Guns & Child Safety

It's been a year since I've posted.  Many different reasons but mostly laziness and an overabundance of procrastination.  I might go back in time, blog-wise, and post a few travel/foodie reviews from last year, but today, after internalizing the tragic news of Sandy Hook Elementary's massacre, I have a profound need to put something down in writing.

But before I go any further I want to note that I feel horror for, and great empathy with, the families of the victims and the children who are left behind to deal with this traumatic experience.  My thoughts, as a father, are with those, who, today, can but feel outrage and unbound-able grief for their losses.  Losses of life, of innocence, of trust...

I would not describe myself as a bleeding-heart liberal, but I admit I lean away from teaching Creationism as absolute truth in public schools.  I'm generally against tax loops for the wealthy, and I can't understand the reasons for banning gay marriage.  Well, maybe that puts me in there with the slightly-wounded-heart liberals, I don't know.  I also prefer smaller government, and proactive means to limiting a welfare state.  And finally, I support a sensible approach to budgets everywhere - don't go over all the time or it'll come back to bite you!  I'm registered to vote as an independent, though I did support Hillary Clinton's run for president in 2008, and I won't apologize for supporting a centrist politician willing to work in a bipartisan way as long as the right things get done.  I didn't vote for either of the main candidates this year, but I did vote!

OK, so with that out of the way now, let's talk guns.

I live in Singapore and I can't help but feel a major sense of relief for my children's safety today, and, at the same time, a great wave of anxiety for that of the children of my friends and relatives back in the States.  It has been over 13 years now since the Columbine shooting and nothing has really changed in the landscape of gun politics.  How is that possible, you might ask?  Not only that, but it appears that in the same time period when these shooting sprees have increased in their rate of occurrence, support for stricter gun control has waned.  So how, then, can a sane parent send their kids to school, or daycare, when both government and the majority of citizens are all in agreement that the status quo of killings is palatable, evidenced by the simple fact that there have been few if any laws or acts of enforcement put in place to stop them?

Well, that's not hard.  We put trust in lots of things that don't appear rational from afar.  Driving our kids to school, for instance, which is by far more dangerous than gunmen in terms of statistics.  So yeah, Americans can all continue about their lives and know that by and large they live in a country that is safe for themselves and their children.  Thank goodness.  But does that mean we should tolerate these mass killings of the innocent?  Should we sit idle and watch tragedies unfold year after year?  There are times when one can feel compelled to act.  Especially after a tragedy like this while the wounds are open and the emotions are high.  Just as described in Klein's Shock Doctrine and Duhigg's Power of Habit, crises can be exploited to bring about serious change, if not always for the best.

Those who support the protection of gun ownership rights also lay claim to car accidents being responsible for more deaths than guns.  They then make the sarcastic conjecture that cars should be outlawed, to make a point.  Should the use of cars as weapons in schools become a new trend, I would start to think seriously about that, but until then I worry about guns.  A gun's main use is as a weapon. In fact, and maybe surprisingly to some, guns are weapons by definition.  Cars are not.  Same argument can be applied to kitchen knives, airplanes, and hot, molten lava.

Then there is the argument that if it wasn't a gun it would have been a bomb, throwing knives, or a bow and arrows - the last a reference to the chilling and poignant film, We Need To Talk About Kevin.  Well, bomb ownership should be banned too.  Oh, wait, it is.  Not predicting a big fight looming on that front.  And if toxophilite-driven massacres become the new trend, we can indeed ban archery.  Or should we?  This comes to the heart of the problem and the rational debate we can have on this issue.  What is the correct balance between the protection of civilian rights to self-defense and recreation, and the sensible control of violence?

I'm not claiming to have all the answers but I feel that with school violence and desensitization to it on the rise, there should be a measured increase to enforcement and control of the instruments most likely to be used in such crimes - firearms.  When I started looking at statutes on the book for this I again realized that the largely symbolic and ineffective ban on assault rifles that was signed into law in 1994 had already expired in 2004.  A sad fact I keep forgetting.

And there are already laws in place for gun control in school areas, but they are not being enforced, largely because they are unrealistic.   We shouldn't let our government hide behind such laws.  If such laws cannot be enforced then we should either be collecting more tax revenues, ideally from gun owners, in order to implement them, or we should repeal them in favor of other, better ones.  While I detest the idea of metal detectors, why aren't they installed in every school, daycare, kindergarten and crèche yet?   Why isn't every child care and learning institution obliged by law to provide armed security services to its staff and students?

