Bali Coast - Choose your location wisely

Bali has a vast amount of coastline but the majority of tourists will remain in the area near the airport in either Kuta, Jimbaran Bay, Nusa Dua or Sanur. We visited all these areas and each one is extremely different from the others so it's important to choose wisely. Do you like to party on holiday or is that your idea of a nightmare? Do you like to stay in your resort and pretty much not venture anywhere else? Do you have children who need entertained? Choose the wrong area and you could seriously regret it, so read on for my tips and hints...

Kuta

We didn't realise but, at only 4 hours from Darwin, Kuta is the Benidorm or Ibiza of the Far East for Australians. If you like to shop and party then Kuta is the place for you. As a single 20-something I would have loved it: great bars, cheap drinks and really hot surfer dudes. As a married 32-year old, not so much. Kuta Beach is huge and it has great surf (apparently) but you would practically have to fight for a spot to lay your towel down amongst all the throngs. Call me old-fashioned but coming off the beach and going shopping dressed in nothing but your bikini or your surf shorts is not a sight I want to see - the locals don't say anything but to my mind it shows a total lack of respect for the culture and people. In the centre of town the roads are one-way so the traffic could almost rival Jakarta. There are loads of surf shops (Rip Curl, Billabong etc) and trendy boutiques plus souvenir-style shops but we found the quality of the clothes (in the market stalls) and knick knacks on offer was really poor. The hawkers drove me crazy since we couldn't walk 2 feet without being asked, "You want transport?", "Where you from?", "You want DVDs / sarong?". My sister taught me the most important Bahasa (Indonesian) words you will need in Kuta: "Tidak, Makasi" which means no, thank you and it really works - as soon as you say it to a hawker they leave you alone. Genius!

The restaurants in Kuta are great though and we had a succession of mouth-watering meals. Our hotel served amazing food (a mediocre breakfast but fabulous a la carte food), Lucy and Jamie flew over for the weekend with us and their hotel restaurant (Rosso Vivo) served the best fondant chocolate cake ever and the local Balinese restaurants we ate at (Kunyit Bali and Gabah Restaurant) were excellent. The bars, as I mentioned, are also fantastic - we're not so old that we didn't go out a few times! The cocktails at Rosso Vivo were divine and Legian Street is the main bar street with a succession of bars on both sides all competing to drown out the music of their competitors. We drank at a place called Maccaroni which had a great vibe. Kuta also has a waterpark in the centre of town called Water Bom, we didn't go but it looked like it would have been a fun day out. We also had blissful massages at Smart Salon & Relaxing Spot (what a name!) and the price of just $10 for a 60 minute massage added to that blissed out feeling.

On our last night in Kuta I lead the way to Legian Street so we could have a pre-dinner drink. I am notorious for having no sense of direction and for turning any shortcut into a major 'long cut' so I really blame Simon for letting me choose which way to go. What should have been a 10 minute walk took us over 1 hour! We ended up walking along an unlit road with cars and mopeds speeding past until we finally saw a hotel and asked directions. Left, right, left...sounded easy so off we set down a dark alleyway into a totally local part of town. It would have been really interesting if we could have seen anything but it was dark and all I could think of was that we were going to get mugged. To say I was in a bad mood would be a slight understatement since my feet were getting blisters and I was hungry! Finally we got onto Legian Street and stopped at the first place we saw (The Kopi Pot) to eat some dinner - it was edible food but I wouldn't recommend you visit this particular place. In order to end the holiday on a positive note, we got a taxi to Rosso Vivo so we could have the chocolate fondant again plus some vodka cocktails. All's well that end's well, as they say.

Where to Stay in Kuta

If you do decide to stay in Kuta then you will find a wide selection of hotels to choose from. We were staying at the Rama Beach Resort & Villas in an area of Kuta called Tuban. This is a local hotel which is not, despite the name, actually on the beach. The beach is only a few minutes' walk away but it was not the sort of white sand paradise beach you would want to walk along, lay out in the sun on or swim in the sea at. It was more of a working fishing beach, not a tourist one. We were staying in a pool villa with our own private pool - amazing and at only $250 a night we thought we couldn't miss the chance to stay there when a private pool villa would normally be $700 and upwards at other hotels! The main pool at the hotel was huge and had great shallow areas to sit in the water and read a book or drink a cocktail. The food, as I mentioned, was fabulous although the breakfast was disappointing so even if you don't stay here you should come for a dinner. Avoid the spa though: we had a free 30 minute massage and maybe because it was free, the therapists gave us really sub-standard massages and both of them had a real attitude - until we gave them each a tip that is!

