Macau - Las Vegas of the east

My husband always fancied going to Las Vegas at some point in his life. Planning for a US trip required far more planning than just a mere extended weekend plan. So, for his birthday on Oct 6th, I decided to take him on a surprise trip to the other famous Las Vegas, in the east - Macau. And planning for Macau over an extended weekend from Singapore was definitely easy.

The trip was to be done on the weekend on Oct 6th - Oct 8th, 2012. So my first step was to incept the idea in my husband, to take a day off from work on Oct 8th, which was a Monday. I didn't have any brilliant idea of how to do it, so just told him to take the day off, so we could plan to travel somewhere, and if nothing, we could just enjoy a long weekend at home. And it worked just fine! Now that the long weekend of 3 days was confirmed, I started out with the planning. 

Flight information:

I booked Tiger Airways flight from Singapore that flew directly to Macau, for the 6th of October 2012, 10.25am. The return was on 8th October, 6.40pm. 

Hotel Booking:

Now, this was something that I spent a lot of time over. I wanted to book us at a very exquisite hotel, since it was a special occasion of my husband's birthday. There are lot of hotels, at every range and choosing once turned out to be quite a daunting task. I had to compare costs and rework my math to ensure that it fit into my budget. I realized that the best way to make this possible was if I split the 2 nights stay into 2 different hotels - one night at a mid range hotel and another at a luxurious hotel. For the luxurious hotels, I shortlisted the Hard Rock Hotel, The City of Dreams and The Venetian. And the winner was The Venetian, Macau - the largest casino in the world!.

I booked us into the GrandView Hotel for a premier room for the first night. For the second night, I booked a Royal Suite at The Venetian which cost me around 1400HKD.

Visa Requirements

For citizens of most countries, the entry is visa-free for at least 30 days, depending on which country's citizen you are. We fell into the category of visa free entry for 30 days.

For UK nationals it's 180 days and for European Union nationals it's 90 days visa free travel.

Planning the Itinerary:

Right, tickets, hotels and visa done. Now to chalk out the 3 day plan. First, I started with finding out about Macau.

Macau was an overseas territory of Portugal till 1999 and now is a Special Administrative Resion (SAR) of the People's Republic of China. Cantonese and Portugal are the widely spoken languages here. English is spoken by most people in the main tourist places and hotels, but not by those at the smaller tourist attractions and locals. 

Macau is divided into 4 regions - Macau peninsula, Taipa, Cotai and Coloane. As tourists, we would be interested in the Macau peninsula and Cotai, where most tourist attractions and casinos are located. 

Apart from visiting the world famous casinos, the other tourist places includes the ruins of St.Paul's cathedral, the Senado Square, the House of Dancing Waters show at the City of Dreams, Ama temple, the Macau Tower, The Fisherman's Wharf and the Michael Jackson gallery.

Of the many things to do in Macau, I first identified the "must-do" items. Hugely inspired by Michael Jackson and whose songs are always included in my husband's song mixes, a visit to the MJ gallery was the top most priority. The next item was the House of Dancing Waters show. I immediately booked 2 seats in section 100, row J, for the 8pm show on 6th Oct, at a cost of 480HKD per person.

Now that the important items were fixed, the rest of the touristy stuff was easy to move around.

Since the language was going to be a major hindrance to the travel, I printed out the name of the above places in Cantonese and Mandarin, along with their English names for my reference.

Ok, looks like all is set. Now to execute the surprise plan. On 5th October, I waited until the stroke of midnight to wish my husband and handed him an envelope with the ticket. He was jumping with excitement when he saw the bags all packed and I was happy to have successfully executed the surprise part of the plan!

Day 1:

6th October, 2012

Our flight to Macau from Singapore was at 10.30am and reached Macau at 2.30pm local time. The immigration was done pretty fast and soon we were on our way to the Hotel GrandView while spotting some of the world famous casinos en route.