The final issue of the right of individuals for self-defense against persons or tyrannical governments seems intractable.  But I ask gun owners or advocates of second amendment protections: if the solution to self-defense is to arm oneself, isn't the logical conclusion of that argument that we should be putting a loaded gun in every child's backpack alongside their lunchbox and books?  (BTW, this is the same kind of hyperbole/sarcasm you might use with the car ban argument).

I, for one, prefer Singapore's sensible approach to this issue.  If you can prove you are in imminent danger (say, tracked down by a gang) you can get a self-defense permit for a concealed weapon.  Since no one else has a gun you don't have to worry about this %99.99999 of the time.  Violent crime here is almost non-existent due to strong deterrence measures.  If you want to own a gun for recreation you can get a license but you must keep the gun locked at a firing range.   A similar rule could be applied to hunting grounds.  It's so simple it just might work in the States, too.

Until then, I am thankful I don't have to send my kids to school in the U.S., and I keep my fingers crossed for all my friends and family back home.

Props to Nicolas Le Restaurant

Despite being foodies and happy to shell out for a Michelin-starred meal, we haven't really tried much fine cuisine since arriving here.  The city-state is not covered by Michelin, true, but there are sundry sources that we could have used for guidance to make our way through the long list of choices.  It has been sort of a conscious decision to sample all the local hawker foods before spending money on something we could easily get back home.

Well, my company is trimming costs and through a series of unfortunate events my desk has been relocated to the outer borough of Tampines.  This is to central Singapore as Jersey City is to Manhattan.  So, to mourn my departure from working life at the Central Business District (CBD) I invited my wife to lunch at a spot nearby that is dolling out fine food - Nicolas Le Restaurant.  I don't remember what search (google, hungrygowhere, etc) led me to a review of Nicolas but the description (small, intimate, chef-run) and the location made it an obvious choice.

The restaurant is located at the ground floor of a Chinatown heritage shophouse building, a few blocks from Connie's office and my old office building - I've moved 3 desks already since arriving a year or so back.  It's a small place with an open kitchen design.  You are either sitting at the kitchen on a bar stool, or just at the foot of it in one of a few 2- and 4-person tables.  You can see the chef, Nicolas, and his staff executing calmly but efficiently as you sip your drink and tuck in.  The ambience is muted, but not uptight.  During our lunchtime visit, there were other couples, businessmen on business lunches, and expats that seemed to have just gathered to enjoy a good meal together while catching up.

The host and waitstaff are all courteous and seem to be well-versed in the wine and food menus - not a major achievement as the food menu is not very complicated.  You have the option of a changing 3-course meal or a 5-course meal.  Either way, your choices per course are limited, which makes sense for the space and size of the kitchen.  And as I said, the sympathetic simplicity was one of the attractions.

We had the 3-course meal with an addition of foie gras.  Since it wasn't guaranteed to be on the menu I asked in advance (reservation by email, free-form) if Connie and I could have some seared for the occasion.  The reservationist replied that we could and we just reminded the waiter when we made our choices: Shrimp bisque and braised veal for Connie, half-boiled egg with smoked eel and ribeye steak for me.  For amuse bouches they gave us smallish portions of our starters reversed (I got a soup, Connie an egg), which was for me the one of two hiccups in the meal - it seemed contrived.

The other hiccup was the steak.  Not sure what's going on, but I've never had a dry ribeye in the states, and I can't seem to get a proper juicy one here.

Otherwise, the food was fantastic.  The egg on itself was simple enough, but the eel and condiment it came along with were unique and delicious and made for a perfect contrast to the egg.  I could have that again.  The bisque had a hearty ocean quality, and came with a batter-fried prawn.  I could have used more of the prawn against the soup, but the flavors and textures worked well.  The braised veal was tender and the sauce appropriately formidable and complex, layered with all sorts of goodness.  The foie gras was seared nicely, lots of fat and salt bursting from each bite.

