Today, we decided we really needed to buy a few gifts/souvenirs for people back home. We had been gone 2 1/2 months and bought nothing other than a few t-shirts for ouselves. So we headed back to the Discovery Mall in downtown Kuta. We spied this beautiful butterfly/moth on the ground. Not sure if it was dead or resting, but guessing dead, since it seems to be belly up.
The ocean was a little rough today, with waves coming way up and over the rocks and path. Tide was definitely in.
We purchased a few items from the market inside the mall and from the outdoor market that we found. Of course had to stop and have our ‘usual’ from Starbucks. Vanilla Ice Lattés. Saw a march or parade of some sort going on.
Took a gander at Bubba Gump again, but once again we weren’t hungry and it was still morning. Not even sure if it was open yet. Really, really need to come back here.
School was just being let out and kids were flowing out. All the schools seem to have school uniforms. At least the ones we saw did. Lots being picked up by their parents on scooters. Lots of hydro lines here also.
Strolled back to our hotel and saw lots of surfers out today. Guess it must have been a good surf day. All the rough waters we saw earlier today seemed to have calmed down some.
Tide was out now. What a difference.
After all our exercise, we noticed it was Happy Hour time. Guess where we headed? Yup to the pool bar. Had to snap a few more flower pictures today. Seems like I am always finding new ones. The ones on the right are Bouganvillea and they are everywhere here. Back home they are so expensive to buy.
Laundry day AGAIN! Always seems to be laundry day, but we had a great spot to hang it to dry.
We headed back to the restaurant tonight and had a table by the edge again. Tonight’s menu looked like it had been retrieved from the garbage as it was so crinkled up.
Eating in the restaurant gives a great view, but the poor little cat came back and makes me so sad. Tonight there were 2 cats. The little guy once again got most of my meat from the cheese steak sandwich. Doug had green curry and therefore could not share with the cat.
The mean man sitting at the table next to us, just kept kicking the cats away. It broke my heart sitting here. This is partially why we had so many of our meals at the pool bar.
Today was another travel day and we were heading back to Kuta for a few more nights. We enjoyed our last breakfast here with our new buddy, the cat. I don’t think he was supposed to be on the table, but what the heck!
We gave him a little bit of our scrambled eggs, which he just looked at. What was he expecting, caviar?
We packed up and checked out of the hotel. We weren’t supposed to check out until tomorrow, but we had changed our plans. We did not ask for a refund, so they still got their money for the extra night. After all, it wasn’t their fault we left early.
We headed downtown to the Blue Water office.
Lots of horse and buggies here this morning awaiting the arrival of new tourists.
We had just been saying the other day, that these places should have a day when everyone, including the tourists, go out and clean up the beaches and road sides. To our surprise, we saw this sign this morning.
Our boat arrived at 1150 hrs and we loaded on, headed for Kuta. The price we paid also included our transportation from the port on Bali to our hotel in Kuta.
At the other end, we had to walk a short distance to get to their office where all the shuttle vans were waiting to take us to our hotels.
We arrived at 1545 hrs and got all checked in. We knew the routine, as we booked the Holiday Inn again. We knew it and we liked it. This room was not a large as the last one, but was still really nice. We had a little outdoor patio this time as we were on the ground floor.
If we hurried we would make it to the pool bar happy hour. Off we went. Mojitos for Doug and Cham 69s for me. Delicious!
Headed back to the room shortly after 1700 hrs and Doug did some hand laundry. Had the perfect place outside to hang it to dry.
The plants sure grow big here. Another one, a Croton, that I use to have as an indoor plant. Mine was only tiny compared to these though.
Dinner tonight was take out from the pool bar and dessert, which we brought back to the room. Enjoyed our dinner in the room while we watched some TV.
We were moving on today. We had booked a private van to take us from Kuta to Ubud and he was to arrive around noon. It was a great deal for IDR Rp 150,000 = Cdn $13.25
We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and then wandered around the grounds taking pictures for a while. This was our balcony where we hung laundry and actually did relax a couple of times.
Our view
If you look really hard you can see the ocean.
We checked out, paid our bill and waited for our ride. Still owed quite a bit, even though we had purchased their upsell offer. Pay IDR Rp 1,000,000 (Cdn $88.50) and get IDR Rp 1,250,000 (Cdn $110.50) credit. We should have bought a few of those upsell offers! Mind you, we had been here for 5 nights and had eaten all our dinners here.
Couldn’t leave without checking out the public washrooms, now could we?
