The beautiful beach at Tanjung Bungah

Tanjung Bungah (also spelled as Tanjong Bunga) is a suburb of Penang, Malaysia. It is situated in the northern part of Penang Island. It was known as a fishing village, but now it's populated by many commuters from Georgetown and people who work in the hotels along the beach. You will pass through this area when you're heading to Batu Ferringhi.  There are many hotels you can find here which are lower priced than those in Batu Ferringhi.

Tanjung Bungah beach view at night

Tanjung Bungah was hit on Christmas 2004 by the tsunami. The Royal couple of Malaysia paid a visit to the area hit by the massive tidal waves in Tanjung Bungah and checked on the floating mosque.

tanjung bungah street from batu feringgi

Tanjung Bungah has become a favorite spot for foreigners to settle down in Penang because of its proximity to the educational facilities at Dalat International School as well as its proximity to the leisure areas of Batu Ferringhi and Gurney Drive. The Penang Branch Campus of Tunku Abdul Rahman College (TARC), which has its main campus in Kuala Lumpur is also located here.

tanjung bungah main street

Tanjung Bungah is a valley of 1.5 km across and 4 km long flanked by hills on the west, south and east, and the sea on the north. The hill to the east is known as Pearl Hill or Mount Erskine and is 194 meters high. The hill to the south leads to Bukit Bendera.

If you go to Malaysia, it is one of destination tourists spot to experience the beautiful sandy beach. Two of the most popular spots, Tanjung Bungah and Batu Feringghi are well developed ‘island paradises' featuring top range accommodations and some natural attractions. The most unique aspect of the island is perhaps how cultures combine seamlessly so don't be surprised to find a mosque, Chinese or Indian temple a few hundred metres away from each other.

tanjung bungah beach 

There are many hotels available in Tanjung Bungah.  They are situated between the beach and the busy road. There are traffic lights and a bridge for pedestrians to cross the road.

Tips:

One of the attractions of Tanjung Bungah is the floating mosque. It was completed in 2005.

Every Friday a lot of people come from far away to pray in this floating mosque

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The Mekarsari Park, who those love the green plants

Mekarsari Park is an exotic garden which has various types of fruit plants collection from many regions in Indonesia. This park is one of the centers of biodiversity conservation of tropical fruits in the world, particularly fruits in Indonesia. It is as well as a place of cultivation research (agronomy), breeding and multiplication of seeds which then disseminated to farmers and the general public .

credit photo: promolagi.com - Mekarsari view from Tower of View

Mekarsari Park collects thousands of species of plants of many kinds. This place has a laboratory that produces excellent fruit crops such as pineapples, guava, star fruits, honeydew and many more.  One of the laboratory product is a hybrid between cempedak and jackfruit called nangkadak, cempeka and pedakka. Very distinctive flavor and sweet aroma as cempedak but looks more like a jackfruit.

credit photo www.mekarsari.com

The park is approximately 13 kilometers from Cibubur toll gate,  located on the main road between Cileungsi and Jonggol. It is relatively easy to reach from Jakarta, Bogor or Bekasi. It took  about one hour from Jakarta to go to this place.

With an area of 264 acres, this park has many spots that you can enjoy, such as Family Garden, 27 hectares of recreation Lake, Baby Zoo, spotted deer, Garden Center, Greenhouse, Outbound area, carrion flowers, Kids Fun Valley, Tower of View, and Waterfall building known as Tirto Puri Sari. This waterfall is one of the favorite places visitors, especially for children; here they could see a waterfall pouring from the house shaped building, very pleasant.

credit photo www.mekarsari.com

Visitors are invited to tour the park and try the freshest harvest.  Hope on the park train and go around to visit the greenhouses of  honeydews (melon), snakefruits, starfruits and sawo/sapodilla garden (sapodilla durian, sapodilla alkesa, and sapodilla abiu). Visitors are allowed to taste the fruits while learning about the cultivation of that fruit at the same time and can also buy the harvest straight from the greenhouse/farms..

credit photo www.mekarsari.com

Mekarsari Park provides rented bicycle for cycling around the park. It has an outbound facility too and various water rides at lake such as banana boat, dragon boat, water bike, aqua bike, floating donuts, giant bubble, to canoeing. Extra charges start from IDR 20,000

Mekersari park launched "Water Kingdom Mekarsari" who claimed to be the largest water park in Asia. This place has an area of 5.2 hectares and connected directly to the lake area of 27 hectares. There were 12 water rides game consists of eight pool, four slides and a water sports.