Connie didn't get dessert - a plate of three seemingly unrelated treats: creme caramel, chocolate fondant/lava cake, and a scoop of ice cream.  They were all well-made, and for Connie's sake I could weave a story together about going from the hale, hot cocoa through the lighter creme to emerge on the other side with a spoonful of ethereal gelato.  Either way, they went well with a nice cappuccino and the check, a pretty good value considering.

Currently, this is my favorite restaurant in Singapore, and hopefully a place to go back to soon, after the necessary comparisons to Les Amis and Iggy's, of course.  The moratorium on "Western Food" has been officially lifted!

Driving to Malaysia (from Singapore) - A Newcomer's Guide

Not all new residents of Singapore opt to have a car, and of those, not everyone attempts a crossing to neighboring Malaysia.  As soon as I leased our car, I was just itching to drive over the Singapore/Johor Strait, off of tiny little Singapore and into relatively gigantic peninsular Malaysia (can't drive to Borneo).  Our first trip was a catastrophe and put us off repeating a similar venture for a long period.  But now, after a year of monthly if not weekly crossings we feel like old hacks and my wife has been pestering me to share the gained knowledge with anyone seeking such guidance on the internet.  The top hits on a simple google search are quite useless as they do not contain the most pertinent information.

One general thing to remember is that every time you cross from Singapore to Malaysia you have to cross 2 borders - first to exit Singapore, then to enter Malaysia.  And vice versa on your return.  So you need to prepare for both.

The Vehicle (Car or Motorcycle)


If you own your car, you would have your certificate of ownership and registration, as well as insurance.  I assume your insurance covers Malaysia.  If you are renting or "leasing" (really, just a long-term rental; there is no leasing, in the American sense of the term, in Singapore) make sure your insurance covers Malaysia at the time the rental company draws up your contract, as it may vary.  We have been doing a 1-year lease and our insurance covers Malaysia, but the deductible is higher if the claim is for a Malaysian incident in comparison with a Singaporean one.  The company I "lease" my car from is called Express Car  and I happily recommend it.

The day before a planned drive to Malaysia I do three things to the car:

1. Fill up gas tank - cars have to be 3/4 full at crossing time to avoid a fine.  The two governments are trying to avoid a market distortion since gas, like everything else, is about twice as expensive in Singapore.  Note also that Singaporean drivers are supposed to fill up only 8000-grade (the finest) petrol, but this is not tightly enforced as far as I can tell.  Unlike Singapore, Malaysian gas pumps are usually not fully attended and you can pretty much do whatever you want.
2. Check tire pressure - most gas stations in Singapore provide free usage of an air pump with automatic pressure gauge (set to 220 pa for standard tires).  I'm already at the gas station, so might as well.  An unnecessary breakdown in Malaysia should be avoided at all costs to avoid getting stranded - my roadside assistance number is for Singapore only...
3. Remove any unneeded valuables - I usually have things like golf clubs, tent, and other non-essentials in the trunk.  In Singapore, I don't mind leaving them in my car, unlocked.  In Malaysia I would rather not tempt anyone even with an armed theft alarm.  This is not a slight against Malaysians, but there is an economic and culture gap between the two countries.

Both Singapore and Malaysia recognize foreign driver licenses. However, if you plan on staying in either for more than a year, you will be forced to convert. The process is not too difficult provided you convert in the first 12 months of residency.

The Route

If you are driving anywhere east (Pontian, Melaka) or central (Kuala Lumpur) it is better to cross at the more relaxed Tuas/Second Link border.  Otherwise, for nearby Johor Bahru or points east (Kota Tinggi, Desaru) use Woodlands.  If this is your first drive, I recommend using Tuas and driving either to Melaka or nearby Pontian/Kukup.

Some obvious locations for driving (6 hours or less): 

• 1-hour Trips
• Pontian/Kukup - Seaside villages on the west coast , 
• Kota Tinggi Waterfalls - Small resort with nice falls/tubing/picnic areas
• I like to combine hike on Gunung Panti with Waterfalls for day trips
• 2-hour Trips
• Melaka - Good food, night market, Chinese-Malay culture, some historical sites of old empire 
• Desaru - Beaches & Eco-Tours (Fireflies boat ride, fruit farm, ostrich farm, alligator farm)
• There's a newly opened highway (E22) that can be used to get there faster now.  It crosses over the Johor River, instead of having to go up Route 3 all the way up to Kota Tinggi and then back down on 92.
• Further Afield
• Kuala Lumpur - Malay capital, Batu caves
• Mersing - go there to catch a ferry to Tioman islands (no cars)
• Cherating - Club Med beach resort and turtle sanctuary

Most GPS's available for purchase in Singapore will have Malaysia maps installed by default.  My crappy Holux brand model did, and the maps/POIs have been satisfactory, even in Borneo (East Malaysia).  

