This is probably the first time that I went on a trip with Shuyi’s parents, so it was a little different… and special. I mean, usually people dress up and prepare for a long time before meeting their bf/gf’s parents right?

But Shuyi’s parents had to suffer my puffy, whole-night-no-sleep eyes, long and ungroomed hair etc. In fact, when I look back at the pictures of this trip, I think that my hair was an EPIC fail, having not cut it for almost two months. I expect to look back at these photos 20 years from now and be absolutely horrified by myself.

Anyway Edinburgh is an enchanting, ancient city. As the capital city of Scotland, there are so many fascinating stories about the country’s history that could be relived in this city. I have a certain amount, but limited, knowledge of the country’s history, having read about the Scottish wars of independence and some of their famous monarchs. 

However, with only three days in Edinburgh, we could experience only a small fraction of what the city had to offer!

Something that I would consider myself to have really missed is a ghost tour.

Apparently, Edinburgh is one of those few British cities that offer immensely spine-chilling ghost tours (given its long, brutal history), with participants claiming to have had ‘unexplainable’ experiences…

Anyway, the City of Edinburgh is divided into the ‘new’ and ‘old’ city, and the latter is dominated by the majestic Edinburgh Castle.

Whenever I look at this castle I cannot help but marvel at the size of the ego of whichever king who built it LOL. I mean, right in the middle of the city there is a reasonably sized, steep hill… Not too big and not too small, perfect for a castle of a scary king lording over its subjects!

Haha technically it’s not just a ‘hill’, but rather an extinct volcano! All the more intimidating! Haven’t we all learnt from the Dark Lord Sauron that building a fortress near a volcano is very bad ass?

If this was Sauron’s castle, then we would all have been Orcs! On the first day we marched straight to the gates of Edinburgh Castle and entered without being killed. We had to pay the Dark Lord a tribute ticket of 14 pounds each but that was fine.

Behold the entrance:

Certain parts of this castle were almost a millennium old, and the area within the fortress walls were huge – like a small town of its own!

In ancient times, I bet nobles and servants to the king would live in the fortress during peace times, and during war times civilians would be kept within the fortress walls while defending against a siege.

How would I know that? Because Orlando Bloom did that in Kingdom of Heaven and Theoden King of Rohan did that in Return of the King LOL.

Imagine sieging a castle like this! You would need to bring your army and go around and climb the hill, trying to get to the entrance with your battle rams and stuff while being showered with arrows by archers and (later) cannons from the fortress!

You would have 25% of your army dead by the time you reach the entrance.

AND that’s not all! Building a fortress on high ground (such as a hill) gives you another tactical advantage and that is enemy range attacks from below suffer a 10% chance to simply – MISS!

I know all this from years of personal experience defending castles against sieges.

No?

Anyway I know all this is childish but I can’t help it. We haven’t got many castles in Malaysia (Kellie’s Castle?) and as I walked on the castle grounds I imagined what it would have been like around me back in the Medieval ages. 

For instance, this path must have been trodden by heavy horses of knights and riders rushing up to the king’s hall to deliver some news of war or famine…

This small hut must have been where a servant of a powerful lord lived with his deaf sister.

And Archers would line up along these walls and rain death onto the enemy’s army below!

…

…

LOL anyway, back to reality. Here’s a fantastic view looking down to central Edinburgh from the heights of the castle.

There were several exhibits and displays within the castle and to visit them all would probably take half a day or more (our ‘days’ were quite short as the winter sun started setting at around 3.45PM.)

One of the more interesting exhibits that we visited was the Prisons of War, where prisoners ranging from captured enemy soldiers to women accused of witchcraft had been held! Evil!

It’s interesting how the prisoners were made to sleep on these hammocks which look like those that you find on Pangkor Island beaches. Apparently this is to save space in the prison as the hammocks could be placed over above each other!

Many of the stuff on display here were real and actually used centuries ago.

There was a board detailing rations of food (and alcohol) that each prisoner was to be given, a small but detailed warship model built by (I presume) really bored prisoners, and even counterfeit money used to pay for extra food!

Imagine the freedom and time that these prisoners had in the dungeons that they could do all these things! If I were a prisoner I would probably start a food trading company and get rich!

Let me focus on what probably is the primary exhibit in Edinburgh Castle – the Royal Palace!

This, obviously, was the residence of many Scottish kings and queens of old. There was a lot of educational displays describing the various kings and queens of Scotland and their lineages.

Accordingly, I sought out King James I.

Also inside the castle was the King’s Dining Hall and the Birth Chamber where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to yet another King James, but the Sixth.

King James IV was perhaps the most famous James’s of them all, having survived Guy Fawkes’ Gunpowder Plot, sponsored the King James translation of the Holy Bible, and united Scotland and England under one crown after ascending to the English throne, which eventually led to the formation of Great Britain as we know today.

This is all very interesting but perhaps the most fascinating part of the royal palace was the Crown Room!

The Crown Room houses the very precious Scottish Crown Jewels – the Crown, Sceptre and Sword of State of Scotland! The Crown of Scotland was worn by several kings of Scotland and the Sceptre and Sword are gifts from Pope Alexander VI and Pope Julius II, respectively.

The Crown Room was extremely well guarded and the high-security transparent case that contained Crown Jewels looked like those in Mission Impossible movies.

Photography was naturally forbidden in the Crown Room and I dared not cross the guards! Haha therefore credits to the Edinburgh Castle website for the photo above.

After we were done with the castle we headed out to the street right outside Edinburgh Castle – the very famous, very beautiful, and very touristy… Royal Mile!

The Royal Mile is about a mile long (of course), and connects the two historically important places in Edinburgh – Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace.

I remember hearing from someone that Holyrood Abbey was where coronations of kings were held. Kings would be crowned in the Abbey and then parade up the Royal Mile to Edinburgh Castle to be robed.

Today, Holyrood palace is the official residence of Queen Elizabeth II in Scotland, which makes sense – if I were the Queen, I would not want to seem so insecure as to live within the cannon-lined walls of Edinburgh Castle.

Anyway, there were many attractions along the Royal Mile such as the The Writer’s Museum (featuring several famous Scottish writers), Witches’ Well (where over 300 women had been accused as witches and burned at the stake), and  the Scotch Whisky Experience. Scotland is famous for scotch whisky, and regulations make it compulsory that all whisky in the world bearing the name ‘Scotch’ must be distilled in Scotland. Interesting!

Besides all that, fantastic architectures and marble statues of famous Scottish people could also be found along the Mile.

Can’t possibly talk about all of them but one extremely popular attraction is Mary King’s Close. We wanted to visit this place on the first day but tickets for the guided tour were completely sold out! So we had to purchase the following day’s ticket. 

Mary King’s Close is one of the many ‘closes’ in the Edinburgh – streets with tenements or multi-storied apartments on both sides that were built several centuries ago for housing purposes.

Due to many people living close to each other, these closes were especially vulnerable to plagues, such as the bubonic plague which was responsible for the Black Death in Europe back in the 14th century.

Many, many people were infected in these closes and died during the plague. There are also rumours that people who got infected were eventually thrown into the closes and left to die. Later, the entire Mary King’s Close was allegedly sealed with walls (on all sides and above) and the rumour goes that the plague victims were simply walled in and left to die in their now dark, underground apartments.

New roads and buildings were constructed on top of the entire seven-stories of underground tenements sealed underneath its floors. Imagine being left underground in a sealed, abandoned building while people above you simply build new buildings on top and forget about you!

All these myths and history give rise to a large amount of ghost stories, making Edinburgh an internationally famous destination for ghost and paranormal activity hunters.

In fact, I think several paranormal-hunting TV shows featured Mary King’s Close in their episodes!

**********

And so moving on we also found, in Edinburgh – the University of Edinburgh!

The University of Edinburgh is one of the universities that kindly offered me a place earlier this year. UoE is an ancient and highly reputable university in the world. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like studying here in this fascinating city had I accepted the offer.

Would I visit the castle everyday? Would I have learned to play bagpipes? Would I have seen the Loch Ness monster?

Ahh, anyhow I still love Bristol more.

Other interesting things that we found around Edinburgh include this statue of Greyfriars Bobby, in memory of a world-famous dog with a very touching story.

According to the story, Bobby’s owner, John Gray, died of Tuberculosis and his dog Bobby guarded his dear master’s grave until he died himself after fourteen years.

It is a fact that John Gray and Bobby the dog both did exist. In fact, their graves are right behind the row of shophouses in the background.

The story’s authenticity, however, cannot be confirmed.

A few hundred metres down the road from Bobby’s statue is the Elephant House – the cafe made legendary by J.K. Rowling herself having frequently visited and sat for long periods of time at the start of her career, writing the first few books of the Harry Potter series.

I would have gone in and sat for a long period of time trying to get inspiration to write a blog post worthy J.K. Rowling on James-Chow.com, but the cafe was closed by the time we reached.

So in the evening we ascended Calton Hill, one of the most famous and picturesque hills in Edinburgh.

Calton Hill was used as a place of public execution in ancient times and even in later times still remains a place of great political significance.

But I couldn’t be bothered with history anymore and you wouldn’t too if such an incredible view were in front of you.

There were several very important monuments on Calton Hill and the two that you see above are the Nelson Monument and the National Monument of Scotland, respectively.

The National Monument of Scotland has an interesting bit of story behind it and I’ll briefly tell it before I end this very long travel log (which I am lazy to split into parts).

The construction of the National Monument of Scotland was proposed back in 1822 and it was envisaged to be a grand and momentous project – to build a monument after the Parthenon in Athens!

Long story short, all the rich lords in the city supported the proposal by promising money for its construction, but after the construction had actually begun, the rich guys decided that they would rather keep their money in the bank and earn interest (I presume).

And thus the construction could not be completed due to a lack of funds. A rumour was told that the neighbouring city of Glasgow offered to pay for the remaining costs, but Edinburgh – you know – being Edinburgh the capital city, was too proud to accept the offer.

And so without money the monument construction is abandoned and the structure left as you see today! Bad ending!

Moral of the story: When people offer you money (especially huge sums), swallow your pride, grab the cash and run.

**********

All in all, Edinburgh as a city is such a nice place to visit and I will definitely be back again!

But in this trip:

I should have bought a Scottish kilt (the male ‘skirt’) as a souvenir.

I should have tried playing a Scottish bagpipe.

and I really should have cut my hair.

**********

… And so I joined the terrorists team, pressed B-4-1, bought some 39mm rounds.. and… BOOM!! HEADSHOT!!

*Yeah I know I’m holding the rifle wrongly*

LOL.

Please excuse the CS language. Haha this was the first time I fired an AK-47… or any live firearm for that matter! It was pure pwnage!!

Everybody knows that in CS you can easily headshot with an AK – both long and short range.

It was one of the primary activities at the Cu Chi Tunnels that I’d been really looking forward to… firing a rifle!  

We could choose between the AK-47, M16 and M60 rifles (all of which were historically used at the Tunnels during the Vietnam War), and fire them AT WILL at the shooting range!

Of course, you had to pay for the ammo and we paid 300,000 Dongs (approx. RM50) for just ten 39mm rounds.

I chose the AK-47 over the M-16 because most people who had been to National Service (although myself not included) have fired the latter before.

The AK-47, however, is quite exotic and widely perceived to be used by terrorists (LOL thanks to CS) and is therefore more bad ass. 

My rifle’s magazine loaded by an officer:

The firing range was at the end of the Cu Chi Tunnels tour.

So back to the very start, we were made to sit in a comfortable hut in the middle of the jungle and watch a short film documenting the history of the Cu Chi Tunnels and how they were used by Vietnamese guerrillas to fight against the American forces during the Vietnam War.

The story was fine but it was really interesting how much the short film felt like an organized propaganda effort. Many ‘adjectives’ were skilfully used to imply how cruel the Americans were, and video clips illustrating how pitiful the Vietnamese peasants had been during the war… thanks to the aggressors.

After the video our tour guide gave us a short lecture on how the tunnel systems worked and then we were off! 

We climbed into these narrow, dimly-lit tunnels that were once used by the Vietnamese guerrillas to hide, communicate, store and generally transport soldiers and supplies without having to risk getting killed over ground.

These tunnel systems were very huge and span many, many kilometres across the area.

And what’s more, the Cu Chi Tunnels are just a part of an even larger network of tunnels existing across the entire country!

It may look easy but it was very exhausting crawling through these bloody tunnels… Your thigh muscles get really worked out as you will need to be duck-walking all the time…

You can imagine the life of the Vietnamese soldiers in these tunnels… what a tough training!

And yeah… here’s a handsome, muscular and manly soldier fearlessly emerging from a tunnel vent.

The tunnels aside, there were also lots of other war remnants on display…

… such as booby traps! If you were an American soldier and you accidentally stepped on this:

AHHHHHHH!!!!

… and many other brutal traps that you’d think you’re watching a SAW movie…

Other stuff to see include American tanks that were captured during the war:

Bomb Craters:

HO BOM!~

As well as bombs…

… and landmines recovered after the war:

If so many landmines were used in the war will not help but think if there are any more live ones hidden in the forest grounds of Cu Chi… LOL… So we watched our step!

At the end of the tour I brought back some spent shells of the three rifles available at Cu Chi as souvenir. Left to right: Rounds of the M60, M16 and AK-47. Wahahahaha!!

**********

The next day we went on another tour, by the same company, to the Cai Be Floating Market.

Cai Be is about 3 hours from Ho Chi Minh City, in the Mekong Delta region. We were brought on a boat and off we sailed towards the floating market.

The floating market is, well… a floating market! Traders basically own their own trading boats, and they would put up goods for sale every morning… just like a regular market!

And buyers would buy from these traders either from the river bank or from their own boats. 

I’m not sure why they would prefer to trade this way compared to a physical, landed market. The only two reasons that I can think of are:

1) the dominant mode of transportation in this village is by boat, so it is actually more convenient to do your shopping by boat than by car/bike/foot.

2) Traders don’t have to pay rent! LOL (or do they?)

It was a little late in the morning when we reached there but apparently the river would have been extremely crowded with boats and market-goers earlier in the morning!

To advertise their goods, the traders would put up a ‘sample’ on a long pole so that prospective buyers can see it from afar.

This boat below, for example, sells turnips:

Imagine someone selling chickens…

… or pork, LOL!

I wouldn’t say it was an incredibly exciting trip but it was certainly worth the experience.

We got to see the not-so-busy side of these traders’ life. In fact, we could see some of them taking a nap or even cooking on their boats… yes, for some of the traders, these boats are also their homes!

It is interesting that a majority of the boats on this river has got a rather ferocious pair of eyes painted in front of them (see pic below). According to the tour guide, they’d been drawn as part of a traditional practise to deter attacks from alligators in the river!

Apparently, the Mekong river had been teaming with alligators back then.

Well I think the practise makes sense. If I were an alligator and I see a huge pair of eyes on a bloody red face cruising barbarically towards me… Well I would just shut up and pretend to be a piece of log.

Incidentally, the Mekong River is the 10th longest river in the world, with a length of almost 5,000 kilometres spanning across six countries.

After we disembarked, we were invited to visit one of the factories that produce local confections. While I will not dwell in the specifics of the rest of the trip (this entry is getting to long and I want to sleep), I must mention the snake wine:

Snake wine is rather famous in Vietnam and China. It is a gruesome infusion of snakes in alcohol and is claimed to bring lots of health benefits to the drinker, including increased sexual performance!

The wine was drunk in a shot and tasted horrible. The feeling in my stomach became much more horrible when I investigated what was in the jar:

Layers upon layers of dead snakes lie quietly in the jar along with herbs and other stuff.

I simply took the other ‘stuff’ in the jar for granted and was walking away happily when Tom, a British guy whom we became friends with, ran over to me and asked me to go back to the drinking table and check out what he had ‘discovered’.

On opening the jar, my stomach turned:

HOLY SHIT.

There was a fuckin’ dead bird in my wine!!! Why?? With feathers and all…

1. Did the poor bird hit a wall and fell into the jar?
2. Did the guys run out of ‘exotic’ things to put into their almighty-tourist-attracting exotic wine and decided to put in a dead bird as well?
3. Had the bird been swallowed whole by one of the snakes and upon the snake’s death got regurgitated undigested? 

I don’t know!! WHY IS THERE A DEAD BIRD IN MY WINE?????

I couldn’t believe what kind of torture I’d just subjected my stomach to, but we simply felt a wave of nausea and wished each other best of luck and that we would still see each other alive the next morning.

Well, technically we were told that we would be drinking snake wine. That was  a grave misrepresentation, wasn’t it? It should have been snake-infused-with-disgusting-dead-bird-with-feathers-and-lots-of-shit-looking-things-wine.

**********

We dedicated our last day in Ho Chi Minh City to visit the many fine museums and historical buildings within the city centre itself.

The first was the War Remnants Museum:

Having just finished a major war less than 40 years ago, Ho Chi Minh City has got lots of war stuff to display.

Within the compound of the museum exterior was a large arsenal of artilleries, tanks, war planes and helicopters. Many of them were captured from the Americans during the war and still bear the US Army label, such as this Chinook, which you should recognise if you play C&C Generals LOL:

The War Remnants museum was fascinating, although personally, I felt it was more of a propaganda centre.

The museum basically informs and reminds its visitors of the horrors and atrocities of the Americans during the Vietnam War. With a complete lack of journalistic neutrality, it also featured a major department almost exclusively documenting how ‘evil’ the Americans were.

The whole exhibition was very dramatic and rhetorical, and at certain points bordering on comical. It began with a tongue-in-cheek display of an excerpt from the US Declaration of Independence, which outlines universal human rights:

… Immediately followed by a photograph with the caption:

“The father of this little girl arrested by (American) GIs. She Implores them: ‘Don’t kill my father’.”

I’m not sure if the ‘don’t kill my father’ part was indeed recorded by the journalist or was simply added in later for dramatic effect.

Right next to it is a photograph of an old man (cropped to show an M-16 rifle held in front of him for maximum rhetorical effect) with the caption:

“A Vietnamese civilian pleads with the 101st Air Cavalry Division soldier who is interrogating him during a ‘search and destroy’ operation in early 1968”

While I sincerely sympathize with the plight of the Vietnamese civilians and concur that the Americans troops were definitely not angels, I utterly fail to see how these photos along with their cheesy captions qualify as ‘war remnants’.

In fact, the incidents, while tragic, are not very historically significant and the whole presentation seemed to exist more for the purpose of generating anti-American sentiment (and love for the newly formed Communist government) than to educate the public on concrete historical facts. 

And then all of a sudden it gets much, much more gruesome:

(WARNING: GRAPHICAL IMAGES AHEAD)

There was even an entire gallery dedicated to showing the horrible effects of Agent Orange, an extremely toxic chemical that was used by the US military to clear large areas of forest and track the guerrillas.

