Manado Trip - Good Bye Manado, Till We Meet Again

As if not wanting to part way, that night in the hotel, we gathered in one room not withstanding our physical state.

We played Saboteur and Monopoly Deal until dawn before we decided to call it a day. It was a great night with a lot of laughter!

As nobody took picture of him, he took it himself. :)

The next morning I did not do my duty to call everybody up. Instead, Pink called my room. Five of us would fly back to Jakarta at 11:00 am while the remaining four would take 4:20 pm flight.

So, we hugged and thanked each other for the wonderful holiday that we had. No one believed that three days passed in a blink of an eye. No one. I was so sad to call this holiday an end but I knew there would be many more to come.

After watching their backs disappearing in the corner, I went back to my room to get prepared. I planned to go to the famous temple in Manado before proceeding to the airport.

Ban Hin Kiong Temple.

Ban Hin Kiong Temple is located at Jalan D.I. Panjaitan. Ban Hin Kiong means Palace Full of Blessings. This place was built back in 1819 which made it the oldest in Manado. In 1970, Ban Hin Kiong Temple was set on fire by certain racist party. Since then, it went through renovation to be what it is now.

The famous Kelenteng Ban Hin Kiong

Nearby this temple, there is one restaurant called Yit Hien. Erland told me that the Chinese pork bun was nice. When I told bf, he could not resist to have another pork time. So, there we were having our breakfast.

It was almost 11:00 am when we reached there and the restaurant had started serving lunch. When we told the waitress that we only wanted to have breakfast, she seemed so puzzled. Maybe Manado people never had brunch?

We looked at the menu. One biapong (or Chinese bun) costs IDR 9000 (SGD1). I felt that it was expensive. However, we were already there, so we ordered one biapong ba biasa (normal Chinese pork bun) and one biapong ba spesial (special Chinese pork bun) for bf and one biapong timo (Chinese green bean bun) for me.

And to my surprise, when the buns came. They were extremely huge and heavy!

Can you see that they are bigger than my face????

After filling ourselves with the giant buns, we walked to Kelenteng Ban Hin Kiong to pray. This temple reminded me to the oldest temple in Palembang (which I will talk about in another post sometime later). The different thing is that Ban Hin Kiong has three floors while the one in Palembang only has one floor.

Kelenteng Chandra Nadi in Palembang. Similar, huh?

We finished praying and headed back to the hotel to pick the two lovebirds and hopped back on to the car for lunch. Initially we asked Erland where to go and he suggested Raja Oci Restaurant or Rajawali Restaurant which were located in city centre.

To experience something different, we asked the driver to bring us to Malalayang area. The driver straight away recommended Ria-Rio Restaurant. We said we would like to take a look before deciding.

So he drove us there. Malalayang is located south of Manado. When we entered Malalayang, we could see the sparkling sea and row of bamboo huts selling foods. It does not need to be expensive to enjoy great view in Manado. After the row of bamboo huts, we could start seeing restaurants. I don't know whether it was because of convenience, we just stopped at Ria-Rio Restaurant, looked at the menu, and decided to try it.

Ria-Rio Restaurant is a seafood restaurant where you could pick your fresh seafood and it would be cooked according to what you want. I asked whether they sold ikan tude (mackerel) without any intention. The waiter told me that they did not have that but if we wanted to eat that, we could go next door. I was stunned. Who on earth recommend their customer to the competitor????? Only in Manado.

So we order hotplate kangkung (water morning glory cooked in hot plate), ikan kerapu bakar rica (grilled garoupa with rica spices), and udang goreng sereal (cereal fried prawn). We chose 800 grams of fish and 500 grams of prawns.

Then we patiently waited for our food while taking pictures and having some chats.

Selfie always comes first

Ohmygosh my face looks so big here. Where's the selfie stick????

The view from our table. Who doesn't want to eat with this great view?

To be honest, the service in this restaurant was very slow. After waiting for endless hours, the rice and the kangkung came. A few moment after that the fish came. We started eating. We stopped halfway to wait for our prawns but it never came.

