Bits and Pieces of Life…

Skyline - Marina Bay

Had a short weekend trip to Singapore. The last time I visited Singapore it was at least 5 years ago. Singapore is so much more efficient than Malaysia, everything just seems to be just works. Buses and MRTs are on the dots.  Shopping malls everywhere. “Organize” is the word that I can think of for the city state. Probably a bit too organized for me though.

Love the Night Safari (but no photos to share since I didn’t bring the camera). Geylang is interesting. Marina Bay skyline is magnificent. Little India and Chinatown are lively.

Would love to see Clarke Quay, Sentosa and Bird Park next time. Oh or maybe I will just put up a night at Marina Bay Sands just like my friend Bryan did. Maybe.

More photos at this link: http://travelgaia.com/gallery/Singapore_July2011/

Palawan Map

This is where Palawan is – at south-western Philippines. Provincial capital is Puerto Princesa (公主港), where most of the commercial flights touch down here. Roxas, Taytay are relatively big towns, but the real germ of Palawan is definitely El Nido at the north, a small laid-back town about 5~6 hours away by van through some rough roads.

Palawan is often called the “last frontier” of Philippines, to me indeed it is but not for much too long – tourists are starting to flocking in. Go visit now before El Nido is transformed into another Boracay. This is my first time visiting Palawan (Puerto Princesa & El Nido) – but it already makes me feel real good.

1st day – What’s new? Zest Airways’ flight to Puerto Princesa delayed

Partas Bus Schedule - Manila to Clark v.v.

Arriving Clark airport from Kuala Lumpur by Airasia (4 hours), it is another 2 hours (P350) bus ride (Partas) to Manila metropolitan/Pasay City. I kinda know the drill – this is the 3rd time I am arriving at this deserted airport in as many years. It sucks to take that long on the road, and to worry about the traffic at EDSA that might have prevented us to catch the connecting flight from Manila to Puerto Princesa.
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Some more diving photos, taken at northeastern Bali area – Tulamben, Amed and Kubu.

A short write up to be followed soon, when I am back from Tioman.

I just come back from a diving trip to Bali a couple of weeks ago. I have to admit I have a blast, even if I didn’t see any Mola Mola and Manta Rays at Nusa Penida. Yeah it is right, I see none of them, which is probably harder to achieve at this time of the year (end of August) than seeing one or a few of them. Luck is just not at my side at times. It is a perfect excuse to come Nusa Penida again though!

We dived 2 days at Nusa Penida, followed by 1 day each at Tulamben, Amed and Kubu.

For Nusa Penida dives, we pre-book online with Bali Scuba at Sanur. 3 dives/day cost USD130. The price includes hotel transfer, tank & weight & guide, onbaoard soft drinks & mineral water, and a nice little lunch onboard (steam rice with beef & chicken, egg and sambal). Gear rental is not included – expect USD5/item/day. Our dive master for the 2 dive days are Knut and Henry. Knut is a tall Caucasian and likes to joke around. Henry is an over-sized fatty with over 30 years of diving experience. Both are really nice guys and helpful. Read more below. Read more…

We kinda bump into this bridge. Hard to imagine this, but we really didn’t know about the existence of this bridge before we literally walked on it – we suck in planning our travels. It was the evening of 17th July 2010, we had the cab dropped us near a supermarket at the imperial city side of the Hue City after our dinner. Afterwards, we decided to walk back to our hotel, which is not that far away based on the simple map that we’ve got from the hotel’s uber-cheerful receptionist Tú.

Truong Tien Bridge, Hue, central Vietnam. Majestic at night when the ever-changing lights give a new lease of life to the cold metal structure.

