Wednesday, March 26, 2014

5 days to go to Bali/5 jours pour visiter Bali

Bali : February, 6th to 10th, 2014



                    Bali is an island that lies 3.2 km (2 mi) east of Java (Indonesia), and is approximately 8 degrees south of the equator. Bali and Java are separated by the Bali Strait. East to west, the island is approximately 153 km (95 mi) wide and spans approximately 112 km (69 mi) north to south, with a population of 3,890,757 in the 2010 census.
Bali is the famed Island of the Gods, with its varied landscape of hills and mountains, rugged coastlines and sandy beaches, lush rice terraces and barren volcanic hillsides all providing a picturesque backdrop to its colourful, deeply spiritual and unique culture. But the beaches are not always as beautiful as I thought it would be.
- The local money is the Rupiah (100,000 Rp = 6 €)
- There are European plugs (i.e. not American nor British plugs).
- Food: a chicken fried rice costs Rp 15,000 to Rp 25,000
- A driver is Rp 400,000 a day for a big car with air-con (4-5 hours a day)

(all pictures excepted maps and the blue cabs one were taken by my friends or by myself, all rights included)

                         We went to Bali as a group of four students. I think this is a really good group size to visit Bali: being 4 people it is not a problem to find hotel rooms - and you can even bargain saying that you take two rooms - and you can afford a driver (I mean renting a car), which is quite expensive if you are only two of you.
First, how to reach the island? From Singapore, the best way is to go by plane. It is quite cheap if you do not book the day before leaving. In Bali, the airport is supposed to be in Denpasar, but de facto, because it is in the suburbs, it is closest to Kuta. Be aware of it, above all for you return, if you have to take a taxi, ask an hotel that is not too far from the airport. One thing I must not forget: arriving in Bali airport, you will find a small office/agency that will propose you to take a taxi ticket. Do not buy this kind of ticket, excepted if you have many baggages. Doing so, you would pay almost the double of the real price. Instead of that, leave the airport to the road, it is only 5 min walking as the airport is quite small, and take a cab there. I recommend you to take a Bluebird Cab. It is the best local company, with English-speaking drivers, and normal fares. You cannot miss it: they have really sky blue cabs.


The trip !

Thursday : departure at 7:15 a.m. from  Singapore, arrival at 10:05 a.m. Day in the Jimbaran peninsula at the very south of the island: Pura Luhur Uluwatu, small coastal roads on scooter.
Friday : Morning on the beach, and then trip to Mount Bathur in the North. Stop at Pura Tirta Empul and in a coffee plantation. Night close to the volcano.
Saturday : Trek to the top and around the crater of Mount Agung for sunrise. Then Tagallalang rice fields, and then Pura Ulun Danu Bratan. Night in Ubud.
Sunday : Ubud city, and then Pura Taman Ayun in Mengwi, and then Tanah Lot temple. Night in Kuta.
Monday : Flight to Singapore at 10:45 a.m.

DAY 1                  We arrived at the airport in the morning, and took a cab outside the airport, and went to Jimbaran where we had booked an hotel: Jolie Hostel, Jl. Astina No. 23 Desa Ungasan Kuta Selatan – Bali (http://joliehostelbali.com/). It is a nice hotel, with a swimming pool in which you can cool off. We slept in a 6-bed dormitory, for 7€ each. People in this hotel are nice, there is wifi. The only problem is that it is a bit far from the coast: you cannot go to the beach by foot. You can rent scooters in this Hotel, recent ones, for only 50,000 Rupiahs, i.e. 3€ for one day. Oil is cheap on the island, and for an afternoon you might buy two litters of oil (in Absolut Vodka bottles ?!!) on your way. There are plenty of small shops that sell oil. If you do not feel like driving a motorbike in the messy traffic, you can take a cab.

I rent a scooter with one of my friend, and went to Pura Luhur Uluwatu (Pura means temple) and ate just before the entrance. It is a lovely temple on the edge of a cliff, with an amazing panorama on the sea and the waves breaking against the cliff. You have to pay to enter the temple, but it is not expensive: if I remember well, it was Rp 20,000 (with a sarong they lend you). About sarong, my advice is to buy one somewhere at the beginning of your trip: you may be asked Rp 100,000 for it but it is quite easy to lower the price until Rp 30,000. You will need a sarong in each temple, so it is nice to have one to avoid all the women trying to sell you one. It is also useful piece of closing in over air-conditioned areas. Back to the temple: there are many a monkey, and they are not wild anymore: if they see bananas in your bag or in your pockets, they will not hesitate to climb on you to steal them!
We did not stay so long in this temple, but there is a path on the top of the cliff you can roam if you want to enjoy the panorama. It seemed to be nice, but, for us, it was really too hot to stay under the blazing sun. Just a last thing. If you come by cab, tell the driver to wait for you, because there are not so many cabs there.

