Darwin Northern Territory Australia

I had a chance to visit Darwin on March 2009. This time, only Noy and I went together without any of our friends and entourage. When I asked some of my friends who love travelling if anyone had been to Darwin, non give a positive response. In fact some even ask why I choose Darwin.

To tell the truth, I'm sick of shopping and would love to be near nature. I knew, I knew, some of you must be thinking, why so far, Taman Negara in Malaysia is so much nearer. I choose Darwin partly I had a personal mission to complete my travelling pin on Australia map. I had been going to some other Australia city before and several times transited in Darwin. Plus, I really wanted to visit Kakadu and Katherine Gorge. So when Noy asked where I want to go for our March trip, I chose Darwin and its had bring a good and memorable memories. Plus this trip is totally brought us out of our comfort zone, so much things to learn and new experience gained.

We departed at 10.40 pm on 12 March via Jetstar from Singapore and arrived in Darwin at 4.40 am. Once we cleared the immigration, we proceeded to claim our luggage. Here, there was a custom officer with a dog waiting to do his work. Every passenger will be greeted by the dog and its caretaker (the custom officer) and the dog will start sniffing and following you around. Being a Muslim, being near a dog what more dog that sniff and lick tends to be a traumatic experience. Luckily, the dog only sniff at me. I couldn't imagine if the dog sniff at Noy or come any near her. I just hope that the Australian custom at Darwin be more sensitive on the Muslim travellers and would not let the dog sniff or lick at us. Perhaps they could have warn visitors on the dog issue and have a special counter in case some of them have phobia of dogs. Due to the dog licking at me, I had no choice but to qada my subuh prayer until I had the chance to change and wash myself.

To all my Muslims friends, just be aware and mentally prepare that you will have the same experience here. If you are afraid of dogs, please seek advise from the immigration officer before coming to the area to collect your luggage. This is to avoid any inconvenience or wrongly suspected from carrying anything illegal.

An airport transfer service is easily available at the airport itself. If you are staying in the city area, this is the convenience and cheapest mode of transportation if you do not have any plan to self drive. Do buy a return ticket to save you A$2 per trip. We paid A$40 for return ticket for 2.

We had booked at wotif.com Mediterranean All Suite for our stay in Darwin. It cost us A$109 for a spa room which sleep three. Here are some photos of the hotels.

The hotel has a swimming pool, tour reservation service and a restaurant. Reception time is from 7am to 11pm. Do indicate if you are checking early or later than the reception time when doing booking. They will leave your room key and give you an instructions when you request for the late check in when making your reservation.

This hotel is located at Cavenagh Street which is about 5 to 10 mins walk to Mitchel Street, where most of the happening happen in Darwin city. We choose this accommodation cause its near a bus station and not so noisy compare to those accommodation at Mitchel Street. Another reason for choosing this accommodation is its near a bus station. As we do not drive around while we were there, the hotel is so conveniently located and accessible to public transport in Darwin.

Day 1

We reached the hotel at about 6.30 am and had to wait outside as the reception only start at 7am. The check in time is supposed to be at 2pm. But we were lucky as the hotel staff, Ms Helen has promise to let us check in at 11am. We left our luggage and headed for a simple breakfast of coffee and rolls. After that bite, we headed to Mitchel Street to look see the area. We headed to Cole's to get some groceries for our stay in Darwin. Since only 2 of us, we did not buy much, only some egg, bread, vegetables and rice. We picked up some brochures at travel agents while we were at Mitchel Street.

There are several travel agents that operates internal tours to the places of interest in Darwin like the Jumping Crocodile tours, The Litchefield Park, Fishing Trips, Katherine Gorge tours, Kakadu National Park and many others.

We managed to check in at 11 am as promised. I cleaned up the utensils at the hotel with a sabun sertu that we brought and whipped up some simple noodle for our lunch. Noy meanwhile, unpacked our clothes and take a shower. After the simple meal, we thought of resting a while and plan to go for Darwin city tour in the afternoon. Guessed we were too tired and slept until 4 pm. Ah there goes our city tour plan.

Nevertheless, we change our plan and decided to go to Casuarina. Casuarina has the biggest shopping mall in Darwin. We asked the receptionist (not Helen though) and she told us that probably most of the shop in Casuarina is close at 5pm as its was Friday and the late nite shopping is on Thursday.

Hhhmm, now what to do then? We looked at each other with question mark on our face. Hahahh..serve you right, who asked you to sleep?..that's what trigger in my heart and mind.