Then we meet. Us and the Truong Tien Bridge. It is a 2-lane, 6-span metal bridge with narrow pedestrian walkway at both side, over the Huong River (a.k.a. Perfume River). It is painted colorfully by the ever-changing lights, from white to red, green, blue, yellow, all in different hue (no pun intended). The bridge is grand by its own, but with the lights giving it a different color & personality every few seconds, it is just majestic. We were busy taking photos while crossing it and before we reached the other side (< 500m I’d say), Ben’s camera battery ran flat. While he was running back to the hotel to have the battery charged for a short-while and then come back for more, I have the whole bridge for myself. (Well, not really. Like with few hundreds of the locals).

This was the only night that we overnight in Hue. If we didn’t happen to be here now, we are going to miss it like forever.

In life, some great things just come to you without you asking for it. You are so ecstatically happy that you wish the time can freeze at this moment eternally for you to to own it forever. But it is not to be. You let go reluctantly. And look forward for the next serendipity.

More photos after the fold – my futile effort trying to capture the moment as present, but then, it has been past.

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I haven’t learned about the GSM roaming availability onboard Airasia until I overheard the conversation between a cabin crew telling a passenger so. That was during my recent flight back from Ho Chi Minh City to Kuala Lumpur on 21 July 2010 evening. Curious (and bored), I switched my Nokia 5800 out of its offline mode (i.e. flight mode), and not before long, it connects to OnAir:

GSM Roaming in Airasia flight via OnAir service. It is total coincidence that the song I was listening to at that time was "Fly me to the moon". I was flying back to KL.

Tried sent a couple of sms’es and able to deliver, and able to receive incoming sms’es too. Did not have any noticeable lag. Did not try to call out though – pretty sure it will work, and more sure that it will cost me a bomb. No idea how much the outgoing sms will cost me, but there will be no charges for the incoming sms. No related mobile roaming information is found in the seat pocket.

Googling the OnAir service brings me to their homepage FAQ: http://www.onair.aero/faqs, which is an interesting read. Airasia is listed as one of its customers using the Mobile OnAir GSM roaming technology, where there is a picocell installed onboard for mobile phones’ radio interfacing, and then signals are routed to ground servers via satellite. There is also an onboard channel selector to prevent the mobile phones from connecting to the ground mobile networks directly. The Mobile OnAir supports only GSM/GPRS but not 3G – good enough for calls and sms’es, as well as basic internet browsing.

Cabin crew reminds that the mobile phones need to be turned off during take off and landing, so other than these periods, the mobile phones can be switched on and connected – as long as your mobile service operator has roaming deal with OnAir. Mine, Maxis, does.

The problem that might arise from this is the ignorant phone users that always speak loudly when on mobile phone, think China passengers, for example. That will be really irritating.

The OnAir has another service too: Internet OnAir – that works via RJ45 connection or Wifi. I didn’t try out the Wifi connectivity (because I didn’t even think about it at all then) but this just-posted Bernama article confirms that Airasia signs up only the Mobile OnAir service from OnAir. So probably no high speed internet browsing for now onboard Airasia, but I will find out soon enough during my next trip in August!

Highly recommended by 2 travel guide books (Lonely Planet & Hong Kong published 长空旅游系列 021 － 越南食玩买终极天书本2010˜˜2011 全新Update版), we dropped in Y Thao Garden for our first dinner in Hue, Vietnam. We’ve had a long day – woke up at 4am, flew from HCMC to Hue at 6am flight, and then just in time to sign up last-minute on the 8am Perfume River Cruise day tour upon checking into Binh Minh Sunrise Hotel – and now just couldn’t wait to have a good dinner and unwind.

It was July 17th 2010, a Saturday. Far away from home.

• Restaurant Name: Y Thao Garden
• Location: 3 Thach Han, the Citadel, Hue, Vietnam
• GPS: 16.468009,107.567117 (click for Google Map location)

It is just a 10-minute cab ride from the hotel. The restaurant is set in a mansion surrounded by tropical garden with lush of green, which is welcoming. Walking straight in, no one was there at the reception to greet us. We walked around and took some photos of the tropical garden, and after like forever (well, 2 minutes but felt like forever) the waitress showed up and lead us to one of the 2 main dining halls, which were both without any diners at that time (~6pm).