Essential Miscellany

Absolutely Need To Bring:

1. Your passport (and travel visa if you're not automatically welcome)
2. Your Employment/Dependent pass.  
3. Prepaid Singapore Cash Card (for payments at border crossings)

You should also bring some ringgits along as well (for the best rate, albeit only marginally so, we go to the last money changer in Change Alley - closest to Shenton Rd).  I would bring 100 or more depending on your stay and what you plan to do.  At a minimum you have to pay to cross (at Woodlands) or for road tolls (immediately outside Tuas). 

Malaysian White Immigration Entry Form

This is the trickiest thing about crossing to Malaysia in my opinion.  You need to have this document prepared before getting to an immigration officer booth on the Malay side, but in Woodlands there is no place to get this ahead of time.  In Tuas, if it's within business hours (~8am-8pm) you can get this at the info hut just before the immigration center, which is why I recommend Tuas for the first crossing.  If you reach a booth without this card or without this card filled, you will be admonished and then you will be asked to park your car nearby, walk to the central immigration office, pick up the forms, fill them out, and then walk up to the drive-through booth to complete the crossing.  On a busy day, this is tantamount to breaking one of the ten commandments.

Another thing, they won't give you extras for next time!  What we've been doing is we either take turns going out to the info hut at Tuas to get 4-5 forms at a time (they won't give more), or we pick some up at the Malaysian tourism office.  Since our first few road trips, we've also been flying to Malaysia for some our holidays (Borneo, Penang) and we either ask the stewardesses for extras or we look for packets at the arrival halls.  We now have enough for the next year or two ;)

We've understood that you can bribe guards to get extra forms, but on my last crossing (yesterday) I noticed a small post-it on the window of the immigration booth I drove up to at Woodlands that said "No White Entry Forms Available".

If you or one of your party are on a temporary visa in Singapore the crossings will involve a Singapore entry card as well. Make sure to bring the portion left from your last entry to Singapore. While crossing out of Singapore ask for a new one for your return trip.

When to Cross

On weekends, my general advice is to cross before 7am or late at night.  Return is hit or miss.  4-7pm seems like the rush hour back.  If it's a national holiday on either side, avoid crossing altogether or try to be extra early/late.  I have had 2 horrendous experiences with long delays at crossing:

• Hari Raya Puasa: I left home at about ~11am or so and arrived at the Tuas border at ~12pm.  The Singapore crossing was empty so I thought I was smart to avoid the early morning rush.  Shortly after the crossing I realized my mistake.  The 3-mile drive was entirely backed up and it took around 4 hours to complete the crossing.  Leaving us just enough time to get dinner and drive back home!
• Around Christmas: Driving back from Kota Tinggi in mid-December on a Sunday evening I hit a nasty jam on the Malay side and the crossing took close to 2 hours (5-7pm) if you include the traffic jam leading up to Woodlands.

First Trip 

Again, I would like to recommend that you use Tuas on your first trip.  There are several reasons:

1. The info Hut just outside the Malay border where you can get White Immigration Entry Form
2.  Easier to get a Touch N' Go Cash Card - manned booths at first toll area 
1. At Woodlands, you need to have a prepaid Touch N' Go card to enter through the Malay border - the payment is a mere ~$1 or 2 MYR, but the payment method has to be a Touch N' Go cash card.  Only one booth out of the tens there is manned with someone that can perform a cash for Touch N' Go transaction.  That's the right most window in the right most zone.  I believe it's Zone 1, Window 8.  Reminder: bring ringgits/MYR. 
2. At Tuas, there is no payment on the Malay border, but you need to pay toll immediately after crossing.  You can purchase a Touch N' Go at a couple of windows in any of the toll stations and it is les stressful.  My first crossing we didn't bring any ringgits and while we got fleeced on the exchange rate, the toll attendants were good enough to take SGD in exchange for the prepaid cash card. Ther's a money changer immediately after the toll station at the R&R rest area
3. More relaxed, open atmosphere.  Woodlands is claustrophobic and disorienting.  Tuas is open and calm by comparison.

