Entries about asia

Although I slept fairly well, when I looked at the time, it was a little after 4 AM, so this meant that I still had a bit of time left to close my eyes, but all of a sudden I hear Tania shouting that it is time to wake up.

Still completely out of this world because of lack of sleep as well as the medicine I was taking, I jumped out of bed. To me it felt like I just closed my eyes, but apparently I slept better than I thought coz it was already a little after 5 AM, time to wake up indeed!

First I was surprised that I didn’t hear the alarm clock going off, but as soon as I was standing on both my feet while trying to open my eyes properly, Tania mentioned that something went wrong coz her alarm clock didn’t went off.

In other words, it was a bit of luck that she woke up, otherwise we had missed our flight, but on the other hand, who invents these inhuman hours for flying anyway!!!???

We got dressed in speed mode and as soon as we splashed some cold water in our faces to make sure we were quite awake, we grabbed our bags and were on our way to the reception of the hotel to hand in our key cards.

Luckily we weren’t that late and as soon as we found our taxi, I noticed it was raining quite heavily, so it seemed that we chose the right day to fly back home again.

The taxi ride itself took about an hour and although I still feld a little bit sleepy, I couldn’t close my eyes, unlike Tania who seemed to had more trouble with it. But can you blame her, it was still the middle of the night and the wipers of the car going back and forth were certainly no help at all, at a given point I just stopped looking at them because I was a bit afraid to become hypnotised!

As soon as we arrived at the airport, we said goodbye to our friendly but quiet driver and than the search was on to find the right check-in, which on this early hour wasn’t too big of a problem.

They weren’t open yet, but we made sure we got in line behind a few other early birds and about 15 minutes later, we finally saw them arrive and half an hour later we were rid of all of our luggage and the search for a bit of food could finally begin.

Hungry as we were, we didn’t really wanted to opt for fast food in the morning and to be honest, there is not so many to choose from besides burgers and pizza, but at long last, we saw a French bakery and after a bit of looking around the decision was made, an almond croissant and a cup of Earl Grey Tea was going to be our choice of the morning and although it wasn’t the yummiest one I ever ate, it certainly was the most expensive one, boy, they certainly know their prices!

With a bit of food into our system and a bit of time on our hands, we just walked from store to store till it was time to board and this time, believe it or not, our flight was on time.

Unlike our arrival into the country, this time we were seated back in economy again and as soon as I found my designated seat, I wished for that business seat again. It is strange how quick you get used to something like that!

During our flight, I had not only the company of my best friend Tania next to me, but also a friendly woman from the UK, who went for business to Asia for the last half year. After take off, she and Tania started talking to eachother while I on the other hand wanted to make the most of this 7 hour flight and tried to finish my blog.

While we were on our trip, I don’t exactly had much time to write every evening and now with all of our adventures still fresh in my mind, it was now or never.

I don’t know how I did it, but during the entire flight I did nothing else but type and type and for a moment I thought I was going to become one of those rabbits with a Duracell battery in its behind! Okay, I know this isn’t exactly a right comparison, but now that I had a bit of inspiration, I might as well make the best of it.

When we finally descended into Dubai, my blog was as good as finished.

I was surprised to notice that those 7 hours went by so very fast and I didn’t even had a quick powernap. Unlike most of the people on the plane, I was quite awake and I was starting to think that maybe they had put something extra into my orange juice!

Not really thirsty but hungry as hell, the both of us went on the lookout for something to eat. Like usual, there was of course lots of fast food thingies and bakeries, but for some reason we didn’t immediately found something to our liking.

After checking out all the eateries, we finally decided to give the "Giraffe stop" a try. They had all kinds of things like sandwiches, soups and sweet things, but once I saw that they also had oatmeal with honey, I was sold and together with a big mug of tea, I was a happy person again.

Since we still had a bit of time to kill at the airport, we decided to do what all tourists do and went from one aisle to the another while stopping a few times at different shops, but after a while even that gets a bit boring and in the end we just went to our designated gate and waited till it was time to leave for Europe again, more specifically Amsterdam.

