Tasty Tender Deer Steak in Pakanbaru

Visit Pekanbaru as the capital city of Riau, in Sumatra last Oct 2010, we were welcome by the drizzle. The driver informed that in Riau the weather changed within hours, from very shiny day to heavily raining. The Sultan Syarif Kasim II international airport also serves flights to and from neighbouring countries such as Malaysia and Singapore. Maybe some of you has heard about Pekanbaru, because the city regular suffered from smoke due to forest fires during dry season that impacted to Malaysia and Singapore too. Some modern building were spread out in the city, such as library building built similar to an open book.



We stopped by for lunch in a restaurant called “Pondok Patin Haji Yunus”. They provided traditional Sumatra food from Pekanbaru such as Ikan Patin (catfish), the soft fish cooking with curry. The restaurant environment was nice, it’s a traditional house on the fish pond. A live music, simple band with a singer accompanied guests having lunch. Most of the food was spicy and hot, but they also provided fried chicken for anybody who didn’t like spicy food. The beverage name was very creative and funny, such as “es airmata pengantin” (bride’s tears ice), “es laksamana mengamuk” (admiral’s furious ice), etc. It’s raining hard when we were eating, but it’s only for a while.


The Great Mosque of An-Nur was one of places that we’d visited. It’s raining hard when we stopped at the front of the mosque, so we had to run to avoid getting wet. The Mosque was beautiful and big, we had to put off our shoes to enter the mosque hall on the second floor. A colorful Al Qur’an (the moslem bible) was provided for the guest. Arabic calligraph was carved with golden color on the pillar in the mosque. After satisfying enjoy the interior, we went down the stairs.


At the back of the mosque, there’s a traditional wedding party, it’s very colorful and cheerful. Lucky for our friend from Lausanne, because it’s a new thing for him to see the bride and bridegroom wearing the traditional Minangkabau wedding clothes. We peeped from the front door to see the party inside. Then we continue the journey to “Pasar Bawah”, a very crowded traditional market that you could find souvenirs, accessories, toys, snacks, etc. It’s very hot and stuffy, difficult to walk and shop, so we only stayed there less than an hour.


My friend and I stayed in the Labersa Grand Hotel and Convention, the garden was very beautiful with a group of elephants on the pool with fountain and small bridge. There was a restaurant with a huge aquarium up to the wall in the middle of the restaurant. The lobby was also nice at night with its lighting. On the top floor, there was a leisure place with coaches and also a bar with many gorgeous paintings on the wall. It’s a pity it’s so quiet, nobody visited or served the floor.


On the next day my friend from Pekanbaru offered us to taste deer meat, it’s quite far and going through some small roads, I don’t think I could find it by myself. Reaching the Kayu Manis Garden Resto and Gallery, we had to climb some stairs. We selected the place on the terrace, it’s bright and you could enjoy the scenery. For the menu he recommended to select deer steak served on the hot plate. It took quite a long time to cook it (around 30 minutes), so while waiting for it, I took some pictures to record the beautiful scenery. Some bungalows were provided with different name for guests who want privacy with their group. Different interior and design were applied for each room and bungalow. Indoor room was decorated with some paintings, ceramics, antiques, etc.


I ordered Martabe, traditional juice mixture of passion fruit and Dutch eggplant. When the meal was ready, it's looked very attempting and smelled good. My friend’s recommendation was 100% correct, the deer steak’s very delicious and tender, although it’s rather too spicy for me. It’s the first time for me to eat deer, definitely I want it again sometime. Don’t forget to visit this restaurant if you want to try the unique food.

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Central of beautiful jewelry in Banjarmasin

It took around an hour flight from Surabaya to Banjarmasin, capital of South Kalimantan. My friend and I arrived at Syamsudin Noor airport at lunch time, it's raining. The airport was not too big, from the plane we had to ride a bus to the airport building. I heard the new bigger airport was being built for the international flight. There are two parts of Banjarmasin, the old city and the new one, the government would move soon to the new part of the city.



Banjarmasin is famous as its jewelry, the central jewelry market is at Martapura. From the airport is nearer, around 30 minutes drive. We went directly there, because they close at 17:00 while we left airport at 14:00 already. No food and drink during the flight, we were starving, so we stopped by at Soto H. Anang in Martapura to taste the local food. We ordered the delicious yellow chicken sooup called "soto Banjar" and grill duck. You could eat soto with rice cake "ketupat" or rice.