The Macau Tower

MGM Hotel and Casino

Wynn Hotel and Casino

The taxi ride cost us 40HKD. The check in at the hotel was pretty smooth. We had to pay a deposit of 500HKD. I checked with the hotel reception if they had anything special for the birthday of a guest and they very kindly obliged to send us a bottle of champagne to the room. The room was spacious and tidy, and after popping open the champagne, we quickly freshened up to start our day's sight seeing. 

Room at GranView Hotel

We first headed to the St.Paul's Cathedral ruins. I showed the print out of the location to the taxi driver and soon we were on our way there for a cost of 60HKD. 

The ruins of St.Paul's is a 17th century Portugese cathedral. What remains today is only the facade, which is reinforced with concrete and steel, to uphold the otherwise leaning structure. The Cathedral stands on a small hill with steps leading up to it.

Ruins of St.Paul's Cathedral

We decided to walk to the Senado square thereby giving us a peek into the local atmosphere. We came across a residential area and the contrast of this to the otherwise rich section of the place was quite striking.

The other side of Macau

It is said that "If you haven't been to The Senado Square, you haven't been to Macau". And I quite agree with that. Although there is nothing obvious at first glance, it is a nice beautiful place to stroll around, sit, relax and capture a few memories. The tiled wavy floor along with pastel coloured buildings take you momentarily into another dimension of existence. 

We walked around Senado Square, window shopped and headed out to the main area. It was now time to try our luck at the casinos. We first went to the Lisboa casino and then the Wynn casino. We tried our luck at a few games and after being satisfied with our losses headed out to the City of Dreams to catch the show at 8pm.

The Grand Lisboa Casino

Wynn Casino

The House of Dancing Water show was spectacular! It is a water based performance with artists ranging from gymnasts, circus artists, divers to motorcyclists. The story is told over various sets that keep changing, through various artists over a period of 90 mins. The magnificence and the technical detailing of the entire show has to be experienced.

We were still in awe of the show when we entered the City of Dreams Casino and couldn't stop talking about it.

The entrance at City of Dreams

We grabbed a quick snack, since we weren't too hungry. We headed back to our hotel, freshened up and again headed out to see few more casinos. This time we went to the MGM casino, the President Casino and a quick look at our hotel's casino. We lost a total of 150HKD.

Day 2:

7th October, 2012.

We had breakfast at our hotel for 160HKD (the breakfast was not included in the room's rate) and checked out of the hotel but left our luggage there.

We headed out to the MJ gallery at the Ponte16 resort. The gallery was very well laid out with a lot of original artifacts from MJ's life. There were a lot of his personal items, autographed by MJ himself. This was like being in heaven for my husband. 

A sketch of Charlie Chaplin by MJ

 I am the one!

At the MJ shop, we purchased a black sweatshirt with a golden silhouette of MJ and key chain of his Billy Jean glove, for which we got a free MJ mug :)

At the MJ cafe shop we had a quick bite of pizza and coffee.

Coffee in MJ mug at the MJ cafe

We next went to the most oldest and famous temple, called the A-Ma temple. It is believed that the name Macau was derived from this name.

View from the top of A-Ma temple

At the shop nearby we bought some souvenirs and headed back to the GrandView Hotel to pick up our luggage. 

My husband obviously had no idea why we were checking out and as part of the agreement to this trip, he was to not ask me any questions regarding the itinerary. So as agreed, he just followed me, and next we were inside The Venetian! 

Our check in was smooth and we were soon taken to our suite. It was a lovely spacious room, with a separate living area, bedroom and a huge bathroom. We were just thrilled to be there. As part of today's plan, we were to just chill in our room and walk around the hotel and casino.

Inside The Venetian

Gondola ride inside The Venetian

The opulent ceiling

The grandeur

As per that plan, we walked around the hotel, soaking in the exquisiteness of the place. We grabbed lunch at one of the stalls in the food court area, did some shopping and went back to our room to dress for the evening. 

We played around in the casino, walked out to the front of the hotel from where we could see the night view of the Las Vegas strip of the east. We then walked across the road to the Hard Rock Cafe and enjoyed a few drinks to some lovely live music.

