Scandinavia: Spring - May 2016

This is Part 3 of my 40 Days Spring Adventure with my mom. The last of the backlog blog posting. Thank God! When we started this trip I was pretty tired already. Luckily we joined Trafalgar Tours' 12Ds 11Ns Highlights of Scandinavia. A lot less stress than going on your own. I was so thankful that we managed to reach Copenhagen without any mishaps. Since I was a bit tired at this stage of the journey, I did not take a lot of scenery pictures. Thus, most of the photos for this part of the journey were courtesy of my mom :)

There were four Malaysian couples who signed up for this Trafalgar trip. So there were ten of us Malaysians altogether. The biggest in the group. Our Travel Director was Jacqui. Young, energetic and competent lady. She handled almost everything from sightseeing explanations, checking in and out of hotels and making sure our luggage were not lost during transit from the hotel to the bus vice versa.

Since this was my second trip with Trafalgar, I can see that they have an excellent standard operating procedure. The rotation of seats, unscheduled "hidden treasure" stops, giving small gifts and thank you notes from the CEO to repeat customers, providing us with a taste of popular local candies and chocolates. They even gave gifts for birthdays and honeymoon couples!

What I don't like about Trafalgar is the price quoted is not an all in price. Tipping is not included and they have a lot of optional tours. So when you compared itineraries with other tour companies, make sure you factor in the optional tours costs and tipping in the pricing. If you do not wish to join their optional tours, they will give you lots of free time to do as you wish. This is actually a good thing for people who likes to explore the cities on their own.

If you read my Iceland post, I mentioned that I believe Iceland is the most beautiful country in the world. After going through A LOT of Scandinavian photos, I think Norway is a close second. These two countries really know how to capitalise on their God given awesome natural resources. They don't have to build the tallest building in the world or the biggest theme park to attract visitors to their countries. All they have to do is just keep the nature clean and working fine :P

Our itinerary was as follows. We covered 3 countries in 12 days. Denmark 4 days, Norway 5 days and Sweden 3 days.

14 May 2016    Prague - Copenhagen
15 May 2016    Copenhagen
16 May 2016    Copenhagen - Odense - Frederikshaven
17 May 2016    Frederikshaven - Gothenburg - Oslo
18 May 2016    Oslo - Vradal
19 May 2016    Vradal - Bergen
20 May 2016    Bergen
21 May 2016    Bergen - Fagernes
22 May 2016    Fagernes - Lillehammer - Karlstad
23 May 2016    Karlstad - Orebro - Stockholm
24 May 2016    Stockholm
25 May 2016    Stockholm - London
26 May 2016    London - Kuala Lumpur

Travelling in Norway was a bit surreal sometimes. During the journey you will go through a lot of tunnels. At one point you will experience a nice spring valley with lots of wild flowers, light green grass, trees with leaves and clear blue sky, then you went through a tunnel and came out to a black and white scene with thick snow, frozen lakes, trees with no leaves and no sun. Felt like being inside an old black and white movie! Then you went through another tunnel and it was spring again :)

While in Stockholm we went to the second largest IKEA store in the world at Kungens Kurva. Guess where is the largest IKEA in the world at the time of this post? South Korea! Do google for more info :P People don't really go to Scandinavia countries to shop. Our currency is so minuscule compared to theirs. Everything is expensive there. Only chocolates and chips are cheaper than in Malaysia! But since we are a fan of IKEA, I bought a few stuff there even when I suspected the same stuff will cost cheaper in IKEA Mutiara Damansara. What to do? I just want the bragging rights to say that I bought the stuff at IKEA Sweden. Silly right?

Total damage for the 40 Days Spring Adventure was around RM42k. Trafalgar's 12Ds 11Ns Highlights of Scandinavia cost US$3631 (RM15433). Our British Airways flight tickets from KUL-London and Stockholm-KUL were RM5770. So for this part of the journey (inclusive of tips and 1 optional tour), we spent around RM20k.

