Krabi, Thailand

We arrived in Krabi and took the airport taxi to go straight to our hotel. From the airport to the tourist centre which is Ao Nang takes about 1 hour. This was our second time in Krabi, in fact Krabi was our first trip abroad after we arrived in Malaysia and I was sooo impressed by it! I was so excited to go back. I booked this hotel Naga Pura Resort & Spa through Agoda and thought it is located in front of the beach but it's not. Although, it's still walkable to the beach and restaurants and it's got a giant room and even ginormous swimming pool. After settling in, we walked to the busy street and found the same travel agent we used before. We booked the same tour we did the first time, which was the snorkel tour to Ko Phi Phi Island and half day kayak tour to Bho Tor (not quite sure if I spell it right).

We decided to book a half day kayaking this time instead. The last time we were here and booked the full day tour, the guide didn't quite know what to do after we're done kayaking at 12 pm, where we already felt tired and wanted to call it a day but since we paid it full day tour we followed him anyway. The guide took us with another couple to an empty beach and left us there for a while. It was quite strange. He then picked us up drove us to see "crocodile farm". A crocodile farm? There were only 2 crocodiles in there and millions of cat fish, so we fed the cat fish. There were so creepy. So, we made no mistake this time, we booked the  half day tour kayak. We kayak around huge limestones and caves, mangroves jungle, and lagoons. It was magnificent! There was this cave where we got out of our kayak and climb up to see the magnificent stalactite and stalagmite. Our tour guide kept mixing up which were stalagmites and stalactites. My father-in law who studied geography all of his life told me an easy way how to remember the difference between stalactite and stalagmite. He said "StalagTITES and stalagMITES are like ants in your pants, the MITES go up and the TITES come down" :). He also explained to me how they're formed. I can't really put it in a smart and fancy way as he does but it's basically a slow process of acidic water drips and hardens and forms it to cones. Am I making any sense?

Anyway, back to to the cave. The cave called "The Skull" cave because on one side of the cave and if you see from a far it looks like a skull. We can sort of see the form of the eyes and nose. On a wall, there are some pre-historical paintings, that according to the sign is 3000 years old. Pretty cool!

After our fun and tiring kayak tour, we did one thing we like best (well the tree of us), massage! What a great way to end your "exhausting" day.

The next day, my husband had to leave for work :( but the three of us continued being tourist by taking a boat ride to snorkel to Ko Phi Phi Island. Luckily, my mom in-law and I got called first to get in to the boat so we got the best seats in the boat. It was the only two high seats almost next to the boat driver. We could see everything! Or so we thought. The rain came and the driver went full speed and with the wind and raindrops on our face, we put our sunglasses and closed our eyes. We stopped at few beaches and lagoons to snorkel but everywhere we go was soooo freakin busy and boats were everywhere and people were snorkelling below, kinda scary. The busiest spot was when we got to Maya Bay, where, they filmed Leonardo DiCaprio's movie "The Beach". Thanks to Leo, the place has gotten sooooo famous. Just when we enter Maya Bay, the whole beach was closed by lines of boats! I've never seen a beach that busy before, holy crap!

Before we ended our tour, after lunch we stopped at another snorkelling point where we had to jump into the water and the boat crew assisted my father in-law carelessly not knowing the distance between the boat and the corals, my father in-law jumped and hit the corals and cut his foot pretty badly. He got in the boat right away and people were being nice and helped him sanitized his foot but he still got an infected foot. Not the greatest tour for him I guess.

There was this lady who sells Thai pancakes just at the intersection road to our hotel. It is quite different than the pancakes I know, but it's sooo delicious, so delicious that I always stop by to buy her pancake, my favourite is banana chocolate! I want one right now...

We all agreed our highlight of the trip was the half day kayak tour and the Thai chocolate banana pancake for me! :)

Bangkok, Thailand

Last February my parents in law came to visit and they wanted to travel outside of Malaysia while they're here and we suggested to go to Thailand and Burma. Unfortunately we couldn't come to Burma, so we picked Bangkok and Krabi for our little family trip. I have been to Bangkok 3 times and never get tired of it. The food, the people, beaches, shops, massages, are the best! When I go to Bangkok, I normally stayed around Sukhumvit area but we decided to stay near the Chaopaya river. The hotel we stayed in "Navalai River Resort" was right next to the river and the boat pier. It was one of the best hotel I have ever been and the swimming pool has a really nice view to the river. We were very pleased. Food was delicious and service was great! Can't complain. After a glass of Chang and 1 plate of Pad Thai, we walked along the river side and it was so interesting and fun to see tourists and locals mingle to exercise, dance, eat, and play. You don't see this in KL, I don't think.