So bf got up to ask. When he came back, he told us that the waiter just said that they had run out of cereals!!! He asked bf whether we wanted to cancel the order or change the order. All of us burst into big laugh, cancelled the order, and continued eating whatever left.

I never met this kind of service before but this restaurant made it kinda cute. Usually the waiter would rush to the customers to inform any glitch and inquire whether they would like to change to another menu. But this one just did not care. Only after we asked, the waiter asked us back.

To cure our disappointment, we ordered a dessert-drink, which was Es Kelabir (young coconut ice).

Es Kelabir. Young coconut with jelly, avocado, tropical fruits, and pink-color syrup. Our cure.

We realized we have spent quite some time here and we needed to rush to the airport. We proceeded to the cashier to pay and realized that it was quite cheap in terms of food quality. We spent about IDR 200000 (SGD 22) for four people.

Then we asked the driver to rush us to the airport. We arrived at Sam Ratulangi International Airport less than one hour before the flight, resulted in a very bad seating arrangement. We were not sitting together.Oh Gosh.

After collecting our klapertaart, we proceeded to the waiting room and said bye to Manado. We had a wonderful journey and we hoped that we would meet again someday! 

The most comfortable airport chair ever. It's a big couch!

Saw the wonderful clouds before going back to the high rise buildings

Manado Trip - Fin

Love is in the air,

Little Feet

Manado Trip - Walk, Hike, and Sweat for Tarsier

After spending time in Grand Luley, we drove to Mapanget Indah Restaurant for lunch.

Mapanget Indah Restaurant is located somewhere nearby the airport at Jalan A.A. Maramis. This restaurant is so called floating above a pond and the total look is so wood!

The day was so hot like hell. When we entered, the first thing we saw was the young coconut juice on the service counter. In the end most of us ordered that but it turned out to be too sweet so some of us ordered ice tea to add on.

And these are what we ordered:

Ikan Bobara Bakar - Ikan Bobara Goreng - Cumi Bakar - Fuyung Hai - Kangkung Cah - Sayur Pakis - Cumi Goreng Tepung

The menu in this restaurant was not so extensive. We ordered ikan bobara or ikan kuwe or trevally fish in two cooking methods, i.e. fried and grilled. We also ordered cumi or squid in the same pattern. We ordered Chinese style fried scrambled egg, water morning glory (again) and frond vegetables too.

In my opinion, the foods in this restaurant were just so-so. The service was sooooooo slow and the portion of food was not as much as what we got the previous days.

The biggest disappointment came when we paid. The prices of the dishes were reasonable but the drinks were not. We ended up spending quite a fortune here due to the drinks!

But no problem, it was not a big deal.

We then continued our journey to the last destination: Tangkoko National Park!

Tangkoko National Park is located in Bitung, at the north east edge of North Sulawesi. To be exact, Tangkoko National Park is located at the foot of Duasudara Mountain. This conserved area includes lower ground of beach, higher ground of mountain, and a forest in between.

Inside Tangkoko National Park, a lot of flora and fauna can be found. However, we were only interested in tarsier.

Tarsier is an iconic animal of North Sulawesi and it is also one of the smallest primates on earth with the height of 10-12 cm and weight of 50-90 grams.

We did not know much about tarsier, we just wanted to see this unique animal that could only be found in Sulawesi and The Phillipines.

The journey to Tangkoko was damn hard. Firstly, we needed to travel about two hours to reach Tangkoko. Secondly, the road was small, winding, and it was a mountainous area. We could not see any car approaching from the other side due to very limited sight distance. And thirdly, the air condition in the car was spoiled!

We were like watching a thriller movie inside a sauna room!

It was about 4:00 pm when we reached the gate of Tangkoko National Park. After paying the entrance and guide fee of IDR 120000 (SGD13), we prepared ourselves in the car.

