Bali Trip Day 2: Tanah Lot, Garuda Wisnu Kencana, Uluwatu, Pantai Melasti

I started the day by playing in the swimming pool again. After all, that was the main purpose of having a private pool mah. Having eaten anything, my tummy was more flat than the day before but that still does not change the fact that I am fat. Bleah. The hotel somehow did not send the breakfast but lucky I bought some bread to standby from the supermarket the previous day.

We rented a car today since we would be travelling to Tanah Lot, Uluwatu and Nusa Dua Beach. There is no nice way to plan the journey since all three are basically away from one another. If Kuta is considered at the "center", Tanah Lot is at the north west, Uluwatu is at the south west and Nusa Dua is at the south east. Each is around 1 to 2 hours journey from the "center".  We discussed with the driver and it was possible to cover all three within a day since there was hardly traffic jam due to COVID. Under normal condition and usual traffic jam, it would not be possible.

We went to Tanah Lot first since that is the furthest one by distance. Thanks to COVID, I was able take photos without other photobombers. That is something unthinkable under normal circumstances at such an iconic tourist destination. There were very few tourists and I felt quite poor thing with all the souvenir stalls which remained open. My sister felt quite poor thing to the people offering photo service and decided to support one.

We asked the driver for recommendation to eat Babi Guling which is one of the popular food in Bali which I have been very curious about. Unfortunately since I am not a foodie, it did not blow my mind and it is just like any other pork haha.. The driver offered if we would like to visit Garuda Wisnu Kencana (GWK) since it is along the way that we have to pass by when we go towards Uluwatu. My sister and I are not the arty-farty type so we never considered going there. We took up the suggestion since it did not cause any detour to our journey. Anyway, GWK is one of the most recent tourist destination in Bali so it would be nice to take some photos without other tourists while we had the opportunity.

We had to pass by Udayana University which reminded me of NUS but in a much grander scale in terms of the hilliness of the terrain as well as the size. Unlike in NUS, it is not practical to walk from one faculty to the next one. Since it is not in the city, each faculty has its own plot of land: with its own gate, signage and security just to enter. The distance from the entrance to the building is also not near. Anyway I find it interesting since I never experience university life in Indonesia.

It was really a hot day and I did not really enjoy the GWK trip. Luckily we were in a free and easy travel and we decided to pay for the coach to bring us from the ticket lockets to the statue. Otherwise, it was a torture to walk and climb to the statue on such a hot day. The statue is indeed gargantuan, so gargantuan that it was impossible to take a nice picture when you are physically there. The human will look so tiny in the picture if you want to capture the whole statue. Otherwise, we are too small to take photo of the statue to look like those google images taken with a drone. While I am not a cultured person to appreciate statues, I have to admit that the size and details are really majestic and is not a marketing hype. It is possible to pay and go up to the top of the statue to appreciate sky view of Bali but we did not do that.

Not only the statue is already gigantic, it is mounted on top of  a building

Since GWK is a culture park, there are still other attractions which are part of the journey on the way to exit the park. There is a festival park which had several ogoh-ogoh on display when we were there. There are plazas housing statues of Garuda and Wisnu, separately. There is an amphitheatre which holds some performance. There is a museum where people can don on traditional Balinese wear and take photos as if they time travelled to various Indonesian traditional houses. While I find the museum to have its charm, its position is quite bad. Visitors will already feel so hot, tired and sweaty by the time they reach the museum. I do not think many will still have the mood to get changed and take photos anymore.

Plaza Wisnu

Next we went to Uluwatu which I thought was very stressful trip. There are wild monkeys there so instead of enjoyment, I felt more stress since the monkeys could even snatch spectacles. With that, I did not even want to risk my phone to take photos. The good thing was that we could rent a guide who would help to look out and chase away the monkeys as well as bringing us around so that we did not have to fiddle with maps to find where to go. I still prefer Tanah Lot, which also looks nicer to take photos. The view in Uluwatu can only be appreciated with eyes when we are there but difficult to capture its beauty in photos since it is a cliffy area. But seriously, the monkeys are the main deal breakers.

With that, we were already too tired and decided to cancel the plan to Nusa Dua. The guide was very nice and offer us an alternative: Pantai Melasti, which would not really cause a detour for our journey back to Kuta. It is considered one of the newer developed beach and hence is still more popular for the locals than for tourists. It is also a popular spot for prewedding photos. The beach is surrounded by cliffs so it gives a different view from the stretch of Jimbaran - Kuta - Seminyak beaches.

We went to Kuta Beach Walk for dinner at Johnny Rockets. We basically just needed a place to sit down to discuss the plan for the next day. Yeah, thanks to my sister's planning, she had not decided on  whether we should just book another car or we should inform our current driver that we wanted to continue with him. Either way, we also had to decide the actual plan in Ubud. We did not go to Kuta Beach since it was already almost sunset and we heard that there were more peddlers there than lets say Seminyak Beach which we visited the day before. Although I was already very tired, I still played in the pool in the evening just to maximise our stay with a private pool. Hehe.. After all, I could not do that on the following morning since I did not want to carry wet swimming trunks.

And that was my modest and kind of pathetic birthday. I thought I could have a nice fancy meal in Bali but who would knew that many places were not open because of lack of tourist. My back up plan was to have a relaxing meal in the hotel restaurant but this current resort is just not giving that vibe. Ultimately, my whole birthday mood was ruined by my dropped phone. I suppose my birthday gift was the opportunity to take photos at popular tourist places without strangers on the background, which definitely is a once-in-a-lifetime.