Traditional Market of Art Sukowati

If you want to go some souvenirs that will remind you forever about your time in Bali, Pasar Seni Sukowati is the right place for you to go. Pasar Seni Sukowati, or Traditional Art Sukowati is the place that has colmplete collections of souvenir that you can purchase in Bali. Pasar Seni Sukowati is located in Kabupaten Gianyar of Bali. It is 20 km from Denpasar, you can travel there by 30 minutes.

Whoever you are, either domestic tourist or foreign tourist, when you have time to go shopping, come in Sukowati. Sukowati has many traditional souvenirs. For example, unique Balinese handcraft, Balinese clothes, surfing clothes (you can even get stuff like Quicksilver or Billabong here), merchandise, paintings, and many more. All of souvenirs in Bali wherever you can find, will be available in Sukowati with cheaper price. It's the cheapest place to get some souvenirs in Bali.

When you are here, make sure you have to do some bargain. Because every stuff in here can be get cheap. So do some bargain with the seller to get a great price over. They don't get mad, because they are accustomed with that. Use cash money, because they don't use credit card machine in here. Enjoy it. Read More ..

Chicken Satay (Sate Ayam)

This is a kind of food that you will like it most when you come to Indonesia. This one is called as Chicken Satay, or in Indonesian is called sate ayam. It's easy to find sate ayam in Indonesia, because it's well famous then you can find it everywhere in Indonesia. Sate ayam has different recipe and delicious taste depends on what variety and the recipe that different city has. The most popular sate ayam comes from 3 cities. There are sate ayam Ponorogo, sate ayam Madura, and sate ayam Padang. Every sate ayam from those cities has own delicious taste, different version with other.
Sate ayam is originally comes from Indonesia, but it popularity has reached another Southeast Asia country such as Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Philipine.

Here is the recipe for sate ayam (chicken satay) :


Ingridients:

• pound chicken breasts, boneless, or leg meat, with skin if you desired
• ounces chicken livers, trimmed
  
• cup soy sauce, sweet or 1/3 cup each regular soy sauce and molasses
• peanut sauce
• tablespoons onions, finely chopped
• tablespoon fresh lime juice
• tablespoons chile paste

How To Make:

• Preheat the grill to high.
• If the chicken has skin and you plan to use it in the recipe, remove it from the chicken and reserve; otherwise, discard it. Rinse the chicken, chicken skin (if using), and chicken livers (if using) under cold water. Then drain and blot dry with paper towels. Cut the chicken and livers into 1/2-inch dice and the skin into 1/2-inch squares. Thread the pieces alternately on the skewers; each saté should be about 3 inches long. Place on a platter, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and refrigerate while you prepare the marinade.
• Combine 1/4 cup of the sweet soy sauce, 1/4 cup of the peanut sauce, the onion, and lime juice in a shallow dish and stir to mix. Roll the satés in the marinade to coat thoroughly.
• When ready to grill, oil the grill grate. Arrange the satés on the hot grate and grill, turning with tongs, until lightly browned and cooked through, 1 to 3 minutes per side (2 to 6 minutes in all). Brush once or twice with the chicken fat as the satés cook.
• To serve, place the remaining 1/2 cup peanut sauce in a small bowl and spoon the remaining 2 tablespoons sweet soy sauce and the chile paste into the center (the motion of dipping the satés into this sauce will mix the ingredients together). Transfer the satés to serving plates or a platter and serve accompanied by the sauce.

Sate ayam is perfect food to be eaten at night. Don't worry how to get one. Because you don't have to go to some cafe or restaurant to buy one. There will be a lot of people at night that walking around in neighborhood to sell sate ayam. You just order it and it's not really expensive.
Make sure when you traveling in Indonesia, you have to eat sate ayam.

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Lawu Mountain

This review is suitable for you if you prefer to have an adventure especially if you have hiking as your hobby. The one that I'm talking about is Gunung Lawu. The term of gunung means mountain in English. Lawu mountain is a mountain that suitable to be a hiking place. The mountain itself is located in the border between East Java and Central Java. Half of the mountain is located in Magetan (East Java), the other one is in Solo (Central Java).

