Just back from...

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!

If you’re considering a trip to Thailand from North America via Thai Airways, you’ve no doubt been trying to work out the various classes of service. Unlike more traditional flights, with economy, business and first classes, the direct flights started a little over a year ago still offer three classes, but call them economy, “premium economy” and “royal silk” class. Economy class may be easy enough – cramped seating and limited movie choices – although at least there is a movie choice on the Thai flights. But, what is “premium economy”, or “royal silk” for that matter? Owing to a lack of upgrade seats in royal silk for my outbound leg, I had a chance to sample both classes on a recent trip to the US.

I was in premium economy on a flight from Bangkok to Los Angeles. The section was surprising small, with less than 10 rows of seats in a two-three-two configuration. The seats are only slightly wider than economy, but further apart. The seats do have an electronically controlled foot rest, but do not really recline very far. Since I’m not one who can easily sleep on planes, I didn’t get much rest on the flight, but, since the plane arrives in LA at 9:30 at night, sleeping during the flight wasn’t really a good idea in the first place. I arrived in LA very tired, had a good night’s sleep, and was able to enjoy the rest of my trip with almost no jet lag. If you run out of movies to watch and want to get some work done, there is a power point between seats that will keep your battery charged for the long trip.

My return to Bangkok was in royal silk class. Royal silk is perhaps meant to be a little better than your typical business class, but not quite first class. The rows of seats are indeed quite far apart. Although not quite as wide as business class seats I’ve experienced in the past, they do almost fully recline, meaning you can lie almost flat. Since the return flight departs LA late at night and arrives in Bangkok early in the morning, you definitely want to get some sleep if you can. There’s also a power point at each seat (although I noted that only one of the power points in each pair of seats could be used at a time), as well as an “over-the-shoulder” reading light. The seats have a rather complicated set of controls to adjust the recline, foot rest, and even the lumbar support.

In conclusion, I would highly recommend the royal silk class when flying to Bangkok, but premium economy was more than adequate for flying from Bangkok to the US.

I couldn’t get a flight from Yogyakarta back to Bali in time to catch my flight to Bangkok, so that means I have to stay another night in Bali. Yeah, life is tough, boo-hoo.

Since it didn’t matter much where I stayed, I decided to check out Seminyak, north of the Kuta/Legian area. I stayed here, at Vila Lumbung, on my first trip to Bali about five years ago, and haven’t been back. The area has become popular with people who want to be close to good restaurants and a bit of nightlife, but find Kuta/Legian "too touristy". They may be on to something.

My base for the night is Resor Seminyak, which I remembered from my first trip as being on the beach, which Vila Lumbung, nice as it was, was not. The spelling is correct by the way - there’s no ‘T’ in Resor. My superior room was very large, and while it was a bit tired, considering it costs just a third of what the other hotels along this beach charge, it’s good value for money.

Outside of the hotel, Seminyak has become a real foodies paradise, with many of Bali’s best restaurants just a few steps from the resort. For starters, there’s one of our old favorites, La Lucciola. Then there’s the new king of the block, Ku De Ta. If those aren’t enough, there’s also Hu’u and Living room. If you’re looking for something just good and cheap, there are also several small Indonesian waroengs along the street as well.

Perhaps the best thing about Seminyak is that you can walk down the beach or down the street without being harassed by stall vendors. While there are some nice boutiques and galleries along the road, there are no t-shirt stalls, no CD shops and not even much in the way of swim-wear stores. You can have a quite leisurely stroll down the street without being hassled, although you do have to watch out for cars since there is no sidewalk in most places.

I’m close to the end of my trip to Indonesia. I arrived in Yogyakarta last night for a quick visit. You may have forgotten, but this city was badly damaged by an earthquake just less than a year ago, in May 2006. There’s been good progress on recovery, but you still see a lot of construction everywhere, especially at the airport.

Last evening, we walked along Malioboro street, which as usual, is lined with stalls selling batik, wood carvings, batik, clothes, batik, souvenirs, and did I mention batik? There is a lot of batik on display. We were even directed to a gallery off the street that had a large selection of batik artwork on sale. There were many nice examples, in many different styles. I ended up buying a small picture for my niece.

This morning, on the way to the airport we’re going to a couple of the old Hindu temples around Yogya. The first stop is Candi Sambisari, a tiny temple that was only discovered in 1966, having been buried by ash and dirt for nearly a thousand years. It now sits in the deep depression after having been excavated.

The next stop is the Prambanan complex. I’d first visited here five years ago but wasn’t happy with all my pictures. Unfortunately, the temples were badly damaged in the earthquake, and now you can’t go into the be towers any more. They’ve only cleared a path just inside the wall, where you can walk past the chapels. They’re busy trying to put them back together and make them safe, so you may be able to see them again one day.

After two days relaxing in Ubud, it’s back to work in Bandung. Getting here involves an hour-plus drive to the airport in Denpasar, a two hour flight to Jakarta, and then another two hour drive to Bandung. But getting here was worth it, when I found out that my place for the next two days, the Novotel Bandung, provided free internet. That’s right, free internet. All I had to do was ask the front desk for a cable (which they freely gave me) and I was off and surfing!

This was all the more pleasant a surprise since the Novotel’s sister property in Bali, the Kuta Mercure, wanted to charge me five times the going rate in internet shops to use the internet connection in the room. Really, I’d gotten used to hotels charging $5 for a can of coke and I can almost work out why they need to charge $2 for a free local call, but why do they have to charge so much for internet access? In most places, they’re paying a relatively small fixed monthly fee, which probably works out to just a few cents per room per day. There’s little or no maintenance or support required, if you do it right, so why don’t more hotels give it away? With their attitude of over-charging for everything, I sometimes wonder why hotels don’t charge you for electricity, but perhaps I shouldn’t give them any ideas!

Anyway, today I did what most people come to Bandung to do: shopping! My Indonesian host had a shopping list from his wife, and I realized I needed a jacket for my upcoming trip to the USA, so I went along. We ended up at Summit, which I’ve been to before. It’s on ‘Riau’ street, at an intersection that also has three other outlets (all of them, include Summit, reportedly owned by the same person.) Regardless of who owns them, most of the outlets carry more or less the same thing, but not in every color and size combination. So, finding something is usually a matter of going from one place to another until you find something you like in your size, in a color you like. That’s why clusters like the one around Summit are so popular. I went through four stores before I found the jacket I liked in my size. Going through all that trouble is worth it, when you end up paying only about US$30 for a leather jacket!

Another well know outlet shop is Rumah Mode, which has the added advantage of several food outlets so you can minimize the amount of non-shopping time!