Bali Trip 2014: Day 5 - Eden Hotel Kuta, Turtle Island (Nusa Dua), Padang-padang Beach, Uluwatu Temple, Fat Chow Restaurant, Hard Rock Cafe

2nd last day in Bali. From Yulia Beach Inn we then moved to a slightly more expensive hotel to spend our last night in Bali lol. Eden Hotel is a relatively new hotel in Kuta which is nearby the Discovery Shopping Mall. Not a great place if you want a place close to the beach but certainly away from all the noisy partying district.


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Night view

We were welcomed with cordial drinks. Quite a surprise for a hotel this stature. We had to wait for awhile as we had arrived earlier to check in but ultimately they let us in early to our rooms to leave our luggage. After adding an extra bed the room was quite cramped haha. Nevertheless there's still ample space to put our luggages and walk around a bit. 

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Welcome cordial drinks

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View outside the room

Eden Hotel in Kuta

Our first stop of the day was the famous place for water sports at Nusa Dua beach. With the new highway it was really fast to travel from Kuta as it bypasses all the kampung roads. We were naive that we could do some swimming here but it is all occupied with water-sports operators and there's jet skis and boats everywhere, totally not safe for swimming haha. Since the sun was freaking hot and nobody was in the mood for water sports we opted for a trip to Turtle Island and coral viewing with a clear bottom boat.

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Indonesia's most beautiful highway

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Boats everywhere

The trip was quite a rip off to be honest. Firstly there are tourist prices and local prices. Tourist prices start with USD and is really expensive whereas local prices are in rupiah and is on the cheaper end. You can bargain for cheaper prices but unfortunately my bargaining wasn't that good and we settled at about RM100 for a whole boat to 3 of ourselves (can be considered cheap if we had more people to share the cost). 

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Unfortunately the glass panel was quite small and filled with scratches. It didn't help when most of the coral reefs were dead so there isn't much fishes to see anyway apart from zebra fishes. The bread that was included in the package did little to attract fishes. Oh well. 

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Dead corals


On Turtle Island it was a part of a turtle hatchery and part showcase zoo where some animals including the turtles are displayed for tourists to play around and take photos with them. Quite a pity. =/


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Young turtles

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Turtles for visitors to lift up and down. Kinda strained my waist while lifting them lol.

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Since we haven't tried the famous babi guling in Bali we then asked our driver to bring us to some restaurant to have a try. The ones we had wasn't the famous ones and is akin to our roast pork here back in Malaysia. 


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Siew Yuk Fan

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After lunch we then headed to a so called secluded beach, which was Padang-padang beach. From the reviews on the internet people say that this is one of the better public beaches in Bali. While I have to agree with that statement, it really is nothing to shout about though. It is very obvious that there are many branches floating on the waters and some rubbish. The toilet that you have to pay per use was not in very good conditions as well. Hence once again we just stayed on the beach and didn't wet ourselves lol. 


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Narrow way down

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Black sand

Last stop of the day was at the famous Uluwatu temple, notorious for its beautiful sunsets and scary monkeys that try to grab every single piece of item away from you. As we arrived at the entrance, a guy in some volunteered to be our guide and helped us to chase away monkeys. It was after awhile that he mentioned that we have to pay him a sum for him to 'protect' us while we waited for the sunset. We declined and paid him 50,000 rupiah for his 'efforts' for accompanying us half way through the journey. 

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The monkeys really grab everything they could see, from sunglasses to spectacles and small kids. Yes. There was a monkey trying to grab a 2-3 year old child away but he was apparently too heavy for it. The parents totally freaked out. My friend's slippers was also grabbed by one of them and we had to buy some fruits from a local to bribe the monkeys to return the shoe. I think they are all well trained to grab stuff and then expecting something back in return. So to be safe just keep everything in your bag and hold it in front. Or better still, just avoid coming to this temple. The sunset at Tanah Lot is just as good and there are no monkeys to worry about. 


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Killer monkeys

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Waiting to hunt

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Since we opted to stay for the sunset, we had to skip to Jimbaran for their seafood dinner while viewing the sunset. My two friends had me convinced that the place was overrated and I heeded their advice lol. In the end we went back to Kuta for our final dinner and some exploring in Bali. 

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