Bali, finally!

The day had finally arrived!!!!

Ati & I couldn't contain our excitement.

"Hey, Elly, we can finally strike off Bali from our wish list", she said as we settled in our seats.
"Hold on first, we haven't reached Bali yet." I commented with a grin.

There was a delay at KLIA due to the heavy traffic...We took off almost an hour later. Yikes! Imagine the restlessness being in the flight for a solid hour, waiting for our turn to take off. I tried to remain cheerful though, until I dozed off soon after.

It was about 2 & half hour later when we saw in a distance, a volcanic mount rose high above the clouds. We weren't sure of our exact location. Could be Java though.

All of a sudden, Ati nudged me. "Is that eruption?" There, I saw, a blow of dust out of the volcano. We were almost screaming & took lots of shots of it. We had never seen a volcano before. haha, so sakai.

"Hey, check that out!" As I peered though the window, I noticed that we were passing by another volcanic mount. It was so close that we managed to take the picture of the crater.

We arrived in Bali at about 2.35pm, at Bandar Udara Ngurah Rai. Bali...ahh, all green with blue sea & sky. We were greeted by the intricate wood carvings at the airport & soothing sound of traditional music that played in the background.

(Note : There'll be lots of tour brochures for grab on the way to the immigration. You can really get good deal there.)

There were hundreds of tourists arriving at about the same time. It took us almost an hour to clear the immigration. On contrary, baggage claim and customs check were a breeze. (Note : There's no electronic board indicating where to claim your luggage, so you may have to look a bit.)

I basically had an idea where to go for the taxi but I asked the guard anyway, before exiting the arrival hall.

"Pak, di mana ya kaunter taksi?"
"Keluar dari sini, langsung ke kanan."
"Ma Kasih, Pak"

Hehe...I'm definitely going to try to speak Bahasa Indonesia as much as possible.

There were swarms of people outside the arrival hall, a bit chaotic. Drivers, porters, tour operators, hotel operators, etc. You'd probably be asked if you are interested in about anything. Anyway, just to be safe, we decided on the airport taxi. Oh boy, another long queue..but we didn't really mind, as we were admiring the surrounding. The blue sky, the swaying coconut trees, etc. ooohhhh, we're holidaying at a tropical island.

Taxi was Rp 60,000 to Sanur and the journey took us about 40 minutes. There were lots of "oohh", "ahh" and "check this out" along the way. We felt dizzy later, trying to look at both sides of the road. haha, very funny. There was simply too much to see. (Note : Get your camera ready to snap some pictures along the way. We missed some good view then.)

We were feeling a bit worried when the driver told us that we were arriving at the hotel. The junction was small. We didn't see any signage that said 'Diwangkara Holiday Villa' (http://www.holidayvillabali.com/index.html ). The street leading to the hotel was so small that it could fit a car at a time. As we passed through the gate, we saw a 2 storey building with a small parking lot. The taxi then stopped in front of the small lobby. The reception counter was like 2 metre long and the hotel was really quiet...Gee...I prayed hard that we didn't make a mistake choosing the hotel.

After the speedy check in, we were then showed the way to the our room, passing through a beautiful garden. The building we saw earlier was only the admin block. In the garden, there are a temple, a big pond and few statues.

Our room is just next to the garden with a small pond in front of it. There are 2 chairs outside where we can sit and admire the garden. Stone carvings on the wall and above our door. The room is so cosy, with the warmth of the wooden furniture. Yes, there's the 4 poster bed. Another stone carving adorned the wall above the door to the bathroom.

After settling in, we took a walk in the garden. This is exactly what I had in mind if I ever own my own house...a Bali garden. The pool (deepest end is 2.5 metre) and the restaurant were located near the beach, after the garden.

We surveyed the beach. The sand isn't white but slightly brown. The sea is calm as the waves break at the reef about 50 metre out to the sea. There were a good mix of both locals and foreigners at the beach, doing various activities. Sanur is definitely a place to relax as it's quite laid back. The sea breeze is cooler than the one I'm so used to in Malaysia. There were a number of stalls selling knick knacks at the beach, and La Mayeur Museum is located about 20 metre from the hotel.

As for the first nite in Bali, we decided to stay in and had dinner in the room. While resting, we were busy looking through the pamphlets. It would be cheaper to charter the car with a driver if you know where do you want to go but because we didn't really have the sense of distance in Bali, we decided on for a full day tour of about 13 hours and later booked it. The tour that we chose cost USD35 per pax and it includes car, driver, guide, all entrance fees, performances, lunch, dinner and also sarongs for the temple.

Tour starts at 8.30am tomorrow, hence, we're retiring early.

Good nite.