My Travel Photos

Short stay at Cairo, Egypt (26th April - 7th May 2010)

2010-05-12T15:01:00.000-07:00

Cairo is the capital of Egypt, the largest city in the Middle East and in Africa. Cairo is located on the bank of the Nile River, in the north of Egypt. It's also known by the name of Al-Qahirah, meaning 'The Triumphant' in Arabic. Cairo was a stronghold of many ancient dynasties throughout the ages. It was famous with its historic pyramids, sphinx, mosques, temples and churches. With the population 6-7 millions, it was quite an experience on the traffic in Cairo.

This was quite an opportunity and eye opening for me to travel to Cairo for work assignment. However, this was also an unprepared trip. I did not read any information about Cairo and what are the places must visit and where are the famous restaurant. It was a totally last minute trip to travel to Cairo. I only had about 6 days to prepare my flight and accommodation to Cairo, which was again with the possibly of airport closure by the Volcanic ash. It was a total disaster to the flight in the whole Europe.

After some last minute confirmation, I managed to get my flight and accommodation arranged (self arranged). With the flexibility to arrange the accommodation by myself, I definitely choose the hotel right in the city centre and the hilton group comes into my mind as I have earned some loyalty status with the hotel group. With the location next to the Nile river and right at the city centre of Cairo, Rames Hilton was the chosen hotel. I was quite happy with the executive arrangement for my room and the complimentary, but the condition of the room was a bit of disappointment.

On the arrival day, I was quite amused with the driver's skill in Cairo. They are even better than the ruthless Malaysian's drivers. The car can make its way from left lane to right junction in a 3 lanes busy road with just less than 10 meters away. Almost 95% of the cars are stretched, and bummed, no matter it is new or old. The drivers are very good in speedy overtaking from left to right and right to left with no mean of hard shoulder or emergency lane on the highway. I was quite stressed when watching the car flow through the traffic. Fortunately, I was there for only 2 weeks and the weekend was absolutely car free.

Beside the noise from the hounds of the cars and crowded traffic, I was overwhelmed with the hospitality of the people there. They are quite nice and tried to be friend, however with the language barrier, I did not understand the Arabic language. It was quite challenging to convey a message to them. Most of the time, I have to get the doorman from the hotel to give the direction of the office. With the inconsistency and uncleared policies for the taxi, I tried to reuse my bargain skill, which most of the asian was good with. Unfortunately, I have been cheated by a few taxi driver, but those were good for an experience.

With travel between the hotel and office on the weekdays, I was too tired to travel out from the hotel for dinner. Mostly I will spend time at the executive lounge or the room service. Only occasionally I manage to try some of the restaurants around Cairo. With the only weekend I have in Cairo, I joined a local tour to visit Pyramids at Giza and Saqqara. The following are the pictures that I had taken during my trip. It was an eye opening to witness the huge pyramids and also entered the tomb. Cairo is definitely a place that freezes the historical time.

With only 2 days, I managed to covered, Memphis, Pyramids of Saqqara, Pyramid and the great Sphinx at Giza, Citadel and Babylon Fort, Khan-El-Khalili, and night cruise on Nile river. There are a lot of other places that I had not covered in Cairo as I leave it for my next visit. It will be a full Egypt visit as Abu-Sembul is a must to visit and also diving in the Red Sea will be a great experience too.

Mabul Trip (18th – 21st February 2010)

2010-03-07T00:51:00.000-08:00

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Mabul, an island that is located near to the famous divers' paradise, Sipadan. The nearest town to depart to Mabul island is Semporna, which is about an hour journey right from Tawau Aiport in Sabah. Mabul is a small island with only a few small villages with a less than 1000 villages. About 50% of the population is Malaysian and another 50% does not have the legal national identification. Nevertheless, this does not prevent the divers to continue visit the island. It is the well known crystal clear water, rich underwater aquatic plans and aquatic animals. One thing surprise me is it's not shown in the google map. However, it can be found in the Google earth.

After more than 6 years of planning to dive, finally I managed to get an opportunity to be a diver. It was a great experience from confine training which was less than an hour to open water diving on the next day. Trying to imagine that your baby was learning crawling and was end up learning jumping and running. That was a express process of learning. Definitely, it wasn't came from talent, but also hours of preparation by reading theories from the book. Not just to prepare for the theory examination of the dive but also to understand the term being used by the instructors.