Lucy and Jamie stayed at the Kuta Sea View Hotel on the beach road - this is where the fantastic Rosso Vivo restaurant and bar is, so again...go there even if you don't stay here. The bedrooms were of a good size but the AC was one of those that goes off once it reaches a certain temperature and then turns back on once the room heats back up so they found they couldn't sleep very well with the fluctuating temperature. Also, Rosso Vivo has nightly entertainment until after midnight which is great if you're sitting having a drink but wouldn't be so good if you're trying to get to sleep.

Kuta also has a Hard Rock Hotel and this looked like a great place to stay if you want to be central and have children because they have loads of children's entertainment. Their swimming pool also has an artificial beach area as well but if screaming children is your idea of a nightmare then you'd want to steer well clear. Kuta beach has a huge wall between the beach and the beach road so all the 'beach hotels' are actually on the beach road and it's necessary to cross the road in order to reach the beach. We weren't sure if the wall was to protect the town from strong winds or to stop cars from getting down on the beach. One hotel that was actually on the beach was the Inna Kuta Beach but we didn't go in to check it out.

Nusa Dua

Quite a few international hotel brands (Melia, Novotel, St Regis, Club Med, Westin) can be found at the beach of Nusa Dua. It's about 30 minutes away from Kuta so is ideal if you want to avoid the crowds, the main downside is that taxis are controlled by the hotels and so the price is quite high. Our taxi to Nusa Dua cost less than 100,000 Rupiah ($10) but the taxi back was a fixed price of 130,000 Rupiah and a taxi to the airport was 300,000 Rupiah ($30) even though you would reach the airport before you get to Kuta.

The water at Nusa Dua was the calmest water we saw because it lies within a big bay. It was low tide when we got there and you could walk out for what looked like miles with it just ankle deep - with diving shoes though since there was quite a lot of stones and sharp coral hiding under the seaweed growing along the sea bed. The beach was also very clean and was more the postcard-perfect image that I had expected in Bali. We ate lunch at the Melia Bali; the resort looked great and offered a huge variety of activities for adults and children, although the food wouldn't win any awards.

Jimbaran Bay

I had read in Lonely Planet that Jimbaran Bay was a "superb crescent of white sand" and they were absolutely right. On the day we went to Nusa Dua we had planned to go to Jimbaran but our taxi driver told us Nusa Dua was much nicer - a much nicer fare more like! Jimbaran is just 10-15 minutes and $3 in a taxi from Kuta compared to the $10 he got from us to go to Nusa Dua. The minute I stepped onto Jimbaran Beach it took my breath away - this was the paradise beach I had been looking for. The bay is huge and walking from one end to the other could easily take a couple of hours. The sea is not as calm as Nusa Dua and the waves coming in were maybe 3 times taller than the men in the sea, we didn't see any surfers though but I'm not sure why that would be.

Jimbaran is still a fishermen's beach and the families all live along the beachfront with their colourful fishing boats safely beached up out of the reach of high tide. We reached Jimbaran just before sunset, in time to see the boats being rolled down the beach ready to set out for night fishing. The northern end of the bay has a huge number of seafood restaurants serving up the day's catch at tables set up right on the sand looking out to sea. We ate at Dewata Cafe and had fabulous grilled whole red snapper, whole king fish and jumbo prawns. The fish were excellent value ($12 each) but the prawns were quite pricy ($30) - still, the experience of eating with sand between our toes and the waves lapping up to the shore was priceless.

We didn't visit any hotels at Jimbaran but there is an Intercontinental (and a Four Seasons) and if we were to go to Bali again, that is probably where we'd stay just so we could soak up the bay every morning. If we could have transplanted our villa at the Rama Beach here then that would have been absolute heaven. There is no nightlife at Jimbaran except the seafood restaurants but it's a short cheap trip into Kuta for the occasional night out.

