Brunei: Summer - October 2017

I went to Brunei with no expectation but came back pleasantly surprised. If you read my blog, you know that I’ve done a lot of repeat visits over the years. Could’t help myself even though it doesn’t help increase the number of countries that I have visited so far. Since I am obligated to myself to increase the number (I’m not getting any younger!), what better way than to visit a country that is so close to mine? Won’t cost me a bomb and yet will get me closer to my target :)

So I bought Air Asia plane tickets, booked 3 nights stay at Star Lodge Jerudong and off me and mom go to a new country that is basically at our doorstep. After 2 hours of flights we arrived at my number 57th country and my mom’s 46th. Except for the 1 hour flight delay, everything went smoothly. When we arrived, our complimentary airport pick up was already there. Patiently waiting for us :)

The road to the city centre was jammed due to the opening ceremony of a new bridge. So our plan to witness that ceremony was scrapped in favour of visiting Jerudong Park’s musical fountain that night. I was glad that the choice was taken out of our hands because the musical fountain show was simply awesome. I personally think that it was even better than Dubai’s dancing fountain! Besides us, there were only one other family who watched the show. So it felt like that the whole show was staged just for us. I guess this is how the super rich felt when they organised a concert just for themselves :P

NOTE: The musical fountain show is not available everyday. Only 2 shows a week, on Saturday at 8.30 pm and 9.15 pm. Please be mindful of this fact if you wish to see the show :)

Jerudong Park was not in my original itinerary. I'm not really a fan of theme parks. I remember when I was young the park was very famous. A free theme park built by the sultan for his family and subjects. Over the years it was reported that the park went to a decline. We were lucky that the theme park was rejuvenated and the new playground was opened in July 2017. It is no longer free, which I think is a good thing. Many people do not appreciate free stuff anyway. They tend to take it for granted at best or more often than not will abuse it.

I was pretty impressed with the fairness of the ticket prices. Reasons why I don’t like theme parks; hate the crowds, hate the long queue, not adventurous enough to enjoy the more interesting rides. At Jerudong Park, if you do not wish to take any rides, they allow you to enter the park for a mere B$2 :) Tell me which other theme park in the world is that benevolent?

Another thing that surprises me is the price of the food and drinks. We are so used to the overpriced food and drinks at theme parks and airports all around the world. A typical capitalist behaviour taking advantage of the captive customers. In Brunei, there is no such thing. Same pricing as in the city. No prohibition to bring outside food inside the theme park either. We had seafood tomyam served with rice and mee kolok at the park’s food court. The seafood tomyam was delicious. For a mere B$5, we got 5 big prawns and lots of squids :)

For an all inclusive ticket price of B$20, Jerudong Park is a steal. They have A LOT of rides and activities and most importantly NO QUEUE. If you are a senior citizen, you need only pay B$5 to enjoy it all. Jerudong Park can also boasts about having a double decker carousel. Even Disneyland Japan cannot claim to have one! I recommend big family with a lot of kids to come here for a family day type of holiday. Do come in a group of 15-20 people. You can then imagine as though the park is built just for your family pleasure :P

 

On our third day we visited Bandar Seri Begawan, the city. It feels just like another town in Malaysia. We went to take a look at Kampung Ayer from afar. Initially we planned to crossover the Brunei River to go to the water village but decided otherwise after seeing there is no proper ferry with fix time and drop off/pick up point. If you wish to crossover, you just hail the private sampan to take you there. I observed that the private sampans will then try to convince you to take a tour of the water village for a negotiated fare of B$50-B$10 per person. I hate negotiated fare. More often than not I will be conned, so we decided to give it a miss. Next we visit the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque. Beautiful and very well maintained. After the mosque, we went to the Regalia Museum. We spent around 1 hour there. Worth taking a look if you have the time.