These chemicals caused severe biological deformities among victims and the gallery makes sure that you see the most horrific examples:

Yea, I know how you’re feeling. I am not feeling very well too at the moment.

…

So let me stop posting disturbing pictures and instead turn to some REAL, physical remnants of the Vietnam War…

… A real Bazooka, baby!

And Claymore mines! Oh we’ve seen this already in the Cu Chi Tunnels.

Alright, so moving on we went to the Ho Chi Minh City Museum:

It was a rather short stay as we were short of time. The museum basically emphasizes the history of the city itself, rather than the entire country.

Naturally, a large part of the museum is dedicated to showing how the Communist party was formed, their righteous struggle for independence and noble sacrifices etc.

I noticed something interesting at the exterior of the museum:

It would seem that there were so many war machines left in Ho Chi Minh City after the war that they could give one to EACH museum for display!

Here’s me with a real F-5 Fighter in front of this museum:  

**********

And finally we went to our last destination in Ho Chi Minh City – the Reunification Palace.

This can probably be referred to as the White House of Ho Chi Minh City.

Once the palace of the French governor when the city was a French colony, it became the office of the head of the State of Vietnam after World War II.

After the Vietnam War, the palace again changed hands into the ownership of the current Communist government.

Many state functions are held in the palace and the President of Vietnam also has an office in the building.

We could tour most of the state function rooms in the palace for a small fee.

… Found a very iconic bust of Mr Ho Chi Minh in the middle of the banqueting hall! Paid my respect to the man who made this country great!

We also visited the ‘underground’ parts of the palace, which was used by the previous administration to coordinate troops and run the government during the war.

It was more like a military command bunker with shady corridors and narrow walkways:

We found ‘the War Room of the President’. I guess this is where the President sat and gave orders during wartime:

And this is the ‘Combat Duty Bedroom of the President’ (Well he could’ve used a table lamp instead of TWO bloody telephones):

Yeah so basically that’s it. There were lots of other interesting stuff in the Reunification Palace but I don’t think I can cover them all in this blog post.

Annnnnnnnnd yes, have to mention this one though…

Didn’t I say that there are war machines (fighter jets, helicopters, artilleries etc.) in almost every museum?

There were TANKS in this one!

Apparently these were the tanks of the North Vietnam army which had barged into the Palace in 1975 and ended the Vietnam War.

I can vividly see how the war ended.

If I were the South Vietnam president at that time and there were enemy tanks like these ridding through my walls and pointing their badass cannons at my room… I’d SOOOO surrender thank you very much.

**********

Before I end this super looooong entry (my laptop is lagging), a tribute to the unbelievably tasty, authentic Vietnamese beef noodles.

I seriously can’t get enough of them. Love ‘em!

Specifically, we went to Saigon, which was the capital city of South Vietnam and the preceding French colony. Today, there is no more South Vietnam, having been unified with North Vietnam to form, well… Vietnam!

The city’s name was also changed from Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City, in memory of the the great communist leader (pic above) whose shadow I can be seen hiding under to escape the scorching heat!

It was weird because coming from Malaysia, a country much closer to the equator than Vietnam, I was supposed to be well accustomed to the heat… but this was different!

Your skin literally roasts under the sun! I could remember that the mere 10 minutes that my brother and I took to take pictures with Mr. Ho’s statue was sufficient to give us sunburns!

Or maybe it was just an unusually hot day!

Saigon was one of the cities that were most heavily sieged during the Vietnam war some 40 years ago.

Because of this, one would inaccurately think of Ho Chi Minh City as a relatively underdeveloped and inward city.

I’d expected to arrive in a city where everything was to be complete unfamiliar – language, food, signs, culture, retail brands etc.

I’d also thought that everything would be rather traditional and old-fashioned.

-

I was wrong.

Hah! Nowhere in the world escapes western capitalism and consumerism!

A stroll around the beautiful city centre dispels whatever notion that communist controlled Vietnam is out of touch with the outside world!

This city is the most important economic centre of Vietnam and its residents are some of the richest in the country.

We spent the first day just exploring the city centre.

One thing about the city that really caught my attention was, despite its development, Ho Chi Minh City still retains much of the cultural and more primitive side of things.

It was absolutely lovely!  

For instance, we couldn’t be bothered to visit nice restaurants but instead were drawn to these little street vendors who sell very interesting local food and speak utterly zero English.

We couldn’t communicate at all, but were determined to try whatever it was that they were selling!

This extremely friendly lady tried her best to describe in Vietnamese what her product was, but we could only smile and nod. We understood nothing but decided to try it anyway!

Well, that’s what traveling is all about right?

In the end we were given a delightful bowl of what looked like soya bean curd with glutinous rice – and it was delicious!

The lady was doing business right in the middle of the footpath and there were absolutely no tables and chairs. So we simply put our bags on the floor and sat on them while we ate.

We also tasted many special and rather exotic food that were sold by these little portable stalls sprouting out of literally random places.

This is a multi-flavoured glutinous rice with a variety of coconut toppings (didn’t like it really much):

What looked like and probably was roasted pigeon (very yummy):

and a fusion of French baguette and what looked like Malaysian SATAY: (tasted quite good!)

We were a little concerned about the hygiene of such street food that were prepared with uncovered, bare hands and literally sold beside the main road with hundreds of motor vehicles passing by every hour.

But well, neither my brother nor I got food poisoning after that, so I guess they were fine!

The food aside, the next thing that I immediately noticed around the town centre was political imagery.

This is the first time that I visited a communist-governed country, and was rather taken aback when I saw this symbol placed literally all over the city.

The media that I grew up with was predominantly western-oriented, and as we all know western countries dislike communists.

So here I was facing the hammer and sickle – a symbol of Communism. It was a strange feeling as I had immersed in war movies and games like Red Alert that actively portray these symbols as the ‘enemy’ and yet here I was in its territory and still loving the place.

The third remarkable thing about this city that you will immediately notice is – the sheer amount of motorcyclists!  

The number of motorcyclists in the city was absolutely staggering! I made a quick estimation and I think I can safely say that the ratio of motorcycles to cars is approximately 20 to 1 – that’s 95% motorcycles!

We were on the road a couple of times and the taxi driver was like Brad Pitt being chased by a dozen CIA agent cars in a Hollywood movie. He was sounding his horn all the time and even driving onto SIDEWALKS just to avoid the massively overwhelming amount of motorcycle traffic in the city.

Well, I guess if you live in a metropolitan area with a population of 9 MILLION, motorcycles are indeed the best way to get around.

Anyway, there was a huge market at the middle of the town centre called the Ben Thanh Market. It was really huge and is one of the icons of Ho Chi Minh City.

Since it is an icon, you can expect lots of tourists to visit this place.

Since lots of tourists visit this place, you can expect the prices to go off the roof.

Since opening prices are exorbitant, you can expect lots and LOTS of price bargaining.

… and that was exactly what happened.

Now I think this happens in most countries, not just Vietnam, and I’d had my fair share of experience in price bargaining at tourist-infested places.

But this was different.

In general, the sales girls here were extremely friendly and approachable, and I would say that they really, really wanted us to buy their stuff.

And due to this reason, price bargaining was actually quite, err… fun, over here.

Let me explain:

First of all, none of us could understand each other.

So all we did was tapping a price figure on a calculator, passing it to the other, the other would widen his/her eyes in apparent horror at the absurdity of the price, scream ‘noooo… no no no…’, laugh, key in another number, and pass it back to the other person.

This process would repeat for half a dozen times or more before a deal is reached.

This sounds tedious BUT the good part is that you would use the universal language – laughter – A LOT, and they will be laughing all the time as well!

It was very interesting how they tried to do all sorts of things to make us believe that the goods were worth more than the price we offered!

The girl at the store told us stories in simple, broken English about where the clothes were imported, how good the quality was, and how we wouldn’t be able find it anywhere else in Vietnam… She kept going and going until she contradicted herself at some point, realized that we noticed, and then we all laughed.

We both knew that the product wasn’t as good as she was trying to portray as, and we both knew that none of us believed it. But it was still good fun!

At night, we had our hotel book for us two tickets for a water puppet show!

Water puppetry is a traditional form of entertainment that is particularly famous in Vietnam.

In this approximately one-and-a-half hour performance, wooden puppets were attached to long rods underneath and controlled by puppeteers behind a screen. The rods were invisible beneath a pool of water and the puppets would appear to be moving over the water.

This tradition is many centuries old and was historically done at impromptu ‘stages’ on flooded rice fields in Vietnam as a form of entertainment among farmers.

The puppets acted out a series of traditional Vietnamese folk stories and legends, and we were each given a booklet that tells the synopses of the stories in six languages. What a fantastic way to learn more about a new culture!

The puppets were cute, the stories interesting and the acting humorous. This might be nothing more than a puppet show, but the performance was by absolutely no means juvenile or childish.

All music and conversations in the show were produced live on both sides of the stage, and man… everything was so professionally done!

Don’t be fooled by the ‘wooden’ look of the puppets! The puppeteers behind them were masters in what they do and the puppets were made to move so lively and full of expression!

There were even fighting scenes where water was actually splashed onto the some of us on the first few rows, but it was all fine!

After the show ended, the puppeteers emerged from behind the screen to tremendous applause.

After the show we took a night stroll across the town towards the Saigon river.

Ho Chi Minh City was not at all a quiet and lonely city at night. In fact, there were lots and lots of nightlife venues that were extremely lively and busy!

We also noted the high amount of police presence in the city centre – was this because it is a tourist area, or was it that some big event was coming up?

Vietnam was a colony of France, and so the French built a Notre-Dame Cathedral in Saigon! Named after its famous counterpart in Paris!

All the original building materials for this church were imported from France. Why leh? Don’t trust our south east asian materials?

The Virgin Mary statue in front of the cathedral became famous in 2005 when it was reported to shed tears! Tears were reported flowing down the right cheek of Mary and caused a tremendous influx of people (literally thousands) that year to gather around the basilica and witness the ‘miracle’.

Despite being night time, we could still see believers gathering around the statue of the Virgin Mary and praying… right there. What a peaceful sight!

The next day, we went on a day tour to two famous destinations located to the north of Ho Chi Minh City – the Cao Dai Temple in Tay Ninh, and the Cu Chi Tunnels. I’ll talk about each of them.

The Great Cao Dai Temple, also called the Tay Ninh Holy See, is the seat (sort of like the religious headquarters) of the Cao Dai religion.

While you may not have heard of it, Cao Dai is a relatively new religion (established in the twentieth century) founded in this very city in Vietnam. It currently has several million adherents across the globe.

I don’t really have a good idea of what this religion is all about. All I know (from the 2-hour tour of the temple and Wikipedia) is that it is sort of a fusion of several religions and political figures.

For instance, Jesus is regarded as a Buddha and the ‘saints’ include an all-star mixture of Mohammed, Napoleon, Jesus, Buddha and Shakespeare (?!). No kidding.

According to Wikipedia, the ‘holy spirits’ of Cao Dai include Thomas Jefferson, Winston Churchill, Vladimir Lenin and Victor Hugo.

I have no idea how and why, but it is so.

Here’s a large portrait at the front atrium of the temple depicting ‘The Three Saints’ signing a covenant ‘The 3rd Alliance’ between God and man.

The Three Saints are apparently Sun Yat-Sen, Victor Hugo, and a Vietnamese poet called Nguyen Binh Kheim. Beside the picture is a sign explaining the meaning behind the portrait.

At the very end of the temple is an altar with a huge, green, watermelon-like globe with an eye at the front.

This symbolizes the Divine Eye of God overseeing the universe and the Cao Dai adherents basically pray and worship towards its direction. 

I can think of a million way to make fun of this subject but in the spirit of respect for religion, I shall refrain.

We were there just in time for the noon mass. At precisely noon, Cao Dai followers entered the temple dressing in flowing robes and began the ceremony. There was a high-ranking priest in front leading the congregation through the prayer chants and hymns.

Those dressed in white are lay followers and those in colour are priests.

We didn’t stay in the temple for too long as it was a place of worship and we were eager to continue to the next destination of our tour – the Cu Chi Tunnels!

I had heard of the Cu Chi Tunnels before I went to Vietnam, of its wartime tunnels, deadly booby traps, and most of all – there’s a shooting range where you could shoot an AK-47 or M16 rifle, or even an M60 machine gun!

**********

This travel log is getting too long for a single post, so I am splitting it into two parts. Click here for Part 2.

-

Ah, where were we? Yes, number five.

**********

#5 – Notre Dame Cathedral

At almost 900 years old and kids around the world know about it, the Notre Dame cathedral absolutely deserves its reputation of one of the most remarkable cathedrals in Europe!

The cathedral is extremely famous for many other aspects e.g. architecture, culture and religion etc but I, along with many other younger people I’m sure, got to know about the Notre Dame through Victor Hugo, or more accurately… Disney!

Who doesn’t know Quasimodo, the dear Hunchback of Notre Dame?

So anyway here’s us visiting his home.

It is interesting to find out that the row of statues above the ‘portals’ (entrances) in the photo above were originally intended to represent the 28 kings of Judah in the Bible’s Old Testament from whom Jesus was directly descended.

The Gallery of Kings – as it is named – however, was ‘attacked’ during the French Revolution when the then French king was overthrown. The revolutionists apparently mistook the 28 kings as the ancestors of the king of France instead and beheaded them all – literally.

The statues that we see now are, of course, restored later on and some of their ‘original’ heads were recovered and displayed in the Musée de Cluny.

The interior was extremely huge and while there was a sermon going on and worshippers were sitting and praying, tourists were allowed to walk at the side and observe.

The building architecture was absolutely amazing and there were many shrines and exhibits that we could feast our eyes on. Impossible to cover all in a blog entry… so let’s move on.

Oh, before that, we saw what looked like a statue of the King of the Dead from Lord of the Rings at the entrance! Him and the Dead Men of Dunharrow!

Haha of course it isn’t. Middle Earth is very, very far from France… I think.

**********

#4 – Avenue des Champs Elysees

Don’t be fooled by the old signboard, this is one of the most famous (and most expensive) street address in the world.

Home to the biggest and most lavish French specialty shops, cinemas and restaurants, no tourist (or filthy rich lady) will ever want to miss this avenue of extravagant expenditure.

Not only is this street sandwiched by two ultra-famous Parisian landmarks (the Luxor Obelisk and the Arc de Triomphe) at each end, it is also home to flagship stores of ultra-luxurious fashion brands like Hugo Boss and LV.

I’ll face the facts. I only came here to marvel at the building, walk in, and declare that I have just visited LV’s flagship store in Paris. (and left empty-handed)

Apparently, because it is cheaper to buy stuff like LV handbags here (no need for import tax, perhaps?), there is a restriction on how many items a person can buy per visit.

Apparently a person can only buy like two items of the same kind. I’m not sure if this is just a rumour or if it applies only to the Champs Elysees store or something. But it doesn’t really matter to me… even without tax, the smallest wallets cost like 2,000 to 10,000 euros and I can literally finance a four year degree course in Malaysia with 10k euros…

But not to worry! I promise I’ll be back within 10 years with millions to spend!

… hopefully.  

**********

#3 – Louvre Museum

Probably nobody knew about the Louvre before The Da Vinci Code.

Haha of course not!! The Louvre is the most visited art museum in the world! … As well as one of the largest.

But The Da Vinci Code really made the museum like 10 times more famous than its original already-extreme international fame.

The museum is so extremely huge, divided into god-knows how many sections, that it is absolutely impossible for anybody to finish touring the museum in one day with reasonable attention paid to the artwork.

In fact, we were in there like for five hours and with our feet sore and tired, only went through like one-sixth of the galleries. It was that huge.

Here’s us in the famous glass-pyramid entrance to the Louvre:

Two things to note when visiting museums in Paris:

1) Bring your student card (if you have one) – Shuyi’s entrance ticket for all museums (and many other tourist destinations as well) were significantly cheaper than mine because she could produce a student visa. In fact her ticket was free at Musee d’Orsay. I think this is valid in the entire European Union, not just in France.

2) Buy a damn English multimedia guide

The French have no pity on anybody who does not understand their language – ALMOST ALL art descriptions displayed beside the paintings and exhibits are in French and absolutely French only. If you can’t read French, that’s too bad.

An example is this 2nd centure B.C. sculpture of Nike, the Greek Goddess of Victory, which has an incredible story behind it. (I can’t tell the story here due to the length of this post)…

… However, I would not possibly have not what this headless winged figure was all about if I had just depended on the description panel next to it.

100% French. Even when this is one of Paris’ top tourist destination!

Anyway, here’s the Grand Gallery:

Some famous stuff: Madonna of the Rocks:

Venus de Milo:

Aaaaaaand, literally the most famous painting in the world – the Mona Lisa… imprisoned behind a no-entry barrier and protective bulletproof glass.

Besides the ultra-famous stuff, there were also many other interesting stuff as well! Such as the magnificent ceiling:

This painting of David and Goliath that has – literally three dimensions. The front:

… and the back!

A truly HUGE painting of the Coronation of Napoleon at the Notre Dame. This painting is almost 10 metres wide and is the second largest painting in the Louvre.

… and many, many nude men paintings:

Why do people fight battles without any clothes on?

More nude men.

Ahaha I know art lovers will be cursing my ignorance in art appreciation. Therefore I shall stop commenting on the artworks now.

Oh but before we move on, here’s the inverted pyramid underneath which, according to The Da Vinci Code, cryptically contains the secret tomb of Mary Magdelene.

Scary, huh?

**********
#2 – River Seine

I believe many tourists flock to Paris’ glamorous attractions and museums without paying adequate attention to the great river Seine.

Gracefully flowing through the heart of Paris, the 776KM-long river flows from as far as Burgundy in the east, into the English Channel in the west.

Just like the Thames is to London, the Seine has been the lifeblood of Paris since a long time ago. Together, the Thames and the Seine are some of the most famous rivers in Europe.

And great rivers within great cities are always a great scene to behold.

Many important buildings such as the Louvre Palace and Notre Dame Cathedral are built along the northern bank of the Seine, and tourist boats and ferries regularly cruise along the river.

The famous French Martyr Joan of Arc’s ashes were thrown into the Seine after she had been burned at the stake. Napoleon had also requested in his will to be buried on the banks of the river.

But to us tourists, Paris is the City of Love. And couples arriving at Paris simply cannot leave without leaving some kind of trace or ‘footsteps’ in the Romantic City.

And so some ‘geniuses’ started carving the names of themselves and their partners on padlocks and securing them over the fence of the many bridges across the Seine.

