Melaka & Johor Waterfalls

My dad went back to Australia and we went along with my mom for another weekend in Peninsular Malaysia.  We woke up later than planned, but we made it ok across Woodlands immigration point.  I used this site to pick out a waterfall - Taka Melor - on the way to Melaka.  Of course, the site failed to mention that the road to the waterfall had been washed away during a flood a few months back.  After stopping to ask for directions in the nearby town's cafe we started driving towards a dangerous sink hole, but luckily we noticed a nice couple on their motorbike chasing us and signaling for us to turn back.  They showed us how to get as far as the broken road could take us and we paid them to watch our car while we walked the rest of the way.  The fall is very small, and despite being completely unreachable by motor vehicles, the tiny park around it was filthy with debris.  Shame, shame, shame on you Malaysians.  Still we made the best of it and had a nice dip in the cool waters.

By the time we had gotten back the wife had abandoned her man and he was sitting patiently next to the car waiting for us to finish our frolicking.  We paid him and offered to take him home which was just off the main road where they had started following us.  He invited us into his home, but we politely declined and continued on our way.  He reminded me that there was a hot springs in the town as well, and we managed to find it.  The water was super-duper hot.  Too hot.  Lizzy and I spent the hour there playing in a decrepit playground that was part of the complex.  We especially enjoyed hiding and crawling through the large cement pipes.  Not so much the cement slide... ouch!

Cool waterfall dip, hot spring bath, and we were done for the day.  On to Melaka and our hotel, which was a bit rundown but cozy for the price.  We had dinner at Tandoor, which was a small restaurant with tables laid out on the parking lot it faces.  Despite the environs it got packed while we were there.  The waiters were brisk but efficient.  The menu was not extensive, but the food was great.  Constant flow of tandoori chicken (succulent, spicy goodness on a stick), naan and yellow daal (lentils).  Lizzy suffered bravely through the spicy affair.  My mom was fairing better.  Connie and I just kept licking our fingers, and ordering more and more chicken.  After dinner we drove to Jonkers market and enjoyed the street market with its bustling trade.  We bought some wooden stools, a hello kitty umbrella, a sesame snack, and firecrackers.  What a day!

Lazy walk through central Melaka - climb up to St. Paul's cathedral, down to museum row, and the park/playground.  Lizzy and I had ice cream on the swings waiting for Connie and my mom who went to visit the Enduring Beauty museum which looked anything but from the outside...

We spent the rest of the day in the car going from one wild goose chase to another.  When you're winging it, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.  On this particular afternoon, it did not work at all...  For dinner, we went back to Jonkers market and tried to get a seat at Teo Soon Loong Chan but it was all reserved for the night, and we settled for Famosa Chicken Rice Balls.  Not bad, but we need to get back to Malacca to try the famous TSL before long...

A nice break.  Second time in Malacca was way better.  It's a small place, but you need to appreciate specific bits of it - last time we were only there during the day and missed out on Jonkers night market.  That is really the highlight of the place.

Bali - Candi Dasa, Tulamben, Amed, Besakih/Agong

From Mt. Batur to Candi Dasa was about a 2-hour drive.  It was slow going because of bad road conditions and a heavy rainstorm.  Candi Dasa is a pretty small coastal town dotted with restaurants and small mom & pop style resorts and inns.   The beach has eroded, so there are now villas for rent right on the water with good swimming and some snorkeling right off the backyard, when the tide is low and the water calm (~4-10pm).  We had rented one of these - Villa Kaniksa - for the rest of our stay in Bali.

The villa is structured like a compound in the sense that there are four independent ensuite bedrooms that can be closed off, but the rest of the house is completely open to the elements, with a nice koi pond/garden, dining area, and a living room that spills into the back yard, pool with jacuzzi, and a small sitting area/hut (bale) right next to the water.  Lizzy immediately took to the open space and started rearranging the rocks in the backyard, splashing up some water, and running around barefoot on the well-trimmed grass.  In no time we all got into our bathing suits and got into the pool.

