Bali 1

Bali, an island in the middle of the Country of Thousand Islands, Indonesia, has its own identity with its thousand temples, magnifesting its prominent dominacy of Hinduism within the largest Islamic country in the world. Family temples, village temples, agricultural temples, sea temples, and so on, separately paying tribute to Brahma (god of creation), Vishnu (god of preservation), and Siva (god of annihilation). How many temples are there in Bali? That might be a question that only a few have the answer.

From left is Ling Shing's sister Ling Ai (Kelly) @ Legian Beach, Ling Shing and Betty @ Pura Agung, LS's brother Ling Yong (Bryant) and his girl friend Livien @ Matahari Square, and LS's parents Yuk Yieng and Mee Ping @ hotel's cafe.

December 2009, we visited Bali with our family and stayed for five days and four nights. A nearly three hours flight from KLLCCT to Ngurah Rai Airport ended up with a suprise a- small, crowdy, "budget" air condition, and it didn't look like the third busiest airport in Indonesia. Anyway, the smell of tourism industry was strong with colourful brochures, maps, leftlets, and tourist's guide, full-coloured, black and white etc. in different languages distributed free of charge around the arrival hall, before we reached the immigration counters. That's good. At least, we could read while stucked in the long queue for custom checking. Btw, you really need not buy any map of Bali as you can get a very good map there, in the airport.

Left (upper and lower): Balinese architecture in Ngurah Rai Airport, Denpasar. The airport was named after the national hero who fought and died in the Battle of Margarana, Bali. Photo taken with Ling Shing's parents in the departure hall (upper right). A lot of information was reachable in colourful brochures and leaflets (lower middle), and the place where we bought the tickets for taxi to our hotel.

We reached Vilarisi Hotel (at Legian) at around 3 pm. First impression, not so good, due to the dim lighting and "extreme" Balinese design (or should said we hadn't get used to it). We didn't even dare to take the welcoming drink (strange syrup with "salty" taste). However, after a few hours, we get used it and start thinking that it's a great place to stay. The hotel is strategicly located beside Melasti Road, Legian Road, and by foot, it is just 15 minutes away from Legian beach and 30 minutes away from Kuta Square. The hotel has a nice pool, roof top garden, and English speaking staff (although some of them were not fluent). The buffet breakfast, a little bit too simple, but still able to meet our "minimum threshold".

Upper row (left to right): Vilarisi Hotel on the outside; roof top garden; swimming pool. Lower row (left to right): Resting area at the lobby; Balinese style room; Free supply of filtered drinking water (we like it very much).

We took our late lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Melasti (which later we found out the food there were overpriced). The good thing was, we found a tour company, MBA, with attractive price service just in front of that restaurant, after the lunch. Then, we took a walk to the Legian beach. Legian Beach shares a same coastline with Kuta Beach. The beach, wow, simply breathtaking- endless stretch of fine sand, blue crystalline water, white strong waves, lushy coconut trees, and light blue sky. That was a really romantic place for beautiful sunset. Both Kuta and Legian Beach always filled with a lot of people- surfers, sun lovers, photographers, and visitors, like us.

Top: Our photo at Legian Beach, with a lot of people enjoying sunshine and sea breeze with us, the strong wind set LS's hair "free". Small photos (lower left to right): Scene at Kuta Beach ; Swaying palms in front of Legian Beach Resort; One of the many surfers showed his skills at Legian Beach.

One will never feel alone at Kuta beach.

Small boats (too big for canoes) laying peacefully at a side of Kuta beach.

Photos taken at Sanur beach. Unlike Kuta and Legian, most visitors at Sanur are locals.

We made a stop at Sanur Beach on our second day in Bali. Bali was first known worldwide through Sanur. The sea was calm and not suitable for surfing. However, the calm sea makes Sanur a perfect place for swimming and canoeing. The beach was not as "hot" as Kuta or Legian, and most of the visitors were the locals. Sanur is a good place to get a good view on sunrise.

Our trip continued...

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