Bangkok Madness

Our last day of our trip was spent in Bangkok! We stayed at the Intercontinental this time, which had great proximity to the shopping within walking distance! Although we had planned to do some sight seeing and some relaxation, we realized that the stores we had been scoping 3 weeks before now had awesome sales! The day of sight seeing quickly turned into a day of shopping instead although I snuck in a massage early in the day. We found the most luck at Siam Paragon Mall and Central World. I think you could spend an entire day at each of those malls! My favorite store this time was called Jaspal - I think 90% of the stuff I bought was from Jaspal and Mango in Malaysia!

We got our fix of Thai KFC - they have awesome spicy wings that we were craving from the last time we were in Thailand - still finger licking food! We were really looking forward to eating at a restaurant called Gaggon - progressive Indian food, they call it, after we read the reviews online but it was an extremely slow dining experience - took almost 3 hours, and we had to rush through dessert because we had to catch our international flight home! Although the food was very good, we were extremely annoyed with the service so I'm on the fence on whether I'd recommend it or not. Overall, our trip to Asia was amazing! Adam and I are both extremely sad that our vacation has come to an end. We seriously debated changing our flight to stay one day longer but we really needed to get back and tackle real life. Check back again for the addition of more "real photos" - not ones I've stolen from the internet!

Rainforest and Beaches in Coexistence

Langkawi is one of the popular Malaysian islands which is a short flight from KL. It probably wasn't the best order to follow the Maldives with Langkawi because although Langkawi is a great beach destination, it couldn't stand up to the Maldives. The day we got there we stayed in the north part of the island at the Andaman Resort at Datai bay, which was a really beautiful property with a great beach and pool but a bit isolating from the town which means you had to eat all of your means at the resort or take a taxi 20 min away from the resrt. It was a great resort for families though and more like a typical Mexican resort, although not all inclusive. The resort was basically in a rainforest! We always had to keep our windows and balcony door closed as there have been instances of Monkeys coming into your hotel room in the search of food! We moved to Pantai Cenang for the 2nd and 3rd nights to a place called Langkawi Chantique which was more of a basic hotel but closer to restaurants and a different beach. It was extremely hot in Langkawi and poor Adam had to stay more clothed than normal because he unfortunately burned through his clothes on the last day in the Maldives. Poor guy! Cenang beach has tonnes of watersports and is fairly busy. We took a cable car ride up to what felt like the highest I've ever gone on a cable car in my life! It was actually a bit scary but there were amazing views from the top. They have a Sky bridge that you can walk across the rainforest canopy but it was closed when we went for maintenance. I probably would have chickened out anyway! We also checked out the neighboring shops at the Oriental Village and went on a 5D ride (3D plus a moving seat that sprayed you with water as you went through "wet" parts!)

We also took a Mangrove tour where we saw random types of fish, eagles, and my fav - the swimming monkeys! The sunset cruises and island hopping tours are also highly recommended here but we didn't have enough days to do everything. Most people opt to rent a car or a shooter to explore the island. We rented a car for the 2nd day to explore as it was far too hot for a scooter although that would have been a fun way to explore! Food report: We went to a restaurant called Privilege that had a modern take on Malaysian food! Really yummy with the best creme brulee I've ever had! It was located at Perdana Quay, which is where some of the boats depart from. I'd likely recommend it! We also went to a seafood Restaurant in Cenang called Orkid Rea Restaurant - the tiger prawns looked as big as lobsters! Of course, we got in a few more meals with Roti canai although at restaurants that weren't overly memorable. When we leave Asia, I'm going to be in virgin Passionfruit mojito withdrawal! The fresh fruits and yummy food will definitely be missed!

Maldivian Beauty

Our trip to Maldives felt too short! Although we had 4 full days and 3 nights, we probably could have stayed there a few days longer :( If we could do it all over again, I probably would have booked a water villa for 2-3 nights and then a beach villa for 2-3 nights to be stay longer and keep costs under control. Adam and I really need a diet when we get back! The food was really good with a lot of variety - far better than any other all inclusive type of place we've ever stayed at including our safari last year. Snorkeling right off the beach or off our water villa was very cool! Since the water was so clear, you could even see some fish on our boardwalk to our villa or from our balcony. The best part was that the area around the island is fairly shallow so you can just stand when you need a break from swimming but still a lot of fishes amongst the reef. There would be highly unlikely encounters with sharks and other scarier sea creatures at that depth which I'm okay with! Diving is supposed to be good here too but I'm a bit freaked out after my first intro dive in Australia and I'm not certified. I was on a wind surfing mission but both days I booked a lesson, there wasn't enough wind so it got cancelled. I guess I'll have to try that on another trip. We had some time to kill after our sea plane and our flight back to KL so we went to Male. Again, in the daylight, nothing remarkable - very populated and apparently very expensive to live with lots of narrow roads and alleyways that are poorly constructed - so different from the resorts! Although Male is the capital of the Maldives, there are also some other inhabited islands that aren't resorts. Apparently, there are a total of 1200 islands organized into 19 atolls or rings of islands. Our resort was only 55 km from the airport but some are over 300 km away. With so many islands, you would think another nearby country would take claim to some of then since they are so beautiful and so many of them! We obviously didn't stay here but check out this photo of one of the hotels! Wow!

