Bali Field Trip (Day 2)

Day 2 May 1 2014

We had our breakfast at 07.30. The hotel provided us various kinds of food, from local cuisine, such as fried rice until western one. For the beverage, we could choose tea, coffee, milk and some kinds of juices.

We left the hotel for Ubud an hour later. Again, due to the traffic jam, we took a longer time than we should from Kuta to Ubud. (Aha ... in fact Jakarta is not alone for its being notorious for its traffic jam; only Denpasar – especially Kuta perhaps – is not that notorious as Jakarta. LOL. As an international city – you can find almost any nationality of people here – it is understood for being crowded no matter whether it is holiday season or not so people understand if traffic jam is everywhere. The local people understand it, the tourists – perhaps due to their holiday mood – also understand it. J

The first place to visit is Bajra Sandhi monument. This is a monument to commemorate heroic Balinese struggle against Dutch colonial government. It is located in the center of Denpasar, the capital city of Bali. It takes around 30 minutes by car/bus from Ngurah Rai International airport. This is one best place to learn the history of Balinese people since pre historical era until the twentieth century. The historical struggle is illustrated in 33 units of diorama.

The monument/museum started to be built in 1987; it was officially opened by Megawati Soekarno Putri – the then president – in 2003. Bajra means carillon while sandhi means sacred. The shape of the monument is like a carillon. This sacred carillon is usually used by Hindu priest in holy religious prayers.

From Bajra Sandhi monument we visited Pura Puseh in Batuan village. The temple is built in classical Balinese temple architecture style with elaborate carvings. Before entering the temple, we are given sarongs to wear during our visit.

We didn’t spend much time in Pura Puseh. The following place to visit is Ubud! Shopping time! Yeayyyy. As before, I was responsible to supervise the girls + Peter. This time Julio chose to be with the other boys.

After shopping for around an hour, Mr. Bob and Ms. Kerry took us to NOMAD restaurant for lunch; a very historical restaurant for both of them! (Ssshhhttt, Mr. Bob proposed Ms. Kerry to marry him here! )

As one of the oldest restaurants in Ubud, Nomad offers a mix of fresh modern Asian and Western tastes mixed in with Balinese classis cuisine. I ordered a plate of fried noodle. It was very yummy; but the big portion made me so full that I couldn’t finish it.

It was drizzling after we finished our lunch. However, we were all excited with the following destination : SANGEH.

Sangeh – a forest site full of monkeys – is not far from Nomad restaurant. Everybody had fun with the funny but naughty monkeys inside the forest. The hiking was enough to burn calories after our yummy and full lunches.

We arrived back at the hotel around 17.15. We didn’t want to pass up the stunning view of sunset in Kuta beach of course. The boys played ball using the ball they just bought in Kuta Square. Peter went swimming again, enjoying the quite big waves in Kuta beach. The girls were playing with water only.

In this second chance to spend our afternoon in Kuta beach, there was a minor accident: the boys threw some mud to one another and Aryo accidentally threw some mud to Zulfan’s right eye! This made Mr. Bob and Ms. Kerry get angry. As a result we were grounded: after dinner we were not allowed to go out from the hotel.

We had our dinner in the restaurant across from the hotel again. Well, anyway, the food was delicious. J After dinner, we all went back to the hotel. (All of us? Oh in fact NO! Secretly – without Restu and my knowing – two boys sneaked out to have tattoos! Can you guess who? Ryan and Samuel! Oh well ...) Meanwhile, Zulfan was resting in his room; Aryo, Alex, Julio, Vito, Ellen, Bella, Retno, Cecil, Peter, Restu and I went to the top floor of the hotel. But not long after that, Ellen, Bella, Retno, Cecil and Peter went down to Retno’s room to watch movies. Restu jumped to the pool and had some swim, the rest – Vito, Alex, Aryo, Julio and me – had some chats until 22.00. After that, we all went back to our room. 

To be continued :)