I just came back from paradise.

It is really incomprehensible why someone would have the lunatic idea to bomb such an incredible place as this.

Yet someone did! In 2002 and again in 2005! (Click to read Wikipedia article)

Calculating the time interval between the two bombings, it was really a little scary to go to Bali this year, 2009, as it seemed that the next bombing was already ‘due’.

LOL!

Forgetting terrorism, the Tourism Club (yeah, i know the names sound similar) had a wonderful trip to Bali a couple of weeks ago!

This time, except for a few veterans like CK, Pegan and myself, the entire committee was formed by new, energetic members eager to bring Tourism Club’s second ever international trip to its very best!

It was the first Tourism Club trip that I had brought Shuyi with me, and also the first that Abang Ray, the super-cool university officer designated to ‘watch over’ all our trips,  brought someone else too!

For this trip, we boarded Air Asia. Instead of our regular Malaysian pronunciation of ‘Air Ay-sher’, the Indonesians call it ‘Air Aa-sya’.

It was the first time that I had boarded Air Asia, which was lauded as the premier low cost carrier in the region.

Compared to other airlines, they weren’t too bad, except for a smaller and less attractive terminal, free-seating, no free drinks or meals, had to walk right down to the cement ground to board the plane, and their boarding pass looked like the receipt I usually get from the petrol station.

But who cares if their boarding passes sucked, Air Asia is generally much cheaper, which saves up your money for you to spend during the vacation itself!

And fearing the cramped middle seats, some of us paid an extra RM50 for Express Boarding, which allowed us to get on the plane first, and secured the top seats in the very first row in our tickets!

So front that can see flight attendant putting on make-up somemore!  

One important good thing to note about Air Asia is that their flight attendants’ uniform beats Malaysia Airlines’ uniform kao kao, anytime.

I totally like everything from their red suits and white blouses, to their design and color combination. (Red and white is my favorite color combination!)

And yes, I sure like their cute red skirts too, as a protest to some politician who said that Air Asia’s uniform was an embarrassment to women because it (literally) showed too much ass.

Read the news article here.

Cheers to the Air Asia stewardesses! You ladies were so warm and friendly!

After a few hours, we landed in Bali and were greeted by our tour guide and some Balinese people, busy ‘decorating’ us with flowers…

… on our necks, and later during dinner, the ears!

So typically island-ish! Very nice leh!

I had thought that all these ‘flower chains‘ and stuff were only found in places like Hawaii or… I dunno, maybe some Caribbean island place…

but we got ‘em in Bali!

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After a brief rest in the hotel, we had our first dinner in Bali, which was served on the beach itself – during sunset.

The scene was so beautiful and to have dinner in such a nice atmosphere makes even the lousiest food the finest cuisine in the world.

We had a grilled seafood plate with rice. Apparently the grilled stuff here on Jimbaran Bay was very famous.

One thing to be noted, except for a selected few brands of bottled water, most drinking water in Bali had an inseparable weird taste in them, and drinking boiled tap water (the worst) can seriously cause nausea to me.

I think the weird taste may be due to the possibility of Bali reprocessing its fresh water, either from used water or sea water, as they do in Redang Island.

Anyway, after the dinner, dancers started appearing on the numerous stages along the beach and started performing interesting traditional Balinese dances that regretfully, looked pretty more like demon-summoning to me.

All the pictures that my camera took were absolutely frightening:

Close up:

I dunno why the eyes have turned white in this picture. I swear I did not edit this photo besides cropping it.

And here’s another demon from hell:

Haha, that’s just badly taken image of this… thing:

Which also seems to be some kind of ugly demon in the Balinese folk legend.

Haha, scary stuff away, they were actually very great dancers!

Got the opportunity to take photos with them!

If you’re wondering why everyone in Bali is doing this hand gesture – that’s because more than 90% of the Balinese people are Hindus, and that’s also why the rest of our trip was slotted with so many visits to different temples!

After the wonderful dinner on the beach, we headed off shopping at Kuta Square, where all the biggest international brands like D&G, Versace, Ripcurl and Roxy were gathered!

Not to mention familiar places for snacks like Starbucks, Haagen-Dazs and McDonald’s were all in the square!

Oh, by the way, a cup of McFlurry in Bali cost 5,500 Rupiahs, which was only slightly over RM1.50!! OMG!

And, as every traveler to  Indonesia would surely remark – with less than RM1,000, we could instantly become not just millionaires, but multi-millionaires in Bali!

Oh, I so lurve the feeling!

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(Except the feeling that they look like ‘hell money’ with so many zeroes on one paper…)

Like this one:

LOL!

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The shops around Kuta closed at around 11PM, and we got back to the hotel and rested early, because we had to wake up early the next day!

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Note: This is only part 1 of the Bali blog entry… The full story is too long hehe… Part 2 coming soon!

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