Next we had a late lunch at Tamu Selera. Tamu Selera is famous for their ayam penyet (B$3). It is a fried chicken served with rice and raw vegetables, to be eaten with spicy sambal. Besides ayam penyet, we ordered ikan lele and banana fritters. In Johor, we eat banana fritters with spicy sambal kicap or sugar depending on your preference. Here, they eat with condensed milk :) After a satisfying lunch, we headed back to Yayasan Hassanal Bolkiah to wait for the hotel shuttle. Our scheduled pick up time was at 3 pm. We arrived at Yayasan at around 2.30 pm so we look around and found a shop selling good looking Brunei metal fridge magnets for B$4 each. There are nice cheaper ones made of clay selling 3 for B$10.

 

Our flight home the next day was at 4.20 pm. We could squeeze more touristy stuff in morning if we so inclined but decided to just laze around at the hotel till check out time at 12 noon. We purposely go to the airport early so that we can check out the newly upgraded airport. The airport is really cosy. Spanking clean and manned by polite and professional staffs. They even have the most beautiful airport surau in the world!

 

Air Asia Brunei deserves a special mention. The staffs truly follow the rule. I’ve flown with the infamous stingy Ryanair, even Ryanair is not as strict! Other airlines will do a sampling check of cabin bag weight but Air Asia Brunei actually weighs each and every cabin bags (and handbags!) not once but twice! First, when they verify your boarding pass. The second time when you enter the boarding gate. Who would have thought that laid-back Bruneians are such a stickler?

 

Our itinerary was as follows:  
14 October 2017    Kuala Lumpur - Bandar Seri Begawan
15 October 2017    Jerudong Park
16 October 2017    Bandar Seri Begawan
17 October 2017    Bandar Seri Begawan - Kuala Lumpur

Total damage for this trip was RM1.3k for 2 people. I brought B$100 and came back with B$28. We had a relaxing and an enjoyable holiday. Will I do a repeat trip to Brunei? Maybe not but I’m glad I went there at least once :)

I have uploaded 278 pictures and 140 videos of Brunei for your viewing pleasure. 
 
You can access them here:
http://instagram.com/mkhasha.n.travels

Hashtags specific for this trip
#mks2017Brunei

Njoy !!

Hong Kong & Macau: Summer - September 2017

It has been awhile since I flew using Air Asia with my mom. My mom haven't even seen our new airport KLIA2. So when there was some sort of sale by Air Asia (they were always on promotion of some sort :P), I managed to grab a fairly good deal of return tickets to Hong Kong & Macau. We decided to fly to Hong Kong and come back to Malaysia from Macau.

I was having a tough time to decide how many days to spend in Hong Kong vis-a-vis Macau. Initially 4:3. Eventually it became 5:2 since a lot of people say that there is nothing to see in Macau. On hindsight, I should have returned a day later. 5 nights were just right for Hong Kong but 2 nights were simply too short for Macau. 3 nights would be better.

This was my second trip to Hong Kong. My first time was many moons ago back in the late 90s. Happy to say that Hong Kong is as vibrant as ever and with a lot more of highrise buildings! We can see so many ongoing constructions almost everywhere too.

What I love about Hong Kong is how tourist friendly this country is. Even though their people are not really fluent in English but they make English available everywhere i.e. signages, brochures, public transportation announcements. So if you do your research well in the internet and also with the help of Google Maps, you can get to the places that you wish to visit without any interaction with the locals at all. The locals are too busy for you anyway :P

Their Octopus Card was so convenient too. You can buy it at the airport and if you are like us going to Macau, you can return them at the last MRT station prior to boarding the ferry to Macau and get back your deposit and credit balance. Take note however that they will charge you HK$9 if your card is less than 90 days old.

We stayed at Ibis North Point due to its proximity to North Point MRT Station and Airport Bus A11's last stop. The room and the ensuite bathroom were super small. But after awhile, it grew on us. You don't have to walk so far to get to everything :P The room came with breakfast for 2. The breakfast selection was acceptable. More variety during weekends than weekdays. Never knew that the hotels did that :)

We had two halal meals while we were here. The famous Wai Kee Curry's roast duck and dimsum at Islamic Centre Canteen (ICC). I don't mind going to ICC again, unfortunately it was so far from any MRT station. I was simply too lazy to walk just to eat :P The fruits at Bowrington Market were quite cheap too. We bought lots of cherries and plums. Very sweet :)

We had a great time in Hong Kong despite the heat. We felt very safe going out at night. We went there 2 weeks after typhoon Hato and Pakhar hit both Hong Kong and Macau. When we arrived, there was no remnants of destruction in Hong Kong but in Macau the cleaning up and restoration were still in progress. Guia Fortress were closed due to repair. So disappointing. Imagine hiking so far up the hill and found out that it was closed. No notice whatsoever were posted anywhere prior to reaching the gate to the lighthouse.

