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Day 1 (part 2)
8 May 2006
Monday
Right after our lunch by 3pm, we were recharged, we decided to take a walk from KhaoSan Rd. to the
grand palace. we simply walked out to the main road, and walked following the walk path. the truth is,
we can't seems to find the way to cross the main road to the opposite side, which is the Sanam Luang
park... after walking up and down, we decided the risky move - "don't care, just walk across it like that..."...
hahaha, considering the main road is something like a highway, and imagine the heavy traffic in central
bangkok, i believe it's kinda crazy move!!
only later we found out, further up, there's a zebra crossing, hehehe!
so, ok, finally we reached Sanam Luang, we were already like sweating nonstop, coz the weather
really is too HOT... like an oven! the park is very much like the size of Merdeka Square, very huge.
but this time around, the park was surrounded by stalls covered in brownish yellow cloths. we
walked into the swamp of stalls only to realize they were actually celebrating Wesak. only different
is in Malaysia, we have 1 day holiday for wesak, but here in Thailand, it's a whole week celebration
and holidays!!! wow!!
Here you can see the yellow color stalls and a monk just walked past us.
we do not understand thai language, so those stalls didn't appeal to us, but we could not resist
the stalls selling cold drinks! Mikey walked over to 1 stall and bought a small bottle of herbal drink.
at first we tried to ask the young lady what exactly was the drink... but soon we realized we are
wasting our time bcoz she can't seems to understand English. which kinda surprised me, coz i
thot most Bangkok ppl know English. but maybe, only maybe, it's a national celebration and food
fair and exhibition, so most of the hawkers and ppl here are not local Bangkok ppl... well, i think la!
hahaha.
back to the drink bt.10, it tasted like "kekhwa" (chrysanthemum) drink, but of coz it's not lah. but it's
sweeter and actually quite good and refreshing. so we continue our walk. we saw a lot of students,
teenagers in uniforms, a lot of ppl. wow, they being so religious amazed me. i mean, the celebration
here at Sanam Luang Square was not at all entertaining, but rather educative and informative... i
doubt Malaysians would actually turn up for religious activities like this. hehe!!! ok, i'm being prejudiced,
sorry! back to the uniform things... hahaha, we noticed that the uniforms of Thai are all so tight,
especially at the waist line there... ketat gila babi!!! so all the shapes and sizes of all these uniformed
men could be clearly defined!! :P
After a "not so short walk", trying to avoid local aunties who were busy searching for tourists to sell
some seeds to feed doves, we reached another main road facing the entrance of the grand palace.
YES, we were finally here... BUT the sad thing is, the grand palace close by 3.30pm as stated at the
entrance. looking at the watch, it's already 3.20pm, we chose not to go in. a funny thing happened is
when i approached the guard which was surrounded by few tour guides or tuktuk drivers, one of them
started talking to me in thai... i was like "what the hell??" and i politely told him, "i'm not Thai, sorry. but
is the palace closed by 3.30pm"... then he laughed, "ya, as stated at the board. i thot you are Thai, coz
you look like Thai ppl!!"... i was like... speechless. Mikey thought that was funny! -.-" WTH, i look so
"cina pek", how can you mistaken me as THAI!! :(
This is the side door of the Grand Palace. pretty isn't it?
originally we planned to go to Wat Pho & Wat Arun, but we were afraid if the same thing happen
again if we are to walk there, it will be a total waste of time. so we thought, it might be a good idea
that we just walk back, rest and relax, and gather more information then will only explore this area
tomorrow morning. moreover the hot weather was really killing us.
so we turned back the same way, and decided since we were here, why not just walk inside the
Sanam Luang park and looked around their exhibitions...
 
These were like the flower-decorated carnival car for their parade i supposed. and of course the Buddhism theme,
with little Buddha one hand pointing the sky and another pointing to the earth.
 
We can't help but took photos of one of the parade car... notice that it was decorated with all sorts of vegetables.
fascinating! :)
This is the central part of the park. it's said that there was a buddha's relic stone (or whatever...) inside the little
container. Thais come from everywhere of the country to worship here. the 3rd pic is the main possession of the stage.
a stall where ppl can choose a small print out for fortune-telling.
