November 23, 2014

Bali - Orange Sunset, Blue Sky and Robberies?!?!

Hello everone!! :D Miss you so much.. 


It's been so long since I posted my last blog. I'm truly sorry for being MIA this past weeks. I went to Bali at the end of October. And before the departure date, I had to concentrate on my ballet exam. So, here I am now sitting in my bedroom, typing my story in Bali for you ;)

Fyi, for some unknown reasons, I am OBSESSED with Bali. This is my third time going to Bali, and I want more. I will definitely go back again. There are still many places I haven't had time to visit and explore. I didn't even get a chance to visit Dreamland Beach. I have wanted to go there after coming back from my first visit, but our time was very packed. Next time, maybe? 

We (I went there with Jo and our other two friends) were staying in Kuta the first three days of our visit, so, on our first day, we took a walk to the nearest beach which is Kuta beach, the most famous beach, to enjoy our first day sunset. We almost missed it because after taking pictures for a moment, the sun went smaller and smaller. The color of the sky was very beautiful; it's gradation of grey, very light purple, orange, and bright yellow of the sun. I know there is more beautiful sunset but this was by far the prettiest that I've ever seen. And I hope I could watch and stay longer to enjoy the sunset. And that was exactly what we did on the next two days. I was very excited as always everytime I saw the sunset, and never forgot to take lots of pictures of it. Jo was very helpful in taking many pictures of me with the sunset. We also took some pictures together with the help of our friends. The last sunset we saw during our stay in Kuta was in the beach behind Discovery Mall. It's still part of Kuta Beach, but the view was different from what we saw before. Probably because it was still early. However, the sun was clearly seen, very round and big, and seemed to be very close like we can touch it if we reached our hands a little further.

Everytime we woke up, the sky was very blue. Perfect time to visit Bali, I thought. White clouds were sometimes up there to beautify the bright sky. What else can we asked for. Nice day, amazing sky, perfect sunset. Everything seemed to be okay, until...

On our third day, Jo and I separated from our friends. We planned to go to one of the famous restaurant on Jalan Raya Kerobokan, Bali that day. But we were not fortunate enough. The restaurant closed at 2.30pm, while we arrived at 3pm something. zzz.. Because we had reached the place (which was quite far from our hotel), we decided to take a walk around. Taxi driver who brought us there told us that there is a beach if we walk down the road. That's where we wanted to go. We walked on the sidewalk while occasionally stopped by nearest stores to check our phone to make sure that we were on track. We didn't notice that we had walked so long and reached an intersection. After asking few workers on the sidewalk who were working on the street's repairment, we took the left side and continue to walk.

We had gotten info from our searching that on Jalan Petitenget (there was the place we were walking on), there are so many restaurants and cafes, we thought that we would stop at one of them before heading to the beach to enjoy sunset. I think it was our unlucky day :( Just after we avoided the damaged sidewalk and I moved to the inside of the sidewalk, suddenly Jo got confused and looked at the side of the road. Then, I looked at him to see what happened. TO MY SURPRISE, someone who rode a motorbike snatched my bag and all the stuffs which were held by Jo before. OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How can such thing happen in BALI????? Bali is a place full of tourists. How can it be? How can it be??

After realizing it, we run towards the robber and shout all way long. Although there were many security from cafes on the street saw us, they did nothing. I repeat: NOTHING except watching us running like crazy. All of our things GONE. Not even a thing left!!! (well, except a bag filled with our bottles that the robber threw during his run). It was like the worst thing happen to us. What's worse was we got no money, and no communication device which meant we couldn't take taxi back to our hotel and couldn't tell our friends. Basically, all important things were there in that bag. Sad, shocked, and desperate were what we felt. x.x The saddest thing is that we LOST every pictures we have taken during our trip. :( :( :(

Luckily, we found this hotel named FAVE HOTEL UMALAS BALI. We would like to thank their staffs so much. On behalf of Jo, too, we really appreciate their effort helping us. Even, their hotel's phone couldn't be used, their staffs borrowed us their private handphones. One of them even paid extra phone credits for us to call our families, friends, and banks. What touches us is that when we asked for his bank acccount to give back, he refused it. Oh, how kind he is. Thank him so much. Other staffs also borrowed us their phones, too. We were so thankful, if there were no such people like them, I think we couldn't get in touch with our friends at all.

Hotel staffs were very kind to us. They let us wait in their lobby and walk around. There was a woman, probably hotel manager or the one who was in charge of the hotel at that time, came back from funeral greeted us and asked about our condition. She felt sorry for us after receiving the news from her staffs. They also prepared drinks for us, too. I wonder how we would be without them.

Lucky us, we got no wound or injuries from this incident. Some people were not so lucky that they hurt themselves because the robbers pushed or dropped them down on the floor before taking their belongings. I warn you that never underestimate Bali. Although the place seemed so safe and crowded, you better watch out. I thought the same thing before, but the fact is that there are so many cases like this now. We just didn't know.

Take care of yourselves if you are going there and tell your friends and families to be safe. Take only small bag or purse and make sure you hang it inside of the road. 

Note: We thank our friends very much for helping us after the incident. They helped us a lot during the rest of our trip in Bali. 

PS: I will upload about my trip in Bali soon.

Thanks for reading
-Jess-