This is how $270 million and 4000 tons of brass and copper will look like.

Envisioned to be much, much taller than our current Statue of Liberty which is 151 feet, Garuda Wisnu Kencana, when completed will stand at 479 feet when it is completed, sitting on the hill of Bukit, Bali, Indonesia.

Seriously, when I stared at Garuda Wisnu Kencana I couldn’t help but think, what the hell is Malaysia doing?

Garuda Wisnu Kencana, Bali, Indonesia

Really, when you see a project this big you can’t help gasp in awe. This is something that we thought that is what the crazy people of Ancient Egypt or Greece will ever dream up of doing. But our neighbor Indonesia is already halfway through creating another wonder of the world.

Just look at the size of that big bird!

Garuda Wisnu Kencana, Bali, Indonesia

Garuda Wisnu Kencana, Bali, Indonesia

In case you’re wondering, Wisnu, otherwise known as Vishnu in India, is the Hindu god of preservation, the god of all gods. And Garuda is Vishnu’s divine vehicle, the big protector of choice.

Well, I just love to refer Him as the Big Bird.

Garuda Wisnu Kencana, Bali, Indonesia

Garuda Wisnu Kencana, Bali, Indonesia

Bali is highly influenced by Hinduism since the 11th century, thus you can see exquisite levels of crafts and culture lingering on even after decades. And today Hinduism still makes up more than 80% of the religious devotees in Bali. Well, save the tourists, of course.

Seriously, Garuda Wisnu Kencana is huge. Really, really huge. If they need to separate the head/torso, the hands and the Big Bird to put them at three different places because it’s too huge to put them together, you know how huge it is.

Alright, maybe not. Let me show you the hugeness of it. 479 feet is like 1/3rd of the height of our proud Petronas Towers (KLCC).

Garuda Wisnu Kencana, Bali, Indonesia

And what about the $270 million? Well half of it goes to completing the statue, the other half goes to creating a shopping mall around it.

According to my reliable sources apparently what they’re going to do with the empty spaces around is to create a giant shopping mall which is projected to attract 10,000 visitors a day.

Garuda Wisnu Kencana, Bali, Indonesia

Garuda Wisnu Kencana, Bali, Indonesia

But then, apparently they ran out of cash to do it now. :x So yeah, it’s still half completed, lol.

Anyway, this is how the Garuda Wisnu Kencana will look like when it is done, this is a miniature version of it that they did.

Garuda Wisnu Kencana, Bali, Indonesia

Of course, I’m sure they will continue the work very soon. The tour guide speaks of the place with great passion and hope, and he’s really proud of this creation of their country. I’m sure Bali won’t disappoint them.

You just ought to admire their effort, no? I would like to share a quote I have heard,

“When you wake up in the morning,you have two choices, to sleep and continue to dream or to wake up and chase them.”

Obviously, they did. ;)

Garuda Wisnu Kencana, Bali, Indonesia

And ooo, cute monster thingy! Let’s camwhore!

Camwhore with cute monster thingy at GWK, Bali, Indonesia

Work has been busy, and I haven’t found much time to blog, sadly! :(

So, to make up for my lack of activeness in this blog, here’s a lil quiz for you guys to win the little dickies from Bali, Indonesia!

Guess what the 5 Indonesian words are, and if you get the most right you’re going to get the cute lil dickie keychain from Bali!

Just drop your answers or comments here, and ask your friends to join in the fun! That’s it! :D

The Bali Dick Keychains

Yep, I will be giving out 3 of these cute little things for 3 people who got the most answers right. In case you’ve missed it, here’s my post about dicks and penises everywhere in Bali, Indonesia!

Hey, no cheating! I know you’re opening your browser to Google Translator now. Shame on you, naughty boy! Now eat this!

Grey eating the Bali dick keychain

:x

Anyway, the five Indonesian words that you’re going to guess are:

Bebek

Cumi-cumi

Kepiting

Ayam Malam

Bebek Kotor

Well here’s some hints… They are all food (well, technically one isn’t exactly a food :x), and they call him Donald Bebek.

