Sunday 2nd July,
First up, did the nice sister in law thing and wished my brother in law happy birthday back on the gold coast, but my sister and family are all heading over to bali in late September, so im doing the test run, and getting all the brochures etc for them.
This was our 2nd day trip. We went with Teddy the driver (long haired not the teddy usually mentioned on the forum here) up to Kintamani. Now teddy was a really nice guy, loved to chat, got along well with my boyfriend, and was full of information and helpful. He does speak English. However on our trips everything was spoken in Indonesian, because I'm fluent as well. So I guess it makes it a lot easier on the guides he he he ..
On the way up to Kintamani, because we didn't see the Barong dance (have seen enough Indonesian dances to last a lifetime.. other than the Kecak dance) and didn't stop at the carving places etc.. had no intention of buying anything... we decided to visit the Bali Zoo. Now this is one of my pet peeves of tourist places in Indonesia. To get in, he said it would cost about 200 thousand Rupiah for both of us. I really dislike how they charge local and foreign tourist different prices. For me it would be 10 USD and for my boyfriend it would be Rp 40,000. Well like hell Im going to pay 10 USD to see a zoo in Indonesia. I don't care what anyway says.
So I said, sorry im not paying that, and was about to leave, the guy said...ok if u can show me local ID I'll let you in for 80,000 the both of you. So I went back to the car, got my permanent residence card and got in for the cheaper price. I can tell you now, that that place isn't worth 10 USD to visit. I can pay 50,000 to visit the safari park here, outside of Jakarta drive through it with my car, and feed the animals n have a much better day. Its just like the Borobudur Temple in Jogja as well they charge USD for international tourists.
This is often debated at my office in Jakarta by other expats. We think its really unfair. I think it happened at Tanah Lot as well, I think it was 10,000 for tourists and 7000 for local tourists, the guy was about to hand my boyfriend a different ticket for him and me, but then once the locket guy heard me talking something in Indonesian, he took it back and gave my boyfriend two local entry tickets..
Anyway back to the trip, our driver did warn us about the hawkers up at Kintamani, they only bothered us a little bit. When ever they tried to sell us something, we would always say in Bahasa no thanks, not interested or the like, and I would usually get back... oopps u can speak Indonesian so well, then they would leave me alone probably cuz they realize they cant rip me off.. I don't know maybe cuz I was walking usually hand in hand with my boyfriend, no one ever really bothered me. Even at Tanah Lot or Tirta Empul etc, they never even bothered offering to have a look at their shops.
Anyway the day up there was really enjoyable, and we invited Teddy to have lunch with us, which he did I cant remember which resturant we went to, but for all 3 of us it cost under 200thousand including drinks, it was a buffet at 50,000 per person and really yummy. Teddy was telling us about the other village down near the lake .. I think it was trunyan people, who don't bury their dead, but they leave their bodies under the trees, apparently the bodies don't smell and then at the end they collect their bones once all the 'meat' is gone.. ( I think ive heard about this place on national geographic)
Apparently the guides used to take visitors there, but that village doesn't take too kindly to outsiders, so now not many guides will take visitors there. You can reach the village in 30mins by boat. When we went down into the crater area, there was a guy who did ask if we wanted to go over there, but we said not interested thanks. But secretly I would have loved too.
So back down the mountains from Kintamani, we visited the monkey forrest at UBUD, which I must say was really busy, then back down to the hotel. We had arranged with Teddy to hire a car for the last two days of our trip (my boyfriend has a local drivers permit of course), to do our own touring . We hired a Avanza which was still brand new, with only about 15000km's on the clock and 2005 model for 180,000 per day including insurance.
That night after the car was brought to the hotel, we at dinner at Warung Nyoman, which is on Jln Pratama at Nusa Dua. This is not the same place as Nyoman's Beer Garden. We ordered one Nasi Campur and one Wiener Scnitzel with drinks and it only cost us about 170,000 . Its up towards Tanjung Benoa, about 100m past Santorini.. on the right hand side. You can sit undercover or out in the garden with fountains.