The Venetian

Panoramic night view of the Las Vegas strip of the east - Cotai, Macau

Day 2:

8th October, 2012.

We woke up to a lazy morning, ordered in breakfast which was served in style, with a restaurant kind setup. 

Breakfast in room

Today was our last day and after checking out of the room, we still had some time left before we had to catch out flight back to Singapore. We just walked across the various sections of the hotel, did some more shopping and headed back to the airport, satisfied of a well executed plan!

Other things to do in Macau:

There are quite a few things that we couldn't see in this trip. The Macau Tower has a deck for panoramic views, restaurants, malls and a thrilling walk around the outer rim. And for all you adventurists, you can try the bungy jump, sky jump and the tower climb.

The Fisherman's Wharf is an adventure theme park with roller coaster rides to children fun fare rides, Roman styled shopping centre, Colloseum designed venue for concerts and performances.

Hopefully another time. Till then,

Happy Holidaying!

New Year Celebration in Bali, Indonesia

As the end of the year was approaching, apart from wondering where and how the year disappeared on me, I started thinking about our party plan. Most of the feedback that I received about partying in Singapore was unanimous, that there aren't too many places to go to and even if you do go, they get very crowded. That didn't sound exciting at all. The next best option was to go some place else, and what better place than the neighbouring Bali!

Thus started the planning of the New year trip to Bali. Spoke to a couple of friends who were interested in the idea and soon we were a group of 6. Our dates of travel was from Dec 28th, 2012 to Jan 2nd, 2013.

Flight information:

We booked our tickets on KLM, they had a direct flight from Singapore to Denpasar, Bali. We were to reach Bali on Dec 28th at 8:30pm. Tiger Airways and Air Asia also have direct flights.

Hotel Booking:

As for all my trips, I looked at hotelscombined.com for checking out the rates and location of hotels. I read up on Bali and found out that Kuta is the central area of Bali where all the party and action is. After looking into our budget and the hotel rates, I booked our hotel rooms in Best Western Resort Kuta for 5 nights. I opted for a Superior double priced at around SGD 140 per night, including all taxes and breakfast.

Planning the Itinerary:

I started reading about the island of Bali and realized that there was so much to see and do, that I started doubting the duration of our visit.
Bali, I think has a very interesting cocktail of terrains. It has beautiful beaches, picturesque landscapes, volcanic hillsides, cultural shows, divine temples and lush green rice gardens. And with this variety comes the multiple packages of activities - surfing, diving, spiritual and archaeological visits to temples, watching puppet shows, trekking, savouring the local cuisine and of course, partying!

Bali can be divided into central, east, west, north and south, for ease of planning. Kuta isi n the south of Bali. I first started looking in and around Kuta. There are 2 popular temples - Tanah Lot temple and Uluwatu temple.

Ubud is in central Bali and is considered the cultural capital. It is about an hour's drive from Kuta. So I decided to go there and see as many temples as we could.

As I was browsing for more details on Bali, I stumbled upon the dolphin sighting activity in Lovina. Lovina is in North Bali, and about 2 hours from Ubud. I was very tempted to do the dolphin sightseeing as I found it very exotic. Also, the beach there has black volcanic sand. So I convinced my husband and our friends to travel all the way north to Lovina.
On successfully roping them into the plan, I booked at Sunari resort at Lovina for one night.

Next important thing was to plan our travel from Kuta to Ubud to Lovina. The options were to either rent a car with driver or to rent a car and drive ourselves. My research led me to a blog of a family of drivers who have been taking tourists around the island of Bali. The reviews on their service was very positive and decided to opt for their taxi service. I contacted Mr. Putu for the rates and found it very reasonable. After hiring them to take us to Lovina and back, I can vouch for their service. Our guide was Mr. Nyoman and we are extremely glad that we had such a resourceful and knowledgeable guide who took us around the beautiful island. Here is the link to reach them
http://www.yourbalidriver.com/

 

Visa Requirements

Indian passport holders will need to take a visa on arrival. As of December 2012, it cost USD25 for 30days Visa. Citizens holding passport from Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and certain other countries fall under the Visa waiver program where they do not need a visa to enter Indonesia to stay for 30 days.