If Hong Kong is tourist friendly, Macau is a direct opposite. The locals truly cannot speak English at all. They are not very helpful either. Their public buses while extensive and cheap were unfriendly to non locals. Their public bus offers no change. So you better make sure you have coins instead of notes in your hands. Their Macau Pass costs MOP120 (deposit 20, credit 100). Funnily if you return the pass, they will only refund back the deposit. The remaining credit is considered donation to them! So imagine if you plan to stay there for 2 days. You will never be able to finish the credit. At most you will use only MOP20-30. So more than 50% of the credit will be free money to the government. I wonder how much their "No Change" policy generate free income for their country? Good business model huh? Is it any wonder then that the tourists will try to utilise the free shuttle provided by the hotels to get around Macau? Unfortunately, the free shuttle are meant to carry casino goers so they don't really cover tourists sites. You have to walk quite far to reach the tourist sites. So if you were in Macau, I recommend you hire an English speaking taxi to ferry you around for the day.

Another thing to note in Macau is their hotel cum casino cum shopping malls are huge. So even though in the map it showed their location as side by side, you have to walk very far to cross over. For the first time in history, one of my feet was having blisters while walking in a mall! I was wearing my comfy Crocs, not high heels! What an experience :P

On our second day in Macau, it was so hot that we cut short our excursion to only half a day. We went back to the hotel and stayed there until check out time the next day. I thought to go out at night to see the lights but decided to take a rest instead. I figure since Macau is quite close to Malaysia, I can always do a repeat visit if I were so inclined in the future :)

Going to the Macau Airport from the city centre was dirt cheap via MT1 bus. MOP4.20 per person. Naturally we pay MOP9 :P It was a hassle free and comfy ride. There were no delay in both our flight to Hong Kong and our return flight from Macau. Thank God. When I came back I found out that Air Asia flight to Bangkok was delayed for more than 5 hours!

Despite a none too stellar experience in Macau, I found that the whole trip was quite fun. No regrets. Will I visit Hong Kong and Macau again? Maybe not. There are many more interesting countries to do a repeat visit :) Total damage for the whole trip for 2 person was RM3.9k.

The itinerary was as follows:
6 September 2017     Kuala Lumpur - Hong Kong
7 September 2017     Hong Kong
8 September 2017     Hong Kong
9 September 2017     Hong Kong
10 September 2017   Hong Kong
11 September 2017   Hong Kong - Macau
12 September 2017   Macau
13 September 2017   Macau - Kuala Lumpur

I have uploaded 359 photos and 164 videos of Hong Kong and 145 photos and 120 videos of Macau for your viewing pleasure.

You can access them here:
http://instagram.com/mkhasha.n.travels

Hashtags specific for this trip:
#mks2017HongKong #mks2017Macau

Njoy!!

Scandinavia: Spring - April 2017

 

This is my second trip to this region this year and my third altogether. Nope I didn't embark on a new career as a tour guide just in case you are wondering :P I was instead seduced by the itinerary and the fact that my wacky friends are going (the previous two trips I went with my mom). So living by the principles of "Money Not Spent Is Not Yours" and "Don't Live Like A Miser So That You Will Die Rich", I decided to join them. Furthermore the previous trips did not cover Finland.

Since we went during second half of April, I was expecting more flowers and less snow but much to my delight we were blessed with a lot of snowfalls and even an occasional hail. I'm sure the locals think otherwise. They must be sick of snow by now and are patiently waiting for summer. I had such a great time playing with snow. The weather and temperture throughout the visit was also very good. Great time to visit this region if you like snow but hate to travel during winter. You get to enjoy the snow while the temperature is quite mild. If you like flowers however, go during second half of May :)

Going back to Scandinavia weather. Sometimes it was so weird. It will snow for maybe 15 minutes and then the sun will come out. I experienced the same in Ireland, thought it was unique to Ireland. Obviously not. The Irish said that if you don't like the weather, just wait for 15 minutes. I guess the same will be applicable here :)

Of the four countries, I like Norway the best. I think their landscape can challenge Iceland's in terms of beauty. All these Scandinavian countries are so clean. The mark of a developed nation. They are also very protective of the environment. Renewable energy is also a big thing in these countries.

