The land where everyone is a millionaire- our trip to Bali😊

So after a long time and pretty quick and impromptu planning, Priyank and I managed to plan a short weekend trip to Bali with another couple friend of ours- chan and Snigs ..

The excitement before the trip was palpable.. It was Bali after all, we had heard so much about it and I obviously was hoping to find my 'love' in the city of eat -pray- love.. Hehe.. So day 1 of the trip started with an awesome start at Singapore airport, with amazing English breakfast.. Yeah we're suckers for the standard eggs, sausages and hash brown breakfast😏 but then, it started going downhill from there, sadly.. Our flight with tiger air mandala got delayed by half n hour and it took us 3 hours to reach the airport at Bali, another 1.5 hours to clear immigration at Bali and then another 1.5 hours to reach our resort at ubud- puri bungs spa and resort .. Sigh!

But the sight of the resort was like a balm to our tired souls! Oh it was just beautiful! Words cannot describe the serenity of the place, but I think travellers alike could say the setting would resemble something of interior Kerala ( if you're an Indian that is.. Hehe).. We checked in at around 7 pm, freshened up and headed to ubud centre for the much awaited Balinese food and beer 😉

So the last pic is the view from our resort, we had an amazing time at dinner, stuffed ourselves with Balinese style seafood and bintang, the local beer here😊 I realised that the food here is somehow not very exotic and very Indian tasting actually, with a little on the sweet peanut type of dominant taste. They have a lot of fried food and street food like nasi goreng which is fried rice really 😏 and the other major thing that we couldn't get over is the money conversion here! I mean, we're literally millionaires here! Lol.. Everything is in lacs or millions! It's just crazy when we see the bills and then convert it to only realise that it's not really that expensive.. Lol.. Bill here for a lunch where we spent 14 lacs apparently! Lol

So anyway, chan and Snigs joined us later in the night and we all promptly retired to our rooms for a much awaited good night's sleep..

Day 2 began with an amazing English breakfast again at the resort restaurant overlooking one of the best views to have breakfast in.. We freshen up and headed towards Jimbaran bay for authentic seafood lunch. We reached there around 1 pm, totally hungry, but our hunger took a backseat when we saw the view at the beach! Sigh.. It was right out of a postcard..the bright shining sun, clear pristine water of the sea.. The color of coper sulphate,  and absolutely white sand with hardly any people around ( that could also be because it was just super sunny!) .. But the view was just magical, it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it and here's an attempt of mine to capture what I saw and want to remember 😊

It was here that we had our super expensive seafood lunch that I mentioned earlier about .. Fish, squid, prawns, lobster, mussels with Balinese sauce and garlic sauce and sticky rice and obviously our favourite bintang beers 🍻

We sat there in that sun under our umbrella for hours altogether, battling the sun just because we didn't want to move away from that place, but we really needed to.. So around 3:30 pm, we left for Nusa dua beach to satiate the water sports demands of the rest of the group😊 at Nusa dua, since we reached very late most of the water sports like scooters, paragliding, snorkelling, diving had closed for the day.. So tip to fellow travellers looking for adventure sports, go early morning😊 we settled for the glass bottom boat ride and a trip to the turtle island which was totally worth it! The boat ride was speedy and windy and amazing, and the boys had a blast at turtle island posing with all sorts of strange animals and showing off😏 I obviously was super afraid and refrained to just being the photographer here.. Hehe

We got a dropped off following an amazing drive over the settling sun on this very very long bridge towards kuta beach. The plan was to actually party at the legendary kuta beach, but obviously all of us being old and tired already, couldn't do much other than enjoy the sunset and retire for another round of very expensive dinner and drinks 😊

With the setting of the night, great live music, tasty cocktails playing with my tired senses, simple food for dinner, chatting with friends and the sweet sea breeze and the calming sound of the ocean made me feel relaxed and at peace with myself.. It's just to relive this feeling that I keep wanting to go back to places to travel over and over again.. Away from the madding crowd😏

So day 3 now and the guys and Snigs were again jumping for more adventure sports, but since it was my last day here, I really wanted to take it easy and just relax.. So I went ahead and got myself an amazing Balinese spa at our resort.. The massage and the open view overlooking the valley.. So relaxing! After that the other three left off to do some white water rafting while I stayed back to loiter around the swimming pool for a few laps followed by a soak in the bath tub and a late and lazy lunch of Balinese fried rice and watermelon juice again😊

Post my leisurely dip in the pool followed by another dip and long shower in the bath tub, I ordered in a late and yummy lunch of nasi goreng ( Indonesian style fried rice) with watermelon juice and started off my blog while sitting at the porch of my room, listening to music😊 I felt pretty lazy eventually and promptly dozed off after a while, which is how the rest of the adventurous party found me😵 

We left off again to Jimbaran bay for dinner in the evening and wrapped up our last night at beautiful Bali over local chicken sate, fried noodles, fruits and another local beer arken 😊🍻 the breeze was beautiful, the candle lot tables, groups of local people performing songs for your at your table, trying to serenade you as well as earn a living and a few dance performances by the beautiful Balinese women.. All in all heavenly. I realised then that I just didn't want to go back and there was still so much to discover, specially the volcanoes and temples around ubud, that I thought maybe I could come back here again to finish off what I had begun? 

So here are my travel tips: 

To do- if you're into partying and water sports, it's best to stay at kuta, but if you're into spas and an experience of slow and cultural life, head off to ubud 

Food- I personally didn't find the food or street food very different from things I've already eaten or Indian street food, but it's more on the fried stuff which is sweet with a taste of peanut.. So people allergic to peanut, be careful😊

Company- language could be a problem since the locals try hard to speak and understand English, but the locals generally are a friendly bunch I think.. However, I'm not sure how the place is for line travelers or just a bunch of friends, since I kind of felt the romantic honeymoon destination hype to act like a heavy rainy cloud to dampen my spirits since honeymoon was not on my agenda.. Hehe

Duration of stay- we stayed only for 3 days and I don't think that's enough.. Of course one can do a lot in 3 days, if you want your vacation to feel like an assignment, but I would've liked a few more days, maybe 5 days

Money spent- I ended up going over budget , mainly because we spent a lot on food and traveling by taxis back and forth from ubud to kuta almost daily, but my 3 day expense including flight, stay, travel inside Bali, food and activities came up to around 500 Singapore dollars