Let’s continue my Travel log to Bali.  The actual departure date was only 3 months later after I booked the Free & Easy package with go.holidays which includes return air fares and 3 nights accomodation. As a travel tips, it is always cheaper to advance book your air ticket rather than last minute travel. For this instance, I managed to save up to 60% on the package price with booking 3 months in advance! So, before both my wife and I depart to Bali, as usually I would advise (or you can recall here), I did some study on the Bali map, local tourists spots, exchange some local currency Rupiah and arranged child care for my 2 children for the period and finally, after waiting for so long, there came the hectic moment, the departure date on 21st May, 2008.

Our flight was 10:55am as what my planning was to arrive in Bali just before hotel check-in time, so we could maximise our first afternoon there. We always have the problem to catch flights in K.L. as our Sepang international airport is over 1 hour away from K.L. so our plan was to leave our home latest by 8:0am to make sure we have times to check-in flight. But, unfortunately, we had some havoc incident and our flight was delayed to some 4 hours later! We have to wait and have our lunch at the airport.

It ruined our initial planning and when we reached Bali, darkness already fell upon the scene. WE MISS OUR SUNSET! The whole afternoon was wasted! Without further delay, we quickly jumped on to a cab and almost shouted! “KUTA SEAVIEW COTTAGE!” Taxi fares was Rp45,000. If you check my currency converter at side bar (from IDR to MYR), it is about RM16.00 which was for 20 minutes drive to Kuta, the Bali’s most popular beach (For those friends who can not figure where is the Ngurah Rai International Airport in relation to Kuta can download the map here).

Along the way to our resort, though it’s already night time, streets were still extremely busy. Most shops were still open, lots of cars and tourists on the street. Kuta Seaview Cottage was in front of the Kuta beach, 2 lots away from the famous HardRock Cafe and Hotel. We got a shock when the cab tried to drive pass the resorts security check point where securities were actually scan through the whole car with radiactive sensor before letting us in! I believed this practice was introduced only after the 2002 and 2005 bombing tragedy here in Kuta. After all, with the most helpful and warm reception officers and bell boy, we finally settled down with our luggage in place in our cottage. Let me describe a little of the resort on Day 2 since it was too dark to walk around…

We were actually starving like hell so we walked out to the street and LOOK FOR FOODS! Infact I had already scanned through when we were on our way to the resort so it didn’t take much of our time before we settled down at 1 of the hawker stall nearby. Full varieties of foods were offered there, from local, Asian to western. It was easy to understand why because most of the tourists here are either Australian, European, Malaysian or Chinese. For good food sake, we opted to local dishes. I ordered local beer, BINTANG for Rp20,000 per large bottle and my wife, Jean, ordered local styled rice and noodles for Rp25,000 each. That was our first meal in Bali and I would sadly say that the food wasn’t too good. But nevermind still, the beer was quite good though and we bottomed up 2 large bottles with ease. The dinner took us 2 hours or so… and it was still enjoyable.

After the whole day of rushing, we relaxed ourself walking along the beach in front, admiring the night scene, enjoying the silentness under the breezing weather. The peak season of Bali is during June to September where the weather is clear and windy. We chose to come here by end of May just to avoid peak crowd but the weather is still reasonably good. To our suprise, the sky there is actually extremely clear without any hints of haze effect unlike other parts of Indonesia like Sumatra. We decided to walked up back to the nearby streets to explore a little before we headed back to our resort. There are plenty of shops in Kuta from exclusive restaurants, cafe, fast food chain, convinient shops, boutique to shopping complex! I can tell you that the night life at Kuta is excellent and it is so happening everywhere! You can easily get drunk on the street. After all, the most important aspect of it, and it always be 1 of the top 5 factors when you choose a holidays destination, I would say you can have peace of mind when you walk about the street. We crawled back to our resort after midnight.

Well, we did not do much in Day 1 but we gathered enough information and arranged a driver for our day trip we going to have on Day 2. Day Trip to where? I can tell you that we managed to cover maximum spots and activities ALL IN ONE DAY, and I’m going to tell you that in my coming post -Day 2 in Bali. Stay tuned! – Travel Feeder, your ultimate photo travel blog