End Date: 10th April 2010, enough time for you to ask your kakaks or makciks or Ahmads xD

So just drop your comments here, if you got the most rights I will give you, or if you’re too far away, I’ll mail to you the cute lil dickie keychain! :D

Hey they’re damn cute!

Don’t forget to ask your friends to join in the fun too!

Oh yes, I’m talking about dicks. Also known as penises, cocks, wieners, sausages, or whatever name you fancy.

Dicks are everywhere in Bali. Seriously, everywhere.

And no I don’t mean them on the surfer boys. I mean them as key-chains, accesories, sculptures, decorations, and bottle openers.

No kidding. Have you seen a dick this big?

Giant Bali Dick Sculpture!

Apparently the popularity of the penises in Bali has something to do with some spiritual practice known as phallic worship. According to some sources, people worship the phallus (read: erect dicks) to “worship of the reproductive powers of nature as symbolized by the male generative organ”.

Phallic worship in ancient Greece centered around Priapus (the son of Aphrodite) and the Orphic and Dionysiac cults. In Rome, the most important form of phallic worship was that of the cult of Cybele and Attis; prominent during the empire, this cult was notorious for its festive excesses and its yearly “Day of Blood,” during which the frenzied participants wounded themselves with knives; self-inflicted castration, a prerequisite for admittance into the priest caste of this phallic cult, took place during the festival. In India, the deity Shiva was often represented by and worshiped as a phallic symbol called the lingam. Phallic worship has also been practiced among the Egyptians in the worship of Osiris; among the Japanese, who incorporated it into Shinto; and among the Native Americans, such as the Mandan, who had a phallic buffalo dance.

In case you’re wondering, Bali is heavily influenced by Hinduism since the 10th century. Lord Shiva is part of Hinduism.

The Bali Dick Keychains

Wooden Bali Dick Carvings

Bali Dick Bottle Openers

Hodder M. Westropp wrote this in a 1870 article when studying phallic worship practices around the world:

“Three phases in the representation of the phallus should be distinguished–first, when it was the object of reverence and religious worship; secondly, when it was used as a protecting power against evil influences of various kinds, and as a charm or amulet against envy and the evil eye… thirdly, when it was the result of mere licentiousness and dissolute morals.”

Hmm, so the dick can be a charm or amulet against envy and the evil eye? So I guess that explains why guys with bigger dicks have bigger ego. Ahem.

The Bali Dick Keychains

It is also said that by worshiping the phallus you can have better reproductive and regenerative powers. Read: better sex life.

Well anyway, spiritual or not, it is kind of peculiar when you see a country that is famous for its traditionalism and spirituality to have so many artifacts of the male reproductive organ around. Perhaps it’s just us that makes so much of a taboo out of sex. The Balinese sees sex as just a natural passage of life, and children from the young age are already accustomed to being open about sex and sexuality, with their peers and family.

So sometimes we have to wonder, who are the peculiar ones, them or us?

Yee and the Bali Dick Keychains

Aki and the Giant Bali Dick Sculpture

Culture shock, hmm. But ooh, the girls go gaga when they see dicks everywhere. You can’t blame them, can you?

Same to the gays as well. 0:)

Grey, Nick and the Bali Dick Keychains

Grey and The Giant Dick Sculpture in Bali!

And I’d bet the dildo whores will be happy to see one this big too. It’s like up to my knee height. Like just barely shorter than 1 meter. I can see the size queens drooling from miles away already. Yes you. Wipe em off.

Wooden Bali Dick Carvings

So who wants a Bali dick?

Well after pondering for a few days I’ve been thinking what else interesting can I write about after my Thailand trip. It was all shopping, food, night life, and everything is just as any other trip.

And I’m sure too much of food porn and shopping showoffs will make you think that I’m an asshole.

So instead of talking about those materialistic achievements and how my waist have grown three inches after my Bangkok trip, I looked back at my tweets during my time in Bangkok and I’ve found this:

I saw a secondary schoolboy doing maths homework with his iPhone, his girlfriend next to him at the foodcourt of Siam Paragon.

A companion of mine commented when he saw this during the trip, “It’s not just about the efficiency of the work, it’s also about the style of how you work!”

So really, how true is that?