Sanur

Sanur is apparently where tourism first started in Bali and it is where you will find most of the foreign consulates - and brothels our taxi driver told us. We got dropped at the Bali Hyatt to have breakfast and whilst the grounds were lovely, the breakfast was perfect, our lunch was good but not mind-blowing and there was a whole host of interesting activies on offer, the hotel buildings were a bit '70s looking although we didn't see inside them.

Sanur suffers from coastal erosion - perhaps because the hotels were built too far onto the beach and so it lost its natural protection - and so there are man-made water breaks all along the coast, luckily attractive ones which look like little temples. There is a concrete path along the seafront which made it really easy for us to walk what seemed like the entire length of Sanur. Apart from the Hyatt, the beachfront hotels looked like local ones and from the outside they mostly appeared to be of a good standard with many offering sun loungers that you could pay a couple of dollars to use for the day. After we'd walked for about an hour, we paid our 20,000 Rupiah and collapsed onto a couple of loungers to soak up the sun.

Maybe it was the time of year, but the sea at Sanur was full of seaweed floating in it so going for a dip to cool off wasn't the most pleasant of experiences. We'd also seen a sign at the Hyatt that you should wear your shoes in the sea due to the presence of sea urchins - ouch! Just as we were leaving our loungers to head back for lunch, a group of fishermen arrived with wellington boots on and waded out to sea to stand and fish. We're not sure what they were catching but it made for a great photo. We walked back to the Hyatt but I wish that we'd hired one of the Jukyut boats (fishing boats modified as pleasure boats) to sail back in style. Sanur was the only place we saw these boats so I'd recommend a day there just to try them out, but in terms of sea and beach quality it can't compare to Jimbaran or Nusa Dua.

Initially the Bali coast did not tick my box for being a paradise island but once we got away from Kuta, we found that paradise in both Jimbaran Bay and to a lesser extent in Nusa Dua. You can't be bored here since there is such a variety of places to visit and things to do, no matter what you're interested in or how old you are. Just make sure you choose the right place to base yourself and you will have the perfect holiday.

Ubud, Bali - Culture and beauty

Ubud is known as the cultural heart of Bali and I had read that it was not to be missed since you can see the traditional way of life, temples, rice paddy fields and stunning scenery. It exceeded all our expectations and should be on every visitor to Bali's list of places to spend a few days. It is about a 1.5 hour drive north of the airport and since we arrived on Independence Day, the streets were all deserted and we saw no traffic at all. The town is becoming more touristy but it still maintains that traditional feel with a market at the centre, loads of art galleries (it is the artist centre of Bali), the ancient Ubud Palace, traditional homes and rice paddies all around the outskirts. If you are going to Bali, missing out on Ubud would be a sacrilige since this area is where you will see how the native people have lived for hundreds of years.

There are numerous luxury hotels scattered around Ubud and we stayed at the Maya Ubud. This has to be the most gorgeous hotel we have ever stayed in! The hotel is built down a hillside with the Petanu River at the bottom of the hill. If you have any mobility problems then it won't be the best hotel for you since there were 150 steps from the main part of the hotel down to the riverside pool, restaurant and spa - there was a lift but not for the whole descent. The hotel has two pools - one at the top of the hill and one at the bottom - neither of which I went in since they were too cold but they did look fantastic. There is a choice of either rooms in the hotel building or private villas. Our budget didn't stretch to a villa but our room was huge so we certainly didn't lack any space. The only complaint we had was that the bed was very hard and the extra foam pad they provided then made it too soft - there's no pleasing some people!

The Maya has 2 restaurants although the main restaurant has different sections (a la carte dining, buffet dining and pool dining) so it could be said there are 4 restaurants. As with everywhere in Bali, the restaurants are all open to the air, I presume to get natural cooling as opposed to installing ACs. They really struggled with keeping buffet food hot so I would recommend sticking to the a la carte part of the restaurant at night. We went for the buffets because the first night was a special Independence Day buffet and the second night was a traditional suckling pig buffet with cultural show. The spread was disappointing though, mainly because it was cold. Breakfast offers a wide selection of Japanese, Indonesian and international foods - bear in mind though that 'hot' items are far from actually being hot. The a la carte food we had was great though - Vietnamese spring rolls, bihun goreng, salad with grilled tuna steak...all fantastic.

