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!

Bangkok Round 2

The last time we visited Thailand was in 2005, our first international trip together when we came to teach English in NE Thailand and then travelled for a month after as well. There was a huge culture shock the first time he came but now that we knew what to expect, the novelty has worn off a bit. The transvestites, the women lining the streets waiting to be "chosen,"  the smells (good and bad), the multitudes if street hawkers, fearing for your life as you walk across the street, etc. Bangkok has changed a lot since we were here last and there are a lot more American . There are a ridiculous amount of tourists here compared to Tokyo and you can reasonably expect that a Thai person working at any establishment knows English which really surprised us. We would ask questions in broken English but get responses in grammatically correct sentences, which was strange.  We loved the hotel we stayed at -  Crowne Plaza Lumpini Park Hotel, which also had a great location close to a sky train station. We didn't realize it at first, but our hotel was close to the Pitpong, which is the red light district of Bangkok. We got asked a million times if we wanted to see "a sexy show" or a "ping pong" show, as we heard it.  This time around we are just enjoying the city - eating and shopping with out scrambling to the tourists sites since we did them all the last time around. Again it was a short visit but we will be back later in our trip. Loving the fruit especially mangosteens and passionfruit, especially since you can't get good quality ones in Canada. Of course, I have a food report in every post! Had awesome cheap Thai food at a hole in the wall called P Kitchen (tripadvisor recommendation) and yummy Indian food at Indian Hut - both recommended! Our next stop is Nha Trang, Vietnam, which is a beach town north of Ho Chi Minh City. It's a bit strange to take Turkish airlines on a flight from Bangkok to Ho chi Minh.  We have a flight almost every 3-4 days for 3.5 weeks- Adam's nightmare unfortunately.

Merry Xmas from Tokyo!

We are just on the train ride back to Narita airport in Tokyo - next stop is Bangkok, Thailand! Although we barely scratched the surface in what there is to see in this crazy city, we are looking forward to the heat! Tokyo was so chilly and Adam and I really don't do well in the cold especially since we didn't want to lug jacket around for the rest of our trip. Tokyo is an extremely lively city - its like New York on steroids! There are so many people at any given time, wherever you are, but despite the  population, we were amazed how polite and orderly people are. There are organized lines for everything and its not chaotic at all unlike other populated places where people push and shove to get where they wanna go without care and concern for others.

People are extremely fashionable here - its too bad Tokyo was our first stop because it would have been nice to shop here. There are stores everywhere and within a 3 block radius in just one area, you will be 3 LV stores, 3 Zaras, etc - makes it hard to use landmarks to retrace your steps! In our short time, we explored several  areas of the city. We stayed at Shibuya granbell hotel, which was a decent hotel for our purpose but nothing fancy. The important part is that it's extremely close to Shibuya metro station, which is the only way people get around here. A taxi from the airport, for example, costs over $300 USD, so you cone to learn the subway system quickly, which is so efficient. We also visited the Sen-ji temple, the oldest Buddhist temple in tokyo dating back to year 628 in the Akasura area of the city, roamed around the Shinjuku area, visited Tokyo Sky tree, which recently opened and is one of the world's tallest buildings at 634 meters high! We didn't have great luck with food in our short time here unfortunately and we all know how important food is for me! The problem was the lack of English menus and the abundance of pork in their diet. With sushi we were safe! We had probably the freshest sushi possible at the Tsukiji fish market. However, it was hard to describe that we just wanted rolls and salmon sashimi so I thought I'd go out on a limb and do the set menu at a famous but small sushi restaurant called Daiwa. Although the restaurant seems to have a name, majority of restaurants names have Japanese characters which  really doesn't help unless you ask and get lucky if you find someone who speaks enough English to help you. The fish market is a popular tourist attraction for a "sushi breakfast" and some people come at 5 am to watch the live tuna auctions. We were not that hardcore and arrived at 8 am instead as we were a but jet lagged but not enough to come at 5 am! We tried to find highly rated restaurants on tripadvisor but since there are restaurants and shops every few feet, we could never find the ones were looking for or if we did the line up was crazy long. We would definitely  love to come back and explore Japan better but when it's warmer - perhaps in cherry blossom season! Now that we know it's only a 11 hour direct flight away, it's definitely on our "return to" list - could probably come back with our future kids since its so safe and orderly!