Boarding went once again very smoothly and instead of a friendly woman sitting next to me, I now had a weird but yet at the same time, kind of an interesting older gentleman next to me, but while I was so interested in finishing my blog, I didn’t spend time in asking why it took him hours to read his booklet on how to use a watch … am I glad I don’t own one!

3 hours into the flight I finally finished it and as a reward, I treated myself with a few interesting movies. The first one I saw was “The Hundred foot journey”. It was hilarious and told the story of an Indian family who moved to France to open a restaurant in a very small town. I really liked this one and it had been quite a long time since I saw such a good one, I can really recommend it!

After skipping dinner, I saw another movie and this time I had chosen the Australian movie „Tracks” which tells the true story of a young woman who crossed the Australian desert. She started her travels in Alice Springs and walked all the way on foot to the Indian Ocean together with her trusty dog and a few camels. All I can say about this movie is that it is a true tearjerker and if I thought that my first choice was a good one, this one was sublime! It really was a good movie!

Time was flying once again coz by the end of my second movie, there wasn’t even time anymore to see another one. With only half an hour to go, we were as good as home again. I tried to close my eyes for a while, but it just wasn’t working. I was not tired at all, which was kind of strange coz I was already up for more than 20 hours now.

Upon our arrival into Amsterdam, it seemed to take forever to get out of the plane and even longer to wait for our bags, but in the end they arrived and that was the most important thing.

As soon as we went through „arrivals”, it took a bit of searching to find my brother and mum but once we noticed them at the other side of the hall, we could finally say hello to each other again after more than a month. Although I love to travel, in a way i was glad to see them back again as well. I just can’t help it, that’s what you get when you are a family person I suppose!?

Not eaten very much during the flight, me and Tania wanted to „celebrate” the end of our adventure with a typical dish of the Netherlands called a „kroket”. It took us a bit of searching because it was already quite late to find something to eat, but we managed and a few minutes later, after our order, we could finally set our teeth into some greasy junkfood.

The perfect ending to an already memorable trip!

With this bit of delicious junk food into our stomachs, it was more than time to drive back to our homes. After driving a bit more than 2 hours we arrived in Schelle, the hometown of Tania and after a quick hello and goodbye to her parents, we were on the road again, only to arrive at our place about half an hour later. It felt so good to be back home again, but on the other hand, a small part of me was also sad that this trip was over.

Not really tired yet, I talked to my mum for a few hours and after a very hot bath in the wee early hours, I finally closed my eyes at 3 AM while dreaming of more exciting travels to come!

I don’t know what happened overnight, but unlike the previous night where I had the best sleep ever, tonight, I probably had the worst night of my entire trip. I couldn’t sleep at all, my nose kept running, my troat was constantly hurting and I got the shivers. I am no doctor, but even I know that I probably had the flu. How things could progress so very fast, I don’t know, but I felt utterly miserable. 

One good thing though, I still managed to eat something, but I kept on sweating and sweating, even when I was inside an air-conditioned place, that’s not normal. Just to be on the save side, I took some painkillers and something for a running nose, which I bought yesterday evening, but still, I felt like a zombie.

Tania opted to stay in the hotel and do nothing and relax, but that is not how I wanted to spend my last days, so instead I just tried my best and wanted to make the most of it, after all, today we planned on visiting the Batu Caves and I really don’t wanted to miss out on that one.

Before we left for the caves, we had one quick look at the towers for some more pictures, but with dark clouds hovering above them, we hurried back inside the towers and just took the metro all the way to Central. From Central we had to take another train towards the caves, where we arrived about half an hour later and by the look of all the tourist busses, we were definitely not alone. I guess when in the neighborhood, these caves are a must to visit!

While we walked towards the entrance of the caves, we came across some cute monkeys who were eating some mango and small bananas but with such a huge crowd of Asian tourists, who were bugging the little monkeys with there selfie sticks, I suddenly felt the urge of taking the stick from them and poke them as well. The nerve some people have!!!