This, apparently, symbolizes the couple’s undying love being ‘locked’ and secured forever in the City of Love. The keys to the padlock, naturally, is to be buried forever in the waters of the legendary river below.

Romantic as it may be, this practice has, of course, annoyed the Parisian authorities for years. And rumour has it that the lovelocks on this bridge were removed on 2010, although the authorities denied involvement.

Check out some very creative lovelock designs:

‘Safer-than-others’ lock:

Probably a law enforcement couple:

And finally, this is my hand with a pair of keys – over the Seine.

I did not ‘expressly’ admit that we polluted the Seine with one extra pair of metal keys. My hands were merely hovering over the river and I may not have released it.

Of course, I may also have done so but I the photo does not constitute as an confession. So please don’t sue me – this was Paris, for heaven’s sake.

**********

#1 – Eiffel Tower

What were you expecting, the Paris airport? Haha of course the Eiffel Tower reigns as the #1 place in my list.

Paris would not be the Paris it is today without the Eiffel Tower.

At the same height as an 81-storey building, the Eiffel Tower is the tallest building in Paris, and was the tallest building in the world when it was completed in 1889.

Shuyi and I vowed that we would make it onto the tower before evening to watch the sunset. At at one hour before sunset, we were still at the Arc de Triomphe, and so we literally ran our way to Champ de Mars, where the Eiffel tower was located.

We could easily see it from afar. But although it may seem that it is right in front of you (the pic above), the tower is still a 20-minute walk away.

Finally, we made it.

The sun had started setting when we reached the base of the tower. Quickly, we queued for the tickets and got ourselves on the first tram headed to the tip of the tower.

There were three levels on the Eiffel Tower, the first and second were located less than halfway up the tower, and the third was near the very tip of the structure. 

It was a Sunday evening and there were quite a number of visitors, but not too many. We could easily find spots to view the scenery and take pictures.

Here’s a picture of the Seine from the second level:

There were also two gastronomical fine-dining restaurants on the first and second levels of the Eiffel Tower which, naturally, also charge astronomical prices and require reservations.

I’ll be back for that, next time… Hehe.

Anyway, here’s us on the very highest level of the Eiffel Tower, looking down at the magnificent river and surrounding city of Paris at night.

We also managed to capture a deadly alien laser beam fired directly from Mars to destroy the city of Paris and all mankind.

According to the official Eiffel Tower distance display on the third level, Kuala Lumpur is 10,433KM away so we’re quite safe!

Anyway, back to reality, there was a really small apartment built on the tip of the Eiffel Tower by its designer, Engineer Gustave Eiffel.

Can you even imagine living so extremely high up – alone – on the Eiffel Tower BEFORE it was opened up to hoards of tourists?

Here’s the apartment itself, in its original location looking in from the protective glass windows:

The two figures depicted inside are Mr. Eiffel himself and Thomas Edison, who visited the apartment to discuss some scientific stuff on 10 September 1889.

Anyway, it was insanely cold that night (1-3°C) and you can imagine the freezing wind on the tip of the tallest building in Paris. So after some camwhoring and looking around, we descended to have our dinner.

We went across the street and had dinner in a nice little restaurant. This was to be our replacement Valentine’s dinner, which we had missed a few weeks ago.

The most awesome thing about this restaurant is that right beside our table – is a direct view of the entire, glittering, magnificent Eiffel Tower, which glitters brilliantly at the strike of every hour, constantly reminding you that you made it to the great City of Lights!

Our meal was incredibly tasty. I have no idea how to blog about them so I’ll just post photos:

To complete the French dining experience, we were also served bread and champagne for starters, and wine with the dishes.

The waiter who served us must be complimented and absolutely deserved to be tipped. Not only was he extremely pleasant and patiently explained the menu to us in English, along with personal recommendations, he was also very entertaining when he would come around and ask whether we liked the food and taught us some random French phrases.

All in all, his French accent and jolly attitude reminded me of Lumière from Beauty and the Beast… when he is performing the song ‘Be Our Guest’.

Lovely chap!

**********

Well I guess the top-10 list concludes my visit to Paris as most of the good places have been covered. Yay!

Bottom line – While the actual Paris may not live up to everybody’s wildest expectations (thanks to the media), it definitely lives up to its reputation as one of the must-go destinations in the world.

We see it daily in Korean dramas and Taiwan soap operas… A pretty female character whose life’s dream is to travel to Paris to pursue art or music or something, and this handsome male character comes back from studying/working in Paris and all the girls in the show would drool over him.

And I, being East Asian, am naturally no different.

Since young Paris has captured my imagination. The magical city, the romantic city, oh… the City of Love!

So when Shuyi and I had the opportunity to choose a European city to visit in March, we had no difficulty deciding!

Nonetheless, much effort had to be put in to plan the trip. Since both of us were students, our spending money comprised of many months of savings plus a generous donation from the Mum and Dad Charity Foundation (MDCF), and even so our budget was tight!

One thing that we had spent lots of time researching into was accommodation.

Hotels in downtown Paris are notoriously expensive. After nights of painstaking research and stingy comparisons, we got ourselves this nice little 3-star hotel at a very reasonable price!

It is considered cheap for Parisian standards, but still with the money spent you could stay in a deluxe 5-star hotel room in Kuala Lumpur.

Besides accommodation, there was another compulsary area of research – “EVERYTHING”.

From Metro MRT lines to places to visit, and food and currency exchange, everything had to be carefully thought-of beforehand… thanks to the grisly warning given to us by our friends who had been to Paris:

“French people DO NOT like Tourists, least of all English-speaking ones!” 

We were told that apparently the French were very proud of their language, and any tourist that does not even try to speak their language has no business in their country.

Well, it’s kinda hard to blame the French. If Kuala Lumpur had 42 million tourists flocking in every year, I would damn well hate tourists as well! *evil laugh*

So we brushed up our bonjour’s, s’il vous plaît’s, and merci’s and bulked up to face the scary legion of dark-faced, unwelcoming French people…

… only to find them to be extremely friendly and helpful!

Although they were visibly happier when you spoke to them in French, most of them were glad to help or serve you in English.

And while there were people in smaller shops and restaurants who did not understand English at all, we successfully communicated with them using an impromptu mixture of hand gestures, body movements, and wildly invented Eng-French-ish phrases…

… Bottom Line – we didn’t starve in Paris! A cause for celebration!

Unlike some other of my travel logs, I intend to keep this entry simple and sweet – no parts 2 or 3 – just one single entry.

So instead of writing down every food I eat and every corner I turn, I’m just gonna do a top-10 list of what I feel are the ten most awesome places that I’ve visited in Paris.

So here we go!

Disclaimer: This top-10 list does not represent the best ten attractions Paris has to offer, but merely the best ten that I have visited in this trip.

**********

#10 – Luxor Obelisk at Place de la Concorde

This 3,300-year-old gigantic structure is one of the two original obelisks marking the entrance of the Luxor Temple, founded in 1400BC in ancient Thebes.

Because it is so old, you will wonder if there is some kind of magic locked in its ancient inscriptions… Perhaps it can warp in alien ships? Communicate with evil pharaohs of the past? Shoot lasers or… glow in the dark, at least?

It is simply too big (75ft tall) and grand to do nothing more than just decorate that old temple in Egypt. Trust me, I know these things.

Given as a gift to France by Egypt almost two centuries ago and since then placed at the eastern end of the world-famous Avenue des Champs-Élysées, the Luxor Obelisk is indeed something not to be missed!

**********

#9 – Luxembourg Gardens

The Luxembourg Gardens is the garden of French Senate, as well as the second largest public park in Paris.

The park wasn’t so nice as it was filled with leafless trees when we visited it in March. But it absolutely deserves mention here as it is (apparently) extremely beautiful in spring and summer!

Many local people bring their own foldable chairs and simply sit around the huge pond right in front of the senate building, reading a book or just chatting away.

Besides very beautiful just-planted flowers and blankets of grass that had been freshly rolled onto the soil, the garden is also home to numerous marble statues…

… monuments…

… and bird houses!

It is perfect to schedule a visit to the Luxembourg Gardens during lunchtime (as we did) for a peaceful and beautiful picnic place in downtown Paris. Just grab some fluffy French pastry from across the street and just enjoy the surroundings as you rest your tired feet!

**********

#8 – Basilique du Sacré Cœur

The shining white Basilica of the Sacred Heart on the hill of Montmartre is the highest point in the city of Paris.

We don’t see domed cathedrals everyday, do we? In fact, coming from a Muslim country I would easily mistake this building as a mosque if not for the three mini crosses on top of the domes…

… and now that I think about it, the building kinda resembles the Taj Mahal… (Look ONLY at the three domes from the front)

Anyway, the surrounding district of Montmartre is something of a nightclub / red light district. Coupled with the popularity of the Sacre Coeur among tourists, security in the region is super tight!

Check out the rifles…

The white statue standing near the armed officer on the right is NOT a statue! I’m sure most people have seen this before, but this is my first time seeing a real-life statue!

These ‘statues’ are people who’ve had themselves painted chalk white and would pose for a picture with you if, err… given some financial incentive.

Besides the statue-people, there were many other street performances as well, such as this gentleman playing a harp.

That’s really something, isn’t it? Have you EVER seen anybody playing a harp near Pasar Seni or anywhere?

Located at a height of 130 metres, the cathedral grounds offer a hazy, dreamlike view of the city below.

Having a cathedral on top of a hill is awesome. But wouldn’t it be extremely tiring for worshippers to hike the hill every Sunday?

I’d imagine a family of young and elderly huffing and puffing up the slope just to reach the great wooden doors of the cathedral.

But it doesn’t matter. Once you step inside the cathedral doors, Jesus himself greets you with open arms… Literally.

Haha technically nobody is allowed to take photos inside the cathedral, but there’s always somebody who managed to flout the rule.

The painting on the central dome ceiling is HUGE! Just compare it to the miniscule people sitting beneath it.

The interior was very beautiful and there were lots of mini-exhibits around the main worship area. But since I have no other photos to talk about we’ll just leave it here.

**********

#7 – Musée d’Orsay

This is arguably the second most popular museum in Paris, after you-know-which museum (thanks to Dan Brown and his The Da Vinci Code).

Housing the spectacular station clock (above) on one side of the building, the Musée d’Orsay is proud of its century-old history as a railway station, before being converted to one of Paris’ premier art museum.

The Musée d’Orsay is extremely famous for its impressionist–styled paintings on display. Being trained in engineering, the only thing that I know about impressionist paintings is that they do not come fitted with loud electrical motors.

Ah, and yes, one more thing that I know of is that Vincent van Gogh is one of the master titans in impressionist painting.

I bet those who study art totally thinks he’s god.

Because whenever there is a Van Gogh painting, people with thick glasses and sketch papers always surround and stare at it for ages…

I mean, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that! I think people with an artistic background would benefit so much from this museum. Even I, without a thread of knowledge in art, found some paintings so beautiful and absorbing that you can’t help but stare.

There were hundreds of wonderful artwork on display at the Musée d’Orsay and I ignorantly knew only three of them: van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhone, Édouard Manet’s Olympia, and James McNeill Whistler’s Whistler’s Mother (above), which I knew from Mr. Bean’s destruction of the painting in the 1997 Mr. Bean movie.

They did not allow any form of photography in the museum halls but we managed to sneak a snapshot of the main exhibition hall (although the angle is slightly tilted lol):

A little caution note though: Most artwork on display at the Musée d’Orsay have descriptions written in French – only. Well actually almost everything everywhere in Paris are in French only. No English translation. So I would recommend anybody who plans to go there (and do not understand French) to get a guided tour.

**********

#6 – Arc de Triomphe

The Arc is probably the second most iconic structure in Paris.

It is interesting how somebody could come up with this idea of building a gigantic arch that has no obvious practical use in the middle of a busy (probably busiest) junction in town, isn’t it?

Looking at it always reminds me of a scene in a movie (forgot which one) in which a huge meteor from outer space crashes through the arc and utterly destroys it.

Haha that is why I have such a strong impression towards this monument!

Did you know that there is another (identically named) Arch of Triumph in, of all places, Pyongyang, North Korea?

And that the one is North Korea is actually the largest in the world, making the (significantly more famous) twin in Paris only second largest!

That is actually what infuriated Liberty (winged figure below) to heroically call the French to defend their nation…

… No lah…! Haha but that is indeed a sculpture of Liberty calling the French to defend their nation… against her European enemies, not Kim Jong-Il.

In fact, the entire arch was commissioned by Emperor Napoleon to commemorate the victory of France and the soldiers who fought and died during the Napoleonic Wars.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is laid beneath the arc to, along with an eternal flame, forever remember the countless unknown soldiers who died for France. 

I’m not sure how they picked which soldier’s body (perhaps by random?) to be buried here but this is sure one lucky guy!

Waaaaayyy too long of an entry! Gonna have continue in Part 2. 

]]> http://www.james-chow.com/2011/04/05/passionate-paris-p-1/feed/ 0 http://www.james-chow.com/2011/03/30/serene-st-albans/ http://www.james-chow.com/2011/03/30/serene-st-albans/#comments Tue, 29 Mar 2011 19:21:00 +0000 James Chow http://www.james-chow.com/2011/03/30/serene-st-albans/ I may be having my semester break when I flew over 10,000 kilometres to visit Shuyi, but she sure wasn’t having hers!

In fact, she had to go to class on Mondays and Tuesdays. Yup, just two days a week! What a wonderful privilege for those studying a degree in law!

While she stayed near the main university campus in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, her law school is actually located in a city approx. 10 miles east called St. Albans. 

So instead of sitting home and doing nothing while she goes for classes on Monday and Tuesday, I followed Shuyi to St. Albans and spent the time exploring this beautiful English suburb.

St. Albans is a refreshing breath of fresh air and presents an entirely different view of England from the bustling metropolis of central London. 

The serene, quiet environment, old buildings and cathedrals, cosy cottages, small footpaths with greenery in every direction…  To me, this is the the more England-ish part of England!

Everything, from this park…

… to this mossy-walled back alley…

… to this peaceful graveyard beside a church…

… simply look like scenes taken out from some old English drama!

Anyways, there is a huge cathedral, also named St. Albans, at the other side of town. This enormous structure is the second longest (of the many hundreds of cathedrals) in the entire United Kingdom!

Before entering the cathedral’s great wooden doors, I took a stroll around the building and found this HUGE park sort of place right beside the cathedral.

The field was SO incredibly huge that you couldn’t even see the end of it.

There were people there simply walking their dogs and playing frisbee. But what lies beyond the wide expanse is simply up to the imagination. (perhaps Hogwarts)

I had not really intended to enter the church but it was getting freezing outside. To defrost I slowly pushed open the grand doors and stepped into the a reception area. Apart from a few staff and a couple of visitors, the huge place was completely deserted.

A church staff member smiled to me and I took the liberty to assume that I was welcome to look around as a visitor.

I carefully looked around and found the history behind the name of the church. The story dates back in the 3rd century when England was part of the Roman Empire and Christianity was not allowed to be practised. St. Alban sheltered a Christian priest in his house and when the soldiers went to search his house, he exchanged cloaks with the priest to protect his visitor and was promptly arrested. The furious Roman courts then demanded that St. Alban declare that he was not a Christian but he staunchly refused, leading to his execution by beheading. Legend has it that after the executioner did his job, his eyes dropped out of his head. Eww…!

The cathedral is said to be founded on the very site of St. Alban’s beheading. It even has a shrine that contains a shoulder blade bone believed to belong to St. Alban himself!

The church is so huge that it had its own mini-museum detailing its over-1000 history throughout the ages!

There were also some nice exhibits like this replica of a 14th century mechanical clock, created by Richard of Wallingford, who was the head of the St. Albans Abbey back then.

The clock is said to be one of the earliest and most advanced mechanical clocks in that time.

Another fascinating thing that can generally be found in old cathedrals is the floor tomb.

I’m not sure if it is disrespectful to walk on top of these polished, human-sized tiles on the church floor with inscriptions of the person being buried underneath, but I avoided stepping on them nonetheless. Who knows, right?

Anyways, it was getting late when I got out of the cathedral (late as in 4.15PM late, it was already getting dark at 4.30PM in the afternoon in winter!), and I had to wait for Shuyi’s class to finish at 5PM, so I stopped by for some coffee at this very nicey coffee house.

It was kinda Starbucks-styled but with a cosier feeling in it… Well perhaps it was the warmth that I appreciated deeply after all the cold outside… And a MUCH larger building.

Before heading back to Hatfield, we had dinner at this very nice place called O’Neill’s pub and grill!

I’m sure that you guys studying in the UK see this like everyday but to me, this is special!

Dudes just sitting around with a beer, with soft music and smell of chips…

The English bar whose imitations can be widely seen everywhere in the world…

Nobody ever goes to England without eating fish and chips at least once!

The place also had these very cool gaming machines (I wish they had some vintage pinball machine too) and a cigarette vending machine in the middle!

After exiting the premises and as we were walking down the street, we discovered that the exterior view of the building looks like it’s been a school or library or something…

… and if you look closer at the space above the entrance, you can actually see faded engraved letters saying ‘PUBLIC LIBRARY’!

Englishman 1: Alas, the number of townsfolk visiting the public library is declining.

Mayor: Who needs a library? Let’s build a pub.

-

… And so it came to be.

-

Nobody goes to London without posing with the Tower Bridge. So here’s mine.

The Tower bridge is often mistaken as the London Bridge (as in London Bridge is falling down…), but the truth is London Bridge is a relatively common-looking bridge upstream next to the Tower Bridge.

At night, the London Bridge has bright colours illuminating its body:

While beautiful, it is nowhere as alluring as its world-famous neighbour at night:

The Tower Bridge got its name from the nearby Tower of London, the ancient castle used by medieval kings of England to imprison, torture and execute traitors and heretics.

LOL I guess it was roughly an ancient equivalent to our Kamunting Dentention Centre in Taiping… Only that the medieval kings did not need to cook up legal excuses like the ISA to send prisoners there as our politicians do!

Today, the Tower of London has (as usual) become a major tourist attraction showcasing, among others, the Royal Crown Jewels and centuries of Royal Armour.

We had a relaxing stroll along the River Thames that late afternoon. As evening came and went, the lights along the river bank lit up and I realized that there was no better place to be in London at that moment!

Looking across the river were some of the most fantastic sights that you could see across a body of water.

London’s financial district (officially the City of London, also known as the Square Mile) resides within the the ancient boundaries of London and is now, along with New York City, the world’s leading global finance centres.

One of the iconic buildings in the Square Mile is the Swiss Re Building (a.k.a the Gherkin), the rocket-looking building across the river.

We took a water taxi on the River Thames from the London Bridge Pier heading west towards the Waterloo Pier, where the London Eye is.

