EAT , PRAY, LOVE in Bali – Part 4 (Halal Food in Bali)

This is definitely the most frequent question that we encountered when we told our family and friends that we are going to Bali soon “Is there any Halal Food there?”. To answer it, YES! It is! InsyaAllah, there’s always HALAL food around for a foodies like us. Go Google and you’ll find the answer. In this post,  we are going to share a list of Halal Food that we managed to try while we were in the land of Bali.

With a majority of Hinduism followed by a slightly minority of Muslim and Christian. Fret not, even of the small population of Muslim, you can actually get a delicious Halal Food within the island.

Rumah Makan Padang ACC Minang

This is definitely our 1st restaurant when we touched down in Bali as it is located in Jl. Raya Tuban. For easy reference, it is exactly in front of the Arjuna Monument (roundabout). It’s just a breath away from the Ngurah Rai International Airport. Price wise? Affordable but slightly expensive than other Nasi Padang restaurant that we’ve tried in Bali.

Rumah Makan Minang Sumbar Hidup

We tried this restaurant while we’re on our way back from Tegalalang heading to Ubud Town. Our supir Agung proposed that we shall have our lunch at one of the Halal buffet restaurant in Kintamani. We declined and skip that as we read a lots of review saying that it doesn’t worth the money paying such an amount when all the food are tasteless. So, here we are! Delicious and it’s super cheap! FF’s even asked twice as he couldn’t believe the amount on the bill. 

Rumah Makan Wong Solo – Ayam Bakar Wong Solo

Talking about Rumah Makan Wong Solo, they have a few outlet here in Malaysia but to be frank, the food are way better in the land of origin. My personal choice is definitely ‘Ayam Penyet’ and FF’s couldn’t resist on ‘Ayam Lombok’. The chicken and the spicy sambal compliment each other that forced us to come back for the 2nd times. We had our dinner here for 2 consecutive days! The restaurant is located at Jl. Raya Kuta Tuban, No. 87, Kuta. You’ll see a lots of Malaysian here too. It’s like a mandatory Halal restaurant for the Supir to bring over their guest here.

Nasi Pedas Ibu Andika

It’s basically a 24 hours restaurant. We’re here on our last day to get our lunch meal. You’ve to queue and choose whichever dishes that you like. The signature is definitely the home-made spicy sambal. It is located near at Jl. Raya Kuta (in front of Supernova / Joger).

Indoroland Martabak & Terang Bulan

We managed to try this as proposed by Agung. ‘Martabak’ is exactly ‘Murtabak’ way back home meanwhile ‘Terang Bulan’ is something similar to ‘Apam Balik’. Is just that more options were given compared to only peanuts and cream corn as the filling. Here, you get to choose everything from chocolate, milk, egg, butter, cheese and etc. Amazing huh? I was so skeptical when FF’s decided to get ‘Terang Bulan’ with a cheese filling. My jaw dropped when I saw how much cheese and milk that they sprinkled it on. Not a sweet tooth type person but after getting the first bite, trust us, the taste was amazing. Again, it’s in Jl. Raya Kuta – Tuban 98x and very near to Nasi Pedas Ibu Andika and Rumah Makan Wong Solo.

Our Chocolate Thin Crust ‘Terang Bulan’

Special Cheese Terang Bulan in the making

Martabak

Mc’Donalds

Last but not least, the one and famous fast food Mc’Donalds. We had this for dinner on our 1st night since we don’t have any idea where on earth to get Halal Food within the hotel. So, we end up ourself at the outlet ordering the only meal that we won’t be getting it here in Malaysia which is ‘Panas Special’.

So, this is it! Of course, your holiday wouldn’t be complete without good food around. Go and try it if you are happened to be in Bali.

With this post, it’s a wrapped to our Bali trip. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Simply us,
Zara AB & FF
The Province of Chroma

EAT , PRAY, LOVE in Bali – Part 3 (The 10 Hours Motorbike Ride)

Today is definitely the day where we spent most of our time on the motorbike that we have rent from this beautiful lady, Itha. She’s basically running a motorbike rental business together with her dad in the land of Bali at a very ‘ridiculous’ price. Reason why I put it as ridiculous? She only charged us IDR35K which cost us average of RM10 only! This come with a complete set of fold umbrella, raincoat, helmet and a ‘sarong’ just in case that we need to wear it at certain temples. A total complete package for us with a very low cost as it can be. We managed to secure the booking while we’re still in Malaysia as we got to know her via Twitter. Since then, we exchanged number and the rest is all history.

