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...

Desaru Eco Tour & Beach Holiday

Johor state in Malaysia, on Singapore's doorstep, is proving to be my new favorite playground.  After two weekends of hiking near Kota Tinggi on Gunung Panti, I took the family on an eco-tour of Desaru.  Throw in a beach resort, and you have a perfect mix of fun and adventure.

Our itinerary included a fruit farm, an ostrich farm, an alligator farm, a firefly cruise, water park, sand play and wading at the beach, as well as two dinners at an amazing seafood restaurant in a local fishing village.   The basic research for the trip was mostly gathered from this resourceful site.  And we stayed two nights at the Lotus Desaru Beach Resort.

The Desaru Fruit Farm was awesome.  Although most fruits were not in season, there were plenty of blossoms and young fruit on their way to ripening.  The tour guide was quite knowledgable about the horticulture and about the many health-related uses of fruits and herbs - the perfect fruit saleslady.  Lizzy was especially enthralled with the large snails that we spotted on some banana tree leaves.  She kept pointing at the snails and saying "that's not poop...."  There was also a mini-zoo where we fed rabbits and goats and saw some monkeys and chickens.  We then sat through a seminar about wild bees and the many exulted benefits of their related products - pollen, honey, somecrapolis, you-name-it these bees produced it and it cured you-name-it again.  We ended up buying 3 large bottles of wild bee honey that we are still taking on a daily basis as a cure-all elixir.  It's yummy and Lizzy likes to scoop it with a tiny little spoon.

The Ostrich Show Farm was not nearly as exciting, but we learned some interesting things about ostriches - like that females are carrying more than 10 of those huge eggs inside them at any one time.  That those eggs have more protein per unit of egg than the chicken variety.  That Lulu has a 4-carat diamond ring inside of her and cutting her up was more expensive than paying off the irate ring-owner... We ate ostrich egg omelet, ostrich satay, ostrich steak, and ostrich tendon soup.

The crocodile farm is a bit of a bore with its tens of pools of crocodiles just doing their thing - lying around lazily.  However, the feeding that was going on while we were there definitely made for a fun visit.  The "farmer" wheelbarrowed around a bunch of chickens and kept taunting the crocodiles and throwing them a carcass to either fight over (young ones) or devour in one gulp (isolated adults).  We got two teeth as souvenirs.

The firefly cruise was neat.  Basically, you get on a boat after dark and cruise along the mangrove lined river looking out for fireflies.  The boatsmen have a trick to getting the fireflies to light up and so you get to see a lot of them.

The hotel is well-positioned and boasts a really nice beach.  Pretty good amenities.  Rooms are outdated, but the real problem is that the housekeeping staff is clueless and ineffective.  The water park is dangerous - Lizzy got her first nosebleed shooting out of a water slide at top speed and hurtling at mommy's jaw-slacked mouth.  4+ I'd say.

Sungai Rengit is a tiny fishing village with many good seafood restaurants.  We went to Crystal Garden the first night, and had such a good time we returned to the same place for a second night.  Why risk it when you've found the perfect spot.  Bamboo clams, mini lobsters, clams, steamed fish, fried tofu, vegetables - all perfectly prepared.  Yum.  Can't wait to go back. 

This was a really nice and easy vacation to the near-abroad.  Days were fun-filled and adventure-packed.  Food was great.  And we experienced some new things and had no dull moments in-between.  I'd recommend a Desaru weekend to anyone with a car in Singapore.

Gunung Panti & Kota Tinggi - Mission Accomplished

I could not let Gunung Panti defeat me, so went back on the same trip as last week - Gunung Panti hike plus Kota Tinggi Waterfalls.  This time with another colleague from work.  After trekking through the thick of it last week and studying the terrain map on Google, I knew where we had to go and pushed Deepak to jump across the muddy creek to the correct ridge.  We quickly found the right trail and took it directly up the Western face.


Other than fighting a wave of exhaustion the climb up was fairly uneventful.  One bonus to not going up an actual trek last week was that we didn't see human trash all over the place.  That was annoying today.  When we got near the peak the mountain turned into a rock wall.  Luckily there were ropes positioned in good spots to help one climb.  We were rewarded for our rock climbing by a magnificent view and the sound of illegal logging...

The waterfalls are still awesome, and this time I found more spots on top of the lower waterfalls where the pools are deeper.

