South Africa & Mauritius: Spring - October 2014

 

This trip can be said as one of the best holidays that I ever had. It was not that the countries were the most beautiful places that I have ever visited, it was just that the tour members were so much fun and sporting, the weather was great and the food awesome.

 

We flew via Air Mauritius (my first time) and I was quite happy with the service. Their planes were new and comfortable. The inflight meals from Kuala Lumpur to Mauritius and from Mauritius to Johannesburg were quite delicious. Unfortunately the return journey meals (Cape Town - Mauritius - Kuala Lumpur) were not so impressive.

 

I love that we have a stopover at Mauritius en route to South Africa and back (courtesy of Air Mauritius). It made the holidays more enjoyable and the journey less tedious. Not to mentioned that Mauritius offers one of the best Indian meals that I have ever tasted. The curry and masala were so hot that I can feel smoke coming out of my ears. It didn't stop me from eating though ;p 

 

 

Personally I wouldn't make a trip to Mauritius by itself (all the more reason I appreciate the opportunity offered by Air Mauritius). Yes their beaches were beautiful, their clear clean water was a delight and their food great but I can have that nearer to home (and a lot cheaper too!) at Redang Island and Bali. In fact when I was there it felt like I was in Bali, even the souvenirs seemed alike! 

 

 

One of the main reasons why I want to visit South Africa is because I want to experience the wilderness of safari and the exciting game drive. Unfortunately this tour brought us to a private park with very limited numbers of animals. To say that I was disappointed is an understatement. Maybe this is an excuse for me to go and visit Kenya or Tanzania next ;) The accommodation at the game lodge was very nice and cosy though.

 

Our visit of merely one night to Johannesburg was too short. Not enough time was allotted for us to enjoy the attractions offered by the Gold Reef City. No city tour and not even a visit to the World Cup 2010 Soccer City stadium! If only the tour extend the stay at Johannesburg for another night and includes a day tour to the capital city of South Africa, Pretoria then the tour will be more value for money and satisfying.

We stayed at Cape Town for three nights. It is a nice clean city with modern buildings. Nothing particularly exciting except for the unique Table Mountain. We were lucky when we visited the mountain the weather was quite good. The clouds were underneath instead of surrounding the top of the mountain, so we get to see a nice view of Cape Town.

 

The Malay Quarters were colourful. Again, nothing particularly exciting there. We ate a few meals at a Malay restaurant there. There was a South African version of roti canai (quite nice) but overall the food was uninspiring.

 

What I like at Cape Town was the visits to Seals Island and Boulders Beach to view the seals and penguins respectively. It was worth the visits cause there were so many seals and penguins around! At a town close to Cape Town, you can even see whales if you sit at their beach. No need to chase them like in Australia!

 

Seafood meals at Cape Town were also very nice. Love the simple lobster lunch that we had at Fish Hoek Galley. I was also impressed with the buffet breakfast at our Cape Town hotel. They offer waffle on demand, fresh juice counter and the muffins were awesome! A great incentive to wake up early ;)

 

 

This tour (16-25 October 2014) was organised by Poto Travel and Tours at RM8488 per person on a twin sharing basis (full board). There were ten of us in the group who started as strangers and ended up as friends. Even though I didn't find the tour as terribly exciting, I wouldn't miss it for the great happy memories we had as a group :)

 

Our itinerary was as follows:

16 October 2014     Kuala Lumpur - Mauritius

17 October 2014     Mauritius - Johannesburg

18 October 2014     Johannesburg - George - Oudtshoorn

19 October 2014     Oudtshoorn - Garden Route Game Lodge

20 October 2014     Garden Route Game Lodge - Cape Town

21 October 2014     Cape Town

22 October 2014     Cape Town

23 October 2014     Cape Town - Mauritius

24 October 2014     Mauritius - Kuala Lumpur

25 October 2014     Kuala Lumpur

 

You can view the pictures of my holiday here. I've uploaded 633 photos for your viewing pleasure. You can access them at my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/mkhasha.n.travels/. Go to the photo albums.