Ok! Looks like all is in place. Now to execute the plan....

Day 1:

28th Dec, 2012
We arrived at the Singapore airport all excited and in time for our KLM flight to Denpasar at 5:30pm. A bunch of friends joined us at the airport and were off soon to our new year party destination. The flight was comfortable and before we knew it, we landed in Denpasar at 8:30pm. We had to wait in a considerably long line to get the visa stamping, but when friends are around time passes quickly. The visa cost us 25USD per person. We hired 2 cabs to take us to our hotel Best Western Resort Kuta.
We arrived to our hotel, the check in was pretty smooth and were shown into our rooms. Our room was pretty decent, only issue was that the long windows overlooked the corridor. That meant that we couldn't ever open the drapes. We initially thought we'll ask for a different room, but then discarded the idea soon enough, because we were hardly going to be in the room anyways.

Superior Double bedroom at Best Western Resort, Kuta

Once all settled in our rooms, we immediately set out to explore the city. We just took a cab to the beach area, found a restaurant called Queen's where we had dinner.
Returned back to our rooms and called it a day.

Day 2:

29th Dec, 2012

Today was going to be a big day - it was our scuba diving day. A friend had booked us at JetSet Marine. We had our breakfast at the hotel and landed at the diving centre. We got down to our training sessions after the initial paperwork. For 4 of us, this was going to be our second scuba dive while for the rest it was their first time. So they divided s into 2 groups and while they were doing their trial sessions inside a pool, we got our theory sessions and son enough we were also doing the practical trial sessions inside the pool. My first scuba diving session was at Boracay, Philippines, and there the trial session was at the shallow end of the beach because the water was so clear that you could actually see your instructor gesturing the instructions at you underwater. But no such luck in Bali. Compared to that getting down the deep end of a pool wasn't so exciting. But nevertheless, I was looking forward to the actual dive, keen to see another interesting section of the underwater world.
Once all set, we got into our boats and reached the diving spot. We were 8 of us, and so took a while for each one of us to get into the water with all diving gears. I was the last to get down, I had trouble with the pressure build up in my ear, but managed to do down further. The water wasn't as clear as I expected it to be. It was quite murky, couldn't see too much into the distance. Guess that's the problem when you have gone diving in a heavenly place like Boracay! most other places are a let down.. Unfortunately, that day the fishes seemed to have taken off to some place else, we didn't get to see much. We saw some corals and took some pictures and we were done. Got back into the boat, returned to the diving center, ordered some food there, collected the picture cds and left.
After an adventurous day, we thought we deserved some pampering and headed to a massage center. I got myself a nice relaxing foot massage. Right next to this place was a nice Italian restaurant. We ordered the rosemary pizza which turned out to be an excellent choice.

Day 3:

30th Dec, 2012

Today was the day of travel to Lovina for Dolphin sighting. Soon as we relished the breakfast buffet at the hotel, we were ready to start our journey. Our tour guide, Nyoman, met us at the hotel lobby and soon we were off.

We started at 9am, drove through Sanur and stopped at Batubulan for the Barong dance. It was a one hour show that costs 100,000 per person. The Balinese dance form is a very interesting concept where they depict mythological stories through dance and music. This particular dance was about a story of the fight between good and evil, a fight between Barong and Rangda.

The Barong Dance

There are other dance forms like Kecak, fire dance, ballets from the Indian mythologies Ramayana and Mahabharatha. For more info on dance and other cultural schedules, you can refer http://www.indo.com/active/dance_schedule.html
We next stopped by at the Sari Amerta Batik Collection, a shop famously flocked by tourists busy buying souvenirs. They have a wide variety of hand woven cotton attires, footwear, interesting accessories and beautiful paintings. I picked up a sarong for 160,000IDR and a clutch for 50,000IDR.
Next on the map was Celuk, famous for gold and silver jewellery and other items, Batuan known for their paintings. We visited a temple in Bataun, took some pictures. And we were pleasantly surprised when the locals requested to take few pictures with us! 

