Hat Yai Trip 2009

For this year’s Chinese New Year (CNY), my sis, Fiona, planned a trip for both Sze’s and my family to Hat Yai, Thailand. However, Sze’s parents were unable to make the trip in the end and had to pull out. So, together with a couple of my relatives, 11 of us drove into Thailand in 3 cars on the eve of CNY.

We arrived in Hat Yai at about noontime. After a quick lunch, we checked into the New Season Hotel.


Hat Yai this year was somewhat different from last year. There were much less people while festive decorations and activities were also less visible. This could possibly be due to the economic recession and the earlier timing of our trip (CNY eve).

Regardless, we were still going to do what Hat Yai is good for… shopping! On our 1st day there, a must do activity for us would be to go to the Old Market to buy some bags, shoes and clothing.




That evening, we went to the hilltop Bon Khao Restaurant. The view was spectacular and the food comprised of very authentic Thai dishes. Our photos here were too dark to be seen clearly but we had a really nice and enjoyable dinner.



After dinner, we dropped by the Lantern Festival at the Hat Yai Municipality Park at the foot of the hill. The lanterns were amazingly beautiful and very well done.




Another 27 photos of just the Lantern Festival alone can be viewed in our Photo Gallery.

On the 2nd day of our trip, we went to the Old Market again, followed by lunch and more shopping at the Odean department store. I also had a foot massage not far away from our hotel.

After a Chinese dinner that evening, we went to do some prayers at a Buddhist temple.


We then walked along a night market next to the temple where there was a Ferris wheel, a Chinese opera and a music concert.




The next morning, Sze and I were up earliest as everyone else overslept. We had a late breakfast and guess what? We went to the Old Market AGAIN! Ha ha…

We left Hat Yai after our shopping trip and stopped by some shops just before the Sadao Boundary Post for lunch and to buy more household goods. I also bought a garland of Jasmine flowers to hang in Sze’s car and some Pulut Ayam goreng (fried Glutinous Rice Chicken), which was very tasty.



May this Year of the Ox bring you lots of happiness, prosperity and good health.

More pictures of our recent Hat Yai trip can be viewed in our Photo Gallery.
More stories and pictures from last year’s Hat Yai trip can be viewed in our Blog and Photo Gallery.

Philippines Trip

During our holiday recently, we went on our latest trip – to the Philippines this time. Our primary destination was Vigan… but the standard response to this place was… “Where???”

Vigan is actually located in the northwest of Luzon (the northern island of Philippines). So the next question would then be, “Why Vigan?” Well, from the pictures I found on the internet, Vigan looked the most interesting – it is one of the UNESCO World Heritage historical sites that claims to be “… the best preserved example of a planned Spanish colonial town in Asia” and has “… no parallel anywhere in East and Southeast Asia.” The only tradeoff was that it’s really far, far away…

So how far away is Vigan? After arriving at Clark airport, it would take another 8 hours in the Partas bus before we reached our destination! But before that, there would be a 2.5 hour wait for the next bus, so we had to join the big crowd at the outside waiting area…


While waiting for our bus, the Pizza Hut booth ran out of pizzas twice and had to wait for their own pizza delivery… hehe. The size of the crowd was partially caused by flight cancellations due to Typhoon Fengshen (aka Frank), which sank the MV Princess of the Stars just 2 days earlier! Phew, talk about timing…

Most of our almost 8-hour bus journey to Vigan would be along a single-lane (per direction) trunk road.


We got to see a lot of the countryside where dwellings resembled villages and squatters (which were very close to the road), punctuated by small townships every now and then.

We arrived in Vigan at 9.30pm and took a tricycle (motorbike with a passenger sidecar) straight to our hotel.


Upon check-in, we found that not only was Vigan Hotel a budget hotel, it was poorly maintained as well. But since it was already quite late - the city sleeps (becomes very quiet) before 8pm – we decided to just stay there that night.


The following morning, we had to endure a 1-hour wait for the hotel breakfast:
8.00am – 1 staff woke up
8.15am – heard gas stove switching on
8.30am – hot water arrives, with DIY instant Nescafe coffee
8.45am – heard gas stove switching on again
9.00am – breakfast arrives… we ordered 2 American breakfast meals but what came was 1 American breakfast and 1 Filipino breakfast (Longsilog)… hehe.

Vigan felt very much like Spain. Its old, colonial charm and heritage has been preserved and restored to maintain the uniqueness of its UNESCO World Heritage status.


A ride on the Calesa (horse cart) is a must in Vigan. We had never sat in one before and had good fun trying it out on 2 occasions touring the old city, which brought us back to the 16th century!