Early in the morning, we checked our brand new motorbike and settled the rental agreement with her. The plan of the day came out after we spark our conversation with her,

Itha : Kamu mau ke mana aja? Udah ada aturcaranya ya?

Us : Ngak ada. Lagi pusing, ngak tahu mau ke mana.

Itha : Aku lagi bawa tamu dari Jakarta, Putri. Mau liburan ke pantai. Langsung aja ya? Kamu tunggu aku di sini aja. Aku ambil tamu dulu.

Us : That’s great!

Itha and Putri basically told us where they are heading too and we basically followed them without any argument at all. We very much depend on them. CLUELESS, that the most suitable adjective that really defined us at that point of time.

After passing through the morning traffic in the island of Bali, we then reached Garuda Wishnu Kechana (GWK) Cultural Park. The main attraction here is basically the statue Wisnu and Garuda beside of other supporting facilities such as Lotus Pond, Festival Park, the Amphitheater and etc. As for us, we got attracted with the limestone pillars surrounded around the open space area of Lotus Pond. It was really a nice set! While walking from one end to another end, we imagined how great it would be if it could hold an event which such an open air concept. We didn’t spend much time here and we even missed the daily show of Balinese dance.

After a long ride passing a few villages, uphill and downhill, we were then welcomed by this beautiful view of Pandawa Beach from the cliff. The view from the top was mesmerized! Couldn’t express further. Not to forget the white sandy beach. This is definitely what we’re looking for in the land of Bali.

The quiet road to the beach

FF and the view from top

After getting ourself the sea breeze doze, we hit the road again. When we saw the Pecatu Village signboard, we knew that we’re closing to one of the most popular temple in Bali, Uluwatu. As mentioned by local, it is officially known as Pura Luhur Uluwatu. How does Uluwatu got his name? It was derived from the word ‘Ulu’ which mean land end and ‘Watu’ as rocks. The temple is located on the edge of a steep cliff that makes it so picturesque. This is where you can experience a live show of Kecak Dance performance everyday with a beautiful sunset as a background.

The view are best enjoyed from two different portion which is the northern and southern

As we’re still within Pecatu Village or South Kuta sub-district, we definitely not gonna miss the rest of the secluded beach that they have over there. Itha then brought us to one of the best spot for surfers in Bali where it offered a world-class thrilling waves. One thing that you should know that getting to the beach is slightly tough. We are welcomed with steep staircases with a path to the crevices all the way down to the cliff. While walking down, we turned back just to remind ourself that we need to climb the staircases up later again. We could feel more sweat coming out from our body. We hope that we’ve made the right decision.

As we approached the area, we were then speechless. We have been greeted with a fascinating scenery of white rock cliffs that stretch along the open sea and not to forget the turquoise blue waters. Plus a beautiful character of waves. Definitely a perfect setting and challenge for a surfing adventure. It was a right decision going down as we could appreciate this beautiful creation by our creator Allah S.W.T. In overall, the beach is blessed with a breathtaking view and a peaceful atmosphere.

The crevices – the access to the beach

With just 10 minutes of motorbike ride, we then reached at Padang Padang Beach. Another secluded beach which located close to the Uluwatu Temple. It’s a small and beautiful beach covered with huge rocks and small caves around. We decided not to go down to the beach as you need to descend about 100 meter down. Besides being the best ‘hidden treasure’ within the area, Padang Padang Beach is also a best surf spot in Bali. To prove it, this is where the annual event of Rip Curl was held every year. It is not only famous as a surf spot but this is also the filming location of ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ starring Julia Robert. Since then, it became famous and the number of visitors continuously growing.

The only best shot that we had

We then decided to get our last chance to get tan here in Dreamland Beach. This beach is located within the Pecatu Graha Development. We were so surprised to see such a big development  on our way to the beach and we just got to know that it was basically a failed development planned by Tommy Suharto, the youngest son of the former Indonesia President, Suharto. What a waste. From our point of view, we could see more local compared to the foreigner. We spent a few hours here where FF just roaming around and I took the chance to chit chat with Itha and Putri. And guess what, we ended up talking about travelling as Itha and Putri is basically a solo female travelers. I guess, we couldn’t get away with the same topic each time.

In overall, Dreamland Beach is a beautiful beach but it was not well maintained. Garbage and litters were spotted along the beach. But still , the huge waves, the white sands, the beautiful cliff, the scorching hot sun but windy is things that it could offered.

Masjid Agung Palapa at Pecatu Graha Development.

Enough of the beach and the sun. It’s time for us to return to our nest. Itha told us that we will used the newly open 12.7km expressway of Bali Mandara Toll which has been constructed over the sea of Nusa Dua – Ngurah Rai – Tanjong Benoa. The expressway connect the city of Denpasar, South Kuta and Ngurah Rai Airport. This will resolved the traffic congestion on the Ngurah Rai By Pass Road.

