Day 2: Shopping in Seminyak

After spending up big yesterday at both Potato Head and at dinner, we were determined that today would be a little cheaper. Seminyak is known generally as the fancier tourist area in Bali, with more upmarket shops and hotels than the seediness of Kuta and Denpasar. So today we set about verifying this by looking through the various shops and market stalls, and I can confirm that yes, everything is more expensive than you might expect! Boardshorts for $50, t-shirts for $35, that sort of thing. I didn't come to the cheap clothing capital of the world to pay Sydney prices for clothing!!

We looked in a lot of nice shops, but bought very little. Shandos bought a nice dress, and I bought an Indonesian SIM card with 1.5gb prepaid data, so I can use Foursquare/Facebook etc on occasion and have an emergency/local contact eg with drivers and stuff like that.

Also had a nice back massage from a bustling massage parlour for just $8 each which was a pretty good deal! As we were emerging from the massage parlour and thinking about heading back to the hotel for happy hour cocktails, a man offered us his car for taxi services so we agreed to a lift back to the hotel. He was actually a genuine driver and offerred to take us out to Tanah Lot temple about 40 minutes north of Seminyak for the sunset (and his price was lower than the touts who ask you constantly), so we agreed.

Tanah Lot is an interesting place - it's a large Hindu temple built onto a huge rock just off-shore - the rock is probably 10-15m high and about 50m offshore. Waves crash into it constantly and there's a few trees/jungle vines growing over the temple, so it's a pretty sight. The sunsets here are purportedly beautiful, but unfortunately I can't confirm that because it was pretty cloudy and we didn't get that magic dusk lighting.

It was also a little off-putting as the site itself is very heavily touristed. Obviously it's a bit hypocritical for me to complain about tourists when I'm one myself, but I like to think we're a different type. Here there were very few Western tourists, mostly Indian, Chinese, Malaysian and Indonesia, and annoyingly most of them seemed more interested in taking pouty-face selfies than actually looking at and appreciating the reason for visiting the area.

Retreated to a bar on a cliff top overlooking the temple for a drink and to escape the phalanx of selfie stick wielders. Got a bit too comfortable and ending up having a little difficulty finding our driver in the dark! But we managed, and drove back to Seminyak without incident. No football tonight as the bar was occupied by bogans watching Collingwood vs Hawthorn, so we had a quick dinner downstairs and headed up to bed. Last night in Seminyak already!Read more