The temple in Batuan

At Mas, known for their wooden carvings, we stopped at a shop to check for some souvenirs. They had a good variety of wooden articles, and we picked up a Barong face mask and a Barong show piece. 
Satisfied with our shopping, we next stopped for a quick lunch at Madi Joni restaurant. Our very efficient guide, Nyoman, quickly got us a table. The restaurant was nicely located amidst the paddy fields. Since it was a packed place, it took us a while to place our order, get our food and finally pay the bill, but the view and food kind of made up for the lack of service.

The view from our lunch table at Madi Joni Restaurant

Our next stop was at Tirtha Empul, a very sacred temple with a natural spring that is believed to purify the body and soul. We started walking towards the entrance and followed our guide. As is the tradition of the place, we took a sip of the holy water and were now curious to see where the water was coming from. So we headed towards the natural spring, and what I saw there left me breathless! It was the most beautiful water I have ever seen. Perfectly clear and pure water, the earth underneath along with the algae was clearly visible. You can even see the spots from where the water from the earth was spouting up. It is a truly spectacular scene. 

The locals offering their prayers at the Tirtha Empul

The natural spring at Tirtha Empul

We next stopped by to have very famous Kopi Luwak, made from special coffee beans picked, eaten and defecated by a cat like animal Luwak. The argument for this goes that the beans selected by Luwak are of a better grade and the digestion further improves the flavour. Well, I am definitely not a judge of that, but the coffee did have a nice taste to it (yeww.. I know). Along with this, we also got to taste other flavours of coffee and tea.

The Kopi Luwak and the other varieties of tea offered

Next pit stop was at Kintamani, around 5.30pm. We stopped by at a picture perfect spot from where we could catch a beautiful image of the Mount Batur. Trekking this mountain to catch the sunrise was part of the plan post the new year party, and I couldn't wait for it.

Mount Batur alongside Lake Batur

After this it was straight to Lovina and reached our hotel around 7.30pm

Day 4:

31st Dec, 2012

We gathered at 5.30am on the beach, which was right behind our hotel, to meet our guide. We had already booked for a oat at 100000IDR per person. We headed out to the sea as it was dawning, and looked around only to realize that there were lots of lots of boats, filled with eager and sleepy faces. My hopes of finding dolphins almost vanished. I was quite disappointed that after about an hour we hadn't spotted any dolphins, just what looked like their fins, maybe. All the motor noise from so many boats were scaring the dolphins and they didn't surface much. But like it is said, patience pays! Most people either lost interest or got hungry or the sun was burning their necks, either ways, they all left. I was hopeful again. There were just 2 boats left, and we turned off our motors and just waited. And then someone out there we saw a pair of dolphins emerge and go back as back as we caught a glimpse. Slowly we started seeing lot of pairs around us and over time, we learnt how to hear and look for them. They were all around us, we didn't have to go anywhere. Watching them come out in pairs, whistling and dancing around was such a joy. I could just sit there for as long as they kept peeping out. I was happy!

They were too fast for my amateur photography skill

Unwillingly, we started our ride back to the shore. Closer to the shore, we realized that the water was black. But then we started seeing corals and that's when we realized that it wasn't the water, but the sand that was black and the water was actually crystal clear. The beaches in Lovina have black sand due to the volcanic eruptions that have happened long ago. It was another very different yet beautiful thing to see.

Back at the hotel around 8.30am, we had breakfast and checked out of the hotel. We started our drive back to Kuta around 10am.

On the way back, we took a different route than our onward journey. We stopped by at Ulun Danu temple that is located on the side of Lake Beratan.Took some pictures here and reached Kuta around 2.30pm. We went straight to Galuh Bali Spa, recommended by Nyoman, our guide. We pampered ourselves to some exhilarating massages and then headed back to our hotel in Kuta.

