5/31/10 (candi dasa)
Annie Lin
Candi Dasa – Amlapura – Candi Dasa
When we arrived in Candi Dasa we found out there was no ATM in town and we had to drive to the next town to access an ATM. We passed through the town yesterday but were too tired to search for it and figured we would do it today. Lesson learned…always take care of something right then and there. We drove to Amlapura in search of an ATM machine. When we found it a French couple approached us asking for assistance because the machine wasn’t working and they couldn’t read English very well. After a few attempts with both of our ATM cards we realized that the machine was either out of money or not functioning. We were told there was a bank not too far away so the French couple followed us there. We tried the machine at that bank only to find out they don’t accept Visa cards. The personnel at that bank told us to go to another bank down the street. When we got to second bank we explained we couldn’t access the money at the ATM machine. A staff explained that the ATM is out of money and someone will come out and replenish it in half an hour. We couldn’t get money out from the branch itself since they don’t have card machines. Apparently there is only one ATM machine in the Amlapura area that will accept Visa cards. So again the two tourist couples go back to the first ATM machine and wait. Luckily we still had some cash and could’ve returned the next day but it was such an ordeal that we decided to wait for someone to come replenish the machine. After waiting forty minutes someone finally came. By this time five other tourists had joined the line. Thank goodness we were in front of the line. I am not sure how much they were going to replenish the machine but I would’ve hated to be the one when the machine ran out of money again. Finally we got the cash we needed and by this time it was too late to go anywhere so we decided to head back to Candi Dasa.
Once again when we got back to our home stay we ordered a cold Bintang to cool us down. It’s hard to say no when it only costs a little more than two dollars for a big bottle of cold beer. We got some snacks across the street and enjoyed our afternoon drink on our porch.
All over Bali we had seen people pushing carts of meatball soup called bakso. I wanted to try it before we left Bali so we asked the staff at the hotel where we could find bakso. Apparently, it is one of the food staples and very common at the night markets. Luckily there was a night market near our hotel. There were about 10 food stalls and more than half of them were selling bakso. It was hard to choose one since they all looked the same so I picked the one that had two smiling girls working with their dad. The soup consisted of a broth, tofu, noodles, and some sort of meatballs. It was pretty tasty though I could’ve done without the meatballs. The only gripe I had with the dad was that he tried to charge me twice as much. When I told him that everyone charges 5000 rupiahs he reluctantly agreed that I was right.
Jon wasn’t a fan of the soup so he found some noodles stall and while we were a bit worried about getting stomach aches later the noodles was one of the tastier dishes we had while in Candi Dasa.
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