We also found a better place to stay in after our 1st night in Vigan… we checked-in after lunch at the nearby Cordillera Inn, which is on Calle Crisologo (the cobblestone heritage road).


Food in the Philippines was generally not to our taste – we had to rely more on western fast food. Pork (including the fat) is used extensively in Filipino cooking but we were not really fond of that meat :( Their typical breakfast is Longsilog (with Longaniza/sausage) and Tapsilog (with Tapa/beef jerky).

Longsilog

For lunch, rice will be eaten with various dishes of meat and Pinakbet (mixed vegetables). Other common food includes the Siopao (steamed Pao with fillings tasting like soy sauce pork), Balut (egg with embryo), Chicharon (pork rind/skin) and maize, among others.

We visited many places of interest such as St. Paul’s Cathedral, St. Augustine Parish Church, Illocus Sur Capitol, UNESCO Marker, National Museum, Plaza Salcedo, Plaza Burgos, City Hall, Pagburnayan, Public Market and Hidden Garden. More photos of these places can be viewed in our Photo Gallery.

We spent 2 days in Vigan, which was more than enough time to see most of the city attractions. We then decided to take the night Partas bus to spend a day in Manila, although this was not in our original plan. Along the way, we passed by a huge 24-hour wholesale wet market around Cubao in Quezon City – this was our 1st glimpse of big city life since we touched down in the Philippines.

We arrived in Sampaloc, Manila shortly after that (5.30am). We took a cab to Malate and tried to check-in at the Pearl Lane Hotel but it was too early. So, we left our luggage with the hotel and took an early breakfast at Jollibee fast food. Even here, it felt like yet another Longsilog meal… haha.

After breakfast, we walked around the city and came across the Manila Bay waterfront. It was quite dirty after Typhoon Fengshen (Frank) had passed by there just several days earlier. Behind the retaining wall were some of the locals selling fresh fish they just caught from the sea.


After checking-in to the Pearl Lane Hotel at 11am, we took a badly needed shower and a short rest before lunch. We saw the Penang Hill Restaurant at Robinsons (new shopping mall) and decided to give the Malaysian restaurant a try. The menu did not look very Penang at all as there was no Laksa, Char Koay Teow nor Prawn Mee. We both ended up ordering Nasi Lemak - it came in big portions and was somewhat different (served with fried kangkung and very spicy sambal anchovies) but tasty. However, the waiting service was rather poor and the staff needed retraining.


After lunch, we took a walk to the historical Intramuros. We visited the San Agustin Church (another 16th century UNESCO World Heritage site) and Manila Cathedral (which was hosting a church wedding at that time).

San Agustin Church

During our 5-day trip to the Philippines, we found both Vigan and Manila to be pretty safe places – I felt secure carrying my handbag around unlike in Kuala Lumpur, where there is a high risk of snatch-theft. The people here were soft spoken and polite but we also saw several very poor families sleeping by the sidewalk, just a few blocks away from a big, grand casino.

After breakfast the next morning, we took a 2-hour Philtranco bus to Clark airport. It felt good to be coming home once again :)

More pictures from our Philippines trip can be viewed in the Photo Gallery.

Hat Yai Trip

During the recent Chinese New Year (CNY) holidays, several of my family members organized a trip to Hat Yai for the whole family (err… actually, it was me who asked Mom to plan for the trip). As we had planned to leave for Hat Yai from Sitiawan on the 2nd day of CNY, Sze and I left KL for Sitiawan after lunch on the 1st day of CNY itself. Although it is a tradition for the Chinese to visit the wife’s family on only the 2nd day of the new year, people are more flexible and practical in this 21st century.

After dinner and a night’s stay in Sitiawan, we left for Hai Yai at 6.30am. There were 10 of us and we went in 3 cars. Upon reaching the border checkpoint, the Thai immigration counters were already pretty crowded. There were long queues but fortunately, some of the lines were moving along quite fast.

We finally arrived in Hat Yai at about 12 noon local time. It was Sze’s first time here and his first impression of the city was that Hat Yai, being less developed yet feeling somewhat familiar, resembled KL 2 decades back.

Hat Yai city.

We checked-in to the Siam Center Hotel and had lunch in a coffee shop at the corner of the same hotel block.

The Siam Center Hotel.

The coffeeshop around the corner.

After a quick meal, Dad and (my sis) Fiona’s boyfriend went for a golf appointment with a few Thai friends while the rest of us headed to our 1st shopping destination – the Old Market.

On the way to the Old Market in a tuk-tuk.

