Feb 26, 2014 |
My wife will tell anyone that I’ve got this unholy infatuation with coffee beans. And I do. I like coffee beans like Jay Leno likes cars.
When coffee beans are fresh they’ve got this nice oily sheen and an amazing fragrance. You’d swear you could inhale the caffeine right out.
Glorious fresh roasted coffee beans in Ho Chi Minh City…
Fresh roasted coffee beans can be found and bought all over Vietnam. Especially in all the major tourists areas. Just take a stroll through Ben Thanh Market and in the dry market area lined up next to the dried shrimps and you’ll find containers with a dozen varieties of beans.
You’ll also find powdered forms of coffee too. But I highly recommend getting a french press style coffee maker and a grinder. There’s no comparison to commercially prepared powdered coffee to freshly ground coffee.
I’m a simple guy and love my coffee either black or with some milk. But ever so often I’ll go with a bit of calorie overload by making myself a traditional Vietnamese iced coffee!
The vendors will package it as best as they can to keep the beans fresh. Which makes a great souvenir for your friends and family.
Feb 11, 2014 |
These sets of pics were taken at A La Natu Bed And Bakery at night. It’s a clear beautiful February night and the moon is full, out and bright. At the time I was on a beach chair just lounging around after a fantastic seafood dinner. The beach was just a short stroll away so the sounds of soothing waves going back and forth was so gentle. It truly felt like a magical night.
I like the photo below more because you can see movement of the palm leaves. It wasn’t windy at all. I rotated my camera clockwise slowly to make that effect. Looks kinda cool to me.
La A Natu Bed and Bakery is one of our favorite places to stay, located in an area called Pranburi which is about a 45 minute drive north to Hua Hin. And the magnificent mountains of Sam Roi Yad which is about 30 minutes away south of La A Natu.
This area is largely undeveloped. For now that is. We saw a lot of signs advertising resorts and other sorts of development in the near future. Which would be sad since there’s so much natural beauty in the region.
Feb 9, 2014 |
Her name is Kao – meaning white in Thai. She just had 8 pups.
I know I have a tendency to drop off right off the blogosphere and come right back re-appearing out from thin air. But I’ve been busy. Real busy. Married busy. Just bought a condo busy. Running a new cafe business busy. As well as a host of business problems because my bank didn’t bother to mention they changed their wire transfer code.
Oh, also our one and only employee at our cafe quit without notice. Right on the same week of our wedding.
So it has been a stressful end of year but so far this new year is looking up. And luckily I have a really good friend who made it all possible. Without him I would’ve been screwed big time.
Did I mention I got married? Yup. I know earlier on this blog I always mention my wife. But we did the whole ceremony thing with monks along with family and friends. It was a traditional Thai wedding.
Funny thing is marriage in Thailand is just as easy as starting a business in this country. You don’t really need paperwork. No marriage certificate. Though you can get one at local municipal office.
So what’s the proof of marriage Thailand? Wedding pictures and everyone that came to the wedding are your witness. While eating dinner one night with my close family friends’ from Hong Kong that was the way it was done in China also. But that was in the olden days and won’t fly anymore today in China.
What else is new? Kao a female soi dog that hangs around my mother in law’s restaurant gave birth to 8 new pups. As you can see above she snug and tug inside the cage where her 8 little ones are nursing.
Originally, Kao gave birth under a small overpass bridge not far from the restaurant. Which was the same place she had her last batch of pups which all died. Not sure how but some say some small Caymans might’ve found Kao’s nest and snagged her pups while she was away.
And so, me, my wife and her kid sister named Nooda devised a plan to snatch the pups and take them back to their mother’s restaurant. Nooda climbed through a hole under the overpass, grabbed all the pups and we took them back to the cage.
My wife’s father then pushed Kao inside so she can see her babies. We were worried that Kao would take them back to the overpass. So we had to lock the cage and keep Kao in where she can safely nurse the puppies.
Kao was probably happier too as she received more share of food so she could provide more milk for her babies.
It was a little adventure grabbing the pups because it was dark where they were hiding out. And we couldn’t do it while Kao was inside protecting her babies. So we had to wait until Kao left before we (okay it was Nooda alone) went in and snagged the puppies out.
Kudos to Nooda. If not for her the puppies might’ve perished.
Jan 22, 2014 |
Bali or the Maldives? That’s what my wife and I was deciding on for our honeymoon. Bali was the easy answer because the Maldives was just way too expensive and difficult to plan on such short notice.
So Bali we were headed to and I did a quick search for a nice honeymoon resort to relax ourselves for 4 days. Now I didn’t have any clue about traveling to Indonesia nor know much about Bali except that it’s a well known beach area famous for honeymoons and surfing. I don’t surf. But I wanted to treat my wife to the best resort spa I could afford.
Through an exhaustive research I came across the name Jamahal Private Resort & Spa through Tripadvisor and Agoda. I read reviews on both websites and Jamahal had a very good reviews. Mine included, you can see my review on Agoda under Warren C.
This villa had 3 rooms and 2 huge bathrooms. Overall space was 430 square meters…
Jamahal is not far at all from Bali’s international airport. About a 15 minute taxi ride from Ngurah Rai Airport. As I recall the taxi ride cost 100,000 Rupiah ($8USD as of writing) via the airport taxi. And that’s the set price. US dollars are widely accepted in Bali and you can find ATMs everywhere to withdraw Rupiah.
Jamahal is in an area of Bali called Jimbaran and as far as I could see its an area filled mostly with small local businesses with plenty of locals shopping for grocery and goods. But there are many small local shops and businesses so there is that homey undeveloped feel.