A little bit further down the road, we finally found the stairs towards the cave and I must say that I knew that there were going to be around 272 steps, but still, it is quite impressive if you look at it.

On our way up we were constantly reminded of the monkeys running around and although they still look very cute to me, some of them became very angry and attacked a few people. I haven’t seen it with my own eyes, but heard it on my way up and the only thing I could think of was … good monkey! I can understand that you loose your temper around so many tourists!

It didn’t took long to get up to the cave and when we finally arrived at the top, I was surprised that there was actually so little to see, I expected more temples inside, but I guess that the locals build them and breake them back down again coz it was literally almost empty, but still, one heck of an impressive cave that’s for sure!

Just on our way down again, we saw a sign as well at the entrance to the "Dark Cave", which of course caught our attention.

It turned out that you could do a guided walk inside the cave for about 45 minutes and see an unique spider. Not that that was on my wishing list for the moment since spiders are the one thing I am more than afraid of, but hey, I was keen on seeing another cave, so we went for it.

Since the other group had just left, we had to wait for a while, but that wasn’t too bad coz I was a bit tired and this meant I could rest for a while, after all, I still wasn’t feeling well, but I guess this was going to last for the next couple of days, I just had to make the best of it.

After waiting for almost half an hour, a young girl by the name of Juliana came to the both of us and told us that she was going to be our guide and together with a young man from Germany and one from Japan, we formed a group for the next upcoming hour.

Once inside the cave, Juliana gave us some detailed information about the caves in general, the forming of the rocks, the insects and other creepy crawlers that live inside the caves and lots and lots more. I think she got all of our attention and from time to time, we even had a stop and a moment to take a few pictures. All in all it was a fun time inside and in some ways even better than outside coz at times we could hear the rain falling down on the rocks so, we had a natural umbrella, what is not to like!

When our tour was over, we tried to find something to eat and found something at a local Indian thingy. We ordered some vegetarian noodles and although we specifically asked not to make it spicy, by the time it arrived, it looked yummy but flames came out of my ears as well, this was just not normal.

I still suspect the cook of doing some extra hot spices into our dish coz the young men eating next to us were laughing at us when we made all those funny faces. Oh well, it is like live entertainment I guess and in the end there is no harm done, but still, damn, that was spicy!!!

Back outside the restaurant again, we went on the lookout for something to get rid of the spicy taste and the supermarket next door had just the right thing, a lemon / vanilla ice cream on a stick. Yummie in the first place, nice and cold and the most important thing, the spicy feeling was gone. The best dessert of the day!

Since there was nothing else to do, we just went back to the centre of the city and more specifically towards Petalin Street. Yesterday we promised our massage girls from the Philippines that we were going to come back for a real massage and once promised, we have to keep it up, so, I guess about an hour later, we walked through the door awaiting a moment of bliss and even an hour later I was sure of it.

It really felt good and while having my massage, Brenda noticed that I had a fever and told me that she was going to give me the right medication for my cold.

While Tania was having a pedicure, me and Brenda went off to the pharmacist, which was basically just a small store in a Philippines mall and with a bit of explanation, I got my medication called Bioflu. She said it helped on Beth as well and since I saw some improvement in her cold, I knew it had to work for me as well. it better, coz I felt so miserable and that was not how I wanted to spend my last day here in KL.

As soon as Tania’s pedicure was done, we went outside again, had a bite to eat and afterwards while it slowly began to get darker and darker, we just walked back to our hotel, only to arrive back in our room after 10 PM.

Time is constantly flying and by the time we said goodnight, it was already pretty late, but I wasn’t really aware of that coz I fell asleep in an instant.

I am just so happy that Mr. Sandman came along last night coz I really was in need of a good night’s sleep. It felt so good, I can honestly tell you that. When we wake up, it is almost 8 AM and although we snooze a bit longer, we just can’t stay a whole day in bed. It is our last day here in the Lion City and we definitely want to make the most of it.

