Bali Trip 2012 - Part 1

My husband and I didn't have our honeymoon immediately right after our wedding last March 10th, 2012, since we had our leave of absence from work a bit early to have extra time to prepare and rest before the actual wedding day (we did have 65% of the whole preparations done by ourselves to help out my family). We had to go back to work right after the ceremony and planned to have the honeymoon in Bali about a month later.

At first we couldn't find the right time to do so since we had to help out on my cousin's wedding on April and  we became extra busy with work, until we decided to go at the first weekend of May, at exactly May 4th until 6th on Vesak Day (Hari Raya Waisak). We only had 3 days available due to how hard my husband could get any leave permit from the place where he's working. We waited until the last weeks before our departure to buy the tickets since every flight was so expensive for that day and we finally got the cheapest round-trip flight by Lion Air exactly 7 days before the departure. I already made a reservations a month in advance at Berawa Beach Residence for the three days and two nights holiday by using a special voucher I got from LivingSocial.

I'm gonna share our exciting (yet extremely short) honeymoon in Bali and write them in three parts in this blog. 

Day 1

We left Jakarta by the first flight of the day which was supposed to leave at 06.20 AM that morning from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. The flight was delayed about 30-40 minutes and we couldn't find any instant coffee machine which was usually available near the boarding room so my husband became really anxious about everything.

After waiting awhile we finally departed from the airport, leaving Jakarta, and landed on Ngurah Rai Airport at about 10.00 AM, with a special driver sent by the hotel where we were staying waiting at the lobby.

Landed at Ngurah Rai Airport, with our airplane at the back

The driver took us straight to the hotel by car, and the trip felt extra long when we were riding at the back. It took us about 40 minutes to get to the hotel so we were worried that we were too far from the places we wanted to visit in Bali. But we found out later that it wasn't really that far...

We stayed at Berawa Beach Residence, which was located at Canggu area and not far from Berawa Beach,  about 13,5 km to the north from Kuta Beach. The beach itself, unlike Kuta or Legian or Batu Bolong, is not that wellknown yet since it's still undergoing some maintenance that is preparing the beach to be another recreation area in Bali, but there are some cozy hotels and country clubs already built around the area.

I was excited when we arrived at the hotel, it was lovely and super cozy. I fell in love to our room and the pool deck immediately. What we had was the deluxe studio room, with a king-size bed, TV and DVD set, a small kitchen (!!!) and a lovely bathroom inside. And our room had this wooden deck where we can sit and relax outside, with this huge wooden fence that when we open will show us the hotel's swimming pool right behind it! So cool....! All we had to do was open the fence and jump straight to the pool....really nice!

The lovely swimming pool and deck right at the other side of the fence in our own deck

And of course, our super cozy bed

The bed was absolutely cozy, but we only stayed to unpack our belongings and rest for awhile and started the day right after. We rented a motorcycle from the hotel for the whole time we were in Bali and went everywhere with it.

Our first stop - Tanah Lot.

At first we didn't plan on going there since we were concern that the place was too far from our hotel, but after my husband estimated the time and distance through his phone we decided to go after all. It took us about less than an hour to reach the spot and we loved it. We had to pass so many souvenir shops along the way from the parking lot and I had to restrain myslef from shopping way ahead of schedule (it was hard, trust me). We did stop to have some lunch first at one of the local cafe since it was already lunch time. We had some simple menu and drank fresh coconuts, and refreshed immediately. It was so hot that day.

I can't remember the last time I went to Tanah Lot, I was still a child probably. We stayed about an hour or more to take pictures and took a walk around the temple, to the caves of the sacred snakes (we didn't enter, I hate closed spaces and snakes), and enjoyed the view of the ocean. We sat there for awhile then continued our trip.

Next we went to Garuda Wisnu Kencana (GWK) Cultural Park. It was really faraway to the south from Tanah Lot but we did get there not too long by motorcycle. We saw the giant statue of Visnu and the sacred bird, Garuda (which was - according to my mother - hasn't been developed in years), and the amazing view of Bali from the top of the hill. We watched some traditional dance performance at the main stage and walk around the park to enjoy the scene and fresh air. Too bad we were a bit late that we didn't see the famous Barong performance.

There was some other souvenir shops there and I (finally) bought myself a Barong top while my husband bought sunglasses and a small pouch to keep his phone.

Leaving GWK we couldn't decide where to go. At first we planned to go to Jimbaran or Uluwatu, watch the sunset and have dinner there. But the sunset was still a few hours later, and my husband objected spending too much money on meals at the first day of our trip. So we went to Kuta.

The beach was beautiful as always, the water and waves were amazing, and we just sat there at the beach with some drinks and snacks and talking or taking pictures. Too bad the cloud was so thick that it covered the sun when it was setting but it was really relaxing.

Enjoying Kuta Beach

We left the beach when it was dark and went looking for a place to have dinner. We started going around Kuta to look for a great place to stop and found this small restaurant at Jl. Patih Jelantik-Kuta, called Mbok Limbok. The meal was actually Javanese cuisine with duck and chicken as the main menu. The food was great, not too expensive and the place was kinda cool, with so many cultural and traditional arts and crafts being shown around us - the restaurant turned out to be a gallery also.

We went back to the hotel extra early night and spent the rest of the evening at our room. Our trip continued at the next day....

(To be continued)