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All posts for the month February, 2013

Tanjung Bira…

Posted by Ismawan Ismail on February 18, 2013
Posted in: Travel. Tagged: , . 2 comments
White-soft-sandy Tanjung Bira beach...

White-soft-sandy Tanjung Bira beach…

Another first timer. My first trip to Makassar. In fact, this is my first trip to this island.

The destination: Tanjung Bira, around 200km or 4 hours driving heading to north-east of Makassar. Rented a car at Makassar for IDR300 thousands per day, and off we went.

The road condition between Makassar and Bira varies widely. In some part it’s very smooth, especially near the cities. But in the other part, such as between Jeneponto and Bantaeng, the road condition is very bad and forcing you to slow down significantly. If the road condition is better, I am sure we can drive from Makassar to Bira for no longer than 3 hours.

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Arizona…

Posted by Ismawan Ismail on February 18, 2013
Posted in: Travel. Tagged: , , , . 1 comment

Saguaro

Over one weekend during my Arizona trip, we skipped from our tight project schedules and went North, heading to Grand Canyon. We also stopped by at several tourism spots along the route from Phoenix to Grand Canyon.

Big thanks to Jamie & Art, who were willing to spend their weekend being our guide to all those beautiful places…

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Dieng…

Posted by Ismawan Ismail on February 17, 2013
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Dieng Landmark...

This is my first trip to Dieng plateau.

From Yogyakarta, I drive north heading to Magelang. You can actually take a shortcut via Borobudur complex and directly head to Salaman before you go to Kertek then to Wonosobo, instead of taking a round route via Magelang-Salaman-Kertek-Wonosobo. But this is my first trip, and I put my trust too much to the GPS software installed to my Samsung phone. So here I am, taking a significant longer route that in turn taking longer time to get to Wonosobo, where I will stay overnight before heading to Dieng plateau on the following day…

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Sanur…

Posted by Ismawan Ismail on February 16, 2013
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Cloudy sunrise at Sanur...

No need to explain much about Sanur…

I guess this place has been infamous for decades, or even more, so I don’t think I can explain enough about this place, for there are lots more people know this place far better than I do. For you that have never been in Bali before, well, I can explain a little bit about this place… 🙂

Sanur is a handy place for a new arrival. Airport taxis might charge around IDR100,000 to Sanur and the journey is around 20-25 minutes For people choosing Sanur over Kuta or Nusa Dua, nowadays most of them would be the elders and the families, the advantage is a less intense atmosphere than Kuta or Nusa Dua… Continue Reading

Mount Ijen…

Posted by Ismawan Ismail on February 16, 2013
Posted in: Travel, Trekking. Tagged: , , . Leave a Comment
Going to the crater...

Sulfur miners walk down the Ijen crater path…

Around 30km north-west of Banyuwangi – East Java, there stood mount Ijen with its huge crater lake located at 2380 meter above the sea level, one of several tourism attractions in Banyuwangi area. Mbak Iin – a friend of my sister-in-law living at a village nearby the mountain – invited us for a visit, so there we went on this holiday season…

Mount Ijen actually can be reached from two cities in East Java. The first route is from Bondowoso via Sempol village, and the second is from Banyuwangi via Licin village – the village where our friend lives. Most of people said that the second route is the easiest one, and also the shortest one if we consider the distance of the basecamp from the nearest city. From Banyuwangi, we can also drive until around 3km from the peak before hiking to the peak of the mountain. So, lucky us, I guess…

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