The restaurant runs set menu, and there is only one lone set – take it or leave it – that costs USD10 (not inclusive of beverages). No À la carte whatsoever. Ordered 2 sets and a couple of local bottled Huda Beer, we set off to take more photos of the beautiful garden. More after the fold.

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… like this little seahorse to a slightly bigger frogfish.

Location: Lembeh Strait, North Sulawesi
Date/Time: 1st Sept 2009, 15:30

This orange brownish juvenile frogfish, measuring less than 5cm in length, has been eyeballing the pity little seahorse for quite some time. It probably ponders whether to go for something prettier for a quick snack – it is teatime now anyway – or just take the black seahorse for a quick chow since it is easy – the seahorse didn’t intend to move out from the frogfish’s stare at all. My dive buddy Bill and myself swam around these 2 little creatures for a while but nothing happened. They kept staring at each other, like stone statues, not moving a muscle, and only few centimeters apart.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the frogfish opens its huge mouth and had the whole of the seahorse’s head and some of its body swallowed. It is kinda bizarre to witness such a killing, though I’d prefer real horse meat over seahorse’s meat anyday.

For the next 3 minutes or so, the below pose maintained:

Frogfish tries to swallow a seahorse

But then, probably feeling remorse to kill a seahorse, or maybe the seahorse is just too hard to swallow, the frogfish releases it out from his mouth, and slowly retreated. The seahorse is alive – for now.

erm.. the frogfish didn't really like the horse meat...

Sand Castle @ Boracay Long Beach

Finally uploaded some photos from my recent short trip to Boracay, the Philippines:

http://travelgaia.com/gallery/Boracay_May2009/

More trip details to follow.

Bali Dive Map:

Vacation diving and holiday packages in dive resorts, on liveaboards, PADI courses, and scuba travel, tours and trips worldwide.

7th Apr – Arriving Denpasar airport ~7pm. Too late for Tanah Lot. Eat etc. Drive to Gilimanuk (110km, ~3hours). Stay @ Gilimanuk. The car better be prepared there!

8th Apr – Dive Secret Bay at Gilimanuk. Departs afternoon, heading to Labuhan Lalang (jetty to Manjangan). It is quite near Gilimanuk from the map, maybe 45mins or so. Stay.

9th Apr – Dive Menjangan. This should be one of the highlights of the trip. Top dive sites are:

• the Anker Wreck (40+ meters),

• Eel Garden

• Pos II.

Depends on how it goes, maybe stay extra night here, or heads to Tulamben after the dives. The road is straight forward, moving across the north of Bali, maybe 2-3 hours. Stay at Tulamben.

10th Apr – Dive Tulamben + Amed. Maybe not enought time for Amed.

• Liberty Wreack
• Drop Off
• Batu Kelebit

Heads back to Kuta afternoon. Stay at Kuta. If time allows, go straight to Uluwatu before dask.

11th ~ 12th Apr: standard thingy. Short trip to Ubud? Pantai Kuta, Uluwatu or Tanah Lot, souvenir.

Romance

Date: Late Dec 2008

Location: Damnoen Saduak Floating Market, Bangkok

My third time visiting Bangkok’s famous floating market. Was walking alone having lost both of my travel buddies in this busy place. The hoards of wooden boats were causing a really bad traffic jam on the canal.

I was just going to capture a few more boat photos at the sidewalk while a pair of Caucasian couple strolled in front of me and slowed down. Holding hands, he turned around, whispered to her, and touched his nose to her face, like forever. Right here at the busy floating market.

Love is in the air.

Leading To Angkor Wat

Date: 24th Feb, 2005, 7:45am

Location: Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia

Finally! After 3 weeks’ tiring travel linking us from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok, to Chiang Mai, to Huai Xuey, Luang Prabang, Vientiane, Pakse, Veun Kham, Phnom Penh, we reached the climax of the trip – at Angkor Wat.

