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Ngurah Rai Airport
Ngurah Rai airport near Denpasar
(from www.viewbali.com) |
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Statue of Krishna and Arjuna Metapa
(from www.viewbali.com) |
Another quite start, but today my daughter Simone is arriving from Australia to spend a couple of weeks in Bali. This will be her fourth trip - she came here with school groups when she was studying Indonesian which she is now studying at Sydney University. I headed of with Dewa, a local driver, to the Ngurah Rai airport near the capital Denpasar about 1.5 hours away. Ngurah Rai is the airport where the
Lion Air plane landed in the water before reaching the runway earlier this year. Denpasar is much more built up than I remember, but the roads are definitely better. The fantastic statue of
Krishna and Arjuna Metapa in the centre of a roundabout is still impressive but almost impossible to photograph because of the dense traffic.
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| Transport, Balinese style |
The road from Ubud to Denpasar is pretty good, although narrow and heavily trafficked, but that does mean that you see more of the local colour than on a fast multi-lane highway.
After a slight mix-up at the airport over flight numbers, we picked up Simone and headed back to Ubud.
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| I'll just take a photo |
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Garuda (eagle) statue
in the Bintang supermarket |
Simone wanted to pick up some incidentals and exchange money so we headed off via the local path to the Bintang Shopping centre. She hadn't been to this part of Ubud before and was impressed by the scenery and outlook.
Penestanan is higher than Ubud and so there are more expansive views, and a breeze even when the the air in the town is quite still.
That night we decided to dine at Bar Luna again - the happy hour Margaritas were the deciding factor. because I was so impressed by the Prawns with Noodles dish, I decided to order it again. What a mistake! It was as if someone else has cooked the meal. The flavours didn't match, the bean sprouts were bitter and it was really oily - completely disappointing. Simone on the other had ordered mini burgers with lemongrass beef which were absolutely delicious. Can't win 'em all.
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| Cool Tone |
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| The frogs are plentiful AND noisy |
Later we headed to Moko's to hear Cool Tone again who were playing there that night. It was a really convivial evening with a great atmosphere, but we were all a bit tired, so didn't stay to hear the full set and headed back to Penestanan. Carefully dodging the large frogs as we walked back to our bungalow.