In the town centre there are various 'homestays' on offer where local people offer rooms to tourists. Not something Simon and I would do on holiday since the hotel is part of the experience for us, but I imagine it would give a far more real experience. The Balinese live in family units with up to 25 or more people living together. Luckily they don't all live in the same house or there would be queues for the toilet in the morning! Within a compound wall you find numerous little houses and each family has their own house; as children become adults and set up their own family then they build their own house within the compound. Many of the entrances to the compounds were amazingly carved with Hindu statues to protect the family.

Ubud itself is quite small and whilst it was technically possible for us to walk from the Maya to the town centre, we would have been risking life and limb since the road was very windy, there were no pavements and motorbikes and cars fly around the corners without a care in the world. The hotel has a free shuttle bus during the day and the one time we went out for dinner the restaurant (Bebek Bengil) sent a car to get us and dropped us back at no charge. If you like shopping then Ubud has plenty of genuine bargains to be had, we decided we'd shop at the coast but we regretted that when we found the quality was not as good as Ubud. Ubud Palace is in the centre of town but compared to other temples in the area, it is not half as interesting. We set off down a pedestrian street where you can pay for a concrete slab to be poured so you can write a message - a great way to have tourists pay for making roads! The street was mainly homestays but at the end of the street (it is quite a long walk) you come out at rice fields - our first sight of the gorgeous green of a paddy field.

I had read up on the area surrounding Ubud and we planned to arrange a car and driver through the hotel. In town there are loads of tour organisers but we didn't want to go on a mass tour and we didn't fancy using an independent tour guide since these are just men with their own cars so we weren't sure of the safety. Luckily our shuttle bus driver put us in touch with a friend of his who worked as a tour guide and had his own car so we set off on a full day trip with him. As Bali is 90% Hindu, you will find Hindu temples throughout the island. We visited 2 of the most famous: Goa Gajah and Gunung Kawi as well as Pura Samuantiga where we were the only visitors (see photo below). Be prepared for lots of steps when you visit the temples because Bali is very hilly - Gunung Kawi alone has 250 steps down to it and you have to climb the same stairs to get back out.

The temples in Bali were all originally Buddhist temples and once Buddhism was overtaken by Hinduism, the Hindus adopted the temples as their own. The Hindus hold ceremonies and celebrations at the temples but I couldn't help feeling that the original purpose of the temples was missing somehow. In order to enter any temple you must have your legs covered to below the knee as a sign of respect (shoulders don't need covered though) and you must have something tied around your waist - this is because the Hindus believe that your spirit can leave your body and by tying something around your waist you protect yourself (this is what our guide explained but it may be slightly more technical than that). Simon and I both had to buy sarongs at Goa Gajah before we could go inside (we could have borrowed a sarong but decided having our own was easier) and in some temples we had to tie an additional strip of material around our waists.

Goa Gajah is located at the intersection of 2 rivers as this is seen as a holy place in Hinduism (and presumably Buddhism before then). There are three main areas: the initial temple complex with a fountain of ladies pouring water into the holy pools; a cave temple which you enter through the mouth of the sculpture and which has small shelves carved into the walls where hermit monks would live; and the lowest area with a stream, bridge and lily pond of the holy water. On the flat ground between the upper and lower areas we also walked through a beautiful little rice field laid out on the flat ground. We got there early before the tourist hordes arrived but apparently it would have been heaving by mid-morning and that would have ruined the tranquillity of the site for us.

The highlight of Goa Gajah was that our guide took us out the back way through a village instead of back up to the main entrance. Along the way we came across a green snake across our path, I was busy trying to photograph it when our guide pushed it with a stick to make it move and it started heading for us with its head up and swaying like a cobra! I would have loved to get a photo but our guide screamed and pushed us back down the path at a run since that particular type of snake is poisonous. Once he had gone on his way (the snake, not the guide), we headed back up the path and up a hill to the village. Sadly the majority of Balinese people have no concept of environmental cleanliness so we had to climb through a rubbish pit to get up to level ground - not nice I can assure you. The thinking of the people is that by throwing the rubbish down the hillside it will be washed away to the river by the rain and so 'miraculously disappear'. It was fascinating to see the village though - not a single other tourist in sight.

