Day 2 - Water sports, Uluwatu temple

We woke up to a bright and sunny day (good day for sightseeing!), had American breakfast and called a few travel agencies to arrange for an afternoon tour but alas, all of them were fully booked for the day... =( On the 6th phone call, we finally found a tour guide who’s available at 2pm. Phew! Tour information: Friendly tour guide, Made (this is his name), will pick us up at our hotel, drive us to Nusa Dua area for water sports activities and temple visit, and return to hotel. Cost: Rp 200k

Hardworking boyfriend at "work" calling up travel agencies

As the tour guide will be here really soon (in 1.5 hour), we checked out Sanur beach quickly and bought chocolate biscuits for lunch. Hahaha…
First stop: Parasailing plus jet ski at Tanjung Benoa beach. Cost: Rp 450k for 2 persons (which is slightly expensive but no choice, cos it’s low tide and this was the only place for water sports)

Parasailing is so exciting and fun!! We were brought to the opposite bank via a speedboat and the operators appeared quickly to assist us to wear the life jacket and safety harness. Instructions on how to land were given to us (see red flag, pull the red color rope; see blue flag, pull the blue color rope) while we stood in front of the parachute and were clipped onto it. The speedboat moved off, we were lifted off the ground gradually (erh, 3 secs perhaps) and were air borne.
The view from above is superb! You can see the villages along the coast, boats in the sea and little human beings on the beach while enjoying the sea breeze… Ah, how I wish I had my camera with me =P Not sure how long we were up in the air though, but I guess it’s only about 5 mins, hahaha…. Landing was pretty ok as there was a group of guys grabbing hold when you are about 3 meters of the ground.

Up next is the jet ski ride with the instructor where we rode out to the other end of the peninsula. I got to take control for a while (pretty cool!) and it's real fun when the two jet ski started to race against each other. (Oops, no photo here, since I don't have a waterproof camera case)

Second stop: Uluwatu Temple (Pura Uluwatu) is one of Bali's nine key directional temples and is perched on a steep cliff 70 metres above the roaring Indian ocean waves. Entrance fee: Rp 3k and you need to be properly dressed to enter; sarongs are available at the entrance.
The temple is inhabited by large number of monkeys who are extremely adept at snatching visitors' belonging, including bags, cameras and eyeglasses. You must keep a very close grip on all your belongings and stow away your glasses!! AG's glasses was snatched by a monkey who sneaked up behind him; it happily bit off the bridges while we watched helplessly from far...
A vendor came by (almost immediately) to throw food at the monkey to induce it to exchange the glasses for food. The monkey naturally went for the food, dropped the glasses and we managed to retrieve them. Gotta "tip" 20k to the vendor for the food. Ah, we concluded that these vendors must have "trained" the monkeys to snatch glasses for food lor... Hahaha... Anyway, AG was just one of the many "victims" that day and he was lucky that he wasn't scratched by the monkey, cos we saw an Indian uncle with red scratches on his face and his glasses gone cos the monkey dropped it down the cliff.

Man trying to lure the monkey to drop his glasses after it took a biscuit from him
Monkey holding onto the robe to beg for more food

Kecak Dance, a Balinese traditional dance performance, is performed daily after sunset on the eastern side of Uluwatu Temple. This is a very simple performance - the men's chorus (consists of about fifty men wearing only a loin-cloth with the upper part of their bodies left bare) chants the words Cak ke-cak ke-cak ke-cak ke-cak ke-cak, in rhythm, over and over again while the story from the Ramayana epic is enacted. Ticket fee : Rp 70k. Check out the short clip below. (Note: You may wish to lower the sound volume on your computer before you click on the video)

Nothing much happening for the evening... Alighted at Discovery Shopping Mall (instead of return to hotel) for dinner at A&W, did some light shopping and stock up of snacks and beers, took Blue Bird taxi back to home. The End.