These are some advice on visiting Tangkoko National Park:

1. Wear a comfortable shirt and jeans
2. Wear a comfortable shoes
3. Apply insect repellent
4. Bring torchlight
5. Bring full water bottle inside your bag

Only after paying the entrance fee, we knew that actually Tangkoko had a lot to offer. If we arrived earlier, we could have had the chance to enjoy the beach and waterfall inside the area. Oh well, maybe another time.

So, two guides were attached to eleven of us (including Mr. Raymond). From the guard house, we continued our journey by car to the side of the forest. After that, we alighted the car and walked into the nature! Yeay!

We were so ready for our nature trip!

The guide brought us to see yaki before proceeding to see tarsier. It was not an easy walk. I should say it was some sort of mini trekking. The path was sloping up and down. To be honest, that was my very first time going into a forest. I walked with Chacha and we kept holding to each other's hand.

Another thing that made the walk harder was the guide. He walked super fast so we needed to walk faster to keep him in our sight distance. I literally could feel my sweat rolling from every pore of my body. It was too humid.

We walked in line, like ducks :P

Okay, let's go back to yaki. Yaki is another iconic animal of North Sulawesi. Basically, yaki is a black monkey of North Sulawesi. I was told that yaki almost came to extinction due to cutting of trees and hunting of yaki for the meat. Ouch.

This is yaki. Its whole body is black except the buttock which is pink. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We only managed to see one yaki climbing up a very tall tree when we reached the spot. So, it was as good as not seeing any yaki. The guide just asked us to continue walking afterwards.

On the way to the spot to see tarsiers, the guide explained that tarsiers lived inside banyan trees, in between the holes. When the trees were dead, tarsiers would move to another trees by jumping. He also showed us the food of tarsiers, which was cicada.

Cicada. An insect. Food of tarsier. (Photo credit: Sean Crane, photo.net)

And through this journey, I got to know how faithful were tarsiers. Throughout their life, each one of them would only have one mating partner. When the tarsier died, the other half would follow not long afterwards. So, we were saying that the symbol of wedding should be changed from a pair of swans to a pair of tarsiers. How cute!

The guide gave us a break mid-way and everybody had been drenched in sweat. When I took out my water bottle, everybody started asking to share. Only then I realized that among us only three brought water into the forest, but one that was brought by Pink was empty! Oh Gosh. So, please, make sure you bring a fully filled water bottle when you visit this place.

When water became the most delicious thing in the world!

Our group photo, titled "We are in the Nature"

When we reach the home of tarsiers, it was about twilight but not so dark yet. We lingered around for some time while searching for the sights. When it turned darker, we turned our torch lights on and we could spot the cute little monkey. We were told not to make excessive noise because tarsiers would disappear if it was too noisy.

When it turned darker and darker, we could see more! At certain point of time, the guide instructed us to turn off our torch lights so the tarsiers would jump out. True enough, it really jumped from one twig to another. Wow!

Do you know that tarsier can rotate its head almost 360 degree?

The close-up photo of tarsier

We were there until it was pitch dark. After that, the guide brought us back to the place where we entered. The way out was milder but it was dark. So we used our torch lights to assist us in walking.

All of a sudden, the guide stopped and asked, "Wanna see panther?" and we straightaway answered, "No". The place was already scary and we did not need panther to add on the drama effect.

Nobody was unhappy with the trip to Tangkoko National Park. And we headed back to Manado with happy feelings but empty tummy. We reached the city at about 9:00 pm and we proceeded to have dinner.

Where did we have dinner that night?

Back to Boulevard Manado!

Again!

Yeah!

But we went to different restaurant to eat babi putar or grilled whole pig. Babi putar is another traditional food of Manado and it is always served during big events like wedding. I can't remember the name of the restaurant but it is located along the same row of San Fransisco Cafe and Ragey 1/2 m.

We were the last customers and got everything left

When the waitress sliced the meat from the bone

The end product

Besides babi putar, this restaurant also served some other pork dishes, and we ordered babi tore and kuit babi krispi.

Babi tore. Crispy roasted pork belly with the famous three-layered fat and the skin.