Gunung Kawi is found at the bottom of a much larger hill than Goa Gajah and there are stalls selling all sorts of trinkets the whole way down. We decided to have a look on the way back up - but we could hardly breathe on the climb up and were certainly not in the mood for shopping. So when you're there if anything takes your fancy then buy it on the way down. Half way down the hill we came to rice paddies and our guide asked if we'd like to cross the field to see some hidden temples. He didn't need to ask twice and we headed off along the very narrow mud bank between the fields, into the forest and down a rather slippy muddy bank to find small caves dug into the hillside. Apparently the monks in Buddhist times would come to train, pray and meditate in these caves. When we headed back to the main trail, some other tourists (without a guide) saw where we'd come from and they headed off that way but I think the narrow track through the forest put them off because they were back on the main path a few minutes later.

Gunung Kawi is famous because it is a series of carvings into the rock face - similar in a way to Petra in Jordan, except a lot more basic. At the bottom of the 250 steps you arrive at a river; on the near-side of the river there was a temple carved into the rock face and dedicated to the Prime Minister and his concubines and on the far-side of the river lay a very similar temple but it was that of the King and his concubines. Along the other rock faces there were also numerous caves used by hermit monks for praying and meditating. We followed the river along a rice field mud walkway to see a waterfall, but in August it was more of a trickle than anything else and in the rainy season I think it would be lethal to try walking to see it since the mud wall is literally the width of a man's foot.

Leaving the temples behind we headed for Lake Batur (the largest lake in Bali) and the volcano of Mount Batur. We were told Batur last erupted about 20 years ago and the devastation wreaked by the lava can still clearly be seen - very beautiful but slightly eery. A 2 hour hike up Mount Batur is possible but we decided it sounded too much like hard work, especially since making the hike to see the sunrise would have meant heading up the mountain at 4am. No thank you. After an edible tourist buffet lunch at Batur Sari with amazing views of the volcano and lake, we drove down to the base of the volcano to soak in the hot springs at Toya Devasya Resort and Spa. I was worried the water would be burning hot, but it was just perfect and it isn't a sulphur spring so no horrible smells to contend with. On our drive back to the Maya we passed rice fields dug out down the hillsides, shining like jewels as the sun reflected off the water and the young green plants. Gorgeous.

We could have easily stayed longer in Ubud and it would have been nice to go back and spend another day wandering around the town doing a bit of souvenir shopping. We had 3 full days there but even a whole week could be very busy since there is so much more to see in the surrounding area than we had time to visit. Ubud provides such a fabulous cultural experience and the scenery is breathtaking. It really is a place you can't miss on a trip to Bali.

Jakarta - Great food but not a lot else

The Republic of Indonesia is made up of over 17,000 islands (only about 6,000 are inhabited though) stretching from Malaysia in the west across the Pacific past Darwin, Australia in the east. It is the 4th most populated country in the world (230 million people according to Wikipedia) with the world's largest population of Muslims. After over 300 years as a Dutch colony, Indonesia won its independence after World War II; we were in Indonesia for the Independence Day celebrations on 17 August. The largest island within the country is Java and this is where Indonesia's capital city, Jakarta, is found and where we started our trip. From Jakarta we then flew to Bali to spend time in Ubud in the hills and Kuta on the coast.

The only reason to visit Jakarta on holiday is if you are visiting friends or relatives who live there - that is what we were doing as my sister, Lucy and her boyfriend, Jamie live there. If you don't know anyone in the city then my advice would be to avoid Jakarta because you won't be missing anything. Jakarta's population is approximately 10 million and it seemed to us that most of them owned either a scooter or car - no 'old-fashioned' bicycles here. This means that traffic is a nightmare at rush hour times and that there is so much pollution you never see a truly blue sky.

We visited the historic area of Taman Fatahillah (Fatahillah Square) which is where the few remaining colonial buildings, such as the old Town Hall, are still standing. The square is cobbled and pedestrianised with museums housed in the various buildings. Those buildings that haven't been converted to museums are however crumbling and have no windows, no floors and trees growing inside them which give the area an unkempt, dilapidated feel. We wanted to visit Sunda Kelapa (the old port) but after heading off in what we thought was the right direction, the heat, smells from the open drains and feeling that we were going the wrong way made us decide to turn back and head for lunch instead. We got as far as a river with slums along its banks; in light of Indonesia's oil riches, it is extremely sad to see the level of poverty of many Indonesians.

