Upon waking up at 6 and opening the sliding door, I was surprised to see that it was already cerah out there. Apparently, eventhough there is no time difference between Malaysia and Bali, Bali gets the sun earlier and the day is shorter so that by 6pm, it was already dark.
The first agenda of the day was to go to Batu Bulan to watch the Barong Dance performance. According to Pak Madi, when you come to Bali, it is a must for you to watch the dance performance or else your visit to the island is not complete. But, hmm... how should I say this? The performance was kinda freaky and creepy. It's all about cerita dewa dewi zaman purbakala, with some animals thrown in for good measure. I, frankly, did not like this kind of stories so that was why I found myself falling asleep faster than ever. Furthermore, the actors were all speaking in fast Indonesian speech (or is it another language altogether?) and it all sounded like gibberish to me. The only thing that I understood was the time when one of the character killed a character and he said, "He's dead!" Hahahaha...
After the performance, we went over to Pasar Tradisional Sukawati to start spending our money. At first, I thought of not buying anything but once I started buying, the money keeps on flowing out. Mostly I bought souvenirs for my officemates and these really comfy sleeveless tees yang lembut giler, which I'll wear to sleep. All the stuff are damn cheap! And here, I also see something that I had never seen anywhere else before. Whenever we give the money to the shopkeeper, he or she would... do like a renjis motion (for lack of the appropriate term) with money on whatever the shop is selling. There is also this one shopkeeper I saw that put money in between the t-shirts she sells. When asked why they did that, they said, "Pelaris."
For lunch, we went up to Kintamani to see Gunung Batur and Danau Batur. It was very cold! Ate at Restoran Grand Puncak Sari, which was not very nice, considering that we have to choose our food carefully and there just aren't many choices for Muslims. Spent some time taking pictures, pictures and more pictures... We were lucky that we came early because by 3.30pm, the whole place is foggy so we couldn't see anything. Anyway, Gunung Batur is the second tallest mountain in Bali. There was an explosion (hmmm... do we call it explosion?) of the volcano in 1927 and the last time was in 1994.
On the way down, we stopped over at this place where there is padi bertingkat, so basically it's photo snapping galore. The view was very nice and the padi bertingkat was very unique.
Then, it's off to Pasar Tradisional Ubud, where we stopped only for a short while since it's already late and the place is about to be closed for the day. I did not like this place at all because it's kinda smelly and dogs are everywhere. I did not buy anything here.
We boarded the bus again and off we went to Restoran Tepi Sawah, which of course is di tepi sawah. Prayed and had dinner there. They had actually prepared fried bebek (duck) for us but obviously we couldn't eat it because it's meat and it might not be halal. So we ordered something else and let Pak Han, Eddy and Pak Madi eat the bebek goreng. At first I thought of ordering Sweet Sour Shrimp but decided to change it to Chilli Prawn but when the dish came, it tasted more like Sweet & Sour. Hmmm... whatever. It's good anyway.
After dinner, it was back to the hotel, where I spent it melayan kerenah Syara in Kak Nina's room while Umar and Kak Syida went out to explore the place around the hotel. Around 10.30pm, I went back to the room that I shared with Kak Syida and promptly fell asleep. I must have been more tired than I thought I was that when Kak Syida came back around midnight and knocked on the door, I did not even hear that. She had to go to the front desk and ask for another card to access the room but unfortunately I bolted it shut so she wasn't able to come in anyway. Siap panggil security tu! Lawak, lawak... I myself did not know how I come to realize that there's someone knocking on the door... Sian my sister. Thankfully, Umar was with her. Kalau tak, mesti dia lagi gelabah baek punyer...
Some information about Bali...
- According to Pak Madi, the way to know the status of the women in Bali is by seeing how they tie their hair. Ikat 1, the woman is already married. Ikat 1 on the left, the woman already has someone but not married yet. Ikat 1 on the right, the woman is looking for a partner. Ikat 2, the woman is divorced and ikat 3, that person is half-woman, half-man.
- Pak Madi also told us that there is only one place in Bali that is as tall as 11 floors (they call it lantai, instead of tingkat). Over here, they are not allowed to build buildings or houses that is over three floors. If not, they believe that the house or building will be damaged or ruined quickly. Another reasoning is that they did not want the island to turn into something like Singapore with high-rise buildings everywhere.
p.s: I just love taking pictures that depicts something from other people's POV. Loved how my sister's pic turned out and also the one with my brother. My brother's pic was so hard to take because he was much taller than me...
to be continued...
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