Day 2 in Bali......

Oooo picture heavy post. Hang on tight and pray your PC doesn't crash. Lol.

Breakfast at the hotel... The restaurant was gorgeous. Great food, beautiful poolside setting. The weather was in our favour too - it's generally cool and windy in Bali. :)

Oh the sun rises and sets earlier too. We were actually up at 6am to tackle the day!


The buffet spread.


Cereal bar!!!!!


They serve their cereal up in those elegant black baskets


Cheese and salad bar... where they are like SUUUUUPER generous with the seafood.


And this is their beef meatloaf that was so, so damn effing good I had to take a picture of it on it's own. XD And I had like second and third helping..... Nyum..... Kimmie you pig.


My sayang... still sleepy... but looking pretty happy about his food.

Oh and you actually can tick stuff on this list to order at the breakfast bar... and they serve you up your eggs with toast and crispy bacon.


Waffles... also fresh from the brekkie bar. :)


Cheeeeeeeese!! *steals the whole lot* nyahahahaha.


And some of the cakes, pastries and other baked goods.

Why we were up so early that morning was cos we had planned to go catch the Barong Dance in the morning. So we had to go grab the tickets. Basically it's like a short cultural play+dance about good versus evil... and also one scene with a comic relief. I went to see it the last time I was in Bali... but thought it would be very interesting and a must-see for Ernie.


A team of 20 men were behind the music.


The Barong... somewhat reminiscent of our own Chinese lions... but minus the acrobatics. It is believed that the people playing the Barong had to be very spiritual as it is one of the major religious icons of Bali.




The graceful Balinese dancers


Further into the play... one of the acts.






The Rangda... a demon in Balinese culture. In the legend and play it repents and goes to heaven in the end.






The final scene of the Barong dance involves a group of young men going into a trance (hence the religious leader in the front burning essence and sprinkling holy water). And this trance would make them fly into a frenzy and begin stabbing themselves with the keris in the chest, stomach and throat... but their bodies become temporarily "immortal" and they are unharmed.


The men stabbing themselves with the keris and screaming. The religious leader and also the Barong at the back help them exit the trance one by one as the performance goes on.


This picture is taken backstage. This stone decoration and the wooden doors also serve as the backdrop of the stage.


After the Barong dance, Dewa brought us to check out some of the gold and silver crafters.


At one of the art galleries... just passing thru on the way to Kintamani


Another one of the places we stopped by on the way to Kintamani - Goa Gajah

The mouth of some holy cave, where people used to meditiate inside


The statue of Ganesha inside


And we were told that these statues are some representation of fertility gods or something like that............


Around the temple grounds.... that huge stone doorway is supposed to lead down to a Buddhist temple.


One of the holy water pools


One of the pics that I really really love..... ^^




Walking thru the paddy fields to get to the Buddhist temple area...

And if you're wondering why there are suddenly so many pics of us... no I have not been harrassing fellow tourists to take couply shots for us. As you know every tourist site has a small entry fee to be paid... around 3000-6000 rupiah... and here we were approached by one local fellow who began explaining stuff around the temple and introduced himself as our temple guide. He even took my cam from me, and kept snapping pics of us and stuff........

Then we realised we were sorta conned and he wasn't part of the temple organisation when he asked us for 50,ooo rupiah =.=


Thru the jungle area after the paddy fields.
And yea thats our "guide"




A long time ago a temple actually collapsed down the cliff due to an earthquake... thats why you see the rocks sticking out there. Looking down the bridge you can still see some bits of the ancient temple too.




Another place we stopped by - Gunung Kawi. This is the road that we had to walk along to get to it.


Climbing Gunung Kawi... the scenery of the paddy terrace and trees below


Staaaaaaairs!!! LOTS of them leading to the temple area... hurray for cardio. Lol.


And here we are at the majestic stone sculptures... hewn out of the mountain itself.




Another section of the mountain. Oh yea at certain temples you are required to wear a sash or belt around your waist also. Hence my pink one and Ernie's blue.


The women preparing offerings




Lol. Even Ernie looks so dwarfed in the face of those huge sculptures!


More of the scenery along the mountain




This is where the locals used to come and pray and meditate... It's another section of the mountain and consists of several small open-air chambers in the rocks. No shoes were allowed also if you wanted to climb up to this section.




The square segments are where people would meditate in




And finally.... Kintamani. Check out the spectacular view of Mt. Batur volcano! It's also very cool and windy at Kintamani... reminiscent of Camerons.




Day 2 was all about the makan it seems....
We had a local buffet lunch at Kintamani. Not that we were being greedy... at Kintamani it's only worth it to go for their buffets. Everywhere else there is seriously either cutthroat or not so nice.


It does look very homely, doesnt it?


Stopping along d highway for pics

And oh my god.... Ernie was so, SO popular with the locals everywhere he went. Everyone wanted to touch him and admire his muscle... everwhere he went people were crowding around and commenting.... ESPECIALLY Kintamani. OMG wei I really, really wished I took a video. He was seriously being mugged by "fans"! XD Yup. Everywhere in the world.... muscle has it's appeal.


A final view of Mt. Batur


and Lake Batur.

More pics to come!!! Yes lol. God I'm gonna kill myself trying to upload them all at once... XD