Bali Tour Guide

Ulun Danu temple by lake Bratan is a great place to spend time during the day. You will see the blue lake, and the hills and forest at the end of the lake. Try take a long breath, you can feel the fresh air going into your lungs. Somehow, you will feel warm and peaceful here. (disclaimer: different person may feel different thing, and may not work when it is raining). Back to our discussion, that is, where to go to lunch. First, there is a restaurant in Candi Kuning market. It is called Top Deck restaurant. I have once bring one group of clients from Pacific Mutual Fund for a buffet lunch, and tried the food my self. The food is okay. It belongs to Mr. David (hi Mr. Dave..!!), an Australian who promote his restaurant by having the cleanest toilet in the island. If you'd like to use the restaurant, and admire how clean it is, you need to pay Rp 2000. But if you order your food there, the toilet use if free of charge. You need to be patient though, service is rather slow. Maybe you c...

Being a tour guide, you will meet a lot of people from different background, from salesman, manager, plumber, movie director, web designer, photographer or many other profession. A client of mine, a photographer, from England, convinced me to learn a bit of photography just for the sake of taking better photo. Well, it seems that photography is really an interesting subject to learn. So, when going tour with my clients in Bali, I would normally bring my point and shoot camera, just to do some photography on the tourists object. Sometime, I also taught my clients how to make better photo, or if they are better than me, I would ask them about trick and tips on photography. I usually take more than hundred photos during the tour. Even though I visit same places, such as the volcano, I would strive to take photo from different angles or point of views. Then I would post my photos to flickr.com. If you look at the right side bar of this blog, there is a tiny flickr badge that shows my photo...

Most intersting place for them was Uluwatu temple and Waterfal in Munduk. They seemed to like the local food as well. So, they like to try the suckling pig or the Babi Guling in Ubud and Denpasar. They also like the Lombok food called Taliwang chicken which they had in Bedugul. (There are many small restaurants in Bedugul which serve Taliwang grilled chicken) We visited the strawberry farm after having luch at the Taliwang restaurant.They thought that the strawbery food was good but have to be drank at the end, after theTaliwang grilled chicken.The chicken sambal was so hot, they said. Well, I thought so too.

Ms Lau (from Singapore, with Mr. Pei and Eaton) sent me a list of itinerary that she wanted to cover during their tour. I look down at the itineray she sent and it read as follow: From Harris Kuta resort - Visit Besakih Temple - Visit Kintamani with Batur Volcano and Lake - Visit Tampak Siring/Tirta Empul Temple - Stop at Beratan Lake - Visit Tamblingan Lake - Visit Gitgit Water Fall - Lovina Beach - Visit Hot Water Banjar - Visit Tanah Lot Temple - Enjoy the sunset at Tanah Lot. Wow, that was going to be a heck of loong journey..! On the tour date at 10 AM, I was ready at hotel lobby waiting for them. Mr. Pei was a very kind and pleasant person who loves engaging in conversation. On the other hand, I don't remember what she does, but Ms. Lau seems to know much about internet business. So, I told them that the itinerary for their full day tour was usually done in a 3 day tour. I told them that it was not possible to cover all places. In Bali, due to the road condition, traffic, hil...

I am not a coffee drinker, but since I went tour with my client, Karl , coffee supplier in Kuala Lumpur, then that day I had to drink about 4 to 5 cups of coffee during the day which make me a wake the next 24 hours. (by the way, this is the second part of Arabica coffee hunt in Bali .) On our last tour searching for coffee, we went to Kintamani and Menangi village. Karl, my client, was very happy there that he could taste the real Bali coffee. On this tour, we went to a different route; to Banyuatis village. Banyuatis village is a very popular village in Bali as coffee producer. On the way to Banyuatis, we stopped at Candi Kuning market. For locals, this place seems to be a must stop. We stopped for about twenty minutes there for getting fruit and snacks. In Banyuatis village, an hour later, we stopped at a restaurant called Ngiring Ngewedang. It was quite interesting that this difficult-to-pronounce-name-restaurant for westeners actually means "let's have some coffee." ...

Karl Priston, a coffee supplier, sent me an email and said that he needed a Bali tour guide who can assist him while travelling around Bali in search for Bali coffee. In particular, it was called Arabica coffee. He was not interested in any other type ofcoffee (Robusta coffee or any other coffee). First we went to Seribatu village and met my acquintance, Oka, to ask him about where can we get the Arabica coffee. Based on Oka's info, we headed to Mengani Village (S8°17'17.25", E115°14'58.78") , north of Kintamani Village. It was a remote village, far from any where. While observing the village, Karl asked if the people who lived around the village would enjoy spending in a place like Kuta which was totally different from this mountainous area. Maybe not. We arrived at the coffee processing place. I walked to the main building and saw a stack of wet coffee beans waiting to be peeled off. The beans go to a kind of chanel where it will then squeezed by certain kind of...

Thank you to Isis, Faye, Kalu (house wife) and Yenting from Malaysia. These ladies are very kind and keep calling me Mr. Pudhu instead of just Putu. Most of the time I can not follow their conversation because they spoke Mandarin (especially Faye). They also taught me a few mandarin and Hokkien. For example, chii sao may (pig smell) kafe (coffee), taa (tea) suwey (water) and lu chu (piglet). Once Faye said that Bali is a "beyootayfoo" island which according to her it is just simply means Bali is a beautiful island. It is hard to believe this because they laughed secretly behind me. Isis said to me "remember to say Bali is a "beyootayfoo" island to your other Malaysian client." ( I will discuss about this word meaning later) Tour with these ladies were very exciting. When we arrived at Kintamani and was about to check in the hotel they booked from the Internet, the reception said there was no vacant room. But they insisted that they have paid and booked a...