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Quick Break in Bali + Two Hong Kong Layovers Read more
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  • TravelerSingapore, Bali & Hong Kong
    Day 1

    Washington National to New York JFK

    July 14, 2011 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C

    American Eagle AA3835 | DCA/JFK
    First Class (Domestic)
    Canadair CRJ-700 | N512MQ
    ATD/1825 | ATA/1918
    Lounge: Admiral's Club

    The aircraft sat on the tarmac for over an hour awaiting its takeoff slot. This was my first time on the larger CRJ-700. First Class was in a 1-2 configuration.Read more

  • TravelerSingapore, Bali & Hong Kong
    Day 2

    New York JFK to Hong Kong

    July 15, 2011 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    Cathay Pacific CX845 | JFK/HKG
    Business Class
    Boeing 777-300ER
    Lounge: British Airways Terraces Lounge

    I had a long wait of about 4 hours in the British Airways lounge which Cathay Pacific contracts with. It was a pleasant lounge but there wasn't anything substantial to eat.

    HKG/JFK was the third longest commercial airline flight in the world at the time at almost 16 hours. It was my first transpolar flight, and my first on a 777-300ER. This was also my first time in the much maligned high walled Business Class in the herringbone layout. Detractors claim that the seat is like a coffin. Overall, I didn't think it was as bad as people said it was. I liked the privacy, but it was felt very open from the aisle, and it was odd to face away from the window. There was also very little storage space.    Read more

  • TravelerSingapore, Bali & Hong Kong
    Day 3

    Hong Kong Layover

    July 16, 2011 in Hong Kong ⋅ 🌧 26 °C

    I slept well on the flight. I arrived into a very quiet Hong Kong airport at 5am after a 16-hour flight from JFK.

    After clearing immigration, I waited for the first train into the city departing 6am. The train ride into Central took about 20 minutes and I wandered into a city that was barely awake. I've always been a fan of HK's skyline, so I headed out on the covered walkway towards the Star Ferry Terminal. I found that the Star Ferry was operating at that early hour, so I stepped onto the next one and admired the HK skyline under a threateningly dark sky.

    The ride to Kowloon took only a few minutes. Disembarking, I found that few places were open; even the newspaper seller was still sorting out her papers. I eventually found an outlet of Cafe de Coral serving breakfast items where I ordered a decent dim sum set.

    As it was humid and rain was threatening, I took the Star Ferry back to Central and headed back to the airport, arriving at 8.30am. This gave me enough time for a refreshing shower in the lounge and a quick bowl of noodles from their noodle bar before my flight back to Singapore at 11am.    Read more

  • TravelerSingapore, Bali & Hong Kong
    Day 3

    Hong Kong to Singapore

    July 16, 2011 in Hong Kong ⋅ 🌧 27 °C

    Cathay Pacific CX 739 | HKG/SIN
    Business Class
    Boeing 777-200 | B-HNA
    Lounge: The Wing

    This flight was operated by B-HNA, which I believe is a baseline B777 model that was used as a test aircraft by Boeing and then stored. I recall that Boeing did not intend to sell it, but Cathay Pacific purchased it to boost their fleet during a period of rapid growth.Read more

  • TravelerSingapore, Bali & Hong Kong
    Day 4

    Saying Goodbye To My Childhood Home

    July 17, 2011 in Singapore ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C

    This visit to my parents' home in Singapore was a bittersweet one. My parents had sold my childhood home and I went to pack up as much stuff from my first 24 years as I could fit into two suitcases. I supported their choice to downsize. The downside, however, was that my childhood home, which was an actual house built on freehold (fee simple) land - a rarity in land scarce Singapore - would be torn down by the new owners who would most likely build a soulless custom McMansion on the plot. Not only did I have to say goodbye to a structure that housed so many memories, I also had to figure out what to keep and what to toss. Even though I am relatively unsentimental about my past, in hindsight I now realize I made some poor choices. Chief among the poor choices was my decision to toss my handwritten travel diary from my backpacking days. I also did not have easy access to a scanner so many photos got tossed as well.

