One of the better and expensive resort in Bali. It's located in Jimbaran. Halfway between Kuta and Nusa Dua.

Try their parpadelle. It's the best!

It is an old resort in Banten facing the Bandulu Beach. It has pretty complete facilities, such as: swimming pool, tennis court, jogging track, volley and basketball courts, etc. During my stay, we spent a night at the four bedrooms bungalow, which is surrounded by the garden, facing the swimming pool and the restaurant. The bungalow has a large living room that makes the TV seems so small, 1 master bedroom, a twin bedroom and a bathroom downstairs, and two twin bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. The kitchen is ok, they have some cooking equipments. Pretty clean, but the building is old. It is a good place if you wanna relax from the busy city Jakarta, to enjoy some watersports during the weekend, or family gathering.

*under construction*

Plaza Senayan is one of the sophisticated shopping malls in the heart of Jakarta. Beside the International and Local designers boutiques, you can also enjoy two famous department stores: Metro and Sogo, with high quality products. After a long shopping hours, you wouldn't miss some food at the foodcourt or any restaurants or cafes available, or just to sit and relax to enjoy a cup of coffee at Starbucks (open until midnight) or Coffee Bean. You can also relax and enjoy the latest movies at the XXI Cinema with friends or family, play billiard or bowling, style yourself at famous hairdressers at high class beauty salons. At night, you can enjoy the party at the exclusive club: X2. During weekends, this place is always full with young people. The mall is located in a strategic place in town.

[to be added later]

Another live aboard, this time the North Sulawesi Aggressor, courtesy of Aggressor, who sent me a voucher for a free week onboard the NSA - I still can't figure out what the deal was, I must have won a draw or something. The flight from Singapore was full of Poles who were a group of 20 divers headed to dive the Bunaken National Park and then head on to Irian Jaya. The boat launched from Bintung off the KBR resort (do not know what KBR stands for). Once again I ate like a King. But unlike the trip to the Cocos Islands, there were only 6 divers on a boat with a capacity for 16. So it was nice to have a room to myself. There were 2 Canadian Obama supporters, another probable Obama fan from Minnesota, pro photographer Tomo-san from Tokyo, an actively fit Brit lady and myself. I was impressed by the Brit lady who must be in her 60s and does diving, wind surfing, skiing and karate. Wind surfing! My goodness I can barely lift a sail. She told me her days were numbered and that's why she does all that!

This was my first time doing "muck" diving. From what I am told muck diving is scouring the black sandy bottom for critters unique to the area. Critters ranged from colorful nudibranches and slugs to stargazers, and lots of tropical fish (lots of lion fish), most names I still am unsure off but lots of weird critters showed up during the night dives. The biggest mistake I made was not bringing the flash diffuser for my underwater case for my Canon S80. All my flash shots have this black blob in the photos from the barrel of the case. Anyhow, I got enough video to capture the weird critters of the night. The night dives were more interesting than the day dives. On this trip the wall dives actually didn't interest me as much as the muck diving. I think my favorite critters this time were the pygmy seahorse(size of a small thumbnail, hard to spot hangs out on sea fans), orang utan shrimp?, stargazer and carrier crab. The carrier crab, which, I caught on vid, was carrying a huge coral on top. This critter has character. With my dive light in its face, it would stop and glare and then continue on its merry way. Haha, gave me quite a good laugh. It is difficult to explain all that I saw but believe me, C-O-L-O-R-F-U-L was the word. The night dives showed amazing colors of critters of the night going about their nocturnal foraging on what one sees is a black sandy bottom during the day. The black sand is from the lava of the area. Definitely a different type of diving which I have not done before. The divers onboard were all seasoned, upward of 660-1500+ dives making me the junior of the lot. The pro Japanaese underwater photographer from Tokyo goes on dives trips, does photography and writes about the resort or live aboard. A DREAM JOB! Anyhow, Tomo-San had more equipment than I could keep track off both onboard and in the water. And the guy never crashed a corel...unlike me with my clumsy photography. I am waiting for some shots he took with his personal camera of the same things I took except mine all have black blobs in them. Tomo-San had the personal camera hanging off the side and snuck a pic in or 2 when he could. Generally he had 2 other big cameras with him. It was interesting observing a pro go at it, both underwater and on the board. One got to see how pros  
think when it comes to picture composition. I think I got made a model for the upcoming issue of Marine Diving mag. I got asked to pose about everywhere on the boat...haha. Anyway, I have been promised unlimited supply of sushi when I visit Tokyo...except I only eat Cali roll..haha. The most activity I got on this trip was being chased by Nemo (clown fishes) and being bitten by Nemo. In all my diving, I have never seen such feisty little fellas. When approaching to take a photo, the  
big Nemos would start coming at you and chase you around and try to bite you. They are protecting the baby Nemos. I got bitten on the knee and finger. Even once when there were 2 communities on Nemos side by side. One had the orange guys, the neigbhoring community had the white guys. While attempting to take a photo of the first community, I got bit on my hand. It was the head honcho Nemo from next door. It was rather amusing and I was successful in capturing some vid of Nemo coming at me. Haha. Another strange citing was at a dive site called Fukui Point, where there were 5 large clams in one area. Apparently all 5 brothers have been inseparable in at least 3 years. They were huge, at least 15 inches wide and 10 inches from top to bottom.