Yep, he’s a secondary school boy, 15, or 16 at most, flipping and tinkering around his iPhone while writing his maths answers onto the textbook. While his girlfriend is using her brains most of the time, she takes a peep whenever she gets a chance.

All in a high class shopping mall’s food court, Siam Paragon, which you can compare to our Kuala Lumpur’s Pavilion shopping mall.

That really leaves me pondering.

So you have a normal calculator and you have the iPhone at hand. If given the choice, most of us will choose the iPhone because it’s more efficient.

Or is it?

You can click on the buttons just as good as you click on a normal calculator. But clicking on an iPhone makes you feel better, doesn’t it? The eye candy, the swoosh and swirls and the scrolls and fades, and ooh not to mention the stares of jealousy and envy when people walk around you. That can make you feel real good.

So you can make phone calls and send sms with just any cheap handphone. Why choose an iPhone or Satio?

So you can cook just any dish just as good with a cheap Ikea non-stick pan. Why get a Buffalo Pan?

So you can always get the help of your brother or sister or your wife or husband to help you relieve the pain at your back with some good massage. Why get an Osim massage chair?

So you can just get a simple laptop at a cheap price at the store. Why get a Lenovo or HP or Dell?

Because really, no matter how much you want to deny it, style does play a role in your purchase decisions, because working with style and doing things with style makes you feel good.

So much for our rational decision making, hmm?

But then, this is what drives the consumerist society around. The need of luxury for self-realization and a reaffirmation of self values.

Do you agree that we not only strive to work efficiently, we want to work stylishly as well? And sometimes, even efficiency is compromised, we just plain wanna look stylish!

Hmm, excuse me while I go drool at the Google’s new phone Nexus One. Damn it’s so cool, I wanna get one!

Call me a frog under the well, but during my holiday at Bangkok and Pattaya, Thailand it is my first time seeing such public display of sex and sensuality at night life clubbing scenes it is exhilarating.

Yep, these are the kind of things you won’t find in a country where the Allah word debate can make people burn churches.

This is wild, hot, sexy, flashy, and for some, really yummy. :3

Oh the neon lights are blinding me! And the breasts too!

Yep, the night life at Bangkok or Pattaya, Thailand is really much more open than what we have here in Malaysia. The girls are literally waving and dancing with their most revealing clothing at the doors waiting for you to go in and watch them dance on poles. Some doors are purposely kept open so that you can have a look of the “samples” of what’s inside before going in — a bunch of girls in skimpy bikinis shaking their ass away around the poles and looking sexy. Some with oil too.

And yes, all these things are definitely interesting to watch, especially when you come out from a country that will never allow such large flashy neon lights to tell everyone this is a DOLLHOUSE for you to play at.

Apparently Thailand has very loose policies on night clubs and sex. Well transvestites are recognized as a third sex here unlike many other places that only recognizes two, so I guess you can pretty much be sure that this is a really open country.

A friend of mine commented, Thailand’s tourism feed on 4 things: historical sites, shopping, night life and shows.

I wonder which one is Malaysia competent at? ;)

Oh, and speaking about shows, I mentioned about the ladyboys cabaret show on the previous post. And of course if I’m at such a place with bustling nightlife, I’ll be damned if I don’t watch the infamous Thai Girl show.

If you followed my Twitter I guess you should have noticed that I have been tweeting throughout my holiday at Thailand. And this is what I have twitted regarding the Thai Girl show:

I witnessed how a girl can shoot projectiles with her vagina to burst a balloon 25ft away at the Thai girl show yesterday.

No kidding. If you’re sleeping with a Thai girl you better make sure you’ve paid good enough, because you will never know what she has under her sleeves. Oh I mean under her vagina.

One of the performances involve the girls pulling out shaving blades and needles out of their vaginas. The blades and needles are tied to a really long string, something around 20 feet or so, and they just kept pulling them out, pulling, pulling and pulling. Our jaws dropped.

And after they pulled out the blades they cut a wooden stick with the blade to show that it is real and genuinely sharp blades. 20 feet worth of shaving blades inside her vagina. Like, what the hell!