Cruising on the River Thames at night was amazing! The cool late-winter breeze and dazzling night scenery on both sides made the ride absolutely unforgettable.

Although it was still quite cold (about 3 – 6°C), it felt good freezing myself in the evening river breeze. There were proper seats in the cabin for each passenger, but we simply couldn’t allow ourselves to sit still while cruising on one of the world’s most famous rivers!

Not that I’m advocating it, but it is interesting to learn that Tower Bridge was once a popular suicide site, and even now, once a week, a dead body is found washed ashore somewhere along the entire length of the River Thames^[1]! Creepy!

Haha but who cares about dead bodies in the river when you’ve arrived at the London Eye?

Probably the most famous Ferris wheel in the world, the London Eye is 135 metres tall. It was the tallest Ferris wheel in the world when it was first built, but the record is now held by the Singapore Flyer near Marina Bay.

The London Eye is an absolutely awesome sight to behold even from its base:

Malaysia had its own version of the London Eye – the Eye on Malaysia – which was opened in 2007 but later dismantled in 2010.

A standard adult ticket on the London Eye costs £18.60, which is around RM93. Haha frankly I think this is the kind of ride that you will only go on once in your life, and only when you’re with a partner.

I mean, while the sight from above was utterly spectacular, RM93 for a Ferris wheel ride is rather expensive LOL.

Each gondola looked like a medicine pill (above) and could fit a small group of people. There were seats in the centre of the gondola but with everybody standing in front of the glass walls, there was absolutely no point sitting down.

I heard that the London eye is a very popular place for guys to propose to their girlfriends. Apparently all you need to do is book an entire gondola, add some champagne and chocolates, and of course an engagement ring, and you’ve got it – the perfectly romantic proposal that your fiancée is gonna boast in their blogs and conversations for years to come.

And the duration on the London Eye is well suited for a proposal as well!

Let’s analyze: one ride takes about 60 minutes – 15 minutes for you to calm down and pretend to your girlfriend that nothing’s happening, 10 minutes to say sweet sweet words to build the atmosphere, 5 minutes (at the very top) to get down on your knees and say: “Will you marry me?”, 5 minutes of speechlessness on her part, 10 minutes for her to finally find the words to say “Yes I do” or whatever, and finally 15 minutes of quickly finishing the champagne and chocolates to avoid waste.

Perfect!

At the top of the wheel, we enjoyed a fantastic night view of the Thames and the surrounding bustling city from above. The Palace of Westminster, where the UK Houses of Parliament meet, had a very different look when viewed from above.

Of course, being a couple we cannot possibly not pose for a photo on this ride.

After getting down from the Ferris wheel, we crossed the Westminster bridge and took gazillions of pictures with the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. There is absolutely no reason for a tourist to not hang around the this building even in the freezing wind. Gosh, trust me, it was chilling to the bone standing on that bridge!

Something was odd, though. If you look at the brightly lit Houses of Parliament below, you’d clearly see that a portion of the right corner is not lit. One part of it is just much darker than the its neighbouring parts.

At that time, we assumed that it was probably due to some shorted fuse / snapped wire / forgot to pay electricity bill etc. but after I reached home, I googled for images of the Houses of Parliament and I realized that every single picture online, even those on travel websites and official London postcards, have got the same, exact part of the building unlit!

So this is no mistake! That part of the building is intentionally left darkened! Can anybody tell me why is that?

Or is that dark, inglorious part of parliament specially reserved for opposition MPs? LOL.

Anyways, we later walked on to the entrance of the Westminster Abbey.

This immense gothic church is definitely one of the most famous in the UK. Besides being the coronation site of kings and queens of England as well as the traditional wedding venue for the royal family since almost a millennium ago, the church is also the preferred-burial-site (if there is such a thing) for English kings and queens.

A significant number of hugely famous English people were buried – no, sorry… interred – in Westminster Abbey. These people include Charles Dickens, Ernst Rutherford, Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton… LOL didn’t you read The Da Vinci Code?

Perhaps it was a mistake that we visited the church at night. While the building looked absolutely majestic during daytime, it looked quite spooky at night! Like some giant haunted castle… but I like!

Earlier that morning, we visited the Natural History Museum, which we had been unable to visit the previous day due to the afternoon queue.

I am not an ardent museum-goer, but I had been looking forward to visiting the Natural History Museum even before I had plans to go to the UK. Many books and novels that I’ve read referred to the museum and it seemed to be an extremely exciting place!

And indeed it was!

Right inside the entrance was a giant Diplodocus, a late-Jurassic period plant eating dinosaur.

While dinosaur fossils are only like a small part of this gigantic museum, they are definitely its primary attractions!

The famous Triceratops!

A monstrous I-forgot-whazzit-called-saurus.

This looks like a mini T. Rex, but it isn’t.

A Stegosaurus, maybe?

Ah, I should have taken pictures of the signs next to the dinosaurs…

Look! Dinosaur eggs! A Maiasaura nest… this is a reconstruction, of course.

Apart from dinosaurs, there were still a whole bunch of other fossils and rare animals! Like the Dodo bird:

This weird, extinct mammal:

A live-size blue whale, alongside skeletons and remnants of other giants like the woolly mammoth, the sperm whale, gray whale, elephants and dolphins.

It’s gargantuan body looks like a submarine hull and makes even the largest elephant look miniscule. I think it’s mouth can comfortably fit two giant elephants…

Being the Natural History Museum, it covers not only the evolution of animals but also the evolution of the natural universe and planets as well. There is a special escalator that brings you straight up ‘into outer space’ where you learn about the birth and evolution of the universe and all the stars and planets inside.

This is absolutely one of the most amazing museums that I’ve ever been to and definitely my most favourite!

I think kids can gain more knowledge here than a whole year of elementary Biology + Cosmology class.

Lo and behold! The godfather of evolution himself was there too!

Sitting regally on his marble throne, Charles Darwin oversees the great Central Hall from the centre of the grand staircase. Like a god.

The next morning, we went to an attraction near the London Bridge called the London Dungeon.

If you are into English History, particularly the scariest and most terrible parts of it, this attraction is for you.

Using a combination of special effects, mazes, rides and live actors, the London Dungeon transports you back to the medieval age and relive the horrors of the most famous historical events!

For example, at the exhibit of the 1665 Great Plague of London, an ‘unlucky’ tourist among our group was strapped to an operation seat by a doctor and got his arm ‘operated’ upon. ‘Blood’ was sprinkled on our faces when lights suddenly went out the moment the doctor’s bloody knife hit the person.

Of course it was all fake! The tourist didn’t die and later rejoined our group in one piece!

After being ’sentenced to death’ by a live and humourous judge in a mock court, we were put on a boat ride with spooky sound effects and sent through a Traitors’ Gate replica into the Tower of London.

Later, among the many scenes, we ventured ‘unknowingly’ into Sweeney Todd’s barber shop and had him ‘cut’ our hair (we could actually feel it!); met the victims of Jack the Ripper and later becoming ‘victims’ ourselves when a terrible figure blasted in through a window with a knife; and had one of our fellow tourists arrested by Bloody Mary for heresy and burnt to death in front of our eyes. Of course he magically survived the fire.

The above is a poster for the Bloody Mary attraction. Not too scary, is it? It’s interesting to discover that earlier there was an advertisement in London Underground stations that featured a much more gruesome, zombie-like Bloody Mary. It was later deemed too scary for children and was banned.

Click here to see. (Warning. Image might shock some readers.)

In the end we were strapped and to be ‘hanged’ at Newgate Prison. After our charges were read against us, the hangman pulled the lever and we literally fell ‘through the gallows trapdoor to our death’! The ride was something like a mini-version of the Spaceshot ride in Genting where we sat on this row of seats that suddenly dropped towards the ground in total darkness.

The stunning visual effects of the displays and impressive showmanship of the actors made the London Dungeon extremely popular – check out the insane queue at the entrance!

You have no idea. The queue was like two hours long, and it was friggin’ freezing in the late-winter drizzling morning. But nobody seemed to care about the rain! People would just put on raincoats and carry umbrellas and queue on!

The tickets were not cheap either! An adult ticket is around £23 (RM115), but you could buy tickets to several attractions managed by the same company (London Eye, Madame Tussauds, Sea Life etc.) in a bundle for a cheaper price.

That morning was exceptionally cold (I think about 3-5°C), so we decided to combat the chilling rain with… ice cream!

Brrr… I feel cold writing this.

Later in the afternoon, we went to three of London’s most famous shopping streets – Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street.

These three streets are packed with branded retail stores and high-end restaurants and cafes – shops that average mortals like me have no business with. Yet, who cares? Window shopping was enough for us!

Regent Street is famous for its curved (not straight) design… or is it called layout? Whatever lah, here it is:

I simply adore looking at this street! For some reason, the curvature of the street gradually leading the shops out of sight gives it a mysterious yet charming feeling… Like in a strangely vivid dream!

We had some great afternoon tea at a nice cafe along the street.

Shuyi and I love toy stores. And there is one ultimate toy store in Regent Street that no Toys ‘R’ Us in Malaysia can beat – the Hamleys flagship store.

From Ben 10 to Teletubbies to Barbie to Disney characters, Hamleys has it all! There is even a special section where you could make your own custom-made teddy bear out of raw cotton, and a dedicated section for LEGO. Indeed, there is almost a dedicated section for every major toy brand!

But among the magic shows, clowns, TV show corners and race tracks, there was one single department that utterly blew me away – the fifth floor.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you would know that I am so totally a Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter fan, having written quite a few entries about the latter.

On the fifth floor was the greatest collection of LOTR and HP merchandizes I’ve ever seen!

You can literally buy the wands of Hermione, Harry, Lord Voldemort, Lucius Malfoy, Dumbledore or whichever HP character you like – along with descriptions on the type of wood and feather core!

They literally sell wands as though they are Ollivander’s! Check out their wand stockpile:

Now I don’t even know why Harry needed to search so hard in the wilderness for Godric Gryffindor’s Sword in Book 7 if he could have just bought it in Hamleys for £180.

And a Nimbus 2000 + Marauder’s Map (underneath the broom) just in case you missed the last train home.

The awesomeness of the Harry Potter merchandize collection was only outmatched by its Lord of the Rings stuff.

A replicate of the Evenstar, made of sterling silver, the jewel that Arwen gave Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings.

From left to right: Theoden King’s Herugrim, Frodo’s Sting, Arwen’s Hadhafang and of course, Aragorn’s Anduril.

Obviously, they aren’t real swords, just letter openers. But WHO IN THE WORLD opens letters using Anduril, the sword of kings, forged from the shards of Narsil, which destroyed the Dark Lord of Mordor by removing the One Ring from him? WHO DOES?

Ah please forgive me. When it comes to LOTR, I can be a bit… passionate.

Naturally, I almost wet my pants when I saw this:

What is it? You ask?

This, my friend, is the One Ring. Made of 24K pure gold and has the exact Elvish Tengwar inscription:

which, of course, translates to:

One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them,
One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

in the Black Speech, created and used by the dark lord Sauron.

I would have very irrationally bought the ring if it did not cost £280 (RM1400).

Anyway, back to reality, we moved on next to Oxford Street.

Oxford Street is the busiest street in Europe, with flagship stores of many major UK chain stores opened here. Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group and my entrepreneurial idol, opened his first  Virgin Records store on this very street when he was only 21.

Remember Harrods from part 1 of this travel log? That’s the UK’s largest department store. And here’s the UK’s second largest – Selfridges.

It was getting late when we were finished with Oxford Street. I have another elder cousin living in London so we had arranged for a dinner in her house.

She and her husband lives in Stratford, about thirty minutes from Oxford Street using the London underground.

We were greeted with an extraordinary, dearly-missed, home-cooked Chinese food!

We had a nice hearty time chatting and were so stuffed with wonderful food that when we were served ice-cream for dessert, we had to politely decline.

The next morning, we visited the one place that I could not have missed.

Being an Arsenal fan since I was in form three, I made a pilgrimage to the Emirates Stadium in London – the home ground of the Arsenal FC!

Being the second-largest football club stadium in England (only after you-know-which-stadium), it was absolutely breath-taking to finally behold the actual stadium in its full glory, after the many years of seeing it on television during live matches!

Unfortunately there were no matches going on in the stadium during the days that I was in London.

I have been staunchly supporting this club since the days of David Seaman in Highbury. In fact, it was Seaman himself that made me support the club in the first place.

There was an ultra awesome team line-up of every single Arsenal player and manager since 1913 – called The Spirit of Highbury.

No Malaysian who has visited his favourite football team’s stadium could return home without an original jersey to show off to his fellow fans at mamak stalls on match days.

I am, unfortunately, one of those sad souls.

Even before I went on this trip, I had been adamant to get myself an Arsenal Jersey from the Emirates Stadium. And now that I finally have the opportunity, the staff at The Armoury (the Arsenal official merchandize shop) told me that ALL ARSENAL HOME AND AWAY JERSEYS WERE SOLD OUT except for XL and XXL sizes!!!!!!

This is thanks to the fact that the Carling Cup final was on that evening at Wembley Stadium (no chance I could have got the tickets, so I didn’t bother) and the jerseys were swept clean by fans.

It was an utter disappointment as I had no idea when will I have the chance (if ever) to come back here again to get it!

Well, although I couldn’t get my jersey, I had to buy something right? So I bought this official Arsenal polo shirt and tie. Still uber awesome!

I should also mention that the Armoury sells everything – related and unrelated – to football in the name of Arsenal.

From Arsenal jerseys, scarfs, t-shirts, socks and underwear, to Arsenal coffee mugs, key chains, wallets…

… official Arsenal dog shirts and collars …

… official Arsenal dinosaur and teddy bear…

…all the way to official Arsenal bed sheet set and baby clothes!

Crazy variety, isn’t it? Haha you can fill your house will Arsenal stuff if you want to!

***** OMG THIS BLOG ENTRY IS GETTING INSANELY LONG!! *****

OK let’s cut things short!

In the afternoon we went to the Covent Garden Market.

Markets in England are very interesting as they have lots of ‘street performers’ –people doing random performances for the public in hopes of getting some public donation. It may sound shabby, but these performers are extremely talented and professional!

It’s located adjacent to my street LOL.

There were magicians performing and selling magic tricks…

Stand-up comedy / talk show…

Musicians playing in mini-orchestras…

… As well as acrobats doing special performances!

These performers gather huge crowds and sometimes earn quite a lot of money!

On our last night in London, we went to Chinatown. Well, as a Chinese I couldn’t really have skipped this place, could I?

London Chinatown is, from what I observed, dominated by Hong Kong nationals. Perhaps that’s because HK is the only part of China that was colonized by the British, so you know, like Malaysia, people tend to flock to where their masters come from.

They say that London Chinatown’s roasted duck is like, world-famous. So we tried it:

The roasted duck was not too bad, really! The down side was, of course, the price. We ordered half-a-duck and it cost us £30 (RM150)! ONE WHOLE roasted duck in Malaysia costs less than HALF of that! Haha but I guess we can’t compare it that way…

An interesting difference between the London roasted duck and our typical Asian roasted duck is the layer of fat. Roasted ducks in London categorically have a much thicker layer of fat compared to those that we find here in East Asia.

We theorized that it is possibly because it is colder in the UK compared to Malaysia, so ducks need more fat to keep warm…?

Ah now it sounds stupid, so let’s just forget it.

After checking out from our hotel the next morning, we visited our last destination in London – the British Museum.

Established more than 250 years ago, the British Museum houses some of the world’s most arcane artefacts, such as the original Rosetta Stone (dated 196 BC):

The Rosetta Stone is an ancient inscription of a decree in three different languages: Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Egyption Demotic (everyday language), and Ancient Greek. This stone allows modern researchers to better understand and decipher the ancient Hieroglyphic script, whose meaning would otherwise been lost forever.

Equally awesome were sculptures from the original, ancient Greek Parthenon, known as the Elgin Marbles (dated about 400 BC).

These sculptures are now being demanded by Greece to be returned to them, but so far the British Museum has been refusing to comply. Of course they’d refuse! I mean, if I had the sculptures in my house and ZEUS himself appeared from the skies and demanded that I return the stuff to Greece, I would probably refuse.

It is very interesting to note that the heads of the human sculptures were always chopped off, and so were their genitals, which were almost always missing, leaving behind a clearly severed rough spot… Can somebody enlighten me as to why this is so?

Check out this actual mummy (yes, actual!) of Cleopatra of Thebes. X-ray photos beside the mummy show that she is still inside, preserved, for almost two thousand years!

Perhaps one night, you know, after everybody has left… under the moonlight, the bandages will loosen and fall off… and … Aaaaaaarrrgghh…

To the history / archaeology uninitiated guy like me, the mummies section of the British Museum was totally the most fascinating. I mean, how can you resist the rows and rows of ancient mummies, sarcophagi, coffins and skulls around you?

There were even actual animal mummies! Inside their own sarcophagi! (See the x-ray photos on paper in the background)

Skulls that are over 4000 years old…

Cute figurines made of bone that were crafted by humans SIX THOUSANDS YEARS AGO! (about 4000 BC)

And… a skeleton and mummified body dating back to 3000 BC!

OMG the amount of creepy stuff in this section is both impressive and bloodcurdling. If a necromancer wanted to summon an undead army, this would probably be an ideal place to start… LOL.

Haha imagine you missed the museum’s closing announcement and were accidentally locked in this – very – section for the entire night… alone… in the dark… I mean, who knows what really happens on the museum floors in the dead, silent night, right?  Woah I would die and probably join ranks with the undead if I were locked in here!

Anyways, later that night we finally arrived at King’s Cross to board our train back to Hatfield.

I made it my final mission in London to search for platform 9¾ in King’s Cross – the famed magical gateway between our Muggle world to Harry Potter’s magical world!

I failed.

Apparently the entire King’s Cross station was under comprehensive renovation ahead of the 2012 Olympics and many, many parts of the station were boarded up and covered from public view..

Here’s platform 9:

And after a long search, we concluded that platform 9¾ was hiding behind these temporary construction walls:

Poor wizards.

Their luggage trolleys would be so stuck in the miniscule space within the walls when they return from Hogwarts for their summer holidays.

**********

Anyway, thus ended my trip to London and also this incrediextremelinsane long blog entry.

My trip to London was an extraordinarily lovely experience. The great places and wonderful people there (the British people that we met were generally very helpful and friendly) made me simply can’t wait to visit again. YAY!

I’d always thought that I could only visit places like the UK or the US if I decided to do my masters degree over there or something… But nope! It seems that a cupid issue is sufficient cause.

Since Shuyi continued her studies in the UK last October, I have always pondered the prospect of making use of this perfect excuse to make a trip to the land of our former colonial bosses. Haha, it worked!

