the table ornament and stuck it in my hair for some narcissistic self-shots. Heh.
Josh thought I looked so sweet with a flower in my hair that he followed suit...
Erm, I say he ought to stick to caps and leave the flowers for me instead.
Total damage for dinner and drinks: S$136.00
Since we were in Seminyak, we decided to check out their stretches of night spots too. Josh wanted to go to 66 (read as Double Six), a popular disco in Seminyak. But I remembered that a Balinese client once told me that drug abuse was rampant there, and decided against it.
Instead, we settled for more drinks at De Javu, another supposedly popular club in Seminyak. De Javu was empty when we arrived. The staff explained that clubs fill out only after midnight in Bali. Gah.
We did not stay long cos our tummies were almost bursting from too many beers and Josh did not like the Acid Jazz the club was playing.
Total damage for three beers: S$10.00
On the fourth day in Bali
On the way to La Luciolla the day before, we noticed that there were many interesting looking shops there. Unlike the numerous surf shops in Kuta, Seminyak's shops offered more artistic items and many boutiques that sold pretty summer dresses. Hence, we headed off on foot to Seminyak after breakfast at the hotel.
Bad idea.
While it seemed like a short distance from Hard Rock Hotel to Seminyak in a taxi, walking was a wholly different matter. We realised we could not remember which junction we should turn, and lost our way. No touristy shops were in sight - only dingy eateries for the locals and muddy roads.
The scalding afternoon sun made matters worse and I became very irritable. Finally after walking about for an hour and forty-five minutes, Josh suggested that we hop into a taxi and be driven to Seminyak instead. We were famished and thirsty by then, and asked the driver to drop us off near any restaurants.
Strangely, most restaurants were only opened for dinner down that stretch so we trekked on further down the road searching for any restaurants in operation. Then we spotted Ryoshi Japanese Restaurant, one of those eateries recommended by travel journals, and it is opened for business! Yippee!
Ryoshi was packed full house with foreigners. We waited quite long to be shown the menu, waited some more to have our orders taken, waited some more to get our drinks, and by the time we got our food, 45 minutes had passed. That explained Josh's I-am-pissed expression.
OK, he was also pissed from my earlier whining about being lost.
There were a lot of Japanese tourists dining in Ryoshi, so I figured the food must be quite authentic. True enough, we were not disappointed.
We feasted on Niku Soba (beef noodle soup), Unagi rice set, Dasi Maki (steamed egg maki), tempura and salmon sashimi. I am often disppointed by the veg tempura served in Singapore, but Ryoshi made me eat up every single piece of veg tempura! It was that good.
Total damage for lunch: S$43.00 (inclusive of two Cokes)
When we are full and happy again, we continued our walk down Seminyak. I noticed that Kuta attracted a lot of young tourists, espcially Caucasians, while Seminyak drew mostly middle-aged Japanese and Korean tourists. In fact, some of the clothing stores are very Japanese oriented with Japanese speaking employees and posters in Japanese.
As the next day was the Balinese New Year - Galungan, many locals were busy preparing festive delicacies to offer to their Gods, so the streets were filled with very nice smells.
Balinese Hindus who celebrate this new year would weave pretty hanging things out of a bamboo pole, called a Penjor, and hang it at the entrance to their shops or homes.
Somewhere down Seminyak we found this amazing shop called Dog Tail that sold accessories for dogs! Everything was adorable but expensive.
Josh could not resist and bought a Bintang Beer shirt for Snowy, his grouchy Maltese. As I had expected, Snowy refused to let Josh put the shirt on him when we returned to Singapore. Heh.
We walked on for a couple more hours until our feet aches and our throats burned. Then we took shelter at a supermarket and recharged with Coke. Really, Coke is the best treatment for almost everything - dehydration, hang-overs, headaches, stress and lethargy at work, hunger, sex deprivation, etc.
We headed back to the hotel by 5pm to rest before heading out for dinner. Goodness! We had been walking since 12pm!
Too tired to venture too far for dinner, we returned to Mama's German Restaurant. Again, we just had to have the wonderful Potato Cream Soup! This time, we had Nasi Goreng and Beef Mignon.
Total damage for dinner: S$33.00 (inclusive of Cokes)
On the fifth day in Bali
We were darned lazy this day and woke up close to noon. We skipped lunch and went to the pool side to continue sleeping. When our skin started to burn, we tossed ourselves into the pool.
Josh tried to be funny and ordered a Virgin Superstar for me. Gah! With hardly any bedroom romps lately, I am a born-again virgin.We only left the pool when Josh's tummy started to rumble.
Alas, it was the Galungan and many restaurants, especially those run by Balinese, were closed. Josh wanted to time our trip with Galungan as he expected lively street parades and celebrations. Unfortunately, the Galungan celebrations were held inside homes and temples and it was a holiday for most Balinese Hindus. That meant pretty quiet streets!
We did not want to eat in Hard Rock Hotel cos it was too expensive. And since we had a spa appointment at 4.30pm, we had to settle for a quick one-hour lunch at MacDonalds. Gah.
After lunch we went to the spa for a foot massage to ease out the knots in our feet and knees earned from too much walking. Bliss!Still feeling very lazy, we returned to our room to lie before going shopping in Kuta again. There were still pressies for friends we have not gotten!
Looking for a place to have dinner became a real headache. Mama's German Restaurant was definitely open for business but we have grown tired of eating there. The only other restaurant not closed for Galungan was Apache Bar & Restaurant. It turned out to be the worst meal we have had in Bali!
The lamb chops had hardly any meat and was cold. The acclaimed "special receipe garlic butter" was a frozen chunk tossed atop the meat. Josh's honeyed chicken chop was at least still edible.
In addition to the lousy food, we were tortured by mozzies. Our arms and legs were riddled with bite bumps by the end of dinner. Gah!
Total damage for dinner: S$28.00 + whole lot of misery
To drown our sorrows from a god-awful dinner, we headed to Hard Rock Hotel's Centrestage for a good load of beers and live music. We also pacificed our tastebuds with an order of juicy BBQ wings.
On the sixth day in Bali
We found a very delightful restaurant today! Tucked away behind an art gallery in Kuta, few would notice Ketupat Restaurant. It is a quaint restaurant that served authentic Indonesian cuisine. The menu would detail the origins of each dish, be it from Bali, Bandar Aceh, Java, or Sumatra.
Even better, the restaurant has a laidback ambience that made us feel like we have been whisked away from noisy Kuta to somebody's house in a village.
Yes, I know! Too much food! We spent two hours cleaning out everything and our tummies were close to bursting, but we still could not resist desserts. The coconut ice-cream I had was to-die-for!
Total damage for lunch: S$67.00 (inclusive of drinks)
On the last day in Bali
Josh sulked while I packed up the final bits of stuff to bring home. We bought quite a bit of pressies for friends! Yay!
I stocked up on yummy Dunkin' Donuts for my brothers.
We had our last chuckle at this suggestion box in Bali airport. Funny how the slot for suggestion cards is just above the rubbish bin. Heh.
Our flight home got delayed for 2.5hrs due to a technical problem, and we were stuck in the waiting area listening to traditional Balinese music played on loop. We became deaf by the time we boarded the plane.
We had our last Bintang beer.
Then we waved goodbye to Bali.
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