We loved our stay at the villa. We felt like rock stars, pampered and constantly excited with the different possibilities the space offered. However, the one issue we did immediately have with the place was that it was staffed 24/7 so there was very little privacy, and the kitchen was basically off limits to us. It's nice to have the help, but we would have rather had the place all to ourselves. Next time we know what to ask for.

The following day, we enjoyed the sunny, drier (than Singapore) weather by the pool and then took a drive to the Tirta Gangga water palace of Amed.  We were actually looking for a suppsedly white sand beach, but ended up at Tirta Gangga.  Connie and Lizzy dozed in the car so I took my parents to visit the grounds.  The place is fairly well-preserved and climbing the many steps up the hill to its back afforded one a great view of the coast.  We didn't find the beach on this day, but we arranged for Lizzy and my parents to be taken there by boat the following day, while Connie and I went scuba diving.  We had a nice lunch at a small resort next door to the villa, where we went online for the first time since we arrived in Bali - and shared a unique celebratory moment after reading that Bin Laden had been killed in a US-led operation in Pakistan.  For dinner we had an anniversary dinner for my parents with a whole suckling pig carved table-side, the skin getting a further fry treatment that turned it into crispy, fatty pork rinds.  I shared the snout with Lizzy...

In the morning, Connie and I bid Lizzy and the grandparents adieu and went on a half-day diving trip at Tulamben.  This dive site boasts a 120m-long shipwreck (USS Liberty) just a few meters offshore (super-easy access) with different depth profiles and all sorts of  marine life.  We did two dives - one around the perimeter of the wreck and one in through portions of the hull - with sightings of stingrays, bee shrimp, a clownfish inside an anemone, a moorish idol, a big school of swirling jackfish, and loads beautiful coral. This was Connie's first dive after certification and the best dive site I've visited.  We drove back home towards late afternoon and shared stories with my parents who had a day on the water in a small pontoon boat, with a short stay on the "white-sand" beach nearby.

The following day we drove up Mt. Agung to Besakih Mothe Temple, Bali's largest.  Bali has a majority Hindu population (in a country that is largely muslim) and they practice a version of Hindu that is very ritualistic.  People spend a lot of their daytime in preparation of offerings (woven coconut leaf baskets with flowers and fruit), giving offering, and cleaning up after old, used offerings... There is at least one shrine in every home that provides protection and good fortune to the household, and this shrine is partially covered in a black and white cloth symbolizing good/bad or dark/light.  The Mother Temple at Besakih is built on the mountain side and consists of many leveled terraces, statues, shrines and indoor temples for specific castes and functions. The place is quite touristy but the temple grounds themselves are marvelous.  Lizzy was bit tired and gave us an excuse to cut the visit a bit short, avoiding the climb to the final levels of the temple.  We were told we had to wear sarongs to enter the complex, so we were all walking around with these skirts tied at our waist.  On the way down Lizzy started nagging us about ice cream, and we luckily found a vendor selling vanilla in cones from the back of his motorbike.

We stopped for lunch on the way down the mountain next to a rice terrace.  The restaurant was quaint, the food mediocre, but the service was excellent.  Further down the mountain we stopped to buy and eat a durian in one of the many stalls that lined the road.  We picked a small one, enough for just two people to gobble up the meaty interior hiding in several pockets.  It was delicious.  On the way back we bought a large fish from a lady sitting by the side of the road.  It was a huge fish and my mom instructed the culinary team back home to prepare from it ceviche, fish head soup, and grilled fillets.  It was a great dinner.

Towards evening Connie snorkeled and hunted some sea urchins in the waters just off the back of the villa.  But we were too scared to handle and open the urchins for the fresh delicacy inside, so we threw them back into the water.  On our last evening at the villa we managed to successfully launch a Kongming sky lantern off into the sky over the ocean.  Spectators spending a quiet evening on the wave breakers nearby cheered and clapped.  We sat and ate fresh tropical fruit in the bale, splashed in the pool - by this point of our stay Lizzy took to pretty much running around naked all over the house from pool to jacuzzi to bale to grass to rocks to rooms to beach chairs to pool and back again, having the wildest time of her young life.

