visiting Bali

We had never really considered a holiday in Bali till recently when an Airasia promotion caught our eyes and before we knew it, we had secured ourselves a 4 day stay in Bali from the 28 Apr till 01 May. We got both for a very good price, accommodation at $75 per night at Novotel Benoa, and air tickets at around $75 per pax, tax inclusive. We didn't really know what to expect in Bali but gladly, it did not disappoint.
The first day started off with a mild hitch, the flight was delayed by around an hour. Luckily for us, Changi Airport had enough to keep us busy till then. Not much problems when we arrived at Denpasar Airport. It looked very dated, but it had a somewhat resort style feel to it. We hitched a cab from the Airport Taxi Stand to our hotel at around 105k RP. A guy helped us with the luggage to the taxi and he asked for a tip, which was the one and only tip I gave in Bali. After checking in, we explored the coast of Benoa, turned out that although it was presumably famous for water sports, there were hardly any going on in the late afternoon. We had a lunch at a push cart stall, of Bakso, a meatball-beehoon soup which was not too bad. Soon after, we quickly headed to Uluwatu temple to catch the sunset and Kecak dance. It was a nice view of the sunset and the dance was unique. It was a mini play telling the story of the Hindu Monkey God and it was a full house. We hitched the same taxi to Jimbaran Bay for seafood dinner on the beach. It definitely had the ambience and with great company, it made for a very enjoyable dinner! The restaurant was the typical pick your own seafood and cooked in the desired style, the difference and the fun was in having the sand at your feet, the starlit skies above and the cool ocean breeze. 
The second day, we met up with our hired driver, Made Kasa, whom we paid 500k RP to bring us around for 12 hours. Our first stop was Temple Taman Ayun. Next we went to Lake Bratan which had a temple there as well. It turned out that the Balinese are very religious, and their religion of choice was Hindu as opposed to the rest of Indonesia, interesting. We stopped at a nearby market for shopping and it was quite good actually, we got some cheap food and buys. I got cheated for a pair of slippers though, bought it for 50k RP and later found it selling at a supermarket for around 30k RP only. The 50k RP was after bargaining for a period of time too, with the stallowner initially quoting 150k RP. sheesh, haha. Next, we went on to Jatiluwih Rice Terraces. It was huge, with the rice fields spreading across acres of land and looked neverending. On the way to Tanah Lot, we stopped at another temple, famous for hosting many monkeys and fruit bats. Once again, another temple, not much to say about them, and I guess one should really visit when there is a ceremony going on else it is pretty much the same. Last stop for the day was Tanah Lot. We had wanted to time it for sunset but it was pretty early. Tanah Lot is located on the coast and part of the structure was isolated away on a separate cliff. We asked the driver to stop us at Legian / Kuta for dinner and some shopping as well. We explored the streets of Kuta and it was chock full of surfers and tourists. Very different from the place we stayed with definitely a more lively buzz. Taxis were honking at us at every opportunity to see if we wanted a ride and it was quite irritating but one does learn to ignore them. We had dinner at Kopi Pot and great food here. Besides, there was free WIFI and cheers to Pfingo, as we used the opportunity to make internet calls back home.
For the 3rd day, we woke up to soak in the suns at our hotel beach area. Turned out that the water sports took place in the morning and business was good. We ended up utilizing one near our hotel, who charged us 200k RP for a 15 min jet-ski ride which we took up. With that, we explored the coasts of Benoa until the guy called us back. Our hotel had a somewhat private beach with deck chairs and towels available which made it very convenient. No worries on security as well. We lunched at a nearby restaurant before returning to the hotel for a quick nap as I was not feeling too good after the morning activities. The hotel had a free shuttle to the Nusa Dua Bali Collection, a high end shopping mall village in Nusa Dua. It was a bit too upmarket and not very interesting. Just countless shops selling Polo Ralph stuff. We did a quick exploration before hailing a cab back to Kuta for shopping and dinner. Not much stuff to buy here, mainly beach / surf-related items and we went to sit by the Kuta beach to catch the sunset. There were neverending group of people coming up to us offering beach mats, temp tattoos, ice cream etc, really quite irritating actually. We ended up watching one guy having his surfing lessons and it was pretty interesting to see how they learnt and we cheered when he finally was able to stand for sometime. Well, the next time we come Bali, we will be coming back to try out the surfing. For dinner we ate at Kafe Dulang, famous for their Soto Ayam, which was quite nice. We walked around abit more and bought tidbits to bring back to Singapore. We ended up at Ocean Beach Club for drinks before heading back to the hotel. I can’t exactly remember what drink it was but the so-called drink of the century, some martini concoction was terrible!
The final day saw us crawling out of bed early at around 5:30am to catch the sunrise. It was fun! From seeing the gentle glow as the sun creeps up to the brilliant hue that it cast on the sky. We continued to laze by the beach and the pool till around 9 before heading back to our room to prepare to check out. Gosh, before we knew it, we were back in Denpasar and awaiting for our flight back to Singapore, which guess what, was delayed by an hour as well. Haha…