    Apart from the sale of my childhood home, 2011 itself was a difficult year for me. I spent the first half of the year shuttling between Honolulu and Silver Spring, MD before concluding a consulting contract in Honolulu and joining the rest of my family who had moved to the DC Metro Area ten months earlier. The move to Maryland was already showing signs of stress even before I got there - Jeff's job (the one that motivated us to move there) never really took off and was beginning to fall apart, and our relationship with our foster son was well on its downward spiral. I had yet to find a job in DC/MD and I was feeling very lost career-wise. We'd also bought a house in Maryland soon after Jeff moved there (I did the math and it made no sense to rent especially when we could come up with a downpayment easily) but our income stream was now lower and it had become unreliable just when we had two mortgages to pay. Layer on having to fly to Singapore to pack my stuff and I was quite a mess.

    I needed a break.

    Around that same time, my friend Rae was going through some life changes himself and was on an extended trip, with Bali figuring prominently in his plans as he is an artist and architect and hence Ubud was a natural fit for him. Rae invited me over, and there was also a fare sale with KLM going on at that time. With this happy confluence of events, I flew over to Bali for a two day stress break.    Read more

  • TravelerSingapore, Bali & Hong Kong
    Day 7

    Singapore to Denpasar

    July 20, 2011 in Singapore ⋅ ☁️ 31 °C

    KLM Royal Dutch Airlines KL835 | SIN/DPS
    Economy Class
    Boeing 777-300ER | PH-BVA De Hoge Veluwe National Park

    I opted for KLM as they had reasonable fares on this fifth freedom sector. This was my first flight on a 10-abreast economy class in a B777. It wasn't too bad.Read more

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  • TravelerSingapore, Bali & Hong Kong
    Day 8

    Penestanan

    July 21, 2011 in Indonesia ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C

    Landing in Denpasar in the evening, I immediately ran into a problem... the driver Rae sent to pick me up was not there. This is why I avoid arriving in unfamiliar places at night if I can help it - it is so much easier to solve problems such as these during daylight hours.

    Fortunately, there was an internet cafe next to the meet-and-greet area. I paid 8,000 rupiah for 20 minutes of access, emailed Rae, got the address of his guesthouse and went to the car service counter.

    I had previously been to Bali in 1993 on an extended island hopping trip. At that time, Bali was already touristy (at least in the beach areas) but still relatively sleepy. Upon leaving the airport en route to Ubud, I immediately saw numerous Korean and Chinese restaurants - many with tour buses parked in front, signboards advertising nightclubs and a large duty free emporium. Yup, mass package tourism had arrived in full force. Although I wasn't surprised, I was still disheartened.

    The driver who took me to Ubud was a chatty guy and thank goodness I got him. Not surprisingly, the address provided by Rae was imprecise - just a street name and no house number - and so when we got to the general vicinity of the guesthouse, the driver stopped several times to ask for directions. This guy was persistent and he genuinely wanted to make sure I got to my destination safe and sound, despite my telling him that I was perfectly okay plonking myself at an internet cafe, emailing my location to Rae and waiting there for him to come get me. Anyway, he stuck with me for well over 20 minutes while we located the guesthouse, and he deposited me safe and sound at Santra Putra Guesthouse where a visibly relieved Rae welcomed me. I was touched by this driver's sincerity. We also arranged for him to come to Ubud to bring me back to the airport two days later. For the record, he made the offer - I wasn't comfortable asking him to come all the way from Denpasar to Ubud just for a one-way fare.

    As I was hungry, Rae and I immediately went out to dinner. Not many places were open at that time, and so we headed to the upmarket Bridges restaurant next to the Campuhan bridge where I had my second incident of Bali sticker shock (the first was the 250,000 rupiah fixed price taxi service) when the bill came. Bali has gotten expensive! A large part of this was, of course, due to the fall in the Indonesian rupiah relative to the US dollar, but the price inflation was still a surprise.

    Waking up early the next morning, we went on a little jaunt around the rice fields of Penestanan village before heading back to Santra Putra for a hearty breakfast. There, I met Karja, the owner, his wife Made, and Ketut who prepares breakfast for guests.    Read more

  • TravelerSingapore, Bali & Hong Kong
    Day 8

    Lake Batur

    July 21, 2011 in Indonesia ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    Rae and I decided we would rent a vehicle the next day and explore the surrounding areas. After breakfast at Santra Putra, we headed out to find a vehicle. We quickly found one and we were soon on our way upcountry.