Since we are eager to explore Darwin, we headed back to Mitchel Street and surround. We walked till the other end of Mitchel Street and only see some souvenirs shop and eateries joint that were opened. Bars were crowded and noisy. We don't have to enter to hear the noise. I wondered how the people can enjoy their conversation inside there plus the music at some pubs were blabbering loudly.

We reached the Esplanade and decided to stroll there. The weather seem to be in our favour and we can stroll the park with a nice evening breeze and sunset view.

The sunset view taken from the esplanade.

We had to leave Esplanade earlier as its started to rain. We rushed towards the nearest building to get a shelter. Fortunately, the rain stop and as its almost 7.00 pm, we decided to walk back to our hotel.

While I was preparing our dinner - a stir fried cabbage, an omellete and rice, Noy had her bath. I finished cooking just in time as Noy finished. Its my turn to take a shower, while Noy set the table with our dinner. Since its hard to eat outside due to our diet, a simple meal can be very sumptuous at this stage of situation. Noy cleaned up after that while I busied myself reading brochures that we picked up at those travel agent and planning for our next day trip to the weekend market.

I will share more on our trip to the famous Parap Market on my next posting.

Some tips for those who want to visit Darwin.

It is cheaper to take Jetstar than Qantas to fly to Darwin from Singapore.

There is not much activities for children or teenagers in Darwin.

If you are looking for budget accommodation, be prepared to stay in a backpackers type, motel or camping site.

Darwin is the most expensive city in Australia. A can of coke can cost you A$3.50 at most convenience store and a bottle of 500ml mineral water can cost you approximately A$3.00.

Be prepare to expect rain at any time of the day.

Darwin had only 2 seasons - The Wet Season - (Oct to March) and Dry Season (April to Sep).

If you plan to visit Darwin during the Dry Season, do book your accommodation way in advance.

Bali Indonesia - Introduction

We had just came back from Bali last two weeks. Bali, Indonesia is known as a paradise Island of Asia. We spent 5 days 4 night here.

We departed from Singapore Changi Airport direct to Denpasar Ngurah Rai Airport by Garuda Airlines. Beside Garuda Indonesia, Singapore Airlines do have direct daily flight to Denpasar, Bali. Lion Air, a budget airline operated by Indonesia company recently operated a daily flight from Singapore to Denpasar too.

Due to the peak period in Indonesia, as July was a school holiday there, plus its Summer holiday for the Europe and America sector, the flight was heavily booked. Hotels, resort and private villa in Bali especially Kuta, Nusa Dua and Seminyak Area were heavily booked eventough there are surcharges imposed. We were lucky to get the accomodation of our choice even we had to pay a minimal surchage of US$10 per nite. The room was booked way end April. The surchage for the accomodation surcharge was increased to US$25 when I last checked online before departing. My advice for those who intend to go to Bali, try avoiding July and August as the surcharge for accomodation can downturn your budget by US$25 to US$50 per nite. If really you can't avoid that period, do make your booking for accomodation earlier to avoid the heavily increased hotels surcharges.

At Denpasar Airport - For Asian, who do not require visa on arrival, please proceed to your extreme right for immigration clearance. The Ngurah Rai airport have many counters. This are separated into two - for those who need VISA on Arrival, then please join the queue that stated so. We had no idea that the counter we queued to get our passport checked was the queue for VISA on Arrival until after about 30 mins when it come to our turn. We were told to go to the extreme right counters for those who do not need visa. If you are from Asia, you do not require any visa on Arrival. The visa on arrival cost US$10 which permits you to be in Indonesia for 7 days.

While queing up for your passport clearance, you can see there are pamphlets being lay out on racks. If it is your first time there and you have no idea of what to do or overloaded with information that you get from surfing the internet, then grab some of the pamphlets. These pamphlets contain tour information, map of bali, spa services and some dining joints. With it, you can then plan for your outing or do comparison for tours or spa. If you would like to do you own DIY tours, do charter a four wheel and a driver. If you like you could drive yourself. The brochure that I picked up mentioned that the rental of car is apprx US$35. But if you are not patient enough, then I suggest that you engage a driver. Why? Cause Bali road can be very congested at certain time of the day. Only the local will be familiar with the road and they jolly well know what time to avoid which road. Plus, its not that expensive to engage their service. We did too cause we really want to enjoy the tranquality of Bali and absord the greenary and serenity of the surrounding, not busy looking at maps and getting ourselves lost.

If you need a good thrustworthty driver who give good service, contact this guy that drove me around Bali for my stayed there.