Our 40 Days Spring Adventure was a once in a lifetime experience for me and my mom. I doubt I will ever go for this kind of superlong holiday in the future. By the time we reached Scandinavia, I was so tired already. Cannot wait to go home :P Future holidays for me, the maximum duration is three weeks. Having said that I am glad that we attempted to do this at least once in our lifetime :)

I have uploaded 936 photos for your viewing pleasure. You can access them here:
http://instagram.com/mkhasha.n.travels

Hashtag specific for this trip:
#mks2016Scandinavia #mks2016Denmark #mks2016Norway #mks2016Sweden

Njoy!!

Eastern Europe: Spring - May 2016

This is Part 2 of my 40 Days Spring Adventure with my mom. We started the journey at the city of Salzburg. If you like flowers, early May is the right timing to go to Eastern Europe. The temperature was superb. As if you are walking in an air-conditioned space :)

This is my mom's first visit and my second to this part of Europe. My first time was back in 2002. It was such a touch and go visit then that I didn't really get to experience anything. This time round we decided to spend two weeks in four cities. We bought their transportation pass and get to experience all their public transportation; inter-city train, subway, funicular, bus, tram and ferry :) We had plenty of time to take pictures too. Most of the pictures in this post were taken by my mom. I was too busy taking selfies that I forgot to take scenery photos :P

Our itinerary was as follows. What I loved most about the itinerary was the relaxing pace. We had plenty of time to explore the city. We had time to stroll along the river, sit at the park and just blend with the locals. We even had time to go hiking :P

1 May 2016     London - Salzburg
2 May 2016     Salzburg
3 May 2016     Salzburg
4 May 2016     Salzburg - Vienna
5 May 2016     Vienna
6 May 2016     Vienna
7 May 2016     Vienna - Budapest
8 May 2016     Budapest
9 May 2016     Budapest
10 May 2016   Budapest
11 May 2016   Budapest - Prague
12 May 2016   Prague
13 May 2016   Prague
14 May 2016   Prague - Copenhagen

For this trip we stayed at AirBnB's accommodation. I like the one in Prague the most. The apartment was like a hotel :) The Vienna apartment was great too. The host was very nice and the place was bright and modern. In Salzburg, the place was cozy but the host was very rude. In Budapest, the place was huge and in great location but the furniture was a bit dated. The costs of the accomodation were as follows:

Salzburg - RM783 (€163) - 3 nights
Vienna - RM850 (€177) - 3 nights
Budapest - RM912 (€190) - 4 nights
Prague - RM701 (€146) - 3 nights

We took trains to move between the cities. Very convenient and relaxing. OBB trains were new and nice with free WiFi on board. It was quite empty during our journey so no need to pay extra to reserve seats. Mav-Start train was a bit dated and no WiFi :( The tickets came with compulsary allocated seats. The train was quite full during our journey. The costs of the inter-city trains for 2 persons were as follows:

Salzburg - Vienna (OBB) - RM182 (€38)
Vienna - Budapest (OBB) - RM182 (€38)
Budapest - Prague (Mav-Start) - RM182 (€38)

Our flights for 2 persons from London to Salzburg (Ryanair) was RM545 (£88) and from Prague to Copenhagen (Norwegian) was RM546 (€114). Ryanair flight tickets include luggage of 20kg each. Norwegian flight tickets include chosen seats and luggage of 20 kg each. I like Norwegian. Hassle free and customer friendly. They have self checked in kiosks at the airport. Ryanair was a bit calculative with their customers. You better make sure you have printed your boarding pass before you go to the airport. There is no self service kiosks. They also allowed a very limited time to board the aircraft. At Stansted Airport, the gate was announced around 30 minutes before departure and closed around 10 minutes before departure. So you only have 20 minutes to walk (very far) to the gate. To be safe, no toilet stop in between :P If you decide to fly Ryanair, do read in the internet their customers' experiences so that you will not be caught by surprise.