The Thai Girl show really surprised us in ways we never thought possible. But sad to say, we watched it at a not very popular club at Pattaya, and the girls looked like they are underaged. Maybe paedophiles will enjoy that. But really, if you come to think of it, if the girls are really underaged and they are doing these shows for a living, what are we patrons doing in contributing to their living, watching them smoking with their vaginas or writing with a pen with the vagina “Welcome to Thailand!”?

Edit: William reminded me, yeah they did open bottles with their vagina too. Like the glass or beer bottles with a metal cap. Yeah, those bottles.

Creating more demand for Thai Girl shows. I don’t know, maybe they really enjoyed the job. But if they are not, we’ve just paid to make another girl’s life miserable.

If you don’t intend on paying to watch the Thai Girls doing miracles with their vaginas, you can always still just walk around the street and bask in the eye candies instead. Like what we did at Bangkok. My male companions are literally drooling at the girls. Don’t worry, they just drooled and didn’t do anything else. Maybe they went back to the hotel to OGC but that’s not a story for this post. ;)

So what’s the most interesting nightlife scene have you seen in your life? :D

Well, I vowed that I will catch the lady boys this time at Bangkok, and I made it! Went to watch the Mambo Cabaret Show at Bangkok, Thailand, and to my pleasant surprise, they did a dance cover for the popular Korean group Wonder Girls’ “Nobody”!

Yep, they are the lady boys. Or you can call them the transvestite or the “agua”s, but whatever you call them, they did a pretty great job!

And I really mean, PRETTY! They’re hotter than many girls out there okay, you can’t find a trace of manliness in their performance!

Here’s a video of the performance. Don’t miss it, really!!

Well, consider that my souvenir gift and apology gift for you for being missing from this blog for so long, will ya?

But of course, there’s more! How can I leave you deprived with only one video and no extra pictures?

Look at the boobs! They look oh so… squeezable! Do you have that, lady, hmm, hmmmmmm? >:)

That’s my friend Nick with one of the princesses of the show. At first she took this pic, but thinking it’s probably too tame, she took this one after the shot!

So huggable!

Of course, how can one princess be enough? It’s not every day you get to take picture with a pretty gal, you know!

So here’s more with another princess!

Yep, she’s one of the “Wonder Girls” around in the video! The tallest with the prettiest hair and biggest boobs! Woohoo!

So how can I miss out the chance?!

Of course have to take also lah!!

Actually, not to say anything but this princess winked at me and “electrocuted” me even before the show starts and throughout the show whenever she’s on stage, so I’ll be really sorry if I don’t take a pic with her, right? :P

These “girls” are way too hot to think that they are once a guy. From the looks, at least. As well as all the moves, the way they stand, they way they put their arms around you, and on the warmth on the boobs. <3

But oh well, there's always something that deceives them. When they started talking the coarse voice still reveals all truths. Who cares, the eye candy is more important, no? ;)

Well, I'm sure that's not enough of pretty gals! Or lady boys, hmm. :P

So here comes the killer pic!

This one is really the hottest of them all, no kidding!

Are you ready?

Here it comes!!

Oh, sizzling indeed!!

As I go through my pictures that I have taken, I’ve found out that I’ve missed many of Vietnamese beautiful girls!

Well not to let them go to waste, here I am to share with you again the pretty girls of Vietnam!

Very Beautiful Vietnamese Girl

No wonder many old men over here like to have a Vietnamese bride. They’re too gentle and pretty to resist. If I am to stay in Vietnam for a long time, I will fall for a Vietnamese myself!

In case you’ve missed the previous post on Vietnamese beauties, here it is!

Now click on and have an eye-fest.

If you have a guys in uniform fetish, Vietnam is the place for you.

Vietnamese guys sure love their uniforms. And the guys are cute! Really!

Vietnamese Soldiers

Following my previous post on Vietnamese girls’ beauty, it will only be fair if I talked about the guys as well.

It must be the climate of the place, the food they take or just plain Vietnamese DNA. Vietnam is full of cute, handsome and pretty people. Vietnamese guys are really a murr. :3

Handsome Vietnamese Puppeteer

And the boys really love their uniforms! From the marching soldiers to the roadside waiter, they all have their own uniforms. Though they are not particularly buffed with muscles, their lean frames and cute faces are enough to feast your senses as eye candies.