In 1954, Tunku Abdul Rahman led a delegation to London to seek independence for Malaysia for  the first time, but failed. Now I think it was probably because London is just such a wondrous place to visit that our then Prime Minister-to-be and his friends, err… got distracted, a bit.

LOL just kidding la! But anyways he made up with the ‘mistake’ with a second trip in 1956 and settled the independence deal. So no harm done.

This is by far the longest flight that I have travelled on – 13.5 hours! It was horrible, as I have a problem sleeping on planes, buses, trains etc. Listened to music for an hour, read a book for 3 hours, rested for 3 hours… done everything I could, and there were still some 6 hours left!

6 hours! That’s like two friggin’ engineering lab sessions back-to-back…

I made two friends Jonny and Paul on the plane. Jonny’s girlfriend is French so he had lots of very useful advice on tourists spots in Paris, and Paul had a deck of cards – a godsend to burn away time in the cabin!

Back in Malaysia, I was told that our citizens’ immigration records to the British weren’t that good – thanks to irresponsible idiots abusing their social visit passes and illegally staying to work…

And before my trip, LOADS of people warned me that a single 23-year-old Malaysian guy trying to enter the UK claiming for a ‘visit’ is sufficient reason for high suspicion. And the UK Border Agency (equivalent to our Immigration Dept) is apparently quite well known for sending people home straight away if they don’t feel that you’re trustworthy enough!

I was kinda super nervous when queuing at the UK Border after my flight landed. I knew it was unlikely but what if I was refused entry? I mean, after enduring 13 tormenting hours of flight from KL, only to be sent on a 13-hour return journey?! It was unthinkable.

Fortunately, I was greeted by a very friendly Border Agency officer who smiled broadly and bade me a warm ‘good morning’. I’m sorry to say this but our own immigration officers back home wouldn’t even contract their precious facial muscles if their lives depended on it. And now this lady was smiling as though me visiting her country was the most honourable thing that had ever happened to her (of course it wasn’t).

She politely asked me if I came alone, and what was the nature of my visit. I answered everything frankly and courteously, and provided my landing card which included my cousin’s home address in London. The cheerful lady inquired a little more about where I intend visit and stuff and that was it! I was in!

Although it wasn’t snowing, I had been constantly told by my mum and dad to wear more clothes and stuff cuz I was probably gonna freeze to death. I didn’t believe them. The temperature was around 1-4°C, which I thought was nothing since it was even hotter than my refrigerator – and I loved sticking my head into the freezer. Since I had not died in the freezer, I would not die in this weather too, I reasoned.

Wearing nothing more than the usual attire that I wear to Toastmasters meetings in MMU, I stepped out of the airport into the February weather.

I almost died.

I discovered that the chilly late-winter weather was not to be compared with an LG refrigerator – refrigerators cannot accommodate my whole body, and freezers don’t blast ferocious winds to your face. I quickly retreated back into the airport, and put on the huge balloon-like jacket that I had brought but sworn not to use.

Since Shuyi stayed in Hertfordshire, which is approximately 40KM north of London, we took a coach from the airport. The coach’s company name is National Express, and the driver treated us with utmost politeness. Checking our tickets, helping us with the luggage and stuff… all done cheerfully and happily! The coach seats were also in perfect condition (almost brand new), with security pamphlets just like those on airplanes! There was also a very friendly and funny security briefing to the passengers (although there were only 4 on board including us), and the smiles and jolliness that the driver exhibited would probably be ignored as insanity on any express buses back in Malaysia.

Hertfordshire’s county coat-of-arms has two cute Rudolfs!

After staying in Hatfield for two days and fully recovered from the exhaustion of having been deprived of any sleep for the past 36 hours, we headed to London. Actually the London-KL time difference wasn’t that bad. The good thing about living a student’s lifestyle, you know – sleeping at 5AM and waking up at 1PM – is that I was spared of any jet lag during the entire journey. (Coz 5AM in KL = 10PM in London = sleeping time)

When we arrived in London, we first checked into the place that we would be staying for the next five days.

Located in central London, our studio is just adjacent to Tottenham Court Road, and extremely close to the British Museum and the prestigious University College London.  It was a very nice and comfortable double room with its own bathroom and kitchen!

The kitchen was probably the best part of the deal.

With a fridge, oven, electric kettle, microwave oven and stoves, we could open a mini-restaurant here! Did I mention that pots, frying pans, plates, glasses and all kitchen utensils and eating cutlery were also provided?

My cousin David came to London from Oxford (the university! ) on the same day so we arranged a meet up.

Here’s David, Shuyi, me and Christina – a ‘friend’ and colleague of David’s at Oxford.

After lunch, we were brought on sort of a spontaneous tour along the River Thames. On the way we stopped by the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, both of which are located at the iconic Trafalgar Square.

Strolling along the south bank of the River Thames, we reached the Shakespeare’s Globe, which is a faithful reconstruction of the original Globe Theatre built by William Shakespeare’s Playing Company back in the 16th century.

The original Globe Theatre, which was burnt down by an accident with a live cannon while performing Shakespeare’s Henry VIII in 1613, was located just several hundred meters from the new, reconstructed one.

I think William Shakespeare’s awesomeness doesn’t strike us typical Malaysians much because not even one Shakespearean play was taught in our national schools’ English Literature syllabus. As I recall, the only Shakespeare’s work included in our syllabus was Sonnet 18, you know, the “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” thingy? That was the only one! Or did I not pay attention in class?

I think the ultra-conservative Malaysian government would probably ban even Sonnet 18 if they found out that scholars now are suggesting that Shakespeare’s Sonnets may carry a hint of homosexuality… but ahhh yes, they are probably currently too preoccupied fussing over a certain politician’s sexual orientation.

Anyway, next up is the Millennium bridge.

Looks familiar? Yes it does. Because it is the bridge that was destroyed by the Death Eaters in the 6th Harry Potter movie.

Walking on the bridge made me feel that I might be attacked by Lucius Malfoy and a bunch of smoke-trailing death eaters coercing me to join their cause, which I would be more than glad to comply.

Crossing the Thames on the Millennium bridge led us straight to St. Paul’s Cathedral, one of the most iconic structures of London.

This cathedral was built in the 17th century but like many other really old cathedrals, several other St. Paul’s-es were built on the very same site and in this case, the first St. Paul’s was built back in the early 7th century – that’s a millennium before this one was built!

Awesomeness!

The next morning, we visited one of the most popular public places in London – Piccadilly Circus.

While there are absolutely no circus elephants and clowns in this area, Piccadilly Circus (‘circus’ meaning circle in Latin) is one of those places where locals lepak and tourists must drop by for a picture.

Adjacent to Piccadilly Circus is Leicester Square, where you can get great deals on tickets for West End theatre performances! London’s West End, along with New York’s Broadway, is generally accepted to be world’s highest standard of commercial theatre!

It would be an absolute shame to visit London and not watch one of West End’s theatre performances. Featuring extremely talented performers singing and acting to the music from a live orchestra in a beautiful old theatre building… Yay!

There were so many performances but we chose a classic one.

Our tickets cost £64 in total, about RM300. But this was already a bargain ticket, which was cheaper than the original price. Original-priced tickets can go up to £78 per ticket!

Theatre performances do not change as regularly as films in cinemas do. For example, this Phantom of the Opera performance has been performing at Her Majesty’s Theatre for 24 years.

Other performances like Mamma Mia! at the Prince of Wales Theatre has been on show for 11 years, and The Mousetrap at St. Martin’s Theatre has been on performance for 58 years! I mean, actors can spend their whole careers in one theatre!

We spent the afternoon walking along the streets and taking a lot of pictures. I cannot possibly put up pictures of every single place that we’ve visited but Harrods definitely deserves a mention!

Famous for once being the shopping place for the royal family, including the Queen, Harrods is also one of the few department stores in the world with a dress code.

Apparently, the royal family gradually stopped shopping at Harrods after Mohammad Al Fayed bought over the store in 1985. The royal family was also apparently furious at the owner after he accused the them of plotting a conspiracy that led to his son, Dodi Fayed’s death with Princess Diana in the infamous 1997 Paris car crash.

But enough history, this majestic structure itself deserves awe. Hehe although we didn’t bother to check out the price tags inside, at least we’ve been here!

I reckoned that having lunch in Harrods was probably a bad idea since I do not have a queen’s salary. So we had our lunch at a restaurant across the street.

The thing about British restaurants is that they always have this very wide smile on their waitresses’ face and almost suspiciously polite service. I guess this is what happens when there is no service charge unlike certain countries where tips are automatically counted and do not need to be earned.

The food was nice!

Even the prawn shell + other inedible rubbish could be made into another decorative dish!

In the afternoon we visited one of the most exclusively cultural parts of London, nicknamed Albertopolis, in South Kensington. This place is home to three of the most famous museums in England – Natural History Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Science Museum – as well other world-famous institutions like the Royal College of Music, Imperial College London, and Royal Albert Hall.

Although the Natural History Museum is probably the most famous of the three museums, and I had been longing to check out its dinosaur fossil collection, we did not visit it on the second day because of its preposterously long queue!

It was kinda unfortunate that my visit to London coincided with their national school holidays. So these attractions were understandably jam-packed by kids from family outings and school field trips!

Regardless, we visited the V&A museum:

Named after Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, the V&A is the largest museum of decorative arts and design in the world.

From colourful stained glass…

to towering sculptures…

to delicate glass ornaments…

I am no artistic man, and I have no special talent in spotting the intricate specialties in artwork, you know, stuff that will make your designer friend go ‘wooooooooooooooow’ and start rambling about the excellent tone and perfect texture etc, but I can tell that this is rare stuff – stuff that you can’t afford in your house.

Next, we proceeded to the Science Museum. My kind of stuff.

I’ve actually forgotten to take any photos inside the Science Museum. But I can clearly remember one of the exhibitions was a working example of Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine! Dunno what it is? Check back your Theory of Computing history textbook.

One thing odd that I’ve noticed though, compare, say, the grand entrance of the V&A museum:

… the ultra-majestic, palace-like entrance of the Natural History Museum:

… the classical Pantheon-like entrance of the British Museum…

aaaaaaand… the 7-eleven convenience-store-like, puny little entrance of the Science Museum:

Notice that there is actually a blurry sign on top saying ‘Science Museum’… Come on lah! While England is famous for its history and culture, the UK also has also produced the second greatest number of Nobel Prize Laureates in the world! Surely the Science Museum entrance deserves some renovation?

Hehe anyways, we arrived at Her Majesty’s Theatre at night for the show.

The exterior lighting makes the theatre building look either magnificently gothic or simply haunted-looking.

But the interior was pleasantly comfortable. There were three levels (or ‘circles’) in total and the stage was fantastically propped.

Maybe it is because this was the first time I watched a West End theatre performance, but I cannot adequately express how much in love I was with the skill, professionalism and showmanship of the performers! (Sorry no pictures!)

This Phantom of the Opera performance was extremely faithful to the novel and the music from the live orchestra was absolutely breath-taking. After a combination of heavenly singing, fancy costumes, fiery torches, magical illusions, and a gigantic chandelier hurtling towards the stage from above our heads… *gasps* Many of the audience were teary-eyed during the final standing ovation.

It was good. Damn good. This you have to take it from me.

This entry is getting way too long for a regular blog entry, so I’m splitting it into two parts. Part two of this travel log can be found here.

Although not everybody was able to attend, it was an amazingly memorable trip!

We conducted a mass intern disappearance where (almost) all the interns in AMD took leave all at once on the same day! It was utterly shameless, but haha our awesome supervisors were sporting enough to allow it…

We took leave on Friday and departed early (like 6AM early) in the morning. Nobody wanted to drive so we took a gruelling FIVE hour bus trip from Penang to Genting!

There was another small group of our friends who had left AMD a few weeks before us coming to join us on this trip. But while we were enthusiastically willing to take working leaves, they, who were back in university – were unwilling to skip CLASSES!

Since this other group could only join us on the next day, we did not enter the theme park on Friday, nor could we do pretty much anything, since they begged us to wait for them before having doing anything fun.

After giving out generous donations to the Uncle Lim Evil Casino Foundation in the afternoon, we indulged ourselves in lepak-ing and camwhoring in and around the hotels at night.

Lepak-ing for REAL on the streets… ‘mao 街’

Homeless beggars!

Bullying another poor beggar…

Acting cool on the walkway…

And then we realized that wearing our hoodies we look like undead Acolytes in Warcraft 3, so we decided to summon some buildings…

and summon some minions too…

… all in the name of finding entertainment while waiting for our friends to come!

Lame >.<

It’s great to be around people as shameless as myself that we can do stupid stuff in public with utter disregard to other people’s stares.

As per all student trips, late night is reserved for playing cards in the hotel room!

We’ve brought some vodka and mixers with us too but again, its all reserved for the full rendezvous tomorrow.

Later we’ve filmed a footage of Alvin losing a game and having to yell some pretty obscene stuff out of the hotel window. =)

We went to bed at 2AM, hoping to get some hours of sleep…

… before all hell broke lose when the second group (taking a late night bus) arrived at 5AM and slammed into the room, switched on the lights and TV and jumped on our beds…

Reluctantly we woke up and bathed, and prepared to try out the so-called ‘super early morning gambling luck’, which our friend Lenx insisted was real!

Still all groggy and blur, we found that the ‘morning gambling luck’ was quite true! We won more than we did the previous night and the entire casino was VERY less crowded and not to mention the table minimum bets were smaller.

At 8AM sharp, when all the kids and families are still having breakfast, we hit the theme park!

It is always an important rule to follow if you’re going to the theme park and that is enter at 8AM sharp.

There aren’t that many rides in Genting’s outdoor theme park so you should be done with all of them (plus multiple rides of Corkscrew and Space Shot) by 11AM – without much time spent on queuing.

However, if you entered at, say, 11AM, you would spend the whole afternoon in the theme park and may not even be able to ride on everything! Because you’d spend hours just standing there in the queue wishing that the roller coaster would just crash out of its tracks and explode in a gigantic fireball to break the boredom.

Having not slept much the previous night, the ‘first’ group of us went back to the hotel for a quick nap after lunch, while the second group went out for some walk. Everybody knew there’s not gonna be much sleep that night anyway, so we needed the energy!

I must mention that we had excellent meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) mostly at rather expensive restaurants  – all thanks to Alvin, whose parents had some Genting shares, provided us with a generous supply of Genting restaurant vouchers with up to 50% discounts in almost all of the major restaurants!

After dinner we went for a walk around First World Plaza and a few of our gambling addicts again figured they had too much cash and needed to dispose of some. So it was one last casino session before we went back to the hotel and commenced our own ‘gaming’ session!

With the gang of crazy people, stupid games, and some liquor we were soon laughing our heads off witnessing some really insane stuff that we would never find ourselves doing normally, and some were forced to do there and then…

… And the night passed quickly. =)

(Unfortunately nobody had the sense to take photos of the ‘stuff’ that happened that night in the room, and now we have one less thing to look back and choke on…)

**********

The next morning we had an incredibly good breakfast… again thanks to Alvin (I mean his vouchers)!

Alvin confessed that we were actually helping him earn more world points on his Genting card so he wouldn’t mind giving us the vouchers. Besides, apparently he had more vouchers in his house that he can spend. So he was gaining anyways. =D

**********

Hmm… I’m graduating soon… Will trips after I start working be as fun as those that I have had during my university years?

So I’ll just fast forward until AFTER the exams! =D

On the very last day of our final exams, and after many exhausting, sleepless nights, nobody was going to care anymore what the Nyquist’s Frequency was or if they knew about the Shannon’s Sampling Theorem or whatever.

It was very difficult indeed to get this group of people (my classmates) out for any kind of outing. Eternally not free and eternally armed with excuses!

But when we were finally free from the satanic grasp of final exams, we had a day when everybody was present and undoubtedly free!

So we went for dinner and movie!

It was also Tee’s birthday this month! Poor Tee! It was very evil of us to celebrate with him only after the final exams! Kekeke…

Tee’s birthday very unfortunately fell on the Friday of our study week. We had actually made plans to celebrate it nonetheless, but in the end due to… Ah… Anyway IT’S ALL MMU’S FAULT!!

But we got him a very HUGE birthday card to compensate!

**********

As I’ve mentioned, I’ll be going to Penang next month to do my industrial training, so this month my Dear and I went to Penang for a pre-work holiday!

Another purpose of this trip is also to hunt for a place to stay during my four months in Penang.

I think our accommodation objective was completed in like the first 3 hours of our 3-day stay. And so the remaining of the 2-and-a-half day was all ours to enjoy!

To me, Penang has always been a holiday destination. The beach, the food, the breeze… everything! I simply cannot imagine anybody would have the mood the work on this island!

Take Batu Ferringhi for example. The beautiful blue sea, the long stretch of golden beach, the large number of ang-mohs, everything reminds me of the destinations my previous club – MMU Tourism Club – used to go every year!

And I happened to be wearing the Tourism Club T-shirt that day! Such memories!

Is it just my naivety or are there no other tourist beaches in Penang besides Batu Ferringhi? Whenever people talk about beaches in Penang they think of Batu Ferringhi… And whenever tourists come to Penang they’ll go straight there…

So concentrated!

If a tsunami hits Batu Ferringhi directly we’ll have a warehouse of corpses to feed the poor fishies and sharks which having suffered so long the invasion of the tourists in the area.

After the beach we had dinner at The Ship. And I thought that The Ship in Jln. Sultan Ismail or PJ was cool, look at this one in Batu Ferringhi!

The Ship is a friggin’ real ship!

Maybe it was a merchant ship that got washed onto the shore a long time ago and the sailors abandoned it for exotic pretty island girls…

Or maybe it was a ghost ship carrying deceased spirits to the underworld but got wrecked…

Or maybe it was a US navy ship mysteriously teleported here through the Philadelphia Experiment, with all its crew members brutally burned to death and their body infused into the ship’s hull by the unstable magnetic force field…

… And then some rich Malaysian Chinese entrepreneur came along and said to his pal: “Eh Ah Seng, see that? Let’s open restaurant on it! Can save restaurant construction cost somemore!”

And thus The Ship was created.

But who cares if it’s haunted? The steak was really nice and the waiters and waitresses were very polite!

And following a little tradition of ours, we always have a bottle of red wine whenever we go on a holiday by a beach together!

Steak + wine + ocean breeze + gal = loud sigh of satisfaction.

Apart from the beaches, this island is also home to the Penang Char Koay Teow. The most evil food in the world that is guilty of causing obesity to uncountable Malaysians due to its devilishly good taste!