After our stomach full we had a new spirit to shop the beautiful stones jewelry. Our driver brought us to a shop, Zamrud Plaza (Jl. A. Yani 125 Martapura, Phone: 62-511-4720751) not the market which's just a few block from our lunch place. The shop was quite convenience, it had a complete collection of stones, jewelry and Banjar handicrafts. If you lack of cash, there was also ATM in front of the shop. We shopped a lot there, no need to go to the market anymore. The price was much cheaper comparing to Banjarmasin city.


I was interested in crystal necklace with its bracelet, also some stone brooches. Bead wallets and small bag handicrafts were also the result of my hunting to give souvenirs to my relatives. If you like diamond, saphire, ruby, etc, they also had them, either as stone or already become accessories such as ring or earing. The salesgirls were kind enough, they didn't mind accompany us to select our preference. When I paid they were kind enough to give me discount.


Rattan Inn was the hotel where we stayed for a night, in the morning they entertained the guest with traditional music. The hotel was not too high, just 3 levels. My colleague in Banjarmasin office said that no high building in Banjarmasin because the land was swamp, so the foundation is not strong enough for building a high skycraper. The electricity was not good either, it's often off. In the hotel I experienced twice, at 17:00 and 22:00, it's not good for electronic stuffs, such as Air Conditioning, TV, refrigerator, etc.


At night we had dinner around 20:00 in Rudy H, a seafood restaurant at A. Yani Km 3.5 no.285 Banjarmasin. We ordered some fish, e.g. grill patin, fried lais, and seluang, and sweet sour shrimp & vegetable. While waiting for the food, we ate the delicious amplang (the fish cracker from Banjarmasin). The fish was nice, it's fresh, piquant and sweet. The restaurant was decorated with antique stuffs such as ceramics, and old cupboard. A life music with a singer and a keyboard player entertained us during the dinner.


Banjarmasin's waterfront of Martapura River. The city is laced with flood-prone waterways, and many houses are built on rafts or stilts over the water. Many of such waterways are also used for travel, using relatively small rowboats (only major rivers are accessible by larger speedboats, tugboats, longboats, and barges). Our driver offered to sea the floating market at 05:00 in the morning. I prefered to sleep because it's an hour earlier than Surabaya time, so it meant that I had to wake up before 04:00 if I wanted to see.


If you like stone jewelry, definitely you must visit Permatapura. The price was so competitive, you won't regret to visit it. You also could visit the place where they make the jewelry to polish it to become a beautiful ornament.

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Picturesque panoramic view of OIA - Santorini

After a long journey from Jakarta, around 16 hours without counting waiting time during transit, transit at 3 airports in 3 different countries (Jakarta-Singapore-Istanbul-Athena-Santorini), finally we reached Santorini around lunch time. A bus picked us up in the airport, it's quite small for 16 of us with big luggages. The bus baggage could not store all of the luggages, so the last row of bus passenger seat had to use for piling up the luggages. Bus went directly to the hotel to drop all of us there. The hotel looked great with white walls and stone pathway to the lobby. We were waiting quite a long time to check in, the hotel lobby was not big, but it's quite nice, it could give us shelter from the hot weather outside. After getting the room key, we only got around 30 minutes to fresh up.



My sister and I took a bath in rush and change clothes, so it's very braces. Others had waited for us for lunch. We crossed the street in front of our hotel, Al Greco which has 4 swimming pools. A beautiful scenery of Santorini beach with its island and some small boats passing by were welcoming us. The layering rock on the beach with houses above it was complementary to the scenic scenery. Walking under the sunshine was very tiring especially when we were hungry. It's a pity that the bus didn't drop us to the nearest place to the restaurant.


We went through old town where we could only pass through by foot, or sometimes by riding donkey. The road was narrow, sometimes up and down. So many stores at the left and right of the road selling souvenirs, clothes, hats, bags, etc. A Malay restaurant that providing Chinese food was our destination for lunch after almost an hour walk.

After lunch by bus we went to OIA, exquisite small town, to see the best scenery of Santorini. Santorini is essentially what remains of an enormous volcanic explosion, destroying the earliest settlements on what was formerly a single island, and leading to the creation of the current geological caldera. During the trip to OIA, we saw that the land was very barren. Most of the building were painted white with no roof tile but concrete roof. There were many small chapels with bells as private belonging, but public may use it along the way to OIA.

The bus stopped, we had to continue walking to reach the cliff. The main pedestrian street connects its ends accross the top of the cliff, with many local branches. There was a church right on the edge of the cliff, we took some pictures in front of the church and the beautiful scenery on the cliff. OIA is famous for its imaginary sunset and its narrow passageways get crowded in the evenings. The most popular spot to watch sunset is by the Kastro walls. Before reaching the castle, there was a small way to the other end of the cliff where we could see the beautiful scenery at the right and left side.

