Tuesday, March 24, 2009

2nd day...Sea Cruise & Swimming pool fun time!

2nd day in Bali
Sea Cruise & Swimming pool fun time!

(At the restaurant entrance)

(The pool view photo we took from our seats)

7.00am sharp the rooms phone rang! i wake up and answer the call, it was the morning call we requested from the hotel staff. So i make a call to Kelvin if they are awake, Yes...they already wake up before us, haha...i think they are quite excited for todays planning. We dont want to be late as our tour guide (Wayan) will come and pick us up at 8.30am. We will be on our way for our Sea Cruise trip! Cant wait..cant wait...really cant wait already! i love the sea!

Eating area.

This cruise will bring us to some where middle of the sea and lots of water activity there! But there is one very important things need to be done before we go....BREAKFAST! Hahaha...what is more important than the first meal of the day, and its gonna be a 5 star hotel breakfast! We quickly get our self clean and get ready for the breakfast. We meet Kelvin & Jenny at the front of the Hotel restaurant. We went in and found our self in a very comfortable environment restaurant. With the pool just under our restaurant, the view is just nice for our breakfast.

The food we take for the 1st round-2nd round forget to take photo as i'm busy eating...haha...sorry!

See...no lie...we really thumbs up! hahaha...

We get our seat at the open area and went inside the restaurant to get some food. Yummy! This hotel buffet breakfast is good, many variety and all looks delicious. They serve mix of local and western foods. We grab some and went back to our seats. The food looks good, how about the taste... we taste it and...thumbs up! especially for their local foods. Their fried noodle's is good & if u see closer to the photo i attach, the ham they serve is local pork ham. For those that can eat pork, this one is very good! We enjoy our first Bali breakfast, and then we went back to our room to get ready to go for the trip.


(The cruise ship we are going to take!)


(The waiting area before boarding the cruise ship)

Wayan came on time, 8.30am and pick us up, on the journey in the car. We realize most of the shop are still close. We ask and Wayan told us that on this time only some early market are open and most of the shop are only open around 10.00am . Well, Kuta is more famous with night life, not morning... so i think that will be normal. About 30 minute later, due to a bit of traffic jam, we reach! We get out of the car as soon as Wayan park it, haha...feeling excited! Wayan bring us to to a office beside the jetty to get our pre-booked ticket. We paid about USD 35 perperson for this cruise trip, a seafood Barbeque lunch is included. I think the price should be reasonable. i hope so...hahaha. After paying and get our ticket,we are told to wait a the side of the jetty for boarding the cruise boat. hmmm...if this is a boat jetty like Wayan say's, this is kinda nice one, seems more like a yacht club than a boat jetty. See the photo i attach. Well, while waiting for boarding...and with the nice windy enviroment, what is better than a photo session...haha. And we also get to know a new friend over here. A little but veeeeery active little guy. He follow and hang with us for awhile before his mum call him back to her.

(Two excited crazy fella)
(This little guys here is so energetic - non stop hopping around.)
(Two excited silly girl...haha- they gonna kill me for this!


(The design of the cruise looks more like a giant speed boat, cool!)

About 15 minute's later, we are informed we can go on board already! Yipeeeee! So we walk nearer to the ship and actually found out this ship was actually much bigger than we see from far.

(Nearer to boat)

(Inside of the cruise - lower deck)

This is the lower deck where we rest & take our lunch(the photo i attach above). We get our sit in the middle. After settle down with our bag's, we went up to the upper floor. The wind is just nice. And another lucky day i think ---> nice weather! haha~touch wood touch wood.The view from the upper floor is quite nice as the are like about houndreds of yatch over this jetty.

(Going to the upper floor)

(See...its more like a yatch club)
(Photo session on the upper floor)
I love this photo

We hang around on the upper floor for about 10 minute, take some photo, enjoy the wind & view. Then someone, i think is one of the ship crew informed us the ship will be start moving and request us to go down to the lower floor as the captain is going to explain some information of the trip to us. We get back to our seat's and the captain is already there waiting. So he start and let us know some information of this cruise and what we will be doing today. To make it simple, the cruise is actually included the following activities :-

- Return Hotel transfers - Morning & Afternoon tea (Serve once we board the ship)
- Canoeing
-Lunch (seafood Barbeque-serve at the pontoon)
- Snorkeling
- Banana Boat Ride
- Water slide (at the pontoon)
- Glass bottom boat ride (this boat will bring us to the village on a small island)
- Village tour

