My second time in Bali -- this time purely for leisure. I didn't have anything planned at all, aside from visiting a friend I've made on the previous trip to have some fun with temporary tattoos and visit the medicine man, Ketut Liyer from Elizabeth Gilbert's book Eat Pray Love. I'm banking on the rest of the trip to be spontaneous and we did.
On our last night we met 2 locals on Kuta Beach, decided to hop on their motorcycles with them and they brought us to have dinner and had a long night drive along the new highway, streets of Kuta, Seminyak and around for hours! Somewhere along the night, one of them taught me how to drive the motorcycle and it turns out I was pretty good at it..!
In the words of Barney Stinson, our third and last night of the trip was truly Legend- wait for it--
[1100] We arrived at the beach and did para sailing and visited the Turtle Island. It would be on the last day of my trip that I realise there is another Turtle Island, the latter of which is related to turtle conservation.
The trip to Turtle Island was 10 minutes. I saw and held the biggest turtle I ever laid hands on in my life, held and took photos with a pelican, a bat (which my goodness, when had its wings spanned, is the length from my neck to knee!), a snake (they kind of taped its mouth) and an eagle. A part of me made a mental note never to return again. The idea of these animals being manhandled by human all day long seems a little wrong.
[1430] We are back on the road again..destination: Tanah Lot. The ride was 1.5 hours. It looked cloudy, diminishing the chance of us witnessing a great sunset.
[1630] 'Can you take picture?' I turned to the voice and saw it belonged to young boy. I nodded and reached my hands out for his camera which never came. He then gestured to me and him and then I realised he wanted a photo with me! Bewildered, I agreed. His 4 other friends then took turns and ran over next to me for separate photos. By the third boy I was demanding 50,000 rupiah from him. He just shook his head and posed to the camera his friend was holding.
'Must be your shades.' My friend ventured and I agree.
[1830] We killed time sitting near a ledge overlooking the waves beneath us. Finally it was time for the Kecak Dance, a Balinese dance music drama. I gave it the nickname "Balinese A Capella". I saw one last year at Ulu Watu Temple. It was a bigger affair than this one at Tanah Lot. It is worth noting here at Tanah Lot, you don't have to worry about ferocious monkeys than if you visit Ulu Watu. I saw with my own eyes a monkey attempting to snatch the slippers off the feet of a man in front of me in mid-step!
