Sun , Sea and...did someone say MUSHROOM?

Prior to my Bali trip, I was very skeptical of the whole holiday. I was worried that work would mountain up; I was worried that tasks would be left hanging, I was worried about everything in many words. However, the trip did me good. I have returned happier – though I been sick for 2 weeks from cough and phlegm attack – I am now relatively less annoyed, less jaded and less confused.

Arrival at Denpasar International airport, going through the immigration. Drama of the hour, the Kiwi boy needed to buy his visa on arrival and got turned away as he didn't. Gave him instruction to get his visa sorted and of course, he did not listen. We had to wait an additional hour for him to get his mess sorted. He pretty much embarrassed Janet and me when he cut queue to get through the immigration line

We stayed on Legian at Dewa Bharata Bungalow. It's right in between of all the bars and clubs - gets really loud of crowded at night but during the day, it's really calm with loads of shops and restaurant for food and leisure shopping.

My favorite part of the hotel would definitely be the pool. During the night, it was pretty much our private area.

A very happy Josie by the pool

Baby pool and adult pool - Josie was happy in the baby pool. I can't swim but could drown well so let's just stay on the safe zone.

Upon check in, we decided to stroll along Legian. We were particularly looking for a Bikini shop called Blue Glue. Champion friends of ours informed us that the shop is along Legian Street and little did we know, Legian Street stretched into Seminyak - we walked freaking 10 kilometers to reach our destination *tired I tell you. Then, silly us thought that the beach was 'just around the corner. Sigh, walked another 30 minutes to reach Seminyak beach - load of walking I tell you.

Sunset at Seminyak beach - Rest finally... I had my Bintang beer *love

...and these are my traveling companions, Janet and the Kiwi boy

I have to thank the Kiwi boy for sponsoring the trip. Such a sweetheart but little did I know what was I getting myself into - the child needed constants supervision (Peddlers mostly ignored Janet and me but harassed him the whole time) and needed to be fed around the clock. Not kidding, he pretty much ate every hour if he could

Day 2: We headed to Tanah Lot for their sunset scenic view.

As like most places we visited, Janet and myself paid local fare for everything while the Kiwi boy had to pay foreign fare. He's also a liability to us...everyone tried charging us extra for our extra baggage - the Kiwi boy if you were wondering, sigh

Janet and myself at the entrance entering Tanah Lot

Tanah Lot sea front photo with Janet

Group picture! Remind me to push the Pest into the sea if there is a future trip...

Me! In front of Tanah Lot temple - the amount of tourist on site was insane. It was unfortunately peak season and was not easy to capture a scenic photo without strangers in the background...see, told you

Janet and I ber-jiwang-ing

Upon reaching back in town, we had dinner at Jimbaran - Sorry, the photos were blur, didn't bother having them up here. Josie's observation during dinner: for each plane departing, there was freaking 12 planes arriving. How insane was that?

We got Jimmy our driver to drop us at Kuta and had a stroll back into Legian. As usual, the Kiwi boy got harassed along the way with 'taxi, driver, viagra and....mushroom!' ... and Josie decided at that moment, we were going to get mushrooms! (It's a holiday what!).

I think the highlight of the trip (for me that is) is the adrenalin rush when we hop on random motorcycles to be brought to the shroom shop. If you don't know, the motorcycles in Bali are insane. They shoot out from small unseen lanes and motorcyclist SPEED in these little lane - scary yet thrilling the same time. Like everywhere in Bali, we had to bargain for the shrooms - remember, nothing more than 60,000rp! Out 'agent' brought us to a rather dodgy shop to get our shrooms - blend with juice to be taken back to our hotel...Sigh, with the short ride, the motorcyclist tried ripping moolah of us (blame it on the Kiwi boy) and I had to save our asses by throwing 50,000rp to them for 3 of us - I know I overpaid them but hey, these people are scary okay. I don't want them following us back to the hotel harassing us...

Janet and me with our illegal deed. Yes, the Kiwi boy chickened out and claimed that he 'had to take care of us'... Don't recall making him our guardian. Anyway, our shake was err...mushroom flavored. It was a crazy night - too much laugh and tears. Things that I learn from this experience:-

• Shrooms are meant to be taken in the DAY time to see happy 'things'. Saying so, we had no sleep the whole night
• ONE shroom shake is meant to be SHARED between FOUR people - Janet and I had ONE each so yeah, you go figure the state we were in
• Shrooms make people more ALERT - I could hear the club's music street away clearly and if I could, would have run off partying but again, I was too happy for anything else

Sigh, I kinda miss the whole feeling now...wonder if there's some in Malaysia


Day 3: We headed to Sukawati and Ubud. We did major shopping spree and Josie turned grumpy - no sleep and I started feeling sick (laughed too much, the throat was abused)

Visited a temple in between and did some major cam-whoring...

Janet with our driver - Jimmy. If you are looking for a driver, Jimmy is your man.

Upon arriving Ubud, we had bebek (duck) for lunch.

Bebek Bengal

Nasi campur bebek

For dinner, we headed to a local restaurant where you could eat the bones of all the poultry dishes...interesting

As usual, we over ordered but again...we are on a holiday, let's go crazy.

Day 4: We headed to Nusa Dua to chilled out by the beach, Kiwi Boy did Bungy jump and right before heading off to the airport, we went over to Uluwatu for sunset

Pretty right?

Can we sell this photo? Monkey having a go by the sunset...

Yes, we feel you too...the last day was really a denial day for us. Can we not go home?

Sigh, I miss Bali now and wished I had more time to do more things...