Balkan & Greece: Spring - April/May 2018

I am off to another new adventure. This time round I am going to visit Balkan in spring and finally my dream to go to Greece will hopefully come true.

My previous two trips to this region was during autumn and winter. The autumn trip was quite good but the winter trip was terrible. Dark and cold. Not to be repeated. So being a bit kiasu, I've decided to go again but this time round I am expecting lots of flowers and clear blue sky :)

This time I am following Via Vacation. My first trip with them. The full board 14 days 11 nights cost RM7.2k per person. Superb value for money. Will give an update after I'm back to determine whether is it truly value for money.


Our route during this trip :)

Our itinerary for this trip is as follows:
20 April 2018    Kuala Lumpur - Istanbul
21 April 2018    Istanbul - Zagreb
22 April 2018    Zagreb - Plitvice Lake - Bihac
23 April 2018    Bihac - Travnik - Sarajevo
24 April 2018    Sarajevo
25 April 2018    Sarajevo - Jablanica - Blagaj - Mostar
26 April 2018    Mostar
27 April 2018    Mostar - Dubrovnik - Kotor - Budva
28 April 2018    Budva - Bar - Shkoder
29 April 2018    Shkoder - Tirana - Ohrid
30 April 2018    Ohrid - Kalambaka
1 May 2018       Kalambaka - Athens
2 May 2018       Athens - Istanbul
3 May 2018       Istanbul - Kuala Lumpur

From the itinerary it looks very hectic. We have to change hotel almost everyday. Only in Sarajevo and Mostar we will stay for 2 nights. I'm looking forward to visit Mostar, Dubrovnik, Kotor and Ohrid again. Most especially Ohrid. The first time I went there, it was raining. The second time, when we reached there it was already dark. Cannot even see anything around the famous lake. So this time round I am expecting clear blue sky so that I can take nice photos at the lake :P

I will upload the videos and photos as and when possible during the trip. You can find them here:
https://instagram.com/mkhasha.n.travels

Hashtags specific for this trip:
#mks2018Balkan #mks2018Turkey #mks2018Croatia #mks2018Bosnia #mks2018Montenegro #mks2018Albania #mks2018Macedonia #mks2018Greece

My World Countdown:
Greece#62

My mom's would be #51

Njoy !!

POST MORTEM (updated 15 October 2018)

Sorry for the late update. No mood to write! Don't worry I will endeavour to do better next time :P

Likes:

1. Our Malaysian tour leader (Hisham), Bosnian tour guide (Mina) and Macedonian bus driver (Marion) are all very good. We were very satisfied with their service :)
2. It was a good value for money trip since we covered a lot of countries and cities. Except for in Greece, the hotels were quite good. The food offered were mostly good too. Some hotels, the breakfast buffet were very good!
3. Visit to Ohrid was quite good even though our lunch there was terrible. Love the relaxing cruise at the lake.
4. Ample shopping time for those who are shopaholics :P
5. Via Vacation's annual Hari Raya Open House for their customers. Great food and the owner Puan Suri is very sociable and friendly.

Dislikes:

1. The timing sucks. It was too hot! I lost my voice and came back sick :( To go there in early April is a better time I think.
2. We went there in spring because we were hoping for lots of flowers, unfortunately the places we visited are not known for flowers. Luckily there were some fruiting orange trees :P
3. Not enough time were given to take pictures at Meteora area in Kalambaka. 5 minutes! 10 minutes! Seriously?!! More frustrating because this was the reason why I joined the Balkan trip for the third time. More time were allocated for shopping and pee stops than sightseeing!
4. Journey from Ohrid to Kalambaka and from Kalambaka to Athens were very long, we reached the city late and thus had a very late lunch. Maybe they should simply forgo lunch (with an appropriate reduction in tour price of course :P) and when we arrived we can just concentrate on having an early dinner. This was one of the reasons why less time were given for sightseeing, the tour leader and bus driver were trying to reach the city earlier so that we can have our lunch.

I've uploaded 218 posts for this trip in my instagram account mkhasha.n.travels (#mks2018Balkan). This time round the videos have less commentary from me since I honestly don't know what to say and in the middle of the tour I lost my voice :P

Baltic & Poland: Winter - March/April 2018

I am currently on my way to join a trip organised by Redha Travel and Tours to three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and Poland. Too bad we cannot cover Belarus due to the difficulty of obtaining visa. No embassy in Malaysia. You need to go to Indonesia to get one. You can get visa on arrival if you arrive via Minsk International Airport. Unfortunately that will make our tour itinerary a bit haywire. Our trip starts in Tallinn and ends in Warsaw. Minsk is closer to Vilnius.