It's very amazing, I took many pictures there. Some professional models were also taking pictures at that time, so the place was closed just for them. After another half an hour, they finished and we could take pictures from that side. While waiting for the sunset, my sister and I were sitting on the wall, enjoying the scenery. We didn't want to walk further to the castle, because from that place we could see the panoramic view of Santorini with its unique characteristic view of white buildings and blue dome for the church contrasting with the deep blue of the Aegean Sea in the background. Houses, paths, churches built up skillfully on the northern part of the island, with low-lying cubical houses, made of local stone and whitewashed or limewashed. From where we sat, we could see donkey go down and up the hill riding by tourists. I could not imagine if we stayed in the hotel there, it's very heavy and difficult to bring the luggage because you had to walk on stairs, no escalator, no lift :-)


During the beautiful sunset, we could not see the circle sun, but the red color sky before sunset was beautiful as the background of the OIA panoramic view. On the wayback to the bus stop, we passed by some stores selling cute souvenirs, restaurants, clothes, jewelry, etc. We often stopped to take pictures, because the store design was beautiful especially with its light at night. I bought sweet roasted pistachio nut with sesame, because the seller offered tester and I like it. It's difficult to bring back to Indonesia because it's easily break and they didn't have a good package to avoid the damage.


OIA is beautiful, an ideal place for those seeking peace and quiet. It's very windy, so prepare your jacket, especially for protecting the cold at night.

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Pamukkale, magnificent natural cotton fortress

Turkey is awesome with its magnificent natural resources. One of them was the fabulous white limestone that was used for bathing by people in Hierapolis era, called Pamukkale (a World Heritage Site). Pamuk means cotton in Turkish and Kale fortress, so the name means Cotton Fortress. The white mountain could be seen from the distance, it seemed like snow at the top of the mountain.


We had lunch in a beautiful restaurant with big swimming pool, on the background was the white Pamukkale. It's really amazing, we hurried to finish the lunch, we could not wait for visiting it soon. It's noon time, the sun shone so strong, we stopped by a garden with a nice pool with goose and duck, also a small fountain to take picture. We could see the beautiful Pamukkale from the garden.

There were some entrance to Pamukkale, our bus driver was selected the shortest way. On the bus stop we could not see the white mountain, we had to walk on foot around half an hour passing some ruin historic buildings to reach the leveling pools. For old people or anyone didn't like to walk, there was a shuttle cost 2 Liras/person.

It's so excited when we reached the racking pools. Visitors were able climb all over the "travertines" (collected pools) of mineral water. The water contains of various mineral, people believe that it's good for our health and it could cure diseases. My sister decided to put off her shoes and start playing with the warm water. There was a long dig that people were allowed to take a bath, not in the pool. The guard would shout if somebody tried to walk in to the pool. Because it's quite dangerous by the edge of the cliff, it's very slippery.


I wore sport shoes, it's difficult for me to take off, so I only took some pictures of my sisters from above the wooden bridge. Not too long I was attempted to try the water too. So I put off my shoes and left them on the wooden bridge to approach the travertines. The water was warm, it's not too hot, unfortunately it's not the place where we could swim or soak our body for relaxing. Too many people and too dangerous place for the activities. Anyway the scenery was very amazing, I wanted to stay there longer, but the time was limited.

My friend's children was running around, chasing each other. They played with the water, until their clothes were wet. One of them was falling, it caused her skirt was totally wet. All of us were enjoying visiting the place that we could not find in another place in the world, it's very unique.

Around 500 meters from the travertines, you could swim in the cleopatra's swimming pool cost 30 Turkish liras which has the hot, bubbly water. The swimming pool bottom was not covered with ceramic. It stayed as it was with some ruining of the building, you could see some broken pillars, stone, etc. People say if you open your eyes in the pool, the minerals in the water are supposed to be good for your eyes. You also could sit on the chair at the garden by the swimming pool with the ancient city as the beautiful background. There's also restaurants and shops facing to the pool.


We decided to take the shuttle to be faster going back to the bus, lucky it was raining hard when we arrived on the bus stop not during our visit to the pool. Our hotel was a thermal hotel, which had a thermal water in the pool that contains the same mineral as the travertines. Pam Thermal Hotel exists in the western part of Turkey, in Denizli city and Pamukkale Karahayit region, in the foot of forestry mountain. Karahayit region is also famous for its red water. This thermal spring which has its source within the hotel, fascinates everyone by its formation of beautiful red colored lime stones and thermal pools.


