Bali Trip Day 5

I could not really concentrate in the morning since all I thought about was getting a swab first which would determine whether I could fly back. Although I was feeling alright, I could not help to worry if I had the virus and only happened to be asymptomatic. We had breakfast at the hotel restaurant before we left Ubud. As usual, I ordered set containing food which I do not encounter normally: turmeric herb juice and bubur injin. I never heard bubur injin before and it seems more like a dessert based on the description (black rice pudding with coconut milk and dice jack fruits). Yep, I was right. It was like a hot dessert to me, not a breakfast. I had sugar overdose since the set still came with a dessert which was caramelised banana crepe.

I left it to the driver to decide the best place for me to get the swab and that was the first we did when we reached Kuta region. I found it very amusing seeing how widely available and cheap COVID swab test has become: any random person in any random building or even tent could just set up a COVID test center.

After the swab, we went souvenir shopping at Krisna. I only started to get into the shopping mood after I received the notification that my COVID test was negative. This Krisna shop really blew my mind away. I have never been to any tourist souvenir shop more impressive than this. Not only the size is huge, the range of items includes every souvenir ideas that people can think about. Most importantly, this is not a typical souvenir shop intended to scalp tourists. This shop is intended for tourists to really buy loads of souvenirs and the prices are normal.

The first floor has mostly food. Not only the food choices are crazy (from peanuts, dried fruit chips, various traditional chips/crackers, dodol, chocolates, cookies, etc), the range of flavours include those not commonly found in supermarkets. For example, there are fruit chips made of papaya and mango as well as peanut flavours such cheese, barbeque and even seafood. I only bought those I never tried before. At the end, I think all the dried fruit chips taster similar regardless of what fruit they come from. However, papaya chips still stink like the fruit. There is also section for souvenir apparels on the first floor. However, they are more branded and expensive than the apparels at the higher floors.

The non-edible souvenirs are on the higher floors. There are clothes, jewellery, handicrafts, as well as the typical souvenirs you can think of: keychains, soaps, scented candles, etc. The range of clothes are amazing. My advice when planning a trip to Bali is not to think about clothes and just come to Krisna. There are beach wears, casual wears and even sleep wears. They are also not priced as typical souvenirs and are even cheaper than the two beach shirts I bought in Jakarta.

We went to Hog Wild for lunch since pork ribs is another Balinese specialty. Normally I would not eat ribs because I was too lazy with the bones but I let my sister chose since this trip was paid by her lol. I would usually get the steak but I ordered grilled chicken instead because I did not feel like eating too full. The weather was hot and the restaurant was stingy with the aircon. To minimise COVID risk, I chose the section where there was nobody dining and the restaurant did not switch on the aircon for that section. Even the toilet was cooler than where we had our lunch.

After lunch, we still had some time before our flight but we had no idea how to kill time anymore. Since my sister had no idea from her influencers and the driver had no cafe recommendations, I suggested to go to any shopping mall. We went to Mal Bali Galeria which has a huge open area in the middle of the mall. I suggested to sit at a cafe and that cafe was also hot. Basically I could not cool myself down and was annoyed throughout. I ended up buying two berms at Uniqlo because they were on sale. Hahaha.. So ironic to buy berms at the end of the trip. I regretted going to this mall instead of going to the airport directly because it was much more cooling inside the airport. Hahaha... I would not mind waiting there longer and forgoing the berms.

That wraps up the trip. I think Bali is a fantastic place to visit. I count myself really lucky to be able to experience Bali minus the crowd. Under normal circumstances, I do not think I would enjoy Bali with the crowd, traffic jam and the expensive hotel rates. My regret is that I could only do this one trip. If only I stay in Indonesia throughout COVID, I would have been there more than once.