乘着轻舟

朝辞白帝彩云间，千里江陵一日还。
两岸猿声啼不住，轻舟已过万重山。

我乘着我的轻舟，一晃眼，2010年都快过去了。
是快乐的。

可是，除了快乐，我还要点什么？

Kintamani & Nusa Dua

After swimming with dolphins, we took our ride from Lovina to Kintamani for lunch. And for the panaromic view of Gunung Batur and Danau Batur. The 2nd highest active volcano in Bali. The view was nice and the wind was very strong. The high altitude made the place very cooling. I've got to tell you, it requires courage to sit by this view for lunch with just a tube and shorts :P

After the expensive yet not delicious lunch, we skipped Pura Besakih and headed straight to Nusa Dua.

We stayed in Grand Mirage Hotel, another relatively cheapest beachfront hotel in Nusa Dua. We arrived in Nusa Dua in the afternoon, it was a low tide, so no luck for water sports. So, we were just sun tanning and swimming all the time in Nusa Dua hotel and beach.

I didn't take any photos in Nusa Dua, the volcano photos were the last shots I took throughout the trip.

In conclusions, anyone who love sun and beaches, Bali is worth to go. But be prepared that the food and transprots aren't cheap at all. The accomodation can be cheap if you do not chose to stay at beach front hotels. But we're lucky, we've got budget airline to give out free tickets, like Airasia! Saved a lot for that~

I LOVE IT~

Dolphin Day

Mini aquarium in the hotel lobby

When we departed from the seaside to watch dolphins

Breathtaking experience

On the forth day, we work up as early as 5.45am to meet our dolphin tour boat man. And yes! We're very excited about it, but at the same time, praying for the best so that we could spot wild dolphins at the sea.

Lovina beach was a black sand beach due to the volcano around it. The water was very clear, but due to the dark colour, you hardly see through the sea water. But the sands were very nice and smooth to walk on.

We boarded our small little boat, fit only 3 persons in 3 different rows. I thought I was lucky for not falling out from the boat when I was so excited seeing the dolphins. Our boat man was actually quite good and experience. For the first 2-3 times when the dolphins surfaced out from the water, we were quite far apart. We even saw dolphins making jumps like what we saw in the animal shows. After several attempts, our boat man got hold of the direction of the dolphins, we've actually have twice close encounters with the dolphins when they surfaced out just beside our boat! I was super excited at that time. I just can't express the feelings properly.

Wild dolphins just beside the boat!!!! How cool was that?!

It was an 2 hour tour, but it felt so short. When we finally got back to the hotel, we had our breakfast and got prepared to swim with the dolphins in the hotel. We caught a dolphin show first then the swimming.

I had quite some mental preparation how it would be like, but too bad I didn't really prep Yee Hau very well. So, he's kind of traumatised by the experience. The dolphins weren't very "gentle", nor they are violent. They were very playful. I believe they were just using normal strength, but we're already having bruises all over. At the first dip, the dolphins were just gently moving with you as you swim. But after a while, they started to "assess" you by pushing you. Then when they think they can play with you, they're getting very playful and rough. And yes, dolphins do "molest" us! Especially females! Seems like they can differentiate females and males. They don't quite like Yee Hau when he went into the pool with me, so that keepers have to pull him out from the pool. I was there in the pool pushing around by the dolphins, and molested. Gosh! Of course, I have bruises like what they said in the internet and blogs! Hahahaha!

By the way, something that I must mention here, the dolphins actually kissed me! Without me asking for one :D

All in all, I did not regret doing this, I had fun, with some pain :P

Just be prepared what you gonna get from big animals like these :)

To be continued: Kintamani & Nusa Dua

Road Trip--Ubud, Bedugul, Gitgit Waterfall in Bali

Ibu Oka's Babi Guling in Ubud












Bedugul Market

Danau Bratan, Bedugul

Gitgit Waterfall

On our third day, we hired a driver to drive us from Sanur to Lovina. We spent Rp650,000 for this trip. It's much more expensive if you're travelling one way because the driver will have to be back to their own town very late, and they'll be back on empty car. So, very difficult to bargain for lower price. We still went ahead with this plan, as we did not want to spend time travelling to and fro everyday.

We arrived at Ubud quite early, around 11.30am for an early lunch at Ibu Oka, the famous babi guling shop in Ubud. The babi guling was delicious but very oily. I bet my mom is going to love it! It's only Rp25,000 per person.

Then, we passed Ubud town but we didn't stop for any art and crafts seeing. And definitely not the monkeys too! On the way to Bedugul, we saw rice terrace. But the scale was way too small compared to what we saw in Guilin and Nepal (Yee Hau's trip), so we didn't intend to stop at all.

Our driver took us to Bedugul market and we bought some strawberries and also some crackers. But seriously, the crackers weren't good at all!

