Naughty Nuri's Warong at Ubud, Bali

The Naughty Nuri's Warong (S8.49243 E115.25328) is located along the Jalan Raya Saggingan of Ubud town, Bali. This is the restaurant I missed on my Bali's Trip 2010, so by hook or by crook I definitely want to visit it in this 2011 trip! Just because of their Famous BBQ Spare Ribs!

We decided to have our early lunch on our forth day of Bali's trip. Once we checked out from Sri Bungalows Ubud...we moving towards the restaurant immeditely!

Naughty Nuri's Warong at Ubud

Too early for lunch (about 11.30am) when we were there and not crowded at all! Thanks for the suggestion from Mr Agung! According to him, the restaurant will be very crowded during dinner session, that was the reason we avoided.

Let me show you the small and cozy restaurant...

The front row of tables...

The interior design of the Naughty Nuri's Warong

The story of Naughty Brian and Nuri...

Nice, Green deco at the washroom

The area is not spacious as other restaurant, but it was comfort enough. And I like the decoration!
While waiting for our 'BBQ Spare Ribs', we did ordered the local fried rice and another dish which I forgot the name...it was served with beef, cheese and torttilla bread...

The local Balinese Fried Rice

The dish which I forgot the name...it served with beef and cheese...

And the tortilla bread served together with the dish above...

Our 'BBQ Spare Ribs' in making...

The staff preparing the 'Spare Ribs'

And the 'Ribs' served on table...

The Spare Ribs of Naughty Nuri's Warong, Bali

All the foods were Delicious! The simple Fried Rice was cooked just nice with the local taste, we ordered double! The beef was tender and goes well with the cheese, Yummy! And the 'BBQ Spare Ribs' were tender and well marinated with the sauce, Superbly Delicious!!

Apologies from me because I only remember the price of the BBQ Spare Ribs which was IDR80,000.00 (about MYR28.00/USD8.80) for one plate, I forgot the others...but the price was reasonable!

This is the Marvellous BBQ Spare Ribs available at Ubud, Bali, and also the Best I ever have! I will Definitely try it as long as I visit Ubud again!

*  The taste might not suitable for everyone, different people different taste.

Naughty Nuri’s Warung
Jl. Raya Sanggingan
Ubud, Bali
Phone: (361)977547
8am-10pm daily
http://www.naughtynurisbali.com

Related post :-
*  My Bali trip on June 2011
*  My Bali trip on June 2010

Location Map of Naughty Nuri's Warong at Ubud, Bali.

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POV: The Travel Photographer Looks Back At 2011

I thought of ending 2011 with various "look-backs" and favorites that appeared on The Travel Photographer's blog.

1. Photo Expedition/Workshops:

I rate the Kolkata's Cult of Durga Photo Expedition/Workshop as the most logistically challenging, but also most rewarding from a documentary standpoint, of my photo expeditions. As I've written in previous posts, the participants (most had no prior knowledge of multimedia) produced highly commendable audio-slideshows during the two weeks spent in Kolkata.

My comprehensive verdict and epilogue of the Kolkata's Cult of Durga Photo Expedition/Workshop was published on October 28.

From the In Search of the Sufis of Gujarat Photo Expedition™, I produced my favorite audio-slideshow and photo essay The Possessed of Mira Datar. It documents the pilgrims who flock daily in their hundreds to the shrine of a renowned Sufi saint in Gujarat.

2. Favorite Photo Essay By Photojournalist:

There's no question that it was the terrific photo essay in The New York Times titled Cairo Undone by Moises Saman. It made me recalibrate my earlier thoughts about photographing in Cairo.

3. Favorite New York Street Photography Event:

In the early days of November, I ventured to Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, and spent a few hours photographing the Occupy Wall Street movement. As I wrote in the blog post, I sympathize with most of the OWS positions. Some of the photographs I took are featured on The Leica File.

4. Favorite Photo Festivals:

I'm not a big photo festival goer, so I only attended two in 2011...but I thoroughly enjoyed participating in the biannual Delhi Photo Festival in October (regrettably for only one day), and attending the annual Angkor Photo Festival in Siem Reap. Both of these festivals were extremely well organized and the attendance was phenomenal!

5. Favorite Photojournalism Workshop:

The Foundry Photojournalism Workshop is my hands-down favorite. Not only because I'm one of the faculty members, but because it's really fantastic. The photographers in the faculty generously share their knowledge and time, its staff, administrators and local volunteers make it wonderful successes year after year, and simply said, the participating photographers "students" are the future...and it's personally rewarding to be part of this.

