A Glimpse of Bali: Luxurious resort, spectacular micro and macro sea life and intense security

Admittedly, Bali hasn’t been at the top of my list for tourist destinations.  My impression was that Bali, Indonesia is to young college-aged Australians what Tijuana, Mexico is to young college-aged Americans on Spring Break.  Where it’s not so much about Bali as a destination but more the fact that everything is super cheap and it’s full of night clubs that caters to young people with relaxed drinking laws.

I was also nervous about travelling to Bali on my own for safety reasons.  There’s been a number of books I’ve seen on the “top sellers” list in book stores on people imprisoned for trafficking drugs in Bali, some as a result of the drugs being planted on them as they headed to the airport (Note: Upon entry at the Bali airport there are signs that state that drug traffickers can be charged with the death penalty).  While I wasn’t living in Australia in 2002, I do remember the international media coverage from the Bali bombings that killed over 200 people in town of Kuta, mostly tourists and the majority Australians.

                                                                                                       

Yet when my friend Emily said she was going to be in Bali for a Digital Media Conference the same week as ANZAC Day, I decided to join her at the conclusion of her conference and we made a long weekend of the trip (April 24-28).

The first night we stayed at this amazing resort called the Conrad Bali Resort and Spa which has numerous pools and is right on a fantastic beach. Then on April 25, we headed to the town of Seminyak that is the high-end touristy areas well known for its luxurious hotels, shopping and spas where we checked into The Villas Seminyak.

We’d booked a 2 bedroom villa with a private pool, however, when we arrived to check-in we were informed that we’d been upgraded to a 3 bedroom villa. Frankly, my first thought was that there’s just the two of us, what benefit was 3 bedrooms? But upton visiting the villa we learned that the benefit is a larger garden and pool in the villa.  Take a look at this tour of the villa, it’s an AMAZING villa! And on top of the villa, each morning two chefs came into cook us breakfast of our choosing!  The day we arrived we headed to a boutique grocery store to buy wine, cheese, salami and other treats and we basically spent the afternoon luxuriating in our private villa.

In the evening we checked out Potato Head which is a top beach club with a bar and restaurant which was pretty mellow with a small-ish crowd as we were in the off-season.  There was a nice pool, lots of day beds that reminded me of Miami Beach, Florida and fantastically creative cocktails and meals.

As we experienced at Potato Head and every time we took a cab to a night club or hotel, there was pretty extensive security, they checked the cab driver, our purses, looked in the truck of the cab and used a mirror to check the under carriage of the cab before allowing us in.

Early on Fri. April 26, Bali Dive Adventure picked us up and drove 2.5 hours to Tulamben to dive the 120 meter US Liberty Ship Wreck which we approached from the beach.  

Dive # 175: Tulamben US Liberty Ship Wreck

44 minutes, 27.7 meters (about 90 feet) in 29 degrees C

Black garden eels at the start, before we saw the US Liberty which was sunk on Jan. 9, 1945 in WW2. It’s at a 90 degree angle so it’s depth ranges from 5 m to 30 meters.  On this dive we dove to the middle of the wreck and then headed towards the back.  At the very end of the dive, we saw a very small, red frog fish.

Dive # 176: Tulamben US Liberty Ship Wreck

47 minutes, 22.3 meters in 30 degrees C

We went back to the middle of the boat then headed to the front part of the ship.  When we first approached the wreck, we came across a giant Bali turtle chewing coral on the side of the boat.

Aside from the scuba diving, the most memorable land-based activity I saw was how the locals who carried all of our scuba gear and tanks from our vans in the parking lot down to the beach on this 100 meter dirt path. I struggle to carry just one tank with both hands, but I saw a tiny Balinese women balance a scuba tank on a towel on the top of her head and carried bags of gear in each hand. Another lady balanced one tank on her head and one on each shoulder.

It was a very long drive 2.5 hours each way, but it did give us a good look at the country-side.  Emily enjoyed the snorkeling and did the most swimming as she swam the full length of the boat twice and explored beyond the wreck to the coral at the head of the beach. 

After an early start and a great day of diving and snorkeling we headed to the W Hotel’s Woobar for drinks.  It was a gorgeous resort with a hip bar, but there was a very minimal crowd so the vibe was pretty slow and unlively.

On Sat. April 27, we took a Bali Hai Catamaran day trip to Lembongan Island where Emily relaxed and sun bathed and I took advantage of Dive Bali Hai’s taking divers to two dive sites.

Dive #177: Manta Ray Point

38 min, 10.7 meters in 27 degrees C

At the very start of the dive we saw a very large manta ray (there were supposedly two, but I only saw the one). The rest of the dive was very boring as the manta rays didn’t come back and there wasn’t much else to see in that area, no coral, very flat.