The thermal water of Pam Thermal Hotel all the year is 58 Celcius degree. The natural thermal mud has been used for medicinal and beauty purposes for centuries. This curative water with its thermo mineral and magnesium, calcium, carbon dioxide, sulfide and bicarbonate is suitable in many areas as a curative treatment. You could submerged your body inside the layering pool depend how hot you could stand. Nearer to the top would be hotter. You need to buy a swimming cap cost 2 Liras before you could enjoy the pool. It's very comfortable swimming and submerging in the warm water while the weather's cold. If you don't bring swimming suit, don't worry, you also could do it in the room. The water would be available only in certain hour period as written on the bathroom wall, so you could enjoy the warm curative water in the bathtub.

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Bandung, Paris van Java

During a business trip last Jun 2010 I visited Bandung, where people from Jakarta like to spend their weekend to enjoy shopping, dining and leisure. It’s quite crowded at that time, because it’s school holiday, so many domestic tourists came from other cities made Bandung full of cars and people. I’ve got a chance to enjoy lunch in Ampera restaurant, a traditional Sunda restaurant with beautiful view such as in the village with fish pool, coconut tree and some personal huts which could create more privacy room for any group who wants to gather with friends, relatives, etc.


It’s suggested by our driver to have lunch there, because the location (at Raya Rancabolang 1, Bandung, phone: 62-22-7510000) was near our office and they served traditional food. It’s really a great choice, I love the environment. When we entered the restaurant, we would be directed to go to a row contained of various food that we could select whatever we like to put in a plate. Some of them still needed to be fried, just pay right after finishing your selection, then the waiters would bring it to your table after frying. If you like chili, many kind of crush red pepper and dish of raw vegetables were available for free. You could select the seat location based on your preference, indoor or outdoor. The outdoor view was awesome, it seemed like in a village with some beautiful huts surrounding with fish pool. A big gazebo in the middle of the huts where you could sit on the chairs, sometimes a live music would entertain you while enjoying your meal.

From facebook I found an old friend from my hometown, she’s quite success as a branch manager of a foreign bank. We agreed to meet in Paskal - Hyper Square, Pasir Kaliki 25-27, Bandung. It’s a shopping area where you could find a factory outlet, some restaurants, cafes, and also a food market/court where Bandung people hangout. A daughter of my mom’s friend also met me at the same time. I was glad that we could met after a long time never contacted each other.

The foodcourt ambience was quite fun, so may stalls providing from light snack till heavy meal. One of my colleagues from Bandung’s office accompanied me that night.
I walked from start to end of all stalls to select foods that I like to order. The stand would give a coupon contained your order, you had to collect it and paid together in the cashier. The food would send to your table after you paid. I love light snack, so I ordered quite many kinds of food such as moon cake, fried banana, fried cassava, curry chicken prata, and the traditional mix ice which contains many kind of ingredient such as coconut, jelly, fermented cassava, pineapple served with syrup and coconut milk. If you like heavy meal, don't worry about it, so many variety food from Indonesian, Japanese, Malaysian, Vietnamnesse, Western, and others were available there.

At that night world football tournament was happened, they provided some giant screens for the visitors to see the match with their friends. The weather was quite comfortable, it's colder at night time, no mosquito :-), so the open air environment foodcourt was quite suitable for Bandung. I was interested in the lovely environment, so many young people enjoy the night, they went with their group, even brought a computer. I brought my new camera, I was attempted to take some pictures of the shiny night at Paskal foodcourt.

My friend and I were chatted about many interesting topics, until we didn't realize that the place was closed. The tenant had turned off all the lights around 24:00 o’clock, so it’s time for us to go home. At the gate of the foodcourt there was a garden with water fountain as my beautiful background picture to end the amusing night.

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Magnificent Bromo Mountain

At end of April 2010, we had an Asia Pacific conference, for leisure Bromo was the destination for the foreigners to enjoy beautiful scenery in East Java, Indonesia. The trip from Surabaya to Bromo took quite a long time, about 6 hours, there were 3 buses full of the team. Around 22:00 o'clock finally we reached the hotel in quite cold weather. It's too late, so no many option in the hotel for dinner, just fried rice and fried noodle. We didn't have much time to rest, to see the sunrise we should wake up very early, at 03:00 o'clock in the morning, we would take jeeps from the hotel to Pananjakan. Although there was no aircon, inside room was very cold.


