Tanah Lot

I finally made it to the highly loved (or highly hated) Tanah Lot to watch the sunset – the iconic seaside temple on a rock. Not much of the temple has its original parts – everything from the temple itself to the rock it sits on has been renovated and refurbished. There were tourist crowds and crowds of hawkers selling everything from religious artefacts to a holy snake. We sat at one of the cliff-side restaurants to maximize our viewpoint and I must say that I’m very glad that I finally came – the sunset was beautiful! Check out a few photos below.

A little crowded...

Rol and Hieu navigating the crowds

Holy snake anyone? Please, no dirty jokes..

You can get blessed at the holy spring at the bottom of the temple...

Waiting for the sunset

Beautiful...

It's my birthday and I'll ...

Turning 24 was a bittersweet experience for me. To me, being 24 years old signifies that I'm old - I'm only 1 year away from being halfway to 50! Yikes! And yes, I know I'm being slightly irrational but still... Also, despite celebrating in paradise, I was definitely lonely for the company of a few people back home. Rol, Mike and Hieu were real sports though and made my birthday a really fun day.

We started off by driving to Gianyar for my favourite meal – babi guling @ Warung Pande. Yes, I made 3 people drive about 1-1.5 hrs to get lunch but it’s my birthday so I’m allowed to make demands like that ;) After the requisite nap time, we headed to Mie 88 for a quick dinner before heading to my favourite spot in Bali – Hu’u bar. Seriously, the ambiance at Hu’u Bar is pretty hard to beat. Hundreds of candles + great space + great drinks + smooth jazz = 2 thumbs up from me. A few rounds later, we headed to club row for some quality dancing. After a pit-stop at Paddy’s (a must) and Bounty’s, we ended up at SkyGarden where we stayed til the wee hours of the morning.

Thank you to everyone for their birthday wishes and love – I’m truly blessed to have so many amazing people in my life! xoxo

Our babi guling lunch.. yummm

Chilling @ Hu'u Bar

Mike's fav. drink - jager bombs!

Some creepy old Aussie (who smelled strongly of B.O) @ rooftop of SkyGarden. He loved Hieu..

... so much that he started to take his clothes off for him!!! Lol, we all ran away when this started to happen

@ SkyGarden

Tick Tock

I’m finding as I get closer to my departure date that time is speeding up. I can’t believe it’s already been a week since my last post!

The last week has been pretty relaxed and quiet. On Saturday, we checked out this local club in Denpasar called Akasaka. On our way there, it started raining cats and dogs so we ended up arriving looking like drowned rats - very attractive. This place was uh, interesting. We walked in to discover that it was about 98% men in there and that I was 1 of 3 women in attendance that wasn't a hooker! Needless to say that I won't be back anytime soon.

Two friends from Vancouver (Hieu and Mike, my boss) arrived on Sunday and Monday. It's been fun getting them acquainted with Bali - I feel like I know so much when in reality I know very little about Bali still!

And the winner is...

On Wednesday, I participated in Rollan’s jujitsu class - a big step outside of my comfort zone to voluntarily experience pain. Despite that, it was a lot of fun learning a few techniques and beating up on huge, 250lb men! Ok, maybe they beat me up too but at least I got a few licks in. I definitely was feeling the pain Thursday though. It was a complete write-off for me as all these muscles in my neck and shoulder decided to seize up in protest of the previous night’s activities. It also probably didn't help that I had a heavy MSG laden dim sum lunch... nap time was great!

Watching the Karate class @ Dojo Aora

Saturday night was pretty epic. We started off our adventure at Bali Brawl 2 – Indo’s 2^nd ever MMA event. Rollan had a few people from his gym fighting so it was pretty cool to have that personal connection (well, only Rol had the personal connection but still lol). The fighting was great! Lots of big hits, slams and kicks. There was even a girl fight (the Aussie was scary). 2 out of the 3 fighters from Rol’s gym won – one hurt his opponent so badly that he couldn’t stand for the rest of the night (probably won’t be able to stand for the rest of the week!). We sat with Allen (another guy from Rol’s gym) and his lady-boy friend Michelle. Michelle sneaked in arak (Balinese moonshine) so fun was had by all.