It was a nice drive and I tried to take a few pictures along the way. The closer we got to Ubud, the hillier and curvier the roads got. Some of the sculptures that we saw in stores along with road looked to be amazing. Can only imagine what they would cost to ship home.
We turned off the main road and proceeded along a very hilly, rough ‘road’. We came to where we thought the road to our hotel was, but the driver was not going to risk driving up it. It was narrow, steep and curvy. We couldn’t tell for sure if our accommodations were even on it. We unloaded and proceeded to walk up the ‘road’. For every down hill there seemed to be an up hill also. 100 M sure can be far at times. We had made good time and had arrived in Ubud by 1:30. We have to laugh now as it is approximately 26 km (16 miles), but seemed much further when driving over here. Can you imagine taking 1 1/2 hours to go 26 km back home? And thinking you had made good time!!
We were welcomed with drinks and got all checked in. They sure make the room keys large enough. Don’t want you loosing them. The room was quite large and really nice. There was a welcome letter and flowers laying around that instantly kicked my allergies into high gear. Thankfully the flowers were gone the next day.
We decided to explore a little and found the restaurant. What they serve Bintang? We figured we deserved a rest and an adult beverage. After all it was really HOT here.
Couldn’t go wrong with the price of a large Bintang here. With tax and tip it was IDR Rp 35,200 = Cdn $3.10
We were rested and hydrated now, so decided it was time to head into town. Yup, that meant we had to walk down and up the hills again. At least this time, we knew our hotel was actually here. We walked by rice fields that lined our little road.
We got to town and stumbled upon a barber shop. Doug had been wanting to get a haircut for a while now. He was going to chance it. Really, how can you mess up a man’s haircut? There was an Aussie guy in the seat next to Doug that had the most beautiful long blond curly locks. I really wanted to take a picture of him, but that probably would have been a little weird, even for me. He wanted ALL the curls cut off. He wanted his hair short. His poor barber was terrified of cutting his hair. The client kept telling him to cut more and more off. Doug’s barber just took the shears to Doug’s hair and sheared away! The sign on the window was amusing. GOOD Haircuts ARE NOT Cheap, cheap HaiRcuts ARE NOT GOOD
They are everywhere! We didn’t stop in, but I am sure we probably will at some time.
We were now in search of food. We found this place and decided to give it a try. When I saw Ginger Ale on the menu, I had to have one. We don’t drink pop often, but a good Ginger Ale now and then is great. We ordered shrimp of some sort and I also ordered the Tian Avocado Shrimp Cocktail. Wasn’t fond of all that stuff on the top. Meal wasn’t bad, but I won’t hurry back. A bit too fancy for my tastes.
Here are a few pictures of our walk to and from town. There are a LOT of hills here.
Another part of the road we had to walk everyday.
We stopped at the local Mini Mart to pick up a few snacks and headed back to our accommodations. Saw a good sized gecko in the gardens, but didn’t get a picture of it.
Nothing planned for today. We were going to walk back to the downtown area of Kuta and see if we could get some money. Walked along the water and saw these people flying a kite. Perfect weather for kite flying.
Tried the bank machines from the other day and Doug was able to get Cdn $50 from one machine. After that it appeared that his card had stopped working also. With our whopping $50 in hand we stopped in Starbucks for a couple of cold ones. Had to laugh at how they labeled the coffees. Mr Joan and Mrs Joan.
We browsed around the mall for a bit enjoying the air conditioning.
Headed outside to check out the area and found a strip of bank machines on the street, but none of them would work for either of us.
One of my favorite restaurants, but we did not go in. We need to come back here one day.
Saw these cool stools at an outdoor bar.
We each bought a t-shirt and then decided it we would head back to our hotel and enjoy the afternoon there.
Once we got back to our end of town, we tried the bank machines near us. Doug was able to get Cdn $50, but of course mine still did not work. We asked Paden if he could stop by the bank, speak with them and try to get my card working. Thank goodness everyone at our branch knew we were traveling and knew me quite well. He said he would go tomorrow after work. Please let them be able to help us.
We needed to relax and it was time that we put our feet in the ocean here on Bali.
That was enough ocean time and we headed back to the pool.
After all it was Happy Hour at the pool bar.
We had a few drinks or more, and a delicious Crispy Chicken Wrap. The same meal we had had the other day at the pool bar. It really was good. Good thing we could charge it all to our room and pay by VISA when we were going to check out.
We stayed in the pool until the sun went down and really relaxed.
After our long pool time we headed over to Flavaz to get some dessert. The apple crumble pie and ice cream were yummy and hit the spot.
The hotel had set up for a private party, with all kinds of food and entertainment. We headed back to our room around 7:30 pm. Late night for us!
