Just back from...

I’ve been to Chiang Mai many times over the last 20 years. Thailand’s "cultural capital" is always a great place to relax. I’ve probably visited the city at least 50 times, but I never tire of wandering the small lanes and exploring the old temples. Even after so many visits, I almost always stumble across something I haven’t seen before, or something new since my last visit.

My main goal on this trip is to re-visit the sights of the old city, on foot. The streets within the city walls is a remarkably walk-able area. There are markets full of stalls stacked with strange and colorful tropical fruits, the many temples for which the city is famous, a growing number of beautifully restored buildings turned into interesting museums, some interesting shops and boutique hotels.

Chiang Mai is such a walk-able city that the weekend walking street markets have definitely become a fixture. On Saturdays, the Wualai Road market, although much smaller than the Sunday market, is certainly worth a visit. Perhaps because of its small size, it’s more easily walked, and it has much more the feel of a local market than a big craft fair. The Sunday fair on the other hand has gotten very big. Even when the weather is a bit "iffy", as it is at this time of year, it extends all the way up Ratchadamnoen Road from Tapae Gate to Wat Phra Singh, as well as over to the provincial hall along Phrapopkhlao Road.

While there are a few big new hotels about to open down near the night bazaar, not much else changes dramatically in Chiang Mai. There are a lot of small incremental changes to see, however. At least one temple seems to have some work being done at any given time. Right now, the main prayer hall at Wat Chedi Luang is undergoing a quite radical makeover. In addition, they’re building a small dharma museum in the compound, and remodeling the city pillar shrine within the temple.

Outside the old city, the pagoda at Wat Suan Dok has been gilded, while the reliquaries of the royal family at the temple have all been painted with stark white paint. Not much has changed at Wat Umong. The forest temple remains a cool retreat from the heat of the city.

For a long time now, I’ve had "see Lovina" on my Bali to-do list. I’d heard it was different in many ways from the Southern Bali beach resorts I’ve known. Today I finally got the chance to see for myself.

The drive to Lovina from the Kuta area is about three hours, depending on how many stops you make, and there are a lot of places worth a stop. To get to the north coast of Bali, you have to drive up and over the volcanic peaks at the center of the island. The southern slope is quite gentle, so before you know it you’re looking back down on the entire southern coast. Well, if there’s no clouds or fog, which is something of a rarity.

With the cooler climate that altitude brings, there’s a lot of cool weather produce grown around the mountains, like lettuce and strawberries. There are markets in Bedegul and Candi Kuching where you can stop and see for yourself.

My first stop is the lake temple of Ulun Danu Bratan, set on the shores of Lake Bratan, one of three lakes in the crater of an old volcano. The temple has a couple of shrines set on small islands out in the lake, so it’s a much photographed sight.

From the lakes, we head up over the north rim of the crater and down into North Bali. There are a lot of monkeys along the road as we climb to the rim of the crater. The north slope of the mountains is a lot steeper than the south, so the road is quite winding on the way down into Singaraja, the old capital of Bali. On the way is another interesting sight, the Git Git Waterfall. Actually, there are a lot of falls in Git Git. There are three or four places where you can stop and see them.

From Singaraja we head west a few miles to get to Lovina. If you want the Bali experience without the crowds, then it looks like Lovina is the place you should consider. The beach here is black sand and the water is extremely calm most of the time. There are several hotels to choose from, most of them reasonably priced, and there are a few restaurants as well. What’s missing is big crowds, nightclubs, and touts chasing you down the street trying to sell you a t-shirt or transport.

While I may have crossed "see Lovina" off my list, it hasn’t gotten any shorter. I’ve had to add "spend more time in Lovina" to the list.

Yesterday I made the drive from Semarang to Yogyakarta. It’s a comfortable two and a half hour drive, but not all that scenic. My base for this stay is the Dusun Jogja Village Inn.

I’d have to describe the Dusun Jogja Village Inn as “pleasantly funky”. I’m sure there are some to whom the charms of this place won’t appeal, but I found it to be a quite pleasant change from the bland corporate hotels I usually end up at on my travels. Fortunately, the owners of the Dusun have generally avoided using the word “boutique” to describe their property. There’s no pretensions here.

The hotel consists of just around 20 rooms and is located just south of the old royal palace, the Kraton. The lobby and standard rooms are housed in a small building right on the narrow side street of the hotel. The deluxe rooms are in two story blocks on the other side of a large courtyard behind the lobby. The courtyard holds a swimming pool that’s rather large for such a small hotel. Beside the pool is the hotel’s restaurant, housed in a traditional open air “joglo” Javanese style pavilion.

My second floor deluxe room is good-sized, not huge but very comfortable to move around in. The design and decoration are early twentieth century, with tile floors and rough plaster walls. Most of the furniture is made of wood, except for the bed frame, which is wrought iron. The bed sports a canopy and mosquito net, which may come in handy. A pair of sliding doors lets onto a large balcony with a built in sofa, table and chair. Although there is a ceiling fan, which may be quite adequate in the cool season, the room also has air conditioning. Other modern conveniences include a mini-bar, but, there is no television in the room. There is a ‘movie room’ in the lobby, with a selection of discs on offer. The bathroom is quite large, although the fixtures are rather basic. There’s just a bathtub with shower, toilet and vanity.

The menu at the restaurant is somewhat limited, but both meals I ate there were very good. The breakfast buffet didn’t offer too many things, but the juices were fresh squeezed, the croissants fresh baked, and everything else was equally good quality.

Yesterday was one of "those" days that makes you understand why some people hate to travel. My flight from Bangkok to Jakarta was delayed by half an hour, which is bad enough, but when I got to Jakarta I found that my connecting flight to Semarang was delayed by more than an hour. This gave me more than enough time to fully "appreciate" Soekarno-Hatta airport.

Jakarta’s main international airport is something of a contradiction. On the one hand, it is an architecturally distinctive airport. In an age when new airports are almost always glass and steel could-be-anywhere designs, Soekarno-Hatta, although made mostly of glass and steel, is inspired by local cultural styles, with the departure lounges taking the form of traditional pendopo meeting places set in landscaped tropical gardens.

On the other hand, the experience delivered to the travellers who have to use the airport is far from culturally enriching. On exiting customs, you’re assaulted with an absolute free-for-all of competing unlicensed taxi drivers, touts and assorted other unsavoury characters. If, like me, you’re arriving on an international flight and transferring to a domestic flight, you won’t find a single sign inside to direct you to the domestic terminal. Finally, if faced with a delayed flight, you won’t find much to do to occupy your time. The domestic terminal has little in the way of internet services or other things to do.

It’s no wonder that the budget travel site Sleeping in Airports named Soekarno-Hatta a "Poopy Airport" in 2006.

So, after a long day, I arrived in Semarang, on the north coast of Central Java. It’s my first time here, but as I walk out of the airport building I got a distinct feeling of deja vu. I suspect that most provincial airports in Indonesia were originally built on the same plan. The arrivals hall in Semarang is more or less identical to the ones in Makassar, Yogyakarta and Surabaya’s old terminal.

So, I’m back in Dubai again, just in time for the opening yet another big new shopping mall. Dubai Festival City doesn’t have any of the ‘one of a kind’ attractions that are quite common in Dubai these days. It does have some spectacular fountains, and it is right on the water, on the Creek. It is part of a huge development that, when completed, will have not only the shopping center, but four hotels, a few office buildings, three different housing developments and an 18 hole golf course.

One of the housing developments is called the ‘Hillside’ development. Now, only in Dubai would they set out to sell housing on a hill, where they had to build the hill first!