Rain on a Holy Lake

Pura Ulun Danu Bratan, Bedugul, Bali

Since we’re on the topic of gloomy lakes, I might as well post this.

Once upon a time (2016), we visited hot and humid Bali. Then we went up the mountains and it was raining dogs and cats! This was the day it rained dogs and cats. Was it nice? It was. For a cool break. But not for the photos.

This Pura (temple) is a water temple. In Bali, there are sea temples, mountain temples, water temples, etc. Water temples are located on the shores of lakes or canals (obviously). Besides being places of worship, water temples also play an important part in the local irrigation system where the priests typically have authority to allocate water to the paddy fields around the area. That makes one helluva powerful priest, yeah?




Pura Ulun Danu Bratan, Bali, Indonesia

Danu (Lake) Bratan, by the way, is a volcano crater lake, i.e. it’s on the crater of a friggin volcano! But don’t worry, it’s extinct.








Temple grounds, Pura Ulun Danu Bratan


Whoa, what’s that?


Look at the rain!


“This rain is fun, for eating my hands!” – 17 month old Jayden in Bali


This was the place we stopped for lunch on the way to the temple from Taman Ayun – Warung Soto Ayam Cak Mitirr


The Balinese countryside, from the Soto Ayam warung (stall / restaurant)

And there, another quick picture post done!

Lake Bled

Lake Bled, Slovenia

Bled. What a name! From Hallstatt we went south across the border into Slovenia. (I had to visit a new country, from the list of countries I visited in 1994! And what better place than Slovenia!)

Yes, here’s another picture post, from our Euro Trip 2015. (Picture posts will have to do till this bloody mess of a work arrangement ends. I am now friggin in charge of 2 Projects, one formally and one informally, and it’s bloody hell to cope. Wish me luck. Or better still, PRAY FOR ME).

Our one day in Slovenia, and the weather had to suck. Our apartment manager told us that Bled is usually nice and sunny in summer, heck, it was actually good on the morning of the day we arrived (we arrived at night). But as luck had it, we had to put up with grey overcast skies the next day. And so, we decided to skip our (my) ever-ambitious plan and just have a relaxing day, whiling the time away in the little town of Bled. We did things which we’d never considered doing, like sitting down and ordering a Slovenian lunch (meals were never scheduled on our trips, we considered them a waste of time, we eat on the go man). We went into the shops looking for a phone memory card (Anu’s phone ran out of memory when we were in Neuschwanstein, Germany, which was about umm… 4 days back!)

Wanna know what my crazy plans were in the beginning? Here goes: Lake Bled, then Lake Bohinj, back to Bled, then drive a convoluted route thru the middle of Slovenia’s Triglav National Park, enter Italy, stop at Tarviso town, cross into Austria and make our way to Lienz, ALL IN ONE FRICKIN DAY! Luckily, we didn’t go along with that, or we’d probably arrive in Lienz at noon the next day!!!

Anyway, here’s Bled in all its gloomy glory. Enjoy.










We, at Lake Bled


Bled, Slovenia


Our Slovenian lunch


Fancy some grapes?


Our apartment for the day - not the easiest place to find, especially when there's no signboard, you arrive at night, you don't have GPS (our car actually had GPS, ...but no map of Slovenia), and you don't have friggin internet connection!

A Series of Austrian Lakes

Semi-gloomy Austrian lakes to be precise.


Hallstatt, Salzkammergut, Austria

Here’re photos of our Europe 2015 trip after we left Salzburg. From that nice sunny morning in Salzburg, we made our journey southwards to hopefully catch an equally sunny afternoon in the delightful ‘lake district’ of Austria, Salzkammergut, before heading for the borders of Slovenia! Unfortunately, the further south we went, the cloudier it became. See for yourself.


First lake on our journey, Fuschlsee


The place in this photo was just by the road of where we stopped at Fuschlsee. I Googled Map it last week, and guess what I found. It’s the friggin Head Quarters of Red Bull, the energy drink! Red Bull GmbH. What a surprise!


Second lake, Wolfgangsee




Third lake, Hallstätter See






Hallstatt (on the shores of its namesake) is a picturesque lakeside village in Austria. The news of its charm eventually reached China. And then there’s no turning back. The Chinese loved it so much that they started building a replica of the entire friggin village complete with parish church and all! Don’t believe me, Google it! No wonder the place was thronging with Chinese tourists when we visited!


And this is what Hallstatt looks like in better weather, and with a better photographer – picture ‘borrowed’ from Wikipedia compliments of http://www.csakany.com/pics/2007EuroTrip/files/hallstatt.jpg. Now you know why the Chinese love it


Justin at Walchsee – OK, this ‘See’ (lake) is not on the same leg of journey as the others in this post. The other lakes are all in Salzkammergut, on the day we travelled from Salzburg to Slovenia. Walchsee on the other hand, is near the German border, when we were making our way from Austria back to Munich to fly back to Dubai. We stopped here for lunch en route to Munich to meet Sister Kim’s family for the first time!


A hotel near Walchsee – Seehotel Brunner (I found that out from Google Map!)


Our fish lunch, Walchsee, Tyrol, Austria

The Town of Music

Salzburg! The town of Mozart and the ‘Sound of Music.’ And what a nice surprise, because we finally got a sunny break, after days of miserable, gloomy, wet weather!

Salzburg was where we spent the night after our outing in Königssee and Eisriesenwelt (the Ice Cave) in 2015. This was actually my second visit to Salzburg.

On my first visit in the summer of 1994, I spent the night sleeping at the railway station, drunk on red wine. When I woke up, there were 2 fellow drunkards guessing whether I was Chinese or Japanese. I said Malaysian, and left. I’m a proud Malaysian after all, hah! Malaysia Boleh!

On that 1994 trip, Salzburg was bitterly cold (no, the red wine didn’t work), and this was in summer, in the middle of friggin August! We spent half a day sightseeing before hopping on to a train to our next destination. So, it was indeed a nice, sunny break for me to see Salzburg in a completely different light in 2015!






Flowers at the Mirabell Garden, Salzburg, Austria


“Doe a deer, a female deer…” Does this place look familiar? Mirabell Garden was where part of the famous musical, “the Sound of Music” was filmed


A love lock bridge (Makartsteg) over the River Salzach, Salzburg


The suburb near our hotel where I parked our car. See that black one, by the bushes, that’s partly obstructing traffic, that Opel? Luckily, they didn’t fine me, haha


A street view in Salzburg city


Mozart, …OK, a statue of Mozart, in Mozartplatz (Mozart Square), where else?


Mommy with little 10-month old Jayden at Mozartplatz overlooking Residenzplatz and the Salzburg Cathedral


The fountain at Residenzplatz






Inside the Salzburg Cathedral (Dom zu Salzburg)


Getreidegasse, a street in Salzburg… notice the vertical shaft going up the hill behind the little church at the end of the street? I think it’s a lift shaft, but we didn’t try finding out