Then we wanted to find a beach to swim. For me, Bali was an idyllic islands with big beaches of white sand and clear water. Something like Bora Bora in fact. It is not. In the South of Jimbaran peninsula, you have almost no beaches, only water and cliffs and big waves (and you see many, many Australian surfers coming to enjoy the great spots). After a really nice scooter ride on small roads, we finally found a beach (after three stops trying to find one). Here it is:
This is a nice beach, not so big, but we had finally found sand! There were quite many people but it was not overcrowded though.
The water was not so clean and so clear, but it was okay. And finally the beach looked good.
We waited for the sunset there, and came back to the hotel.

DAY 2               Next morning, we wanted to chill on a beach, in order to get a bit tanned. We thought about going to Kuta beaches, but both the water and the sand are dirty. In fact, the only clean beaches are at the very south of Kuta' beaches, just in front of the big hotels. Basically, these hotels clean the beach in front of their terraces. We rented deckchairs and enjoyed a banana milkshake with a nice view on the sea.
Back to the hotel, we asked the receptionist to call a driver for us. We ate and met the driver early in the afternoon. He turned out to be really nice, deeply knowing the island and the things to do. It cost us Rp 400,000 for each day for the car, i.e. 100,000 each, which is quite cheap for a good big car (7 seats) with air-con.
Our goal for this journey was the Mount Bathur. We were told we could climb it for the sunrise. On our way we stopped at Pura Tirta Empul, a nice temple with Holy springs. It is an authentic religious place, and even a place of pilgrimage.
After This, we stopped in a coffee plantation, where we could try for free different coffees. They were all very goods coffees, and for Rp 50,000 you can try Luwak Coffee, coffee made with coffee beans eaten (and then dejected) by a little mammal, called Paradoxurus, commonly named Luwak. This is something you should try, at least to tell your friend you did that ! Our driver found us an Hotel and a guide to climb the Mount Agung.



DAY 3          Our hotel was not really clean, and fortunately we did not pay a lot for it. Either way, we had to wake up at 4:00 a.m. for the ascension. We had booked a guide the day before at our hotel. For a group of four, we paid Rp 800,000, so this is quite expensive. We did not bargain as much as we should have. You can have a better price, above all if you go to the office of the guides working for the government. It is still expensive, because they have to pay a huge tax for leading tourists to the top. We arrive at the top at : a.m. and our guide cooked the breakfast on hot spots of smoke emanating from cracks in the ground of the volcano. That was nice! Then we waited for the sunrise, but the sky was cloudy, so we missed it. After the sunrise, we walked around the crater, saw monkeys, had a great panorama on the lake, and went down. We arrived in our hotel at 10:00 a.m.






















                        The next step of our trip was Ubud, a city in the centre of the island. Our driver led us ther, but before we stopped in Tegallalang to see the rice fields, and then to the North East to Bratan temple, a temple on a lake. This was a lovely temple, where we met really nice people.

At the end of the afternoon, we stopped in Ubud and stayed in a cheap but very good hotel.

DAY 4          In the morning, we visited Ubud: Monkey forest (a forest which is really full of monkeys), and then the city: Royal Palace, some temples, ... While we were visiting Ubud, one my friends went to KlungKung, in the East, to do some elephant riding. It was USD 50 for half an hour or USD 80 for one hour. Included: lunch, zoo tour. He found it really nice.
After half a day in Ubud, the four of us moved to Mengwi and then Tanah Lot. Tanah Lot is an amazing temple you have to see at the sunset. It is basically a small temple built on a big rock, in the sea, where waves come and break. You can take amazing pictures there. I guess everyone knows that, since there are many people there. The surroundings of the temple on the coast are nice also, there are many places where you can buy something to drink and wait for the sunset.
 We left the temple after the sunset and asked our driver a place to sleep near the airport. After trying two hostels that where really dirty, with no bathrooms in the rooms, we found a more expensive one, but with a very beautiful swimming pool, and good beds inside the rooms. We paid Rp 400,000 for each room, and it was worth it, but I'm sure you can pay less if you bargain a bit. My advice is to look for an hotel for your last night before coming to Bali.

DAY 5         We took our plane at 10:45 a.m. and arrived at 13:25 a.m. in Singapore. End of our trip!

What we did not do:
- Snorkelling, because we had already done it in Tioman and because we will dive in Koh Phi Phi.
- Besakih temple, because this place is a real business run by local mafias who make you pay for each thing you want to see (you pay to enter the temple, you pay to climb the stairs, you pay to see some parts of the temple, ...).
- Surfing, because we did not know how to surf! Bali is a really good spot to surf.