The next day we took the boat to the Grand Palace (after all we were tourists) and it was soooo packed! We thought we have lost the boys and looked around, but it was so hard to find them amongst millions of other people, kinda like "Where's Waldo?". Turns out they got stopped by the securities for not wearing "appropriate" ensemble, so they had to rent some long pants. The palace was seriously crowded! Well, no wonder because I think it's the biggest tourist spot in Bangkok. The third time I came here but I was still amazed by the beauty of the buildings, beautiful and colourful mosaics and statues, stunning! A guide told me that the architecture of the palace was influenced by the "Mediterranean, Arab, Chinese, and Western" style. Each colour in the buildings is a symbol of something. I can't really remember which one is which. After "Grand Palace" we walked to (probably) the second biggest tourist spot in Bangkok "Wat Pho" where there is a ginormous sleeping Buddha inside of a temple. It's the biggest I've seen so far and I've seen MANY Buddha statues. After Wat Pho we decided to go back to the hotel and went for a massage. We don't have to look very far for a massage in Thailand, they're everywhere and sooo cheap!

The other plan that I had in my mind was going to "Sirrocco" bar at the "Lebua State Tower". Once I tried to come here with my girlfriends but couldn't remember the name of it so we just asked our taxi driver to take us to "cool place, up up, drink, good people" complete with terrible hand gestures. Of course he couldn't understand what we're talking about so we drove around Bangkok and stopped at 5 different bars and then gave up. This time I even asked our hotel reception to wrote down the name of the bar and address in Thai. We found it and I was sooo excited! The view was amazing! The bar is on the 64th floor of the building and open air, so you could see Bangkok 360 degree! Mission accomplished!

One more thing we did that I haven't done in Bangkok was going to the famous "Khaosan Road". It was not too far from our hotel so we tried to discover it. The craziest thing I've seen there was people selling fake certificates, driving license, ID? Bangkok doesn't stop surprising people. 

3 days, 6 massages, 5 plates of pad thai, 15 bottles of Chang away, we left Bangkok and headed to Krabi. This time around, I even did 2 new things in Bangkok, Sirrocco bar and Khaosan Road! Yet another great visit to Bangkok. 

Paris Van Java aka Bandung, Indonesia

(Note: I have been lazy, this trip was from Christmas last year)

I have been to Bandung at least two or three times and the last time I went there was maybe 5 years ago. All I can say is every time I came to Bandung it was all to eat and shop (they got the nickname "Paris Van Java" for a reason :) Which the two things I enjoyed most from travelling :). Although, I have been wanting to go to Tangkuban Perahu whenever I'm in Bandung but never had a chance. My husband, who has never been to Bandung and always hearing good things about Bandung from his friends and colleagues, suggested to go to Bandung for Christmas Holiday. I was staying in Jakarta before the departure date to Bandung, so I took the minibus from Sarinah, Jakarta. I used "Daytrans" bus company (as suggested by my friends and family) and it cost IDR 75,000 and it took 3,5 hours to arrive in Cihampelas (somehow I thought I heard it's only 2 hours away?) It was rainy when I got there, good thing I brought an umbrella with me so I stood next to the road hoping to catch a taxi soon. An hour later, I finally found a taxi to take me to my hotel. I booked a room in "Favehotel" in Braga which is a famous area of "old Bandung" and famous of its culinary street. My husband flew from KL and we both arrived at the hotel at the same time and many have said traffic in Bandung is horrific during weekends because of all the Jakartanese coming for a weekend getaway,  but it's the only time we had. Arrived at the hotel,  I gotta say we were a bit disappointed. The hotel is situated in the underground of a mall,  the room is tiny and has no window and there's a sewage smell coming from the bathroom. It was still raining, but we had to find a tour agent to arrange our trip the next day. After a few hours looking for tour agent that does Bandung tour and we couldn't seem to find one, we finally decided to try this travel agent that I found from the internet called "Jactour" in Jl. dago Pojok 89AF. Not knowing where it is we stopped somewhere in Dago area, turns out we had to walk for another 2 hours up hill to get to this place. There's a sign said "guesthouse" in the front and sooo quite, no signs at all that it's a travel agent. We finally managed to book a tour to "Kawah Putih" (a volcanic crater) because of the timing and "Kawah Putih" sounds more interesting and convenient. The tour wasn't cheap, it was IDR 650,000 for the two of us. We could've rent a car and it would've been cheaper, oh well!