Today was going to be fun filled touring day. We had so many places to see on the agenda. Thankfully we had booked a private tour with Balik Tour in a comfy SUV for just the two of us and we would have no waiting around for bus loads of tourists. You know how those tourists can be! This was the busload leaving from our hotel.
We were picked up from the hotel at 9:00 am in a nice Toyota SUV and headed off to the first destination, a temple. We hadn’t been to a temple in over a week and were starting to feel temple withdrawal. Not really! Before we got to the temple, we had to battle the rush hour traffic. The scooters reminded us of Vietnam, where no one was safe from them, as they droved everywhere, including the sidewalks. Same here.
But not only did we have to battle scooters, cars and trucks, we had to deal with the wildlife on the road. Coming right at us.
We got to our first stop, a Hindu Temple, Pura Taman Auyn in Mangwi-Bandung. Had to drive under an arch.
Driver dropped us off and would wait for us. In we went to tour the place. It was a big area.
Out we went to find our driver. We are always happy when we are able to find our driver. Some are easier to find than others.
Next stop was a small family-style coffee plantation, Tegal Sari Kopi Luwak. They grew and made their own coffee, plus other herbs and spices. It really was just a drop and shop stop. What was amazing to us though, was how the place looked like nothing from the road side, but once you got behind the wall, the place was amazing.
You get a short tour and then you taste their products, but can’t get out of there without going through their shop.
Beautiful lush gardens. Our guide was pointing out all these different plants that they used to make the coffees, teas and spices. Of course, neither of us remember what was what now.
I do remember that they make a very expensive coffee out of this guys poop! This is a Civet Cat
Coffee Beans + Civet Cat Digestion = Poop Coffee
Here are the poop beans. Poop coffee beans are collected from the poop, washed, roasted, brewed and transformed into aromatic cat poop coffee. That is a definite PASS from me!!!
After a little education, we had to sample the products. Can’t say I was overly fond of any of them. Then we were shuffled into the shop. Of course we ended up buying something that we will most likely never use. I always feel obligated to make some kind of purchase.
UPDATE: Three years later we still have the unopened product. I just happened to see it the other day. Guess it is time to throw it out. And to think that we carried this around the world, taking up precious space in our backpacks. LOL IDR Rp 60,000 = Cdn $5.31
We headed off to the next stop. The clouds were starting to roll in. Really hope we don’t get caught in rain today. Our one big day of sight seeing here on Bali.
Our next stop was Daya Tarik Wisata Ulun Danu Beratan, a Shaivite water temple (Hindu Buddhist) in Beratan which is up in the mountains. That probably explains why it looked like rain.
Tickets in hand we proceeded through the entrance way. This place had pretty big grounds to cover from the look of it, including a lot of water front property.
It always amazes me when I see ‘house’ plants that I have growing, out in the wild here. This is a plant that I called a ‘shrimp plant’. I have no idea if that is the proper name or not, but I had one for a couple of years before it died on me.
I have 2 of these Brugmansias and even though mine are in pots they still grow big and I have to trim 2 -3 feet off them every fall to bring back in the house. I store them in our unused bathtub for the winter months.
Everyone was taking pictures of this and standing on it taking selfies, so I figured it must be something important and needed to take pictures of it also.
The clouds are quickly moving in. Hope they move right on by us.
There was this small group of men fishing. Sure looked relaxing. I wonder if it was some of the workers, during their lunch break. There were many workers around building and sprucing up everywhere.
Doug was getting tired of taking selfies. For every selfie that I post, I have probably taken 100 or more. You would think by now, that I would be better at it, but I am not. Either part of us cut off, background too blurry or we are too blurry. Don’t they say “Practice makes perfect?” Well I am still practicing and a long way from perfect!
We had been here an hour by now and we always feel like we shouldn’t leave our drivers too long. Mind you they probably enjoy the break and are many times found chatting with other drivers. I would imagine they all know each other in this business. I am sure that there were many other buildings that we could have explored but we decided to head out. Of course there was a shopping area on the way out. A pretty random sign for their EXIT. We didn’t get rained on!
We were now headed off to get some lunch. Our driver took us to a beautiful restaurant here in the mountains somewhere. We were seated at a great table near the side, with a spectacular view overlooking the valley and hills.
Unfortunately the skies opened up, the winds picked up and the rain poured down. We were in for a big thunderstorm. Everyone had to move from the open sides of the restaurant as there were no window coverings at all. We moved more into the center of the restaurant, but had to move again right up to the wall, as the winds were so strong and we were still getting wet in the center. The water was even seeping down the interior stone walls, but at least we were out of the wind now.