It was very hot and stuffy in there but then again, shopping is a girl’s favorite pastime! So, all the 5 ladies in the group were buying things like nobody’s business while the 3 guys just tagged along for sight seeing. I bought 2 pairs of shoes soon after we arrived and helped Fiona with her shoe shopping after that.

Shoe shopping inside the Old Market.

That night, we had dinner with Fiona’s new Thai business partner. After that, we went for a walk, wondering where to shop again. On our way to the shopping malls, we saw some lion and dragon dances on the street. Sze had never seen lion dances on poles before and we were both very impressed as the performers jumped very high and very far too. During our short time there, the lion fell off the poles at least 3-4 times while attempting those very difficult jumps and it would then restart its jump sequence all over again!

Lion dance video.

Following the lion dance, the same troupe performed a dragon dance. That was also quite interesting, with the dragon climbing up a very tall pole, a little boy on another equally high “rocking” pole that falls to the ground and fireworks from the dragon’s mouth.

Dragon dance video.

After the performances, we walked along a night market on a very busy street where Naomi and I got ourselves a couple of wire keychains. Mine had the letter “Z” attached to a wire butterfly while Naomi’s 2 keychains had her boyfriend’s and her name written on them. We went back to our hotel after that.

Keychain with the letter "Z".

The keychain lady.

The next morning, we had a buffet breakfast at the hotel. The buffet spread was quite limited in choice but we still ate heartily. Right after our meal, we went to the Odean shopping mall. We bought quite a number of sundry goods as they were a lot cheaper there compared to Malaysia (tip for the ladies: Whisper sanitary pads were much cheaper in Hat Yai than in KL).

After leaving all our shopping bags back in our hotel rooms, we went for lunch. Both my sisters and Mom were skipping lunch and had already gone to the Central department store for more shopping. The rest of us proceeded to a nearby restaurant just opposite Central.

The South Thai Bird's Nest restaurant.

The entrance to Central department store.

After our meal, we joined the 3 ladies at Central and I managed to grab myself a good pair of Levi’s jeans. Later on, Sze and I continued to walk around the city on our own. That’s when we came across Boots! So far, I’ve only seen Boots stores in Thailand, apart from England.

That evening, we had dinner at a local Thai restaurant. This place had previously been patronized by the royal princess but it still remained as humble as ever. However, they serve very authentic Thai food where some of the dishes were quite spicy while some others were sweet… There was only 1 word to describe the food – DELICIOUS!

The humble restaurant serving authentic Thai food.

After dinner, we took a walk downtown and saw the lion and dragon dances again. They continued to impress us and I decided to give them an ang pow this time as they were very deserving performers. We went back to the hotel after that.

At 6am the following morning, we checked out and went for a very early breakfast. However, the hotel’s breakfast trays were not ready yet. After waiting for about 15 minutes with no air-conditioning in the building (since the middle of last night), we had a quick breakfast and left for Malaysia immediately after that to beat the expected “back to KL” traffic rush.

Bon voyage sign at the Thai immigration checkpoint.

We had enjoyed visiting Hat Yai and look forward to having more trips in the next few months. More pictures from our Hat Yai trip can be viewed in the Photo Gallery.

The Circus Is In Town!

The Royal London Circus is in town again, and is now performing to audiences nightly in Kuala Lumpur till 1st January 2008. Ever since I was a little girl, I have always wanted to see The Royal London Circus. One fine morning, as I was driving to work, I heard Mix FM’s Almost 90s@9 contest (yes, I was still on the road after 9am and I was late for work :P). As soon as I heard the song “Shattered Dreams”, I knew that was the answer and I called up the radio station immediately. Fortunately, I got through on my 1st try and won 2 VIP tickets to The Royal London Circus… yippee!!! (Yes, Sze saved RM150 this time!)


However, we didn’t get to go see the circus for some time as both of us were extremely busy either with work or with our wedding preparations. Then, towards the end of last month, we finally made the trip to Klang to see The Royal London Circus.

The show started with what appeared to be a chubby, Malay-looking ringmaster singing in the style of Pavarotti and backed by a mini circus orchestra, again staffed with local-looking musicians, except that they were not the familiar faces of the local music industry. It turned out that the chubby, singing ringmaster is a Filipino (not sure about the orchestra musicians though).

The 1st circus stunt was the balancing act on 2 giant rotating wheels… it was Sze’s favorite stunt and it culminated with one of the 2 circus performers balancing himself high up on the swinging wheel blindfolded!

There were various acts following that but all of our photos at the beginning were spoilt as “video recording devices” were not allowed and we had to snap the shots discreetly without any flash. Besides, we were also afraid that the camera flashes might momentarily blind the circus performers, especially the trapeze artists and they would fall down from their swings… he he. But actually, that’s what happened – they did fall down a couple of times from their swings high up in the air onto the netting below and one of the falls was during the drumrolled highlight of a 3-turn somersault!

