Indonesia, Bali (Bedugul)

I've been to Bali twice, but this was the first time I went to Bedugul. What I like about Bedugul is its cool climate since it is located on the central highlands of Bali.

We started off early to go to the Kebun Raya Eka Karya (Bali Botanical Garden). We had a nice stroll in the garden although the flowers there were not as pretty as those found in Melbourne. There were actually more vast, open spaces than plants in the park.

There was also an adventure park within the garden but we didn't go for it. A number of families were seen having a nice picnic near the park, but that's about it.

I went to Candi Kuning market after that. It was around 11 am but the market was quite quiet. It came to me as a surprise because markets were usually the busiest and the most chaotic place you would want to go to. Later on, I learnt that there was an election going on where people had to poll for the right governor to represent their district. Well, this explained why there were not many locals at the market at that time.

There were quite a number of stalls selling all sorts of crackers. I could name a few; there's tapioca, spinach, soybeans and potato crackers in the photo. 

After walking around, we ended up eating in this stall located at the market. I thought eating where the locals ate would be a great experience. Furthermore, I wanted to eat satay! Satay is one of my favourite food and it is basically small chunks of meat barbecued on a skewer.

This was the satay which I had ordered. I found that the satay in Indonesia was a bit different from Singapore because it was served not only with peanut sauce, but with black soya sauce as well. And this was rabbit meat, something which I had not eaten before.

Besides satay, we ordered fried noodles, which turned out to be Maggi noodles, and chicken bakso with rice cakes. Overall, the meal here was tasty, and now I know what the local Muslims here eat.

After eating, I visited the most beautiful mosque I had ever been to. It has a Persian blue dome and the dome seemed to be calling us right into its courtyard. We took our time praying in the mosque for awhile. 

This mosque is also perched on a small hill overlooking Lake Bratan, so the view up here is really spectacular. 

I could spend hours after hours standing here, looking at the lake while feeling the soft wind on my face. I felt refreshed after having some icy cold water splashed on my face earlier on. And being in the house of worship also brought along the feeling of calmness and tranquility in me. All these made me felt very fortunate to be in this world.

This was the entrance of Pura Ulun Danu Bratan, the well- known temple on the southern shore of Lake Bratan. Most of the iconic images of Bali are of this temple so seeing it first hand was really exciting.

The temple had a very nice garden, with many trees of different shapes along the pathways.

This was one of the temples in the compound and here's Pura Ulun Danu.

Not as nice as those postcard photos, but I've been here. Yeay!! On this note, I'll end my post here. Ciao!