This time round we went with Redha Travel and Tours. It is a young company, incorporated in 2015. It is a small family business that specialises in Muslim tours with rich retiree friends as their main customers. Frankly this is the first tour I joined that is accompanied by three company representatives. Father as the tour leader, mother and son as assistants.

We were joined by a local tour guide, Ece Boran in Copenhagen. An energetic, friendly, patient and fun Turkish lady. She loves to take pictures and videos of us. Her name however is one of the most difficult names to pronounce. The "c" in Ece is suppose to sound in between "j" and "c", so we ended up calling her AJ or Acer. The right pronunciation (I think) is Ajer. Luckily she is a good sport :)

Our bus driver Melis is an Estonian. Superb driver and kept the bus (and most importantly its windows) very clean during the trip. Bravo! He is friendly and funny but since he is not very fluent in English, sometimes we simply cannot understand his joke. Sorry Melis!

The full board 11days 9nights tour price was RM13300 on a twin sharing basis. Value for money since they offered great accommodation, quality food albeit a bit monotonous, awesome private cruises and interesting activities.

The itinerary was as follows:
18 April 2017   Kuala Lumpur - Doha
19 April 2017   Doha - Copenhagen
20 April 2017   Copenhagen - Malmo - Goteborg - Oslo
21 April 2017   Oslo - Geilo
22 April 2017   Geilo - Flam - Sogndal
23 April 2017   Sogndal - Briksdal - Otta
24 April 2017   Otta - Lillehammer - Mora
25 April 2017   Mora - Stockholm
26 April 2017   Stockholm - Helsinki
27 April 2017   Helsinki
28 April 2017   Helsinki - Doha
29 April 2017   Doha - Kuala Lumpur

Overall I am quite satisfied with Redha. Their itinerary was superb. The only problem is they did not deliver all they promised in the itinerary. For example, the visit to Skansen Open Air Museum was cancelled due to a request from some members of the group for a longer shopping time. It was not made clear to the rest of the group that the visit to Skansen Open Museum is cancelled because of that. Visit to Suomenlinna Museum was also cancelled with no reason provided whatsoever.

If you follow my travel pictures you noticed that I rarely get to visit mosques overseas since I mostly joined non Muslims tours which visited a lot of churches (which is fine since Christianity is the main religion in the world and their churches are mostly architecturally grand). So I was quite excited to get to visit two mosques during this trip. How annoying when our trip to Helsinki Mosque was cancelled due to Friday prayers. If during Friday prayers the mosque is out of bounds for visitors, why is the itinerary not adjusted so that we go to the mosque at different time or day? This lackadaisical attitude of "Over Promised Under Delivered" is so frustrating.

Despite all the dramas and broken promises, I still had a great time. The group members were mostly sporting and fun. The weather was superb. We get to take a lot of fun and awesome pictures. It was a wonderful trip. Taglines "Cap Ayam" and "Faktor Usia" will forever bring smiles to the participants. I look forward to our next Baltic tour with Redha hopefully same time next year :)

This is my fourth visit overseas that I did not exchange even a single cent of local currency. Granted that Finland uses Euro. I don't consider Euro as a local currency though :P Just bring Euro leftovers from your previous overseas trips. They accept credit cards almost everywhere, so having cash is not so critical here :)

I have uploaded 977 pictures and 97 videos for your viewing pleasure. You can access them here:
http://instagram.com/mkhasha.n.travels

Hashtags specific for this trip:
#mks2017Scandinavia #mks2017Denmark #mks2017Sweden #mks2017Norway #mks2017Finland

Njoy!!

