We've booked a half day trip to see a cultural park nearish to our hotel. This was to satisfy me more than the others in our group as I wanted to feel like we actually got to see some of the culture in Bali, and not just spend the entire holiday hanging out in our hotel and at the beach.
The driver we've booked is arriving at 10.30am, so we have time to have a leisurely breakfast and not worry about how to get to the sightseeing spot.
The hot food items from breakfast are always a must for me, you get a good insight into the local foods when you can try a bit of everything this way. I'm totally cool about eating all sorts for breakfast and I usually wake up starving.
Arriving at the carpark of Garuda Wisnu Kencana cultural park, everything is striking against the sharp blue sky. We see plenty of statues and huge figures as we approach the park. Entrance tickets comes with a free beverage once inside the main part of the park, which takes around 10 minutes to walk up to from the car park. It's hot and thirsty work on a hot day.
This is the main attraction, a huge statue of the God Vishnu riding his trusted Garuda. It's meant to be one of the world's biggest statues and is made of copper and brass. We could see this at a far distance from the rooftop pool at our hotel and this is what made me pick this place to visit.
These two together are the cutest! Isaac is always happy to see
his friend K, so they had a real blast throughout this holiday.
Another stunning and striking statue.
Food trucks right out the end loop of the park.
We've had about 1.5 hours here and are ready for lunch with the kids. We asked our driver to take us to somewhere he'd recommend but it turns out locals will only eat at small local warungs which won't be ideal for our party of 8 including 3 kids. He picks this duck restaurant for us as it's still a restaurant that locals go to and we're happy enough to walk into an air-con space after being out in the heat.
Spring rolls and duck two ways, fried and a sautéed one with a mild curry flavour. Both are nice but nowhere near as amazing as the one we ate the
night before.
Satays are good too but after this meal, all of us are truly done with satay and duck. It's only day 2 and we feel overdosed. The lamb on the top left was surprisingly tasty, grilled with a Western style mushroom sauce and a few potato wedges.
We head back to the hotel after lunch, my boys are having a nap and I scoot up to the hotel spa for a relaxing 1 hour massage that only cost £13! It felt so good to have nothing to do but to just enjoy a calming massage and knowing it won't break the bank. I am definitely coming back again.
Pretty sky in the early evening as we get ready to head out for dinner. Isaac is unwakeable from his nap, jet lag has truly kicked in. Once he eventually gets woken up fully, we head to the Belmond Hotel for a fancy seafood dinner on the beach. Our friend is getting married here in a few days so we can't wait to see what the hotel looks like. It's a 5 minute walk from our hotel, so convenient!
The hotel is lush and our dinner setting on the beach couldn't be more perfect.
Starters of amuse bouche and truffle mushroom soup.
Baby lobster and seafood sharing platter. The seafood is delicious and fresh, a much welcomed changed to satay and duck....!
Pork belly was lusciously fatty and the meat just fell away. We also had a side of salad, a bread basket and chips, which was more than enough for 4 adults and 2 kiddies as half of us still felt full from lunch.
The desserts were a show shopper and tasted just as good. Jackfruit ice cream in the yellow sat on top of a bed of purple glutinous rice pudding with brown palm sugar, and the green pandan ice cream sat on top of two pandan pancakes filled with shredded coconut, palm sugar and sesame seeds. Both were incredible and I wished I could have come back to eat the desserts again! So far, the Balinese desserts have blown me away and I can't get enough of it. So so good.
The food was delicious and the setting was romantic and just so comfortable to enjoy a meal in. We can't wait to see what's in store for our friends wedding going by what we've experienced tonight. Another happy day in Bali.
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