Austria accepts Euro but Hungary and Czechia have their own currency. I changed £101 for Ft19000 and Kč1700 in London. Enough to buy some food, fridge magnets and transportation pass. The costs of the transportation for 2 persons were as follows:

24H Salzburg - RM37 (€8)
72H Vienna - RM151 (€32)
5/30 Budapest - RM157 (Ft9100)
72H Prague - RM112 (Kč620)

I have uploaded 790 photos for your viewing pleasure. You can access them here:
http://instagram.com/mkhasha.n.travels

Hashtag specific for this trip:
#mks2016EasternEurope #mks2016Austria #mks2016Hungary #mks2016Czechia

History Lesson:
(for those who are wondering why I use Czechia instead of the Czech Republic)

After the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in the so-called "Velvet Divorce" in 1993, the name "the Czech Republic" was created as the official long-form name. The official short-form is Cesko. While almost all languages adopted variants of Cesko for the short-form at this time, the English equivalent "Czechia" though attested as early as 1841 is still quite rarely used in the English-speaking world.

However in 2013, Czech president Milos Zeman recommended the wider official use of Czechia and on 14 April 2016, the country's political leadership agreed to make Czechia the official short name. The new name was approved by the Czech cabinet on 2 May 2016 and was published in the United Nations UNTERM and UNGEGN country name databases on 5 July 2016.

On 23 September 2016, the Permanent Committee of Geographical Names began advising Britons to use the name Czechia. On 26 September 2016, the International Organisation for Standardisation included the short name in the official ISO3166 country codes list.

Six months after the name Czechia was adopted, The Guardian reported that the new name is hardly in use, even on the official Czech government websites. Google replaced the Czech Republic with Czechia on Google Maps on 18 January 2017. The CIA World Factbook and U.S. State Department both now use Czechia instead of the Czech Republic.

On 22 May 2017, a Forbes contributor released an opinion blog saying that "Czechia has won the Czech Republic name debate" and that "If you're feeling petulant, it's the Czech Republic. If you want to be cool, it's Czechia" in reference to the significant progress that has been made for the short name in recent year.

Note: I noticed the change when I screen printed the Google Map for our plan trip to Baltic :P

Njoy!!

Great Britain: Spring - April 2016

This this Part 1 of my 40 Days Spring Adventure with my mom. What can I say? A journey that you should do at least once in your lifetime and never to be repeated :P I think it is simply too long. For me personally 3 weeks holiday is just right. More than that, I am too homesick to enjoy fully the foreign culture and quirks :P

We started our journey flying from Kuala Lumpur to London Heathrow. Our first time flying British Airways. Foodwise British Airways is quite good but everything else I think they fall short of the Middle Eastern airlines like Qatar Airways and Emirates.

We then stayed at AirBnB accommodation in Mortlake (Zone 3) for 5 nights before joining Trafalgar Tours 8 Days Britain & Ireland Delight. After the tour we flew to Salzburg for our Part 2 of 40 Days Spring Adventure :)

This trip is many firsts for my mom and I. First time we flew via British Airways and Ryanair. First time we joined international tour company like Trafalgar. This is also the longest time we've been abroad at one stretch and naturally the first time we bought annual travel insurance. My mom's first time staying in AirBnB accommodations. My mom's first time in close contact with lots of foreigners in a group. My mom's first time taking lots and lots of public transportation in foreign countries. Before this when we go together, we will follow tours from Malaysia so no need to take local public transportation :P This trip is also the first time we encountered a pancake making machine during breakfast :)

Our time in London was so short. Since my mom's first visit to London in 2004 was only for a day and a half, I tried to cover as much as possible this time round. She likes parks and flowers. I on the other hand was trying to cover some sites that I read in historical romance books :P Needless to say we did not manage to cover all the sites. Good excuse to plan for another trip to London huh?

If you like flowers, second half of April is the best time to visit Great Britain. You will find tulips everywhere. There are lots of other blossoms too :) We also encountered a lot of swans during this trip :P

Our itinerary was as follows:
17 April 2016   Kuala Lumpur - London
18 April 2016   London
19 April 2016   London
20 April 2016   London
21 April 2016   London
22 April 2016   London
23 April 2016   London - Stratford-upon-Avon - York - Leeds
24 April 2016   Leeds - Lake District - Gretna Green - Glasgow
25 April 2016   Glasgow - Edinburg - Glasgow
26 April 2016   Glasgow - Belfast - Dublin
27 April 2016   Dublin - Glendalough - Dublin
28 April 2016   Dublin - Kilkenny - Waterford
29 April 2016   Waterford - Cardiff
30 April 2016   Cardiff - Bath - Windsor - London
1 May 2016      London - Salzburg