After some time exploring the celebration/ceremony, we got so thirsty again and thinking of
getting another one of those "kekhwa" drink again. but then when we passed by a stall where
a lot of Thais qued up to take reddish water FREE, we also joined the line. mmm... tasted icy
cool and good too, how nice!!! i think we must have taken more than 3 glasses. hehe!!! yum yum!!
so all recharged, around 5pm, we walked back to KhaoSan Rd., this time followed the correct
way back. :) just when we reached the room, straight away we took a bath and slept like a pig!
muahahaha! :P Tags: bangkok 2006
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I have always been wanting to go Bangkok, even before i went to Bali. and yes, finally this time
i'm all set to go! even more satisfying is that, this trip will last me 7days and 7nights, so frankly
i was looking for a more relaxing yet fruitful trip! :)
Day 1 (part 1) 8 May 2006 Monday
Morning, i woke up around 6am to follow my sister's car to mikey's place, so it's lucky that i packed
all my stuffs ready the night before. after picking up mikey, my sis sent us to Kelana Jaya LRT station,
so that we can go KL Sentral to catch the airport bus to LCCT terminal. we were really lucky as the
minute we reached KL Sentral, the bus was ready to go, so no need to wait.
We reached LCCT, KLIA around 8.30am. it took the airport bus less than 45min, and it cost us RM9
per person. i would consider this cheap compare to the ERL to KLIA, and definitely a good service by
AirAsia!! God bless them! Our flight was 10.40am, so we still have 10 minutes to kill before the check
in time, so we went to McD to have breakfast.
The flight was delayed for 20 minutes, so we only stepped into the plane by 11am... the plane only
took off about 11.30am i think, but no complain, as we expected worse. the flight took 2hours & 5mins.
by the time we reached Bangkok airport, the announcement said, it's 12.30pm Bangkok time.
(Malaysia time 1.30pm)
A little something...
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Malaysia/KL
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Thai/Bangkok
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RM 1
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Baht 10
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8 am
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7 am
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when we came out from the airport, there are a lot of ppl asking us whether we want to take taxi
or not. there were even officers telling us the counter to book taxi is over somewhere. but i know
very sure that there is a cheaper airport bus, so me n mikey just walked past them. lucky for us,
there are signboards everywhere stating "airport bus" pointing us out of the terminal...
outside, we saw a booth selling tickets, we asked the person inside the booth, the helpful girl there
straight away pointed to a bus next to us and said, "you want to go KhaoSan road, that's the bus!
faster, it's going to leave now!" so, we purchased 2 tickets Bt.100 each, and hopped onto the bus.
hooray, everything seems going fine! in the bus, we took out maps that my sister lend me, and
started to study it while looking around for landmarks.
mikey told me the price of cars here is kinda low, so we shall expect to see all hebat-hebat punya
kereta on the road. true enough, there are so many toyota and honda here, all look really shiny and
new. replace these cars with proton wira & waja, you'll got Malaysia roads! :P
we reached KhaoSan road around 1.40pm (bangkok time from now on), the sceneries, the traffic,
and the people just overwhelmed me. i lost my sense of direction. instead of looking for the main
road (khao san), we got ourselves into a small back alley (well, the reason was we saw many
mat sallehs coming out from there). we walked pass few food stalls, few shops, until we turned into
another alley, we started to see few inns. we walked in and asked about their rate... not too bad,
most of them ranged around 150-350baht. but all the inns have only share bathroom. since mikey
demanded private bathroom, we came to a conclusion that we shall look for something more expensive then.
we walked out of the alley, and finally reached the middle of KhaoSan Road, right in front of us,
there's a big signboard "Khaosan Palace Inn"... the look of the reception area was impressive,
when we asked the rate, it's a bit more expensive than others, but at least they got private bathroom.
so tried to pick the cheapest one, which was fan and double room. but they kept insisting that
they don't have double room available, only twin room (2 single bed instead of 1 queen sized bed)...
it's 50baht more expensive. we said we want to look at the room first, so they handed us a key and
show us the way... we walked in, mmm... what a small room. we were so tired (of looking around,
and walking, and the HOT weather was killing us), so we decided to settle with this one for now.
i went down to pay - Bt.420. oklah, not too bad.