Kulit Babi Krispi. Deep fried pork skin.

I will not review the dishes here because I did not eat those. I can't even imagine eating it. So, I'll skip it this time. :)

After eating and having a happy chat, we called it a day. We sent Erland back to his house and get back to the hotel.

It was so fast, our three-day journey had finally come to an end.

Next Post - Good Bye Manado, till We Meet Again!

Love is in the air,
Little Feet

Manado Trip - Grand Luley, A Hidden Gem in Manado

Initially, I allocated morning of the third day for souvenir shopping and some culinary trips. However, our tour guide, Erland, managed to pushed it into second day itinerary. So, he suggested us to visit Grand Luley Resort & Dive.

Grand Luley Resort & Dive is located in Tongkaina, about 30-45 minutes drive away from city centre. Erland told us that it was newly opened after the taking over from the previous owner and quite a major renovation.

The location of Grand Luley Resort & Dive, far from the city, near Bunaken Marine Park

So, I agreed to Erland's offer to bring us to this place.

Let's start the journey!

Bf and I again opted not to have breakfast in the hotel. We planned to eat tinutuan, i.e. the traditional Manado porridge at the famous Jalan Wakeke Tinutuan Culinary Street. When we told the rest where we were going, some of them wanted to follow us. And voila, suddenly there were six of us.

We walked about 15 minutes to the area. It was not a tough walk because Manado was generally cleaner than Palembang or Jakarta. Smaller roads, less vehicles, less dust, less sweat.

The gate.  Imagine the whole road of restaurants selling the same things?

Erland recommended Cafe Dego Dego or Rumah Makan Pelangi. He told me that these two served the nicest tinutuan along the road but Cafe Dego Dego would have better interior. So I decided to bring them to Cafe Dego-Dego.

When we stepped in, we were greeted by wooden interiors: the tables, the chairs, the pillars, and the beams. The place was busy. So we sat down and ordered three portion of tinutuan, three portion of mie kuah cakalang (skipjack tuna noodle soup), and six pieces of perkedel nike (nike fish fricadel). So we ate in pairs to experience everything!

Tinutuan is traditional porridge of Manado. Rice porridge mixed with spinach, water morning glory, basil, and starches like pumpkin, cassava, and sweet potato. It tastes sweet because of the starches, but when you add the chili sauce, it turns damn tasty. The mixture of sweetness, saltiness, and spiciness in your mouth. Yummy!

Mie kuah cakalang. A noodle soup with chunks of skipjack tuna and vegetables. The soup broth is tasty especially when you add the chili sauce.

Perkedel nike. Nike is a kind of tiny transparent fish that can only be found in North Sulawesi during new moon. It was crispy and tasty at the same time. You can dip it into tinutuan or mie cakalang. They are perfect match!

Out of the three, the dish that I liked the least (I can't say what I liked the most) was the noodle. I found it not so special as compared to the other two dishes. And the price is reasonable too. We paid IDR 12000 (SGD1.3) for a portion of tinutuan, IDR 16000 (SGD1.8) for a bowl of mie cakalang, and IDR 5000 (SGD 0.55) for a piece of perkedel nike. With the quality of the food, they were cheap!

One more special thing about Cafe Dego-Dego was the live music. We had our breakfast while enjoying the traditional band playing a lot of songs. And they played modern songs too! Can you imagine how cool it was?

Of course I took a picture! But actually I should take a video!!!

After we finished eating, we had the car picked us and we dashed to our first destination of the day: Grand Luley Resort & Dive!

When we reached there, it was about 11 am. Grand Luley is actually a private resort and outsiders are not supposed to enter the premises.

However, we tried our luck.

We reported to the guard house when we entered. After we stated our intention, the guard referred us to go into the lobby to ask for permission. Then again, we stated our intention to the receptionist at the lobby, she could not give us permission. So she went in to talk to her manager.

At this point of time, I thought we would be going out of this place empty-handed.

But, well, Manado people are really nice people. He allowed us to roam his resort FOR FREE even though he gave us one hour time frame.