Since we already in Denpasar, Itha told us that it’s a mandatory to visit the place which is the ‘Monumen Perjuangan Rakyat Bali’. It’s also known as ‘Bajra Sandhi’. Our bad that we totally didn’t know what does it mean. Go figure!

And something did happened right after this. We’ve been separated from Itha and Putri. We couldn’t track them out while we’re on the road. Everything look similar as we’re using the ‘shortcut’ to the place for our dinner. Itha promised us that she will treat us with the famous and delicious fried rice in town. It’s just not our ‘rezeki’. We called them up and no ringing tones. We roamed around asking our way to Kuta but unfortunately everyone were giving us totally a different direction. We decided to follow the local road signages. Everything with ‘KUTA’ word on it but it doesn’t work out as well. Last resort, we stopped at one of the mobile shop and asked for the cheapest sim card that we could buy. We just need the mobile data in order for us to use the Waze apps. Guess what? That IDR 7,500 (RM2.10) sim card save it all!

We managed to reach Kuta safe and sound. We managed to text Itha using the local number and she was so worried that she couldn’t contact me with my Malaysia number. Itha was being so nice where she even called the hotel and waited at the lobby just to make sure that we’re safe. Thanks Itha! You’re the best!

Sometimes, it’s good to get lost of yourself in the new city as travel is all about exploration. Even though getting lost will need a little bit of your time and effort, but the experience is priceless! Some even say that greatest travel stories come from getting lost, or losing yourself in a new place.

After all the trouble, we called it a day!

We will continue our journey on Part 4 soon.

Simply us,
Zara AB & FF
The Province of Chroma

EAT , PRAY, LOVE in Bali – Part 2 (Go Nature)

Today is definitely the day where we will explore the other side of Bali with our dedicated tour guide, Agung. As mentioned earlier, we only booked him for a day. He even surprised on our requisition but we did this for some reasons.  The night before, we went through the list given by the tour guide and made some changes as per their original plan. We woke up early in the morning where we really looking forward to start the journey today. Adrenaline rush! It’s gonna be a long day today.

Our pick up came somewhere around 8.30am and to start our adventure, we stop over at one of the Bali Batik Factory on our way to Batu Bulan Village. As this is not something new to us, we just browsed through the place and we ended up in the MPV after 15 minutes there. It was a really quick tour for us.

Our next destination was one of the tour highlight where we then headed to one of the famous art village in Bali, Batu Bulan to watch the earliest live performance of Bali Barong and Keris dance. Eventhough it’s still early, the place was full house in less than 15 minutes. This place is often the starting point for many Bali Tours Package to middle or even east part of Bali where it is strategically located. Traffic was quite busy heading to the village as this is the same routes to Kintamani and Ubud. Tourists who are heading to Ubud and Kintamani will make a stop to this village to watch the art performances and sculpture specially created by local artists.

The dance theatre. We were given a leaflet on the plot of the Barong and Keris dance. If you were wondering, what is ‘Barong’ is all about, ‘Barong’ dance is actually another story telling dance narrating the fight between the good and evil spirit. The main character would be ‘Barong’ which represent the good spirit and ‘Rangda’ represent the evil one. It cost us IDR 100K per person for the ticket fees.

The musician

The tour of the day continues to the mountain village of Kintamani. Our mission is to see the panoramic view of Mount Batur and Lake Batur (the biggest lake in the island). Jumping out from the vehicle, we could feel the refreshing cool weather there. We were told that Mount Batur is still an active volcano till today and eruption happened several times. The biggest eruption was way back in 1926 which destroyed the whole Batur Village. You can observed that there are a lots of restaurant which was built overlooking the Mount Batur and Lake Batur and most of it is offering a buffet package. We have to skip that as we read a lots of review saying that it doesn’t worth the money paying such amount when all the food are tasteless.

We then went straight to the Wedang Sari Agrowisata to see how does ‘POOP Coffee’ were made. Luwak Coffee is one of the most expensive coffee bean in the world even it when through the most bizarre process ever. We were told that the asian palm civet (musang) will only eat the best coffee berries and right after they poop, it will be collected, clean and process. Eventhough FF is a coffee lover, it’s a big NO for him as he don’t even dare to try this.

The coffee berries The ‘CLEAN’ and ‘DRIED’ Luwak coffee bean Roasted coffee beam At the end of the tour, we were given a chance to sample their coffee and tea that the plantation had produced from chocolate coffee, vanilla coffee, Bali coffee, lemon tea, Roselle tea and etc. except Luwak Coffee as we made an earlier declined on that.