   The time we took this photos was a bit late lah. hahaha! just imagine them as in afternoon hot sun ok!! but yeah, look at
the reception, quite impressive hor?? but so sorry we didn't take photo of the interior, not a pretty sight i can tell you.
the truth is i won't go back there again! hahaha. notice the room that we stay in? it's "F4" wuahahahaha!! i felt famous there! :P
After we cleaned up and relaxed a bit... we decided that, it's time to take our lunch already. looked at
the time, it's already 2pm, which is Malaysia time 3pm - OF COZ we were hungry no wonder! hehe!
so walked down the street trying to find something to eat.
as usual the first day, we were a bit lost. so, we walked and walked and finally decided to dine in
a restaurant called "Prakoeb's House". I ordered green curry chicken with rice bt.65, mikey ordered
american fried rice bt.70, we also ordered a mushroom salad bt.40 and 2 glasses of mixed fruit juice
bt.25 each. a bit pricey i would say cause i expected thai food to be a lot more cheaper... but maybe
i'm just a poor malaysian guy lah, hahaha, the price must look ridiculously cheap to westerners. -.-"
 
1st pic showing the american fried rice sausage, fried egg, chicken n rice, closer is the green curry chicken with rice that shaped as "star".
the 2nd pic showing the mushroom salad and the mixed fruit juice.
the food tasted ok, the portion was small. a bit lame to be our 1st meal in Bangkok i think! hahaha!
WE DESERVED BETTER THAN THESE!!! :P
but i always crave green curry, so hahaha i think the curry is fine... just not too worth the money.
*call me stingy*.Tags: bangkok 2006
Current Mood:  excited
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I would like to list down my 5 days itineraries in Bali before I forgot… hehe! So, here we go with the first day: Monday 23/5/2005 1100 --- Flying from KLIA to Ngurah Rai with AirAsia… then the plane delayed for 30mins. ( Check out the photos that Alex played with the plane!!! :P ) 1430 --- Arrived at Bali, so so so hungry, still we decided to go to Kuta first. So we grabbed a taxi (Rp. 25000 abt RM12) to Kuta. The driver offered to find us clean home girl for “service”… such a pimp!! 1500 --- We checked in to Bali Sandat Inn at Poppies Lane II, recommended by the taxi driver. Cool room, 1st floor, with balcony overlooking the inn’s swimming pool, queen size bed, fan (no aircond), with cold water. Many mat sallehs hanging around the pool too. Room for 2 pax Rp. 90000 abt RM40. 1530 --- We were so hungry, but yet we didn’t eat, but wasted no time to find a motorcycle to rent so that we can catch the sunset at Tanah Lot temple. We got the motor just around the corner for Rp. 40000 abt RM16 a day. 1600 --- We digested the map a bit, asked for directions a bit, off we go! On the way to Tanah Lot we managed to stop at a small restaurant for a quick bite. The restaurant looks very much alike to our malay economic rice stall. So our lunch cum hi-tea with big portion of rice and meat and coke cost us Rp. 5000 abt RM2 each. CHEAP! But very salty, not good!  1740 --- We reached Tanah Lot, just on time to catch the sunset that would happen around 6pm. So lucky we bumped into their Full Moon (Purnama) Festival, so we got our chance to be blessed by the pendeta (priest) there. They put rice on your forehead and a bunga melor on your ear. Ticket to enter Pura (temple) Tanah Lot: Rp. 3600 abt RM1.5 each pax, blessing donation Rp. 5000 abt RM2 each. ( go in to witness the ceremony and check out the magic hour of sunset temple! )2100 --- Backed to Kuta, but we were lost trying to find Poppies Lane II… asked around, people are friendly in Bali, they will answer you with a smile. It happened we bumped into 2 Indonesians who worked in Malaysia before, they were too friendly… at the end of our conversation, they asked us if we wanted to buy “ecstasy” from them… damn! So we reached our room safely, and without any drugs! 2115 --- We were hungry again, so we went out hunting for food. But I was attracted to a store selling clothes. I was looking for short pants since I didn’t bring any. So finally after much bargain, me and Alex bought a surfer short pants each for Rp. 35000 abt RM15 each. Then we stopped by MBA (a travel agent) to asked for Mt. Batur (a volcano) hiking trip… very expensive! Will cost us around USD55 abt RM210 each pax for that day tour. So we decided to ask around first. We managed to find another agent on the main road, the guy Edwin sounded very promising and attentive beat us with a price of Rp. 335000 abt RM140 for both of us. Of coz this did not include the entrance fees to Mt Batur and the trek guide fees lah, but still it save us more than 50% compared to MBA, so we decided to go for it and paid the deposit of Rp. 100000 abt RM45. 