MOUNTAIN VIEW GOLF COURSE, DAGO, BANDUNG, INDONESIA

Golfers in Malaysia usually talked about the challenging golf course in Bandung called the Mountain View Golf Club, located in Dago quite near the city. You will be greeted by a wooden statue of a well known golfer Peter Thompson which was very well crafted. After the registration, go to the balcony and enjoy the views of the fairways from the 4 storey clubhouse. The course is narrow and undulating and fitted well to my style of play, straight hitter of the golf ball. There are 5 par 3, 5 par 5 and 8 par 4, so you can make 10 pars easily..

 Mountain View Club House

 View from Clubhouse

 Par 3

 Scary tee shot? My ball landed just before the bunker and 7 iron to the green

 Now this is scary...at the end of the fairway is a river!

There will be some balls going right and left of the fairways and no way can be found even by the most hard working caddies! By the way they are cute but not very friendly and we let them do their jobs for the IDR 200,000 tips we gave them and some were cheeky enough to ask for more!!

 Another interesting Par 3 about 148 meter

 They even sell my favourite balls..PHYZ!

I am sure this is my lost ball..my name on it!

Great golf at Mountain View and off we went to Bandung for a little bit of sightseeing...

Mountain View Golf Club JL Dago Pakar Raya, Cimenyan, Bandung, 40198, 40198, Indonesia Phone : +62 22 2536089

Transtudio Mall di Bandung, new place to visit..

GOLF IN HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM

Ho Chi Minh city is better known for its shopping adventure especially for teenagers and their mummies, forGolf Resort,daddies they go and check out the golf courses. There are a few good ones around 50 km radius of the city, Vietnam Golf and Country Club, Long Thanh Golf resort, Song Bae Golf Club and Twin Doves Golf Club but as driving is slow, we must allocate ample time to reach the golf course.

Twin Doves Golf Club is located in the Binh Duong Province, takesa bout 45-60 minutes drive from the city. It has 27 holes called Luna, Mare and Sole.Luna course to me was easily the best amongst the three layout. Golfing rates on weekdays about USD 60 per pax.

GOLF IN HANOI,VIETNAM

October was hot and warm in Vietnam, both in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh and great for golf. I was tempted to have a few rounds during my recent trip to both cities in October, 2014. In Hanoi, I played the Hanoi Golf Club located close to the airport so that we could play immediately after arriving at the airport.

A sweet thing waited for us at the airport with a Mercedes Commuter van and after loading our tools, off we went to the club which was nearly 45 minutes drive from the airport, GOD blessed Vietnam drivers for going so slow, not allowed to exceed 60 km/hour they said, Communist country loved their population.

Arriving at Hanoi golf Club and booked our tee-off times with the help of our golf agent, very little English was spoken. As we were hungry after the flight from KL, we entered the restaurant only to find nothing 'halal' there so we bought some bread instead and bottled drinks.

I did not take many photos of the golf course but it surely a great course to play,

The journey to the city and our hotel in Hanoi was tiring and we reached about 8 pm. We have a group dinner at the Hanoi Club where they have a driving range and people hit balls into the lake, the food was nice as the master chef was from Johore Bahru, so did have a great halal food there.

FINNA GOLF CLUB, SURABAYA

I have been to Surabaya Indonesia many times on work related trip and played a few rounds of golf there namely at Ciputra Golf Club, Graha Family Golf Club and Bukit Darmo Golf. there are two other less popular golf clubs, the 18 holes Par 3 course at Pakuwon Golf and Family Club and Ahmad Yani Golf Club, a walking course. There are 2 other golf courses located further away from the city, about 70 minutes drive from city centre and these 2 courses are Taman Dayu Golf Club and Finna Golf Club located near the mountains and resort village of Tretes.

On my recent trip to Surabaya in May 2014 I was able to take time off from work to travel to Finna Golf Resort with some friends. The journey took us to the direction of Malang and Pasuruan and exiting the highway at Sidoarjo. People said Finna Golf Club would be very cool but we felt the opposite, quite hot...

So off we went to play golf...

So what's so great about playing golf in Indonesia ? Was it the course, cheaper rates or anything else? The best kept secret amongst golfers is all about the caddies...they are beautiful and seductive ( on the golf course..), can't blame them as they will do that and expect a fat tip from you after the games. So what is a few hundred thousand Rupiah for a 4 hour companionship? Hehehe..check out these photos?

NEW KUTA GOLF CLUB, BALI, INDONESIA

Taking the 777-200 aeroplane is much better than AirAsia flight from Kuala Lumpur to Bali and reached there in about 3 hours. The Ngurah Rai International Airport is a pretty busy airport but quite modern and relevant to modern day travellers. There were 16 people in the delegation and 3 missed the plane in Kuala Lumpur so they have to take the next scheduled flight to Bali, cannot blame them as they were all first time overseas travellers.

We stay away from town centre at the place called the Pecatu Indah Resort about 30 minutes drive from the airport and near the KLAPA New Kuta Beach. We stayed at the Lorin New Kuta Hotel apparently quite cheap at IDR 480,000 nett including breakfast. For dinner we went to the beach and have seafood dinner at the famous Jimbaran Bay located on the Jimbaran beach. The food was quite nice but pretty expensive, this was to be expected as Bali is a commercial town with a lot of tourists.

After the morning trip to several Agarwoods and Sengon plantations about 2 hours from the hotel, we played golf in the afternoon at the New Kuta Golf Club. It was quite expensive as the club charged foreigners USD 170 per golfer inclusive of twin sharing buggy and lady caddies. The golf club is located by the sea and wind factor certainly added to the difficulty of playing this championship course. From the blue tee it played 6,000 metres. It once hosted a LPGA event back in 2009.

It was a very good golf outing for all of us but didn't managed a good score, the best was +2 over net score by Nordin Bren who played a handicap 24. I played +4 over 92 gross for a 18 handicapper, never mind the scores we enjoyed the golfing experience.

We flew to Surabaya in the evening...