Ke(m)Bali

Kembali ke Bali. Coming back to Bali.

It’s been more than 2 years since I stepped my feet back to this island of Gods. Last time here, it wasn’t pretty much count as a trip nor a holiday, as it was an office meeting. Me and my friends have carefully planned and looked forward for this trip. It will be a nice break from the office routine.

For a start, we booked this wonderful Villa from Airbnb. It’s located in the middle of Seminyak, though not in the particular busy life of the area. The villa offers a quiet neighborhood. It’s the perfect stay for us.

You can find the Villa from here. Pictures are taken directly from the website

Indeed, we ordered this cute floaties via Klook.

The highlights of our trip to Bali were basically cozy cafés hoping and touristy places of Bali. It may sound not-hipster-enough for you who’ve been to Bali a few times, yet somehow those places (which we never been there, duh) offered great experiences and lot of awes.

Ubud

What’s better than starting your trip with relaxing yoga at the edge of jungle on Ubud? We found this spectacular yoga place called Ubud Yoga Center. You can spot the place easily from the main road. They have hourly schedule that you can pick. Lucky for us who own almost-zero experience in Yoga, the classes are opened for all levels. So no need to feel ashamed from those good-looking and good-body of foreign tourists.

We chose the Fly High class which super hard and challenging.

We paid a visit to one of the top rated café there, Lazy Cat Café. The place is quite hidden and not that big. It sells various of delicious vegetarian foods. We tried this egg benedict, quesadilla and some tempeh burger. Yum!

Kuta

Though it is claimed as the most common and most commercial beach of Bali, enjoying sunset in Kuta was a must. The beach was quite packed and wasn’t maintained well. We could spot many trashes there. Well, the downside was our photo is adorned with litters.

For desserts, we came to Crumb and Coaster which located near Kuta Beach. Smoothies and Pancake were amazing there.

Whenever you come to Bali, Nasi Pedes Bu Andhika is definitely a must! We enjoyed the food so much so we didn’t take any photos there. Photos below are taken from Google.

You can select as much as side dishes and it cost you really cheap (comparing to those pricey café foods)

Seminyak

Another place, another café.

Puzzled by the long list of cute cafés on Zomato, we chose Bali Bola and Dough Darlings. Later that day, we went for a sip of sunset on Finns (the first beach club I’ve ever been to, duh).

During our trip there, we took good advantage of Grab. By splitting the bill for 4 people, the cost is cheaper than rent a daily car. Plus, we don’t have to drive any car. To be frank, we found that the service of online transportation in Bali, be it Grab or Gojek, was not as stellar as Jakarta’s. I’m not sure whether it’s due to the nature of famous tourist spots so the drivers commercialize every opportunity or it’s due to our bad luck for not getting some good drivers. Hope that the former one is bad speculation of mine only.

Bali Bola was great! It was the best western food on my trip there. It positions itself as a café who sells fusion type of vegetarian menu such flexitarian, pescatarian, ovo etc. I ordered the same egg benedict as what I did at Lazy Cat and found it better in taste and presentation. The place is cute and dominated by pastel color, which makes the perfect spots for the girl friends of mine.

Just several hundred meters away, Dough Darling lies, a small AC-ed doughnut bakery. The bakery style reminds me of the bakeries in Italy. It serves as a grab-and-go place, not the one that you can spend a long time with laptop, wall socket and Wi-Fi connection.

Dough, the taste of the dough is amazing (pun intended).

As my first visit to any beach club, Finns set the bar high. The music was good, the vibes was amazing, and the food was delightful. We got this VIP area with minimum purchase of IDR500.000, which again by splitting the bill four, it cost each person only IDR125.000. Value for money, given the club is pretty luxurious.

The VIP area lay on the freshly mown green grass and exposed at the right position for a sip of sunset. The food was great, though not the kind that can support you to go through the rest of the night (PS: we ordered another portion of Nasi Pedes Bu Andhika for supper). As the night fell, the bar was becoming more lively and bunch of guests started hitting the dance floor.

Uluwatu

Uluwatu might be the most celebrated tourist spot in Bali, especially the by-the-cliff area that held the legendary Kecak dance of Rama Sita. It has been ages since the last time I went there. For sure, the place has changed a lot as renovation and construction were in place to keep up with the ever-growing number of visiting tourist every year. Aside from the Kecak dance, Garuda Wisnu Kencana (GWK) Cultural Park is the new kid on the block.

GWK complex is located in the southern part of Bali Island. This 60 hectare area is home of the iconic statue of Vishnu or Wishu riding his mount Garuda. The statue reaches the sky as high as 120 meters, surpassing the Liberty of New York. There is a museum built inside the monument. However, by the time I went there it was yet open to public. It’s quite a bummer though since we have paid the full ticket price but only could admire the tallest statue of the nation from outside. Plus, the hot weather was unbeatable.

Kecak Dance is truly sight to behold. The amphitheater lay by the cliff that gave you the most amazing view of the ocean and the sunset. Before entering the amphitheater, made sure that you have taken some good photos of you with the amazing view of the cliff. Beware that there a lot of monkeys here, they were often looking for some loose glasses or any accessories. As the sun almost sets hurry yourself up to the theater to save yourself a good spot of the show. God knows how many tourists will be there on that day, otherwise you will sit on the floor by the performers beside you.

This hypnotic trance-like dance is a Balinese traditional ritual which based on the epic Hindu story of the Ramayana, the love story of Rama and Sita. Around thirty bare chested men are sitting in a circle, harmoniously chanting the word “Chak, Chak, Chak, …” with the hypnotic rhythm. The love story follows the main character Prince Rama who’s rescuing the Princess Sita from the grip of monstrous Rakshasa Ravana. With the help of the funny white monkey king Hanoman, together they gallantly fought Ravana and his bandits. The show ends with the Hanoman sets fire to burn Ravana’s castle. A dramatic one.

At last, those sum up the whole trip of our Bali getaway. Traveling is always great with your dearest friends. Having a good laugh, doing nothing by the sunset, enjoying some culinary delicacies are the missing puzzle pieces of having a wonderful balanced life.

-R