Dive #178: Crystal Garden

43 minutes,  average depth of 13.4 meters, max depth of 26 meters in 29 degrees C

Lots of beautiful small fish. Evidently Lembongan Island is well known for sunfish in April, but we didn’t see any unfortunately.

There was a live band on the Catamaran which took requests so we suggested Brown Eyed Girl and California Dreaming. As Emily’s flight left later that night, we had an early dinner and drinks at Ku De Ta, a very up scale restaurant which had very good dumplings and sushi rolls and yummy cocktail drinks.

On my final day in Bali, I shopped Seminyak. There were streets and streets of shops and restaurants and cafes. There was one place a friend told me about “2^nd Skin” that did custom made leather jackets but it was closed which was disappointing. Then just before I had to depart for the airport, I enjoyed a spa treatment at Prana.

Our villa in Seminyak with the private pool in the background.

Here's a view from the US Liberty in Tumberlan.

I love the beautiful colors on the reef in Tumberlan.

Here's a map of the USAT Liberty ship wreck that we dived and snorkled.

Can you see the giant Bali turtle chewing on the coral on the USAT Liberty Ship Wreck?

My dive master spotted this tiny, tiny nudibranch. I couldn't believe she was able to spot this, I had to look very hard to see what she was pointing out.

I little bit later, I spotted this nudibranch, it was about 4x the size of the above an easier to spot.

This is on the Manta Ray Point dive, can you see the manta ray near the surface?

This is the fish that's got a "salon-pas" which is a smelly white patch with medicine on it that relieves muscle aches. My Dad uses salon-pas quite a lot and you can tell immediately from that very distinctive medicinal smell. I don't know the name of this fish, but my Japanese master told me the nick name and it's stuck!

Emily and I are about to board the Bali Hai II Catamaran to Lembongan Island.

 This is a frog fish, also very small. The finding and identification of this frog fish goes to my dive master Rieko Minagawa.

As I shopped in Seminyak, I kept a very sharp eye on the sidewalk as there are MASSIVE holes in the sidewalk that could literally break your ankle or worse!

Gorgeous Day on Sydney Harbour

A lovely day with friends on the Sydney Harbour! Thank you Emma and Pat, always thrilled and honored to be invited onto the Emmski!

April 14, 2013

New Fad Fundraising: Black Tie Boxing

The only boxing I've ever seen is on TV and as it was popular back in the 1980's, it was more along the lines of WWF with Hulk Hogan and the Animal Steel.

Yet this evening was for a different and far worthier cause. It was a corporate fundraiser for Beyond Blue (April 13) which is dedicated to educating and providing support for people with depression. A Cisco colleague Greg Yelas was one of the boxer and there were several tables of Cisco and channel partners there to support him.

“Like any other day” in Seoul in the face of Sabre Rattling from North Korea

As I headed to Seoul, South Korea on March 25 on a business trip, the media coverage on the increasing tensions with North Korea was leading all news reports with headlines like “US officials concerned over North Korea’s ‘ratcheting up of rhetoric’” from CNN.

Yet my co-workers were totally unfazed by this escalating news, it was like any other day.  It really hit home when one colleague said “we’ve been at war for 60 years” and reminded me that the Korean War ended with an armistice agreement to set a demilitarized zone at the 38^th parallel and not a peace treaty ending the war. 

Note: At this 38^th parallel each drew back 2 km to their respective sides and this 4 km area is known as the De-Militarized Zone or DMZ.

As the business trip to support PR activities at Cisco Connect Korea (March 28-29) was over the Easter Long Weekend, I decided to stay and absorb the Korean culture and history.

On March 30, I joined Helen and Malcom on a tour to the DMZ.  I was a bit uncertain of how safe it would be as earlier that week North Korea cut off the military hotline, however, agreeing with both of them that this was a unique experience, I joined them on the tour.

As we drove up towards the DMZ along the Han River, the tour guide pointed out the high fences and guard towers along the side of the highway, which he informed us, were built to prevent “spies from the North” from slipping into Seoul. 

We finally arrived at the DMW and the Third Infiltration Tunnel, which was discovered on October 17, 1978. It is located 52km from Seoul and is 1.7 km (1.1 miles) long, 2 m (6.6 ft) high and 2 m (6.6 ft) wide and is about 350 meters below ground.

There’s a visitors centre and after leaving all purses and cameras in a locker and donning yellow hard hats we went down a very long incline that was commercially built to allow tourist to visit the tunnel. Once we reached the bottom, we walked along the actual tunnel, which was dense, hard rock and very damp.  The top of the tunnel was about my height and about an arm’s length and a half that we were told was to allow about 10,000 soldiers from the North to move through the tunnel in 1 hour and invade the South.

