One good thing of living in a big country is that COVID does not stop domestic travelling. In fact, it much better to travel during this period due to the lack of tourists and everything is on mega sale. Too bad I was not in the my usual mindset and was not keen on travelling when I was home. My younger sister had been itching on travelling and tempted herself looking at those influencers on Instagram. I told her from the start, I would only travel if she paid for me, not by budget airlines, and preferably during Good Friday week which happened to be my birthday week too. So thick skin of me but it was a good call.
She kept on nagging and I remained firm with my stand. In the end, she relented. The reason why it was a good call for me to insist on not paying was that how annoying my sister is with travel planning. She is so lazy to do research and planning (hello.. I am also working okay!) yet expect things to be good and cheap. Anyway since she decided to deal at the very last minute, the initial resort that tempted us (Amarterra) was already not available. So we had to find alternatives. I did my best to give suggestions and she was annoying with hers. She just threw me names and many were private-owned holiday villas, rather than those villa-type rooms in hotels or resorts.
Because I did not mind just enjoying luxurious resorts, the whole trip was free and easy for me. Both words could not be more literal haha.. I hope my sister learnt a hard lesson of trivialising any trip planning. I told her that according to my friend who just went to Bali, the places were quite far from one another. She still chose to plan nothing so everything was only decided on the day before. She did not even plan for the transport so it was for her to settle as well.
We went to Decathlon to get swimming gears. I have 2 swimming trunks in Singapore which I did not bring since I did not expect to go for any holiday. That was another reason why I was not to keen on going to Bali since I had to buy swimming gears again. Those thigh length ones are too expensive since it would be just for this one trip and I already have one in Singapore. The only reasonably priced one was the Speedo brief type which I personally dislike since it is just like wearing underwear. Thank goodness we specifically looked at resorts with private pools so as not to embarrass ourselves with our fat bodies.
Since I had not had booster vaccine, I had to produce pre-departure COVID test and I was pleasantly surprised that there was a test using saliva. Wow.. it was definitely an easier and less annoying procedure.
Day 1
The departure flight booking came with a free lounge entry. The lounge was kinda pathetic since the only edible food were Indomie and porridge. Because it was an early flight, the fried snacks looked cold and were left overnight. Eew... I was tempted to drink the jamu but decided not to risk if my stomach acted up.
I am impressed with Ngurah Rai airport and I think it is even better than Soekarno Hatta Terminal 3 which is considerably new. The design is unlike usual airports whereby everything is in one building and the airport 'ends' at the taxi stand or the carpark. After collecting the luggage and exited the terminal building, the shopping and eating areas are in several buildings outside. Only after passing those then we are at the taxi stand and the carpark. For me, it feels very touristy as the shopping and eating areas feel like in shopping malls and not in an airport anymore.
Well done to my sister who assumed the airport arrangement would be similar to other airport. The taxi stands were not obvious and we were swarmed with people offering transport. It felt iffy as we could not tell who were real or who were scammed. We walked until the carpark (for what?) and in the end returned to the Grab booth.
We stayed at Rama Beach Resort and Villa Kuta for two days. I selected this because it has rooms with private swimming pools, is located not to far from the airport (15-20 mins by taxi), and is within walking distance from beach and shopping malls. The online photos of the resorts are definitely misleading. While the resort itself is okay for me, it actually seems rather run down. Old and traditional style is okay for me but the actual rooms and environment are not as bright as the online photos. The resort area is big but during my stay, there were very few people staying. Because of that, we got to check in upon arrival.
Since we did not have any plans, we just enjoyed messing around with the private pool. The pool was not deep and my head could remain above water while standing up. I really forgot how to swim and it was like playing with water. Too bad we got the outdoor pool area which was narrow and long, rather than broad like those in the online photos. The narrow and long layout made it impossible to take photos on the sunlounger with the pool also in the frame. Sigh.. Anyway, I am damn fucking disgusting fat in the photos. That is why I hate like swimming having to look at my own flab.
Being used to the size of Japanese hotels, I had no complaint with the room size. The toilet is even bigger than the room. Haha.. There are several cubicles for the shower room, toilet bowl and the bathtub. The beauty area (sink and mirror) in the middle is also huge. Unfortunately the weighing machine did not work so I was not able to objectively check how fat I was.
The adrenaline of playing in private pool made us not feeling hungry yet so we went for a late lunch. We booked Grab to have lunch at Souphoria. My sister selected the place based on her influencers' recommendation. Anyway I was not so picky about food as long as there was no bones so anything was alright for me. The journey was eye opener on how COVID brutally battered tourism industry. There was no traffic jam at all, even at the popular tourist places (Kuta, Legian, Seminyak). Suprisingly, the restaurant was still crowded even though it was past lunch time. It was not as bad as having to queue outside but we still had to wait for available table. Either the place is super popular or there were not many choices since many businesses did not open because of COVID.
After lunch, we went to Seminyak since it was on our way back to the hotel too. We dropped off at Seminyak Square which was open but had hardly any visitors. It was so quiet that I felt too paiseh to even check out any of the stores since the shopkeepers would definitely attend to us but most likely we were only window shopping. We walked to Seminyak Flea Market and it was pretty much the same: the stalls were open but only very few tourists. The stall owners even thought we were international tourists since they were getting our attention by speaking English as we passed by.
From there, we continued on foot to Seminyak Beach. Wow wow wow! I can understand why this is a popular beach. The sandy areas are so wide and that is not including the beach front which is washed by the waves. It was shocking to see the whole areas empty and to compare that with google photos when the beach is usually super packed with people. Perhaps it was my first time seeing "rolling waves" and I understand why it is a popular surfing location too. Unfortunately my photos were not that great because the sun was already rather low in the late afternoon. There were only few peddlers offering coconut or sunloungers so we were not really bothered by them when we walked further towards the beach front.
The last stop before ending the day was Lippo Mall which was somewhere 'behind' our hotel. It was another shocking experience since in the whole mall, only the cinema, supermarket, few stores and the eateries facing the main road were open. Even the shop specialised only selling souvenir in the mall was not open! Anyway our main purpose was to get bottled waters and bread for my dinner so all was good with the supermarket open. I regretted buying beach-themed shirt because I saw more colourful ones at lower prices than what I bought in Jakarta. Sigh...
We walked back to the hotel which took us around 10-15 minutes. We also checked out German Beach which is only 5 minutes walk from the hotel. The intention was to see the sunset but that did not happen. This beach seems to be more for the local with many fishing boats floating and food stalls for the locals. Definitely not a tourist place. Disappointing because one of the reason I chose the hotel was the expectation that this beach is something similar to Kuta, Seminyak, etc. Well the good news was that there was no need to wake up early to see sunrise on the following day since the beach is not that pretty.
Although I was quite tired, I decided to still play in the pool in the evening. After all, we still had to take turns for the bathroom so I let my sister to bathe first while I played in the pool. At the end of the day, I was tired but not the knocked out kind. Going free and easy while travelling is really relaxing and therapeutic. Usually I would be overthink about plan, where to go, what to where, photos etc. I also did not have to carry bag with passport, camera etc like when I go overseas. Hmm.. or perhaps I was just too excited since the following day was my birthday.
Gosh.. I realise that I do have any photos to accompany this post. So yeah, definitely free and easy, not in my usual touristy travelling style.
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