The scenic location of Ulun Danu temple along Lake Beratan

It was the New Year's eve and the whole reason of our travel. We all got dressed for the party and headed out to the beach area. We had not planned this part of the trip and kind of left it open. We had heard that there were many places to go party and so we started our walk on the beach road. But that turned out to be a bad decision was the roads were packed with people. We couldn't make headway to anywhere, and we were losing each other. We just looked around, heard some loud thumping music coming from somewhere close by. We just followed our ears and landed in deVector's at 100,000IDR per person. It actually turned out to be a good place with some great music. It also had an open view to the beach side which gave a good view of the fireworks happening all along the beach. With loved ones and friends around, to the sound of some groovy music and the sight of fireworks, we welcomed 2013. I couldn't have asked for more! It was a lovely evening, everything was just perfect.

Day 4:

01st Jan, 2013:

Today was a day to relax. And the weather was just perfect for this. It was raining heavily and the lazy ambience was in sync with our moods. After a whole night of dancing, our legs needed extra care and were tended to this at the Melasti Spa. We lunched at Bella Italiano, walked on Kuta beach and stopped by at Hard Rock Cafe for dessert and coffee.

The rest of the day was spent pretty much doing nothing.

We had planned for an early morning trek to the peak of Mount Batur to watch the sunrise. And for that we'd have to start around 2.30am, so as to reach the base of Mount Batur by around 4.30am, which is when the trek starts. But due to heavy rains the whole day, the trek was cancelled. I was very disappointed when my guide Nyoman called to say this. I was double disappointed later when I read in a Lonely Planet article that the sunrise from Mt. Kintamani was rated the second best in the world. The trek to Mt. Kintamani is rated at an expert level and the trek to Mt. Batur is at a beginner level. The sunrise may not have been as fantastic as from Kimtamani, but it would have been better than not seeing any sunrise at all :(.

Day 4:

02nd Jan, 2013:

This was our last day in Bali and after a fabulous stay here, we just had 2 places to visit.

We first headed out to the nearby Tanah Lot, which is a temple situated on a large rock just off the sea shore. After crossing the maze of tiny souvenir shops, we were welcomed by the view of this magnificent temple.

Beautiful Balinese architecture at the entrance of the Tanah Lot temple

At low tide, visitors are allowed to walk up to the temple. If you are interested in doing this, you might want to talk to the locals to get information as to what time of the day would be best to visit here. The ticket price to enter this is 30,000IDR per person.

Tanah Lot temple along the sea shore

By now it was time to check out of the hotel. We still had time to board our flight, so we took a cab to take us to the Uluwatu temple which is located on top of a cliff. 

A panoramic view from the Uluwatu temple

The temple is infested with large number of monkeys, and it is needless to say that it is advisable to store away all things, including cameras, bags, sun glasses. If you are wearing spectacles and cannot do without them, then just cross your fingers!

We walked around the temple, and the drop from the cliff is spectacular. The view of the sea and the waves hitting the bottom of the cliff along the noise of the clash make it special in spite of the monkeys.

On our way back to the airport, we stopped by for a quick walk on the Jimbaran beach.

Bali has a very interesting mix of historic and urban sights. As much as it is famous for its party scene, just a few kms away are beautiful historical and cultural treasures. This gives a nice balance to the tastes of a traveller where it offers both fun and facts. Over the last 4 days of visiting the temples, talking to people, noticing their statues of idols, I realized how much in common we had with the Balinese people in terms of culture. Everywhere we went, the Balinese people were so thrilled to learn that we are from India, a place they consider as the origin of their beliefs. It was an overwhelming experience to visit this lovely place and meet their beautiful people.

Krishna, Arjuna's charioteer, a very famous depiction from the Mahabharatha

As I write this, I am now determined to go back to Bali, to see what I missed out in this trip, specially the trek to Mount Batur to watch the sunrise.