I have been in some kind of Char Koay Teow craze for the past few months. I’d always go all the way from Cyberjaya to SS2 just to eat Char Koay Teow. But NOW – Haha… Nobody and nowhere can ever beat Penang on this:

LOL just look at the imba SIZE of the prawn enough said.

Also check out the Fried Oyster:

How much will I weigh when I come back from Penang four months later?

I was to bring the honorable external examiner of my degree course in MMU – Prof. Dr. Wolf-Fritz Riekert, from Stuttgart Media University of Germany, on a 3-Days-2-Nights leisure trip to Cameron Highlands.

Dr. Riekert’s job as the external examiner for MMU is to evaluate and advise on our Degree program’s structure, curriculum, marking schemes etc.

He is also to visit our university at least once during his term of appointment, and during these visits give lectures, seminars, workshops, and finally write a report on the faculty’s progress to the University.

And now he has come to Malaysia to do just that!

Dr. Chang (second from the left), the program coordinator of my course, had been planning a trip around Malaysia for the Professor after the Prof had finished his last task in MMU – an evaluation interview with a few students, where I was also selected as an interviewee.

It was at that time when he thought it would be good to have a tour guide accompanying the Professor on his trip, since he was not familiar at all to our land… and so I was given the job!

Also coming along were some of my good friends: Hanif (the one acting cool in sunglasses), Ariadne (behind the camera), and the terrorist from Arab, Osamah (first on the left).

I was the driver for this trip. And not only that the petrol and toll costs were all paid, I was also thrilled to find that my automatic-geared Wira was totally awesome because it could carry the weight of SIX people (five people plus the Prof’s super-uber-ultra-heavy luggage the weight of a sixth person) all the way up to Cameron Highlands!

We took up three rooms in Equatorial Hotel, at the very peak of Cameron Highlands!

We didn’t do much on the first day because we reached only at seven in the evening.

We all had classes in the morning and the Dean of our faculty, who was also there when we discussed the trip with Dr. Chang, had personally ordered us to attend the classes in the morning before going on the trip – so we obeyed – and thus arriving so late…

That night, we brought the Professor to have steamboat for dinner!

The Professor had never heard of steamboat before! And he was so amazed by the way we simply threw all the raw prawns and fish and chicken meat and vegetables into the boiling pot and just scoop out and eat!

He must be thinking in revelation that this must be the way people in Asian third world countries have their food…

Luckily, he didn’t seem disgusted or anything (or at least he didn’t show it)… Haha

If anything, he in fact seemed pleasantly fascinated with how we could, in his own words, ‘turn a regular meal into an activity’, and tried to learn the names of the various local vegetables and food… Ariadne also taught him her so-called ‘proper’ way to peel prawns! (without using hands, of course!)

Truthfully, we weren’t very sure if he was full or not after the meal! Because all he managed to scoop out of the pot were tiny bits of meat and some veggie, plus most of his time were occupied in taking pictures, chatting with us, peeling prawns, and drinking Chinese tea!  

After the dinner we had a drink at Starbucks. Where he told us that even in Germany, people thought that Starbucks was overpriced given the products they sell – coffee – which could be found in similar quality just anywhere.

The Professor also enthusiastically showed us pictures of his wife, his children, and the place where he stayed in Germany!

The garden outside his house was… like… UNBELIEVABLY WONDERFUL.

The picture above is not a postcard! It is his garden!

Totally makes us wish we could stay there and study there and work there and get married there and grow old there and die there and be buried there and rot there.

That night back in the hotel, after saying goodnight to the Professor at his room, we took the opportunity to tell scary ghost stories among ourselves in our rooms!

Hanif was so not afraid that he fell asleep during the ghost storytelling.

The next day, we had a really nice breakfast in the hotel, and then went out for jungle trekking.

It was a rather easy track and Ariadne even wore slippers! Which however, in the end, caused her to have to stay behind for a particular steep path! Haha!

Easy as the track was, it was nevertheless a tiring journey – climbing up and down the muddy slopes and stepping over huge tree roots and gigantic fallen tree trunks…

It was the first time the Professor trekked in a tropical forest, and he totally liked it!

We ended our jungle trekking at a waterfall where cool, fresh mountain water flew endlessly from inside the forest…

There were also some ‘ducks’… but, haha, never mind…

Next, we had lunch in a famous mamak stall in Cameron Highlands, where we ordered banana leaf rice with curry mutton and roti canai for the Professor. He had said that he was very interested in trying as many of our local food as possible!

We also made the professor eat with his hands, the Malaysian way! (we didn’t actually make him do it, of course, he voluntarily and sportingly did it!)

And we made a video of him eating with his hands!

A really interesting thing with the video is that if you watch it carefully, you’d see the Caucasian woman behind wearing an extremely disgusted look at our direction, where the Professor was eating with his hands!

It’s totally hilarious, the way she looks at us, you know! She’s probably thinking what these barbaric teenagers are making that poor European old man do… LOL!

After the very interesting lunch, we headed off to the one place in Cameron that the Professor declares a ‘must go’ after he had seen it on the internet:

- the BOH tea plantations!

To us, the plantations were nothing but a lot of well-ordered green trees. But to the professor, the scene of infinite rows of carefully-planted tea plants stretching over mountains was truly, utterly amazing.

Like….. this amazing.

Hanif fell to the ground and worshipped the plantation in amazement.

Of course he wasn’t, joking only lah!

-

Some random pics at the tea plantation…

After coming down from Mt. Brinchang (yup the plantation was halfway up the mountain!), we went to the Bee Farm, where there were beehives with thousands of live bees all around you – unprotected!

Kinda had a hard time convincing everyone we won’t die after this visit!

It became worse when there were even disclaimers at the entrance telling you that the farm people will not be responsible if you were injured or died or something…

But we had a good time inside anyways.

After that we went to a number of other great places as well, such as the Strawberry Farm where we could pick strawberries ourselves, the Aborigines Village where indigenous people lived, and the Cactus Point where we found cactus with balls, literally!

At night, before dinner, we had a nice long walk at the famous Brinchang pasar malam, where local people sell all sorts of locally-produced stuff – from strawberry umbrellas to cute little pots of cactus!

We also brought the Professor for a treat of a lifetime – something the westerners had always dreaded… Durian!

It was the very first time that the Professor had durian!

Whether or not it would be his very last time, we could not tell for sure… Because we weren’t sure how we should interpret his comment – “well, it was quite nice…” accompanied with a kind, warm smile, slowly nodding head.

The next morning, we made a final stop at the Cameron Valley Tea House, where they served fresh Cameron Valley tea on the spot, before descending the hill.

We all had a lot of fun with Dr. Riekert over the three days on Cameron Highlands, I bet that he felt 30 years younger during the period of the trip too!

-

Stuff that we learned from a Professor coming from Stuttgart, Germany (Place where Mercedes-Benz came from ):

We, as well as many people around the world, shamelessly pronounce the names of the top cars manufactured in Germany WRONGLY! (At least compared to how the German people pronounce it.)

For example, ‘Mercedes’ is not pronounced as ‘Mer-SAY-des’ but instead ‘Mer-SEE-des’.

‘Volkswagen’ is not pronounced as ‘Volks-WHERE-gen’ but ‘Folks-VAAR-gen’ (‘V’ is pronounced as ‘F’ and ‘W’ as ‘V’.)

Finally, ‘BMW’ is pronounced as ‘BMV’ – yes ‘V’ as in ‘Bee-Am-VEE’!

-

P.S. We happened to see a lot of Mercedes cars all along the roads that we travelled in this trip, as well as a number of Porches, BMWs, and even a  Hummer on Cameron, followed by an impressive sight of over TWENTY FERRARI‘S speeding up Cameron Highlands in a line when we came down… Kinda gives the false impression to the German visitor in our car that the people in our country drives a hell lot of expensive cars and are not stuck with stupid Protons and Peroduas.

We’ll miss you a lot, Professor! Come visit us again soon!

I had considered not blogging this trip but then I realized that if I really did, I would have not blogged for my past THREE Cameron Highlands trips!

That’s so bad of me! THREE times and I didn’t even bother to record it in my diary!

Cameron Highlands has given us so many sweet strawberries and even sweeter memories – I’ve decided I simply cannot be so bad to it!

On June 28th, I went to Cameron Highlands with my dear!

Also went there in November last year, but didn’t blog… (picture taken at the exact same spot)

ALSO went again exactly 365 days before the latest trip, on June 28th, 2008, but also didn’t blog…

So this time I am totally going to blog about Cameron Highlands, before I neglect it for the third time!

Looking back, it is weird and extremely coincidental that my hair happens to be dyed brown every time I went to this place!

Cameron Highlands is a really wonderful place with wonderful memories!

My dear and I went back to Cameron a few weeks ago for a special occasion which had taken place there.

It was a relaxing trip with no pre-planned schedule. We just went wherever we wanted, whenever we wanted.

We stayed at Heritage Hotel, a hotel that was excellent in terms of its location which was away from the town areas, and was – despite already being on a ‘highland’ – situated on top of a hill!

Cameron Highlands is one of the most beautiful, scenic places in Malaysia.  If you need a serious breakaway, locally, this is the place!

In this trip, we went back to the wonderful Smokehouse, which was a small, traditional-English-cottage-styled hotel outside the town of Brinchang.

We had visited this place the last time we came to Cameron Highlands, and we had been so fascinated!

This place had an interior of a nice Englishman’s cottage, with fireplaces and comfy couches and candlelit tables and grandfather clocks… but the exterior, the garden, was heavenly!

It was superbly well kept, with lovely bird fountains and huts, and a small, winding path in the middle of the green bushes and flowery plants flourishing all around you… You’d have thought you were in some Swiss countryside or something!

All the gracefulness of the garden, set with a white marble table with warm tea and freshly-baked scones…

Oh… this blogger is drooling on his keyboard…

**********

We also went to pluck strawberries at a ‘self-pluck’ strawberry farm!

We’ve each been to Cameron Highlands almost a dozen times since we were young and we had never tried out the self-plucking process…

… which turned out to be quite pointless, actually.

Because one of the workers over there seemed to be too free and he got around the farm and kept running back to us with huge, ripe strawberries!

He must have been thinking that we were going to be so happy to receive so many guaranteed-sweet, professionally-plucked strawberries when the fact was that we thought, politely, that he was merely spoiling the fun!

We ended up plucking only TWO of the dozens of strawberries that we walked out of the farm with!

But it was still quite a fun experience, really!

*********

Also in Cameron Highlands, the bee farm where you could experience being surrounded by live bees:

And lots of cactus shops and centers that strongly tempt you to purchase pots and pots of cactus (what’s the plural word for cactus?) home only to regret buying them later when you got back.

I always ride home with my parents with at least some cactus each time I went to Cameron Highlands when I was young.

And I always abandon them in no more than three days.

And they always live on even after I had abandoned them.

Unbelievable living things, cactus are, aren’t they?

If God Himself were to look down from heaven, He would have wondered what those little humans had done to the hills below that He had once planted with tall, majestic trees:

The lush green blanket of tea plants on the hills has become some sort of an icon for Cameron Highlands!

I think it would also serve as an ideal, spacious, carpeted landing spot for alien spaceships.

-

One thing I feel about Cameron Highlands though, is that it is getting a bit too commercialized, really.

The place used to be a small town where people farmed and grew vegetables and fruits, while some other folks owned beautiful orchards and gardens.

But now it has become a bustling commercial town with tourists and price tags everywhere…

Sigh, but I guess whenever a place attracts people, it attracts businessmen, and traders, and Starbucks, too.

Anyway, I still love Cameron Highlands very much and it remains one of the blissful venues of my comfortable childhood memory!

Yup, Bali Trip entry again! But thankfully, this is going to be the third and final part of the longest travel log ever recorded on James-Chow.com!

Read Part 1 and Part 2 first ya!

I hate to start this entry with a bad note, but this is really how it went…

Departing from the hotel on the third day, we were brought to yet another temple, only this one was unanimously agreed to be the supreme most boring-est of all boring temples in Bali, ever.

I think it was called Taman Ayun Temple or something…

The only area that seemed a tad more interesting was the centre court of the temple, where most of the impressive-looking ‘towers’ were located.

But that area too, unfortunately, was closed to the public. So all we could do was look from outside the ancient moldy walls surrounding the area!

Although the overall compound of the temple was very large, the buildings were generally dull and the temperature was scorching hot!

I can remember some of us saying we’d much rather cancel this visit and head to the beach instead… By the way, so much for a Bali trip, there was NO beach activity in the tour guide’s official itinerary!

So, in the temple, everyone was just taking photos around and doing things that only people in extreme boredom would do.

And soon we were headed back to the bus and, after lunch… guess what?

That’s right! We were brought to visit another temple!

I can’t even think of anything to write about this temple besides that it was much cooler there and there was a beautiful lake at the edge of it.

We left the place after taking some photos along the lake.

Now, if you thought our temple trips were over, you thought wrong – it was almost 6PM and we were brought to our third temple visit of the day!

Really gotta salute these guys… After going on one of their tours, you’d start to think that Bali has only got nothing but old temples to offer its tourists!

However, this temple was… finally… slightly different.

We were brought to this place called Tanah Lot, and there was a temple built on top of a huge ‘rock’ on the beach.

When the tide rises, the path towards the entrance of the temple would be flooded and the rock becomes a mini island!

Sounds really mystical and sacred, doesn’t it?

I also found this small cave-like place that got abandoned by the people after the tide rose and covered the place with sea water.

I was really curious about what that mysterious little white sign could possibly be pointing at, since there was nothing but a dark, low space beneath a humongous piece of rock.

So I went through the shallow water to have a look.

I was stunned.

Holy shit! I found the Holy Snake of Bali!

Until this day, I still can’t figure out what in the world – is – a Holy Snake. All I can imagine is a huge, talking snake wearing a gold crown and granting people treasures and gold coins and stuff…

LOL!

Back to reality, at Tanah Lot we saw one of the most beautiful sunset views in our lives!

I believe that the Tanah Lot sunset scene will be etched in my mind forever.

**********

After dinner that night, finally – after three days blundering in Bali, we found it… the gem, the heart, the very soul of Bali’s tourism industry:

No, it ain’t the seaside, and sure as hell not the temples. It wasn’t about the shopping places or any other cultural stuff…

… It’s the clubs, baby.

Lying at the very heart of the buzzing tourist town of Kuta, was a long stretch of street, called Legian Street.

And if you’re on this street, open your eyes… and be awed, as we totally were.

Bali tempts you with one of the best… no, in fact, the – best – clubbing experience that you can never find in any of the clubs in KL!

Why?

Because the clubs here were, firstly, adequately spacious with huge dance floors, the music was damn syok, the DJ was awesome, and the dance floor was never empty, or never even less than fully-packed…

But above all, the clubbing crowd in Bali was, for lack of a better word… perfect.

You could never find a club back in our place where there were so many angmohs from all over the world mingling with each other in such a friendly and open way!

It was as if every single person you happened to be facing on the floor was an old friend! There was very few talking over the booming music, of course, but everyone would see each other and smile, dance, shout, and laugh…

No groupings and gangs scene… no six-guys-dancing-around-one-pretty-girl scene… No girls being taken-advantage scene… No group of single guys acting cool with cigarettes scene… Nothing!

These people were just friendly tourists, just like us, trying to get a taste of Bali’s sweet night life!

And if you think clubbing here would burn a nasty hole in your wallet – it’s free!

There is NO COVER CHARGE – you just walk in and have fun!

Even the drinks were insanely cheap, by clubs standards I mean. While a bottle of Chivas cost us a standard Rp1,080,000 (RM340); a bottle of beer, however, cost only Rp20,000, that’s only like RM6!

Now, there was something that none of us realized when we were actually in the club:

The club that we happened to visit, called Paddy’s Club, we had no idea, was actually the – very – club that was destroyed in the infamous suicide bombing incident in 2002!

See Wikipedia article!

Apparently, after the nightmarish incident, Paddy’s Club was rebuilt and there we were! Standing on ground zero where more than 200 clubbers had been horrifyingly blown to smithereens! And we didn’t even know it!

Holy snake, I mean… Holy shit, dude!

**********

We left Paddy’s Pub at around 3AM, tired but satisfied. For the past 4 hours or so we had danced and danced unstoppably and there were times when it had felt dizzy and wobbly but we just couldn’t stop…

When we finally did stop we were totally exhausted and drained.

We slept so well that night.

The next morning, to treat the hangover and aches all over the body, we went for a spa – no Bali trip is complete without trying out their spas!

A 120-minute spa session cost Rp350,000 (RM110) per person.

I had been slightly reluctant to go for a spa at first, but the moment I stepped into the private room, I knew I had made the right decision.

The 2-hour full-body massage + scrub + floral bath was heavenly!

And with the nice, relaxing music and aromatherapy, plus my super-exhausted and sleep-deprived body… I could have laid there on the soft massage table whole day and stubbornly refuse to leave until they called security.

**********

Our last destination in Bali was Ulawatu Temple – a serious contender against the beautiful sunset scenery of Tanah Lot Temple for the best temple in Bali!

This time, instead of being on the beach, this amazing temple stood majestically on top of a cliff overlooking the sea!

The scene, as you can see, was breathtaking:

The thing about camera shots is that they don’t really look as amazing as they do when you look at the scene in reality.

So if you think the scenes in the pictures are nice, think again – the reality is actually a thousand times more magnificent than what you see in the picture!

I don’t know if the photos make it any clear to you – but it was very, very high up!

And there was no fence or walls or whatever along the cliff, one slip and even the ferocious Balinese gods can’t save you.

At around 4PM, we left for the Bali airport and departed from the wonderful island at 6.30PM.

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I had already been cautious about the ‘over-temple-ish’ tour itinerary before I went for this trip itself. And now it has been proven that my worries have become reality!

All in all, I think the only temples that are worth going are the last two – Tanah Lot and Uluwatu Temple. The others would be better off cancelled and the time scheduled for visiting beaches instead!

Really, our schedule was so packed that we virtually had no free time at all except at night, which of course, was not suitable for beach activities as well!

OK, all that’s just my opinion – There could be many other tourists who totally enjoyed the temples so much and had the time of their lives strolling around the moldy old temples admiring cracked walls and terrifying gods.

**********

Complaints aside, I cannot express enough how happy and contented I am with this trip!

The local people were nice; the tour guide was fabulous; the sceneries were magnificent; the prices were unbeatable; the places were unique, and most of all, the friends that we made during the trip were the best!

Although we sometimes complained that some stuff were boring, the trip itself had actually never had a moment that lacked flavor.

Bali – I’ll definitely be back again someday!

But anyway, I guess it’s good to refresh my memory on Bali too! So, here we go, part 2!

After the relatively uneventful first day (really, because it was only dinner and sleep!), we started off our second day with a really ‘special’ traditional performance called the ‘barong and keris dance’.