Less than a week left of our trip. We just arrived in Langkawi! Will post again in a few days!

Arrival to paradise

White soft sand, blue skies and the clearest and bluest water I've ever seen - that's how I'd describe the Maldives. As soon as we got off the sea plane to our island resort, you could see how this place has the hype that it does to rival places like Bora Bora, Seychelles, etc. For those of you who have been to Australia, it's like Whitehaven beach with a resort on it and shade (for Adam!) The Maldives are a collection of islands south of India where the closet country is Sri Lanka. I think in most cases, there is one resort per island, since many if them are small. We arrived to Male, the capital of Maldives, direct from KL. There are also direct flights from Bangkok but majority of flights in the area stopover in Colombo, Sri Lanka. I believe it's probably easiest to come here via London or Dubai on Emirates.  Maldives was somewhere we have always wanted to go an we had originally planned to come here for our honeymoon but decided to go to Australia instead because I could get a bunch of time off. We are staying at Veligandu Island Resort and Spa, which in the north Ari Atolle, as they call it here.

It was very hard to make a decision on what island/resort to choose but I'm quite happy with our choice! There are a lot to choose from and almost every international chain has a resort here. If our resort is so beautiful, I wonder what the Four Seasons or Shangri-la resorts look like with room only rates. We chose our resort because it had a meal plan option as well. We are on a full board plan, which is similar to a cruise where your drinks and excursions are on top, which works for us since we don't drink. The food so far has been fantastic-its buffet style although there are many grill stations and a person that cuts fresh fruit for you including the ones you don't usually see in a buffet because they can't cut enough of it such as kiwis, etc. Adam has tried many more types of fish and just realized how much he likes a grilled Yellowfin tuna steak! The chefs and majority of the workers are actually from India - so food has tones of flavor  with some Indian food thrown in as well! The Maldivian people also appear to have Indian origin from what I can tell so far. Of course the Indian people always ask us, "are you from India?" and we give them our usual long winded response of being Canadian with our parents from Africa but our great grandparents being Indian. We opted  for a Jacuzzi water Villa as there  aren't many places in the world that they build these! I can snorkel directly off of our suite - sun is too strong here for Adam to join unfortunately. We are on the Sunrise side of the resort - option for sunrise or sunset - both are great options. The sunrise side has more of a chance of seeing dolphins though! One side of our villa has 2 beach chairs and the Jacuzzi/hot tub with a view of the ocean and the second balcony has 2 more loungers and the stairs to walk into the sea!

Maldives is a Muslim country which is likely why there were good flights from Malaysia, UAE, etc. Our arrival forms were quite interesting - on the actual card, they say they prohibit bringing in Alcohol, pork or pork products, Pornography, firearms and a bunch of those things I can't recall anymore. Most countries landing card says they restrict you from bringing in drugs, fruits and vegetables from another county! We stayed in Male for the night or rather 5 hours before we came to the island via sea plane, which was an interesting experience in itself. We stayed at an extremely lack luster hotel which was fine considering we basically took a nap there since we arrived at our hotel at 11 pm ish after taking an "airport ferry" to Male and left to go back to the airport at 5 am. I had requested the earliest transfer which I initially regretted based on how much sleep we got but that quickly faded when we arrived in the Island! From the sea plane, you could see some of the other islands in a way you couldn't have been able to in an airplane because they fly at a higher altitude above the clouds. Some islands are close enough to Male that they can be accessed by speed boat but most are too far away. We've only been here a day and a half and I already know that I won't want to leave especially since that means its closer to when we have to return home to real life :( I really feel like my soul was meant to live in a warm place!

Shopping and Food Haven

Oh how we had missed KL! It is just the way we remembered it - amazing food and shopping! Adam and I will need to go on a serious diet when we come back but we will indulge while we are here! As soon as we arrived to our hotel, we went on our search for Roti canai, which is a buttery pull apart nan type bread that you dip in curry. We intend to eat it everyday since that is one thing we haven't found I'm calgary! 2nd food stop - find some chicken an beef satays, which was accomplished later on  in the day at the Buntik bintang on a street called Jalon Alor. The great thing about eating out here is you don't have to worry about anything containing Pork because it's a Muslim Country!