When we arrived at Jamahal there’s this huge massive wooden gate manned by 2 security guards with stone walls that were 15 feet high. It was like heading into a fortress. When we got in we saw the guests reception which was very small but there’s a nice seating area for guests to relax and order drinks and it was all open air. My first impression was that resort was designed to be secluded and private as the resort name states. And I knew that already as there were not many villa styled rooms for guests so you get that cozy secluded private feel. It is a honeymoon type resort after all.
We were greeted with smiles by a receptionist and if I can recall her name was Yante. She was wonderful from the start. Since we got in early at around 11am before check in time, our room was not ready yet. So my wife and I decided to try out Jamahal’s Five Senses Massage therapy.
A small yet cozy private pool…
While Yante lead us to the spa section she had a surprise for us. And she was quite secretive and waited until we were away from the reception area where other guests could hear us. She told us we were upgraded to the Luxury III Pool Villa. Originally I booked a Luxury ll Pool Suite Villa. From the description I saw on Luxury II it was 130 square meters with a small private pool. That’s a lot of space already. However, the Luxury III Pool Villa is 430 square meters. We couldn’t wait to see it!
Jamahal’s spa is not far at all from the reception area. While taking the short stroll to the spa we could see the resort has a lot of stone walls for privacy. They weren’t kidding when they put the word “private” on their resort name. Even the spa section we had to enter through another set of wooden gates surrounded by high walls. We were greeted by 2 masseuse who guided us on several special infused massage oils that were available to choose for aromatherapy massage. I think we chose lemongrass. Afterwards we were lead to a big couples massage room where we had to change into some weird type of underwear.
There’s just so much space…
It was black and looked like it was made of sheer cotton. So yeah, you can see skin. Which is kind of awkward for a dude like me to wear and getting a massage from a woman. But I guess they’re professionals so to them it’s business as usual. Overall it was a good massage to me. Just what we needed after a 4 hour flight from Bangkok. And my wife who is a massage aficionado said it was good too in a different way after being so used to Thai massage techniques.
After the nice refreshing 1 hour long massage we still had some more time to kill before our room was ready. Yante helped arrange a driver from the resort to take us to an ATM and then to Jamahal Resort’s private beach. The drive from the main road to the beach itself seemed long at first. I mean we knew it wasn’t a beach front resort but that was okay for us.
Staff at the hotel knew it was our honeymoon so they prepared this for us…
When we got to Jamahal’s beach club we found it secluded as well. There were not too many beach chairs and since we were visiting Bali during it’s rainy season the beach surf was rough. So the water was pretty far down. I wish I could say that the beach was beautiful and maybe it is but maybe we just got there at the wrong time. The sand was quite clean though.
When we got back to the resort our villa was ready. Every villa at the resort has a name. Yante lead us to our villa named Banyu. It was right across from the reception. When she opened the wooden doors and lead us in we walked on a stone path with water running around. As I recall “Banyu” means water. It was really nice and we could see the villa and the swimming pool and also a small pavilion for private massage sessions or for lounging around. The place was awesome and my wife and I were so impressed. It’s one of the top 3 fanciest resorts we’ve ever been to on our list.
Super comfortable king sized bed…
Yante opened the doors to our villa and started giving us a tour. The rooms are decorated modern Bali style and very clean. The place looked new and so well maintained. The villa had a total of five rooms. Two of them are big bathrooms followed by a massage room for an even more private massage treatment, the spacious living room and the bedroom with a luxurious mattress. And we really were impressed. So impressed that my wife and I are planning to copy the design of this villa for a home in the future.
Just so much space!…
Outside of the villa is a big garden with the sound of water running creating a soothing atmosphere. And there’s a nice area to sit and lounge around outside by the swimming pool. I was the only one who used it though as the weather was on the cool side since it was late January. It wasn’t cold though the temp was a comfortable mid 70 degrees it wasn’t pool weather to my wife. Good news is because of the cooler weather there were no mosquito either.
A nice healthy breakfast served by a happy butler. A great way to start the day!
Breakfast was included in our room rate. It’s not buffet style but they have a select a la carte menu of items such as fresh baked bread and croissants. Fresh yogurt with granola, platter of fresh fruits and eggs cooked to your liking. Extras like bacon and sausage were extra charge though. I especially love their super fresh coffee served in a plunger. Indonesian coffee is one of my favorites! A breakfast menu is located on the living room coffee table and we can order our breakfast by phone. And the food is delivered to our table by a friendly butler. You just tell them the time you want to eat and the butler will carry your food straight to your villa right on schedule.
I also planned a romantic dinner for my wife one night. Jamahal offers guests 3 course dinner which can be served right in our villa again with personal butler service. And for an added touch of romance the butler lit torches that surrounded our private garden. I did take pictures but they came bad because I forgot to pack my flash for my camera. For all the guys out there, trust me, as a man planning a honeymoon in Bali, setting up a romantic dinner on steroids will earn you a lot of brownie points for dumb things we do in the future.
If you’re probably wondering what is around the area for tourists the answer is there isn’t really much. I’ve taken a stroll outside of Jamahal alone. It’s not easy to walk along the sidewalks because the area is not so developed. But if you walk further down you will see a lot of shops and markets catering to local Indonesians. I know a lot of travelers prefer staying near a mall with plenty of tourists conveniences. The nearest mall that I know of is in an area called Kuta, just north of Jambaran about a 30 minute taxi ride. Personally I prefer the local markets and experience the local vibe.
Still, Jamahal Private Resort is awesome! But sure, getting upgraded to a huge villa is a bonus and saving a ton of money can skew my opinion towards favorable. But I have a feeling even if I didn’t get an upgrade I would still very much enjoy our honeymoon trip.
Read reviews and find discounts for Jamahal Private Resort.
