Bali Escapade Part 10

We found Ibu Oka warung relatively easily with the GPS. Walked in and sat down. Ordered 2 special set and a soup. After reading about the babi guling, i cannot wait to try it. When our set came, it looked good! The bbq-ed pig skin looks damn good.

The pork was tender and the skin was crispy. Mix it all up, it was good. But.... it is not something I will go back for every time I am in Bali as some claim they do. Maybe because of the high level of expectations that have been created, the pig skin did not live up to it. But the tenderness of the pork is really unbelievable.

After the babi guling, we were contemplating what to do next. After some deliberation we decided to go to the waterfall then to Elephant cave then back to Ubud town for some crispy duck that people on tripadvisor was raving about.

I really wonder if tour agencies will go out of business soon like CDs. Sembawang music and Tower records is gone in Singapore because they did not keep up with the internet age and stuck with CDs. Will tour agencies become obsolete one day? We now have online travel agents like Zuji (which I booked my air ticket from). Budget airlines offering their tickets online and hotel booking websites like Agoda and Asiarooms. 

One can plan their travel based on tripadvisors' recommendation and ratings. Use Google maps to plan public transport routes and use GPS if you are driving. Seriously what can a travel agent do that you cannot as an individual. Yes some tours are way cheap but its subsidised by distributors that will pay the agencies if they brought tourist to their place. These tours usually last very long and a lot of time is wasted on cheesy presentations and expensive stuff.

I went to Guangzhou with a friend once and we took the bus everywhere we went, thanks to Google maps! And bus fares in Guangzhou is like 2 yuan for any distance. BEST! Went to Baiyun motorcycle city that we found online and Google maps directed us on the right bus and got us there. 

Sometimes I wonder if I will be obsolete soon, but then again in my business, as long as people are still running away when you tell them 'I am a financial adviser', my job is still safe. It just shows how many people still do not fully understand what we do and how we benefit them.

Decided that we should go to the water fall first as it was furthest away then slowly make our way back up to the elephant cave and end at Ubud town for crispy duck!

The sight at the waterfall was awesome, the road ended on top of the cliff overlooking the waterfall. We sat in the shade for awhile admiring the view, had a nice cold drink, while some kids haggled their wares.

My wife wanted to buy 2 fans for the kids and asked how much. $50,000 rupiah! Wah! the shopkeeper that sold us the dink exclaimed. The boy covered his mouth with a fan and put his finger on his lip telling the auntie at the shop to be silent. Alamak! Fail la boy, must be confident leh! But he is still a boy. Many studies in body language have shown that even as an adult many gesture we make are a reflection of what we are feeling.

For example, the boy put a finger to his mouth in reaction to a big lie. (the difference in cost price and price he selling, we eventually found out how much it cost) As adults, when we try to lie we make very small gestures like touching the corners of our mouth. This is a shadow of what we will do as kids. Will contemplate a blog post on body language in future but for now, we managed to get the price down for the fans to $20k rupiah for 2.

We asked the lady shopkeeper if we could go down to the waterfall, yes and she pointed to a flight of stairs. Wah! I exclaimed this time, I think my body language was really obvious to the lady that I don't want to go. She said 100 over steps only. Up and down is 200 over steps lor. But here already, just go.

Walking down the steps was scary as it was steep, but walking up... almost died. Went to the elephant cave.

At the entrance, we were asked if we wanted tour guide. Eeerrr, nope. My tour guide the internet, want to read about the cave, click here from Wikipedia or here from About.com.

We left the cave and was going to chart our route back to Ubud town. Noticed my battery is at 29%, looked up at the sky, it looked like it was going to rain, asked my wife if the ziplock bags was in the haversack. No... ok, change of plans we need to go back.