I was quite pleased that MAS has setup checked-in counters at KL Sentral. On the night before we flied to Tawau, Mei Chin (the organizer) and I had an early checked in at KL Sentral, which was about 9 hours before the departure. It was very convenient as our flight was 8:20am in the morning, and we did not need to rush for it due to the location of KL Hilton, where I managed to get a free night stay. We still managed to have early breakfast and got to the airport on time with another convenient KLIA Express. The whole journey to the airport was absolutely smooth and I appreciated the infrastructures that was planned by the government.

When we first arrived Tawau Airport, the first impression that I has it was so small. Only 2 terminal gates, and it was empty. There is no crowd except the passengers from the flight that just arrived. Surprisingly, there's no Malaysian queue. As a Malaysian, I was still receiving an immigration paper from the custom. How ridiculous to limit or control the Malaysian's movement within the countries. I wonder why can't the government imposed something more transparent. 1Malaysia, I wonder when will this truly achieved.

This is a 4 days 3 nights trip. I have spent more than half a day to travel from KL - Tawau - Semporna - Mabul Island. I think the total journey was about 6 hours from the moment I stepped out from the hotel. The travel journey from the airport to Semporna was quite tiring though I was not driving. It was the weather and the seat arrangement. Imagine having 3 person sit in the same row as the driver in a van. It was an absolutely pain with the van's engine designed beneath the front seat and the hot weather. Luckily, we managed to survive the hot and bumpy drive.

Once we arrived Semporna, I was quite refreshed as I knew that we were about to travel to the island. I can smell the sea. Luckily, Semporna area did not have the fishy smell in other fish village that I had experienced like "Pulau Kukup", a fish village in Johor. The weather was absolutely hot and the sunny was like burning the skin, though I felt it was melting the ice in my skin (after months of winter in London). This was the day I will start to have a quick course to pick up the diving skill in 3 days or 2 and a half days. Of course, I had started to study my theory about the Diving. Something about buoyancy, understand the equipments being used for the dive too. I only start to read the book on the 16th of February and that was just some brief reading.

The journey from Semporna to Mabul island was quite smooth besides another bumpy ride of the boat. I was holding hard and tight at the side of the boat until I didn’t realize my hand is burning by the sun. Only in the evening, I saw my right hand was as red as lobster. The 45 mins of riding was absolutely refreshing for me. I wasn’t even felt sleepy and was awake all the time. May be I missed the sea and the islands so much. It was low tide when we were arriving the island. I can see the corals, fishes, sea urchin and star fishes on the base of the sea through the crystal clear water. Here I would spent another 3 days , which was absolutely great.

Spherediver Homestay, was the place I would spend my trip at Mabul. It was a nice little budget stay, facing the sea and simple. Everything was just back to basic. I was so appreciated that Mei Chin had organised the trip and arrange Asha and Stanley, the owners of the homestay. It was the first trip that I hardly worried about the stay and the travel to the island. Everything was being arranged since arrival at Tawau Airport. With the superb views, the fresh wind and the bright sun, everything is being complemented even I was not staying at a luxury hotel. The trip was more on enjoying nature and the scenery in the underwater world.

I was quite surprised with the the daily activities when I first arrived the island. During the low tide, the kids and the women were walking towards the shallow part of the seaside to collect some of the sea “products”, which until today I still had not figured what were they collecting. They were standing under the hot sun for a few hours before the tide is raising up again. Boats are the common transportation. Every family here will have a boat no matter what’s the size of the boat. Just like cars on the mainland. The life here is quite simple but everything is depends on the sea.

When we first arrived at the homestay, they were a group of enthusiastic divers there. They were preparing themselves for advance diving at Sipadan. Mei Chin had her advanced open water, and she joined them to the dive after lunch. While I was left to wait for my instructor to be ready. That would be my confine water lesson. According to the book, the lesson is supposed to be conducted in a swimming pool, however there’s no swimming pool around the island. The only place is the sea. Of course, I wasn’t went into the deep sea for me first dive. I was at a shallow place near to instructor’s place, Scuba Jeff, another budget homestay.