Iceland: Winter - March 2017

What can I say? This country is the most beautiful of all the countries that I have been so far. Most likely going to stay at the top of the list for quite sometime. The Icelandic people are very smart. Mother Nature has done all the work for them. They just need to take care and capitalise on what was given to them on a silver platter. There is no need for them to build the tallest, the fastest, the biggest whatever to attract people to visit their country. They even have natural laser shows! What a blessed country :)

They should give something to Shah Rukh Khan though. Due to his film Diwale, suddenly Iceland became a must visit place for Malaysians! We are forking out serious money due to our weakened currency just to visit Iceland but I personally think that it was worth every penny :)

Never before when I went through pictures of my travels, I keep on mumbling "cantiknya" (Malay word for beautiful) like a broken record. Iceland's untarnished beauty simply makes me happy. The country gives a very peaceful aura. Even the tap water tastes great!

It was a long journey to Iceland. We have to board 3 planes with a total travel time (including transits) of close to 30 hours. We flew via Qatar Airways for the first 2 flights and Icelandair for the last leg. Qatar Airways inflight meals were great. Their inflight meals should be made standard airline practice if you ask me. No cold sandwiches should be served on board. Icelandair only provides drinks but you can purchase overpriced snacks on board. They however accept payment via credit card only. No cash.

March is a great month to visit for people from countries without four seasons. The weather is not so cold. It was still snowing lightly at some places and clear blue sky in others. Maybe it is just me but when I visit ICEland, I expect to see ICE. So March is a good month for me. There were ice everywhere :) Awesome!!

I am usually not very adventurous when it comes to food. There are a lot of things that I don't eat. Since this trip is very expensive, I've decided to turn a new leaf and tried every single dish being served. I am not saying I will eat them again under normal circumstances but I tried to be less squemish in Iceland. With the aid of chilli flakes, happy to say that I enjoyed every single dish served to me :) I even ate whale meat :P What surprises me is the use of coconuts in their dish. I don't think coconut trees are native.

The trip is very short but just right for me. After my 40 days "holiday", I find that I prefer short trips. By the time you have to go home, you are still feeling excited with the country that you visit instead of feeling tired or worse bored. A great feeling to close a holiday don't you think?

Our itinerary was as follows:
13 March 2017    Kuala Lumpur - Doha
14 March 2017    Doha - Oslo - Keflavik - Reykjavik
15 March 2017    Reykjavik - Langjokull - Reykholt - Reykjavik
16 March 2017    Reykjavik - Golden Circle - Selfoss
17 March 2017    Selfoss - Seljaland - Vik - Skoga
18 March 2017    Skoga - Vatnajokull - Jokulsarlon - Skoga
19 March 2017    Skoga - Reykjavik - Keflavik
20 March 2017    Keflavik - Oslo - Doha
21 March 2017    Doha - Kuala Lumpur

I have to confess that I am having a tough time trying to hashtag the pictures. When I surf the net or check the address, I'm not sure which is the city (or town) or whether it is a region. Normally I hashtag the cities but in this case I even hashtag the glaciers as the cities :P They are big enough!

This trip is organised by Mien Travel & Tours. It costs RM15.5k per person. My most expensive tour so far. Roughly about RM3k per tour day (minus journey time). Mien Travel & Tours only takes care of logistics. So if you go with them don't expect their tour leader service to be on par with established tour companies like Trafalgar, Apple Vacations, Parlo Tours or even Poto Travels. They are just an agency to gather seasoned travellers, takes care of logistics and leave the travellers to fend for themselves during the visit. They rely totally on the local tour guide to manage the group while their agents behave like tourists themselves. Since their customers are generally friends, I suppose that level of service is acceptable :P

Our Icelandic tour leader Johann was acceptable. I don't quite understand what he was saying most of the time though. I think he pronounces the English words with Iceland sound :P He is so patient with us. Calling us "naughty children" who refuses to come back to the bus. He didn't do a lot of explanations though. Aren't we lucky that we are only a fingertips away from the internet? So the shortcoming (of not giving proper explanations) was no longer unforgiveable. We can always rely on Professor Google :)

Our driver Arie was good. Very helpful and cheerful :) I wish he cleans up the bus window though. We cannot get good pictures or videos from the bus because the windows were so dirty :(

