Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Bali Day 1


When the plane took off I wondered whether I have fear of flying. I grabbed on to the seat handle at both sides and felt the sensation at the exact moment the plane leave the ground. This wasn't my first flying experience, though. My very first was to Langkawi Island with my mom and aunt when I was... maybe 7 or 8. I don't remember having this feeling at that time. In fact, I don't remember the experience at all. It was clear sky all the way to Bali. When I looked out the window, the view was amazingly beautiful. Despite that, it was a 3-hour journey and the seat was very uncomfortable. It was very difficult to sleep because we had to sit very straight and there was limited space to stretch your legs. There were no free meals on plane - you had to pay for it (though the price is considerably reasonable).

After hitting the ground and getting out of the airport, what we saw was a friendly-looking Indonesian holding a cardboard paper with Poh Leng's name written on it. For some reason it just seemed funny to us. After dropping us off at the Harris Hotel in Kuta, which is very near to the airport, we went straight to our first destination - Uluwatu. It was a Hindu temple by a cliff. In order to be able to enter the temple, we had to have a piece of cloth around our waist and if your pants were above knee-length, you had to cover up your legs. And it was funny looking at the guys dressing as if they're wearing long skirts.

The temple was full with monkeys who steal. Yes, steal! Before we even enter the temple the tour guide already warned us about the stealing monkeys. He told us to take off our caps, spectacles, ear rings and other accessories. We did not take his warning seriously and it turned out that the monkeys were really good and talented thieves. So Poh Leng's glasses were stolen and broken, costed him Rp9000 (about RM3) to repair it. And Keng's and Lao Ann's glasses, which he put into his pocket, were nearly stolen. One of the monkeys even managed to rob the strawberry key chain out of Ling Yue's backpack. After these incidents the girls hang on to our purses so tight a grown man would have difficulty trying to grab them.
Despite that our possessions were in threat, the scenery by the cliff was breath-taking.
Dinner was seafood plate which consisted of a whole fish, half a crab, two oysters, two prawns, rice and soup. The taste was unexpectedly good and we found out that the price was considered cheap, around RM40+. In fact, the food and souvenir (including in tourist spots) in Bali is cheap compared to in Malaysia.

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