(The wind is so strong)

After the captain finish his speech, it's free & easy time again. The journey will take around 30 minute before we reach the pontoon. So i ain't gonna waste my time sitting here only, we went back up to the upper deck. The ship is actually moving in quite a fast speed, so the wind is so strong. Imagine a very big size speed boat. We spend our time on the top of the ship. And suddenly we heard the little boy shouting "mom...flying fish! there got flying fish!". So we look at the direction the boy is pointing and saw a group of flying fish (those type of fish that will jump on the surface of the water, the fin's of the fish is very big and make it look's like a pair of wing's-maybe that's how they get their name)!
(Ben~Jesp~Jenny~Kelvin)

Maybe due to a too heavy breakfast and focusing too much at those flying fish (i stare at it for more than 5 minute-what a mistake), i felt something rush up from my stomach going up to my throat. I rush down to the toilet and vomit, sea sick --->so an advise to all my friend, before u go to any sea trip better don't eat too much and if u are worried. U should take some sea sick pill's one hour before u go on board. I went back to the top and let them know, i am feeling so sick so i need to go down to have a rest. I ask them to enjoy themselves. i get back to my seat and l try to get a nap. So mood killing......zzz.
Sigh.....so mood killing...zzzz....


Soon, i feel the ship is slowing down and wake up to have a look. Oh...we are here. i saw a big yellow play ground. My mind is so excited...but my body is still feeling sick. The ship goes nearer and park it beside the pontoon. We are then inform to get on board to the pontoon. And the captain told me i will be feeling better after i get on the pontoon as it will be more stable on the pontoon. Well, it is. i did feel better after boarding the pontoon. This pontoon has many facilities build inside. Look at the photo below.

(They call this Pontoon)

The water slide goes straight into the sea!

Then some crew come and inform us that we can choose the activities we want to start 1st. Its either go to the village tour then only come back for water activities or the opposite way. So we choose the water activities 1st. We are told to get ready with our swim wear and the will be a small boat come to fecth us in about 10 minute's time. Ok...atlast we are going into the water. I start to feel better. We change and the boat came. About 16 of us will be in this boat, we are brought into a spot in the middle of the sea, here we notice something very interesting. The place our boat stop there is a very small floating wooden platform enough for 20 person to stand on it. The boat park beside and we go on platform and we will be snorkelling here. Its really in the middle of the sea. It's far enough until we dont see anything around us but just sea and sky! And about the interesting is we actually notice the water here in the place we stop is very calm but the water at about 300 meter from us is totally different! We can see the wave is very strong! It's like there are suddenly a spot in the middle of the sea that is so different. So we dont want to waste time and start our snorkeling. The water is clear and we saw lot's of beautiful fishes. The water is actually quite deep as i dont really see the bottom. Its a very enjoying time! The bad thing is...no photo as we have to leave our camera at the pontoon. But i'm sure those that went snorkeling before will know how much we enjoyed!


The 3 profesional local singer's!

About 1 hour later...times up. We need to go back to the pontoon already for lunch. Sigh...so fast?i'm still half sick and jumping into the water makes me feel so much better and u wanna bring me back already. What to do...so we head back and once reach, we smell something. Seafood Barbeque! We went to have a look saw the crew preparing our lunch. We get our self clean and dry. I'm still half sick so i get my privilege, i went back to the ship and just need to sit there wait for my lunch come to me. Jesp brought back my lunch to me! hahaha...being sick ain't so bad at all. When we are having our lunch, we heard someone singing so we look back. So nice, got 3 local singer singing. They goes from one table to another and u can request them to sing 1 song for u. Don't worry, its free...and the best thing is, they can sing in almost all language! We ask for an English song. The family sitting behind us(from Brazil) try to make fun of them and ask them to sing a Brazil song. They 3 look at each other...then start singing the Brazil song! The family was stunned with eyes open and claps begin to follow from all the table! Gambateh(Japanese)! Really PROFESSIONAL!

(In the glass bottom boat)

(Try to see...so many fish under the sea.)