Then, we reached the famous tourist spot of Danau Bratan in Bedugul. I bet you've seen this in Bali guide book. The place was full with tourists and we spotted lots of Penangites aunties and uncles too! Muahahahaha!

After Bedugul, the driver drove us to Gitgit waterfall. It was quite a long walk from the entrance to the waterfall itself. The water was cooling but we didn't play in the waterfall, cause it'll just be so troublesome to change there. What's more, we have cameras!

At 4pm something, we finally checked into our room at Melka Excelsior Hotel in Lovina. We decided to stay here just because of the dolphins. Melka Excelsior Hotel is quite a lousy hotel in terms of facilities, and lots of things were still under rennovation. Of course, I didn't expected this from the website. I think it's all because they use up all the money in maintaining the dolphin pools. Yes, dolphins. We stayed there so that we could swim in their pools with dolphins (at least me!).

To be continued: Dolphin Day~

Nusa Lembongan, Bali

On our second day at Bali, we bought a Perama ticket which took us from Kuta to Sanur on their shuttle bus and a return boat ticket from Sanur to Nusa Lembongan. The journey from Sanur to Nusa Lembongan was a bit rocky due to the big waves. The japanese boys in front of us were feeling very uncomfortable and the younger brother vomitted. Poor thing.

When we finally reached Nusa Lembongan, Robin and Rick were there waiting for us. We're easy to spot as we're the only few yellow skin. Robin and Rick took us on the motorbike to their Shipwrecks Beach Villa. Robin and Rick were both from Australia and this Shipwrecks Beach Villa was actually a holiday getaway until their daughters got married. They decided to turn this into a guest house. Brilliant place~ Besides, Robin and Rick were both very very friendly and helpful.

After our lunch at Linda's restaurant, another Australian friend of Robin, Robin helped us to get her friends to bring us to snorkel. It's actually a drift snorkelling, which we're just left in the middle of the sea and flowed with the current from an end to another end till we reached the boat. The water wasn't crystal clear on that day, that's a shame.

After the first spot, our boat man brought us to another spot to watch GT, Giant Trevally. The fishes are HUGE! And the boat man was feeding them with something when we're in the water. It was quite scary at first when the fishes seem so close to attack us. But when we realized they're over the food, not us, it's all okay.

The snorkelling was suppose to be 2 hours, but we're back after 3 hours. We cleaned ourselves at the opened area shower. We stayed in the master bedroom at Shipwrecks, and the bathroom was the best part--everything is open air! It feels kind of weird at start, but I liked it after a while.

We listened to Robin's advice, we ran to the seaside to catch the incredible sunset! It was INCREDIBLE! It's more than words to describe. We stayed along the beach until the sun was fully set and we got back to villa to get a torch light.

We had dinner in Two Thousands Restaurant. When we're walking back to Shipwrecks, we could see the stars on the sky were like falling to the ground. It's just fantastic~

The next day, we followed the route that Robin told us, we went to see the sunrise. We didn't have luck that morning. The clouds were too thick, but still nice.

Nusa Lembongan is a nice place to learn how to "do nothing" for a whole day. I love this place. And what's more, it's the most enjoyable stay I had for the entire 4nights trip. Thanks to Robin and Rick's warm hospitality. And of course, thanks to Min Chunn for recommending too~

To be continued: Ubud, Gitgit Waterfall, Bedugul

Kuta, Bali

Yee Hau & I decided to go to Bali because we managed to grab hold of the $0 ticket by Airasia from Singapore to Bali, a new opening flight this year! I was very excited about this, because it's free, and I haven't been enjoying myself with beach and sun since the last trip to Pulau Redang with my sister and her friends, which was 2007. I LOVE beaches!

On the first day of Bali, we stayed in Kuta. Yee Hau chosed a beach front hotel, named Bali Garden Beach Hotel, which is one of the cheapest beach front hotel in Kuta and Legian. We love the swimming pool so much, we just can't stop ourselves from dipping into the pool as long as we can. The hotel room itself was a bit old and disappointed if we think about the price. But beach front with wonderful 3 swimming pools, I love it!

In our plan, we should be going to Uluwatu and seafood dinner by Jimbaran beach on the first day. But we fell in love with the beach hotel, we just stayed around Kuta area for the whole day.

Kuta has wonderful sunset. The sand was very very smooth and the waves were very big and strong. We saw lots of surferes along the stretch of beach, it's really a surfers paradise.

We didn't do much on the first day, just plainly relaxing, especially after the shock of being "caught" by polisi (traffic police) and gave him kopi duit! We rent a bike in Kuta on the first day, we drove around to have a look at the town. We made a U-turn at one way street which we didn't know it's a one-way street because there was no signage at all. The polisi were there to wait for the prey like us, and makan our $$$$. We're not alone, another caucassian pair were caught at the same time as we does. So, be careful if you going to ride a bike there.

To be continued: Nusa Lembongan