Tips:

• Mekarsari Park recently launched tourist train ride called "Fruity World Tour" since the beginning of March 2012. By simply paying 10,000, visitors will be taken around  Mekarsari for 30-minute train ride tours and information about the places visited.
• The best place to enjoy a relaxed atmosphere with friends is on the edge of Lake Cipicung, if the weather permits, you can arrange to have a picnic with your family.
• Visit the "Garden Paradiso" for an affordable bonsai collection.

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Pasar Beringharjo - A good Place to buy Batik

Pasar Beringharjo is a main market at Jogjakarta. It located at Malioboro street and near north Keraton (the palace). It is located adjacent to the Vredeburg historical museum and opposite the Gedung Agung. This market is famous for batik and is one of  popular tourist destinations.   It is also a center of commerce for Jogjakarta batik products.

Pasar Beringharjo

Batik (/ˈbætɪk/ or /bəˈtiːk/; Javanese pronunciation: [ˈbateʔ]; Indonesian: [ˈbatɪk]) is a cloth that is traditionally made using a manual wax-resistdyeing technique.  Javanese traditional batik, especially from Jogyakarta and Surakarta, has notable meanings rooted to the Javanese conceptualization of the universe. Traditional colours include indigo, dark brown, and white, which represent the three major Hindu Gods (Brahmā, Vishnu, and Śiva). This is related to the fact that natural dyes are most commonly available in indigo and brown. Certain patterns can only be worn by nobility; traditionally, wider stripes or wavy lines of greater width indicated higher rank. Consequently, during Javanese ceremonies, one could determine the royal lineage of a person by the cloth he or she was wearing.

making batik 

Pasar Beringharjo has a complete collection of batik. Starting from batik sarong to blouse, shirt, pajamas, kids apparels, shorts, etc. You can find batik painted on silk too in here. The price begin from ten thousand  to million rupiah. Collection of batik sarong found on market stalls north western area. While batik clothing collection is found in almost all the western area. This area also offers other choices of clothes such as surjan, blangkon, and weaving and batik sarong. Sandals and bags are also sold at cheap prices and can be found around the western area, nearby the escalator.

The market is also a great place to hunt for antiques. Sentra selling antiques market located on the 3rd floor of the east area. You can find an old typewriter, helmet made in the 60's. On the same floor, you can hunt for quality secondhand goods if you want. Various kinds of imported used goods such as shoes, handbags, even the clothes are sold at a price much cheaper than the original price is still in good quality. Of course it takes foresight in selecting and bargaining skills.

Pasar Beringharjo -  A good Place to buy Batik

This market is also the perfect place to indulge your bud sense with traditional snacks. you can find Brem with a softer texture and Krasikan (made from rice flour, palm sugar, and crushed sesame). In the south, you will find Bakpia filled with sweetened green beans are sold warm and other tasty snacks such as hung kwe and nagasari. While the rear area generally sell durable snacks such as ting-ting (caramelized mixed nuts).

Tips:

• Some stall offer a fix price item while others you need to have a great bargaining skill to get a good price.
• If you want to know the price of something and don't know the language, just offer your calculator and the seller will enter the price.
• If you go on weekend or publich holiday and it is so crowded, try on weekday if you can or else just enjoy the crowd. 
• It's a great market, a definite must go, but needed your patience to shop
• It's an experience for sure, just make sure you keep your wallet safe 
• If you're lucky you may be approached by a person with a basket on their head offering to carry your purchases - far from being demeaning, this is how these porters earn their living.  If  you want to hire one, be sure to negotiate the price first.

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