Day 4 began with us taking an hour's drive to Ubud. Reason? To have the very very famous Babi Guling. We arrived at the restaurant an hour early, so we decided to walk around Ubud town to kill time. Arts and crafts stuff here is considerably cheaper than in Malaysia, but I have to say, not everything is cheap. Oh, did I also mention that they sell lots and lots of vanilla pods here? I couldnt find then anywhere else in Bali but here!
So here we are at Restoran Ibu Oka, most famous for Babi Guling in the whole of Bali.
My verdict? I tot it was alright, service was pretty poor though. Unfortunately, the roasted pork skin we had was very very tough, harder than ... I can't even describe it...
After that, we headed towards Mount Agung, to the Mother Temple of Besakih.
On the way we passed by Lake Batur again. We were there on Day 2 where we had tea time at a cafe facing the lake on top of the hill. This time around, we were on the other side of the lake :-)
Seeing this pig rummaging for food by the roadside made me wonder where our Babi Guling pigs came from....
After about 1.5 hours, we finally arrived at the Mother of all temples in Bali, the Besakih Temple.
There are 9 major temples in Bali, and this is the most important temple for the local people of Bali.
Point to note when you arrive at Besakih, there will be a "ticket counter" where you will be given a guide to take you thru a tour of the temple. But at the counter, they ppl will ask you to give donations towards the upkeep of the temple. They will show you a book which shows various visitors' names as well as the amounts they donated.
This is highly suspicious as the handwritings in the book is consistently similar and the amounts seemed to be in the same range. Plus, the guy at the counter says you can donate any amount you'd like, but he advises you tot ake a look at the book to see whats the reasonable standard.
Just be wary at this stage, we did donate some money, but we gave less than what was purported "donated" by other visitors.
While we were there, there was an "upacara" / procession going on. We were told we had just missed one of the major festival by 2 weeks prior to our arrival.
And yes, I wore a sarong for the whole day on Day 4.
After our Besakih tour, we headed back down Mount Agung, and we passed by another Rice terrace. How could we pass up another photo taking opportunity??
We then headed all the way down to the south of Bali. Our main destination was Uluwatu. But since we were ahead of schedule, I asked our driver to make a stop at Padang Padang beach, which is about 15 minutes away from Uluwatu. From what I researched, it was said that Padang Padang had the best beach in the whole of Bali. So a visit to this beach is a must.
The above picture shows the staircase leading to the beach.
The Padang padang beach had blue waters, mainly because the sand is whiter than most parts of Bali. Water was clean, but there was rubbish floating in the sea. And since its a pretty small stretch of beach, it did feel a bit crowded.
Not really recommended
Next stop: Uluwatu temple. Another one of the 9 major temples and we arrived here in time to catch the sunset. As you can see, the temple is located right at the edge of the cliff, giving us a chance to capture dramatic pictures.
The sunset was amazing, after 3 evenings of cloudy skies, Day 4 was great for us!
Oh, please becareful of the monkeys hanging around Uluwatu. your truly was attacked by one of them monkeys and it grabbed my glasses right off my face! It was a moment of horror for me as I thought i was gonna be attacked by a wild monkey.
Thankfully only my glasses was snatched and the monkey ran away with it while some Indons around there chased it for me. The monkey then threw my glasses off the cliff, but luckily for me, it got stuck on the bushes.
Here in this picture, you can see the guys risking their lives to get my glasses back. Yes i did give them a form of Gratitude payment. However, i was then informed that these indonesians actually train a few of the monkeys to steal tourists' items and throw it away, so they can collect it for a fee later.
I'm not sure if there is any basis to this story, but if it is true, then i guess the Balinese are not are friendly and honest as the Thais are.
After a simple dinner, we dropped by the biggest shopping centre in Kuta town for some last minute shopping. it was the 1st time we were in Kuta town for shopping. FInally, some air conditioned shopping for us.
It was here I bought a pair of thong slippers for about RM10 equivalent which I stillw ear till today :-)
Oh did I mention that the monkey chewed on my glasses after it snatched it from my face?
Well, you can see it in the picture above. It's a money can't buy souvenir, i guess ;-p
We went back to the villa after a little shopping and we took a dip in the pool before going to bed.
Boodyboy, out!!!
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