This tour costs RM9.5k per person. Not a full board tour. No lunch provided only breakfast and dinner. My second trip with Redha and this is their first trip to the Baltic states.



Picture courtesy of Google Map

Looking at the map I just realised that there is a region in between Lithuania and Poland. A quick google informed me that it is called Kaliningrad. It is both a city and a state in the Russian Federation. Before it was annexed by USSR after World War II, the area was part of a unified German state called East Prussia for 700 years. Its capital was the beautiful medieval city of Konigsberg. It was destroyed during World War II. Its current state of decay is all the more depressing given its rich past. Today, Kaliningrad is little more than a spreading mass of gray apartment blocks. A forgotten Russian "island" trapped in Europe.

I guess Kaliningrad is not ready to welcome a group of Malaysian travellers huh?

Since this is my first trip in 2018 and there is no longer any backlog posting of previous travels, I was thinking of changing my blog and instagram style.

Instead of photos I will try to do more videos with commentary. There will of course be a bit of photos to capture still objects like food, flowers, sunsets etc but I will try to keep it to the minimum. Will also try to group similar photos and videos together so there will be less individual posts to clutter the instagram account. I will also introduce the number of countries that I have visited so far in "My World Countdown". Wish me luck! I hope I have the strength and discipline to do it.

Our itinerary is as follows:
26 March 2018    Kuala Lumpur - Istanbul
27 March 2018    Istanbul - Tallinn
28 March 2018    Tallinn
29 March 2018    Tallinn - Parnu - Riga
30 March 2018    Riga - Sigulda - Riga
31 March 2018    Riga
1 April 2018         Riga - Vilnius
2 April 2018         Vilnius - Trakai - Vilnius
3 April 2018         Vilnius - Warsaw
4 April 2018         Warsaw
5 April 2018         Warsaw
6 April 2018         Warsaw - Istanbul
7 April 2018         Kuala Lumpur

I will upload the videos and photos as and when possible during the trip. You can find them here:
https://instagram.com/mkhasha.n.travels

Hashtags specific for this trip:
#mks2018Baltic #mks2018Turkey #mks2018Estonia #mks2018Latvia #mks2018Lithuania #mks2018Poland #mksIstanbul #mksTallinn #mksRiga #mksVilnius #mksTreblinka #mksWarsaw

My World Countdown:
Estonia#58 Latvia#59 Lithuania#60 Poland#61

My mom's would be #47-50

Njoy !!

POST MORTEM (updated on 15 October 2018)

I should have done this months ago but unfortunately I was not inspired enough to write. Now I have to dig into my memory to remember what I like and don't like about this trip :P

Likes:

1. The timing of the trip which was early spring. Since both my mom and I love snow but hate winter, this was a perfect timing for us. We were blessed with a lot of snow still on the ground and gentle snow falling during the trip but minus the brutal cold temperature :)
2. Since the itinerary was set by our group, we decided to take it easy so we stayed between 2 to 3  nights at each city. It was quite relaxing and we didn't have to wake up at ungodly hour either and ample time to eat leisurely breakfast :)
3. Our local tour guide, Minda was very nice. His first time handling a Malaysian group. Our bus driver was good too, unfortunately I forgot his name. Sorry!
4. Istanbul city tour with breakfast. Due to our long transit (8+ hours), we were entitled to a free city tour organised by Turkish Airlines.
5. Visit to Hard Rock Cafe Warsaw and a factory outlet which are not in the original itinerary.

Dislikes:

1. Bad management of the group by our Malaysian tour leader. Case in point during the free Istanbul city tour. He lost half the group due to lack of research on the meeting point for the tour and no clear communication on how the group should proceed after we disembarked from the plane.
2. Since this is my second trip with Redha, I noticed their lackadaisical attitude in adhering to the itinerary. My first trip with them, they cancelled the visit to two museums (no refund of our paid museum tickets however) so this time round we were a bit vigilant and managed to stop this unethical practice. They tried to cancel the trip to concentration camp at Treblinka, Poland due to not enough time to reach the hotel for prayer and a visit to a city palace in Warsaw to make time for more shopping.
3. Trakai Castle was closed due to a holiday when went there. Very disappointing and very bad management of our ground operator.
4. Same restaurant for dinner at each city. Lack of food variety. Surely there are more than one halal restaurant at each city? A bit lazy don't you think? Luckily the food was plentiful and quite tasty.