1 hour for resting and lunch. I took a 15 mintue nap and when i wake up. Yes! I finally really get well already! Feeling energetic agan and timing is just nice! We are ask to go for the village tour now. We will be going with a boat the call glass bottom boat!So we are guided to board the boat. It's a small boat. Only 4 of us on it! Its a minte ride and we try out the underwater view from bottom of the boat. The bottom is build with many glass so that we can see the bottom of the see. We saw many fishes out there, this is 1 good experience! See the photo above.
Me and jes stay in the longer and i heard Kelvin shouting at me "Woi, we reach already!". Haha...so we went up and saw the small island we are going for the village tour. We get closerand we switch into a small boat to go on the island

(Getting nearer to the island)

(The small boat that bring us to the island)

The boat driver say someone will be expecting us on the island. And yes, after we go on shore, we are greeted by a local island tour guide. We ask what we are going to see and do on this island. He told us he will bring us to a sea weed farm, a small little market and visit a famous underground house. hmmm...i wonder what's that. A small pick-up truck came and pick us up, we sit at the behind off we go. The 1st stop is at the market, its really a super small market with only not more than 10 stall doing business. We did not buy anything . And then the tour guide ask us to follow him, he say the sea weed farm is just near by and we will reach by walking.
We walk and reach, we are actually standing on a cliff. About 200 meter from sea, down there we saw a sea weed farm! And i thought it's just going to be boring but NO! The view is just amazing! Its a very beautiful sight, from above we saw the sea was blue in colour and we can see a part of the sea looks like padi field(square blocks in the water). And many sampan lying on the sea...very beautiful....

Photo of the sea weed's farm from the cliff.

Closer look at those sea weed's

Then we are brought to a stall nearby selling those sea weed products. We saw some worker's at the side of the stall, they are drying up the sea weed's. We go closer to have a look of the sea weed's. Cute! It look's transparent and actually got 2 colour, 1 type is green and 1 is brown. We touch it and it feel's soft like jelly! They explain that they will dry it up and after dried it can be use to make many product's. Normally will be export out to other country's. And the stall owner offer us to try out some fresh made sea weed jelly. She brought out some from the a small fridge and we try it. The tastes is quite good, soft and sweet. She say it's easy to make it, just boil it in a hot water until the sea weed melt, mix some sugar slurp and put inside the fridge until it become jelly cake. Ok...enough for the sea weed jelly cake. The tour guide say's he will bring us to visit the under ground house.

The entrance of the under ground house!

Capture this photo from inside the house.

This is the exit where we come out from the house!

We travel for 10 minute's with the truck and we reach. We get down and follow the tour guide. On the way in we saw alot of well(like those in the photo i attach above), we thought it's just normal well but maybe already dried up long time ago and look's abit small. But then the tour guide stop in front of 1 of those well and tell us we are here! And this is the entrance. Huh? i thought this guy must be kidding.Under us is the hosue and this small rock hole is the entrance? haha...interesting, so he guide us into the house. Inside it's actually abit dark and very cooling ( maybe because we under the ground). No need to install air-cond...hahaha. Look at one photo i attach, the rain will pour straight inside and they will water water supply for daily use. Briliant. The tour guide say the house was actually build by a family during a war long long time ago. And this house saved the family from being discover.

Ladies carrying thing's on the head.

The village tour end's and we will be heading back to the pontoon and go back by the ship. On the way back i saw this lady carying thing's. It need alot of time to master this skill...haha.

Entrance of the our hotel swimming pool!
Looks grand right!

We reach back to hotel and get some rest. Clean ourself and will be going down the pool! Not enough of water activities from the sea, we wanna continue it with the pool...hahaha. So we gather up and go to the pool.

(The shack in the pool's.)
Pool's side
This is going to be a fun time! The shack, 1 big pool, 1 man made beach pool and the spa pool!Very enjoy with this outdoor spa pool, it has around 10 type's of design to massage your whole body! I also take this chance to try out my water proof camera! haha...it work's but it's harder to take photo under the water!

Fun time!
Photo under the water!

After spending bout 2 hour's in the pool. We are really very tired. We we got back to our room's and need to get a good rest. It was about 6.00pm. So we plan to go out for dinner at 8.00pm. That will be enough time to rest and maybe take a short nap.

Tired But Satisfied!

We sit at the 2nd floor.
Nasi Campur Special...Yummy!

This restaurant is all time full of customer.

8.00pm, we are ready to go for our dinner. We will be going to one of the restaurant Wayan recomend to us. This is a good restaurant for local food. Middle range for the price but with good service and delicous food! This is also a place that we go everytime we are in Bali. We order some food. I stick back to the Nasi Campur, Jes choose the Nasi Campur Special(more side dish). I forget what Kelvin & Jenny order but i remeber we also order 1 dish--->Honeydew Curry Chicken! Sound's interesting right? The tastes is even better!