The next morning the car arrived 2 hours late from the time promised! We were pretty pissed but the beautiful view along the way and the friendly driver/guide washed our anger away, but not for long. Then the rain came. We stopped at a nice restaurant and had a nice Bandungnese specialty "Soto Bandung" Which was perfect for the situation, hot yummy beef soup in a cold, rainy, mountain area, surrounded by lush greenery, hmmmm. We finally got to Kawah Putih and parked our car in a big parking lot and had to continue by "Ontang-Anting" a small car that can fit around 20 people in.You can bring your car all the way up but you have to pay extra IDR 200,000 instead of IDR 35,000 for 2 people plus car park. But I accidentally paid extra IDR 50,000 to the driver because I thought the tickets we got from the parking lot was for entrance tickets and not our transportation. Our tour guide saw and realized it and tried to find the driver but he left and gone as soon as I handed the money :) 

It was still raining when we got to the point and even though you can't see much because of the fog, but you can still see a bit and feel the beauty of it. Despite of the many tourist there, it was quite in a way and there's mysterious feel about it. Probably because of the story behind it . This place was "found" or should I say "introduced" by a German/Dutch researcher who heard about this mysterious place from the locals, they mentioned that this place is so mysterious and haunted that no birds fly near here and no animal has found coming close to this place. Which later explained that it was all because of the sulfur. It was also because the sulfur smell that's getting stronger we didn't stay for long, plus we were wet and cold. 

The next day was rainy again, we went to Cihampelas area and walked around the street and the mall. Again, we couldn't do much because of the rain. 

So, our trip this time well...wasn't what we expected. But, I guess not all your trip turns out the way you wanted and I learned that it doesn't hurt to check the weather of the place you're going to visit before you leave! :) xx