Lawu's height is 3265 above ocean surface. When you have a plan to do hiking in Lawu you can choose 2 different options about your route. If you like to try to do hiking with challenging road, quicker time, you can start your hiking from Cemoro Sewu. Cemoro Sewu is an entrance of Lawu mountain that located in Magetan. However, you may get tired easily when you pick that path because it's not gonna be easy way. The journey itself takes more of less about 7 hours from the entrance to Argo Dumillah, the name of the peak. While the other path, Cemoro Kandang in Solo (Central Java) is a easier way to the peak with flatter road but longer time. If you're planning to do easier way of hiking, Cemoro Kandang is the right choice for you. It takes about 9-10 hours ow walking without stopping. The road in Cemoro Kandang is flatter, in contrast to Cemoro Sewu, which has a hard challenging road. The texture of the road in Cemoro Sewu looks like a natural stair made from big rocks. You have to step more than thousand rock stairs until you find you don't want to count it anymore.

Lawu is a very cold place. Make sure you all have everything that your need is packed in your backpack. Warm jacket, gloves, pair of shocks, everything that makes you feel warmer must be taken. Flashlight, food, water, camera and don't forget plastic bag to collect your trash. Most people start their trip at night. So that's why you will need a flashlight. Don't worry because you won't get lost at Lawu because there will be only one road that you can follow from every entrance. However it's good idea to have somenone who experienced to accompany you.

Near the location of Cemoro Sewu entrance point, there are some house selling food, kind a traditional cafe. You may want to fill your stomach first to satisfy yourself. Give you more energy to start your hiking. Lawu would be so crowded with so many hikers come from every place in Indonesia. The most crowded event occurs in The Independence Day of Indonesia (where they have big ceremony at the peak), New Year, and 1 Syura (New Year based on Islamic Calender). That would be a mass hiking. You meet another people over and over again in every turn, every step. When you are in condition like that, the common way is to say "monggo" or excuse me and say hi.

The road to the peak of the mountain , there will be 5 different checkpoints. From the entrance up until the 3rd post, you will most likely walk in the forest. You will find a lot of gigantic rocks along in the way. All you can see in Lawu is spectacular. Feels like you are part of nature. Actually there is a reason why it's better to start the journey at night. The first one is to fight the cold. By the time when you walk at night, you will find that is not that really cold, because when you walk, your body produce more heat. So when you arrive at the peak, there will be less time left to wait the sunrise come, means less time to fight cold when you are resting in your tent. The second one is I mentioned it already, the sunrise. People go hiking in Lawu to watch it legendary sunrise. The last reason is when you are walking at night, It makes you harder to see the texture of the path so it helps you mentally to face the difficultness of the path.

When you arrive at the peak, which is called Argo Dumillah, you will feel that you are in the top of the world. Your position is above the clouds anyway. So when you look downside, you will see a ocean of clouds below you. Make you feel you wish you can fly and go to the clouds. It's so pretty. You would realize how amazing your world is. Prepare to watch the most beautiful sunrise on earth after your hardwork climbed up the mountain. Then take a picture to memorize your wonderful journey. When you are about to leave the peak, make sure you don't leave any trash. Kepp the mountain clean. Well, you ready to go home now. Visit Indonesia Read More ..

Borobudur Temple

As we know that Indonesia is a country with the biggest moslem population in the world. You may know that already, but do you know long before Islam came in Indonesia, Hindu was the first religion that came in Indonesia, then Buddha came in Indonesia. In Indonesia, there is a world famous temple, Candi Borobudur. Who doesn't know Borobudur? If you don't, so you have found the right travel blog for you. Here we go.

Candi Borobudur, or Borobudur temple is located in Magelang, Central Java of Indonesia. It's about 100 kilometers Southwest of Semarang and about 40 kilometers Northwest of Yogyakarta. Borobudur was built by King Samaratungga, one of the king of ancient Mataram kingdom, descended from Wangsa Syailendra. The construction of Borobudur took 75 years to be done. That made Borobudur temple so massive and wonderful enough to be decided as a one of World Heritage Site.

The origins of the name of Borobudur itself however are unclear . They have different theory about the name of Borobudur. One of them says that the name is originally came from Sambharabhudhara, which means bedrock hill (bhudara). The other teory is Borobudur means vihara in the high place. The name Borobudur was first written in Sir Thomas Raffles' book on Javan history. Raffles wrote about a monument called borobudur, but there are no older documents suggesting the same name. The only old javanese manuscript that hints at the monument as a holy Buddhist sanctuary is Negarakertagama, written by Mpu Prapanca in 1365.

As one of 8th Wonder in the world, you have to come to Borobudur. Borobudur was built 3 centuries before Angkor Watt in Kampuchea was built. Borobudur has 1460 reliefs and 504 stupas. If you are visiting Borobudur, try to walk in every side of Borobudur in clockwise because the reliefs in every floor has a different story. By walking clockwise you will see the reliefs have a message to everybody. One of the most famous story in reliefs is the legendary story of Ramayana. The others have different story, like the one that tells you the condition of people at that time. The examples are reliefs about farmer's activity that show you the farming system at that time or reliefs that display the ships as a representative of sailing system. Each relief in every floor of Borobudur is so pretty and perfect architectured that show us how good was the artist in ancient time.

