A first taste of Bali
To me, Bali eludes a mystical aura. There’s something about the graceful people, the enticing sounds of the traditional musical instruments, the deeply interwoven art and ritual of their religious practices and cultural practices that further enhances its flavor. At the same time it’s also the fusion of the modern lifestyle, clubbing and surf activities with traditional crafts like woodcarving and handicrafts that make this island so unique.
The Balinese culture is strongly influenced particularly by Hinduism, overseeing more than 93% of its population being Hindu followers. However I would like to note that Balinese Hindu practices is different from the Indian Hindu followers commonly seen here in Malaysia.
For the purpose of blogging, I will separate our stories into several categories. So here’s how our adventure went...
Traveling in style
This trip was sort of a self-planned trip because we booked our own flights and hotel. Since there's no direct flight fromPenang, we had to fly to KL first, then take another flight to Bali. Our first airline choice was definitely no other than AirAsia (although we did take MAS on the KL-Penang route due to timing issues) as it best suites our budget travelling theme. In the end, our entire cost wasn't as cheap as we would have liked it to be because we went during peak season, but I think it's still worthwhile.
Good morning, Penang!
While in Bali, we chartered a private driver to bring us around. Harby searched the net for a few choices and in the end we chose Putu Sudiana (commonly known as Putu) . Putu is a local Balinese and he has lived on this island all his life. With more than 10 years of track record, he sure lived up to our expectation. Unlike other drivers which would try to bring you to tourist-designated destinations only, Putu is flexible enough to bring us around base on our own preferences. He even entertained our many requests which sees us eating at places that tour-booked tourists may never go. Although there are many similarities between Bahasa Malaysia (BM) and Bahasa Indonesia, Putu's ability to speak English did help in times when we couldn't understand phrases of their national language that is not within BM's vocabulary. Putu is a professional, punctual, accomodating and honest driver. If you would like to go Bali one day, I would suggest you to engage Putu's services. He can be reached at sudiana_goazonk@yahoo.com, +62 81 856 2867 or http://balidriver4u.com/.
Harby and Putu, with his Toyota Kijang
On our flight back to Malaysia, Harby took the window seat. Therefore I didn't take any photos of the view out of the window and of course the fact that I was dead tired as well. Well, no matter how exhausted, there's always some time to spare for camwhoring!
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