We also visited the Goa Lawah temple, with its cave filled with fruit bats.  It was interesting but you could only stand outside and see the bats at the mouth of the cave.  We had some other minor adventures, and some crazy driving experiences, but the gist of the trip was to relax around and enjoy the exotic island, and that is mostly what we did.  This was an amazing, adventurous, and luxurious holiday.  We'd love to go back to Bali to explore more of the North and West of the island, and I think we will create an opportunity next year sometime if not sooner.

Bali - Ubud, Elephant Safari Park, Batur

One of the best if not the absolute best vacations I've taken.
It is hard to express in words what is so attractive about the island and its inhabitants but we were constantly awed by the beauty of our surroundings, and the exotic feel of the places visited and the people we met.  I can't wait to go back and see some more of the place before it is ruined by development.  We visited the less touristy/resort-oriented areas of Central and East Bali.  The big resorts and the nice white-sand beaches are all in the South, but we decided to skip those and do something different.  Everyone (our party consisted of ages ranging from 2 to 61-years-old) was really happy all week, so I think we made out ok with this choice.

In Central Bali, Ubud is a bustling town with 2-3 long main streets of fashionable shops, galleries, restaurants, artisan studios, an ancient palace and a few temples.  Despite being overrun with tourists, the place still manages to feel backwards and remote, with motorcycle riders heading against traffic on narrow streets, lots of bicycles, and monkeys running amok.  Our hotel, Champlung Sari, was situated on the outskirts of the Monkey Forest, a small macaque reserve/city park.  We arrived at ~midnight and were then woken up at 6am to what sounded like furniture moving in the rooms above us.  On closer inspection we realized we were on the top floor, and that the sounds were made by a horde of apes storming the hotel grounds.  They all left within fifteen minutes or so of this display of chaos and energy.


We had our rental car delivered to the hotel in the morning, a good thing because it would have been dangerous, if not impossible, to find our way at night from the airport to the hotel.  As popular a destination as Bali is, most of the country's road network is in disrepair.  Some of it can be accurately and honestly described as a pile of rocks placed in some sort of a logical path.  However, despite the dangers of driving here, rental companies are happy to let you take their fleet off their hands for a minimal payment, without any forms of identification or credit card information in lieu of potential damages.  Notably, I found car rental to be the best value and hassle-free service on the island.  We rented a Toyota Avanza - a very common SUV on the island.  Anything closer to the ground would have likely not survived the trip...


Anxious to get out and about, and having no formal plans for the day - explore Ubud and its surroundings - we got into the car with the idea of driving north to the Elephant Safari Park, an attraction my father picked out form a tourist map in the hotel.  We got the car in gear and headed north - we made sure to get a GPS with the car, which was at least helpful as a compass.  The narow streets of Ubud quickly gave way to the narrow streets of the rest of Central Bali.  We drove through more interior decor workshops than I have ever seen in my life - woodworks, stonemasonry, glass, you name it.  Then, all of a sudden, a valley opened up on our right-hand side with amazing view of rice terraces, a scenic anomaly common in this area.


We continued north and uphill and we had not noticed any gas stations along the way.  The rental car man had mentioned "premium" when discussing the particulars of operations, and we had noticed many shops lining the road with signs of the same.  So we stopped at one convenient for its parking area large enough for a car - not as common as one might suspect on this major artery leading from Ubud to Mt. Batur and to the North.  These "premium" shops generally boast a wall of shelves carrying glass bottles  of either 1 or 2L capacity filled with gasoline.  The shopkeeper, a young mother, assured us that this was the correct fluid for the car and we bought 5L worth, which she then promptly tipped one by one into a funnel inserted into the gas tank that my dad was holding in place for her.  This was comical and we could not help but to laugh and take pictures of this operation.  We later discovered that there are also normal gas stations, that those generally charge less than the "premium" road-side shops, that we had missed one on the way, and that they are not nearly as much fun...