    Driving in Bali requires a lot of concentration as the roads are potholed and full of motorcycles. Fortunately for us in our little Suzuki Jimmy, the rule of the road dictates that motorbikes should move out of our way, and that vast majority of them did. Nevertheless I did not try to drive too aggressively. I was also fortunate to have a good navigator in Rae. Although we were only equipped with rudimentary maps, Rae has a really good sense of direction and he got us to our first destination - Penelokan - easily. En route, the landscape changed from rice paddies to fruit orchards and from thick tropical forest to pine trees as we wound our way into the central mountains of Bali.

    Penelokan is on the edge of the caldera that holds within it Mount Batur and Lake Batur. We stopped there to enjoy the breathtaking views, but this was soon marred by people trying to get us to buy their wares. The Lonely Planet was not kidding when it described this area as having very persistent sellers. We made a hasty exit and found our way to the road leading down into the Batur caldera. This was when we found out that our rented vehicle's brakes were not good! Prior to this, our journey had been uphill so I did not need to use the brakes much, but now we were faced with an extended downhill drive and having to use engine brake to slow our descent. This was pretty unnerving but fortunately we made it down into the crater. Once in the crater, we drove on the narrow road that wends its way through the lava fields and made our way to a hot spring resort. There was only one obvious hot spring from the main road and it looked quite upmarket. Entry cost 160,000 rupiah! Anyway, we went in and hung out there for a few hours soaking in the waters. Due to the cost, only tourists came to this place.

    After the hot springs, we set out looking for a place to eat. While looking, we found another hot spring off the main road on a dirt trail. Entry here was 100,000 rupiah and although it was less upmarket, it looked almost as nice as the upmarket one. I did, in fact, visit this hot spring when I returned to Bali in 2013 and I thoroughly enjoyed it. There was a restaurant at this hot spring and we ate a leisurely lunch there.    Read more

  • TravelerSingapore, Bali & Hong Kong
    Day 8

    Tirta Empul

    July 21, 2011 in Indonesia ⋅ ☁️ 25 °C

    After lunch, we headed out of the crater, and back up to Penelokan. We stopped and attempted to visit a temple at Penelokan, but we were put off by the touts.

    Getting back into the car, it was on to the village of Tampaksiring where we visited Tirta Empul, source of a holy spring and one of Bali's holiest sites. There, we saw worshipers bathing in the pool where the holy spring water collects. We also looked around the temple grounds. Tirta Empul has since become one of my favorite sites in Bali because it is a living cultural site that has not been repurposed solely into a tourist spot. There is also a great vibe to the place.

    After Tirta Empul, we headed back to Ubud. Rae's expert navigation got us back safely to Santra Putra with no wrong turns. Pretty amazing! Arriving back in Penestanan, we ate an early dinner at Made's Warung next door. Made's Warung is a friendly, atmospheric place and we had a pleasant dinner there. We also looked at houses that Made had for rent as Rae was looking into staying in Ubud for a while.

    We had heard that there was a temple performance at Kedewatan that evening, and we planned to head there after eating. Getting back in the car after dinner, we headed out to Kedewatan temple, arriving there around 8pm. There were a few people at the temple when we arrived but it was obvious that something had happened there and it was over. Darn it! We walked around dejectedly for a few minutes before a young man named Gyan approached us and struck up a conversation. Gyan told us about upcoming events at the temple and he invited us to these events, but they were scheduled for after my departure. Rae jumped at the opportunity and I was green with envy over the photos he posted on Facebook - including a full, unabridged, non-touristy barong and kris dance - in the weeks following our chance meeting with Gyan.    Read more

  • TravelerSingapore, Bali & Hong Kong
    Day 9

    Campuhan Ridge Hike

    July 22, 2011 in Indonesia ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    The next day, Rae and I decided to do the Campuhan Ridge hike before I set off for the airport. We walked to the Campuhan bridge, crossed the river and then went up the ridge where we admired the rice terraces at the top. Along the way, we looked at several houses for rent for Rae as he was considering making an extended stay.Read more

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