Bali Walking and EAting

Walking, eating and having fun in Bali.

Well, if you are walking, it’s fine because everything is at walking distance, or biking distance, but if you are walking the side walk, there’s one thing you have to know. The sink hole cover doesn’t really be there all the time or is put in properly all the time. So be careful. And the sidewalk is not even so walk slowly.

If you are biking, the road takes no prisoner, it’s a bit chaotic, so imagine you are in Rome, only that all the road is much smaller and more water hole and damages and you need to learn to swift between the letch literally.

As for accommodation, you can get a shitty stay home with no air condition that might not be cheap or might be cheap, depends on your luck. Or you can get like mine, 50 bucks a night small, really small hotel, not exactly by the beach, but close enough. Best of all, Air Cond, warm water(though need to wait a minute for it to get warm.), the room service is good, free motor bike service to head out, free drinking water, swimming pool, and you can park your rental right in front.

Or you can get anything in poppies, small, usually no air cond, and everything is right outside the house, cyber café, warong(food stall), and restaurant, and motor rental, and beach at walking distance….. (but poppies lane is a big area, depends on where you stay.)

Or you can take the villa out from the busy site of Kuta.

The night life does not start before midnight, cos before that everyone is still eating their dinner. Sports bar is available everywhere. The Aussies love them the most now for they are showing the best AFL. The unique thing about them is that, they are usually bar, lounge and karaoke together. And live band even available at some restaurant.

As for eating, there’s a lot of places and variety to choose from. Steak and western is usually more expensive, local food if it’s on the street or stall then it’s about 1 bucks each meal. Mc D and fast food chain about 3-5 bucks. And the most expensive meal you’ll have is the beach side seafood parlor or the swanky lounge, clock in from 50-150 a pop. So it’s your choice.

Oh yeah, remember to ask them to lay off the chilies if you can’t take the heat. Because theirs is hotter than jalapenos.

My Bali Trip.... Still got 3 days in!!!!

Been in bali for the past 4 days. Still got 3 more days to go.

Well, Bali is essentially a surfing island for the foreigner especially now for the Australian winter season.

It is a surfing Paradise. The closest to the airport is Kuta. Kuta is on it’s core divided into into 4 parts from south to north and segregrated into 3 section from east to west by the 3 main street.

South to North from Airport is Tuban, Kuta, Seminyak and Legian. Basically, these 4 areas are connected through the same beach, stretches out more than 10 miles of them.

And the section is typically separated by 3 main road.

The Beach side Jln Pantai Kuta, well, as the name suggest, it’s the surf turf. Then there’s the Jln Legian,(explaination: Jln is initial for Jalan, that’s street in indon.) which is essencially the party, boutique street. The least traveled street of them all is the inner most, Jln. Majapahit, this one is the road to artwork, and interior designer paradise, that’s the Art factory street. (Read below for more and cheaper area for furniture, sculpture shopping in Bali.)

Anyway of course for the local the island is divided into more areas than just the Kuta-Legian. But those others area are from those seeking tranquility. Because they are mostly paddy fields scattered with more skillful craftsman and refuge from the busy beach side. If you are looking for sculptor that can do wonders you can fine on the 3 small main street out of Kuta rounding the side of Ubud to Kintamani Volcano Mountain. This route is the only cultural route u need to take to understand Bali from the surfing paradise main character. The farming and the craftsman are the 2 part of Bali besides the mainly Ancient Hindus religion you can find everywhere.

So for most foreigners who come to Bali can enjoy the rest of the buzz besides the yoga and spa in the central surf spot Kuta. Beginning from Tuban Area, marked with the new and huge landmark, Discovery Mall, is the beginning for the surfing beach. Then you’d headed into Kuta. And then Seminyak, and Legian. If you want a fase lane through the area. Then you should go from the beach, literally. Because these streets besides the beach are scatter with quarters and hotels you need to zigzag through to get to anywhere. And the lane, especially those Poppies Lane Area is like beach side hawker on steroid, there’s miles and miles of narrow (and I mean one man’s waist length narrow lanes) cutting through it the whole area. It’s like walking through Venice hot summer on land. Fun for the surfers really, hospis, hotel, shops, restaurant, surfs shop, tattoo shop, food stall, all you can find in these lanes, just that if you don’t know your direction you could get lost in it, or hitting a dead end every way. (hint: follow the wall of the compound of the hotel or temple, you’ll always find a small alley to the other lane or the beach. Especially those that people and bikes are flushing out of them all the time.)