Here's a simulation of your first Tuas crossing:

1. You drive up towards the last exit on the AYE going west.  You start seeing blue signs about filling up your gas tank to 3/4, and prepaying your cash card.  If you forgot either, get off at the one to last exit to do so.
2. You follow the signs for car/motorcycle to immigration.  You will drive towards a bank of booths and play some game (which you are bound to lose, Murphy's laws) to figure out the fastest line.  The Singapore immigration officer at the booth will ask for your passport and EP/DP.  They will want to see all the passengers and may ask you to roll down windows and drive up a bit.
3. You will insert your cash card into the machine that collects border payment and select your vehicle type.
4. After collecting your passports and EP/DPs, drive off to the bridge and enjoy the view of the Singapore/Johor Strait.  Eventually you will arrive at another immigration center on the Malaysian side.  
5. Stop off at the Information Hut just before the banks of immigration officer booths to collect some White Immigration Entry Forms.  If there are several persons in the vehicle take turns going up and asking for 4-5 cards each for your next crossings... Fill out the forms before proceeding.
6. At an immigration booth you just need to provide your passports (not EP/DPs) and the White Immigration Entry Forms, pre-filled.  Your passport will be stamped, and so will a portion of the White Immigration Entry Form, which should be kept inside the passport to provide when exiting Malaysia.
7. Once you're off with your returned documents, proceed to the E3 toll booth.  Go towards the left to lanes not marked TnG or TAG.  Pay cash toll or prepay a new Touch N' Go card (recommended). 
8. Enjoy the rest of your trip.

On the way back to Singapore:

1. Give Malaysian immigration officer your passports, along with the remaining portion of the White Immigration Entry Forms.  
2. Collect passports and proceed to Singapore border
3. Provide immigration officer with passports and EP/DPs
4. Collect and proceed to Customs Check
5. You will be asked to stop your car and open the trunk.  If it doesn't open on its own, get out of the vehicle and open it.
6. After inspection close your trunk and drive off back home.
7. Congratulations!  You drove to Malaysia and back.  You should feel a sense of accomplishment and a higher self-worth :)

Penang - meh...

Originally, we were going to fly to the nearest US territory, Guam, for the 4th of July, but flying out to the middle of the Pacific appears to be complicated and expensive; we'd have to fly through Manilla with an inconvenient layover. Long story short, we ended up in nearby Penang, Malaysia.

Our expectations may have been inappropriate, but we were generally disappointed with Penang.  Lots of traffic, run-down neighborhoods, and relatively crappy beaches.  We stayed at a convenient but shabby hotel on Batu Ferringhi.  On the first day, we drove around the old city, visited the Peranakan Mansion (more because of it was showcased in the Amazing Race than anything else), a glitzy new mall, and the sprawling Kek Lok Si Temple.  We earned a lot of merit there by buying roof shingles for the newly constructed old people home.  We saw the over-crowded turtle pond, bought some souvenirs, and drove up to the Guan Yi statue.  For dinner we had a nice seafood feast.

The next day we visited the butterfly park, which was nice.  It has garden filled with lots of flowers for the butterflies to hang out, good for lots of good photo opportunities.  There is also a small theater showing random critter shorts, and a pretty good display of insects, snakes and lizards.  We spent a good one and half hours there exercising the camera's muscles, rocked back and forth on the "love butterfly" swing chair, watched a short cartoon about a "green" spider, and had a popsicle to complete the fun.

After the butterfly garden we chartered a small boat to take us to Monkey Beach.  The beach was a bit nicer than the ones at Batu Ferringhi, but not much and there were too many boats going in and out, making the experience a bit unnerving.  Add to that stress a bunch of monkeys constantly attacking our food supply.  There was a tire swing that you could jump off into the surf.  I tried.  It wasn't pretty, and my glasses fell off into the murky waters.  Amazingly, a lady from a small group wading next to us was able to extract them!  We paid her off with a banana boat ride.  We also dug a crab out of the sand.  We were just a digging a big hole and all of a sudden it came out from a side pocket.

In summary: lemonade from lemons...

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...