On the other hand, the dog shows were quite enjoyable and funny but the elephant looked pretty sad.





However, there were not that many animals and the acts focused more on human performances instead.




There was also a circus clown and a magician too… cool. The ringmaster and his partner also sang a few songs including “Amigos Para Siempre”. It was one of my personal favorites and I was very impressed with their rendition of the song.

The last stunt of the night was the Sphere of Terror where 5-6 dirt bikes (scramblers) were squeezed inside a giant metal sphere (ball) to be ridden round and round each other in confusing circles.



It was a fitting finale to the circus performances and the evening had been good fun for both Sze and me as we had not been to any circus since our childhood days! Merry Christmas to everyone and best wishes for a very Happy 2008.

Cameron Highlands Trip

Sze and I went back to Sitiawan to visit my parents and celebrate Father’s Day on 16th June 2007. Along the way, we stopped by Kellie’s Castle, a historical local attraction in Batu Gajah. Further on, as we drove into Ayer Tawar town, we saw a “samseng” (gangster) shop… hehe. It was actually a small provisions shop that had an alternative meaning in its name.

We had dinner with my family that night and we decided to drop by Cameron Highlands on the way back to KL the next morning.

We took the new highway up to Cameron from Simpang Pulai. The road was much wider than the one from Tapah but it was still a rather winding hillside road. We were pleased that the rain had stopped before we departed. However, once we arrived (we stayed at the Equatorial Hotel, which was at the highest peak along the Cameron main road), a drizzle started and it became pretty chilly and misty up there.

After checking into our room, we went to Tanah Rata for lunch. Sze had wanted to go to the popular T-Café there but unfortunately, it was closed on Sunday. So we decided to go to a tea plantation café instead. We had passed by the junction to the Sungei Palas tea plantation earlier and decided to give that place a try.

The road to the Sg. Palas Boh Tea plantation was very narrow indeed. It seemed quite dangerous and scary (driving up this long and winding, narrow road is definitely not for inexperienced drivers) as it adjoins the Gunung Brinchang road, which is apparently the highest road in Peninsular Malaysia. However, after a few hundred meters from the road junction, we could already see a refreshingly beautiful scenery. Everything was just so… green and neat (unlike the typical jungle)!

We parked our car at the designated parking space, even as we saw another car continuing to drive past an authorized personnel only signboard. There was still a light drizzle and we walked under the umbrella for about 200m along a path towards the café. Yes, it was pretty romantic with the heavenly view and fresh, cool temperature.

At the café, we ordered 2 pieces of chocolate cake, a hotdog bun and a pot of Cameronian Boh tea. Both the cake and the tea had very little taste. We finished our food before we continued to enjoy the scenic sight. After that, we walked around the Boh Tea center reading about the discovery of Cameron Highlands and how the Boh Tea business started. We were really glad to have found this beautiful place despite the bland food.

A must eat fruit in Cameron Highlands is the strawberry. It is widely available and freshly plucked from the many farms there. Of course, looking for the sweetest strawberries was not an easy task. We first went to Raju’s Hill Strawberry Farm and bought a box of the fruit to eat back in our hotel room. They were quite sweet considering that most strawberries in Cameron are known to be more sour than the imported variety. We planned to try out more strawberry farms the next day.

After breakfast at our hotel café the next morning, we dropped by the nearby street market. The local produces of vegetables, fruits and flowers were rather cheap. We bought a box of tea (for Sze), a bunch of pink roses (for myself), crystal maize (for Fiona, my elder sis) and a bag of miscellaneous vegetables (for Naomi, my younger sis).

We then headed to the T-Café again for a light meal. The place seemed to be run by a Christian Indian family and was cozy and intimate. I think this would be the type of place where Lonely Planet travelers would like to go to. We ordered some of their specialty pastries and… they tasted great! Sze said that the café had some good online reviews and is highly recommended, which is not surprising since it is frequently visited by independent travelers.

After trying out more strawberries from a couple of other farms, we found that those from the Kasimanis Strawberry Farm were the sweetest. We bought 8 boxes of strawberries (for Sze’s parents and my sisters) and 2 bottles of strawberry and orange jam (for Sze’s parents). Newsflash: They plant oranges too! I have previously seen mandarin oranges in Cameron Highlands, but not the normal oranges… and the farm did not sell them at the stall either.

We started our journey back to KL after that. Cameron Highlands had been a pleasant and refreshing trip for both of us and we hope to visit it again soon.

View more Cameron pictures in our Photo Gallery.