 We almost missed the unassuming turnoff to Taro village and the Elephant Safari Park.  The road got less straight and less flat and we started getting a closer glimpse into the lifestyle of the common Balinese family.  The elephant park itself was easy to find and it proved to be a tourist trap, but Lizzy liked the ride and we got to feed a few elephants up close - their skin is softer than one imagines, but still pretty rough and tough.  After the visit, we were quite hungry, especially after a detour along a wrong road that was cut short when the road turned into a pile of large rubble.  On the way back we bought some roadside snacks and a hot soup from a young vendor.  Still quite famished we stopped at a store/restaurant/gas station run by one friendly woman.  We got some fish curries, chayote soup, rice and long beans.  The shopkeeper cum restauranteur entertained my dad in the kitchen (a bunch of pots over an open range in the back of the store) letting him dip his fingers into the various boiling sauces.  We also bought some gasoline from her - 20L poured from a proper jerry can this time.  Looked pretty heavy, too...


On the way back to the hotel we stopped for a visit at the Monkey Forest, where we bought bananas and fed soe feral monkeys against the rules of the park.  I think there had been some accidents with aggressive monkeys and there are now lots of monkey/tourist rangers keeping the peace.  This park/garden has some pretty sone sculptures, and a really nice bridge with stone parapets carves to look like snakes/dragons with scales all along the sides, ending with heads and tails on either end.  The bridge is also a staircase leading into a lower garden area and it passes through a Banyan tree whose roots are hanging in midair all over the lower level.  A beautiful scene right out of a fantasy novel.  Small and tourist-filled yet I would still recommend a twilight stroll through Monkey Forest.  We finished our day with a dinner at Bebek Bengil (Dirty Duck) restaurant, where we had crispy duck, spareribs, satay, rice and veggies (meh).  My mom got sick (Bali belly?) from lunch...


We were awoken again at 6am by the monkey horde.  This time we fed them.  There is a fruit basket in the hotel rooms, and I assume that the macaques are performing this wake-up call ritual with the bananas from from the fruit bowls in mind.  We shared ours.  We checked out and drove out north from Ubud towards Mt Batur - a volcano that blew its top not too long ago.  It has a lake (Lake Batur) on its Western side with a bunch of natural spring spas/resorts popping up along it.  On the way we bought some of the best fresh fruit we've ever had - mangosteens, mandarins, rambutans, tomatoes - from various roadside vendors, some that looked young enough to be ten or even less.  Something about the volcanic rock farmland is yielding super-fruits.

At a milestone T along the way, we got pulled over by official-looking gentlemen demanding that we pay an entrance fee to the Batur region.  It was a symbolic sum, but the racket was not appreciated.  We drove down a fairly steep road to the lake taking in the beautiful scenery with the towering Mt Batur rising from the Eastern edge of the water, its peak shrouded in mist.  We found a nice resort with natural spring-fed pools and a nice restaurant, where we polished off lunch in the rain (under the safety of thatched roof).  Lizzy pretty much fainted after a few spoon fulls of rice and slept on two chairs while we ate.   Serene.


After lunch we drove through the mountainous region east towards the coast.  Following our GPS we ended up driving through what may have been the most direct route, but one seriously lacking in concrete.  At some point we stopped to ask for directions from a man sitting in a hut by the side of the road in a remote location, only to be promptly surrounded by urchins of various ages knocking on the windows and trying to sell hand-made baskets in what appeared to be an overly aggressive manner.  It was getting a little traumatic, so we declined and drove off while the knocking intensified.  A little girl from this group ran after our car for what seemed like a very long stretch down a rocky mountain road, and we fell into an uncomfortable silence as we drove on, wishing that scene had gone very differently.  Not long after that we merged with the better-paved coastal highway, as we closed in on our destination at the village of Candi Dasa.  To be continued...