 

Njoy!!

New Zealand: Autumn - March 2014

 

I've been planning to go to New Zealand since 2003 but somehow other countries got in a way ;) Finally in late 2013, I managed to get cheap plane tickets to Auckland on my favourite airline. You can read the story here: Malaysia Airlines. The original plan was for the four of us to go on a three weeks self-drive adventure. Unfortunately two months before our scheduled departure date, a tragedy struck which resulted in two of our group members cancelling their trip.

 

If you know me personally then you will know that I rarely drive long distance (my car mileage is only 8.4k km after 4 years!). With the two members unable to go I lost my alternate driver so I ended up driving from North Island to the southern most South Island covering over 3000 km within 17 days! Truly an adventure for me most especially driving from Lake Taupo to Napier. The route was like a roller coaster and snake combined! The journey to the Crown Range (the highest paved road in New Zealand) was quite a suspense too. I was worried that our small rental car, Toyota Yaris cannot climb the high altitude. I actually smelt smoke just before we reached the place!

 

 

Our trip was from 26 March to 18 April 2014. Total damage for both of us was RM18.7k. Plane tickets (includes domestic flight from Christchurch to Auckland) RM5.7k. Accommodation (22 nights) RM6.9k. Transport in New Zealand (car rental, ferry, petrol and airport bus) RM5k. Food and other miscellaneous items RM1.1k. Since we were interested in nature, we didn't spend a lot of money on adventure stuff that New Zealand is famous for. If you wish to join that, I suggest you add a few thousand ringgits more to your budget. It is quite pricey most especially when your own currency is only worth one third of theirs :(

 

 

Our itinerary was as follows. On hindsight if I want to tweak the itinerary, maybe I will stay two nights at Dunedin and only one night at Kaikoura.

 

26 March        Kuala Lumpur to Auckland

27 March        Auckland

28 March        Auckland - Rotorua

29 March        Rotorua

30 March        Rotorua - Lake Taupo - Napier

31 March        Napier - Wellington

1 April            Wellington

2 April            Wellington - Picton - Kaikoura

3 April            Kaikoura

4 April            Kaikoura - Geraldine

5 April            Geraldine - Lake Tekapo - Mount Cook - Twizel

6 April            Twizel - Wanaka

7 April            Wanaka - Arrowtown - Queenstown

8 April            Queenstown

9 April            Queenstown - Te Anau

10 April          Te Anau - Milford Sound - Te Anau

11 April          Te Anau - Bluff - Invercargill

12 April          Invercargill - Dunedin

13 April          Dunedin - Christchurch

14 April          Christchurch

15 April          Christchurch - Auckland

16 April          Auckland

17 April          Auckland

18 April          Auckland - Kuala Lumpur

 

The weather during our trip was quite marvellous. A combination of light rain and sunny days. The temperature was great too. Not too hot and neither too cold. My only disappointment was the leaves were not colourful enough even though we aimed our trip nearer to the middle of autumn.

 

My favourites during the trip were Mount Cook, Wellington and Queenstown. I was quite disappointed with Milford Sound and Te Anau Glow Worm Caves after reading such rave reviews from other travellers. Dunedin was a surprise though. Didn't expect that the city to be quite huge!

 

 

I normally drive quite slow and most of the highways in New Zealand are only two lanes so my favourite signboard during the trip was "Passing Lane Ahead". Thankfully all the drivers (even tourists) were very patient and followed the speed limit. During the trip we saw only one accident and it was at Auckland's six lanes highway. I guess slow driving does prevent accidents :)

 

All in all it was a good adventure. New Zealand is a tourists heaven most especially to English speaking visitors. Their tourism industry is so well managed. Our online bookings of car rental and accommodation were perfect. The roads are very well maintained. During our trip we frequently encountered road maintenance crews hard at work :) So if you plan to do a self drive holiday, don't hesitate. If I, an unadventurous lady can do it, I think almost everybody else can too!