At the end of the tunnel, there are three concrete barricades that blockade it from the actual Military Demarcation Line (MDL).  I looked through this window at the end of the tunnel and could see the second concrete barricade about 50 feet away.

As I was walking through this very dank and muggy tunnel in the DMZ, it was hard not to remember sweating as I uncomfortably walked in a stooped manner through the Cu Chi Tunnels in Vietnam (Oct. 2010).  It does strike me that this war tactic of building tunnels certainly takes incredible patience, industriousness and time that blows my mind.  As we learned in the video before heading into the tunnel, the North built not just this one tunnel, but 4 tunnels!

Then we went to Dorasan Station that is a railway station which once connected North and South Korea.

After the tour concluded we headed to Insa-dong the artisan markets where traditional Korean culture and crafts are the focal point.  There were beautiful pottery, folk crafts, traditional teas as well as jewelry, hair ornaments and purses.  Of all the markets, this was the most impressive and original.

It was getting chilly so it only made sense to head into a chic bar with an amazing view of the city. We headed to Pierre’s Bar in the Lotte Hotel and had great red wine and a charcuterie plate.

For dinner we headed back towards our hotel (Intercontinental Coex in the Gangnam District, near Samsung Convention Centre) but to the Intercontinental Grand where we had a fantastic French dinner at Table 34.

Photo in front of the DMZ, with Helen and Malcom

This is the view of North Korea from one of the observatory towers. When I looked through these binoculars I saw these brand new two-story white building with bright blue roofs and thought that the North Koreans appeared to live the "good life". However, the tour guide informed us that these were fake buildings, in fact the whole village was not real. It was like a Hollywood movie set.  

I looked closer into the binoculars and noted there were no people walking around, no cars - nothing that resembled the buzz of a village at mid-day. Evidently, the North wants us to believe they live in these "Pleasantville-type villages".  This is known as "Propoganda Village".  When I tried to take a photo, I was told I could only take a photo from behind the yellow line which is 15 feet away from the edge of the platform where the binoculars are in the photo below.

On March 31 I used Korean public train transportation (what I loved was the train cards that I loaded up with yuan and used to tap the turn-style upon entry for speedy access to the very convenient trains) and headed to:

* The National Museum of Korea which was an architectural wonder with 3 levels of prehistoric and ancient history from Korea (see video for highlights).

* Chang Deok Gung Palace where I took not one, but two tours! The first was of the palace (1.5 hour) and the second was to the Secret Garden (2 hours).

* Namdaemun Market which reminded me of the street vendors in New York as they sold sunglasses, t-shirts and other knock-off bags and luxury items. I had dinner here. My favorite was the Korean version of gyoza (the skins were much thicker) and an-pan (like a steamed cha siu bao with red bean inside, the were the size of very large pancakes so very filling).

At the end of the day, I was exhausted from all of the walking!  

Here I am in the Secret Garden at Chang Deok Gung Palace.

On April 1, I headed to Gyeongbok Palace where I was lucky to see the changing of the guard in bright, bold colors playing traditional drum and horn music or carrying military weaponry and shields or flags. 

Having had my fill of tours the day prior, I did the self-guided tour that was a wise move as the palace grounds were huge!  There are several palace buildings plus two museums. I visited the National Folk Museum but disappointingly the National Palace Museum was closed so I’ll have to go back and visit another time.  There were several gates before arriving at the throne room that was reminiscent of the Changeok Gung Palace.  By far my favorite building was the Gyeonghoeru Pavillion that is where the King hosts formal banquets that’s nestled at the base of Mount Inwangsan.  The pavilion is two stories and is surrounded by a pond with two small islands. 

After spending most of the morning at the palace grounds, I hailed a taxi for a quick look at one more market that had been recommended – Kwangjan Market – which is well known for handicrafts and where you can purchase the traditional Korean dress of jeogori (shirt) and baji (pants). I visited the building, expecting to see racks and racks of traditional Korean dress for purchase, so I was very surprised when I saw this gigantic building filled with stall after stall after stall of vendors with many, many bolts of beautiful fabric that can be chosen from and made into customized Korean dress.  It was amazing to see all the beautiful fabric and the samples of Korean dress possible. 

Seoul is a very technologically advanced city with tall skyscrapers.  It’s very commercialized with all the expected name brand chain stores and restaurants and gigantic digital media signs everywhere (on the side of buildings, in the train station and even on vending machines).  Everyone I met was also very helpful and friendly to tourists. The city was very clean and welcoming. The very extensive train system made it very easy to get around to all the sights as well. 

Guards as the gates of Gyeongbok Palace