Bali Day 1 (Uluwatu Temple)

My much awaited holiday to my much dreamed about destination - BALI!! I've always wanted to go to Bali for the much raved about beach and culture and food! So this time, we've incorporated a 4 day diving slot into our week-long holiday.

We flew with Air Asia not because of their prices, but because of the time flexibility with the flights and well, MAS was fully booked anyway. But as far as I could remember, MAS did not have that many flights though.

His pre-ordered chicken rice
*much nicer than mine!*

I had the famous Air Asia Nasi Lemak but was much disappointed with it. I've had it before in the past and it was really quite good. Not anymore unfortunately.

Nasi Lemak Air Asia

Our flight itinerary was changed a couple of months prior to departure to an hour later than the initial time which made it harder for me to organize our ground activities. But anyhow, we were promptly met by the dive operator's driver on arrival to Denpasar International. We stayed in Sanur Paradise Plaza in Sanur, which was only 10 minutes from the dive operators.

Hotel Lounge

The hotel was fairly big and catered for quite a few events, both national and international companies included which made the hotel appeared packed and busy most of the time. Fortunately, that was only in the lobby and their main restaurant. Otherwise, the rest of the hotel was pretty nice and quiet :).

We stayed in their Deluxe Balcony room which was spacious and clean equipped with an LCD for our convenience. There was plenty of channels to choose from! The hotel's service was also really quite good especially at the visitor/tour service desk.

View from our balcony
*Pool cabanas*

I had initially wanted to go to Tirtagangga Water Palace but unfortunately was led to Uluwatu Temple by our guide who didn't speak good English. I guess what got to me then was he never did actually say no, we can't go to Tirtagangga because it's too late and we are going to Uluwatu. I only realized that we were going to Uluwatu after realizing that we were kinda backtracking back to the airport. I wasn't impressed.

Anyway, away we went to Uluwatu Temple for the evening. We were there fairly early, almost 2.5 hours before the Kecak Dance was meant to start which was a bit of a pain in the neck. We could have potentially headed to somewhere before this temple!

View of the ocean from Uluwatu Temple

Built in the 11th century by a Javanese Priest, the temple is a much visited location by both tourist and locals. It cost Rp 6,000 to enter and we were both given sarongs to don over our shorts as a sign of respect to the holy temple. We were also given a 'tie' to put over our waist as a protective token from the spirits.

Love the achitecture of the temple

The temple is also inhabited by a large number of monkeys which were both a pleasure and terror to watch. There was too many of them and some of them can be quite aggressive. The are notorious for snatching sunglasses/spectacles and there was no shortage of this happening while we were there.

They move so quickly that in just a blink of the eye, your glasses are in their hands and occasionally dangled over the cliff edge! There is a local man who 'retrieves' these spectacles/sunglasses from the monkey by exhanging it with food but somehow, as entertaining as it is, I can't stop but feel being cheated for those unlucky owners. It's like that's the man's main occupation. But that's just me. The owners probably feel grateful to that man.

One of the thieves...

We then proceeded to walk around the temple for the next 40 minutes while our guide made arrangements to purchase tickets for the Kecak show which cost I think RP 60,000 each.

Cliff edge
*reminds me so much of the 12 Apostles*

The performance areas is a good walk to the left from the main entrance to the temple and is fairly large. We were about 45 minutes early for the show so it was relatively empty but by 10 minutes before it's due to start, it was jam-packed!

The empty seats

And 30 minutes later,

Check out the crowd!

Kecak Dance is one of the more famous dances in Bali because unlike other traditional performances there is no musical instruments in this performance. The sound effects and rhythms in the performances are instead hums from a group of male performers.

Prayers before the performance

The entry

The group of male performers humming

The Kecak Dance story revolves around Rama, his brother Laksamana and wife Sita, Vishnu the God, Ravana the demon and Anoman the White Monkey General.

Sita and ?Rama/Laksamana

The story was about Rama who lived in the forest with his brother, Laksamana and wife Sita. The demon Ravana had fallen in love with Sita and lured Rama and Laksamana away with a golden deer. Sita was initially protected by a magic circle that Laksamana had formed but was unfortunately tricked by Ravana in an image of an old man asking for water.

I think this was Garuda, the magic
bird who tried to save Sita

Rama and Laksamana was then helped by Anoman, the white monkey who delivered a message to Sita who was held in Alengka. While Anoman was there, he was captured by 3 very silly and entertaining servants of Ravana and was put in a ring of fire. He was however protected by his magic and was not hurt and instead burned the entire palace down and save Sita.

Anoman, the white monkey and general of
monkey armies where he was being tied

Protected from the fire by his magic powers

After the show there was a photo session with the characters from the play but it was so crowded and being 2 very hungry people we quickly headed for the exit and headed for dinner. I had wanted to try Babi Guling which was one of the local specialties and I wasn't disappointed. Our driver took us to this place that served such delicious babi guling that we went back for a second visit a few days later! :D

The yummy babi guling @ Nusa Dua