The Trafalgar's ground tour costs US$1042 (RM4427) each. I like Trafalgar's standard operating procedure in dealing with their customers. I like how they rotate seats in the bus so that everybody get to experience sitting infront, middle and back. However, for this particular trip our tour director, Michelle did not follow the rules. Instead of asking everybody to move two seats clockwise, she fixed the seats for us and we noticed that some people get to seat infront almost throughout the trip! This is the problem when human "playing favourites" interfered with a proven system :(

Trafalgar on the whole is very professional. Their cost savers tours will give you lots of free time on our own if you decide not to join their optional tours. For this trip we joined only one of the optional tours and it costs us an extra GBP17.50 each. Trafalgar's tours costs are excluding tips so make sure you bring enough cash to pay gratuities to the tour director, bus drives and also the city guides.

Trafalgar's option on food is also quite limited. They don't really cater for special diets. You can request upfront for seafood but in reality they still provide you with the standard meals. It would be better if their tours only provide for breakfast with other meals as optionals.

 

I have uploaded 600 pictures and 1 video for your viewing pleasure. I enjoyed my time spent in Great Britain. I was pleasantly surprised with Ireland wacky weather, 10 minutes of snow or rain and then the sun comes out! Love the flowers and the beautiful sceneries of the countryside.

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

Hashtags specific for this trip:
#mks2016GreatBritain #mks2016England #mks2016Scotland #mks2016NorthernIreland #mks2016Ireland #mks2016Wales
 

Njoy!!

Balkan: Winter - November 2015

This was my second trip to the Balkan region. This time round we covered two new countries, Bulgaria and Romania. Wrong timing to go though since by 5pm it was already dark that it felt like 8pm :( The downside of joining an organised tour I suppose. You have to follow their dates. The earlier October departure was cancelled due to insufficient numbers.

What I dislike about this trip besides the short daylight hours was the food. I truly truly hate cold appetiser during winter. Since we joined the non Muslim group, in some restaurants we were served vegetarian dish. It was at best unpalatable and at worst fit to be thrown to the dustbin. Luckily cappucino was served almost every lunch and dinner. Those were good :)

Another thing that I dislike was the frequent and super long toilet stops. Such a waste of time. It resulted in us reaching Ohrid, Shkodra and Podgorica when it was already dark. Imagine going to Ohrid, a UNESCO Heritage town and cannot see their beautiful architecture at all. The beautiful Ohrid Lake was totally dark so your can't see the lake with the nice houses at the background at all. What a disappointment. Same thing with Shkodra and Podgorica. The so called city tour was conducted at night. You can't really see anything :(

What I likeed most was the visit to Kotor Fortress. We were given a few hours free time to explore this city on our own. Since it was winter, the medieval city was quite empty of tourists. So you get the city all to yourself :P

Our itinerary was quite packed. Six days to cover five countries. A nomad holiday :P
21 November 2015    Kuala Lumpur - Istanbul
22 November 2015    Istanbul - Otopeni - Bucharest
23 November 2015    Bucharest - Veliko Tarnovo - Sofia
24 November 2015    Sofia - Rila - Skopje
25 November 2015    Skopje - Ohrid
26 November 2015    Ohrid - Tirana - Shkodra
27 November 2015    Shkodra - Kotor - Podgorica
28 November 2015    Podgorica - Istanbul
29 November 2015    Istanbul - Kuala Lumpur

This tour was organised by Parlo Tours. Tour price was RM6.7k on twin sharing basis. The hotels provided was quite good. The people that joined this tour were mostly friendly and fun loving group except for this four siblings that were a bit selfish. In the bus, 4 of them took 9 seats! Our tour leader was Lai. A serious guy who did his job well. I just wished he took care of our menu better and arranged to rotate the seats in the bus.