Taman Fatahillah is the site of Cafe Batavia - Batavia was the old Dutch name for Jakarta - which I had read in Lonely Planet was a 'must visit'. The building is 150 years old and has that Raffles-colonial charm. Downstairs was very dark so we sat upstairs in the conservatory where the old-world charm stretched to having ceiling fans and inefficient ACs so you really felt like they would have done 100 years ago: extremely hot and humid. Our meal was mediocre and I feel that after an extensive refurbishment almost 20 years ago and winning various awards in the mid-90s, it has sadly not been properly managed or maintained.

I have to also mention the National Monument which stands in a large park in the centre of Jakarta. Unfortunately we weren't able to go into the park because there were protests going on outside. It seems that organised protests are a common thing in Jakarta so there was no way we were going to venture past the police, army, truck with barbed wire at the ready and hordes of shouting Indonesians just to walk through the park! Driving past though, I think the park would make a great picnic spot surrounded by greenery and no traffic.

Jakarta is not all doom and gloom though! It has a fantastic restaurant scene and if you enjoy shopping there are over 1,000 shopping malls. Lucy and Jamie live in an expat area near the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and Simon and I had the best massages of our holiday there (the most expensive as well though at $50 each). The Pasaraya shopping centre is a huge department store with the top floor entirely devoted to Indonesian art & crafts. We bought a few souvenirs and marvelled at the huge amount of work that must go into the wood carvings on sale, although we weren't sure who would buy 5 foot animal carvings - hotels perhaps? Over at Ratu Plaza we were able to buy high quality copy DVDs. Yes, copy DVDs are illegal but in the Far East you cannot buy originals since they just do not exist. Simon and I are not big shoppers so half a day of shopping was more than enough for us.

Unlike Dubai, all restaurants in Jakarta can sell alcohol so you don't need to eat in 5 star hotels in order to have a glass of wine with your dinner. We had lunch on our first day at a small Italian restaurant called Trattoria where we were able to sit outside having a beer and watch the Independence Day parade march past. Even though it was Ramadan during our holiday (which in Dubai means that nobody is allowed to eat or drink in public during daylight hours), in Indonesia they maintain normal daily life which means that non-Muslims are not adversely affected by the Holy Month. That night we ate at Harum Manis which is a fine dining Indonesian restaurant - if you are in Jakarta then I recommend you have at least one meal here. Although some dishes (beef rendang for example) were too spicy for Simon and I to eat, all the food was beautifully presented and the non-spicy food tasted fabulous. The restaurants we ate at weren't of the roadside variety, but the prices were still excellent and a 3 course meal with drinks cost about $45-60 (Dhs 165-220 / £30-40) which are just unheard of value compared to Dubai.

Two other great restaurants we ate at were Loewy in the Oakwood Shopping Arcade and C's at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. These were almost the only non-Indonesian dinners we had in our whole holiday and I can confirm that you can get just as good foreign food as you can Indonesian. Loewy is a French brasserie and we were told it is packed every single night, the night we were there being no exception. My prawn salad was divine and had the biggest prawns ever; after 3 courses and numerous drinks we had to be rolled home - handy then that Lucy and Jamie live right upstairs from Loewy. Our meal at C's was without fault: attentive service and wonderful food. A garlic prawn 'amuse bouche' was served and as I had already told the waiter about not eating garlic, I was given a mozarella and tomato amuse bouche instead. Impressive service. C's has an open kitchen in the middle of the restaurant with crates of fresh herbs and spices dotted around creating not only an original design but also great smells. Every single dish served was perfect, including scallop salad, crab claws, fresh crab cakes, steaks and vegetables. The only thing lacking was other diners - we were almost the only table there.

