SATE
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The Haven
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We were greeted promptly at the airport exit by crews from Baliway and swiftly brought to our assigned driver, Pak Wirata, and hopped on to our first lunch in Bali. Woohoo!
The sate stall with no name. Well, well, well, that itself earns 1UP on an interesting experience. Unlike many sate/satay we have back home, this one is marinated through and through in a robust mix of rempah WITHOUT accompanied (peanut) gravy! The meat was so evenly tender and every parts (almost) of a chicken are used. Eg., you might get, on random, an innard amidst the meat skewer. Not for the faint hearted. Ketupat is called Nasi Lipat in Bahasa Indonesia. We ordered ours with Nasi Lipat. The set is served with a dollop of local salt - which I've later learnt to dislike for its extreme saltiness to the point of being almost artificial - a piece of its fragrant mini bellpepper-like fresh green chilli, cubes of Nasi Lipat and sate. A super spicy hot, tender and savoury local lunch! Two bottles of Sosro. I couldn't, and refused, to finish my bottle. It has the usual tanning taste of tea MINUS any trace of tea fragrance and it tastes like synthetic sweetener overload!
It might not be so easy to locate this stall for tourist. In fact, I couldn't find it on Google Map when I searched for "Gelora Trisakti" as this was the signage I saw there. The stall occupied the parking lot of Gelora Trisakti, under the secondary tree foliage in that compound. There is an old, sacred, enormous tree in the same lot. This is a welcoming first meal arranged by Baliway's Jace and Victor. Thanks, loverlies!
Next, check-in for a quick freshen up before Uluwatu. We had to postponed the time to ex-Seminyak because the silly hotel made us waited for our room from 1300HRS to 1455HRS. We have some drinks in the lobby's café, sat at the people-watching area, and soon to regret that choice. If I ever going to suffer a heat-stroke, I think it will feels just like that, on the brink. Because of Bali's buildings laying out so close to each other on an almost similar height, front and back, the air is at its most still. Plus the extreme heat from a hot sunny day, I am gradually losing my vision and panting like my sweet ol'Dogue de Bordeaux, Binbiné-chan.
Finally, I can no longer stand the heat and waiting, I told Kenneth to go TELL, not ask, the receptionist to pass me the room key, I will clean the room myself, no problem - if what the receptionist said was true, room cleaning before handling the key to us. What do ye know, behold, THE KEY! Bleeding donkey, I wonder if it was really a coincidence the room is readied right at the point of my ultimatum. I didn't kick any rude fuss nor vulgarity since all the staves there are really polite and seemed to be doing their best with jobs given. Respect. While walking towards our room, I saw the limited cleaning staves seemingly on task to clean just about all the rooms in that corridor. Also noted are 'em being male chambermaids. So ... Hit the air-conditioned room and fresh shower. All is well. Despite the 12 hours taken to travel, wait, queue and eat from Johor Bahru to finally settle into an accomodation in Bali.