I normally felt energised after a short holiday but I came back from this holiday feeling a bit tired. I blamed it on lousy food, the gloomy cold weather and also Turkish Airlines. On our way home, our transit time was 7 hours but the flight was delayed by 5 hours! Imagine 12 hours in Istanbul Airport with no free WiFi. Horror!! Free and fast WiFi in airport should be made a standard practice. We all paid expensive airport tax after all. The least they can provide besides clean toilets is free and fast WiFi right?

I have uploaded 780 pictiures and 16 videos for your viewing pleasure. You can access them here:
http://instagram.com/mkhasha.n.travels

Hashtags specific for this trip:
#mks2015Balkan #mks2015Albania #mks2015Romania #mks2015Bulgaria #mks2015Macedonia #mks2015Montenegro

Njoy!!

Japan: Autumn - October 2015

My third time going to Japan. For somebody who doesn't like Japanese food and didn't really enjoy her previous tours to Japan, I sure ended there quite a lot! The good news is I came back from this trip with a better appreciation of Japan and don't mind going there again :)

This time round I went with friends. We decided to go on a budget trip. Total costs for 15 days (14 nights) was just around RM4.3k inclusive of tickets to Disneyland, Disneysea, Tokyo Tower and all other attractions. Cheap right? How do we keep the costs down? We flied Air Asia, brought almost all food from Malaysia, stay at cheap accommodation and buy public transportation passes. I think the main reason why I like this trip is because I get to eat Malaysian food :P Previous trips because I followed group tours I had to eat Japanese food :(

You need to be very fit if you wish to take their mass transit system. It is normal to walk around 10 km a day. Even if you just want to change train lines within the same station, you need to walk very far unlike in London. The places that you wish to visit are also mostly far from the stations. So if you are the type who only walk to your car, better join a tour instead of going to Japan yourself :P Another reason why I like this trip is because I get to experience their public transportation. It was so much fun. Really! You came back also healthier :)

 

Our itinerary was as follows:
29 October 2015     Kuala Lumpur - Tokyo
30 October 2015     Tokyo
31 October 2015     Tokyo
1 November 2015   Tokyo - Kawaguchiko - Tokyo
2 November 2015   Tokyo
3 November 2015   Tokyo
4 November 2015   Tokyo - Nagoya
5 November 2015   Nagoya
6 November 2015   Nagoya
7 November 2015   Nagoya - Osaka
8 November 2015   Osaka
9 November 2015   Osaka
10 November 2015 Osaka - Kyoto - Osaka
11 November 2015 Osaka - Kyoto - Osaka
12 November 2015 Osaka - Kuala Lumpur

We visited Disneyland and Disneysea. I am not really a fan of theme parks (but as always I sure ended up there quite often!) but for these two parks their night fireworks and laser shows made me like theme parks a bit :) So if you go there and like me don't really like to queue for rides, you must stay for the night shows. They are spectacular :)

We went to Lake Kawaguchi to take a look at Fuji Mountain. The day was grey but we were lucky to still be able to view the top part of the mountain while we were cruising on the lake :) Lake Kawaguchi is actually quite big. Make sure you do a research on where is the best place to see autumn leaves and Mount Fuji. We went to a wrong place so we did not get to see so many autumn leaves :( Another thing, if you wish to ride on a scenic train in Kyoto make sure when you board the train it is still daylight. Truly a waste of money if you board at night.

My favourite in this trip is the visit to Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium. First time I get so close to dolphins, belugas, penguins and killer whales :) Do check out the pictures at #mks20151106. They are all super duper cute!

I've uploaded 837 photos on Instagram. You can access them here:
http://instagram.com/mkhasha.n.travels

Hashtag specific for this trip:
#mks2015Japan

Njoy!!

Indonesia: Summer - May 2015

 

This is my second trip to Medan-Lake Toba-Berastagi area. The first time I went there was in 1995 with my university friends. Normally when I went to visit the same city, I can appreciate their development over the years but somehow when I went to Lake Toba I personally think that the area was better looking back in 1995. The water was cleaner and greener. The area also felt more magical. Now, it just felt tired. It is no longer thriving with visitors.

President Joko Widodo recently announced that they have plans to revive the area. His first order was to dismantle all the fish cages that pollutes the lake. I hope he will succeed. It is such a waste not to optimise the tourism potential of the largest volcanic lake in the world.