This is my favorite photo of the Angkor trip. Not one of those must-have-sunrise-over-Angkor Wat photos – I have those too, but to me, the photo above has something special that I can’t describe. At least it is not one of those.

We made it, finally. Save the best for last.

Dusk at Dal Lake, Srinagar, Kashmir.

Date: Oct 2005

Location: From the boat house, the view of Dal Lake at Srinagar.

The sun has just set. Late autumn evening is getting colder by the minute. Dal Lake is as calm as it can be, but can’t say the same to Srinagar, the Summer Capital of Kashmir – the disputed state that has multiple blasts that killed and injured many, before and after my visit. Srinagar is so beautiful at this time, it must be amazing during the Spring time when the flowers blossom. I wish I would have chance to revisit the place again, in Spring. I hope.

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Ferrero Garden

I was going to get some chocolates as souvenir in the Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport’s duty-free shop while waiting for the flight back home to Kuala Lumpur, and noticed that that there is a different kind of Ferrero chocolates. I’ve seen only one type of Ferrero chocolate in Malaysia – pardon my ignorance – which is the Ferrero Rocher.

The prestige Strawberry flavor

There, sitting on the shelf, is this Ferrero Garden chocolates in a clear plastic box. Total 18 pieces of chocolates inside, all individually wrapped just like the Rocher. There are 5 different flavors, namely Almond, Pistachio, Strawberry, Hazelnut and Coconut, differentiated by the wrapper color as well as the logo on the wrapper itself. Interestingly the Strawberry flavor has only 2 pieces in all the boxes that I see in the duty-free shop, while other flavors all having 4 pieces each.

I bought a box of the Ferrero Garden, costs me 320 Baht, and it ended up as a souvenir. I did try a piece of the Coconut flavor – it is sweet, white-milky and there is an almond inside. Unlike the Rocher, the Garden’s coating did not have the little chopped nuts, which to me is a plus.

Go check out the duty-free shops when you are in one of the airports around the world, and try it yourself!

Beach Volleyball is the daily routine on Lipe's Pattaya Beach at dawn

I first heard about Koh Lipe, or Lipe Island, in southern Thailand in Andaman Sea, was during Dive Expo in PWTC, Kuala Lumpur. Got some brochures about Lipe from one of the booths, read it up but didn’t really have any plan to go visit. And then I heard about it from a diver friend who herself hasn’t been there. And then I read an article introducing Koh Lipe in one of the dive magazines. Checked out some Lipe websites and I am sold, and managed to get Bill and JS onboard with me.

We went there 20 Dec 2007 (yea I know, it was over a year ago, but so what?) – it was super peak season during year end so if you happen to plan going Oct/Nov/Dec you better book the resort first. We’ve seen backpackers walking to and fro at the main Lipe beach (called Pattaya Beach) trying to get a place to stay but to no avail.

Getting There

The most convenient way for Malaysians (or from Malaysia) to get to Lipe is thru Langkawi Island. We used boat transfer from Langkawi direct to Lipe which costs RM228/person for a roundtrip, using Telaga Harbour’s service. There are other boats departing from other harbours at Kuah so you need to ask around (heard that those would be cheaper). Telaga Harbour’s catamaran takes about 10-12 persons and the trip takes just over 1 hour. Telaga Harbour is just beside the Petronas at the northern side of Langkawi island, and not that far from the Langkawi airport. There is a simple custom facility up at the 1st floor of the Telaga Harbour building for cleerance purpose, and on Thailand side, a little hut situated at the Lipe main beach served as the custom checkpoint. Do call and confirm the boat schedule in Telaga Harbour.

There are other ways of getting into Koh Lipe if you are from Thailand side. Check out the Useful Links at the bottom of this page.

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