But we can’t do that without a good breakfast of course and just like yesterday we opted for the French toast with bananas. Once downstairs, we immediately noticed that all the seats outside were taken by a group of Malaysian people and although this necessarily wouldn’t be such a bad thing, they just sat there and claimed all the seats so that people who wanted to have breakfast, including yours truly, had to go and sit inside in a small room where the air-conditioning is working overtime.

Not happy about it all, we decided to check-out first so that in the meantime maybe the group would leave, but as soon as we were back, they were still outside … bummer!

As we wanted to say something about it, the friendly receptionist guy of 2 days ago is there again and notices that we wanted to sit outside. He doesn't understand it, but he has a small conversation with the people anyway and moments after he comes back and assures us that there isn't going to be a problem coz it seemed that the group was due to leave anyway. He's a real sweetheart and knows how to spoil his clients with just simple things, that is for sure.

With an empty plate in front of us and some energetic food into our system, there is nothing else left for us to do than to enjoy our last day here in the city. After all, we’ve already checked out half an hour ago.

Today we planned to go and visit the Gardens by the Bay and because it is such a beautiful hot day, we decided to walk all the way towards it.

Unfortunately today it is not only a hot day, it is a humid one as well and by the time that we reached the Marina Bay area, I felt like I had been swimming with my clothes on. Boy, never in my whole life I had sweat so much as during this walk, but looking at things on the bright side of life, maybe I lost some weight in the process! Wouldn’t that be great!

As we arrived at the Marina Bay area we decided to have one last look at the Merlion, that lion / fishy statue that vomits water … I could say nicer things of course but hey, this is just the truth, who comes up with such things anyway. Although, if I have to be honest, we Belgians aren’t better either coz we have a little boy in the nude that pees water / beer or anything else as long as it is liquid, not something to be proud of I know, so maybe it is better to tell people next time I am a Malaysian, but I don’t think they would buy it!

Anyway, after this quick photo stop, we walked further along the water and about half an hour later (more or less), we finally arrived at our destination, but it wasn’t without a bit of hardship. Just like the subway incident, this time we had to look for the entrance of the gardens as well. It seems that the Singaporean are not going to make things easy for us tourists, but I have to admit, the walkway to the gardens is really beautiful, but beware coz you can’t have fear of heights and I know what I am talking about.

Our first garden we visited was the Supertree Grove and finding it wasn't all that hard, finding the ticketing office is a bit harder, but than again, 2 people sitting under an umbrella can hardly be called an office can it?

At this garden you also can’t have fear of heights, but since I am trying to do something about it, I go along and although I don’t feel all that safe up there, I must admit that the views are really awesome and worth all the trouble.

Once back on "terra firma" we walked a bit around a few gardens and ended up at the 2 domes, but since the weather was still fine, we decided to go and look up the Chinese, Malay and Indian garden and many more of which I already forgot the name of. I must admit that I sometimes expected more flowers but on the other hand, maybe it wasn’t really the season for all these flowers. The hibiscus flowers all over the garden looked fine though and the frangipani made sure the place smelled really, really good.

With all this hot weather, we were more than lucky to find an ice cream vendor and although the flavors sounded all a bit exotic, the rose vanilla was more than delicious and just what I needed with these temperatures.

Sadly enough this didn’t last all that long coz after a few minutes we saw it all change from sunny, into light clouds to even very dark ones, so rain was really coming our way.

This made us think it was the best time to visit the domes after all and as soon as we got our tickets, it started to rain. That is what I call perfect timing!

We first went to the Cloud Forest of which the key element is the major waterfall and although it is strangely enough very cold inside, I soon forget the cold because of all the strange exotic flowers. It is really a nice dome.

