Lots of Travel, No Blog Updates!

Well… I have been way behind on travel blogging so I’ll give a run down of the last few places I’ve been since January and highlight my fave parts of each trip.

January-March:

Sri Lanka (Colombo, Galle, Bentota)

Stayed – Ozo in Colombo (was fine), loved the Taru Villa in Galle (loved), Centura in Bentota (meh)

Ate: SkyBar food at Ozo was pretty good as is the view, loved the breakfast at Taru Villas, nice drinks at The Living Room by TPV, restaurants in Galle Fort are nice but pricey

To do: lots of sea turtle hatcheries, pagodas, visit wildlife reserves to see tons of elephants in their natural habitats, visit with lovely locals, visit the old hotels in the Fort … (beware of scams and the drivers are crazy!)

Bali (Seminyak, Canggu) area x 2 

Stayed: Buah Bali Villas & Umah di Desa (both a great)

Ate: lovely breakfasts at both villas, amazing food at a number of restaurants including Biku, La Luciola, Metis, Starfish Bloo at the W

To do: spa treatments, stop at cute coffee shops, walk along the beach from one beach club to the next, shop at lovely house ware shops

Hoi An, Vietnam

Stayed: Anantara Resort (loved)

Ate: Morning Glory was great and other local places in the old town are nice

To do: walk around the historic area, visit the local market, eat great local food, rent bikes

Yangon, Myanmar

Stayed: Sule Shangri-La (loved)

Ate: mostly at the hotel except for a couple of nights in Chinatown

To do: see pagodas, walk the streets, do a Burmese food market tour, take the train, visit Chinatown for drinks, visit the market

OK! And there it is… I haven’t included hyperlinks or pictures because you can google those! Definitely places worth visiting on Google and for real.

Saigon

I thought perhaps it would be disrespectful or frowned upon to refer to Ho Chi Minh City as Saigon, but Saigon is what the locals call it. So Saigon it is.

Over fall term break Brett and I made it Vietnam this time. If you read a previous post about our visa snafu, you’ll know why we didn’t make it on our first attempt. So with visas already in our passports, we made our way to Saigon for a few days.

A few word to describe the city… organized chaos, loud, diverse, friendly, comfortable – if you are comfortable with large urban centers.

Our days were a good mixture of relaxing and “touring” – by that I mean, private touring. We stayed at Rex Hotel, a pinnacle in Saigon history and life in general. It is the location where many American soldiers would go to socialize during the war. It’s located right next to City Hall and to a newly constructed walking street for locals. This area allows people to enjoy walking around freely without the need to try and cross a street, walking in between the millions of Vespas and Honda scooters. The hotel is in District 1, one of the main areas that you’ll find tourists, shopping, a mix of local restaurants, and all the things you need to have a good time.

We joined a walking and food tour, eating at some very local spots in the markets. Everyone sits on child-sized red and blue plastic tables and chairs – not super comfy for taller North Americans. On this tour we ate some noodles, baguettes with pate and vegetables, Vietnamese coffee, Saigon beer and beef wrapped lemongrass. On this tour we found our favorite spot of the trip – an unassuming building housing some very cool coffee safes and shops, one of them being Banksy Cafe. This building is across the street from the beautiful national bank building and a couple blocks away from the Ben Thanh Market (a place that was just too much for me!).

We went to the War Remnants Museum and saw a new perspective on the Aggressive American War, aka the Vietnam War. Well worth a visit when in Saigon. But be wary of the taxi you take when leaving the museum is one of the trusted few!

We also went on a private tour of the Cu Chi tunnels and the Mekong Delta. Really cool experience getting to crawl through the tunnels the Vietnamese used to live in and hide from American soldiers. The time at the Delta was spent boating between the islands visiting the people who make anything with coconut, eating fish, fruits, and local foods, and taking a nice little boat ride down a canal. This was a really full day, but worth doing in one day to get all the driving over with.

Overall we enjoyed our time in Saigon. The French influence is evident and interesting, the people were great, the food was good, the pagodas were beautiful.

*Apologies that the photos are limited and from Google stock… my iPhoto was not cooperating.

Masses of scooters

Cu Chi tunnels

Mekong Delta boats

P #1 & 2: Phuket & Patong

The weekend trip to Phuket came and went so quickly that I blinked and it was gone! Although it was fast, it was thoroughly enjoyable.

We stayed at the Kalima Resort & Spa a few minutes north of Patong Beach. I didn’t at all feel inclined to leave the comforts of the resort all weekend. It had a great infinity pool and pool bar, lovely spa, good food, it’s own beach plus additional pool, and plenty of quiet and space for us to relax.

Brett and Bray ventured out for some night life in Patong on Friday night and had a quiet day Saturday while I hit the gym and spent a couple of hours at the spa. A two hours body scrub and massage was 2900 Bhat ($80 USD/$120 SGD). Bliss!

While there is plenty to see and do on Phuket island, I’m sure we will be back to spend some time seeing monkeys and elephants, going to beaches and viewing temples. I was just happy to enjoy some peace and quiet. It was just what I needed!