This visit to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi was quite educational for me. I not only learnt about the history of Sulawesi pre WW2(used to be part of the Philippines before during Japanese times) from the locals but also that the northern part of Sulawesi has the only documented community of the Tarsier Spectrum and the Macaca Nigra (black crested macaque/monkey), protected and endnagered, respectively. I stayed at a homestay which belonged to the ranger of the park and so it proved pretty educational. That night there was no electricity in the village so it was not fun getting up at 3:45am the next morning to get dressed. The ranger was telling me that he had helped National Geographic with their report when the NG team came out to do a thing on the Tarsus, in celebration of 150 years of NGS. There is the western and eastern Tarsier, but only the eastern is found on Sulawesi, and specifically the Spectrum in north Sulawesi. According to the ranger, there are 5 species of eastern tarsier on Sulawesi. I was fortunate to run into a researcher observing the Macaca Nigras and we had a lengthy discussion of the behavior of the Macacas. I also learnt that the program was being sponsored by the German Primate Center. This is the first documented community of the species type, the other 8, supposedly found on Sulawesi have not been documented and numbers are unknown. All but the Macaca nigras are somewhat used to humans being that they have been known to roam into the villages and steal fruit. The Tarsus is hunted for pets and the ranger was telling me that only the day before I arrived they found 3 illegal captures of the Tarsier Spectrum at the Manado Airport. The reserve didn't feel very large even after being told it was 4-5 hectares. To get to see these magnificent creatures, it was another lengthy walk in the sauna into the rain forest and it rained like crazy the evening I headed in with the ranger to seek the Tarsier, which happens to be the smallest primate. The guys are nocturnal feeders and sleep during the day. We headed in just in time to one of the last ones leaving their home(tree), since it was a rainy day, they probably woke up earlier since the sun didn't come out. The ranger told me I was very lucky to be able to get a pic of a wild tarsier as these small cuties are very quick in moving from branch to branch. It was quite a struggle and I was determined to get a decent pic after the disaster with my underwater photography(more on that later). The next morning we headed out at 4:30am to catch the Tarsus going back to sleep and then continued to in search of the Black Crested macaques. For this we headed deeper into the Reserve and I was cursing the humidity the further in we went. After an hour and a half of going in circles, and making calls, we located a community being observed by researches and stopped to observe ourselves. The Macacas were running between us, jumping from branch to branch, outwardly frisky more than once(funny!), and ignored us as we stood there to observe. The rangers see the monkeys everyday but it was my first time and was very exciting. I was sad to leave as I had a flight to catch.

this place is really near from my home. it's about 10 minutes from home. And this place is awesome. the design is like Jakarta old city. Cozy place to hang out. I usually go to this cafe with my friends or by myself, if i wanna do some assignments and need cozy place to do,i recommended this place!! It's cozy,fun and simple!