The first thing we did was going to the toilet. And the toilet surprised us!

We were surprised by the size of the toilet which could actually house a few toilet cubicles and it was equipped with air conditioner!

While we were waiting for the rest at the lobby. 

We walked towards the sea, passing through rooms, a grand lobby/restaurant, and swimming pools. The day was bright and sunny and I really felt like dipping myself into the swimming pool.

The canopy towards the rooms

In front of the grand lobby/restaurant. Taking photo was a must do everywhere!

The heavenly swimming pool.

And after that, we passed through a wooden bridge on top of a swamp. We could see a lot of trees sandwiching the bridge. And along the bridge, there were gazebos. Chacha just stopped at the first gazebo because it was too hot for her.

How I love this photo!

And after a neverending walk under the shining sun, we finally reached the end of the bridge. I initially thought that I would see sand and wave, but eventually it turned out to be a pier. So there we were, standing exactly in front of Manadotua Island.

These wooden bridge and two gazebos at the end of the bridge. I suddenly thought about a wonderful sunset wedding solemnization here, with candles along the bridge. <3

The pier and the clear blue water

Manadotua Island right in front of our faces

Basically we just stood there looking at the wave and taking pictures. No burning sun could stop us from enjoying our time!

Memories and friends are to be kept for life

Can you spot the tiny couple there having their own sweet time?

Ow yeah, I am jumping up high!

Nobody realized that one hour had passed. We walked back with a huge happy feeling for the great view at the pier and the wonderful hospitality of Grand Luley Resort.

We were grateful.

Next Post - Walk, Hike, and Sweat for Tarsier

Love is in the air,
Little Feet

Manado Trip - Wonderful Twilight at Manado, Good Night Sunshine!

We rushed back to the hotel and showered.

And we rushed out again.

Because we wanted to spend our time watching sunset at Boulevard Manado.

Reclamation to form Boulevard Manado has started since 1980. The development of this area has started since 1996, stopped temporarily in 1998due to monetary crisis that occurred very badly to the country, and resumed from 1999 onward. The objective of this project is integrated trade and tourism centre.

Up to now, there are four big shopping malls, a lot of shops, and row of restaurants at the beachfront that faces the west.

So you know where we were heading.

There was a bit of traffic jam along the way. When we reached the stony platform, the sky had turned amber and we could clearly see the round cheeky red sun trying to hug the horizon. We were lucky!

The sun was trying to be back to the embrace of the horizon. What a romantic view.

What did we do there?

Basically we just stood there and watched the sky. We took tons of photos. We chit chatted. We laughed. We sang a song. We were grateful for the chance of visiting this amazing place.

The clouds, the sun, the water

Everybody was so taken aback by what was presented in front of us

And we saw rainbow too!

Love to be around with the right people <3

I still can remember how many times bf asked me to snap him in this pose. Bruno Mars HAHA.

And the sky turned reddish, the sun got nearer to the sea

Just like small kids, we played "Guess the Cloud" game. We realized that the clouds kept changing shape and it was so interesting to see!

Can you see the hippo saying "AAAAAAA"?

How bout the flying jinn and the small little creatures there?

I could stand there and guess the clouds all day. But, when the sun got back home, it was our time to be move.

When the sky turned dark, it was time to move.

We thanked God for the wonderful view and the best companions

So, our next stop is...

DINNER!

There were so many restaurants along the coastline. Erland specifically recommended "Ragey 1/2 M" to me since a few months ago, so we would not going to turn him down. However, we would like to taste traditional (and a bit extreme) Minahasan Food. When we asked Erland, he told us it could be found at "San Fransisco Cafe".

Ragey 1/2 M is located at one end while San Fransisco Cafe was located at another end. I can't remember who popped up with the idea, we ended up asking the waitress at San Fransisco Cafe whether we could buy outside foods and bring it in. Without hesitation, she said yes.

I was sooooooo surprised. I expected certain objection before we could reach the agreement. And I secretly added another plus point to Manado in my heart.