We met up with my sisters friends, Zahra and Meenaz, who moved from Ottawa to KL almost a year ago. They were wonderful hosts! We went to khane (mosque) together - which is very secretive there. It was interesting to go in a different country since its always slightly different. We then went to a restaurant called WIP, which was a very trendy restaurant with yummy Indian food. I think the entire restaurant was expats though! Had the best mango lychee virgin mojito ever! We went to Skybar after which is at the top of the Traders hotel - had an amazing view of the Petronas Twin Towers! It was convenient that we were staying close to their place as they were kind enough to let us do our laundry at their place!

In a huge busy city, we bumped into my sister's mother-on-law, Nasim, at KL Sentral station, which was extremely random. The National mosque, Islamic arts museum and the Batu caves are probably the tourist highlights of the city for us but since we had limited time and had seen them the last time, we didn't go again. Masjid Jamek is another nice mosque but was under construction this time. We also payed a quick visit to the Central Market, Merdeka Square and of course the inside of many shopping malls including Suria KLCC, Pavillion, Sogo department store, Mid Valley Megamall, Bangsar Village and a couple others not worth mentioning although Suria KLCC and Pavillion are all that you really need, unless you're looking for something special. 3-4days was far too short for all KL has to offer even though we spent 5 days here the last time. I feel like I could come back here annually and still be entertained. Although I hear Malaysia isn't the best place o travel as a group of girls, Adam and I always enjoy it. We had talked about moving here to work after I graduate from Dental school but obviously that didn't happen. Maybe later in life!

Cruising along Halong Bay

We arrived in Hanoi and quickly realized that 15 degrees here feels a lot different than a dry 15 degrees at home! North Vietnam is basically having their Winter at this time and it felt almost as cold as Tokyo! We didn't see much of Hanoi because Adam and I don't do too well in the cold lol. We explored the Old quarter, and I got my hair dyed since my grey hairs were driving me crazy while Adam got his hair cut also. We had most of our meals at our hotel this time but ate at Essence Cafe in the Essence Hotel, which had really high quality Vietnamese food. Our hotel was located on West Lake, which I imagine is really beautiful in the summer! Our purpose for coming up North was mainly to see Halong Bay, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Halong Bay is definitely one of the highlights of Vietnam. Halong Bay consists of a "dense cluster of over 3,000 limestone monolithic islands each topped with thick jungle vegetation, rising spectacularly from the ocean. Several of the islands are hollow, with enormous caves. (Wikipedia!) Some of the islands have lakes within the limestone islands, and there are some floating fishing villages around some of the Islands as well.

Most people opt to take overnight boat trips to explore the area, sun bath on the roofs of their boats and kayak through areas where the bigger boats cannot explore or hire fisherman to take you through the inlets. We opted for a day trip from Hanoi because of the season. If it had been any other time, an overnight trip would have been nicer and we would have had a chance to see more of the caves. It was worth the trip nonetheless especially since we probably won't be back to Asia for decades!

The city of Motorbikes

Although Ho Chi Minh City (HCM) is less populated thanTokyo (~ 7 million people), you FEEL the population here more! This is a city of very few cars and a crap load of people on motorbikes! Apparently, Toyota Camrys are $100K, which seems odd since they come from so close. Although there are some traffic lights, they are not always obeyed especially by the motorbikes. I really wanted to rent one in Nha Trang where it was less crazy, but Adam vetoed that :(. I think New years eve was the most insane sight! There were so many people in the core that you felt like you had motorbike exhaust coated on your legs and it took forever to walk  1-2 city blocks because of all the motorbikes. A family of 4 and sometimes 5 can be seen riding on one bike - with or without helmets. Apparently helmet use became the law a couple of years ago but you'll often see kids without. We aren't even parents and it makes us cringe when we saw that happen.  There is no McDonalds, Starbucks or other major American chains here, which made more sense as we learned more about the history of the country and this city. Although we learned about the Vietnam war as teenagers, I remembered very few details and just realized that Vietnam is communist! The mass amounts of Russian and Chinese tourists makes more sense now. Ho Chi Minh is actually a person and the former leader of the Communist party from formally North Vietnam, who defeated South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh City was formally called Saigon and most non-communists will still call it Saigon. We finally met up with Anh and Jimmy who were traveling with both their families. It was interesting to hear their immigration stories and the experiences of their family members that still live in Vietnam.  Apparently under the communist regime, only one family member can get a visa to travel to a developed country, so there isn't any chance that will leave the country. People under 30 also aren't allowed to leave. Although our parents struggled when they left East Africa, our religious leader, the Aga Khan, had made arrangements with Pierre Trudeau to get them into Canada easily. Anh and Jimmy's parents left as refugees during the Vietnam War and Anh's parents haven't seen some of their siblings for 31 years! We visited the Reunification Palace, War Remnants Museum, and did a 1/2 day tour of the Cu Chi tunnels, a short drive from HCM. The Cu Chi tunnels are a network of tunnels that were built for the people to live underground during the long Vietnam War. We went through one of the tunnels but I pretty much had a panic attack since I was so claustrophobic. I can't believe people used to live there! All of the historical "facts" are very anti-American and pro communist, as would be expected but there is a lot of probably unnecessary propaganda too.  We also went to a water puppet show, which was very interesting to see. Although the whole thing was in Vietnamese, it was interesting show and very different from anything we had seen before.  Shopping at the markets was very handy with Anh's Vietnamese speaking, bargaining loving sisters! They really know how to get stuff done although there isn't a lot of things we were interested in buying. The more we travel, the less we buy because you realize that you won't use half of the stuff when you get back home. If anyone has any requests, please let us know! We stayed at the Intercontinental hotel this time, which was very nice. Anh and Jimmy stayed at one of the A&EM hotels (many locations), which seemed like great value for money - nice, reasonable, free wifi and breakfast in a good location.  A post is not complete without my food report! When we met up with Anh and Jimmy, we just followed along but went to some good places to eat and were introduced to more dishes than we would have without them. My favorite meal was at Com nieu Sai Gon, a Vietnamese Gastronomy Experience - the battered tiger prawns were absolutely divine! I'd skip Pho 24 - it's a chain but very bland, in my opinion. Black Cat had the best burgers Adam and I have ever had with beef imported for Australia. Apparently it's on CNNs top 10 places to go to eat before you die - I wish we went more than once! Apparently the top of the Rex hotel and Sheraton hotel are nice but they were all ticketed events on NYE and no one felt like going clubbing.  I realized that I didn't include a food report for Nha trang! We went to Ganesh (Indian and pretty good), Nha yen (Vietnamese & average) and The Grill House (mixed cuisine, juicy King Prawns!). 