View of Patong Beach

Overlooking the pool bar and infinity pool

Light work at the pool

Library space

Rainbow at sea

KL To-Do’s

Although we spent only a weekend in Kuala Lumpur we found a few places worth mentioning! I’m sure there are tons more, but again, we only had the weekend!

1. Trader’s Hotel – 5-star for sure. Amazing gym, rooftop pool and lounge, views, breakfast buffet, and customer service.
2. Atmosphere 360 – the rotating restaurant at the top of KL Tower. Pricey, yes, but the food was pretty good, as was the lounge singer. Price includes a trip to the observation deck. I recommend the 6:30 seating so you can see the sunset.
3. Bukit Bintang – many places for eating and drinking; meaning lots of Happy Hour places with good food. We liked The Rabbit Hole which offered a good happy hour, interesting food choices and a cool atmosphere. We also made a stop at Healy Mac’s down the street, your average Irish Asian pub and Taps Beer Bar for a flight of craft beer. Somewhere in this area, is the huge food hawker area, but I don’t remember the name of the street… It’s adjacent to a street where there are several foot massage places along the way too.
4. Twin Towers – cool buildings next to KL City Park, connecting to the convention center, shopping and Aquaria.
5. Central Market – I don’t think a trip anywhere would be complete without a  stop at a market. Lots of interesting Malaysian art and other goodies.
6. Chinatown – well… we didn’t make it to Chinatown. I wanted to, just didn’t have time.

Tips if you’re going to KL:

1. Pay 4 ringgit and take the tram ride around the botanical garden area. There are a few stops within the huge green space where you will also see the National Monument and the National Mosque.
2. Don’t take a cab ride from a driver who tells you the price up front unless it’s through an agent or for airport travel. Trust the meter, cab rides are cheap in the City Center area. Cheap like 4 ringgit.
3. Don’t go to KL on Grand Prix weekend! Very hard to navigate when city center in barricaded!

Long Weekend – Plan B, C, D or E?

With the trip to Vietnam a no-go, we did some intense research on Friday morning for long weekend plan b, c, d or e. We still had a lot of long weekend time to do something with so after tons of schedule checking, we opted for two bus tickets to Kuala Lumpur. I swore off bus travel due to trips that just take hours longer than they should because of the traffic entering and exiting New York City. But, why not try the bus adventure out here?

We found the bus departure location easily, and we were glad to see that the buses were quite spacious. Only 25 passengers, reclining seats, lots of leg room, and no stinky bathroom. We departed at 5pm with an expected arrival in KL around 11pm. The driver brought us around the west part of the island, exited through Singapore customs, and made our way across the bridge to enter Malaysia. As we crossed the bridge, traffic was becoming slower and slower. What were we thinking traveling by bus across a border on a Friday night of a long weekend? But all part of the experience right?

So for about 45 minute we crept along the highway. Upon arrival at the border we exited the bus with our things to go through customs. We weren’t sure what to do when we saw the blob of hundreds of people waiting to go through customs and one customs officer stamping passports… for Malaysian citizens. It seemed that the one officer would send through the locals then tends to us foreigners for a few minutes once the locals were through. And back and forth. While the process for getting through was highly inefficient, the officers themselves were very nice! After waiting for almost two hours, the one sort-of organized line started moving more quickly. Once we were at the counter the officer asked for our Singapore work permits. Hm? Why do they need those? You don’t even need them to re-enter Singapore. Fortunately a couple of officers let us through without without much hold-up.

Once we all bordered the bus again and were on our way, it was past 9pm and we still had about another 4 hours to drive… This was familiar… A bus trip that takes hours longer than it should! We traveled along the highway for a while and when we got closer to KL we still had a rest stop to make and a couple of additional drop-offs before arriving to our stop… So by the time we got to our stop on KL it was 2:30am. Three and a half hours late and we still had to get to the hotel – what should have been a 10 minute experience to get cash, a cab and get to the hotel ended up being 45 minutes. But that’s a whole other story!

And needless to say, we didn’t take the bus back to Singapore. We opted for a really early morning flight to save our sanity.

transport.asiaone.com

No Visa

The first week of work is complete and the plan was to head to Ho Chi Minh for the four-day weekend. Brett was off early so he picked me up at school in a cab to head to Changi. The drive was great, checking in started out okay, but then we were asked if we obtained a visa to enter Vietnam…

Note to selves: Even if someone tells you they got their visa upon arrival in another country, double check the requirements before traveling!

At the Singapore Airlines check-in, the lovely gentleman asked if we had obtained visas for travel. When we said we thought we could get them upon arrival, he checked in with his supervisor to be sure… And of course, he advised that we needed approval letters to obtain the visa upon arrival. That would have been good to know! He was so nice and apologetic, even though it wasn’t his fault that we didn’t have what we needed. Had we checked into this a couple of days ago, we probably would’ve had the approval letter in time.

But you know, this is also what happens when you plan this in haste and don’t double and triple check very important information. Very unlike me! Lesson learned!

Thankfully our airline tickets were refunded and we were able to change the hotel reservation… to October. So at least our trip for fall break is already partly planned!