6. Favorite Short Vimeo Movies:

I loved Miehina, The Kyoto Geisha by Glen Milner. Extremely well produced, and instrumental in shaming me in not having visited Japan yet.

And I also loved A Dos Pasos Del Corazón: The Photographer Of Seville by Sergio Caro and Ernesto Villalba. A beautifully produced movie about an elderly wedding photographer.

7. Favorite Photographer "Americana" Category:

Carolyn Beller takes that one with her The Mississippi Delta photo essay, which I imagined viewing with a song by Howlin' Wolf or John Lee Hooker (as only two examples) blaring in the background.

8. (My Very Own) Favorite Prediction:

No one takes my prediction seriously (at least publicly) but I predict the advent of a mirror-less Leica...a $3500 Micro Four Thirds Leica. I know it's wishful thinking, but that's what my Nostradamus crystal ball tells me when I look in it.

And another of my silly predictions was that I'd never take pictures with an iPhone. Yes, I do now.

9. Favorite Love-Hate Relationship:

I have a love-hate relationship with my Leica M9...many photographers share this emotional dichotomy. I imagined it would not last as long, but it has. I love the M9's handling, heft and durability and abhor its shortcomings...and yes, it makes really great pictures when I know what to do.

And my Dumber Than Dumb moment of 2011 is when I exhausted myself polishing my Elmarit 28mm lens because the view through my just acquired M9's viewfinder was smudgy. The more I polished the more it got smudgier...of course, I was polishing the lens with my thumb squarely on the viewfinder window....a rangefinder newbie brain fart.

10. (My) Favorite Street Photograph:

It's really a subway photograph...but is of the trio of women on the F train, which I titled "The Sleepy, The Anxious And The Bored".

11. My Most Popular Blog Post:

The most popular post on The Travel Photographer during 2011 is a POV titled Is Shooting From The Hip Photography?. Many many thousands of views on that one. Wow!

12. My Favorite WTF? Rant:

It's the WTF?! Be A Sucker And Publicize A Book...For Free. The very best of my world famous acerbic rants.

13. Favorite Photographer "Travel" Category:

And here he is...Tim Allen is the The Travel Photographer's favorite travel photographer of 2011. Tim is is a English photographer with a hefty professional background, who has won prestigious awards. He has worked with indigenous communities throughout the world , most extensively in India and South East Asia.

No ambivalence. One of the best there is.

Enric Mestres Illamola: India

Enric Mestres Illamola is a Catalan photographer specialized in portraits, wedding photography and is a photography teacher in various schools in Barcelona (Spain). He traveled to India no less than 6 times, mostly traveling as a tourist, and photographing portraits along his route. He uploaded a series of these portraits, as well as some street scenes, on YouTube.

Sandy Chandler: Videos & Book...Kolkata & Durga Puja

Sandy Chandler has been busy the past few months. No, make that real busy.

She participated in my Kolkata's Cult of Durga Photo~Expedition & Workshop™ in October, and having produced a highly commendable black & white audio-slideshow (at top) during the workshop, also returned home with a trove of images and audio tracks recorded live during the two weeks in Kolkata.

Back home, she produced a more light hearted view of the festival which views it from what she calls "Another Side of Durga Puja", and features its mixture of spirituality and commerce.

As she describes it, "the annual Durga Puja festival in Kolkata celebrates Durga, archetype of Great Goddess Mahadevi of the Hindu Pantheon. The festival sees huge, elaborately crafted sculptures installed in homes and public spaces all over the city. At the end of the festival, the idols are paraded through the streets accompanied by music and dancing and then immersed into the Ganges river."

Sandy is currently working towards her MA in Art & Religion at the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology (Graduate Theology Union) in Berkeley, and these slideshows are part of her projects for this degree.

Others would be resting on their laurels, but she also self-published an 80 pages book titled Durga Puja which can be bought from Blurb.

Sandy Chandler is an award-winning and passionate travel photographer. Her photography captures the souls and spirit of the land, its culture and people.  Her previous photography books are Carnevale: The Fantasy of Venice and Calling the Soul:The Spirit of Bali Cremations.

Evgenia Arbugaeva: Following The Reindeer

Photo © Evgenia Arbugaeva-All Rights Reserved

I think featuring Evgenia Arbugaeva's photo essay Following The Reindeer is timely in view of the season where the children in us perhaps long to see them in the sky being led by a jolly man dressed in red with a white beard...but these reindeers are real, and live in the Republic of Yakutia...not in the North Pole.