 

 

It took me close to 6 months to process all the scenery photos. Serve me right for being camera trigger happy. You can end up with a lot of pictures if you are not careful. Took roughly around 2.7k photos (4 cameras) and after painstakingly going through one by one (4 separate files), I managed to reduce them to 1,404. I hope I've learnt my lesson and not make the same mistake during my next trip!

 

You may access the photos at my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/mkhasha.n.travels/. Go to the photo albums.

Njoy!!

Japan: Winter - December 2013

 

Truth to tell I don't really like going for holidays during winter. I think it is so depressing when 5 p.m. feels like 8 p.m. However, since I like playing with snow I don't really have any choice do I? Unless of course you go to the fake snow house which I'm pretty sure I will like less than winter ;)

 

We went to Japan via China Airlines. This is the first time that I flew via this airline. The flights from Kuala Lumpur to Sapporo were quite pleasant. The meals on board were quite tasty. The flight attendants were polite and pretty. The inflight entertainment was satisfactory even though the selection of movies are quite limited. We had a short transit of two hours at Taipei International Airport. 

 

The flights from Sapporo to Kuala Lumpur were less enjoyable however with bland food served and the flight attendants were nowhere in sight. I know you can call them by pushing the button at your chair but I ended up walking to the back of the plane a few times to ask for some warm water. I don't know whether it is just me but I found that the flights home were extra dry and sucked the moisture out of me somehow :(

 

When we reached Sapporo International Airport we were quite alarmed when we saw that there was not even a speck of snow on the ground. I'm sure the Sapporo residents were quite happy with the sun shinning but for us who specifically flew to Japan to experience snow it was a bit disappointing. Luckily our disappointment was very short lived. The same night it was snowing and when we woke up the next morning the world was a winter wonderland :)

 

You can read my experience with show in my other posting here:

Snow Here Snow There Snow Everywhere!

 

 

For this trip (12-18 December 2013) we joined a Muslim tour organised by Ramza Travel & Tours Agency Sdn Bhd. The tour price was RM6700 per person (twin sharing). The Japanese local agent Zero Planning was very good. They made sure that we have an area to perform our prayers and even provide prayer mats and attire for the women. This is the first time that I went to a non-Muslim countries that have qiblah direction at the hotel rooms. Zero Planning also bought new cutleries for us. They even have a small prayer room and ablution area at their new office in Sapporo. Amazing and well done!

 

During our six nights there we stayed at three onsen hotels and two normal hotels. Frankly I would rather stay at normal hotels throughout since almost all tour members did not actually go to the onsen anyway. Note: Onsen is a hot spring or a resort that has developed around a hot spring. One of the local's favourite activities most especially during winter is dipping themselves in the therapeutic hot spring. The activity requires the participants to be totally naked.

 

I think it is quite safe to generalise that almost all Muslim women will not go to a public onsen wearing just their birthday suit. They may however go to a private one. So maybe this fact is something that Zero Planning might consider when they arrange bookings for hotels in the future for Muslim tours. If they insist on onsen hotels, make sure there is a private onsen available and let the tour participants know in advance how much is the cost for a private session. Alternatively just stay at a normal hotel close to shopping areas ;) 

 

I never really like Japanese food so I found that the food throughout the trip were quite bland. It was quite weird to eat rice for breakfast initially but at the end of the trip I quite like it. Love their breakfast dish of fried huge anchovy and fish :)

Since they are a green tea drinking society and I am the sweet tea kind of person I couldn't even enjoy their hot drinks. Their coffee was also extremely bitter that I have to put a lot of milk and sugar just to neutralise its bitterness.

Despite everything I do enjoy the trip because I get to experience many kind of snow and snowing styles. Shopping there was also quite a pleasure most especially for the shopaholics. Too bad I've already repented. My motto now is "Live Life Simply". So no more lugging stuff from overseas for me ;p

Will I come back to visit Japan in near future? Highly unlikely as this was my second trip to Japan already. The first time was to visit Tokyo during sakura season. A beautiful season in Japan.

I've uploaded 407 photos of the trip for your viewing pleasure. You can access them at my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/mkhasha.n.travels/. Go to the photo albums.

Njoy!!