Third Day in Bali

Day 3 : 17/June/2007
Mandala, Gitgit Waterfall and Lovina

On the third day, we had to move to the other side of the island, Lovina. Lovina is famous for it's black sand beach and also dolphins.

Leaving Balisani. The interior of this hotel is really beautiful. Those were rattan lamps.

Taking a bus shuttle to Lovina costs Rp 150,000 pax and to hire a charter car with driver is Rp350,000 and they could bring us to see around the mountains and visit some place. So we hire a charter car with driver and hit the bumpy roads to Lovina.

We first stopped at Mengwi, a place once lived by an ancient king called King Mengwi. We went to King Mengwi's garden, Taman Ayun.

Taman Ayun

In Bali, you can see offerings like in the picture everywhere, in front of every shops in Kuta and Legian, on the corner of every streets, in buses and cabs. Every morning, ppl will put those offerings on the ground or in bus or cabs for good luck in business and also protection.

Theater built for the king and his royal family.

Roof of every building were made from a part of trees, which I don't know what they call.

Watch tower in the garden.

View from the top of the tower.

The tower is quite tall and the steps are steep.

Barong lion, protector of the island.

The Barong were made from rice grains.

This is the praying site for King Mengwi and it is not open to public. But the wall surrounding the temple are low and we could sneak view the temple over the low walls but not allow to enter the temple.

After a long walk and exploration of Taman Ayun, we had our very first local Bali meal at a roadside stall, like our warong. It's very windy with nice paddy field view. Kids are flying kites, dogs lazing in paddy roads.

Another lunch by the paddy fields.

It's Bali very famous local meal, Babi Guling. Very very spicy.

And we continue our long journey across the mountains to Lovina. It was very chilly like Cameron Highlands, only that their scenery are tonnes more beautiful. And it's too beautiful I had to ask the driver to stop and let me take some pictures. Little kampung houses, paddy squares....all tiny tiny, so cute leh.

In an hour or so, we reached Gitgit waterfall, the highest waterfall in Bali. It's quite a long walk into the forest to get to the waterfall. A lot of local souvenir shops along the way and they looked at us with Bambi eyes, begging us to buy their stuff. Kids were carrying cheap bead necklaces for sales at Rp10,000 each. I wanted to buy but was afraid if I buy even one tiny little beads, lots of peddlars and local ppl will flock me with hopes asking me to buy theirs too.
And the waterfall is darnnnnnnn beautiful................water flowing down fast and I was all wet although I was standing quite far from the water splash.






5pm, we reached Lovina. Along Singaraja we were so worried looking at the condition of this town. No gwai-lous and no souvenir shops. OMG OMGGGG....it looks like ghost town, with just local ppl.

When we reached Lovina, we were quite reliefed to see many hotels and resorts there. Should be a touristy spot, right? Wrong. The place we stayed, Surina Resort was really beautiful, almost 4-star standard but the town has no life, except than their local serenity little life.

Disappointedly we went down to the beach with towel and everything, ready for a sunset swim but the beach.....were unswimable. Ironically, the silent beach still has a lot of pesky beach peddlar, coming over to sell things to us. Well, the beach is famous for dolphins sightings but not for surfing or swimmng. Sigh.....

But at least we get to see sunset by the beach. I wanted to stay there longer until the whole egg yolk sink into the sea but we had to runaway as we see somemore peddlars coming our way.

Sunset at Lovina beach.

The black sand beach has nothing to offer other than black sand.

We walked for quite a distance into town area looking for dinner. The whole street was sooooooo dark and I was getting worried. No sign of more lively touristy activities or pubs or restaurants, we stopped at OK looking cafe and had our dinner. Regret regret, we should come over to Lovina at all. Should stay at Kuta or Jimbaran instead.
Sigh....
And so we ended up watching 'A Sound of Thunder' in the hotel room.
And decided to move back to Kuta as soon as possible.