With a 15 to 20 minutes drive passing through the village, we then reached our next destination on list which is Tegalllalang Rice Terraces. It is extremely amazing since it was specially built on the cliff bank with a view of a beautiful valley. We were so impressed on the drainage and irrigation system that has been implemented by them too. Agung asked whether we wanted to explore the valley but in one condition as we need to do a little bit of trekking downhill (approximately 400 meter down). We think twice before we decided to do so. Challenge accepted!

The view from the bottom of the valley. We could see a clear stream as well.

We finally reached our last destination of the day which is Tanah Lot Temple to experience their most spectacular sunset ever in Bali. Tanah Lot is located at the village of Beraban, on the coast of West Bali. We reached just in time. One thing that we knew is that we overslept all along the way. Super tiring! Tanah Lot is one of the most popular tourist spot and a cultural icon for photography. Not to forget its unique rock formation too!

The view

The Holy Snake area

Chasing the sunset

And here come the sunset

We will continue our journey on Part 3 soon.

Simply us,
Zara AB & FF
The Province of Chroma

EAT, PRAY, LOVE in Bali – Part 1 (The First Sunset)

Reminiscing the plot of EAT, PRAY, LOVE (EPL) film starring Julia Robert made us getting ourselves a return ticket to Bali. Yes! We had always promised ourselves that one day we should bring our travel feet all the way to this beautiful island even that our aim was not to meet the healer, Ketut Liyer and the local Traditional Balinese Medicine Shop owned by Wayan. We finally made it. Alhamdulillah.

Bali is actually an island and it was the smallest province in Indonesia. But hey, it might be small in size where you can actually drive to the entire coast in one day, but the destination is quite far from one another. It is located in between Java and Lombok with a majority of Hinduism followed by a slightly minority of Muslim and Christian. Fret not, even of the small population of Muslim, you can actually get a delicious Halal Food within the island.

Honestly, we’ve not did enough studies nor reading for this trip. It was just a short trip for both of us but we always believe that we could fit ourself to the island for the next 4 days. Just 2 days before departed, we actually secured a local tour guide to bring and drive us around to the outskirts area (to save our time) for a day! We only paid IDR 350k and it turned out to be quite cheap plus with a return airport transfer which cost us only IDR 100K. This is way cheaper than using the taxi.

Our local guide, Agung. A very devoted Muslim who travel all the way from Surabaya to start his living here in Bali.

The new Ngurah Rai International Airport

One of Kuta mainstreet

Being the first timer here, we definitely opt for a stay in Kuta as this is the major tourist spot in the island. After a quick browse considering the price, location and guest reviews, we finally ended up with Jocs Boutique Hotel & Spa by paying approximately RM60 per night. Personally, it was a good selection since it was located within a walking distance to Kuta Beach and other major attraction around.

Just to kill the time, we then decided to chase for sunset at Kuta Beach in the late afternoon. By walking down the street, our very 1st impression of Kuta is that it’s totally congested, crowded and even chaotic at time. We could observed touts and spammers around but we are definitely not their target as they thought that we’re local, just like them. To be frank, the whole environment of Kuta Beach lies in front of our eyes was something that we don’t even expected. The 5km stretch which was noted as the best beach front in Bali could be even better and cleaner. To save it all, Kuta Beach then reveal her best sunset of the day.

We then walked along the Kuta beach front till FF’s suggested that we shall stop for a cup of drinks. We then saw a big mall that caught our attention which is Kuta Beachwalk. The architectural was amazing. It came to our surprise to know that it was formerly a hotel and it has been converted to a new a shopping mall with its own concept.

While walking up and down the upscale mall, we were then invited to start our journey to the world of Indonesia cloth tradition. It all started when we spotted some special tunnel with some light effect which caught our eyes. It open its door everyday as early as 10.00am till late evening of 7.30pm. It was believe to be owned by a cloth maker / fashion designer, Josephine Obin Komara. You’ll be immersed in the world of beautiful fabric and traditional local batik. Rare pieces can be seen on display too! As this is the latest addition to the mall, you might one to pop out if you were around just for a dose of art and culture.

We wrapped up the day at the nearest Mc’Donalds outlet for our dinner. We got ourself non other than the only set which are not available in Malaysia Mc’Donalds which is ‘Panas Special’ consist of a white rice, a piece of fried chicken and scramble egg together with a glass of carbonated drink.

We will continue our journey on Part 2 soon.

Simply us,
Zara AB & FF
The Province of Chroma