Why I call it ‘special’, I’ll explain later.

Basically, this dance revolves around a mythical story with, you know, kings and gods and demons and their conflicts and stuff.

.

There was also a ‘talking monkey’ which did not contribute much to the storyline (to me) but was one of the major characters that had appeared since the beginning of the show.

The funny thing is this:

In the end, in a seriously desperate attempt on humor (I think), they staged a scene where, for no good reason, the monkey lied down on the floor and a group of actors surrounded the poor animal and started hitting its penis!

… And they (the actors) were laughing loudly as they hit the shaft of the penis repeatedly (the ‘penis’ was created using the tail of the monkey being erected upwards from between its legs), making it swing elastically in all directions on top of where the private part of the lying monkey should have been… in front of a huge crowd of multinational audience!

I think for the rest of my life I’ll be able to remember clearly – amidst the stunned crowd, there was a shocked, seemingly Australian, young mother who was sitting behind me with her three small kids, gasping loudly in horror and covering her mouth as all three of her kids cried out in disgust before the so-unconventional scene in front of them.

Here’s a close up shot of the monkey’s dick swinging:

You can actually see the blur caused by the swinging…

**********

After the very unusual traditional performance, we next became victims of a special ‘scheme’ arranged (I believe) by the local tour guide and a local-products store to earn the millions and millions of Rupiah that we had brought to spend there!

The tour guide had told us that instead of bringing us to multiple shops to buy and shop for different local Balinese stuff as we had requested, he knew ‘this place’ that had ‘everything under one roof’ and that we didn’t need to waste time looking around!

Somehow, I could not shake the feeling that this was all commission-motivated.

We were brought to this warehouse-like store selling all types of local souvenirs and stuff, and our tour guide couldn’t stop telling us how he had got for us this special ‘just-for-our-group’ 50% discount and why we should buy stuff there etc etc…

Anyway, we did buy some stuff, and were next brought on a three-hour journey to Mt. Batur, which was an active volcano that had erupted multiple times in the last centrury, thus leaving a layer of black, dried lava on some parts of the island.

Of course, we only went around the mountain, not up the mountain itself; but the sight seen from where we were was really beautiful!

A very interesting thing took place at this restaurant where we had our lunch!

The interior of the place where we had lunch was a rather classy buffet restaurant with air-conditioning and everything, but outside the restaurant was a monstrous horde of local sellers, each holding a variety of items ranging from key chains to paintings to chess sets to Harley-Davidson motorcycle miniature models, all trying (very, very desperately) to sell to you!

The way they tried to sell to tourists was as though their next meal depended on the sale. It was as though, if you didn’t buy it, they wouldn’t have money even for dinner!

It was that crazy!

They persuaded and talked and kept pestering you wherever you walked to, and sometimes, begged you to buy their stuff…

… Literally – “Tolong… tolonglah beli… Berapa awak mau bayar…? Tolonglah…”

More interestingly, after you’ve gone into the restaurant and sat down comfortably (we sat at a window-side table), there was a number of these sellers stalking blatantly outside the window, each trying frantically to get your attention whenever you turned your head to their direction!

And if they somehow managed to get your attention, your lunch is half-ruined – these people would actually start an attempt to negotiate prices with you in sign language and refuse to leave for a very, very long time!

The prices that these sellers offer you can be marked-up anywhere from 200% to 1000% or way above.

After the lunch, we journeyed downhill and stopped by a plantation area where we were offered free, freshly-brewed coffee made from freshly-roasted coffee beans!

There was also the legendary Kopi Luwak for sale. A small packet of this most expensive coffee in the world, which makes around 2-3 cups, was sold for Rp120,000 (around RM40)!

If you’re wondering what’s the big deal about this Kopi Luwak, lemme tell ya – it is made from coffee beans harvested from the feces, that is to say – shit, of the Paradoxus Hermaphroditus – an animal that looks like a mongoose.

Apparently, this Luwak only eats the finest coffee berries it could find and after passing through its stomach, the undigested beans (taken from its pile of shit) has superb aroma and taste and is unparalleled by any other coffee bean in the world.

Some of us bought this shit.

Next, we were brought to a temple – forgot the name – and it was the first of the FIVE friggin’ temples that we were supposed to visit in this tour.

Needless to say, the temple trip was fairly uneventful, if not downright boring; but the ancient design and architecture of the place was really unique and would be rather interesting to people in the structural design field.

Here, I also realized that the Balinese Gods were totally fearsome and err… I guess very protective, because if I myself were a demon trying to harm the Balinese people, I would first have my shit scared out by the sight of any one of their Gods!

At night, we had dinner at a fine restaurant in a hotel.

The only thing weird about this hotel-prepared dinner was that we were served a dish of fancily decorated, but unmistakably identifiable… chicken rice.

And we were served only plain water, any other drinks ordered would be charged separately.

Ah… Forgot to mention – the money that we paid to the travel agency had all our meals included. So naturally, it would have been foolish to have expected lobsters and oysters…

After the dinner, we did some shopping, and had our first ever foot massage in Bali!

Most of us had female locals doing the foot massages for us, except for a few unlucky souls, like our good friend Sadra (the guy behind) was unfortunate enough to have a guy whom his colleagues claim is a pondan, touching and rubbing his hairy legs with massage oil… all he likes.

A 45-minute foot massage here cost us only Rp50,000 (around RM16)!

**********

Note: Haha, I didn’t expect this entry to be this long… Seems like we’ll need a part 3…

It is really incomprehensible why someone would have the lunatic idea to bomb such an incredible place as this.

Yet someone did! In 2002 and again in 2005! (Click to read Wikipedia article)

Calculating the time interval between the two bombings, it was really a little scary to go to Bali this year, 2009, as it seemed that the next bombing was already ‘due’.

LOL!

Forgetting terrorism, the Tourism Club (yeah, i know the names sound similar) had a wonderful trip to Bali a couple of weeks ago!

This time, except for a few veterans like CK, Pegan and myself, the entire committee was formed by new, energetic members eager to bring Tourism Club’s second ever international trip to its very best!

It was the first Tourism Club trip that I had brought Shuyi with me, and also the first that Abang Ray, the super-cool university officer designated to ‘watch over’ all our trips,  brought someone else too!

For this trip, we boarded Air Asia. Instead of our regular Malaysian pronunciation of ‘Air Ay-sher’, the Indonesians call it ‘Air Aa-sya’.

It was the first time that I had boarded Air Asia, which was lauded as the premier low cost carrier in the region.

Compared to other airlines, they weren’t too bad, except for a smaller and less attractive terminal, free-seating, no free drinks or meals, had to walk right down to the cement ground to board the plane, and their boarding pass looked like the receipt I usually get from the petrol station.

But who cares if their boarding passes sucked, Air Asia is generally much cheaper, which saves up your money for you to spend during the vacation itself!

And fearing the cramped middle seats, some of us paid an extra RM50 for Express Boarding, which allowed us to get on the plane first, and secured the top seats in the very first row in our tickets!

So front that can see flight attendant putting on make-up somemore!  

One important good thing to note about Air Asia is that their flight attendants’ uniform beats Malaysia Airlines’ uniform kao kao, anytime.

I totally like everything from their red suits and white blouses, to their design and color combination. (Red and white is my favorite color combination!)

And yes, I sure like their cute red skirts too, as a protest to some politician who said that Air Asia’s uniform was an embarrassment to women because it (literally) showed too much ass.

Read the news article here.

Cheers to the Air Asia stewardesses! You ladies were so warm and friendly!

After a few hours, we landed in Bali and were greeted by our tour guide and some Balinese people, busy ‘decorating’ us with flowers…

… on our necks, and later during dinner, the ears!

So typically island-ish! Very nice leh!

I had thought that all these ‘flower chains‘ and stuff were only found in places like Hawaii or… I dunno, maybe some Caribbean island place…

but we got ‘em in Bali!

-

After a brief rest in the hotel, we had our first dinner in Bali, which was served on the beach itself – during sunset.

The scene was so beautiful and to have dinner in such a nice atmosphere makes even the lousiest food the finest cuisine in the world.

We had a grilled seafood plate with rice. Apparently the grilled stuff here on Jimbaran Bay was very famous.

One thing to be noted, except for a selected few brands of bottled water, most drinking water in Bali had an inseparable weird taste in them, and drinking boiled tap water (the worst) can seriously cause nausea to me.

I think the weird taste may be due to the possibility of Bali reprocessing its fresh water, either from used water or sea water, as they do in Redang Island.

Anyway, after the dinner, dancers started appearing on the numerous stages along the beach and started performing interesting traditional Balinese dances that regretfully, looked pretty more like demon-summoning to me.

All the pictures that my camera took were absolutely frightening:

Close up:

I dunno why the eyes have turned white in this picture. I swear I did not edit this photo besides cropping it.

And here’s another demon from hell:

Haha, that’s just badly taken image of this… thing:

Which also seems to be some kind of ugly demon in the Balinese folk legend.

Haha, scary stuff away, they were actually very great dancers!

Got the opportunity to take photos with them!

If you’re wondering why everyone in Bali is doing this hand gesture – that’s because more than 90% of the Balinese people are Hindus, and that’s also why the rest of our trip was slotted with so many visits to different temples!

After the wonderful dinner on the beach, we headed off shopping at Kuta Square, where all the biggest international brands like D&G, Versace, Ripcurl and Roxy were gathered!

Not to mention familiar places for snacks like Starbucks, Haagen-Dazs and McDonald’s were all in the square!

Oh, by the way, a cup of McFlurry in Bali cost 5,500 Rupiahs, which was only slightly over RM1.50!! OMG!

And, as every traveler to  Indonesia would surely remark – with less than RM1,000, we could instantly become not just millionaires, but multi-millionaires in Bali!

Oh, I so lurve the feeling!

-

(Except the feeling that they look like ‘hell money’ with so many zeroes on one paper…)

Like this one:

LOL!

-

The shops around Kuta closed at around 11PM, and we got back to the hotel and rested early, because we had to wake up early the next day!

**********

Note: This is only part 1 of the Bali blog entry… The full story is too long hehe… Part 2 coming soon!

Just came back from Endau Rompin!

Finished my exam last week, and this trip followed almost immediately!

Huhu… I haven’t blogged much for a while and that’s because of my exams – AND – my laptop betrayed me and went totally black in the middle of my exam week..

Got it fixed in on Friday, and then I was off to the forests in Pahang on Saturday night… So here we are!

We all thought that Endau Rompin was supposed to be a national park - Taman Negara – but it turned out that it was a Taman Negeri - state park!

The Taman Negara Endau Rompin, though, was not too far away from here, in the same stretch of forest as this park that we were in… But nevertheless, the trip was uniquely fun in its own way!

The Endau Rompin trip is not really that different from the Jerantut Taman Negara trip that I went a couple of years ago… with a few notable differences:

There were three different places that you can choose to stay in – longhouses, chalets and bungalows, each with its own respective price tag, of course.

Longhouses look culturally delightful from the outside, but are essentially very uncomfortable to sleep in.

The interior walls are made of wood, naturally, and we’ve got 8-10 people staying in 2 rooms on each of the longhouses that you can see in the picture.

They say that while it was burning hot in the afternoon, it was freezing at night sleeping in one of those!

One of the more interesting things of the longhouses is that they don’t have their own toilets, and guests would have to use a common toilet nearby.

While the toilets themselves have serious hygienic problems, the bathing area puts everyone in awe!

It’s a common ‘bathing’ pool, probably the kind that you guys stand naked along the side and get water from it using shower buckets. Like the ones that the people who have gone through National Service would have seen and used before…

Only that… this bathing area was unisex – there was no guys or ladies room – the area was NOT enclosed (meaning everyone could see you bathing), and not to mention that the water was extremely dirty…

… and got cat bathing with you…

… and upon further inspection, we found something deep within the murky waters that you’re supposed to wash your hair, face and body with…

… a fish!

I don’t think anyone used that area to bathe at all throughout the entire trip and instead went to use the bathrooms in the chalets and bungalows!

Chalets, on the other hand, are upgraded versions of longhouses with built-in bathrooms and a queen-sized bed. It also has slightly more space.

But one of the chalets was emptied and the people moved to other rooms because apparently someone saw a giant lizard inside! Not joking!

Finally, Bungalows are made of bricks and concrete and have their own living rooms with TVs. Their rooms are also air-conditioned.

Before I got too happy that I had chosen a bungalow during my registration for the trip – so I could escape the intense tropical afternoon heat with the air-conds – I realized in great annoyance that there was… no electricity!

In fact, there was no electricity in any of the living areas – longhouses, chalets and bungalows alike! Endau Rompin had an irritatingly interesting regulation of supplying electricity to rooms only after 7PM, and only until 7AM in the morning daily! LOL!

We had already been told about this during the meetings that we had had leading up to the trip. But it was still very unbelievable to try switching on the fan during the hot afternoon and hearing nothing more than ‘clicks’.

Anyway, the activities were just as interesting! Just like Jerantut Taman Negara, we had jungle trekking on the first day.

It was a very pleasant trek until the leeches started coming out and joining our tour!

Then everyone had no more eyes for the green nature around but the wriggling leeches on the floor desperately trying to suck everyone’s blood throughout almost the entire way.

Here is proof that everyone’s forgotten that we’re supposed to be looking at trees and nature in this trip:

There was a beautiful waterfall at the end of the trek!

We threw a surprise birthday celebration for our Director for this trip – Xiang Hue, at night! She cried… and Crystal kena pukul! Awww…

… and the other October babies!

Also in the activities were river crossing:

… and water tubing:

The tubes were sat on and then went through rocks and rapids, and everyone was supposed to waddle back to the river bank after they had finished, but in the end… because it was very difficult to move in the water while on the tube – many had to be dragged back!

Not to be forgotten was kayak-ing! Kayaking was not actually a scheduled activity but since the good people at Endau Rompin allowed us to freely terrorize their kayaks, some of us played them whenever we had time!

However, kayak-ing here almost always ends up with you in the water, and very seldom can you reach the river bank dry!

Because one second you might be on the boat, and the next you’d suddenly see two pairs of hands on both sides of your kayak, and then you’d be in the water!

We had a small competition among three people:

… before we even got started:

… tried again! All three kayaks started off the race:

and with people watching…

That night we had a night walk in the forest, with no lights and a few torch lights only… It was pitch black when the torches were off, but the experience being in the forest at night was special!

Also saw many jungle bugs and night plants!

Some of us had our (of course) ‘unofficial’ casino after we came back…

The next morning we had team games at a nearby tennis court!

Very hot and tiring… but fun!

Got all sorts of faces and expressions! Let’s see…

Some were just enjoying the games… like a couple…

Some look like punggung kena gigit…

… and some were too serious in winning…

And then we went to the river bank with tubes and bamboo sticks to make our own rafts!

The trip ended with everyone happy and taking group photos around the entrance area…

As committee members, the trip was unavoidably tiring, but everyone had great fun and it was nothing short of a spectacular and very successful trip!

Thanks to the comms of this trip who brought the event to existence:

… great people such as these!

Cheers to Tourism Club! 

***********

P.S. Did I mention? The MMU officers played, of all movies – You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, at 3AM while everyone was trying to sleep on the bus, on our way to Endau Rompin!

I had planned to get this specific shot of Central Hong Kong, from exactly where it was taken (across Victoria Harbor), half a year before the trip itself, to be used as my blog’s new banner!

Kakakakakaka… Now it’s become reality!

**********

Came back from Hong Kong few days ago!

It was a Tourism Club project and a hometown friend, Eric, was the Director. I happened to be the tour leader of the trip.

I’ve been to Hong Kong with my family – but going with friends, this time, was a very different experience!

One whole year of hard work by the committee members of this trip, we made it happen – we went to Hong Kong!

Buzz Lightyear (behind) wanted to come back to Malaysia with us but was stopped by airport security for bringing metal and laser weapons on board.

We went to quite a lot of places and I’ll try to briefly go through them one by one :

Our flight took off on Monday evening:

Reached Hong Kong late at night, and checked into our hotel past midnight.

The next day, we went to Disneyland!

It is the smallest Disneyland in the world, but still – it is nothing short of spectacular!

We were very lucky it didn’t rain that day. The season was late spring, and before we came to Hong Kong, it has been raining heavily once every two days or so!

Some new attractions had been built since I last came, and the traditional Disney parade was replaced by a water-splashing parade!

On ‘Space Mountain‘, probably the most intense roller coaster ride in HK Disneyland, we were caught on photo screaming and looking stupid during the last, most intense segment of the ride, in which they purposely took photos of you screaming…

We decided to have a second ride later and have our revenge, and ruin the roller coaster’s reputation as a scary ride – with these photos:

Observe the right front passenger:

… and this:

T

Hehe…

One of Disneyland’s legendary attractions – “It’s a small world” – which was not completed the last time I came, was opened this time… but we missed it because we didn’t have time… =(

We went on almost all of the rides and visited most of the performances. Of course, the final “Disney in the Stars” fireworks display was as magical as ever! =)

Personally, I love and appreciate Disney stuff very much, especially the older Disney cartoons – Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin etc.

I can’t help but reminisce on the sweet childhood memories – from pre-kindergarten to early primary school – the time at which the cartoons were really quite popular among kids of our age…

There are so many sweet, wonderful memories attached to them. Whenever I hear Aladdin’s “A Whole New World” or Lion King’s “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” etc… Whenever I see Snow White or Ariel or Timon and Pumbaa or Princess Aurora’s character…

I would wish I was back in those long gone, carefree days…

Somehow, I find it that very few people share my passion for Disney, or have similar feelings as I do towards it…

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with going to Disneyland just to have fun and excitement; but for me, I would prefer to think that it is more than that…

*********

The next day, we visited the Hong Kong Space and Science Museum – they are two separate museums!

and took a lot of photos… and some weird ones:

Also went to Peninsula Hotel, the oldest and probably most expensive hotels in Hong Kong, with its best rooms costing up to $68,000/night:

The Avenue of Stars – commemorating the works and contributions of famous Hong Kong artistes. Our hands beside Jacky Chan’s own handprint…

Took the ferry across Victoria Harbor and took some photos of the famous Golden Bauhinia Statue, which was a gift from the Chinese government to Hong Kong and a symbol of Hong Kong’s handover to China.

Took a ride on the traditional tramway which was more than 100 years old:

Watched the Symphony of Lights, which, err… somehow seemed to have fallen short of a lot of people’s expectations :

A lot of walking on day 2 and also some confusion on the roads, really sorry!

But it was nevertheless a great experience!

**********

Went to Ocean Park on Thursday!

Dolphin Performance!