Toddler Jeopardy

A few weeks back we spent a quiet afternoon at the East Coast Park beach with Lizzy, getting her ready for that week's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" lightning round:

Gunung Panti & Kota Tinggi

Rainforest Trek

This week I organized a hiking trip with some of my colleagues at work to Gunung Panti - the nearest mountain in the neighboring state of Johor, Malaysia.  There was very limited information about trails in this area, but we found an enthusiast's guide with GPS waypoints so we thought it was something we could do.  With GPS and compass in hand (and passports, visas and employee passes) we travelled by car from Singapore to the nearby town of Kota Tinggi.  There were only four of us - a colleague and his wife, and a junior member of the team who I am mentoring.  Connie and Lizzy had tickets to Ugly Duckling.

Besides hike organizer, I was also the driver for this trip, so I woke up at ~5am in order to get to the first pickup point at 5:40am, and to the second one by 5:55am. We were across to Malaysia by 6:15am.  This was the first time I drove through the Woodlands link - there are only 2 bridges from Singapore to Malaysia and I've taken the other one twice.  They are really similar and I am not sure why the so-called Second Link is favored (Google maps refuses to give directions via Woodlands).  I can understand taking the out-of-the-way Second Link to Kuala Lumpur or Penang, but not to central or Eastern Johor.  The main thing is to get to these border crossings before 6:30am and avoid them altogether during public holidays...

We were at the outskirts of the Gunung Panti Forest Reserve around 8am.  The dirt road that led to the trailhead had some very big weak spots, so we ended up parking next to the guardhouse just outside a nearby hotel - I tipped the guard to watch the car, mostly to make sure no monkeys attack it, like they did in Thailand.  The trail we followed leading from a makeshift camp opened out to a nearby farm or kampong.  It then picked up again wherever we chose to climb over the farm's fence...  A simple study of the terrain ahead of time, and a closer look at a compass would have saved us an hour and a lot of stress.  As organizer I take full responsibility for not being better prepared.  Trying to find the main trail, we fought the thick rainforest full with leeches, mosquitoes, and very sharp brambles only to get ~100m or so, elevation-wise, short of the peak when I decided to give up and start heading back - I was not very confident of my trekking skill by this point, and it was getting close to noon.  I wanted to play it safe given that I was leading the way and there was a lady present.


View Gunung Panti - April 2, 2011 in a larger map

On the way down, we lost the trail again.  And again.  We somehow got to the damned farm again... and again - the third time was not my fault, except maybe that I did not sufficiently fight the rest of the group about which way to go. We made it back down by ~2pm.  We were all bleeding from leech bites along our sock lines.  Some of us ran out of water.  I had a crazy cramp in my left calf.  As soon as we made it down I vowed to return within two month's time for a do-over.  The GPS died near the peak, not that the piece of shit really helped.  Switching to a mechanical compass (don't trust your iPhones!) was the way to go.  It made me fairly sure of my bearings and direction of travel (other than down).  It was the first time I trekked without following a well-marked trail and a hiking map.  We were also the ONLY people on the mountain - that was a new experience for me, and I came out a better trekker and more sure of my general survival skills.

Leeches

As I noted above, we were all attacked by leeches on this trek.  This was my first experience with the suckers (pun intended).  They look like worms, and once attached to your skin they swell up in size from the blood intake.  If you try to rip them off your skin, it will cause minor injury.  The approved way to get rid of the leech is to sprinkle salt on it - we came prepared.  It will then contract and lose contact at which point you can flick it off.  It will also eventually get off of you once it had its fill.  After my first leech attack, I raised my socks as far as they could go.  I was wearing really thick wool socks and this kept the leeches from getting to my skin through the sock - something that happened to others in my party.  Every 15 minutes or so I would check my boots and flick off any leeches climbing toward the sock line.  This seemed to work.  When we got back t the car there were some on my socks inside the boots, but they never made contact after the first one.

Cold Bath

After the stressful hike, we drove 5 minutes north to the Kota Tinggi Waterfalls Resort.  I really didn't know what to expect, but we were already there, so we paid the 10RM fee per person and parked the car.  The resort is quite dinky, no doubt.  We washed our hike off in a small pool by the hotel reception.  Then we walked to the waterfalls (despite aching limbs).  In short, the waterfalls are awesome.  The water is cold and refreshing, and the cascading terrain has created small pools for those brave enough to climb the slippery rocks to get a nice perch and a "massage."  We spent an hour enjoying ourselves and taking pictures.  We even got to see a snake swallowing another snake whole.

This was my third and best trip to Malaysia to this point.  I suspect I will be back in Kota Tinggi very soon!