Second one of the day is the Flower Dome, but although they housed magnificent baobab trees, the flowers inside weren’t really all that special and most of them could be found in our country or surrounding ones anyway. I know this sounds a bit selfish coz people from other continents find these kind of flowers maybe just as exciting, but if I have to be honest, I have to admit that I expected more of this dome and in the end I found the 28 Singapore dollar you had to pay for those 2 domes just a bit expensive. Of course I know that they have to water the plants and everything, but this is just my personal opinion.

After getting out of the second dome the weather was still cloudy with a few raindrops and for us this meant it was perfect timing to say goodbye to the gardens and went back on our merit way towards our hotel, but not before we had one last stop in Chinatown to have some lunch. Yesterday we saw a Thai restaurant which we liked very much and upon our arrival they didn’t let us down, the food was really good and with full tummies we just strolled around the market street more to have a look at the different shops and more importantly, to spend our last Singapore dollars. We even had a quick look inside the Sri Mariamman Temple. A few years back we couldn’t because there was a wedding going on, but now we had enough time to wonder around this place. I can highly recommend it coz the colors are so beautiful.

Still craving for some dessert, we spend our very last dollars on a strawberry sundae of Mac Donalds and I have to admit that our last „bucks” were wisely spend coz it was really yummy.

Back at the hotel, we went straight to the swimming pool and made sure our last minutes here in Singapore were well spend. Sadly enough about an hour later, we had to leave the hotel as well and after we changed into another set of clothes, we went back to the reception and asked for a taxi, which arrived a few minutes later.

Although they warned us that there was lots of traffic, we made it at the airport well in time, so that we could even have an early check-in and which in turn made it able for us to have a closer look at the many shops inside the airport. But like all things, even this came to an end as the time for boarding came closer and closer and our Airbus A330 awaited us for the flight all the way to Brisbane.

With about a 40-minute delay because of the bad weather, we could finally leave Singapore behind us and once airborne, the meal service started. I was’t really in the mood for a hot meal, but dessert isn’t really something I decline often, especially if it is eatable and together with some Australian sparkling wine, I hoped to get some well deserved sleep, but not before watching one more movie. After all I wanted to be very tired.

This time my choice was "Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy", an action movie with strange creatures, lots of witty humor and of course great music. What can I say, I just love the 80’s music and of course, the racoon „Rocket” was great to look at. All in all an entertaining movie.

As soon as the movie ended, there was nothing else for me to do than try to sleep, after all … it has been quite a long, long day and since I was really looking forward to arriving in Brisbane tomorrow morning I just closed my eyes!

It’s a little after 8 AM when we wake up and sadly enough I didn’t sleep at all. I woke up a couple of times during the night and in a way it seemed to last forever. I guess the jet lag has won the first round, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he has won the entire fight. Instead of moaning about it, I decided to do something about it and today was as good as time to begin with „start to run” as well. It is my first lesson, so I am glad that I survived it about half an hour later. I am just so out of shape! Tania needs to do a bit more since she already underwent the first 10 lessons and boy, can she run. I can only hope that by the time that I reach lesson nr. 10, I can pick up the same speed coz now I look more like a turtle than a bunny!

Once back at the hotel, we first had breakfast and because we were urgently in need of a shower, we decided to just take the biggest bathtub there is and went for a swim as well, it felt like a bliss. The morning went by so very fast and when we finally were ready to explore the city it was already noon.

A few years back we also visited the city, so this time we wanted to do it more in a relaxing manner. Now that we got the idea on how the use the subway, we took it all the way towards Little India where we had a stroll through some of the streets and found some yummy food in the process. And that wasn’t the only thing we found. Ever since Vietnam I wanted to do ear candling and miraculously enough, we found a massage parlor which did this kind of thing. So the opportunity awaited us and we grabbed it with both hands. Half an hour later I can say that it wasn’t all that unpleasant and it really did clean my ears, but my hearing wasn’t better, so no real miracles here!

