NuriWidhi's VirtualTourist Home Page

My name is Nuri Widhi. Im an Indonesian, and im so lucky to be part of these beautiful island ( Just forget the politics and the turmoils for now.. hehe). Unfortunately now im living in Perth, WA for studying. But whenever i have holiday i always look forward to come back and do some travelling across Indonesia archipelago again

I love everything that relates to travelling and culture. My travel preferences are both mountain and sea, but mostly sea. Right now my goals is to travel to eastern Indonesia, Flores, Maluku, Sulawesi and foremost Papua ( Cross my finger!! hehehe..)

This one of my favorites place in Bali. Rest in the foot of hill next to the blue calm water. A very nice place so peace and quiet. Good place for snorkelling or diving, you just have to walk across the street and of you go. Here, you will not feel the buzzle and crowdness of Kuta . This is truly a heaven place for me. If you are not in the mood for swimming just stay on your accomodation and read.

Me and my friend stayed in a beautiful bungalow, with outdoor bathroom. The rooms are clean. Every parts of the bungalow are made from Bamboo and when its combined with white mosquitos net that placed in the middle of the bed, it look great ( lol). Just outside in the bungalow you can saw the blue sea mixed with tropical vegetation.
And when the night comes.. its silence everywhere, the only sound is from the waving ocean. Wonderful

That morning i was so determined to get photos of Jemeluk's sunrise. I woke up around 5 am and drive to the nearest hill. The same place where i took the Mount Agung before. It wasn't that dark, the sun just came out a bit. The view from the hill was not that good, so i decided to went down the hill to get a better view of the eastern horizon. And maybe because i just woke up.. hadn't got my full concious hehe.. i slipped and my knee hit the rocks. Yeah i was bleeding, and the worst thing is i just found out the hill was infested with cow dungs. Oyeah.. the fresh and the dried one. I had no idea if my knee was hitting one of them. I just kept ignoring it. My eager to took the photos is more than just a bleeding knee with cow dungs' bacteria hahaha...
Luckly my friend went down to see how am doing, and he just run up hill again to bring some water bottle and a tissue to clean of the wound. Actually the view was good it kinda worthed with my scar hehe.In the eastern horizon there was the sun shining warmthly. And next of the sun is the beautiful Lombok island with Mount Rinjani as it major feature! Beautiful!!
And lucky me, after finished taking some photos, i just realized that we didn't bring any first aid kit, betadine , alcohol what so ever..
So i decided to soak my wound with sallt water. I asked the salt from the hotel, but it was a raw dirty salt!! .. Well i have no other choice so i managed to " clean" the wound. In latter days we found out that i got infection hahaha.....
So remember, first aid kit !!

The destination after Jemeluk is now Ubud. But we didn't take the usual route. We went up to place call Manggis. Actually there was no major touris destination here. It was just a journey to see the rural life of Bali. And it was a worthed journey. A long the way you'll see paddy field and tropical forest. The weather at that time was so wonderful, clear blue sky.

We passed by villages, some of them were preparing some ceremonies in the pura. We saw women working in the rice field. And we even passed by people drying their paddy on the road. The road was so small, it wouldn't fit two cars. Luckly they allowed you to drove through their spread paddy..( fiuhh) but its kinda feel bad though hehehe...( OMG i just crushed a meal!) hehehe

In Manggis we saw a spectacular view. From the hill we can see all the Candi dasa area and the lombok strait. It was just a beautiful combination of green rice fields and then blue ocean.

Everyone who was ever been to Tenganan would know that Tenganan didn't feel the old Bali anymore. The village had become an souvenir market. The old houses had changed into traditional cloths stalls, Egg painting stalls and Lontar painting stalls. Its funny that i had the strong old Bali athmosphere more in villages along Jemeluk to Manggis than Tenganan. Now, this place for me its so tourist oriented.
Too bad.
But i loved the lontar painting.

Everyone would fall in love in Ubud. Its so such a peacefull and arty place. We went to Museum Puri Lukisan and Antonio Blanco Museum. Very interesting places. In Museum Puri Lukisan we met the curator of the museum ( frankly speaking he didnt look like a curator.. hehehe). But, Pak Muning is rare gentleman. Its hard to find people who are very dedicated to the jobs. He's been there, keeping all the paintings and sculpture ( dont know how long).. looks like long enough. Although the jobs is really -really not profitable and heart breaking he still loved it. Salute for u Pak Muning.

Antonio Blanco is another rare specimen. He is trully an eccentric artist. A breast man i might say hehehe.. but he had tremendous talent in paintings. He is really an example of a succesful expat and made his own dynasty. Cause his son Mario Blanco now also become a painter. But different from his dad who always paints women , Marion, paints fruits and still life.
The Blanco gallery was so grandeur compare to Museum Puri Lukisan. You can find Italian Marble everywhere. The grand gallery with grand paintings succesfuly screamed " Look at me !, Im the gifted Antonio Blanco!"

In contrast with Antonio, we found another rare specimen of artist. And this one is very down to earth. Pak Malik we called him. His studio was just in front of my Accomodation in Kajeng street. Pak Malik, had different style of painting. He used only pen as the tools, no pencil .. not even for rough preliminary draw. Once we stop by to look around, and we ended up chatt with him. You can see his works on this : www.balilandscape.com
Yes, his main interest is painting Bali landscape and they are gorgeus. The painting is consists of myriads of dots and lines of ink.... but still is beautiful!

My most favorite place in South Bali!. We went to the surfing beach near the Pura Agung. I just love the combination of yellow rocks and the green turquoise water. And its a bit secluded, so not many people there. I spent time there just for swimming, while my friend just finishing his book. Hm.. Lovely!

We saw the Kecak dance in Pura Agung Uluwatu area. The dance was taken from Ramayana. We even managed to chatt with the dancers while they were preparing their stuff.

The dance begun when the sun sets it was around 6 pm. It begun when a priest came to the center of the stage and blessed the dance ceremonies. Kecak Dance is non musical instrument dance. The voice that comes out from the dancer's mouth is the only music. A bit like acapella.. haha..not really though!

The music was very exotic and had the atmosphere of sacred at the same time. The hot shot is when the Hanoman ( White Monkey) doing fire attraction as a symbol of he burned down the enemy kingdom to save the princess.

EXOTIC!