I couldn't sleep all night, feeling all cold and miserable. And when the sun rose at six in the morning, we continued the journey. The raft was there at the river in the morning so we could crossed River Bongka now. Afterward the non-stop walking journey began again. I kept asking Rev. Yardin, "How much longer is it?" and he said, "Only two hours more." He kept telling me that "lie" though in fact we only reached Wo'onsa at six in the evening. We had to cross more rivers (depper ones compared to yesterday) and more muddy paths and mountains. I was so exhausted and almost couldn't believe I would make it. The whole villagers had waited for us when we arrived and gave us a kind of hero's welcome. Indeed I felt like a hero after going through such an exhausting journey. So there I was, sitting, wet, dirty, exhausted, and could barely said a word. the nice women then asked if they could provide hot water for my bath and I felt so spoiled. These people have to walk for about half hour to get the water from the river and I was almost ashamed to think that I should have a hot bath in the midst of such simplicity. But it was such a heavenly thought for a shivering girl like me so I said yes. Wo'onsa was a place I never imagine exists before, it was so secluded, it had no electricity, no water pipes, no health facility - but the people are so nice. Most of them were shy and could only speak in their native language - the Wana language.  

If you need various food choices, spacious space, and free wifi, go to Green Pepper. It is a food court located in fx Lifestyle X'nter. Why you should dine here: • The food is various and delicious. I have tasted Soto Betawi and Somay. • The price is average. Compare to other cafes and restaurants in the same building, it is cheaper. • The space is spacious and the ambiance is cheerful and trendy because the furnitures are light and colorful. • The payment system is appropriate for you if you want to do the Dutch treat with your friends. All guests have to deposit amount of money and get green cards for the payment tools. The cards will be swept for any transactions. After dining, they can get the change by returning the cards to the cashier. • Free wifi. Actually, it is not only at the food court, but the entire building.

Located about 20 km North Tabanan,in"central" Bali,there is no doubt that Jatiluwih ricefields are amongst the more beautiful in Bali with these of Pupuan,Ceking,Tirtaganga.. Listed as a World Heritage Site by Unesco,Jatiluwih sits 850m above sea level and its fresh atmosphere, as the organic agriculture system,are favorable for growing of high size plants of rice(Bali rice)in enchanting fields arranged in a series of terraces to follow the landscape's contours. The place,even is the weather is cloudy or rainy(it was!) has a particular charm .An astonishing panorama with views to Agung, Batukaru mountains and ocean, draws lots of holidaymakers and locals. In the surroundings are Pura Luhur Batukau and Yeh Panas hot springs.

Off the beaten track,in a dense ,damp and misty jungle ,on the lower sacred slopes of the Mount Batukau,the second highest mountain of Bali(2276m) after Gunung Agung lies the Pura Luhur Batukau on the end of a narrow and bumpy road. Till the 17th century,it was a state Temple when Tabanan was an independant kingdom, The Temple complex consists of several sanctuaries and meru:in the inner sanctuary is a seven-tiered meru dedicated to Mahadewa,the God of Batukau. A Holy lake with an island in its middle has been dug East of the main temple.

The cultural capital of Bali was this year more touristy,with a lot of daytrippers coming

from the resorts of the South East(Nusa Dua),there was  in Bali  a thirty per cent tourists increase

on the first semester 2008.

We have seen a lot of new souvenirs shops in Monkey Forest Road,despite the colossal increase

of commercial premises.

We have lazed here 5 days,before going back home.

We did an interesting walk in the ricefields and met a friendly painter in Keliki village(I have to do a review of that meeting!)

Another day,a rainy one, we went to a remote Temple:Pura Luhur Batukau and had a glance at Jatiluwih ricefields.

Before flying home,we came back to Batubulan :Danielle bought there a lovely sculpture(a lot cheaper than in Ubud!)

Few photos because of a broken  Digital camera(few cameras shops in Ubud with few choice!in Lombok too,you can't find a good camera:)) even in the Mall!.......................UNDER CONSTRUCTION............................

We had here marvellous days on unspoilt and gorgeous beaches!  to be continued...................................................