On our last day in Jakarta we headed out of the city to the Taman Safari Park and up into the tea country for lunch. Taman Safari is an open park where you drive your own vehicle through - many of the animals are free to come right up to the car and put their head in the window looking for food. On the approach to the park there are countless stalls selling bananas and carrotts for feeding the animals. Even in the lion and tiger areas, the big cats were lying by the side of the road - me leaning out of the window to photograph the tiger prompted our driver to ask me to close the window since tigers can move 8 times faster than humans and he was not that far away from us! The safari is one thing I would definitely recommend in the Jakarta area, although going to Jakarta just for that would be a bit much. From Taman Safari we headed up to the Puncuk Pass which, at over 1200m was considerably cooler and fresher than the smog and humidity of Jakarta. The tea plantations were not as abundant as those we've seen in Sri Lanka but they provided a refreshing change of scenery. We ate lunch at the Puncuk Pass Resort and had an edible, but not amazing meal.

Visiting Jakarta was worth it for us since we got to spend time with my sister and Jamie. However, if we had gone there with no family to visit and had expected something like Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur then we would have been sorely disappointed. There are countless temples, the floating market and so much life to see in Bangkok and in KL (we visited 3 years ago) we had a full day tour with a car and driver and there were plenty of interesting places to visit and sites to see. Sadly Jakarta does not rank up there with those Asian cities so I would say to just bypass it completely and head straight to the other islands.

Indonesian Food - Love It!

I'm sure most people have eaten (or at least heard of) the staple Indonesian foods of Satay (skewers of meat with peanut sauce) and Nasi Goreng (fried rice with vegetables, chicken and prawn topped off with a fried egg). Sometimes the way local foods are prepared overseas turns out to be better than the local preparation since the overseas method is adjusted to suit foreign tastebuds. Was that the case with Indonesia? NO! The food was amazing and I discovered there is a lot more to it than just sate (that's how they spell satay) and nasi goreng. I loved it so much I bought an Indonesian cookery book in the airport and have already made my first sate and homemade peanut sauce.

If you have a peanut allergy then Indonesian food won't be great for you since I found nearly every dish I ate had peanuts in it. Also, if you're Muslim then Bali may not be the best place to visit since there was little separation between pork and other meats. Although Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world, Bali has retained its original Hindu religious beliefs - over 90% of its population are Hindu and its national dish is the suckling pig. On buffets we found that you used the same tongs for all the meats - including pork - and it is pretty much guaranteed that all meats are cooked on the same grill in the kitchen. For the rest of us though...once you try real Indonesian food you will be hooked.

Sate

I have to admit that I ate sate pretty much every day of the holiday - I absolutely LOVE IT. I didn't realise before going to Indonesia that there are different ways of preparing it. The world-famous way is small pieces of meat grilled on a skewer but there is also sate where the meat is minced up, mixed with spices and sauce and then moulded around the skewer. I think that sate campur is the pieces of meat served over a small BBQ on the table but then in other restaurants it seemed the sate campur was served minced up. With English not always being restaurant staff's strong point, I resigned myself to not getting to the bottom of it. The minced sate (sate lollipops I was told) did not make my list of great foods since it's the flavour of meat and peanut sauce that I adore with sate. Fish sate (sate lilit) is of the lollipop variety and is served moulded around sticks of lemongrass, a nice touch but I was expecting prawns and fish on a skewer and the sate lilit was quite spicy with no real taste of fish. Many dishes automatically come with a couple of sate skewers so even if you weren't planning on eating sate, you will do.

Sate on a sizzling platter at Punchuk Pass, Java (about 2 hours from Jakarta)

Sate on a little charcoal BBQ with traditional accompaniments at Rama Beach Hotel, Kuta, Bali

Sate on a different style of BBQ at Kunyit Bali, Kuta, Bali

Sate lollipops at Bebek Bengil, Ubud, Bali

Sate Lilit (fish on lemongrass sticks) at Gabah Restaurant, Kuta, Bali

Bebek (Roast Duck)

The most famous Asian roast duck is of course Peking Duck, in Indonesia the duck itself is similar but they don't make pancakes with it. In Jakarta we had our first taste of Indonesian bebek and it was served on a platter with 'dirty rice' which is a mixture of different types of rice with coconut, fried onions and nuts mixed in - delicious. Although the duck is dry, mixed with the moist rice it was fantastic. The following week in Ubud, Bali we again ordered duck but this time we were served a plate with a quarter duck sat on it, a mound of rice and a random piece of watermelon. Simon tore the duck apart but it was really dry and the sambal (chili) sauce provided was too hot for us to eat so dry rice and dry duck...not our best meal.

