I am the secret that you keep; MISS SCARLET.

Friday, June 23, 2006

back!

well, i arrived home from bali yesterday afternoon, and as all holidays have to end, it was depressing. i immediately missed the beach, the cool breeze, the sun, and salt on your skin.

this time around though, i was lucky enough to tan myself to a nice brownish tone, and not some black ugly colour. every single day was spent to the fullest, and i guess in that way, not one moment was regretted.

on our 2nd day there we spent time going to places of interest, like the Kintamani volcano, and the Ubud area. we saw the Barong dance in the morning, and the Kacak dance in the evening, at the monkey temple. the temple overlooked the Indian Ocean, so the sunset was breath-taking. when you look down, the waves are crashing against the rocks, and the vast ocean spreads its crystal blue waters ahead of you. it almost feels as though you could just fly to heaven.

the two dances are pretty religiously grounded, as they tell stories of the balinese culture, as well as weave Hinduism into its rituals. before any dance, the performers will perform prayers to ask the Gods to bless their performance. in the case of the Kacak dance, there will be some peformers who are required to go into a trance-like state, because at the end of the dance, the dancer dressed as the white monkey will be seated in the middle of a ring of fire, and he will attempt to escape from this circle using his bare feet and body. this requires blessings from the priest as the white monkey will kick around the coconut husks which are on fire, and the prayers will "numb" his physical body from being harmed.

our guide told us that it is strongly recommended to avoid wearing red to such a performance, as sometimes, the person in a trance will be attracted to this particular colour and start chasing you around in a manic state.

well, for dinner that evening, we went to Jimbaran for seafoood dinner on the beach. yes, ON the sand itself. which was nice, but my sister had a fever, and everything was utterly diappointing. from the food quality, to the price. actually the overall impression of bali that we got was high cost of food, yet low quality/quantity. for example, in our hotel, my dad wanted to order bruschetta, which is a slice of toasted french loaf with tomato dices soaked in olive oil on top. normally, one serving would consist of several pieces (slices), like maybe 4 or so, as it's a starter that people can share. but at the hotel, they served only ONE slice, for 55,000 rupiah, which is equivalent to S$11. one slice of french loaf with a few dices of tomato bits and olive oil, for 11 bucks?! sheesh.

food was the major problem there, because it was always of low standard. even buffets had their labels wrong, and some of the servings looked like mush. i think my sister's stomach couldn't handle the food, because she was conatantly having diarrhoea the whole trip, and had night fever for every night that we stayed there. even when we went shopping in Kuta, which is well-known for their nightlife, and where cheap bargains are aplenty, she asked me to carry an empty plastic bag, just in case she needed to puke. sure enough, right in the middle of the street, she puked. ALOT.

we also spent two whole days of just slacking at the pool and the beach, trying to get a nice tan. the resort's pool is huge, with two separate pools and one baby pool. on the 2nd day of slacking by the pool, we decided to go parasailing, my sis and i. we've done it before, but we always took off from the beach, and were required to run a little to gain speed before taking off. but the tide was too low to do that, so we had to be driven to another place where we took off from land. that sucked, because the "airtime" was too short and me and my sis had to fly tandem, meaning we go one by one, accompanied by another guy behind us. if we took off from the shore itself, i could've done it myself. and "airtime" would be a little longer. boo. :-P

then later that afternoon, me and my sis wanted to try the banana boat. oh gosh, that was so fun. we were taken to another water sports place further up our beach via jet ski. i felt like i had to hold on for my life! even the jet ski was constantly flying over the water rather than skimming on top of it. all i know is, i didn't want to fall into the water because i was pretty terrified of not knowing what was underneath the surface, as we rode out pretty deep. banana boating was awesome! with the sea spray hitting my face with every turn and bump we ran into. we came off soaking and completely drenched. then we were sent back to our hotel beach via jet ski again. the ride back was worse, because the waves were higher and i had to grab onto our "driver's" life jacket super tight. but all in all, it was freaking awesome. :)

the day before we left, we managed to convince our mom to join us in white water rafting at the Ayung River. we started with a class 2 river first, as neither of us has ever gone rafting before. according to our guide, who navigated the river with us, the highest class is 13, for example, the Grand Canyon. in bali there is only one other river to go rafting in (i forgot the name), but it's only a class 4. in total, we took 2 hours to complete our 9 km river route. we stopped by a waterfall to take pictures, and it was raining that day, which, according to our driver (who drove us to the river), is better for rafting. because the currents are stronger, so technically, yea, we get more "excitement". hee. the current was pretty tolerable even for my mom, who, at first, completely refused to tag along. but we kept on persuading her, and at the end of the whole ride, she said she didn't regret it one bit. she was even the one who kept calling shots of when to hold onto the raft's ropes whenever there were rocks ahead or when it would start to get "turbulent", by calling out "boom boom!" (the guide's supposed to do that -_-) hee. next time, class 4. :D

a pity my dad couldn't follow us on many of the activities we did, because he was there for an International Oil Palm Convention (IOPC), which consisted of many asian companies dealing with oil palm. it is an annual thing, but this time held in bali. so actually the main reason why we went to bali was because my dad had work there. heh.

overall, the time we spent was a blast. and of course, as usual, soooo many people got a shock when i tell them i'm not indonesian, or balinese, but singaporean. like duh. so i just explain to them i'm javanese, so maybe that's why the resemblance is there. there was even one guy (our guide for white water rafting), who said i looked like a balinese dancer. uhhh. okay.

don't worry, no flirting honey. :) and pictures will be up soon. maybe if i'm not too lazy i'll try and upload some videos as well, because we brought along our video camera.

bali & wani go together, no?