They offered an all you could eat buffet, but we ordered off the menu as we would never eat enough off the buffet. We of course bought our driver lunch also. Lunch was inexpensive here, but they did add on 20% tax and service fee. IDR Rp 201,000 = Cdn $17.50 Can’t go wrong with those prices to feed three people lunch.
Since it was still pouring down, the driver went out and backed the vehicle up to the entrance, so we wouldn’t get soaked.
We were headed of to the Monkey Forest, Pemerintah Kabupaten Tabanan. The rain had let up some, but we were still getting wet.
Quite the monkey to greet us. The guide took a few pictures of us. She obviously had a difficult time with focusing as most turned out blurry.
We didn’t stay here long, as the rain had not stopped completely and I am not even sure if there was much to do here, or if it was really a stop to bring business into the shops here. They had a whole area of bats and there were so many baby monkeys around. Just adorable. Monkeys were adorable, not so much the bats.
Of course we ended up in the shop owned by the guide. It gets tiring after a while. And yes, we did purchase something. This time it was can ‘cozies’ that we can at least use by our pool.
Next stop was the whole reason for us booking this tour. We wanted to go to Pura Tanah Lot for the sunset. Pura Tana Lot means temple in the sea. Tanah Lot was the Leg 6 stop in Season 29 of the Amazing Race. Air date was 4 April 2016. We are great fans of Amazing Race.
Once we got in, we could go left or right. We went right, of course the wrong way to get to the Tanah Lot, but we still saw plenty.
There was a small beach here and we saw a surfer or two.
Pura Batu Bolong
There were A LOT of people here. I bet they were all tourists!
I will pass on the snake and that is what we did, passed right on by.
When the tide is low, which it was, you can go into the temple. However, the line was at least an hour long to get over there. We didn’t have the time, nor the energy to bother with that. We wanted to see the sun set and would have missed it. So we toured around the grounds.
This is the entrance to the Tanah Lot, photo taken from the back side, since we didn’t walk back up to the actual entrance side.
My failed attempt at trying to get a picture of Doug holding the sun. Oh yes, we tried numerous shots! Plus a few other ‘trick’ shots. Epic fail! LOL
The attempt of getting a selfie with the sun setting behind us.
However, I think I got a few great shots of the actual sunset.
Out on the hillock is the Batu Balong Temple. You can not go in this temple, only photographs, which I took when we went right instead of left. It sure makes for spectacular photos during sunset.
It was now 6:15 pm and time to head off back to our driver and back to our hotel. It had been a long day, as we had been on the road since 9:00 am. The traffic was absolutely insane and it took us 1 1/2 hours to get back to our hotel. Tanah Lot is approximately 20 km north-west of Kuta, where we are staying.
I decided to try something new for breakfast. Still don’t know what the red and green stripped item was. Tried it, don’t need to try it again.
We had planned nothing for today, but knew we needed to get some cash, if nothing else. And we wanted to book a private tour for tomorrow. We decided we would walk along a brick path that we had seen. It ran along the ocean, the beaches and resorts.
After 30 – 45 minutes we came upon the shopping mall. Have I mentioned lately how HOT and HUMID it is here? We couldn’t wait to get inside to cool down. Most of our walk had been in the full sun.
They do a security check as you enter the mall from the beach side. Scan and inspect bags.
Took us a while to find the bank machines as they were well hidden. When we did, there were so many different ones, that we had no idea which ones were safe and compatible with our bank. I had been using my TD Canada Trust card since the beginning without issue. We tried one machine, no success. Tried another machine, still no success. And another with no success. Another guy came along and got money out no problem. What was going on with my card? Finally decided to try my Scotiabank card and was able to get some cash out, but was limited to the equivalent of Cdn $50 plus a $5 service fee. Something wasn’t right. The day we had gone to the Flower Dome in Singapore, they guy at the ticket booth had swiped my card and asked for my signature. I had freaked out about this as my card was set up to use a PIN to prevent fraud. This was the first time I had tried to use my card since that day. We would now have to somehow get in touch with the bank to see what was going on.
We looked around inside the mall, knowing we couldn’t buy anything until we had figured out what was going on with my bank card. Here were baskets full of Mangosteen and Snake Skin fruit. There was a Baskin Robbins and a Starbucks in the mall. PLUS right outside the door was a Cold Stone Creamery!!! My favourite. And we had no money!!!!
Saw this shirt. Today was definitely a SHITDAY! A no money SHITDAY!
Walked around the town for a bit. So many scooters, we could almost be back in Vietnam.