Borobudur Borobudur lay hidden for centuries under layers of volcanic ash and jungle growth. The facts behind its abandonment remain a mystery. So it's maybe your chance to reveal the real story of Borobudur by yourself. Come and see the heritage of ancient time, Borobudur Temple's over centuries secret is waiting for you to to be revealed.

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Senggigi Beach

Bali has so many beautiful tourism object that we will discuss later on. It's time to move to another great place in Indonesia. And this review is about wonderful beach in Lombok Island. The name of the beach is Senggigi Beach. So let's begin our trip to Lombok.

People say that Lombok is the next Bali of Indonesia. This is because Lombok has a lot of great places with different and unique scenery on it. We hope that in the future Lombok can be famous as Bali in international world, because people around the world have to know that Indonesia is a beautiful country. Someday Lombok will be so famous because what Lombok has will satisfy all the traveler's thirst of world's paradise.

The most well known beach in Lombok is Senggigi beach. Senggigi beach is a famous tourism object in Lombok, so exotic that some people say it more beautiful than the beaches in Bali. Located in the west of Lombok island, this one is the best beach in Lombok that so pretty than you can only imagine. If we compare it with Kuta beach in Bali, we would realize that Senggigi is not big as Kuta. But the major difference is Senggigi has more natural appearance than Kuta has. Kuta, we could say that is influenced by modernism right now. And Senggigi is just a natural beach, the exotic one that Indonesia have to proud of.

Senggigi is a beach that doesn't have big wave. The water is just so calm. That makes Senggigi has more advantages. The visitor can do snorkeling as much as they want. The ocean in the East of Indonesia is well known for wonderfull coral reef. Make sure you have to try snorkeling in Sengggigi. You will have a good time on it.

Senggigi has a white sand, you might want to take a seat a while, trying to enjoy your moment of life at that time. The beach itself extend outward as fas as 10 kilometers. Walking in the white beach, coconut trees along the way, the sun shines, a crystal blue water, enjoy all the Senggigi natural beauty. If you want to try something new, you can walk around the beach by riding cidomo. Cidomo is a traditional dogcart that the local people have. It's not expensive, so you would like it. Riding a dogcart along the beach. And don't forget the sunset, because it has unique scenery. It's better than the sunset of Kuta said some tourist.

Lombok island itself has been a major tourism object that really suitable for honeymoon. People belief that if someone go honeymoon in Lombok, they will be a happy family forever. So, it's perfect place where you and your soulmate have to be. Enjoy the Senggigi beach, It's the most romantic beach all over the world. Spread Love Over The World.
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Sarangan Lake

Sarangan Lake or in Indonesia it is called as Telaga Sarangan is a tourism object located in Magetan, East Java of Indonesia. Sarangan also known as Telaga Pasir or in English It will be The Sand Lake. It's called as The Sand Lake because the name of the sand lake it came from Sarangan traditional folklore. Sarangan is well known as a natural lake in Magetan that attracts people to come and enjoy what Sarangan offerrs.

Sarangan Lake is a favorite object in Magetan. Every year, thousand people have came to enjoy the scenery and relax after their stressful daily work. For people of Indonesia who live in tropical country like in Indonesia, Sarangan lake is always been a favorite place to go in holiday. Sarangan is placed in the foothill of Lawu Mountain makes the air in Sarangan always been fresh and cool. It’s about 18 up to 25 degree Celcius When you live in country that so humid and hot like Indonesia, that sounds chilly one. It’s a great place where you can refresh your mind, relax, and just chilling out with your family or friend. The lake is about 30 hectare and the depth is 28 meters.

There are so many that Sarangan offers to you guys. Something that you have to do when you are in Sarangan is, make sure you are wake up in the morning and walk around the lake. It’s about a 4 km if you are planning to walk around the lake. It gives you a fresh start of the day. Around Sarangan, they have a lot of things that you can try. You are hungry? Don’t worry, there are a lot of women in Sarangan that sell a traditional Indonesian food called Pecel. It originally come from Madiun, 2 hours from Sarangan. Pecel is made from rice, and then vegetables, given a hot peanut sauce. Pecel is always a good choice to eat for your breakfast. And this one is the special food of Sarangan, rabbit satay. You may familiar with chicken or lamb satay, but you definitely have to try out for this one. It has softer texture than the chicken of lamb. It’s so delicious that you have to try it.