Bebek with dirty rice, Harum Manis, Jakarta

Bebek at Bebek Bengil, Ubud, Bali

Gado Gado

Gado gado is a salad dish made up of cold steamed vegetables (cabbage, beans and other available veg). Our first taste of this was in Jakarta where the vegetables were mixed with a spicy peanut sauce - hot but delicious. We then ordered it at our hotel in Ubud in Bali where it was served as a plate of cold steamed vegetables with peanut sauce on the side. For some reason, dipping the vegetables in the sauce just wasn't the same as the Jakarta version and the end result was very bland cold cooked vegetables. Probably healthier, but definitely not as tasty.

Gado gado with sate at Harum Manis, Jakarta

Gado gado at Maya Ubud, Ubud,Bali

Nasi Goreng / Bihun Goreng

Nasi goreng is fried rice with vegetables, prawns and chicken. We ate it a couple of times as it is a core meal item and it never disappointed. An entire meal in a bowl: rice, meat and vegetables - simple and satisfying. However, once I discovered Bihun Goreng then the nasi goreng was out in the cold. Bihun is rice noodles and so bihun goreng is fried rice noodles - same as nasi goreng but noodles instead of rice. There are others as well such as Mie Goreng which is with egg noodles and I'm sure there are more that I don't know about. I'm attempting to make my own bihun goreng tonight, but doubt the presentation will be have as good as I saw in Bali!


Nasi goreng, Bebek Bengil, Ubud, Bali



Bihun goreng, Rama Beach Hotel, Kuta, Bali


Beef Rendang, Suckling Pig and More

The only time I've eaten beef rendang was when I made it once - minus the chilis the recipe called for. When I tasted it for the first time in Jakarta it nearly blew my head off! My sister loves it and it was her dish of choice in any Indonesian restaurant, so I will have to take her word for it that it's delicious - great for all of you who love spicy food.

Beef rendang at Gabah Restaurant, Kuta, Bali


I mentioned at the start of this article that suckling pig is the Balinese national dish. We were lucky enough to be able to sample one at our hotel in Ubud since it's an entire spit-roasted pig and so not something you can just order off the menu. The presentation was impressive, unless of course you're against eating animals in which case you probably wouldn't have liked the look of it and shouldn't look at the below photo! Sadly, our hotel in Ubud hadn't mastered the concept of keeping buffet food hot so the chef was carving a 'not very roasting hot' pig - I was hoping to get some meat fresh off the spit, hot with juices dripping out of it so was quite disappointed with my cold and rather fatty piece. I am sure that it is amazing when it's done properly though.

Suckling pig, Maya Ubud, Ubud, Bali


Other Indonesian dishes that we tried included mixed vegetables wrapped in a tofu omelette / pancake - at least I think it was tofu. I was served with a dish that looked like an egg omelette with vegetables inside but was assured it was not egg although the waitress couldn't tell me what it was. The pancake was a bit chewy but the vegetables were crispy and fresh. In terms of local soups, Indonesian pumpkin soup is delicious and is made with coconut milk rather than cream and cramcam ayam is a slightly spicy chicken noodle soup that is almost a meal in itself.

Vegetable pancake, Cafe Batavia, Jakarta


Although we had some disappointing meals, I think that was more the restaurant each time than Indonesian food itself. Indonesian food is reknowned as being spicy but we found that with many dishes the sambal is served in a separate dish so you can make it as spicy as you want. The only thing that was lacking for me was vegetables because they were almost always served with lots of chilis mixed in, making them inedible for my delicate tastebuds. Now that I'm writing this blog it does make me far more aware of what I'm eating, as well as encouraging me to try foods I would maybe not have tried before. For the first time after a holiday I have actually craved the food I've eaten whilst being away so that has to be a great sign.

My research has shown there are only 3 Indonesian restaurants in Dubai: 1 in the Raffles hotel (extremely expensive, the write up wasn't great and I'm sure the food will be fusion style, not the real mccoy), 1 in Bur Dubai that had a terrible review on Time Out and 1 in Karama which was apparently recommended by the chef at Rhodes' Mezzanine - Betawi Cafe...here I come.