We were just so hot that we decided to go to Starbucks and get a couple of French Vanilla Iced Lattes. It had been a while since we had had them and we needed them. Yes needed them.
Crazy people that we are, we decided to walk back to the hotel along the water again. Actually, we had no idea how else to get back. Maybe we would get some shade by now. Or maybe not.
The beach up here was nicer than our hotels beach. Not far from our hotel there were a lot of rocks. There were even a few surfers out.
When we got back to the hotel, we tried the bank machines in our area. No luck there either. Definitely will have to try and contact TD Bank.
It has been a while since I had seen weird flavours of snacks, but I found some.
Got back to the hotel and tried to contact the bank. I was having no success and so went to the front desk to see if they could possibly get through. They told me how to do it and went back to our room to call their operator. She tried 3 times and got nothing but a busy signal. This was not helping my stress level. It was Friday night here and early Saturday morning back home. Couldn’t do much else about the banking situation right now. Will have to try again.
We had dinner at the hotel again tonight, but we sat beachside, instead of in the actual restaurant area. View of the sunset was amazing.
Doug had fish and chips and I ordered Bolognese Linguine. No drinks tonight. I say I ordered Bolognese Linguine because all I got was the linguine part. There was this adorable kitten/cat that was roaming around and looked to be starving. I kept giving it all the meat that was in my dinner. It was heart breaking to see. I didn’t need the meat but this little thing certainly did, and vacuumed it all up.
We headed over to the Flavaz Cafe inside to order dessert. We had discovered that they had half price desserts after a certain time of the day. Plus, they had more choices than the restaurant did. I got a slice of German Chocolate Cake and Doug ordered a banana smoothie. The cake tasted great. Plus I was still a little hungry, since kitty got all my dinner protein.
By now it was 7:30 pm and time for us to head back to our room. We had a big and busy day tomorrow. Good thing part of that tour was already paid for and I still had enough cash to pay the rest!
Today was going to be a rest day. We sure needed one of these, as we were getting pretty exhausted. Got up and headed down for our included breakfast. Breakfast was great. The bacon on the buffet left a lot to be desired, as in, I like my bacon cooked. Many places over in SE Asia barely cook their bacon. However, I did ask the cook if I could get some crispy bacon. To my surprise he pulls out a tray of crispy bacon. Guess they keep it hidden so that people don’t take it all.
We checked out the resort a little.
This is our room on the second floor. It had a pretty large balcony.
Did a quick check of the beach area, but the beaches here are not the best we have seen. I don’t think Kuta is really known for spectacular beaches though.
Picked out our loungers for the day. Pool area wasn’t busy which was great for us. Bali is known for having thousands and I mean thousands of Chinese tourists. They come by the bus loads, but tend to go out on full day excursions, which leaves the resort pretty empty, nice and quiet.
We scored one of the few air mattresses for the pool. It did have a slow leak though, which could be challenging at times. We took turns floating around on it.
We enjoyed lunch of a crispy chicken wrap, that we shared and a beverage or two at the swim up bar. Doug had one of his favorites, Mojitos (light rum, fresh lime , mint leaf, sugar syrup, peppermint syrup) and I tried a drink called Blue Frozen Kamikaze (vodka, lime juice and curacao) and an Illusion (vodka, triple sec, melon liqueur, pineapple juice, lime juice and sugar syrup). Both of course were great.
Headed back to the room for an afternoon nap. We would head back down for Happy Hour.
Someone had booked a private dinner on the beach. We watched while they set up the table and a BIG beautiful heart on the grass area made from rose petals. It looked pretty special. Once the staff member had left, 3 Chinese girls went over to the area and were taking turns posing, while their friend took pictures of them in the heart set up. They also sat at the table pretending to be drinking from the glasses, while having their pictures taken. This went on for a good 10 minutes or more until a staff member came and shooed them away. Once the staff member left and was out of sight, the 3 girls went back and continued taking more pictures. Just so disrespectful! They finally left and thankfully a staff member went back to straighten it all up, yet again, before the actual people showed up for their romantic dinner on the beach.
Happy Hour and watching the sunset was just so relaxing and spectacular.
We ordered dinner and dessert. Doug ordered the Prawns in a Thai Green Curry and I had a Mediterranean Salad. I was still full from our lunch and drinks. Our bill came to IDR Rp 575,000 which is approximately Cdn $51.00 Might not seem to high, but was certainly higher than what we had been paying in Thailand and Cambodia. They also automatically add a SVC charge on here.
I had obviously been bitten a few times while enjoying happy hour and dinner. Guess it will be another itchy night.
Old & Lost 