Took a long, scary cable car ride to the top of the mountain,

and had some great rides!

**********

-

-

Pots of lovely Lavender found in Ocean Park!

A special (and permanent) dedication to Lavenderlover.

Hope you’d Like it.

-

-

**********

Ocean Park was just so big that we didn’t have time to visit all the attractions…

There were so many marine displays, all in their own, separate buildings – Jellyfish, Dolphins, Sharks, Sea lions, and an Underwater World with starfish, turtles, sea horses, huge and small fish, beautiful corals… etc. etc.

… and everyone was so tired after so many days of walk, walk and walk, that some of them could just sit down and accidentally zzzz….

At night, I split up with the group and went to visit my cousin and auntie while everyone else went shopping at Mong Kok…

**********

On Friday, we made a visit to Wong Tai Sin temple, and shopping around Tsim Sha Tsui before going up Victoria Peak in the afternoon.

The very, very steep journey up the peak in the peak tram was kinda scary :

and on the Peak, we met Andy Lau!

… Forcefully stopped Leon Lai on his bicycle…

… Eric danced with Michael Jackson…

… James Bond got pointed in the head by Way Chow…

… my Hollywood sister, Marilyn Monroe…

… and gave President George W. Bush our opinion!

… all in Madame Tussauds wax museum on Victoria Peak!

The Hong Kong nightview seen from Victoria Peak was totally breathtaking:

That night, we had dinner at at Yung Kee, a rather expensive restaurant near Lan Kwai Fong that some of us had already been looking forward to visiting, even before we started the trip!

It was very late when we had our dinner and we were the last customers of the restaurant for the day!

**********

Since we were in Hong Hong, we couldn’t miss out trying the authentic HK dim sum! We had it for breakfast on the day of our departure, in a restaurant near our hotel!

After checking-out of the hotel, we made our way to the airport, and ended our long-planned Hong Kong trip – very tired, but happy!

I personally enjoyed this trip a lot, and experienced much more from it! The weather was perfect and I think it was really fun. I only hope that all the others would feel the same!

I’ve decided even before I went on the trip – I won’t write another entry on every single thing that happened in Redang – I had already done it for my Redang Trip last year.

And yes, the main activities were practically the same as last year – bus journey, boat ride, three snorkeling sessions, beach disco, blue sand… I think most of the resorts in Redang have exactly the same 3D2N package!

So, in this entry… I’ll write about some other things instead!

Let’s see what was different in this Redang Trip compared to the previous one.

Firstly – new key players!

Trip Director – Kean Kong.

I think he did a really good job in this trip!

A dedicated and firm person – Kean Kong was voted to replace Jon as the President of Tourism Club next year.

Next, Assistant Director – Jansen!

Jansen with long hair! Can you believe it?

Always friendly and a fun person to be with – Jansen was voted to replace me as the Vice President of Tourism Club next year.

Moving on, Tour Leader – Winston!

An excellent tour leader – Winston is one of the best we’ve got!

I dunno, Jon might be better! You decide!

This is Jon as one of the tour leaders in the Redang Trip last year.

Who do you like more? Oh Jon is going to hate my blog…

**********

Similar to the previous Redang Trip, we departed from MMU at 10pm, so we had a night journey. Again similar to the previous trip, I couldn’t sleep in the bus for the whole night.

Different from the previous trip, not only me, but many of us couldn’t sleep – because the TV on the bus was switched on, showing, of all movies – Rambo 4! It was an MMU bus, full of students and university officers! And at 3am in the morning!

If you haven’t watched the movie, then you might not understand; but if you have, you’ll surely know how violent and gory it is – yes, we watched the uncensored version!

**********

Similar to the previous trip – We rode on a boat from Kuala Terengganu to Redang Island.

The difference between the two boats was remarkable – the previous boat (last year) had been huge, comfortable, air-conditioned, had mounted TV screens on walls, spacious and even had an open-air upper deck for its passengers to get some sunlight and ocean breeze!

So comfortable that we had easily fallen asleep on the journey.

This time – the boat was small, had some strange smell, not really comfortable and poorly ventilated with sealed windows and without air-conditioning or fan.

The only breeze was coming in from a small opening in front of the passenger cabin – along with sea water splashing into the cabin, onto the faces of those unfortunate ones sitting in the front rows.

Kean Kong and a few of us sat at the opening to block the sea water from being splashed in! We were all wet well before we reached the island!

This ride was so bumpy that many people got nauseous, a couple of them even vomited in the boat!

**********

The things that happened next were the typical, but exciting, Redang activities…

In my opinion, this trip was as good as it could be, despite all the stuff that I complained about just now. Not being a direct organizing committee member of the trip this time, I think I can objectively give a few humble comments:

The Director and his committee members have worked really hard on this, I could really see. Honestly, there are a number of areas in this trip that, I think, turned out much better compared to the previous Redang Trip.

Of course, I’m not saying that the previous one was a failure – I think each had their own good points.

This trip was really a success, and I salute the people who worked hard for it, they deserved the success.

**********

About the activities… Snorkeling and stuff… Not gonna write about them again! Look at my previous Redang Trip’s entry! They’re almost the same.

In fact, I didn’t actually participate in all of them! This time, to me, it was less about the activities, but more about my own relaxation and getting to know people.

Hehe… So I’m going to end this entry abruptly… here! Why not take a look at my Photo Album? Pictures tell much more stories than words!

This is an ice-breaking trip organized by the Tourism Club of our university for its senior and newly-recruited committee members to better know each other and get along!

Kukup Island is located in the state of Johor. It’s not the luxurious, resort-island type, like what you’d expect from Redang Island. In fact, the place where we stayed at is not even an island!

Kukup (without the ‘Island’) is a small, traditional, Chinese fishing village.

Requiring a journey of almost six hours from Cyberjaya, Kukup’s remote location, with wooden village houses and bicycle-riding villagers, really gives visitors a warm feeling of peace and relaxation.

The ‘real‘ Kukup Island has to be reached by boat. You’ll be able to visit it’s mangrove swamp, which is quite famous, and also the Kelongs – aquaculture farms on the water where people breed fishes and crabs.

One of the extraordinary things about this village is that their houses, wooden and concrete alike, are built on stilts – over the seawater!

And since it is built on the water, you can imagine one of the conveniences that only they can enjoy is, naturally – the quick disposal of human waste!

They don’t even need to have pipes, sewers or sewage treatment plants! All the waste from your body goes straight down to the water below!

Don’t believe me? Check out the toilets!

Just for the pleasure of my few precious readers, I took the liberty of getting down and zooming into the hole, into which you can clearly see seawater and one of the stilts of the house!

Oh… Gross!! Don’t worry, I assure you this is a zoomed-in picture, I absolutely did not lower my head into it.

-

Of course, I’m not complaining about the place. =) These are experiences that we can hardly get staying near KL.

The accommodation where we stayed is called Kukup Resort – Name sounds nice, doesn’t it? – Makes you think of a high-class hotel with huge swimming pools and beach chairs under the shades of tall coconut trees, friendly waiters serving cocktail … Right?

Wrong! Out resort is actually a house! Yes! An individual one-storey house renovated to accommodate tourists!

Nevertheless, it’s air-conditioned rooms are pretty comfortable and the house generally spacious. We were also provided with Mahjong sets and tables for our entertainment! Mahjong is a traditional Chinese table game that I am not exceptionally good at.

My friends were kind enough to teach and let me practise the game. I played for the entire night (until 7.30am the next morning) but won just a single round. =(

Apparently, a lot of people are really good in the game! Whenever there was free time, they’d sit down in tables and play indefinitely – Stopping only during meal or activity times. Wow!

I took a huge amount of photos during this trip, BUT, very unfortunately, all of them are of extremely low quality. That’s due to my own mistake of using the wrong setting on the new camera that I’m still very unfamiliar with. Huhu…

I accidentally used a scene mode that automatically sets the shots to ISO 1600 or higher, with no flash. A film speed this high has caused all my photos to be littered with noise … Result? Extremely crude photos. =(=(

You can check out the pictures after I’ve sorted them out and uploaded to my photo album. That might take a couple of days. Meanwhile, here’s a video clip of us yelling a traditional Chinese celebration toast, called ‘Yuuuuum……. Seng!’ Translated as “drink for victory!”, something like that. =)

P.S. I’ve finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!! Will post my review in the next entry!

————-

2nd day: 6.15am – Some eager guys and girls woke up early in the morning to watch the oceanic sunrise! Indeed, I imagine it would be extremely beautiful, but I spared myself from waking up sooo early in the morning – 6am leh! Sigh… Long day ahead… Zzzzzz…

In fact, I even skipped breakfast, which was at 7.30am… So I had a whole can of Pringles for breakfast! Haha!

For the next activity, we went for (again) snorkelling, at Redang Marine Park. It is a closed-conservation area of magnificent corals and fishes off the beach of a nearby island.

We were given (presumably exipred) bread to be fed to the fish while snorkelling! It was really an exciting experience to have schools of cute fishes swimming around and nibbling on the bread from your fingers! Some of fish even thought my hand was part of the food and nibbled on it, too!

Later, my friends and I got bored of feeding fish so we started catching fish with the plastic bags originally used to contain bread. I know we’re not allowed to do that but we just couldn’t resist, we even caught a few small jellyfish! Of course, we freed all our ‘captives’ later, unharmed!

The water near the edge of the buoy-closed boundary was quite deep, and sometimes I couldn’t help but think – what if a lost, hungry shark wandered into the area, and saw all the small wiggling feet with yummy flesh in life jackets on the surface of the water…? Aiks!

We went back to the resort at around 12.30pm and had lunch. Jon told me that he and Alex wouldn’t be going for the next snorkelling activity, and we had to take care of ourselves. No Tour Leader!! Die lor!

We also planned for a surprise early birthday celebration at night for our Programmes Director, Pegan, whose birthday was in 4 days time!

At 2.30pm (time with super duper red-hot scorching sunshine), we went for the 3rd and final group snorkelling activity at an area near another island.

There were much less fish here, but the corals were fantastic! Pretty much the nicest ones among the 3 snorkelling sites!

During tea break and free time in the late afternoon of the 2nd day, everyone was enjoying the last period of time at the beach before having to leave the island the next morning.

I went snorkelling at the so-called ‘baby shark’ area, Jon went parasailing, David, Steven and Glen went for a long distance swim around a small island, some others went for visits to the infamous More More Tea Inn Souvenir Shop at Laguna Resort, and most of the rest were simply strolling along the beach enjoying the calm sea breeze and taking photos.

We were served BBQ for dinner, yes, served. We couldn’t grill the food ourselves like in normal BBQs, thus missing out the fun, but also – thankfully - the heat. We’ve had enough ’sun-heat’ for the past 2 days so I guess everyone’s fine with it!

After dinner, me and my friends went for a visit at Redang Reef Resort, Err… I mean Resot.

My friends also grabbed some souvenirs and me a present for our burfday gal from the More More Tea Inn Souvenir Shop!

At around 9pm we celebrated Pegan’s birthday with a huge *splat* of her face on the birthday cake! Somebody even bought some gin and vodka! Aww… Ain’t it nice to have 80 people celebrating your birthday at the beach?

After everything’s finished, around 10pm, Jon and I retreated to set up the traditional Tourism Club trip committee’s casino, err… no, pay-for-entertainment session in his room. Glen and Steven graciously sponsored the essentials for a hyped up nite!

Unfortunately, two major groups of the committee who played with us during the previous Taman Negara trip didn’t participate in this trip. So our game was greatly reduced in size, with only around 9 participants. =(

At around 1am, the rest of Jon’s roommates were back. We were using their beds as tables so we had to leave. Jon and the rest went to sleep but Alex and a few of us went to the canteen to continue!

At 5am, we ended the game and went back to our rooms for a hot shower and a 2-hour super-brief sleep till the morning.

We checked-out from our rooms at 9.30am the next morning, bought a last few souvenirs and took some final photos. After taking the charming group photo of all the participants cramped together, we boarded the ship that brought us to the ferry back to the mainland.

A rather interesting event happened though – the first ship was stuck in the sand when it docked at the shallow water of the sea! The captain spent 20 minutes of fruitless effort to steer the ship out of the sand before requesting half of the passengers to alight the ship and help push it away from the shallow water!

Thanks to the efforts of everyone, the ship was finally pushed out of its stuck position and sadly we bid in our hearts – bye bye Pulau Redang!

After leaving the island, we had lunch in Chinatown in Kuala Terengganu and headed on another, sigh, 9-hour journey back to Cyberjaya!

All in all, the trip was a success, and we have the Trip Director – Agnes, and all the committee members to thank! The sun-tan might last for only a few weeks, but the memories will last for a long long time!

————-

Check out the complete collection of photos taken during the Redang Trip in my photo album!

————-

I’m back from my trip to the breathtaking Redang Island!

Organised by the Tourism Club of MMU, we went in a rather huge group of 80 students! But when it comes to trips, it’s always the more the merrier, isn’t it?

This Redang trip is all about snorkelling, snorkelling, and snorkelling. So if there were a killer shark, giant octopus or sea monster in the ocean that prevented us from getting into the water, this trip would be as boring and pointless as attending mathematics lectures in campus.

Altogether, we took more than a thousand photos and it will definitely take some time to gather and sort them out. I’ll upload them to my photo album when they’re ready!

Now, I think I should record down the chronology of the trip before I forget!

Introducing our 2 tour leaders:

Jon…

… and Alex!

Oh I just love to take photos of people when they’re sleeping! They simply look soooo great! : )

Anyway, we departed from campus late at night around 10PM on Tuesday. 2 MMU buses were used to take us on an excruciating 9-hour journey from Cyberjaya to the jetty in Kuala Terengganu.

In my entire life, I have never been able to sleep well in buses. So I was staring blankly out of the window the whole night while everyone else was comfortably snoozing on their own seats.

Having sat in the first row of seats in the bus where the bus clock was just in front of me, I was extremely conscious of how ridiculously slow time was moving.

12.00am… Everyone is getting quiet…

-

1.15am… Oh it’s so dark outside…

-

2.30am… The driver is whistling…

-

3.45am… *Shivers* The air-cond is very cold…

-

4.15am… Eww, the houses and trees outside look scary…

-

5.30am… Someone is snoring…

-

6.00am… Are we there yet…?

Oh it was inhumane torture!

At around 6.30am, 1 hour earlier than our estimated time, we arrived at the jetty parking area in Kuala Terengganu. Finally! Some fresh air!

We went for a stroll near the pier and when the sun had risen, we had breakfast at a rather shabby coffee shop near the parking area. We heard that there’s a Chinatown near the area, but we were just too tired to walk…

We had to wait for a frickin’ 2 hours because our speedboat to Redang Island was scheduled at 9am. Things went a little messy when people walked-off in groups to different places, Jon and Alex were busy getting them back.

We actually prepared some ‘breakfast’ for participants who didn’t want to leave the bus to have breakfast – Two cartons of bread! Almost like those given to flood victims! Hah!

At 9AM, we took the speed boat and headed towards Redang Island. The boat was quite comfortable with air-conditioning and on deck movies. They were showing a really funny Rowan Atkinson movie but I was just too sleepy to watch it…

Some time later, my friends started taking photos of people sleeping and it became too dangerous to sleep. So we went to the super windy and sunny upper deck where we had a great view of the ocean and took pictures!

At first some of the boat’s crew actually wanted us to buy some of their expensive food or soft drinks before we’re allowed to get on the upper deck, so greedy! But in the end we just slipped past them without buying anything… Hehe!

At around 11am, we arrived at Redang Island.

If there’s only one thing that I can praise about the island, it’s definitely going to be the insanely crystal clear water!

Almost like it’s a glass of purified water but magnified thousands of times! Even the water in swimming pools are not as clear as this!

After docking, we checked-in our rooms at 12.30pm and had our first activity at 2.30pm. The first activity was, as expected, snorkelling.

We had to rent the snorkelling equipment ourselves as they were not provided. And to tell the truth, they were quite disgusting… You’ll see why.

In order to breathe underwater, we had to bite into the mouthpiece and keep it in our mouths as long as we’re in the water… And God knows who and how many people have used it and had it cramped into their mouths, richly staining it with saliva and whatever that’s left in their teeth before we got to use them… I doubt the rental agents ever sterilised or even washed them. And we’re passing it on, to the next victim… Ewwww!

Disgusting things away. The snorkelling experience was phenomenal! The underwater view was something like those that you see on Discovery Channel and I thought those views were only observable through diving!

Nope, that guy’s not me! 

The corals, rocks, fishes, and every other undersea creature, were getting along together in a place where all sounds from the outside world are completely filtered. The only sounds left are those of the water current, bubbles and your own breathing (you can hear your breathing really clearly!).

Here, I saw a baby shark that no one else saw. Baby sharks are known to be seen in the waters in front of our resort, but not here. I was lucky!

Some of my friends grabbed a couple of living, black, slippery, squirming sea cucumbers from the sea floor and were scaring people with it! Haha! The sea cucumbers were really quite revolting at first, they look like gigantic, black, wet dog shit, but wriggling like a worm.

We went back to our rooms at around 5pm and took our showers. Some guys went out for more snorkelling in the sea area in front of our resort where it was said to have baby shark sightings.

With no sleep at all during the previous night, I was tooo tired and sleepy to go for any more optional activities. So I went for a nice quick nap on one of the beach chairs located along the beach.

Dinner was quite remarkable as we were served Chinese food! I actually thought that we’d be served typical Malay food as we did during our previous trip to Taman Negara. The food was not bad at all, considering there were 80 of us to be served! I couldn’t even get decent Chinese food in Cyberjaya, but we found ‘em in Redang! Yay!

There was an ‘open air disco’ held at the beach at around 8pm. It was quite enjoyable but not a lot of people were dancing though, so me and my friends went to play pool at Laguna Redang Resort.

Later at 9pm, there was a search for ‘blue sand’ led by the Trip Programmes Director, Pegan. When I first heard that we were going ot observe ‘blue sand’, I thought we were going to watch from a high place, and somehow, all the sand on the beach will become or seem blue… Haha…

I found out that ‘blue sand’ actually refers to one tiny speck of sand, and it’s extremely hard to find. You’ll have to rub the surface of the beach sand in dark places, and if you’re really lucky you’ll find some. It’s basically a speck of sand that emits a calm, blue light, pretty much like a small LED. It glows a mysterious blue light but fades in a few seconds. Fascinating!

*Note: There’s no blue sand in this picture, don’t bother to look for it! =)

We went to bed quite early that night, because most of us didn’t sleep well during the previous night in the bus. It was a strategy: get enough sleep at the first night, stay awake for the entire second night!

**************

Note: This entry is too long so I seperated it into 2 parts. Please click Here for Part 2.