What’s more, the guys here have a sense of innocence you will can rarely find at other countries, just like the Vietnamese girls. I guess perhaps it’s the socialist culture and teachings, and the place has not been hit by capitalism yet.

Girls (and some guys), if you’re craving for some cute guys, visit Vietnam. Only for display though, no touchy-mouchy!

If I must pick the most memorable place I’ve visited in Vietnam, it must be Halong Bay.

Being listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, Halong Bay is definitely one of the most serene and peaceful places I’ve ever been to.

Well, pictures can tell a thousand words. See for yourself.

Halong Bay

Halong Bay

Halong Bay

While I detest visiting historical sites, natural heritages like Halong Bay are definitely a must-go for me. Halong Bay’s history dates back to 10,000BC since its first habitants, and it has actually reached the finals for the New 7 Wonders Of The World nomination.

If I am to die here I die happy.

The cool breeze and the fresh air at Halong Bay is not something that you can ever get in the cities. I have never felt so refreshed before in my life. Watching the limestone isles and formations as you sit on top of a private boat is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

I don’t know how much the tour-guide had allocated our travel budget for this, but we got our own private boat with private lunch and a private tour for 4 hours.

Eating in boat!

Fresh prawns

The seafood is wonderfully fresh, especially the prawns. You can tell they are fresh from the bay from the first bite… Or perhaps somewhere else, as long as they’re fresh! No fancy cooking required, just steam them and dip them with soy sauce, they tasted like heaven!

Then there are the occasional vendors that sit on a boat and paddle over asking if you want to buy their bananas or papayas. Boat vendors seem to be a norm around these watery tourist destinations. Sadly, we don’t work in a gold mine so you know the answer.

Of course, it’s not a holiday if there’s no chilling and cam-whoring involved.

Banana fighting?!

Camwhore!

Group photo yeahz!

Oh yeah, this is life. If you ever visit Vietnam, Halong Bay is a must go. While we took the 4 hours tour, you can actually stay overnight on a boat and enjoy the cruise for 2 days or more. Plenty of villages around to keep you busy, not to mention the fresh prawns and bananas!

Given the chance, I’ll definitely come back again! Now I start to miss the place already!

Because so much can change in years.

During my few travels I find it quite a norm for tourists and tour guides to visit historical sites, walking around hundred years of preserved debris among hundreds of other tourists.

Lets get straight to the point. I’m not a fan of historical sites, especially those infected with millions of tourists and the ones government trying too hard to preserve and sell to the tourists.

Why??

Hoa Lu Temple Gate... Before

This is Hoa Lu Temple gate. A thousand years ago this place, resided at the Ninh Binh Province is the capital of Vietnam for 41 years until the people shifted to Hanoi due to political reasons.

I’m not here to bore you with the details of Hoa Lu’s history, although the tour guide did tell us the story which is quite interesting, I would like to shift your attention from the past to the present.

Hoa Lu Temple Gate... After

This is exactly the reason why I don’t like visiting historical sites during my travels.

It is pretty obvious why, isn’t it? The people and the government are trying so hard, too hard in fact to dig through potential tourism boosting spots and doing all these “preservation efforts” to make them marketable to the globe.

Not only in Vietnam, but other countries as well. When a historical site gets so commercialized, it loses its essence. Totally. You see the civilians opening up stalls everywhere trying to sell you postcards and local souvenirs, the management staffs giving you over-designed brochures with information that you will take only as a casual read and won’t remember at all, and extensions and preservation works taking place all around so that “the culture lives on”.

In fact, to me these sites show little of what I want to know about the country. If I visit a country, I want to know what the country is today, not the country 1000 years ago, nor what the country’s government want me to believe in.

I can probably learn much more about the country simply from their streets, houses, people, food and drinks, language and other living cultural assets.

All I see is the commercialization of historical artifacts. Which reminds me what my lecturer Mr Arthur had given in a class back during my college times, these people are selling the dreams of the past to buyers of the present. And to sell them they sure made a lot of modifications. Which includes choosing and modifying what to be shown to the extend of destroying those seemingly unimportant aspects of history so the dreams appear prettier.

Historical tourist attractions are a chore. Don’t you feel the same?