2230 --- We stopped by a convenient store called “OK” or Circle K (similar to 7-11 here), we bought 2 Indomie instant cup noodle mee goreng, 2 Bintang beer, TimTum and mineral water for dinner. That cost us Rp. 31000 abt RM13. 2245 --- We found a very budgeted homestay at Poppies Lane II that will only cost us Rp. 40000 abt RM16 for 2 persons inclusive of breakfast!! WOW!! What a steal! So we decided to come here to stay the next night. 2300 --- Indomie is good. TimTum is better. But Bintang beer is GREAT!!! So under the full moon, at our balcony, we cheered to our 1st day at Bali. 2345 --- We couldn’t sleep, so we decided to check out the nightlife there. We hopped on the bike, drove around, surprise!! No club!! However, we just went to the Kuta beach, lazed on the extremely soft fine sand, enjoyed the cool breeze, full moon, sound of the waves hitting the shores, listen to my favourite Frank Sinatra’s jazz numbers with my MD walkman. It was definitely heaven!! 0100 --- It’s time to go meet Mr. Chow. Sweet dream! So here’s my first day there. Great day, won’t you all agree?? Well, wait until you read my second day’s entry. The world’s ain’t always beautiful!!! Total spending 1st day: Rp. 383200 abt RM160 (each pax RM80… not bad for the 1st day) Tags: bali 2005
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Tuesday 24/5/2005 0700 --- Woke up! Alex was still sleeping. I took my DVCam out to the balcony hoping to shoot the dawn… only to find that it’s all bright and hot outside already. The sun rises and sets so early here in Bali! So different from Malaysia. The staffs of the inn were cleaning the swimming pool, i'm impressed! 0730 --- We went down to the concierge to ask for breakfast, the lady there pointed to the restaurant next door. We were received warmly by the waitress there, “we have set breakfast for you, you can choose coffee or tea, waffle or pancake or toast with egg or banana, and also a plate of fruit.” So Alex being the not so adventurous one order toast with egg and coffee, me ordered banana pancake and coffee. Turned out his toast and egg was so plain and tasteless claimed him, I would not have ordered that in million years especially being the person who dislike egg. My pancake turned out to be something quite similar to roti pisang here, kakaka, but it’s served with honey and lime… quite tasty though. But the Balinese coffee was definitely great! Rich aroma, but needed to put a lot of sugar or it’s too bitter… and strange too, coz there’s a lot of “sisa”! ( Come in to see the daily morning offering all Balinese will do! )0800 --- We had a little morning walk on Poppies Lane II, I was hoping to buy a nice pair of shoes because I did not bring any for the volcano hiking trip.  After passing by a cozy restaurant called McWilliam (funny one, bcoz they had the flipped McD logo!), a group of ladies was squatting at the roadside. When they saw us walking past, quickly they approached us and started chatting with Alex. I was so aware that this was a trap, only Alex so naively believed that they were being friendly!! So I walked along the street searching for my shoes without even talking to them, only turned to find Alex was not following me. Shit! So I turned back. One lady on the street told me Alex has already gone into the back lane! Gosh!!! What was he thinking? Hesitated, but I couldn’t leave Alex alone. When I walked into the little shop, I saw this girl tying a wristband onto Alex hand and started putting lotion onto his fingernails. I whispered to Alex, “do you know you gotta pay for all these?” he was smiling naively to me and said, “but the lady here said it’s free!!!” I cannot help but rolled my eyes, gosh!!! This is fcuking bloodsucking Bali in case you forgot!!! The lady that led me in here was now ready to put a wristband on me too, I rejected nicely and she looked disappointed but persistently insisted that it’s free! After much persuasion, I thought to myself, aiya what the heck, I’m ready to pay some dime lah, so finally I gave in. They started giving us this cheap skate manicure… when