Bali – Introduction

Bali, tourist mecca of the world, is a popular Indonesian island among holiday goers.  The small island is located between Java and Lombok and its people largely follows Balinese Hinduism, which sets it apart from predominately Islamic Indonesia.  Even without knowing that before coming to Bali, it would become evident soon after you had the chance to see the local traditions and taste the local delicacies.  People and culture aside, Bali is also famed for its breathtaking scenery and myriad of water and hiking activities.  Wikitravel gave Bali the following apt introduction:

Bali, the famed Island of the Gods, with its varied landscape of hills and mountains, rugged coastlines and sandy beaches, lush rice terraces and barren volcanic hillsides all providing a picturesque backdrop to its colourful, deeply spiritual and unique culture, stakes a serious claim to be paradise on earth.

With world-class surfing and diving, a large number of cultural, historical and archaeological attractions, and an enormous range of accommodations, this is one of the world’s most popular island destinations and one which consistently wins travel awards. Bali has something to offer a very broad market of visitors from young back-packers right through to the super-rich.

Bali is just a 2-3 hour flight from Singapore but somehow, I had never visited the island.  So with some annual leave to clear and some good people (R, T and YC) joining for the trip, I made my maiden trip to Bali.

Continue reading

India – Kerala, Tamil Nadu & Mumbai (11 – Mumbai to Singapore)

Day 11 & 12 – Mumbai to Kuala Lumpur to Singapore


I took a half day educational tour with Reality Travels to the Red Light District, Mahalaxmi Dhobi Ghat and Dharavi Slums. Above photo shows the 140-year-old dhobi ghat which literally mean “washing place”. There is also a recently released movie titled Dhobi Ghat starring Aamir Khan. It’s currently showing in Singapore with English Subtitles. Despite the huge number of movies churned out from Bollywood every year, I could only count 3 Indian movies which I have watched – Water, Slumdog Millionaire and 3 Idiots.

(Update Feb 2011: My colleague, Raj, decided that I need more doses of Bollywood and so I ended up watching the highly recommended Chak De India!, My Name is Khan, Rocket Singh and Like Stars on Earth.)

Reality Travel has a strict no-camera policy for tourists visiting the slums but they would provide some photos upon request. So the photos you see below are provided by Reality Travel. Before visiting the slums, I had expected that I would see skinny children, makeshift huts and in general, very bad living conditions. It must be the movies and the books. After the tour, my impression is that Dharavi Slums is basically a very oversized village (or town) with various cottage industries. Here are some interesting statistics about Dharavi slums:
- Annual turnover of business is estimated to be above USD650 million
- Population density is around 315,000 per square kilometer
- 60% of mumbai police lives there

Read more about Dharavi here.

Continue reading

India – Kerala, Tamil Nadu & Mumbai (10 – Mumbai)

Day 10 – Mumbai


Running route of the full marathon. For this run, I brought along my handphone in case of emergencies, also to take photos and track my run. Click for a bigger view.


Woke up at 4am and walked to Azai Maidan, the holding area for the marathon. There were 2 starting times for the full marathon – 6:15am and 7:40am. 7:40am was meant for the elites competing for prize money. Needless to say, I joined the earlier group.

Continue reading