Some of us proceeded to order Minahasan foods in San Fransisco Cafe while the rest went to Ragey 1/2 M to buy ragey and pork rib steak.

We ordered quite a number of foods that were traditionally Minahasan, which are:
- tinorangsak (specially spiced pork cooked inside a bamboo)
- paniki (bat in yellow curry sauce)
- ayam woku (curry chicken that is inside an earthen pot)
- cakalang rica (skipjack tuna in rica sauce)
- sup brenebon (traditional Minahasa red bean and pork bone soup)
- kangkung cah (stir fried water morning glory)

From left to right
Top: kangkung cah, cakalang rica, sup brenebon
Bottom: paniki, ayam woku, tinorangsak

When the rest came with shining smiles, I knew they must be bringing something wonderful. So this is what we got.

Ragey or speacial Manado pork satay

Rusuk babi bakar or pork rib steak

We started to open up the wrapping papers for ragey and the steak. Again, the waitress surprised me. She brought us the plates for us to contain those! Wah, this was really a place with excellent service.

So we started eating and we ate like we never ever ate before. :P

These are my review of the foods:

• Tinorangsak. The pork is tender and the curry gravy is nice.
• Paniki. Bat tastes like a mixture of chicken and liver. The gravy is nice.
• Ayam Woku. For me the spices are too strong and it leaves certain aftertaste that I didn't really like.
• Cakalang Rica. The fish is nice the sauce is even nicer, sour sweet and a little bit of spicy.
• Sup Brenebon. The soup is a bit thin and tasteless.
• Kangkung Cah. Everybody knows how this thing tastes. I don't need to say a thing.
• Ragey. The speciality of the satay at this place is the length. It is half a meter in length consists of pork and pork fat. I am not a pork person so I don't fancy this.
• Rusuk Babi Bakar. This is the star of the day. Big chunk of pork rib, tender flesh, tasty spices. I can still feel my saliva running while typing these sentences.

We found out that eating in this area was not pricey. The dishes in San Fransisco Cafe cost us around IDR 30000 (SGD3.3) per portion, the giant ragey cost IDR 40000 (SGD4.4) per stick, and the pork rib steak cost IDR 75000 (SGD8.1) per slab.

In total we spent less than IDR 100000 (SGD11) per pax for the feast!

I am not bluffing you on the size of the ragey, I swear!

Happy tummies, happy faces

It was about 8:00 pm when we finished our dinner. Erland then brought us to shop because he thought that we did not spend enough. :P

The first stop was Kartini Bakery to buy some klapertaart back home. As I wrote before, klapertaart literally means coconut tart. It is an iconic food of Manado made of coconut flesh, custard, rum, and topped with cream and raisins. Klapertaart came to existence by the influence of The Dutch during their time conquering Indonesia.

The first thing that we asked was how long the food could last. The lady told us that it could last 24 hour outside the fridge and 10 days in the fridge.

The second thing was the price. The lady explained that there sold klapertaart in three sizes and it cost IDR 25000 (SGD2.7), IDR 100000 (SGD11), and IDR 250000 (SGD 27) for small, medium, and large size respectively.

The third thing, we asked whether they provided sample for us. And they said no.So, we bought ourselves small size klapertaart for us to try before we decided how many we would order.

Small, medium, and large size of klapertaart

Bf was the one tasting it first. After he spooned it into his mouth, he straightaway said, "Ok, buy!" and everybody got so excited to taste it. We ordered everything here but the collection would be in the airport. So convenient! We spent quite a fortune here but I thought it was worth the money.

The next stop was Merciful Building. This building sold various souvenirs and it opened 24 hours everyday. Basically we came here to get non-food souvenirs like key chain, T-shirt, handcraft, etc. Apology for not taking any picture here. :(

Merciful Building marked the end of our second day. And the third day itinerary already excited us like hell.

Next Post - Grand Luley Resort, A Hidden Gem in Manado

Love is in the air,

Little Feet