Yakutia is located in eastern Siberia and stretches to the Henrietta Islands in the far north and is framed by the Laptev and Eastern Siberian Seas of the Arctic Ocean. It's a region with considerable raw materials. It large reserves of oil, gas, coal, diamonds, gold, and silver. The majority of all Russian diamonds are mined there, accounting for almost a quarter of the world's diamond production.

Evgenia Arbugaeva is of Yakutia, and works as a freelance photographer between Russia and New York. She documented the reindeer herders/breeders of the region, who are the Even, the Evenk, the Yukagir, the Chukchi and the Dolgan.

Barong and Keris Cultural Dance at Ubud, Bali

The next session after the Holy Water Purifying, we continued our Culture Dance Show at Ubud - The Barong and Keris Dance (S8.51051 E115.26473). The performing area is located not too far away from the restaurant (Bebek Bengil) we going to have our dinner...

The ticket for the show is IDR 80,000 that will be about MYR28.00/USD8.80 per person.

We were there about 15 miutes earlier and we were fortunate enough to had our seats at the first row.

Group of men came out from the gate before the show start, and ther were the peoples who play the musical instruments.

Once the music started, the show began...

The local music with their instruments

The 'Barong' came out from the gate, well...it was expected.

'Barong'

Some photos of the 'Barong'.

'Barong'

There was a story within the show, but too bad I wasn't understand it...and I can't even search it on the net...

According to Wiki, 'The Barong is often portrayed with two monkeys'. Maybe the monkey below was one of them...

The monkey and the Barong...

Then...group of women with the local culture dance...

Even I don't understand about the story behind, but we enjoyed the show very much! Especially their costumes...
Let me share some photos of the Cultural Dance below...

And the photos is the 'Keris Dance' of the Cultural Show...

The show was ended after about an hour, we enjoyed it very much! And all of us also carving for food after the show...haha!

The show was worth watching and it's one of the main attraction of Bali.

Related post :-
*  My Bali trip on June 2011
*  My Bali trip on June 2010

The Location map of the Barong and Keris Cultural Dance at Ubud, Bali

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Merry Xmas And Happy 2012!!!

(Click To Enlarge)

I wish a merry Xmas, and happy holidays to all my friends, blog readers, Google and Twitter followers...as well as to some of the hardy photographers who joined, and keep rejoining, The Travel Photographer's Photo Expeditions/Workshops™:

Jim Hudson
Mary Kay Hudson
Jan Lammers
Li Lu Porter
Maria-Christina Dikeos
Felice Willat
Joyce Birkenstock
Ralph Childs
Torie Olsen
Alia Rifaat
Tony Smith
Cathy Scholl
Dan Bannister
Beverly Anderson-Sanchez
Rosemary Sheel
Charlotte Rush-Bailey
Sandra Chandler
Gul Chotrani
Terri Gold
Nuray Jemil
Jenny Jozwiak
Gavin Gough
Larry Larsen
Penni Webb
Laurie Snow-Hein
Pat Demartini
Betsy Gertz
Lee Ann Durkin
Bonny Willet
Wink Willet
Kongkrit Sukying
Ron Mayhew
Rose Schierl
Lynn Padwe
Graham Ware
Kayla Keenan
Bo Jugner
Chris Schaefer
Carlos Amores
Teerayut Chaisarn
Colleen Kerrigan
Sharon Johnson-Tennant
Kim McClellan
Kris Bailey
Zara Bowmar

I'm working on a couple of new destinations for the latter part of 2012 and early 2013...as usual, these will be announced via my newsletter and on this blog.

The Travel Photographer's On The Lightbox App

I am pleased to have The Travel Photographer's blog featured on LIGHTBOX, the new and beautifully designed social photo app for Android. This blog, along with National Geographic, 500px, Fotopedia and a few others, is featured under Photography.

The idea behind LIGHTBOX's new photo journal feature is to provide a stream of updates others can follow, share, like and comment on....which TechCrunch describes as a lazy man's Tumblr.

Although my blog has only been recently featured the LIGHTBOX's lineup, The Travel Photographer has already garnered over 600 followers!!

The Ashaninka: Mike Goldwater

Photo © Mike Goldwater-All Rights Reserved

In Focus, the photo blog of The Atlantic magazine, featured The Ashaninka, A Threatened Way of Life; photographs by Mike Goldwater. Be sure to view the photographs in the 1280px option if your monitor allows it.

