Bali - My 3rd day (9 Nov 2011)

One of the items in my shopping list for this trip is to buy painting and some home decoration. Painting can be found almost everywhere in Bali, be it in Kuta, Legion, Depensar, etc… But the best place to buy them is at Ubud. There is a whole street filled with painting shops in Ubud and even a few galleries where you can view painting and choose one or two to bring home.

Ubud is approximately 30 minutes drive from Kuta and as I had planned to go to Sukawati Market, Denpensar, Jimbaran Bay and Ubud on my 3^rd day, the best option is for us to get a driver to drive us around. As this Bali trip was a last minute decision, all my plans were made in the hotel, and as such I did not email any driver that Tripadvisor recommended.

There were a lot of private drivers along the street, but we have “doubts” about them as there will definitely be bargaining of prices. We were afraid that bargaining will result in unhappiness and having an unhappy driver to drive us around for a full day will certainly be quite torturous.

Fortunately for us, at the Bali Airport, I had taken a pamphlet with an advertisement for private driver and decided to give them a call to book a driver. The rate turned out to be RP$400,000 for 10 hours. In my opinion, It was considered quite reasonable.

After breakfast, I called up the pamphlet tour agency and the coordinator said that the driver will reach at 11am at my hotel lobby. As our 1^st encounter with the spa driver was so punctual, we reached the lobby 5 minutes before 11am.

However, this time round, we waited for 15 minutes and the private driver had not reached yet.  We gave the tour agency another call and she said that the driver will definitely reach by 11.20am. After waiting until 11.40am, there was still no sight of the driver. Again, we called them up and finally the driver reached at 11.45am.

The reason given was that they were caught in the jam. As they will be driving us for another 10 hours in a foreign land, I had no choice but to hold back my anger and smile… I told them my plan for the day which included Sukawati Market, Ubud, Denpasar and Jimbaran Bay. The translator told us that there is a place called Kampung Bali that has local prices and asked if we will be interested to go.

We thought that why not, since it was on the way. When we reached Kampung Bali, I was surprised as it was a 100% tourist place, and quite a small establishment. The moment we stepped off the car, the shop staff pasted a sticker on our tees. I suppose this was for the commission to the driver on the things that we have bought. Kampong Bali sells everything from dresses, jumpsuit and souvenir like what we found in Kuta and Legion Street, but of lesser varieties. Yes, the price was cheaper than what we found in Kuta and Legion, but it could be that I am a bad bargainer. In the end, we bought nothing at Kampong Bali. Sorry driver, no commission for you…

Sukawati is a small area of small stall market place that sells about the same stuffs as Kuta and Legion. I didn’t buy anything there since I had already bought what I wanted at Kuta and Legion. I am not sure if the price is better there, but if you asked me if it is a MUST to go over there, I will say you can give it a miss as the products that you can find at Kuta and Legion are much more updated.

Next stop to Ubud is the best trip of the day. I simply love the arts street though I didn’t have a chance to stop by as I don’t know that I have reached Ubud Arts Street!

The whole street is filled with lovely arts and if you think that Bali is all about resort type of painting, then you are wrong. There is a lot of contemporary painting too and abstract contemporary painting is exactly what I am looking for.

The driver drove us to a Semar Kuning I Gallery, where I managed to take a picture of small kids doing painting. Taking pictures are actually not allowed inside the gallery.

Semar Kuning 1 (Arts Gallery)

It is quite a big gallery in my perspectives and it has all kind of painting. I purchased my first contemporary painting over there at RP300,000. Half price from the initial RP600,000 that was quoted. It is still way cheaper than if I were to purchase it via Ebay or buying it directly in Singapore.  They are able to roll up the painting and hence, it is easy to check it in with your luggage or simply, hand carry it.

Next stop is at Ubud Market. Ubud Market is a very big place with many streets filled with shops and some of the shops are selling trendy stuff too. I love some of the rattan decoration that I found there, but as my house is of modern contemporary design, I had to give it a miss.

Ubud

Ubud

Ubud - Dog outside a shop, photo taken from the car

Ubud - One of the shops

Ubud - Feeding a hungry dog

Added to that, prior to this trip, I had told myself that I am not going to have any impulse buy, so for all the items that I don’t think I am going to wear or use, I will just simply say “No” to them. Well, so in a certain way, yes!  I have succeeded! 