We actually had a pretty lucky/random night at Bali Brawl 2 – we won a door prize (XL thong that I gave to Michelle) and the grand prize (surfboard that was promptly sold for $300 USD!). We even ran into a client at the fight! I was collecting the thong when the announcer asked for my name and where I was from. As I was leaving the ring, a guy sitting ringside started talking to me saying that he was from Vancouver too! Long story short, he and Rol have actually known each other for years and I’ve even recently (within the last week) exchanged emails with him! What a small, small world.

After the fight, we headed to a small bar on Jl. Benesari for a couple rounds of bintang with Allen and Stewart (yet another guy from the gym). We then headed to Panterai, a Greek restaurant on Legian to meet up with the Noko and Kendall (the 2 winners), Nico (Rol’s jujitsu teacher) and their entourage. It wasn’t until we headed to the next bar (Eikon) for more shenanigans that I learned one that of the ‘entourage’ members was actually an Indo actor (Andrew White). I jokily asked him if he was an A-list celeb or a C-list celeb and he said A-list of course. I didn't believe him until we moved from Eikon to Sky Garden to dance. There at Sky Garden, girl after girl would point at him, take his picture, come up to him and generally harass him. Later, I discovered from one of Rol’s Jakarta friends that he’s more B-list than A-list but it sure didn't seem that way at the club! From Sky Garden, Kendall, Maria (his awesome gf), Andrew, Rol and I headed to KFC for some early morning eats. Did I mention at this point the sky was getting light? It was 5:30 in the freaking morning! I finally got home around 6:15am and went promptly to sleep. An MMA fight + winning things + closing down 4 bars + great company made for a epic adventure!

At the beginning of the night

Noko (in the green camo shorts) besting his opponent. 5 rounds

The girl fight. Scary Aussie is on the bottom. She won.

I also have a few good videos of the fight - unfortunately it's taking forever to load so perhaps I'll try again when I have a faster connection.

Um, can I bet this child here?

Saturday morning, we started our journey to Permuteran to do some diving at the nearby Menjangan Island, at the NW tip of Bali. We ended up staying at Adi Assri – a pretty posh beach resort with 2 pools, bar, restaurant spa and private villas. All the bathrooms in this place were outside – you could catch a tan doing #2 (not that I did). Because we booked 2 dives for the next day, we decided to take it pretty easy Sat night. One of the locals told us about a night market that was happening about 6km away from our resort so we headed there after dinner. We were definitely the only foreigners there! The moment we drove up, people were gawking at us like we were some freakshow attraction. The night market consisted of a bunch of food stalls, clothing stalls and a few sketchy amusement rides that were manually operated. After sampling a few of the wares, we discovered a gambling ‘lane’ at the back of this market. There were a few different games set up with people gambling cash or packs of cigarettes. There were even little kids gambling! Not exactly the safest place to be and I probably made it worse by snapping photos of everyone. Definitely had to stay pretty close to Rollan.

On Sunday, we headed out with our dive company (Yos Diving) to Menjangan Island (about a 30 min boat rode). There was actually another Canadian in our dive group (from Toronto though - booo) which was cool because he was the 1^st Canadian tourist I’ve met in Bali. The diving was amazing – we saw a few sea turtles which was the highlight for me! After our 2 dives, we booked it to Singaraja which is at the very north of the island. After eating at KuFC (good fried chicken) we checked into a hotel and headed out to watch the Italy vs. New Zealand game in an Yamaha parking lot with a bunch of locals. It's pretty fun how everyone gets together randomly like this.

Count all the piggys - lunch time?

Entrance to the night market

BBQ'd corn slathered in a spicy butter sauce

Illegal gambling - tsk tsk. Check out the kid raking it in!

Adi Assri - our resort

On the way to Menjangan Island

Catching a game in the Yamaha parking lot

So, your sister was in a sex tape?