Colombo and Sigiriya, Sri Lanka

Somebody was telling us about "Lion Mountain" in Sigiriya, Sri Lanka and when we saw the pictures from internet, we thought "we have to go there!" So we did. To go there from KL of course we have to fly to Colombo which takes 3,5 hours and then from Colombo we rented a car and a driver to take us to the city.
Colombo is much nicer and cleaner and more develop than I thought it would be. People were very friendly and nice. First day we just wanted to take easy and get to know Colombo and that is exactly what we did. The hostel we stayed in was a house turned into hostel, an over cost hostel. The house and rooms were very cool and unique, but it's definitely not worth CAD $75!! The lady who is the owner of the place and we have been in contact with was not very helpful and stiff. Our airport pick up was late (and later of course we found out we paid too much) As soon as we set up we went outside to look for lunch. We ate a very nice vegetarian Srilankan lunch, involve rice, dal, beetroot, okra, etc. It cost us about CAD$2 for both of us! Ay ay ay...Kuala Lumpur is very expensive compare to Colombo!
The next morning we had breakfast and get ready for our tour to Sigiriya. We passed some Srilankan jungles and villages. We ate lunch in a restaurant in a village, it was really good but the lady charged too much for the meal. Of course, It's hard being tourist and not get a "tourists price". Our driver was really pushing us to stop a few times on the way to try elephant rides or stop at a spice garden, etc. We kept telling him that we wanted to go directly to Sigiriya but he was told we wanted to do a full tour to Sigiriya. So, we took the 7 hours way instead of 4. That's kinda annoying.
But we got to Sigiriya and checked in to our hotel and went straight to Lion Mountain.
Lion Mountain or commonly named "The Rock" is a large and ancient rock fortress and palace ruin and Monastery. According to Wikipedia is one of the eighth World Heritage Sites from the 5 BC.  If you are not afraid of heights, go all the way to the top and see the terracotta of the palace ruin, plus the view is amazing. I must admit that I was a bit scared going up because some of the stairs were pretty steep and looked unsafe, but it was worth it. Halfway to the top you will be welcomed by giant lion's paw guarding a stair to go to the top, pretty cool. We got to the top and it was incredible, worth it! But I was really annoyed by this chinese tour group who were talking so loudly, and screaming, and just loud! I don't understand people who are so insensitive and ignorance about these things. Please do not scream at historical sites or holy sites! or just simply do not scream at all anywhere unless you got hit by someone!
Sigiriya town is very quite and peaceful, other than the "Lion Mountain" and some spice gardens, there aren't much to see. We only stayed there one night. The next morning we hit the road again and wanted to go to this town called "Kandy" about 2 hours from Sigiriya. This place is very famous for Buddhist pilgrimage because there's a temple that keep Buddha's tooth, which was brought from India. It was ok, nothing really special. You have to wear covered up clothes to enter and of course we didn't wear proper clothes and left my sarongs in the car so we rented sarong for $5 each! We felt bad walking around inside the temple while others were praying. We got out and went back to our hotel in Colombo.
We stayed at this lovely hotel called "Mount Lavinia". Supposed to be a nice and very famous one because it's a very old and historical hotel. It situated next to the Indian Ocean and view from the Swimming Pool terrace is amazing! The style is very Old British Colonial style. They even still have this really old school lift, it's pretty cool. First we arrived here, we were a bit dissapointed. We booked this hotel from Agoda and it doesn't look as nice as their ad in Agoda and our room smelled old and musty. Looks like it's a reject room too. But they really listen to you and fix it right away. The staff were super friendly and helpful. After the second day we stayed there, I got the feel of the hotel and love it! Food is excellent!
I was so tired from the climbing and walking through Sigiriya so I thought, why not a nice massage? Turns out all of the masseuses are from Bali. Whaaat? I guess Balinese massage are so famous that they have to bring real Balinese to give Balinese massage. It was pretty expensive though, I thought if I'm in Bali, I would've gotten 3 hours massage with the half an hour price I paid :)
In Colombo we went to this old Dutch Hospital turned into restaurant and shops. Very nice. But along the way we noticed they were so many cops everywhere. Every 500 m, there was a cop holding huge guns, it was pretty scary. Apparently, their president was about to pass the road, one policeman was yelling at us to get out of the way. You don't want to mess with Srilankan Police officers! In fact, we noticed that there were police base every where we go and lots of police with huge guns. I felt safe and unsafe at the same time. We know that the war has ended but still seeing people with militery or police uniforms holding AK 47 is not fun.
We walked along the beach before taking the tuk-tuk and back to our hotel. One thing about Srilankan Tuk-tuks, they're all have meter! What an awesome idea, so you don't have to get annoyed by bargaining with the driver or paying a ton of money for something actually cost nothing.
We learned there, that there are so many other places to go to Sri Lanka, but we didn't do enough research so we didn't know.

All and all, our trip to Sri Lanka was really nice. It was more that we hoped for!

Myanmar/Burma

Considering the history of Burma, I was a little bit sceptical and scared of going. But my husband assured me that everything is gonna be ok, so we go. And it was more than ok, it was great! 

I have friends who live in Mandalay and there's no direct flight from KL to Mandalay so we stopped in Yangon for 1 night. We arrived at night in Yangon so we couldn't see much.  We took airport taxi to our hotel "Grand Palace" and it costs $ 10. If you are going to Burma, note that no Credit Card or ATM in the country, so you have to carry cash all the time. They accept US dollar or Kyats or FEC. Our driver was asking us why we stayed in that hotel and told there aren't many tourist go there, only locals. Arrived at the hotel, where they mentioned they're close to the airport, which is not, and it looks like it's in a sketchy neighbourhood and most rooms were windowless. We saw the room and thinking "looks nice...", and we checked the bathroom and saw something different in their toiletries...Soap checked, shampoo checked, toothbrush checked, condoms checked? Hmm... Interesting we said. And after connecting the dots, it was a hotel for "short timer". Ew. I guess it's nice to know that they support a safe sex, but still, ew.