it’s done, I asked for the price, they said “not expensive”. Then only Alex realized it’s not free (god!), so he asked the lady didn’t she said it’s free at first. The look in the lady’s eyes was like “now I gotcha” kinda grin, and she said, “the band is free, the gift of Bali for you to remember. But (pointing to the fingers) this is my job!” I was a bit pissed, so I asked “How much??” She calmly hold my hands, “normally we charged Japanese, (point to my left hand) 350 and (point to my right hand) 350!” WALAU WEI, it was like way out of my expectation, you mean for a 3-mins manicure you are going to charge me RM300?! “NO (fucking) way! We don’t have that kinda money!” The lady grinned some more and said, “for you… Malaysian, 150 & 150…” That’s RM120. “I still dun have that kinda money!”  At this point, the ladies suddenly looked impatient and angry. They shouted at us, more like scolding us, “So how much? How much you want to pay?” I looked at her and I said 5.000, and I heard Alex said 10.000 (that is RM4). The lady in front of me turned to Alex and shouted, “10 thousand is NOTHING!! Your fren (that’s me) here said 50.000 also nothing already!!! 10 thousand (with a grunt)!” She must have heard me wrongly!!! Now, Alex really looked shit scared, he later explained that he was worried about the RM3000 above Nikon camera that hanged around his neck which he just bought for this trip. So he hopped out of the shop. Luckily before this I’ve already kept my viewcam in my pouch, so I slowly took out my wallet while walking out of the shop. I took out 10.000, the lady’s eyes were like about to pop out from her eyes… looked very much like the Barong!!! She was really mad and scolding us with Balinese language. She grabbed the money, we quickly run, and we heard her scolding us from behind “FUCK YOU!” We dare not to look at her, but just walk out to the main street! It was scary becoz we were at the back lane and there were quite a number of them surrounding us… jeezzzz, what an experience! We quickly threw the wristband away and walked our way to Poppies Lane I. Rp.10,000 abt RM4 for an unwilling manicure. 0830--- We realized the homestay we found yesterday night is just opposite of the manicure incident. To tell you all the truth, we dare not stay there! So we managed to find another homestay at Poppies Lane I, Diana Homestay. Rp. 40.000 RM16 for 2 persons not inclusive of breakfast, but no problem since we will be leaving for the volcano hiking trip as early as 1am next morning, so we will be skipping breakfast anyway. We walked back to Poppied Lane II, sprinted through the ladies, quickly went back to our room, packed everything, checked out, hopped on the bike, and moved to Diana straightaway. I have to admit my heart was still pumping hard by then… :P 0930 --- We decided to visit Denpasar on bike this morning. But before that we would like to revisit Kuta beach to see what it’s like in the morning. No difference, only the sand is not as white as we thought it is when we were here last night, and also there’s a lot of aunties to bug you to buy things and do this and that… kinda annoying! Especially after the morning incident.  1030 --- We knew we were very near to Denpasar, the 1st stop planned was to get to the memorial monument at the heart of the city (similar to Tugu Merdeka in KL)… but again, we were lost. So we just stopped by 1 temple to visit and take photos. Then we grabbed an uncle on the street and asked for direction… seems that we were just 2 blocks away from it. Then we spotted a temple (supposedly quite famous lah) on the map called Pura Masopahit, one of the oldest temples in Bali, just a street a way from where we were. So we decided to visit it 1st…… then we lost again, kakaka, it seems we have missed a turn, then we got to do a big round back again. The temple is cool, they worship the naga (dragon) god there although at first I mistaken it as snake, haha! The aunty who loaned us the yellow waistband was busy making little tiny baskets for their daily blessing and praying. She chatted with us and also willing to let us take her pictures… 1 thing, she doesn’t look like 64 years old to me! There’s also a bunch of aunties nearby who were really noisy and kepochi, and I seriously believe that they were flirting with us, they just laughed nonstop and joked in their own language. One aunty even wanted to marry a young girl to me after she found out that I’m still single. Wuahahaha!!! Rp.10,000 abt RM4 donation to the temple. ( Inside this entry, you will see a cute kid and the temple. )1115 --- We finally reached the central park with the monument, very… err… normal! Nothing much to see really. Not recommended unless you are fine with only visiting the landmark lah! So, we only stayed for 5 mins and decided to head back to Kuta already.  