This is my third visit overseas that I did not exchange even a single cent of local currency. All my purchases are charged to my credit card. Didn't shop much in Iceland. Just bought some chocolates and fridge magnets. This is one of the reasons why I like to join full board organised tours. All fully paid for. You only need to bring shopping money :)

I have uploaded 652 pictures and 177 videos for your viewing pleasure. I had a great time in Iceland due to the friendly and sporting people in the tour group. Some of them are really wacky :P The food were great too! All in all a successful short holiday :)

You can access them here:
http://instagram.com/mkhasha.n.travels

Hashtag specific for this trip:
#mks2017Iceland
 

Njoy!!

South Korea: Winter - January 2017

I am in South Korea now. My third visit to this K-Pop country. First time I came here was in 2003. Then, we needed a visa to enter the country if I'm not mistaken. So long ago. Digital cameras were not even known back then and now with smartphone cameras, they are almost extinct! I remember our camera went kaput during that trip and we ended up using a disposable camera :P

 

My second trip was during Chinese New Year break in 2011. Wrong timing for shopping enthusiasts. Dongdaemon and Iteawon were closed. Not much snow left either on the ground.

Now my third trip. This trip includes Jeju Island. We are hoping for a better snow than our previous trip :) No plan to shop. I did not even bother to change my currency to Korean Won. I figure if I need to buy anything, I just use my credit card. If they won't accept then no need to buy :P

 

 

We followed Apple Vacations this time round. The tour costs RM5236 per person. No early bird discount for us since we booked late. The itinerary was as follows:

 

19 January 2017  Kuala Lumpur - Seoul
20 January 2017  Seoul - Jeju Island
21 January 2017  Jeju Island
22 January 2017  Jeju Island - Seoul - Nami - Chuncheon
23 January 2017  Chuncheon - Hwacheon - Pyeongchang
24 January 2017  Pyeongchang - Seoul
25 January 2017  Seoul
26 January 2017  Seoul - Kuala Lumpur

 

I will try to post most of the pictures in my instagram while I am still in Korea. Let's see whether it is possible or not :)

 

 

AN UPDATE:

Safely arrived home 3 days ago. Quite happy with the short holiday. In fact I am becoming a fan of a short overseas trips :) Short and sweet. No time to get tired with the weather or the country that you visited. Just enjoy taking pictures of the country and the shopping expeditions :)

 

I did manage to survive without changing a single KRW. All the shopping were done via credit cards. Ironically due to the Tax Refund, I ended up with close to KRW50,000 in my purse when I left the country :P

 

The temperature was very cold while we were there (-11C to -14C). There were snow everywhere but we did not experience snow fall :( When the wind blows, all your fingers felt numb. Couldn't even press my monopod button to take selfies :P The sun was shinning but you felt numb and cold to the bone. You have to cover your face. If not, your face will turn numb too. How glad I am to live in a tropical country :)

 

The hot food that were served to us were good. Love the soups. I am a fan of their anchovies side dish. Somehow I don't really like their kimchis because they were served cold. I like their KRW100 instant coffee :)  

 

Ice fishing was fun. I managed to catch 1 trout. Should be able to catch much more if we were taught the trick much earlier. You should not expect the fish to bite your bait. You use the bait to snag the fish instead. Just move your bait up and down the water. You will get lucky eventually :)

Our Korean tour guide Jennifer was really good. I give her A+ for her service. She tirelessly explain to us over and over again about Korean history, the tours meeting time and place, timing of hotel breakfasts etc etc. Top notch tour guide. Speaks great English since she was brought up in United States. She can even speak fluent Malay without any Korean or English slang!

Apple Vacations tour leader Add was very good too. Quietly taking care of the group. Making sure that none of her herds were missing :P Her sambal ikan bilis was yummy!

I have uploaded 290 pictures for your viewing pleasure. Happy to report that I managed to upload all prior to reaching home. If I can sustain this momentum for my future holidays, there will no longer be any backlog. Something to look forward to :)

You can access them here:
http://instagram.com/mkhasha.n.travels

Hashtag specific for this trip: 

#mks2017SouthKorea
 

Njoy!!