If you don’t like the chaotic, you can always choose Jimbalan. There’s great hotel, Villas to rent and isolated beaches, and best sunset view of the island, yet, to go anywhere and clubbing you’ll need to get a bike. Easily rented for you from anyone on the street, or you can hitchhike, locals are willing to help but some do ask for money when you arrive, so be….. a gents, tip the guy a 10k rupiah or something.

Well, to get around, I’m the walk stop slow warming kinda guy, so I walk all the way. Take the taxi to the mountains (it’ll take me like all 7 days of my vacation if I were to walk there. And damn it’s cold up there, get a sweater.) The most common thing people do is rent a bike. The fuel is cheap, just a 100 dollars deposit will then you are free on this great paradise, some even come with surfboard holder bars. (it is after all a surfing island.)

Tuban is the best place for me, Cheap, 3 mins walk to the beach, none of the chaotic bike and cars on narrow lane crossing and honking and most of all, peace and quiet.

Oh if you are thinking about safety?! Believe me, no one is gonna rod a half naked man or woman thinking you got a million(even in Rupiah)in your pocket.

and for the tattoo, don't do something you'll regret that will last a lifetime. Find someone that's experience and sterilize before anything. Don't go for the too good to be true cheap....

A Fun road trip a family takes in Malaysia and the interesting facts they stir up on a 2 hours drive

Here is a survey from a Columbia University professor on vacation with his family in Malaysia.

He decided to take a road trip on one of the most beautiful stretch of highway from north of the country to the capital.

The plan is to drive the 2 hours drive from a small city called Ipoh in the state of Perak to the Capital of the country, Kuala Lumpur.

So to make things fun, the professor stir up an observation game for his 9 and 11 years old boy to play with while on the road.

Here is the report from the prof family.

The car driving seat is on the right hand side, and the stick shift is in the middle of the car on the left of the driver. Need some time to get used to. All cars go on the left hand side and the speed lane is on the right. The measurement for speed and distance is in Kilometer and not miles, that’s about 2.45 for every mile. And the speed limit for the Highway (almost the same as freeway, only it’s not free and the ground is raised to avoid flooding and improve water flow on the road.)

The initial plan is to drive the 210km stretch of highway from Ipoh to Kuala Lumpur.

We took one pee stop. Encounter one annoying driver that park right behind our car to wait for his lovely wife, even when we honk the horn a dozen times and there’s plenty of space in front of the car to move to let us leave. He insists on staying that 2 meter distance to shorten the wife’s trip from the toilet to the car.

Ok, one good thing about the trip is that, this is the greenest road trip that I’ve ever taken, all the tropical forest, counted 5 palm field, 3 rubber field, 16 over head bridges, and 6 under road bridges, one beautiful water fall (we later find out that’s the only one visible on the highway.). there’s about 16 opening between the forest, with housing area in between them. Beautiful.

Half of the trip is a 6 lanes highway. So we are pretty comfortable speeding our way all the way. We almost max out 110km/hr the whole way.

Now the fun part is that my sons have been really busy the whole trip, because the driving here is fun to encounter, it is almost a pleasant drive. And my family has the best fun counting the following statistic.

65 cars pass us while we are at top speed (meaning all of them are speeding), we receive around 16 flashes and 36 tail gating when we are on the fast lane at max speed. 5 cars decided to swift into the left lane to pass us over and speed across the front of us to the right fast lane when we are at max speed in the middle lane. Great maneuver but dangerous when one almost hit a motorcycle passing us on the right lane (bear in mind we are still at max speed, which means even the cyclist is speeding.) around 25 of the car passes us above high speed passes us on the fast lane when we are in the middle lane. Still it’s speeding.

We encounter 15 buses and 13 trucks, 20 of those are going so slow I think that there should be a minimal limit to the speed on highway. Anyway, that causes about a 5km of jam on the road. Which clearly those trucks are unable to speed because there’s a slope and their overweight stuff on the truck is dragging them. Amazingly only 5 of them spew black smoke all the way. (a warning from the car rental agency, they advice to avoid driving behind a truck because almost all of them spew smelly black smoke and the smell would be unpleasant to be behind them.

