Bandung - a W/E trip

Bandung is Indonesia's forth largest city, as such it tends to suffer from traffic and waste management problems (read - is dirty and gridlocked!) and therefore no longer deserves the previous nickname of "The paris of the East"

However, being only 2 hours or so from Jakarta, it is still a popular tourist spot. So i decided to visit last weekend, (and, coincidently, friend was there thur-sat on a staff trip from work). So we meet up Sat morning, and....... slept, mostly, that'll teach me not have have big nights out before going away on holidays!

You can fly there, catch a train or drive.... the drive goes through a lovely set of hills and volcanoes, called Puncak Pass, covered in tea plantations.

There is plenty of accommodation options to choose from, from Sheraton and Hyatts to backpacker guest houses but this w/e for some reason was quite busy, we found a slightly tired looking hotel, that may well have once been quite grand. It was ok.

That evening we got into the car to travel to a place called Kampung Daun, which is quite a famous place to eat Sudanese food (specialty of the area) I assumed that it was in town.... haha.... 1.5 hours later, car petrol gauage on empty (and service stations all closed for the evening ...:( ) we finally (10.00pm) arrived, fortunately we also did find an open petrol station.

The place is a collection of open air gazebos serving as diners tables with a dozen kitchens interspaced between streams and gardens.

Food was good, but nobody bothered to tell me that the Oxtail soup - meant soup, plus a plate of oxtail meat, rice and vegetables, so when that arrived plus the plate of Ribs I ordered i looked like a right greedy bastard.

After that drove back to town and visited 'Embassy' a night club that, as it turned out had DJ Naro (a reasonably well kown Indo DJ) and DJ Missil (French DJ) playing that night. :)

The next day had a bit of a sleep in - funny that! before checking out and travelling to a small mall that had been tarted up to look like a european street, called, strangely enough, Paris van Java ... some good specials on there and I managed to buy some new clothes, had lunch at Black Canyon - dining outside (Bandung is at a high altitude so the temperatures are very pleasant.)

Bandung is also famous for shopping, notably factory outlets for all sorts of name branded clothing, Guess, Pierre Cardin, Hugo Boss etc.

Again spent some money - but at less than $10 per item who's gonna complaign.

After this another travel to the Dago Hills north of the city, and overlooking the city. A coffee shop / art gallery was our destination Selasa Cafe. The coffee was very, very good.

The views were great - though a little overcast.

The art work was not really to my taste. They also do performances there and have a small amphitheatre. This one was called the suffering or something - apprently not supposed to take photos....

Anyway, all in all a nice place to visit, i'll head back there some time again.

a link to a better travel writer than I ... http://www.thingsasian.com/stories-photos/2726

golf in asia

One of the pleasant things about living in asia is the quality and availabilty of decent golf courses.

Particularly in Asia, its a place to find some greenery, sounds of birds, water and a fresh breeze. Not really all that expensive either.

just done the road from me is a golf course, i visited the other day (since i'm on holidays i've got plenty of spare time :) )

the greens are lovely, the course has food stalls every few holes (including beer), this particular course had a wierd pink and green knickerbocker uniform for the caddies, who are usually quite pleasant and generally reasonably helpful regarding your golf game.

i wont tell you my score though, it was pretty miserable! haha. and also unfortuanately (for me) when i enquired about membership.... waiting list.....

hmmm - much like the MCC membership list I've been on for the last 15 years, though apparently I should get that sometime this year :) so plenty of cricket and Aussie rules football on its way for me!

1000 Islands Trip

Palau Seribu or thousand islands are just north of Jakarta's harbour. I arranged a school trip to an Island here, called Pramuka Island, for my senior IB Biology class. The students completed a number of hands on studies relating to ecology and envirnomental issues.

here the students were conducting a number of transect lines on some coral reefs, looking at the biodiversity and health of each.


transplanting coral.



Examaining mangroves and seagrasses.... another of the islands we visited for lunch.




some local kids playing on a home built raft ..... also a visit to the turtle hatchery, we later released some turtles back into the wild.

mobile phones and water

Went to a fun park in a place called Dufan in Ancol, north jakarta today. Roller coaster rides, ferris wheel etc, all good fun. towards the end of the day we decided to go on the 'bumber boats' a bit naff but they were ok. As I was getting out of the boat my mobile phone slipped out of my pocket into the water ! Doh!

2 metres deep! Doh! - anyway one of the attendants apologised (I'm not sure why, it wasnt his fault) another one stripped off and went swimming in this murky brown water, he found the phone, but surprise surprise it doesnt work, i took it to the bathroom and dried it under the hand dryer - still no luck!

It was only 3 months old, guess i need a new one, but in the meantime i feel quite naked without a phone! fortunately the SIM card works, but no phone numbers on it either!

A day at the Zoo

Lonely Planet guide book describes Ragunan zoo as "a nice place to spend a few hours'

they forgot to mention not to go on a national holiday, particularly the end of Ramadan because every good muslim is supposed to spend time with their family and since just about everything is closed the only 2 places in the entire country to go with the family are the zoo and Taman mini (another post and another day!)

though since I ignored a friends warning not to go I dont think I would have listened to the LP either....

traffic was diverted a little to get to the zoo...

this was about 3 kms along and the hawkers selling shit were walking faster than the car....

after a fair bit of travel we arrived, first we saw this happy smilie white tiger...

did i mention there was a lot of people there ??

then the missus got hungry, well we had walked for 15 minutes or so and seen 2 or 3 animals so we stopped at a little kitchen that did Bakso and Mie Ayam.....

here's the crocodile cages.... theres a couple of animals in each pen.... this guy is a big bugger, but clearly unimpressed with the rubbish throwing...

I think the sign above says "dont throw rubbish at the animals you stupid gits" - but as you can see the indonesian's reading skills are not much better than mine!