I've uploaded 131 posts of this trip in my instagram account mkhasha.n.travels (#mks2018Baltic). Sorry that the commentary of the videos are not so good. Pretty repetitive and a bit boring. What do you expect from a newbie videographer? Do enjoy them nonetheless :P

Turkey: Winter - November 2009

Istanbul Aku Datang, a Malay movie released in 2012 must be doing a good job in promoting Istanbul because I know at least four families who went there the same year. All came back totally in love with the city :)

When I came back in year 2009, I was wondering whether any Turkish residing in Istanbul want to exchange home with me for three months.. I actually went to some "Home Exchange" websites! I was THAT crazy-in-love ;p Luckily I recovered.. hehe

One thing I love most (besides the food) is their Light Rail Transport (LRT).. cheap and pretty convenient. You can actually take their normal LRT straight to the Ataturk Airport for TL1.50 (RM3.80) per person. This is probably the cheapest transportation to an international airport in the world!

In Malaysia the airport ERL costs RM35 per person. Mostly I will take a cab and it will cost me RM80-98.. Taxi in Istanbul however is expensive. I took a 25 minutes ride and it costs me TL40 (RM100).

We went during late autumn.. so the weather was sometimes sunny and sometimes grey with rain. Not too cold unless it was windy. I think the best time to visit is during spring. There will be tulips everywhere! I read in a blog that in one of the parks in Istanbul there were so many beautiful tulips that when the author brought her mom-in-law.. the mother-in-law actually cried because it was soooo beautiful! Priceless right?

If you have been following my posts, you know that I like to take flowers pictures during my travel. For this posting I stopped myself from posting any. If not, the pictures will be too many. As it is for Istanbul alone I have uploaded close to five hundred! Which break my blog record.

Enough said. I'll let my photos do the "talking" now. I've uploaded 492 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!!

Turkey: Autumn - October 2009

The tour organised by Reliance Travel was called "Marvellous Turkey".. and they were right. It was really a marvellous holiday! They wouldn't got it wrong though if they renamed it to "Enchanting" or "Awesome" or "Breathtaking" Turkey... I'm sure you got my drift ;p

 

There were so many wonderful places that I love in this trip. The crowning glory was of course Cappadocia or Kapadokya to the locals. A region of exceptional natural wonders with fairy chimneys and unique historical and cultural heritage. We were lucky that on our scheduled date to take the hot-air balloon ride, the weather was excellent. The sun was shinning which enabled me to take many wonderful shots. Not too windy that the maneuvering of the balloon became almost impossible. It was truly a magical experience :)

 

Pamukkale Cotton Castle was also a unique experience. If you close your eyes.. maybe you can imagine that behind you stand an ice castle ;p Hemm... maybe not because the water was actually quite warm!

 

We went to not one but three ancient cities during this trip! Well... four if you count the ruins of Hierapolis at Pamukkale ;) The lost city of Troy, Acropolis and the famous Ephesus. I thought after visting Egypt I've had enough of ruins.. but the weather was so pleasant and the Library of Celsus was so awesome that I changed my mind :)

 

For a Malaysian Muslim traveller, if you only have enough money to visit one other country (after visiting Saudi Arabia - Mecca and Madinah), I would recommend Turkey. They have almost everything that a Muslim tourist wish for. Top of the list are an excellent halal food, plenty of mosques and great shopping bargains ;p

 

They also have great history and culture which translate to wonderful historical buildings and ruins. Temperate climate with distinct four seasons which means depending on which season you go you get to experience tulips wonder or skiing wonderland or autumn foliage. Another thing worth mentioning is because this is a secular country, foreign women will feel much safer than if they were to walk alone in Iran or Saudi Arabia for instance.

 

I think I better stop now.. I don't want to sound like unappointed Turkey Tourism Minister! I will let my photos do the talking.. ;) Having said that, Turkey is arguably the best country to visit in the world :)

 

The trip was from 24-31 October 2009. The tour price was RM4.6k per person excluding the hot air balloon ride of US$220 (RM755). There were only 15 of us with a handsome local guide who speaks excellent English.. what could go wrong right?

 

We parted with our group and extended our stay in Istanbul for another week. Pictures of my personal exploration of Istanbul will be in my next post.

 

I've uploaded 345 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!!