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