We wanted to go to this place call "Bagan" which is an ancient city located in the Mandalay region. There's also no direct flight from Yangon to Bagan, you have to transit in Mandalay. We stayed at "Sedona Hotel" in Mandalay,  a much better hotel than the one in Yangon :). The staffs were very friendly, helpful and it situated right in front of an old palace surrounded by moat, very beautiful. It is very close to Mandalay Hill, which is a must come place for sunset. Along the way, there are some nice temples to see. We really like this particular one, I forgot what it's called but it's a big pagoda surrounded by hundreds of little tiny temple fill with Buddha teachings. 

We decided to rent a car and a driver to take us to Bagan the next morning. It's only a 4 hours drive and it saved us $50 than flying. We enjoyed the view of Burmese countryside very much, the road was pretty smooth too.

Bagan used to be a kingdom, and during the reign of King Anawrahta (1044-1077), Theravaddha Buddhism was established and he initiated the building of thousands of pagodas. There used to be 10.000 pagodas but there are about 4000 pagodas and temples survived and still remain today. We arrived in Bagan at 11 am and it was already so HOT! They said it's summer time in Burma and in the day time can get to 40 degree! We walked around to see 3 temples and at 2 o'clock we gave up and went back to hotel to rest. It was burning, literally. No one is allowed to wear shoes in the temples and we have to walk barefeet all the time and the stone floor outside the temples burned our feet. All of the temples there were amazing though, the city itself is so amazing, thousands and thousands of temples. You can climb up to some of the temples and enjoy the 360 degree view. All temples, pagodas, and Buddha statues from different size, colours, and shapes! Most of pagodas also have beautiful murals inside, from different centuries, mostly are from 11 C-13 C.  We've been told by our driver (who is awesome by the way, who took us to some must see temples, other wise we wouldn't know and just wondered around because there's just too many!) Anyway, he told us to go to this one temple called "Ananda Paya" which is very famous for sunset. The sun was blocked by clouds when we got there but you still can see the beauty of the temples against the orange sky background, we were sooo amazed! But word gets around so this place is packed in the sunset time. But, it was worth it. Another famous temples was "Shwezigon pagoda". It's a big and beautiful pagoda, reminds me of some of the temples in Thailand and Laos, it looks very similar.

We only spent one night in Bagan and should've stayed longer but we had to go back to Mandalay to see our friends again, who just had a baby by the way, a cute one too! So who could resist that! It was really nice to see her again. I've known her when we were still living in Manado and worked together. Who would've thought that 5 years later we would meet again in Mandalay, Burma?

So we went back to Mandalay and spent another two nights there. Our friends took us to this really nice restaurant in a hotel called "Red Canal", a very nice and cute little hotel. Food was excellent. They served Indian food. Turns out there are many Indian people in Burma (mostly in the cities), they were brought by the British a while a go. We also went to U Pain bridge, which is a 100 years old bridge made out of teak.

We flew to Yangon early in the morning and our flight to KL was in the evening so we thought we could arrange a day tour at the airport in Yangon. There's only 1 travel agent at the airport but they do tours outside of Burma so we asked this guy who kept following us around offering his taxi. We made a deal, it was $10 per hour. Very expensive we thought, but everything cost so much in Burma, for tourist of course. All because they just open their country to tourism, so still less competitors, that's why hotels, transportation, still cost so much in this country! Our flight from Yangon to Mandalay was $US 460, using "Air Bagan".

We went to Shwedagon Pagoda", an enormous pagoda in the middle and surrounded by 4 other temples from each wing. Another beautiful temple. What I love to see is the roof of the temples, very detailed wooden carving, just beautiful!! And then we drove around Kandawgyi lake and we passed ASSK's house and then we hit the "Scott market". A huge market selling everything from beautiful Burmese crafts, paintings, food, clothing, you name it! But thinking of the $10 an hour charge for the car, we didn't spent too long at the market. And so, we went back to the airport.

Yangon, really reminds me of Indonesia in the old days, in the 60's I would say. Well, we do have the same history background. Our President got coup from their Generals, we were living under military suppression for a while, one president ruled for years and years. Even though both have different method but it's still the same motives. Old cars, man wearing sarongs and chew pan. These men love their sarong. We saw some guys jogging with their sarong folded to his stomach. Very interesting indeed.  

There are so many reasons to go to Burma, the people, the Crafts, the lakes, Bagan city, temples, rivers, etc. Burma is a country waiting to be discovered!