1130 --- Suddenly Alex suggested visiting a Catholic church and on the map, there’s one nearby, so off we go. Well, the church seriously does not look like a conventional one, but blended in Balinese wood and stone carving and can I say, Hinduism!! I’m impressed seriously by the adaptability of the Catholic. We also see all these Balinese culture and traces in the other buildings like shopping malls, banks, and even fast food outlets! It’s traditional yet exotic and unique! ( check out the wooden doors of the church... ) 1200 --- We were heading back to Kuta, and we were hungry like bulls. So we decided on the bike that the next stall or restaurant that we see, we would just go in. I spotted a roadside wooden stall with quite a numbers of people lining up, so we pulled over. Mmm… roasted meat like chicken… well, what the heck, just order anything for 2 lah. So I asked the girl there, “apa ini?” they just laughed, “Babi guling.” Oh… so this is the famous babi guling (roast piglet)! I supposed not many foreigners come here, the locals there kept looking at both of us. Anyway, the rice was served… kinda oily, with roast pork, some char-siew-like meat, fried intestines, prawn crackers (I think), and sate. The sate on bamboo stick was simply superb, it’s different from Malaysia’s and so aromatic. The fried intestines had this weird stink, so we passed. Couldn’t finish the rice, too big a portion. With Teh Botol (my favorite drink), lunch cost us Rp.6.500 or RM3 each… SUPER CHEAP!! ... to be continued! Tags: bali 2005
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I'm going to update my Bali trip randomly hope you all dun mind! :) today, i want to talk about my 2nd day evening trip on Bali island. Alex and me went to Uluwatu on bike, and it's the southest part of the island. we heard the sunset at Pura Uluwatu (Uluwatu Temple) is really nice, and have a wonderful Kecak and Fire Dance on every evening 6pm. and we kinda eager to see the beautiful cliff as shown on Discovery travel guide.  So, here you see something like the end of the world isn't it!! trust me, to see it with my own eyes it's breathtaking!!  What i was really amazed with the place is the colours! the rich blue and jade green of the water, foamy white waves, crystal clear water that from far, i could still see the corals in the sea... f**king amazing!! i even spotted few people fishing down there... wonder how they get there... i dare not!!  Now, this is my travel companion for this time. Alex is my ex-student, who worked as a photojournalist, notice the big Nikon camera on his neck?? well, i think he took about 400 photos this trip!  This is the place where we see the Kecak and Fire Dance performance that evening. Ticket for the show is Rp.50,000 per person (about RM20). They said you must at least go for a dance performance in Bali, so we chose this one. No regret! the dance and chanting is superb, with the sunset behind the performance, it's simply marvelous! ( come in for more photos of the kecak dance. )Well, the dance is a story about how a princess has been caught by an evil, so the prince has to ally with the monkey army force to win the princess back... i'll update the full story tomorrow... (you all don't need to know anyway! haha) They are at least 8 main characters in the show, all dressed up in striking colours - red, white, gold, green, and all dance with cramp-like finger movement!!! very entertaining! then there will be 100 bare-chested men circling the main stage, chanting with different tones and pitch and rhythm, that sounded pretty annoying at first... but when you get used to the 3D-like chanting, you started to enjoy the catchy "chak-ka-ta-ka-chak-ka-ta-ka" routine. at the end of the show, i took a photo with the artists... most photos were taken by Alex, so i have to wait for him to burn CD for me first before i could upload them up here... so bare with me ok!!! :) that's it for tonight! (more to come... stay tune!) Tags: bali 2005
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