If you have any question, leave a comment!

Friday, March 7, 2014

4 days to go to Pulau Tioman, Malaysia/4 jours à Pulau Tioman

Pulau Tioman : January, 23rd to 27th, 2014


Tioman (Malay: Pulau Tioman) is a small island, 39 km long and 12 km wide.
(all pictures excepted maps were taken by my friends or by myself, all rights included)

 Why Tioman ?

Tioman is within the Mersing Marine Park, which contains less commercial islands. In the 1970s, Time magazine selected Tioman as one of the world’s most beautiful islands. The densely forested island is still sparsely inhabited. Also it is surrounded by numerous white coral reefs, making it a haven for scuba divers from around the region. Basically, Tioman could be depicted as a wild island, with mountains and jungle almost reaching the sea, with beautiful beaches and clear water, and not many tourists. So Tioman is a really nice island, but there are not many things to do, so it is a good place to go for a three/four-day-trip !

- The money is the Riggit (€ 1 = Riggit 4)
- There are British plugs
- Food: you can have a chicken fried rice for Riggit 4

Go


We left as a group of twelve students, so we tried to plan the transport early to be sure to travel together. Reaching the island is a bit complicated. First, I thought the cheapest was to go by bus, but if you are travelling with enough friends, taking a big cab might be very interesting to cross the borders. There is an airport on the island but there were no flights until February. We took a public bus at Kranji MRT station, on the right leaving the station. We went through the two borders (Singaporean and Malaysian) to Johor Barhu, where we withdrew Riggits and took a bus to Mersing from a private company. We left Singapore at 6:00 p.m. and arrived at 4:00 a.m. in Mersing.
If you want to travel with a private bus company, you can book the bus to be sure to have seats. We travelled with Transnational Express, and the bus from Johor Barhu to Mersing was the most comfortable I had ever seen. We had to go to the company's agency in Singapore, Plaza Porkroyal (Bugis MRT station and then walk, or bus 107, 107M, 961, 961C, 980). You have to enter what looks like a carpark of an hotel (big building), around 30m after the cross with Orphir road, on Beach Road, going to the North-West, i.e. towards the cross with Arab Street. But when you arrive in Johor Barhu, there are many a bus company to drive you to Mersing. The bus ticket was SGD 15 each. If you want to save money, you can take your return bus ticket in Malaysia, it is SGD 5 less than in Singapore. In the bus, it is often cold because of the ari-con.
How we reached Tioman island
We arrived at Mersing early in the morning, and we had booked an hotel for the end of the night. It was the River Side Hotel, No 74, Jalan Sulaiman, 86800 Mersing, cheap hotel, but clean and comfortable rooms. We paid around SGD 10 each for the night. If you travel in low season, as we did, bargain for every hotel room, especially if you are a group.

We took the ferry tickets in Mersing. There is no way to know the ferry schedules on the internet. Only local people can inform you, depending on the tide. The ferry ticket was Riggits 35, going and coming back. There is no need to book the ferry on the Internet if you arrive early enough. Take a sweat-shirt for the ferry, temperature is low because of the air-con.
You can stop in many villages with the ferry. We decided to stop in Salang, last stop from Mersing.
Ferry stops

The trip !

Thursday : departure at 6:00 p.m. from  Singapore.
Friday : Arrival at 4:00 p.m. in Salang. Night in Salang.
Saturday : Trek to Ayer Batang. Night in Ayer Batang.
Sunday : Beach at Ayer Batang. Walk to Tekek and back to ABC. Night at Ayer Batang.
Monday : Departure at 2:00 p.m.
Tuesday : Arrival at midnight in Singapore.

DAY 1       We took the ferry at 1:00 p.m. and then we arrived at 4:00 p.m. in Salang, because of a bad sea. We discovered the island, beaches after beaches seated at the stern, and we were really amazed by the sand and the clearness of the water !
  But we were a bit to hungry to think about other things but food. We ate in a small restaurant at the very South of Salang village, surrounded by many semi-wild cats we were a bit afraid of at the beginning (because of rabies), but here were peaceful. Then we looked for an place to sleep, what is really easy to find in low season. We chose Ella's place at the North of the village (which is really small). It was cheap, 10 Riggits each (but none of the Hotel I mention offered breakfast for the price).
We spent most of the afternoon on the Beach. The water was hot but not too much. No other sounds than birds, waves, small wind, ... Actually we were the only tourists on this part of the Island. Even if this beach was really beautiful, it was not the best beach we found on the island.
In the evenning, we ate in a small restaurant embellished with blue tiles, with a large terrace and a nice panorama on the bay. You can easily eat for less than 10 Riggits in every restaurant. Usually, the restaurant is unable to serve some meals. Ask when you take the menu. Otherwise, you can find all Malaysian meals : Nasi Goreng (fried rice), Mie Goreng (Fried noodles), ...
At night, we found a duty free shop in the center of the village where we bought beers. The shop is impressive : full of alcoholic drinks from all around the world. You could even buy old whisky or French champaign if you want !