You can rent a car or bike in your tourism object in your country, in Sarangan you can rent a horse. There are always a man with the horse, not to mention they always named the horse with cool names. If you are planning to rent one, you will ride cool horse around the lake. Don’t be afraid because if you do, the man will be always accompany you jogging beside you while you are riding your horse around.

If it’s time for you to try on what experience the lake has then go for it. They has a speedboat or a boat that you have to paddle it. It depends what you want, wanna a fast ride with some speedboat or you want to enjoy it slowly with the paddle boat. You already walk or ride a horse around the lake? It’s your time to go by a speedboat or paddle boat.

Around the lake, there will be some places that sell a unique souvenirs. Most of them are handmade product. And because Sarangan has a chilly weather, they always sell a fresh vegetables such as cucumber, cabbage, spinach, and many more. Strawberry is available also at the traditional market. You can always do a bargain with the seller, so you may go home happily bringing low prize souvenirs and unforgettable memory. Visit Indonesia.

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Sanur Beach

This one is also a famous beach in Bali. Different with Kuta's special for it sunset, Sanur has the opposite way. Sanur is well known as it beautiful sunrise scenery. Sanur is located in the east of Denpasar, Bali. You can reach it by car, or another transportation because it's only 6 kilometers to get to Sanur from Denpasar.

People have to stay all day in Bali to get the amazing view of the sun. People go to Sanur in the morning because Sanur has a breathtaking scene of Sunrise that so pretty you can only imagine. Sanur is a favorite place to spend in the morning with your family or friend. Sanur was the part of the tourism development in Bali. It was in 1940 when they started to build Inna Grand Bali Beach at that time.

Sanur has a pure salt water on it. By the time when you walk down to the beach, you will clearly see the inside of the water. Sanur's wave is a calm one. If you are are not a good swimmer, Sanur is right choice for you. Because the calmness of the wave you may want to take a walk in the beach because you can see all the coral in the water. It's nice one. It's safe to play kayak in Sanur. You can rent a kayak boat from kayak rental because it's so cheap one. It's not a deep one so so may do kayaking in the water kind a far. When I was in the middle school I went kayaking and then It was really great. While kayaking you can also look down at the sea's life in the bottom of the water. You can interact with the fishes down there.

If you are done with kayaking, then you will know that the sea's life at the bottom of the sea is really wonderful. So why you don't go swim with fish? Sanur offers you a lifetime experience with snorkeling. Sanur has a long stretch of white-sandy beach that is protected by a reef few hunderds meters from the shoreline. Although the beach is suffering from erosion, it is a good place to have a swim and to do some snorkelling. There is a lot of marine life to see on the top of the reef, preferably during high tides. Sanur has some nice divesites at it's reef. The names of the dive sites are Penjor Reef and Channel Pointa. So you can go to the dive site with local boat to guide you around this area. And prepare to see the excitement of under water of Sanur

The dive sites of Sanur are a good place for beginning divers and for refeshing your underwater skills. There are some coral formations and the life to encounter consists of; Mantis Shrimp, White-tip Reef Sharks, Blue Spotted Rays and many other kind of small and juvenile underwater life. You will spot blue ring octopus, anemone fish and ghost pipefish in the Sanur area.

Enjoying the sun while you are kayaking, it's nice to enjoy the beach with some activity. You want to spend the night? It's not a problem because there are a lot of hotels and restaurant in Sanur. You can enjoy the night at the beach. People say that when it full moon in Sanur, it will be a beautiful night that you can remember in the rest of your life. Full moon at the night, calm waves, the water is shining, everything is fit together.

Sanur is a great place where you can spend your morning in Bali before you continue your travel. Make sure you don't miss the great sunrise in here because you must get a great start beginning in your journey. Visit Indonesia

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Belitong Island

There is a really inspiring novel and then later adapted as a movie in 2009 that's called Laskar Pelangi. The book and the movie itself has been a phenomenon in Indonesia with high selling over the years and have got many awards in novel category and the movie award either. It is because the story is really good and inspiring every people that all the kids in the world whoever they are, rich or even be so poor, they have a right to get a education for their life. The story is about a group of a poor kid in the Belitong island where they have to struggle everyday just to study in their almost collapsed school. But they never give up even they have to help their parents such as become a laborer in a tin industry, a fisherman, either a worker in a traditional market when they are in holiday. But in the future, after their fight in their childhood time, one of the kid (the writer) got a international scholarship and go to Sorbonne, France to study in his only childhood dream. So this movie has a noble message for us. Everything begin with only a dream. And then you have to try as hard as you can to live up your dream.