More fun is that there’s about a dozen of road kill from normal dogs and cats, to baboon and lizard, and at one point there’s a snake and pangolin. And about a dozen of vehicles broke down on the emergency lane.

Alright besides the excitement of being flash constantly and tailgated. The whole trip is pretty easy, as the roadway are wide and pretty flat.

Of the most exciting thing that my sons found is that there’s this gang of bikers that ride in pack of 30 something. And on auto combusted motorcycle on the way out of the rest station.

We also saw more than a dozen of BMW and Mercedes that give no mercy at flashing at us whenever they come over when we are on the fast lane. (I guess good cars does run faster, and less prone to be in Accident?!! Rather create one.) and 6 Ferraris and 3 Chryslers sped over us in no time at all. Excitement scream from my sons. All the wows.

We are actually driving a small local made can called SAGA. Pretty easy to drive, the space is modest, it does get cramp up at the back if my sons were older, there’s less leg space at the back then expected when me and my wife have to back our front seat for comfortable driving.

All in all the road trip is a success one. Due to good planning, we don’t get to watch a movie (my sons is not so happy about that.) before our dinner gala at one of the shopping mall convention centre due to the miscalculated distance and ETA.

One small notes, we watch about every movies they have in their Cineplex the next couple of days, including the Europe film fest specials. One reason is that one of my son is a gaming freak (non-of it contributed by me) and the other is a movie geek (I admit due to my own academic teaching habit). The ticket here for a premiere class seats is just 9 RM, that’s about 3 dollars fantastic price for adult and children are half price, one strange thing is that the children seats are calculated by heights not age, both my boys have passed the limits and treated as adult, which they are happy about and we did comply since the price is just ridiculously cheap. And we get to let them enjoy some European art movie with all the sexually sensitive part censored (due to local cultural rules), and we actually watch a pretty smoothly re-edited version of the movie. Without us needing to discuss some of the uncomfortable sexual topic at their age and able to enjoy a pretty meaningful movie….. clean.

Chinese visit to family ancester's grave to pay respect today!!

Today is the day that Chinese start exercising one of their annual ritual. It’s solemn and peaceful in a way.

A surprise is that I encounter a small snake in the process, he slither right under my thigh while I was doing my work sitting.

Well, the day is of course common for all Chinese around the world. It’s the week that everyone would find time to visit their ancestor grave and clean their compound and pay respect to them.

Chinese cemetery doesn’t accept government grant nor money from charity or family members for up keeping. But they do spray pesticite to kill of all wee for easy cleaning in the season.

Anyway, this is the one year that my family will all be here for the ritual. and it’s great to discover by exercise regime have finally gotten me some improvement on my health. Oh did I mention that the Chinese have to make their grave look like a small grand mansion on a hill slope? So it’s a heck of a place to clean up, with all the grass and weed and mud (if the day before it rains).

So after all the burning of incense and stuff. We’d have to climb back up to our cars. Hahaha! A really great workout that my brother suffer a heat stroke from lack of sleep. Haha!!!

Oh the best thing is that after the strenuous workout, i still have to drive a 2 hours drive to the capital for one of my old friend's wedding to night.

Double Double happiness!!!

In the New Year MY wishes is a Prayer for Bobby, of Love and Tolerance in any conflicts in the world. Forgiveness!

Today on DVD, I accidentally found this one while I was looking for “Bobby” instead.(the story about Bobby Kennedy)

“Prayer for Bobby”

A very low profile work by Sigourney Weaver, It’s about the struggle of a mom when her son had killed himself. It highlighted the struggle of suicidal closeted homosexual and their family.

I love the story due to the fact that it’s the purest expression of love in human being. Though trouble by the choices that another made. It’s all about acceptance.

You’d accept anything that comes along the way if you love the person.

The family in the movie had to lose one family member to realize that judgment, discrimination, justified by religion, family values, political views or preference is never justifiable if you’d lose the love one in the process. And my wishes is that the world would be more acceptance.

So to the closeted homosexual, it is about self acceptance, to the family that truly do love the person, regardless the choices, it’s about tolerance and acceptance. It’s about love. It’s all about it and only about Love and nothing else.