This trip marked my flying with Air Asia after boycotting the airline for so long. The last time I flew Air Asia was in 2008. This was also my first trip flying via our new airport KLIA2. I was quite impressed with KLIA2, I did not expect that our new airport is so huge with many restaurants and retail outlets. The Air Asia flight was however delayed. Why am I not surprised?

For this trip I went with a group of friends, so it was great fun to reunite with old friends and make new friends even though everything else was lousy. We bought our own plane tickets and the hire a local tour for the ground arrangement. Our tour operator over promised but under delivered. The reason why I decided to join the trip was due to the visit to Batu Kapur Hot Spring, unfortunately that and a few others in the itinerary were conveniently forgotten due to lack of planning and time constraint.

The transport provided from Kualanamu Airport to Lake Toba was horrendous. They squeezed all twelve of us (with our bags!!) into a van for a five hours drive in a hot weather. The aircon was not strong enough for the weather. During the trip my friend's Delsey luggage was damaged due terrible stacking of the bags during the long journey.

Out of the three hotels, two was fortunately okay. One was very dated. Since this is a full board ground arrangement, the food provided was quite tasty but the portions were very stingy. Our last dinner, the restaurant's cleanliness was questionable. I was strucked with diarrhea for the first time during overseas travel. Luckily it was mild so by the time I reached home I was almost recovered. My stomach is usually very tough after going through a few boarding school and colleges :P I suspect it was the spicy sambal or the soursop drink that caused my downfall. Serve me right for eating uncooked dish and drink iced drinks at dodgy places!

For this trip the total damage was RM820. Air Asia flights (RM245), Man Togie ground arrangement (RM375) and shopping (RM200). Lessons learnt from this trip are cheap trips not necessarily value for money and I truly don't like to go on a shopping trip. So tiring.

Our itinerary:

28 May 2015  Kuala Lumpur - Kuala Namu - Lake Toba

29 May 2015  Lake Toba - Berastagi

30 May 2015  Berastagi - Medan

31 May 2015  Medan - Kuala Namu - Kuala Lumpur

I've uploaded 92 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 !!

Taiwan: Summer - April 2015

 

The first time I went to Taiwan was in 1997. I remember it well cause it coincided with Lady Diana's death.  I remember watching television in my hotel room, while typhoon raging outside listening to the tragic story. It was my country independence day too - 31 August.

Now after close to 18 years later, I figured it is time to revisit the country. Furthermore my visit back in 1997 was only to Taipei. This time round I got to move around a bit :)

Our itinerary was:
28 April 2015  Kuala Lumpur - Taoyuan
29 April 2015  Taoyuan - Taichung - Nantou
30 April 2015  Nantou - Yilan
1 May 2015     Yilan - Yangmingshan - Taipei
2 May 2015     Taipei - Yehliu - Taipei
3 May 2015     Taoyuan - Kuala Lumpur

Surprisingly I found the present day Taiwan less vibrant than before. The roads were quite empty. When I went there in the 90s, there were so many youngsters on motorbikes. The locals call them them suicycles (suicide motorcycles) but now so few of them on the road.

Sadly except for Yehliu Geopark (highly recommended), I found Taiwan so boring. The buildings are dated and messy. So uninspiring. Even the iconic Taipei 101 lacks energy. But one thing good about Taiwan according to the local guide is its low crime rate. The city is very clean too :) The immigration officers are friendlier too compared to the 90s :P

The tour was organised by Poto Travels & Tours and the price per person was RM3759. It was a full board tour. Since we followed Muslim tours, can't really comment about their authentic local food. Their halal restaurants are quite limited. The food that were served to us was mostly palatable.

I just want to put on record that I was quite disappointed with Poto for this trip. Their itinerary stated that there is an opportunity to pluck fruits from the trees at the leisure farm. The reality was you can't even spy any fruits on the trees! How misleading!

 

I've uploaded 225 pictures for your viewing pleasure. You can view the pictures at my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/mkhasha.n.travels/. Go to the photo albums.

Njoy!!