DAY 2         After a good breakfast at the restaurant where we had had dinner the day before. The aim of that day was to reach ABC village, also called Ayer Batang, walking through the jungle ! We had heard about a beautiful beach on the way to ABC where we could enjoy great snorkelling : Monkey Beach. The path through the jungle begins at the very South of the beach. At the beginning you have to climb a great slope, nad then, all the way, you alternatively go up and down. This trek was one hour long to reach Monkey Beach, and an other hour long from Monkey Beach to ABC. It was not an easy trek but not so difficult though. Even children can do it.


The forest really looks like a jungle you would see in a movie. It was really new for me and I found it handsome. Something really important : if you do not want to get lost, always follow the electric cables above your head ! There is no other way to make sure you go in the correct direction ! After one hour walking, we arrived at Monkey beach around 11:30 a.m. You cannot miss it: at one moment you reach a small concrete bridge (see picture on the right). Leave the pass to the right and you are on the beach. We walked 100 m on the right to find a comfortable shaded place to stay. Maybe the beach is wilder over there. We let all our stuff on the sand, took our diving masks and tubas (you can buy some on the island), and went for a great moment of snorkelling ! Coral, limpid water, fishes, sea stars, ... Unforgettable for my first snorkeling experience ! We spent nearly two hours there (sunburns !), and left with the tide to finish the trek. The second part of the trek looks like the first one, but you see the sea better. You can even stop on small beaches in some places. If you are lucky, you can see monkeys in the trees.

We arrived at 3:00 p.m. in Ayer Batang. Ayer Batang is a bigger village, with plenty of monkeys, freely going everywhere ! To eat, we went to the only restaurant we found in the village, at the very south of the village, a small place embellished with yellow tiles. This is the place where we ate each time after this lunch.



In ABC, the best beach is the one at the very South. At the North, there are lots of stones on the beaches, and sometimes rubbish. We spent the afternoon. There is a small bar you can go to in the middle of the Village that sells acoholic drinks, and for example cheap cocktail bukets if you bargain a bit. The food is a bit expensive though, and not so good. It is better to eat in the restaurant I just mentioned. We went there, drank some bukets, met friendly foreigners, listened to a weird mix of Reggae music, Avril Lavigne and Jason Mraz !



We slept in small bungalows, still for an average 10 Riggit each, at the North of the village, in a place called ABC Chalet. It was nice and cheap. Myfriends' place, at the South, is also a good cheap place to sleep.

DAY 3         My room-mates and I woke up with some monkeys around our bungalow, and decided to give them some pieces of dry mango to take great pictures. Bad idea !!! We actually took good pictures, because they came so close, and because in 5 minutes, we were surrounded by two dozens of monkeys. But as soon as we had nothing left to feed them, one that looked to be the dominant male started to be aggressive. He shouted at us, came dangerously close and finally climbed the stairs of our small bungalow ! We just had time to take refuge inside and lock the door ! Do not carry food when you meet monkeys, they will try to steal it !

Some friends and I needed some cash to finish the trip, and went from Ayer Batang to Tekek by foot. It is 45 min long to go there, on the only road of the island. Tekek is the city in which the airport is located. It is not handsome, so do not feel obligated to go there. We were told there were two ATMs there. There actually are, but most of the time out of work. Though, walking 5 min, we found a market at the first floor of a building where we could change Singaporean dollars. We had lunch there, checked the time when the ferry would pick us up the day after (there is an office of the company in charge of the ferries in Tekek).

We spent the afternoon on the beach, getting tanned and playing cards. It was so relaxing to lay down on the sand with nobody to disturb us !




DAY 4         After a huge breakfast in our favorite restaurant, with many banana pancakes, we chilled on the beach and on the terrace of the restaurant before going to the pier to get our ferry. It came late because of the low tide. Coming back the sea was really calm. We left this wonderful island, under a blazing sun highlighting the clearness of the water and the beauty of the beaches.


We arrived in Mersing at 5:00 p.m., and went to the bus station to buy the bus tickets to go back to Singapore. Then we went back to the centre to eat before leaving. We were a bit tired, but our trip had really been like a small part of paradise. Everyone was really happy to have come in this island.

We arrived at Queenstown by bus at 11:00 p.m. and took the last train to come back to the campus of the University.

 

  Usefullinks:

http://wikitravel.org/en/Tioman 
http://tezzasthaiinfo.blogspot.sg/2007/07/gorgeous-tioman-island.html

If you have any question, leave a comment!