Blogs from Indonesia, Asia - page 618

Java’s train system is very reliable for a third world country, passing through the remaining of lush green rice paddy field of West Java province of Indonesia. After a 2.5 hours train ride from Jakarta, Beau and I arrived in hectic Bandung train station which was built by the Dutch during Colonial period. It is a modern station now, with some stores and restaurants, including the Hoka Hoka Bento, a franchised Japanese fast-food restaurant which was my favorite restaurant. Growing up, I remember many times my sister and I went to the restaurant to have their teriyaki beef served with sticky rice. Although being the fourth biggest city in Indonesia, Bandung is very different compared to Jakarta or Bali. Needless to say, Bandung has a long way to become an international city; most of the native ... read more

As many of you know, Asia does have a lot of hawkers and their ability to extract money from you by either selling or offering services never ceases to amaze and also brass me off. That is until the other day at The Monkey Temple where I witnessed the most awesome piece of Balinese entrepreneurship I have ever seen. The Monkey Temple is situated on the edge of a cliff face on the southern side of Bali and is so named because of the ‘sacred’ monkeys that live there. I was warned not to leave anything dangling as the monkeys steal anything from the visitors - this was proven to be true when the Balinese guy who told me this had his cap ripped off his head and the monkey then jumped up to a point ... read more

Yo Ho Ho, Merry Christmas to you all. Hope you are all having a good one and although I am missing you and a big Christmas roastie I am making do sunning myself, catching clean waves in the warm Indian Ocean, and having a big old nasi goring super for Christmas dinner - this whole getting away for Christmas might have to become an annual thing ? I am currently back in Kuta to surf for the last couple of days before heading to Oz for New year. The last week in Ubud was good and I definitely learnt some from the whole meditation vibe. This morning (Christmas Day) I also managed to fit in climbing the volcano Mt Batur (this is starting to get habitual) to see sunrise and I didn’t even have to get ... read more

OK, so up to press I had been surfing an awful lot, combined with eating and drinking copious amounts as well and not really getting too much into the whole traveling vibe which is what I was also here to do. This however was put to rights when I started pushing my (very mediocre) surfing ability by taking increasingly bigger waves at increasingly later take-offs, the result... one bruised ego, one battered body, and one snapped board... Oooops, time to move on ! So I’ve had the last 2 weeks traveling around Bali seeing a lot of sights and learning a lot about Balinese culture. The main thing that struck me most was what a cool religion Hinduism is (not being the religious type and am pretty open to learning about all types). As Bali is ... read more

Kami menghadiri Kongres Nasional Patologi Klinik di Medan, yang berlangsung selama seminggu. Beberapa foto dari perjalan kami ke Medan, Sumatra Utara. We are attending the National Congress of Clinical Pathogy in Medan for one week. Here are some pictures from our travel in Medan, North Sumatra. ... read more