From India we walked all the way towards Arabia or more precise, Arab Street, but this was kind of a disappointment. I expected more of it, but luckily we walked in the wrong direction (without knowing it) and ended up in another massage parlor where we escaped from heavy rainfall and enjoyed a sometimes „relaxing" foot massage. It felt like walking on air when we arrived back on the street, it really felt good and I just can’t wait for the next massage. Bring it on!!

As it was getting darker and darker already we decided to go all the way back to the Raffles hotel, which was a bit overcrowded, but on the other hand, I guess it is always like that.

Not yet in the mood for a cocktail, but more for some real food, we stopped at a Mexican restaurant we tried out a few years back and boy, it was still delicious.

With the sun (not that we had seen it for most of the day) entirely gone, we walked all the way back to our hotel, but not feeling completely tired yet, we decided to have another look at Chinatown and to be more precise, the market near Temple Street, but for some reason when we arrived, it wasn’t as popular as a few years back. Maybe it isn’t really the season yet, but I remember it more being fully crowded, now it looked so sad coz although most of the shops were open, there were still many of them which were closed as well. 

By the time we arrived back at our room it was already pretty late, but updating this blog made it even later, so by the time it was almost 1 AM, I said goodnight to Tania and closed my eyes. I guess Mr. Sandman won this battle.

It’s 1 AM in the morning when we finally reach the transit zone of the airport and although not much is open at that moment, we do manage to find a Burger King and if you are hungry, you can’t pass on such an opportunity so, we ordered some fries with chicken thingies.

With our tummies filled, we slowly walked back towards the boarding gate and about an hour later we could finally board on our Boeiing 777 and let me tell you one thing, Airbus is the best, Boeiing sucks majorly. I personally think that Mr. Boeiing should go and have a look at the competation coz his airplanes aren’t the best around. Although the interior is still the same, we quickly found out that we had ample space and unlike the previous flight, this one was completely packed, no seats were left untouched so to speak.

Me and Tania made the best of it and as soon as we got our drinks (which took a while I might add), I selected a music list which could get me through this 8 hour flight and I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

I was surprised that I actually dozed off from time to time, but as I woke up again, we still had 3 hours to go. It seems this flight was going to take forever, back to the music it is.

Luckily however, time went by and about 3 hours later, we safely landed into Singapore, the Lion City.

Getting through customs is not all that difficult and goes rather swiftly, the same can be said for getting our luggage, but taking the subway is a totally different story. How difficult can it be, you can ask yourself!?

Till now we never had troubles and last time we visited Singapore we took a taxi, now I know why!!!!

Finding the MRT wasn't too big of a problem, but getting a ticket, now that is something entirely different. First you have to take a ticket from a ticket machine which doesn’t except a credit card. This means you have to find cash money. Not all that difficult of course, but than when you finally find an ATM, you receive only large notes and when you want your ticket, make sure you have small change coz they don’t except anything else! If this isn’t nerve-racking, I don’t know what is. Luckily we found someone who could change some money and after more than half an hour walking from one place to another, we finally hold our single ticket in our hand, live can be sweet sometimes!

We still needed to wait for a couple of minutes and of we went, towards Clarks Quay, where our hotel is situated. I must say that I was surprised to see the distance between the airport and the centre of town, we even needed to change lines a few times but in the end we made it to our hotel about an hour later. I guess taking a taxi would have been a lot easier, but that’s something for later this week!

Thanks to our friendly receptionist, we even got an upgrade (basically just a standard room WITH window) and thanks to his fast service, we could drop off our bags immediately and a little after 5 PM we were back on the streets again, ready to discover the Lion City for the second time around.

Sadly enough it started to rain but it's not like the both of us were made out of sugar (some saying we have in Belgium), so we took our chances and started walking all the way towards the Marina Bay area.

It still keeps to amaze me how big those skyscrapers look like and the darker it becomes, the more I love to gaze at them. Simply one word comes to my mind … amazing!

It is almost 10 PM when we finally arrive back at hour hotel and after walking for such a long time the only thing I want to do is sleep and that is just the thing I am going to do!