Mr Wayan Suweca - +620818564399

I can assured you that Mr Suweca will provide you a best memorable bali tour. By the way, if you do ever want to engage his service, do tell him, that I recommended you. Its not that I get any commission out of it, No I did not. But as I said earlier, we were very happy and pleased with his service and would very much like others to experience his good service. He charged apprx RP400 000 - RP450 000 for a 10 hours service. Oh ya, he is a Licensed Korean Speaking guide in Bali. Beside bahasa Indonesia, he do speak good English too. So no need to worry for being conned by those street muggers who offer you good and cheap price. Remember, no good deal is to cheap. Be wary, if its too cheap, than its too good to be true.

Ok, thats all for the introduction on Bali. Our tour will begin in the next posting.

Driving Trip to Southern Thailand Part 1

I just came back from a driving trip to Hatyai, Southern Thailand. The trip was planned way back in December without any specific destination at first. It was supposed to be my birthday holiday trip.

We decided to take a driving trip this year with our brother and his daughters. All together there were 6 persons (3 pax each in a car) went on this trip. The planned was to stay 1 night in Perak on the way to Hatyai and a 2 night stayed at Novotel Central there.

We departed from eastern part of Singapore at 2.30pm on Sunday 16th March 2008 heading towards Johore 2nd link. We expected that the immigration clearance will be a little hassle though cause of the wanted Jemaah Islamiah fugivite escaped. Surprisingly, with the efficiency of the Singapore Immigration and Custom Authority service, we managed to pass thru the immigration less than half hour of checking and thumbprint takings.

We had no problem at Malaysia custom too. Its a breeze driving from the 2nd link checkpoint until we stop for our Asar prayer and coffee break at Machap R & R. We continued our journey to Perak and stop once again at Dengkil R&R for our Maghrib and Isyak prayer. There we had our dinner. All of us were not too enthusias on eating as we were so excited to reach Perak for the nite.

We reached Ipoh and we heading towards Seri Malaysia hotel. Unfortunely, there is no more room. The reception at the hotel was helpful enough to give us a few more other hotels contact number. After some calls, we decided to check in at Grand View Hotel at Jln Horley in Ipoh town. It was a much fuss to look for the hotel as the staff there said that the hotel is situated at Jln Holy. Looking at the map, we couldnt find any Jln Holy (as what the receptionist said. We found out later it is supposed to be Horley not Holy..heheee). Nevertheless, we just based on a lookout for the hotel and found it at exactly 11pm. The rate for the family room is RM$168. This room comprised of 2 king size bed. We took one of this room and another standard room which cost RM$89. I just had to try my luck at bargaining for the room rate. Lucky for me, we managed to get RM$20 discount for the family room and RM$10 for the standard room. So guys, it is no harm asking if there is any discount available. (Learn this trick when I went to London back in year 2000).

Night well spent, drivers had enough rest, we headed for Hatyai after having our RM$17.40 breakfast for 6 person at 9.30 am.

At approximately 12 noon, we dropped by a petrol station at Napoh in Kedah to pump full tank as petrol in Thailand is more expensive than Malaysia. I saw a restaurant called Jo Cendol Pulut. A colleague had recommended that we eat at this restaurant. So we did just that. I spoke to the owner of the restuarant, Hjh Roshidah. Thru our conversation, I came to know that the restaurant also provide service for Thailand insurance. The charges is quite cheap for us Singaporean. It cost RM$15 per car registration. An embarkation card was charged at RM$1 per card. Since I got to know the lady boss, we got a discount of Rm$0.50 per card and thats a saving of RM$3 for the 6 of us.

After settling all the immigration documents at Jo Cendol Pulut, we headed to Changlun checkpoint (Malaysia immigration checkpoint) at Bukit Kayu Hitam in Kedah.

Here is the address of Jo Cendol Pulut :

Restoran Cendol Pulut Jo
Km 17.3 Lebuhraya Bukit Kayu Hitam
Pekan Napoh, 06000 Jitra Kedah
Tel:/Fax: 60 04 9162559
Waktu Perniagaan : 10 pagi hingga 11 mlm.

It was a breeze to pass by the Malaysia counterpart. I was quite nervous to pass the Thai border due to all the media reports about rioting and clashes at Southern Thailand. I never stop reciting prayer in my heart that Allah guided and blessed us on our journey.

We had some exciting encounters at the immigration at Sadao in Thailand. Will share with you in Part 2 as I need to finish up my monthly report for the bosses. So guys, see you soon.