In the movie when I watched, I was amazed with Belitong Island. So that was the reason why I would write a review about Belitong. Belitong is a island located in the east of Sumatra, Indonesia. This island is noted for its production of pepper and its natural resources such as tin. Most of the people in Belitong live in the coast. They go to fishing in the sea because the sea in Belitong has so many fishes on it. The one spot that is so spectacular in Belitong is the beach. Belitong itself is a beautiful island surrounded by unique beaches that you won't find another in the world. Something that very interesting is because in the beach, it has a lot of gigantic granite rocks on it. Imagine what you are gonna feel. It's something ordinary to find a beach with some coconut trees on it, but this one is decorated by natural gigantic granite rocks. This was my favorite scene of the movie. You can view pictures of beautiful Belitong beach at www.belitungisland.com. There are a lot great pictures taken by profesional photografer. The beach is still pure not polluted from the unresponsible people. Belitong Island itself perhaps hasn't been famous for its tourism as another places in Indonesia. But since the fenonenal Laskar Pelangi movie, so many people are curious about Belitong itself. It is no doubt that the movie is affecting people to so much to see Belitong. Well I see that that is understanding. From the pictures I've got in www.belitungisland.com, Belitong is so pretty at all that you have to come visit it.

Best Regards
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Kuta Beach

Wellcome to Bali. Kuta Beach is the most popular beach in Bali among the others. Well yeah I feel sorry to admit that most people don't really know where Indonesia is but they know a lot about Bali. Sometimes they do know Indonesia is, but with wrong idea like Indonesia is a part of Bali. I am as the part of Traveler Portal team will glad to tell you guys that Bali is a island of Indonesia. So okay back to the most beautiful beach again. When I asked people around the world, what are you thinking about Bali? Most of them will answer my question like the beach, the sunset, bikini, sunbathing, blue water, and white sand, sunset and the beach again. Yeah you are right, most of my people around the world have the same thinking about Bali, and they were thinking about Kuta Beach.

Kuta Beach is located in southern of Bali, in the Denpasar city the capital of Bali. One thing that really interesting is in the beginning where Kuta was not famous as it now, Kuta Beach was only a little village where the people passed by from Denpasar to Peninsula Cliff. But right now, Kuta Beach is so famous in the world. We can even compare it with another famous beach such as in Miami or Hawaii, Kuta is as good as the other world famous beaches.

Kuta has become major tourism spot of Bali since 70s. When you visit Bali you will feel different excitement than your tourism place in your country. You might feel as a king, with a flower necklace handmade given by the people of Bali when you step first outside the airport. The airport runway itself is located in the south of the beach means while you are in the plane ready to landing, you see the famous Kuta. Give you the feeling you must go to the beach.

Kuta is a perfect one for you to spend holiday. Sunbathing, playing with the sand, the waves, nice sunshine, everything are fit together. Coconut trees line the sand as long as you can see, it's nice spot to give you relaxing time in Kuta. The waves is good for surfing. For you who are young and like to feel some adventure you have to try surfing in Kuta's waves. There always a surfing board for you to rent if you don't bring one. I'm suggesting you to stay in Kuta for longer because you cannot miss the breathtaking scene of sunset. The sunset is so beautiful more than you can only imagine. It's the major attraction that Kuta has, as opposed with Sanur Beach. Sanur is well famous for sunrise beach, and Kuta is famous with sunset beach. Make sure to take a picture of the sunset, because it's a long time memory for you.

Some guy in Bali will offer you to give a temporary tattoo for you. The tattoo usually last for 2 weeks. You can find them easily, they always carrying some books filled with all the designs of the tattoo. It's not expensive to get the tattoo, they will create the tattoo with the ink, don't worry because they use the pen, not the needle. For your friend, it's nice one to give them some souvenirs. Along the way in Legian street, you can purchase some unique Balinese handicraft. It's not a rude thing to have a bargain with the seller, but don't insult them with bargaining with too low price that irrational. If you want to spend the night at Kuta, the accommodation in Kuta range from a modest home stay for a few dollars a night to luxurious, five star, international hotels costing several hundred to several thousand dollars a night. It's up to you.

Make sure you visit Kuta Beach when you have a chance to go to Bali, because you will never regret what you see, what you feel, the excitement of Kuta Beach. The kindness of Indonesian people when they meet tourist, you are not gonna miss your country because you will be accepted as a family to them. Not mentioned that Indonesia is the country with the most smiling people in he world. Visit Indonesia 2009

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