Enjoying ourself at the beach pool are
(Jenny fall asleep over there)

After dinner we walk around the street. Then we grab some ice and a bottle of Sprite on the way going back. There are many convenience shop around this area. Normally i will go to K-mart, something like 7-11 in Malaysia. The reason why we grab those thing before back is because we bought a bottle of Vodka at the airport duty free shop. It's only 9 something and we plan to go back to the pool side.
Cheer's !!!

We remember they have some nice place to hang out at the beach pool area. When we reach the pool entrance...oh my...it's closed! With the thing's we bought, we thought for awhile, me and Kelvin look at each other. "don't care la". We sneak in quitely...we dont see anyone around. So we move faster to the beach pool side. Haha...feel like thieve's. So we get to our comfortable seat's and had a few drink's. Chit chat and have a good laugh of what we have done earlier of the day. They keep laughing at me about the sea sick! That's what u call friend...
Time's pass by fast. Jenny fall asleep when we are still chit chating. Maybe too tired. Haha...we had enough for today so we decided to go back and sleep. Tomorrow will be a totally different exciting day, we will be going up to a mountain to have lunch, visit some temple's and visit Ubud's area.







12 comments:

  1. Bali,I never been there before, seems like a really nice place for vacation, can really relax there, thanks for the photo and experience sharing.

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  2. Thank's for visiting my blog Paco, i denifitely will say Bali is a very nice place for vacation! Trust me, u wont regret spending your time there! Can't say the best but definitely one of the best!

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  3. Hmm... i also wan to go there after reading ur post... How much is Hard Rock's room rate pls?

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  4. Hello there,

    Nice blog you have. just wanna inquire what cruise you chose and where were you able to pre book your tickets for the cruise as well and with that price.

    Thanks

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  5. Erine...i don't really know how much is the room's rate because we took the Airasia travel package.It's much cheaper.Each of us pay about rm1,100 for this 4D3N trip(hotel+flight).But as i know this hotel rate is about USD160 per night.But it's quite a good hotel...

    i know u are going to Krabi soon...remember sahre with us your happy moment when u come back ok!

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  6. Hi Abet,

    Thank's for visiting.Actually we are suppose to book for the Quicksilver cruise@Usd50 perperson.But then our tour guide recomend us to this cruise-The name is Bounty cruise.We took it because it's much cheaper...hahaha.Our tour guide pre-book it for us on the day we arrive.
    Frankly saying, i think the QuickSilver cruise will be more exciting as the have the Mega Pontoon, heard that it's the biggest in Bali.U can check it out at their website at www.quicksiver-bali.com.

    But i also heard that those cruise already increase their price and starting April 2009, all hotel rate will be increasing also.

    Pls let me know if u need the tour guide contact to check on anything.

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  7. wah! bali so nice... can tell me more abt it?
    the toilet door big enough to fit u in?
    the door got move itself at nite?
    tell us all pls ben ben....

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  8. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  9. Dear Ben,

    Thanks for replying, I'm still waiting for your other blogs to come. By the way could you email me the contact or email of your guide so that we could also pre-book thanks a lot!!

    Enjoy Bali

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  10. To DenandJim,

    The cruise we took is Bounty Cruise. This is their website http://www.balibountycruises.com .
    I think their price's already increase as many thing's in Bali are going to cost more especially their hotel rate. As i know, all hotel's will increse their price start on April 2009.

    The cruise serve seafood BBQ buffet but they have some chicken dishes, vegetable and etc also.So i think the lunch wont be a problem's. Hope this provide u some information u needed.

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  11. Dear Abet,

    This is the tour guide email- wayankiong@yahoo.com .U can ask him to arrange anything for u if u find the pricing he offer u is acceptable.I'm not sure about the current latest pricing.But just try let him know u are my friend, i will drop him an email and try ask him to give u the best price he can as i recomend some friend's to him before.

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  12. Erine,

    What u wrote?why delete it, got some secret wanna share with me?hahaha...share with me your Krabi experience when u come back ok, as i'm comparing Krabi & Koh Samui.Maybe wanna get a short relaxing trip,if my wallet allowed me to do so...hahaha.

    ReplyDelete