I have to say that I still prefer Nasi Lemak. Nasi Lemak is more tasteful whereas the Balinese b’fast that we had was more plain. The only flavouring was their chili sambal, very very spicy and I love it! Serious, I have fallen in love with their flavoursome chili sambal and ever since then, I tried to look for chili sambal for every restaurant that I went.

After the b’fast, we checked out Blue Lagoon Hotel and headed to Sanur. Sanur is an appealing, more peaceful alternative to Kuta-Legian-Seminyak, and not as manufactured as Nusa Dua. The calmer ambience was the reason for us to move to Sanur. Besides, it is only about 40 mins drive to Ubud which we had planned to explore.

We had no idea at all where to stay but only relied on the guide book that we had with the recommendation on the hotels ranged from inexpensive to moderate to expensive. Based on our instinct, we picked this Pondok Prima from the inexpensive range of hotels. We didn’t know how good or how bad it was, as there wasn’t even a single picture in the book but only with brief descriptions of the pondok (note that Pondok means cottage).

Well, this is a very good experience as a backpacker that we didn’t plan much in advance and we didn’t know where we gonna stay but everything was done on the spot. Quite cool though ^_^.

We reached the destination in about 1 hour drive. Pondok Prima was well-off the main road and we found that most of the hotels/homestay that were located distantly from the main road or beach usually cost a lot cheaper regardless how well maintained the hotel/homestay was. We were quite satisfied with the room and the environment there for its cleanliness with the price of Rp 245k per night (MYR 91 which was within our budget and most importantly it was clean and with the security guard at the gate). There’s a pool with a restaurant next to it around a tropical garden. I kinda like it as it was very quiet and pieceful.

Take a look at its website at http://www.primacottage.com/home.asp if you are looking for budget hotel in Sanur.

After checking in, we headed to Ubud. We decided not to take the meter taxi to Ubud as after discussion with the taxi driver who drove us from Seminyak to Sanur, we concluded that by paying Rp 250k for the journey from Sanur-Ubud-Sanur for 6 hours (inclusive waiting time) is cheaper than running the meter plus extra charges for waiting time. (Note that 1 hour drive with meter running costs about Rp 100k)

Maybe I should start with a short introduction of Ubud. The inland village of Ubud and its surrounding area form Bali’s cultural heartland, home to a huge proliferation of temples, museums and art galleries, where Balinese dance shows are staged nightly and a wealth of arts and crafts studios provide the most absording shopping on the island. It’s also surrounded by a stunning physical environment – a lush landscape watered by hundreds of streams (including Bali’s longest waterway, the Ayung River), with terraced paddy vistas at every turn.

The route to Ubud took us through a string of craft villages where we can watch craftspeople at work. The driver tried to stop at the craft villages (mostly were the silver craft shops) so we could shop and watch the crafts work but we weren’t interested so we skipped all the craft shops along the road except the kites shop. Coz we were planning to fly a ship.

Impressive huh? Those kites really looked cool…

Anyway, after evaluating our fly kite skill, we decided to fly an owl.

Lunch time! Traditional local food again, Babi Guling aka Balinese Suckling Pig, Bali most famous dish.

Babi Guling is a whole baby pig prepared over an open, corn husk fire. It is flavored with chopped spices that include shallots, garlic, ginger, turmeric, galangal, pepper coriander, candlenuts, chilies, lemon grass and lots of whole cassava leaves.The pig is then slowly grilled and the meat is then cut into small pieces for serving.

End of the day 2 in Bali. We were ready to wake up at 1 a.m. in the next morning to accomplish our mission to conquer Mount batur.