I did purchase another painting at RP350,000, half price again from what is first quoted. The 2^nd buy was definitely a better buy than the first and I seriously think that the seller will not go much lower than RP350,000. However, the second buy also made me feel that my first buy was too expensive, as the first painting was smaller and look more “common” than the second. I stopped my shopping spirit at Ubud after my 2^nd painting as I still have 2 more stops before my itinerary for Day 3 ended. 

Denpasar is a “city” in Bali where the shopping malls are. We stopped over at Ramayana Mall and well, even though internally, it looked quite old and cheap, it is actually Robinson.  You can find good stuffs inside too if you took a slow and good look inside. Man’s shirts were selling at less than SGD$20 and there were also children’s clothing selling at cheap price too. My boyfriend bought 3 shirts at less than SGD$60. After Ramayana Mall, we were dead tired and hence, we proceed to Jimbayan Bay for our dinner.

Jimbayan Bay is a place for people who wanted seafood and it is by the beach. There are lots of bad reviews about the place actually, stating that the restaurants over there were overpriced. However, there seems to be one restaurant that still enjoyed good reviews on Tripadvisor - Lia café. I had specifically noted down the address and showed it to my driver but as I expected, he drove us to the main stretch of seafood restaurant and seemed to have no intention to drive us anywhere else and stopped at the carpark. He said he don’t know where the place was. After reading so many bad reviews about other seafood restaurants in Tripadvisor, we decided that we should only go to Lia café for our dinner and thus, we decided to get off the car and try to find the place ourselves.

Lia café is not at the main stretch of seafood restaurants and is further south. We had to walk 15 to 20 minutes in the dark trying to find it. We were lucky that we were walking in the right direction or else I supposed we would have to go with one of the seafood restaurant that the driver drove us to. I am quite surprised that the driver didn’t know the way and even said that this stretch of restaurants was the only eating place in Jimbaran Bay. Well, Lia Café was located at the other end and there were also other restaurants located there. I have also read a few reviews that drivers do get commission if they drove us to the restaurants they have connection to. However, let’s just give him the benefit of doubts…

Reaching Lia Café, it looked quite run down but you will be dining with your feet in the sand. You can choose to dine out on the beach or indoor in the restaurant. The menu look reasonable with Lobster at RP$30,000 per 100grams for fresh lobster (dead lobster) and RP$45,000 for Live Lobster. We chose fresh lobster since we have eaten that in Phuket and it tasted good too. The lobster weighs 1.1kg and it cost RP$330,000. It was pretty reasonable and once again, I strongly believe that you will definitely not be able to find this price anywhere in Singapore. For people who are not lobster fans, you can also try the fish. We had a red snapper which cost around RP$7,000 per 100grams, I chose a small one of 900grams that cost us RP$63,000. Ironically, it was even cheaper than the raw ones that you can find it in NTUC, a supermarket in Singapore.

Lia Cafe @ Jimbaran Beach

Lia Cafe - Live Lobsters

Lia Cafe - Fish and Prawns

 The lobster came with a fish soup, vegetable salad, stir-fry vegetables, fresh fruits and rice. Both lobster and red snapper were grilled and they tasted really good! The best time to go Lia Café was at 5pm+ to view the sunset. However, I do not have the chance to view it though as it was already too late when we reached Lia Café.

Some photographs of Lia Cafe food:

Lia Cafe - Menu

Lia Cafe - Dining table on the beach with our feets in the sand, facing the beach

Lia Cafe - Our Coke

Lia Cafe - Soup and Salad

Lia Cafe - Red Snapper and Stir-fry Kang Kong

Lia Cafe - Lobster

Lia Cafe - Lobster and Me

Lia Cafe - Enjoying the lobster

If you want to know where Lia café is, the address is Jalan Pemelisan Agung Jimbaran - Beach. And if you are facing the beach, you should walk toward the left, and just go down all the way and you will find a whole lot of restaurants in that area with Lia Café just located inside. Note that there is a service charge of 10%.

Overall, I was very pleased with the service, food and price and the view too.

After dinner, we had to walk back to the carpark where the driver parked his car. He didn’t even bother to ask if we were able to find the restaurant or where is it so that next time he will know where it is.

He just drove us back to our hotel and by the time we reached the hotel, it was already coming to 9pm and we passed him the RP400,000. My advice is still to go for recommendation for honest driver that people provide in their reviews. I regretted that I didn’t do the same.