Hope whoever’s reading this isn’t going to click the ‘X’ button on the upper right corner of the screen after seeing the post title.

Yup, Bali Trip entry again! But thankfully, this is going to be the third and final part of the longest travel log ever recorded on James-Chow.com!

Read Part 1 and Part 2 first ya!

I hate to start this entry with a bad note, but this is really how it went…

Departing from the hotel on the third day, we were brought to yet another temple, only this one was unanimously agreed to be the supreme most boring-est of all boring temples in Bali, ever.

I think it was called Taman Ayun Temple or something…

The only area that seemed a tad more interesting was the centre court of the temple, where most of the impressive-looking ‘towers’ were located.

But that area too, unfortunately, was closed to the public. So all we could do was look from outside the ancient moldy walls surrounding the area!

Although the overall compound of the temple was very large, the buildings were generally dull and the temperature was scorching hot!

I can remember some of us saying we’d much rather cancel this visit and head to the beach instead… By the way, so much for a Bali trip, there was NO beach activity in the tour guide’s official itinerary!

So, in the temple, everyone was just taking photos around and doing things that only people in extreme boredom would do.

And soon we were headed back to the bus and, after lunch… guess what?

That’s right! We were brought to visit another temple!

I can’t even think of anything to write about this temple besides that it was much cooler there and there was a beautiful lake at the edge of it.

We left the place after taking some photos along the lake.

Now, if you thought our temple trips were over, you thought wrong – it was almost 6PM and we were brought to our third temple visit of the day!

Really gotta salute these guys… After going on one of their tours, you’d start to think that Bali has only got nothing but old temples to offer its tourists!

However, this temple was… finally… slightly different.

We were brought to this place called Tanah Lot, and there was a temple built on top of a huge ‘rock’ on the beach.

When the tide rises, the path towards the entrance of the temple would be flooded and the rock becomes a mini island!

Sounds really mystical and sacred, doesn’t it?

I also found this small cave-like place that got abandoned by the people after the tide rose and covered the place with sea water.

I was really curious about what that mysterious little white sign could possibly be pointing at, since there was nothing but a dark, low space beneath a humongous piece of rock.

So I went through the shallow water to have a look.

I was stunned.

Holy shit! I found the Holy Snake of Bali!

Until this day, I still can’t figure out what in the world – is – a Holy Snake. All I can imagine is a huge, talking snake wearing a gold crown and granting people treasures and gold coins and stuff…

LOL!

Back to reality, at Tanah Lot we saw one of the most beautiful sunset views in our lives!

I believe that the Tanah Lot sunset scene will be etched in my mind forever.

**********

After dinner that night, finally – after three days blundering in Bali, we found it… the gem, the heart, the very soul of Bali’s tourism industry:

No, it ain’t the seaside, and sure as hell not the temples. It wasn’t about the shopping places or any other cultural stuff…

… It’s the clubs, baby.

Lying at the very heart of the buzzing tourist town of Kuta, was a long stretch of street, called Legian Street.

And if you’re on this street, open your eyes… and be awed, as we totally were.

Bali tempts you with one of the best… no, in fact, the – best – clubbing experience that you can never find in any of the clubs in KL!

Why?

Because the clubs here were, firstly, adequately spacious with huge dance floors, the music was damn syok, the DJ was awesome, and the dance floor was never empty, or never even less than fully-packed…

But above all, the clubbing crowd in Bali was, for lack of a better word… perfect.

You could never find a club back in our place where there were so many angmohs from all over the world mingling with each other in such a friendly and open way!

It was as if every single person you happened to be facing on the floor was an old friend! There was very few talking over the booming music, of course, but everyone would see each other and smile, dance, shout, and laugh…

No groupings and gangs scene… no six-guys-dancing-around-one-pretty-girl scene… No girls being taken-advantage scene… No group of single guys acting cool with cigarettes scene… Nothing!

These people were just friendly tourists, just like us, trying to get a taste of Bali’s sweet night life!

And if you think clubbing here would burn a nasty hole in your wallet – it’s free!

There is NO COVER CHARGE – you just walk in and have fun!

Even the drinks were insanely cheap, by clubs standards I mean. While a bottle of Chivas cost us a standard Rp1,080,000 (RM340); a bottle of beer, however, cost only Rp20,000, that’s only like RM6!

Now, there was something that none of us realized when we were actually in the club:

The club that we happened to visit, called Paddy’s Club, we had no idea, was actually the – very – club that was destroyed in the infamous suicide bombing incident in 2002!

See Wikipedia article!

Apparently, after the nightmarish incident, Paddy’s Club was rebuilt and there we were! Standing on ground zero where more than 200 clubbers had been horrifyingly blown to smithereens! And we didn’t even know it!

Holy snake, I mean… Holy shit, dude!

**********

We left Paddy’s Pub at around 3AM, tired but satisfied. For the past 4 hours or so we had danced and danced unstoppably and there were times when it had felt dizzy and wobbly but we just couldn’t stop…

When we finally did stop we were totally exhausted and drained.

We slept so well that night.

The next morning, to treat the hangover and aches all over the body, we went for a spa – no Bali trip is complete without trying out their spas!

A 120-minute spa session cost Rp350,000 (RM110) per person.

I had been slightly reluctant to go for a spa at first, but the moment I stepped into the private room, I knew I had made the right decision.

The 2-hour full-body massage + scrub + floral bath was heavenly!

And with the nice, relaxing music and aromatherapy, plus my super-exhausted and sleep-deprived body… I could have laid there on the soft massage table whole day and stubbornly refuse to leave until they called security.

**********

Our last destination in Bali was Ulawatu Temple – a serious contender against the beautiful sunset scenery of Tanah Lot Temple for the best temple in Bali!

This time, instead of being on the beach, this amazing temple stood majestically on top of a cliff overlooking the sea!

The scene, as you can see, was breathtaking:

The thing about camera shots is that they don’t really look as amazing as they do when you look at the scene in reality.

So if you think the scenes in the pictures are nice, think again – the reality is actually a thousand times more magnificent than what you see in the picture!

I don’t know if the photos make it any clear to you – but it was very, very high up!

And there was no fence or walls or whatever along the cliff, one slip and even the ferocious Balinese gods can’t save you.

At around 4PM, we left for the Bali airport and departed from the wonderful island at 6.30PM.

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I had already been cautious about the ‘over-temple-ish’ tour itinerary before I went for this trip itself. And now it has been proven that my worries have become reality!

All in all, I think the only temples that are worth going are the last two – Tanah Lot and Uluwatu Temple. The others would be better off cancelled and the time scheduled for visiting beaches instead!

Really, our schedule was so packed that we virtually had no free time at all except at night, which of course, was not suitable for beach activities as well!

OK, all that’s just my opinion – There could be many other tourists who totally enjoyed the temples so much and had the time of their lives strolling around the moldy old temples admiring cracked walls and terrifying gods.

**********

Complaints aside, I cannot express enough how happy and contented I am with this trip!

The local people were nice; the tour guide was fabulous; the sceneries were magnificent; the prices were unbeatable; the places were unique, and most of all, the friends that we made during the trip were the best!

Although we sometimes complained that some stuff were boring, the trip itself had actually never had a moment that lacked flavor.

Bali – I’ll definitely be back again someday!

Read Other Posts:

• Merdeka Eve
• I am 21, fear me!
• Passionate Paris (P.1)
• A Day With Cats and Dogs
• My Final Year Secret Hideout

Post a Comment