A queue of jeeps with the driver was ready in front of the hotel, there were 4 passengers in a car. It's so dark, but the driver was expert enough to drive on the sandy road and avoid the hole. Because it's dark, we could not see the environment at all, around 45 minutes in the bumpy car, we reached Pananjakan. We had to climb to the top, it took around 20 minutes walking distance, but the road was reclining and it's very cold, until I had to stop to take a long breath and recharged my energy :-)


At the top we're waiting for the sunrise, it's still dark, there were some benches to sit without any roof. Unfortunately it's so cloudy at that time, when the sun was rising, it only showed orange color on the sky, we could not see the sun. It's so windy and cold, the committee brought us some hot drinks such as coffee, milo and tea that could warm our body. If the weather was nice, you could see a beautiful scenery of Bromo and Batok mountains with the sun as the background.

We continued the journey by jeep again to go to Bromo. We started feeling hungry, lucky that there were fruit in the car, so we could feel our stomach with either banana, apple or orange. We stopped by at the slope that we could take pictures of beautiful Batok mountain. The dissatisfaction of imperfect sunrise was healed here. No cloudy weather anymore.

The jeep took us to Bromo mountain through a very steep and small road, some of them were sag, it's very dangerous to drive if you don't know the environment. Only four wheel drive car could pass it then continues to pass the sea sand. At the foot of Bromo mountain, we took a horse to bring us to Bromo's ladder.

I was the last batch, there's not much horses left. I've got a small horse, I was afraid that I was heavier than the horse. My friend said that my legs were longer than the horse's legs :-) Lucky that we could reach the ladder safe and sound. The horse riding was not too easy, although it walked slowly, it had to climb a small path with some stones on it. It's quite slippery, but the horse was trained well already to pass the difficult path successfully.


To go to the top of the active mountain, you should climb a long stairs. It was cloudy so the crater view was not too clear. Anyway the scenery from the ladder was quite beautiful, you could see the horses at the bottom of the stairs who waited for their passengers and also the Hindu temple as the background. Batok mountain with its green color wall was on the other side of the scenery's background. We had a chance to take some group pictures from different angle at Bromo's foot and in front of the temple.

Bromo and Pananjakan had a beautiful scenery unfortunately the facilities for tourists were not good enough. Right in front of our hotel we also could see a picturesque Batok mountain, the concept of the hotel itself was quite good enough, unfortunately it's not maintained well. The proper accomodation, transportation, and other facilities should be improved to attract more tourist, so the excited feeling to enjoy the magnificent scenery won't be ruined with inadequate facility.

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East Kalimantan Beautiful Jewelry

It was the third time I visited Balikpapan on early June 2010. We had lunch at Kemala beach, the sand is light yellow and very soft. It’s located near the city area. The restaurant seemed similar to Jimbaran restaurants in Bali, you could see from the restaurant signage, also from the decoration with black and white square sarongs coverage the pillar and also at the ceiling. There were some stands providing different foods. You could eat inside under the roof or outdoor on the sea sand. We preferred eating indoor, as Indonesian people we don’t like sunbathing, our skin is already too dark :-)


While waiting the food, I went to the edge of the beach to take some pictures. I took off my shoes to feel the soft sand. Based on my colleague’s info, there are sport activities on the beach, such as banana boat, parasailing, etc. At weekend Balikpapan people like to have entertainment/leisure there while enjoying the beach and watching the plane flying on the upper of the beach. The plane seems very close because the airport is very near to the beach.

At night we went to the middle of the hill at Pertamina houses area to take pictures of the eternal flame from the oil drilling with its oil refinery site as a revitalized center of petroleum production. It’s very beautiful shining in the dark of the night. My friend, the professional photographer suggested the proper measurement for getting the good result. It’s very satisfying to see the wonderful picture, as if I’m professional already :-) I only used pocket camera, so the result was not as detail and excellent such as my colleague taking it with SLR camera.

On the next day after working, we got a chance to stop by half an hour in the popular market called Kebun Sayur. You could find beautiful accessories, gemstones, ethnic souvenirs, jewelry made of combination of gemstones and silver, crystal, handicraft, etc. You should good in bargaining so you could have a very competitive price, you have to pay cash, no credit card or debit card.

My friend bought Dayak (tribe in Kalimantan) souvenirs while I bought many colorful and beautiful bracelets made of silver and gemstones, some of them made of glisten crystal. Although it’s very short time, I was happy that I could add my accessories collection with beautiful ethnic ones.


We reached the airport an hour before the flight took off, there was a place that you could see the airport area in front of a restaurant. We should pay Rp. 3.000,- per person to go inside the place right on the top of Sepinggan airport. It’s very windy, it’s good to see the plane landed and flied. The airport is just next to the sea, you could see the sea as the background of the airport.

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