The Ashaninka are an indigenous people living in the rain forests of Peru and in the State of Acre of Brazil, and are one of the largest indigenous groups in South America. Their number is estimated between 25,000 and 45,000.

Current threats are from oil companies, drug traffickers, colonists, illegal lumberers, illegal roads, conservation groups, missionary groups, and diseases. Roads are being built into the forest to extract mahogany and cedar trees for export to markets in the United States and Europe despite an international embargo. Religious missionary groups are intent on changing Ashaninka culture and belief systems, ignoring the impact on their long term survival.

Mike Goldwater is a photographer, who ran the Half Moon Gallery in London's East End from 1974 to 1980, and who created the magazine "Camerawork". He also co-founded photo agency 'Network Photographers' for photojournalism, documentary photography and corporate work.  He traveled to over 70 countries and his images were published in major magazines around the world.

You may also wish to see Tatiana Cardeal's work on South American indigenous people.

Xavier Zimbardo: Holi!

I first came across the work of Xavier Zimbardo a number of years ago when I bought his book India Holy Song, whose description on a book-selling website says that it included photographs made in "textile-dyeing factories of Rajasthan bursting with seemingly endless, undulating streams of saturated jewel-like fabrics in astonishing hues, from aquamarine to amethyst to the deepest ruby red". I mention this because I researched the location, and organized a photo shoot there on one of my early photo expeditions to Pushkar. It was quite a thrill to recognize some of Xavier's 'models' as workers in the factory!

This movie is exceptionally well made, and was a collaborative effort including many technicians. The explosions of color...the pink, the fuchsia, the neon-green and yellow powder accompanied by a pulsating soundtrack (which I believe was recorded live).  The movie was made with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon 24-105mm f/4 L, Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 L, and is featured on Canon France Vimeo page.

It's incredibly difficult to photograph and video in such an environment, and I wish there was some indication as to how the photographer and his team managed to keep their cameras and lenses safe from the hurled powder. While the 5DMark II is claimed by Canon to be weather-proof, its innards could easily be affected by the fine powder.

Xavier Zimbardo is a French photographer currently based in Sarcelles, a Parisian suburb. His work was featured in several European and international photography publications such as Zoom, Camera International, and Photographers International. He's a recipient of several grants and prizes, including those from the Kodak Foundation and the French government, and has had solo exhibitions of his work at museums and galleries throughout France, as well as in Athens, Sicily, Milan, Odense, and Montreal. His work is on permanent display in several museums worldwide including Paris's Bibiliothèque Nationale and Maison Européenne de la Photographie. 

National Geographic Photo Contest 2011

Photo © Tsolmon Naidandorj-All Rights Reseved

Despite my antipathy for photography contests, I always keep an eye on two; TPOTY (The Travel Photographer Of The Year) and The National Geographic.

The winners of The National Geographic Photo Contest were announced this week, with the grand prize awarded to Shikhei Goh for his capture of a dragonfly riding out a rainstorm in Indonesia. As usual, National Geographic has featured winning photos from this year's contest on its website. The contest judges this year were National Geographic magazine photographers Tim Laman, Amy Toensing, and Peter Essick.

I had a look at the submissions and the results, and (although not a nature photographer) agree that the photograph of the dragonfly is worthy of a recognition, but I do not agree with judges' choices for the finalists of the People category.

Had I been a judge, I would have chosen the Kazakh Hunter by Tsolomon Naidandorj as one of the finalists in the People category.  It's exotic, it's dynamic and it's powerful and well composed.

Winners of the National Geographic Photo Contest are also featured on In Focus, the photo blog of The Atlantic.

Mario Gerth: East African Faces

Mario Gerth traveled to 65 countries on five continents and witnessed all kinds of civil upheavals. A German part-time banker and photojournalist, he has concentrated his recent work on Africa...and the slideshow above showcases Ethiopian tribes, some in color and others in stunning monochromes. I particularly like Chapter 3 of the slideshow which consists of gorgeous square format toned portraits...conversely, I thought the panning movement all through the slideshow was a little too much.

The tribes depicted in Gerth's photographs are sedentary pastoral people living in south west of Ethiopia, on the western bank of the Omo river. Unfortunately, the survival and way of life of the tribes of South Ethiopia are under threat by various projects planned for the area, especially a massive hydroelectric dam that affects the Lower Omo River.