Frog Legs Anyone?!

Had a great time in Nha Trang, Vietnam! It's been 30 degrees or higher every day since we left Tokyo! Loving it!  We were supposed to meet up with our friends, Anh and Jimmy, from Calgary but our flights from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh to Nha trang were delayed. Our first flight was delayed and we almost missed our connecting flight - thank god it was delayed. The bottleneck was the visa on arrival process - unless you want to wait for an extremely inefficient process, I'd probably recommend getting a traditional visa. When we finally got to our Nha trang hotel,  they had given our room away because of our late arrival so we had to find at alternate place to stay at 12 am! It ended up being fine and found a decent place quickly and ended staying there all 3 nights, Golden summer hotel, which was just a basic hotel without any frills but had awesome pho for breakfast! The highlight of our a few days here was definitely the cooking class we took (Lanterns cooking school)! We were taken to the local market on a "cyclo" which is basically a bicycle carriage and took part in the bartering process. Wow - what an experience that was! If you get grossed out easily, do not read further lol. If you are an extreme germaphobe, I'd advise you never to enter such a market in SE Asia - what you dont know We had been to smelly markets before but this was over the top. Adam had an unknown meat juice sprayed on his arm as we walked by a stall as a women was butchering meat to give to a customer. I saw a dead rat on the ground in a corner. The women selling fruit are squatting with their bare feet next to the fruit that they've displayed - I saw one lounging amongst her vegetables and watch her bare feet graze past some of them - that thought entered by mind as I looked at the salad I was eating later that evening. I don't think a single vendor could have passed a food safety inspection by Canadian standards here! If you eat frog legs, you may never want to eat them again if you saw what they did to those poor creatures! I cant seem to post videos here but check my facebook page for the video later this week. They basically take a live fog, beat him on the concrete, then slice him open (yes, he's still alive), take out his innards, then chop off the legs. It wouldn't surprise me if they ate more than the legs here! All the seafood is alive prior to purchase - including the king prawns, eels, etc. There are a lot of moving creatures at this market! Thank the lord we didn't see any cats and dogs at the market or we were strategically taken away from that area by our "chef." Fresh meat definitely is the moto here! When we came back to the restaurant, we made fresh shrimp salad rolls, clay pot chicken/fish, and banana/mango flambé! So yummy that Adam and I had to take a nap from a food coma!  Although Nha trang became a tourist destination because of the beach, it's nice but it doesn't have white sand. Nonetheless, its an interesting place! There are tones of Russian tourists here which you usually don't find. There was some white sand at an island that has cable car acess from the mainland. The island is called Vinpearl and basically it's been transformed into a hotel plus entertainment complex including a waterpark, rides, underwater world, etc. Surprisingly it is really well built and had high quality watersides similar to a water park we recently went to in Ottawa. Although it was raining, it was a really nice to be entertained within a tropical surrounding. I think it was Adams nightmare though lol so we didn't stay for long as we may have on a nice day.  We are now in Ho Chi Minh city. Will post again soon!