This past week was pretty relaxed. Our activities includes: watching A-team (great, corny movie), eating at Sushi Tei (great space, amazing(!) green tea ice-cream), consuming a few $0.70 meals at Nikmat, eating at Warung Italia (not bad), and checking out the 1 year club anniversary of RedSquare/88’s (wack, lots of people but no one dancing/drinking).

We also headed to Denpasar one day to explore. We ate amazing fried chicken at Ayam Goreng Kalasan and checked out Pura Jagatnatha and Museum Negeri Propinsi Bali. It’s always nice to balance good eating with culture learning.

On Friday night, we met up for dinner with some of Rollan’s jujitsu friends at Sayakana for some sashimi and fish burritos (really good). I felt positively tiny next to these 2 guys – both were easily over 250lbs and about 5”10 – 6”3. One of them sat next to me and I furtively compared my head to his bulging bicep – same size! Afterward, we went to Black Dog – a bar owned by a pro Indo surfer just off of Legian. This place was happening – so fun. Cheap drinks, great band, great DJ, great vibe. It sort of reminded me of a hipster Royal. We were ordering drinks at the bar when I realized that we were ordering from Tippi Jabrik (said owner of bar) who is randomly featured in my Lonely Planet guidebook! Tippi’s sister, Luna, who is one of Indo’s most famous actresses/models is currently involved in the biggest sex scandal to hit Indo in recent years. Too bad I didn’t get a chance to ask him what he thought of that whole situation. I also have a really embarrassing moment with Tippi – if you ask me really nicely I’ll tell you.

Super cool entrance @ Sushi Tei

Gotta love those $0.70 dinners!

Pizza @ Warung Italia

88 - so lame. Plus it cost us 100 000rp for cover/drink!

Look @ her extensions.. sexy

So good! @ Warung Ayam Goreng Kalasan

Pura Jagatnatha

Monkey scratching his penis = art @ Museum Negeri Propinsi Bali

The band rocking it out at Black Dog

Tippi Jabrik - picture from my guidebook

More about Tulamben...

The main purpose of our trip to Tulamben was to snorkel at the shipwreck (about 120m long and 30m from shore). However, we decided to do 2 dives instead after discovering how cheap the diving was - $30 each! The diving was amazing. It was almost otherworldly as you’re swimming and suddenly the hull looms out of the blue haze. While we didn’t go inside the wreck (you need a special certificate), the majority of the ship is pretty open so we got to see pretty much everything. The highlight? Seeing a badass barracuda that was about 1m long and a grouper that was hanging out at the very bottom of the wreck that was easily 1-1.5m long and 70-90lbs.

Tulamben beach

view from our room

Although Tulamben is famous for the wreck, they fail miserably in the food department. There were a few restaurants in town but they all served the same crappy food. We couldn’t take it anymore so on the second day, we drove to Amed to try and find something more palatable. What a mistake! After a hour and half of driving around, we stopped at a random warung that looked pretty nice. Silly us – looks are definitely deceiving! We both ordered sate babi and orange juice. What did we get? Raw sate babi and lemon/lime juice in rusty glasses… we’re lucky we didn’t get some sort of food poisoning!

Disgusting fried chicken smothered in tomato sauce at the Paradise Beachfront Restaurant - dinner on the first night

Eating raw pork + drinking lemon/lime juice = unhappy campers

Another highlight of this trip? Watching the local volleyball games. At 4pm everyday, a bunch of villagers get together for some intense volleyball games (they play for $$). I was itching to play but was too shy/nervous to interrupt the games. Some of the guys were pretty decent players too!

On the way home from Tulamben, we got stuck for 20 mins in a religious procession. It was insane - at least 1000 people on the street walking a couple km from temple to temple.

The local seatbelt system

We had heard about this delicious babi guling in a town called Gianyar so we made a little detour to Warung Pande after the procession. I can honestly say that this babi guling blew Ibu Oka in Ubud out of the water (Ros: impossible sounding but true!). The meat was perfectly cooked – succulent, tasty, fresh, and delicious! We stuffed ourselves and was getting ready to leave when they brought out a freshly cooked pig - it was love at first smell...

drool..