In an earlier post, I had written various tribes of the Omo Valley are adept in soliciting money for images and how ready they were to pose without much guidance. But the question here is what came first...the tourists with their cameras giving out a handful of birrs or the demand for money from tourists for each snap.

The Afghan Box Camera Project

Photo Courtesy The Afghan Box Camera

I was very glad to have stumbled on The Afghan Camera Box Project website a few days ago. For quite a while I had given up on posting anything to do with Afghanistan, since the photographs published in various media were either repetitive, unimaginative, stereotypical or plain silly....but this website touches on culture and photography.

The purpose of the Afghan Box Camera Project is to provide a record of the kamra-e-faoree (which in Dari and also in Arabic means 'instant camera') which as a living form of photography is on the brink of disappearing in Afghanistan. It's one of the last places where photographers continue to use a simple type of "instant camera" to make a living. The hand-made wooden camera is both camera and darkroom, and generations of Afghans have had their portraits taken with it, usually for identity photographs.

The project is the work of Lukas Birk and Sean Foley.

The railway station of the Cairo suburb where I grew up had a wooden camera photographer, and I recall (dimly, I admit) had a brisk business. I also came across a wooden camera photographer in Havana, Cuba who showed me how he developed the photograph he made of me.

Two of my friends, Divya Dugar and Frances Schwabenland have produced work on wooden cameras being used in Jaipur in Rajasthan, while Rodrigo Abd has produced Mayan Queens with a 19th century wooden camera of the indigenous women competing to become the National Indigenous Queen of Guatemala.

Pura Tirta Empul (The Temple of Holy Water) at Tampaksiring, Bali

The Pura Tirta Empul (S8.41586 E115.31516) at Tampaksiring is situated about 18KM from the BAS Coffee Farm. It was our next destination after the Luwak Coffee session. The place was calm and peaceful during our visit, and not crowded at all...

The Legend of the Temple :-
"The sacred spring was created by the god Indra. His forces had been poisoned by Mayadanawa, so he pierced the earth to create a fountain of immortality to revive them.

An inscription dates the founding of a temple at the site to 926 AD. Ever since - for more than a thousand years - the Balinese have come to bathe in the sacred waters for healing and spiritual merit." Source from here.

There are many statues around the garden and temple area from the entrance.

Different statues at Pura Tirta Empul.

Beside the statues, there are also many signages...and we have to read carefully and follow the procedures...

Caution : You are entering the Holy Temple, please do not littering...

One of the entrance to the temple.

The signage above is located before the Purifying pool...in Indonesian Language.

The Purifiying pool of Pura Tirta Empul, Bali

It is the rectangular pool carved of stone. The water in the pool was Crystal clear! Where we can easily see the rocks at the bottom of the pool...

Crystal clear water in the pool

Just for that clean and crystal clear water, we (me, my friend & his elder son) decided to do the purifying like others...:) So we asked Mr Agus to help us on the ceremony and tell us the procedures...

All of us must wear with the 'Sarong' from the temple before get into the pool. There are many lockers around the area for you to keep your valueble items...each locker cost IDR 3,000.00 (about MYR1 / USD 0.33).

Once everything ready, we slowly soaked into the first pool (There are 2 pools at the temple). BEWARE! It was slippery! I slipped from the step and falled directly into the Ice Cold pool! Haha! We had to finished from the first fountain until the last fountain in the purifying pool, total of 22 fountains (if I'm not mistaken). I was shivering after the fifth fountains...it was extremely cold! WOW!
It tooks about 30 minutes to finished the purifying and we quickly changed and warm up our body! Yes, too cold for me! :)

Then we started our tour at the other side of the temple...

Beautiful stone sculptures from the temple

There were some Balinese Hinduism praying ceremony during our visit...

The ceremony in the temple...

We passed through the pool of the sacred spring water, the spring water is continue from the pool non-stop more than thousand years ago...

The pool where the sacred water came from...

Peaceful while walking in the temple...
Before we reach the exit of the temple, we came to another pool which full of koi...and there were some souvenirs shops beside the pool...

It was a life experience for us in the purifying process of the temple, the skin was smooth and clean after bathing from the spring water! I will do it again if I re-visit the temple.

If you don't mind, you might want to try the purifying in the Ice Cold spring water pool! :)

Close up of the fountain

Related post :-
*  My Bali trip on June 2011
*  My Bali trip on June 2010

Location map of Pura Tirta Empul at Tampaksiring, Bali

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