I was going through the express class for my open water training. The day after my confine water lesson, I have my open water lesson. It was my first time jump into the sea (of course with full equipments, tank, fins, mask, BCD, etc). I was quite anxious and scared of the water, though I had read book about the technique of equalizing air pressure, continuously breathing and buoyancy control. It was quite challenging for me as I was straggling to get myself float properly in the water. As the result, I wasn’t able to enjoy the underwater world even I was at the Paradise.

The express class was continuing with 2nd and 3rd dive on the same day. There are other learners in the group too, Paul, Eileen, Sze Min and Chee Seng. This was their 2nd day of diving and it was the end of their diving lesson. (4 open water dives are required to qualified for open water license) They were heading to Sipadan island on the next day, while I was completing my last dive with Stanley and another 2 fun dives after meeting the minimum requirements for the license. It was a great fun to meet up with the group of friends who have the same interest.

Fish, the main source of income and food on the island. I was quite surprised to hear the fisherman here had Yellow fins tuna. It was rare in Malaysia as Malaysia is not located near to the deeper sea than South China Sea. However, only small part near to Sabah is near to it, Celebes Sea. The price of the tuna is quite cheap, just about RM 40 per kg, which is utterly cheap. I cannot believe it when I first heard about the price for a tuna. In london, a small piece of tuna can cost about £4 to £5. So, which is just RM 25. I wonder if the fishermen managed to export the tuna to Peninsular Malaysia. They will make some decent of money there. Due to economical of the Tuna price, we had Tuna every evening. It was served as Sashimi or Ikan Bakar (Grilled fish). Tasty!!!

In the evening, it was a great time to appreciate the cool wind and bright sky with lots of stars. Occasionally, there was a turtle swim pass the homestay. However, not all the evening was a relaxing one. There was a evening full with noise, the Karaoke session from another budget homestay, Uncle Sum, which was just a few meter away. It was quite a disaster with the high pitch sounds and continuous hours of singing. I wonder if the locals ever complain about it. Besides that, the groups of friends that we met there also loved playing Wolfman. It was quite an interesting game and I only managed to play it on the last day when we were waiting for the flight at Tawau Airport.

Of course, lobster was rare to get the fisherman to offer on the island. Even there’s a lobster wall diving site. I believe, it’s hard to catch and it’s illegal to catch it as Mabul island is a reserved natural park. All the fish and coral are not reserved and should not be killed. So, all the divers are not allowed to catch and fish, turles or shell fish. As the result, we only depends on the fisherman who was catching the fish outside the protective zone. There were some kids who also known as the child of the sea, the sea gypsy were selling some fish and lobster. I managed to a lobster as shown on the picture for RM50. I would say it was a bargain for that size of lobster. It was just a good timing when everyone was at Sipadan, and only Mei Chin and I were left behind on the Island to enjoy the lobster.

Some part of the island still quite untouched even though a five star resort was just next to it. The kids running wild naked, the house still using leaves to cover, simple little square houses just a family of five. That’s quite a slum area for me. I still could not believe that there are people who still stay there. When I was walking around there, there are so many kids were running around, the area. There was no proper shops or stalls. The only proper stalls were souvenir stall and it were run by Pilipino. Quite a surprise to me. However, I think the local here still do not reach the level of knowledge to produce handcraft for the tourist.

The trip was overall an eye opener for me to see the underwater world. Of course it was also a great experience for me to see how other Malaysians survive in the country even though the capital city, Kuala Lumpur has well developed for so long and we still have the natives that stay at the leaves house. Besides that, the cleanliness of the island was quite bad. Lots of bottles and rubbish was not being handle properly. I wonder the government or the tourist board will put some effort on this. Either way, as a public and the resident of the earth, I think we should have the responsibility to assist on the waste management too. Hopefully, some non-profit organizations will be able to help to keep the island clean.

It was a great place to visit and hopefully it will be your next time to visit the island!!! Do let me know if you need any information.

Riga Trip (6th - 9th November 2009

2009-11-20T04:48:00.001-08:00

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Facts about Riga

Riga is the capital and the largest capital of Latvia. It's also known as the largest city of teh Baltic states with about 700,000 inhabitants at year 2009. According to some research that I had done on the net, it's about 85 men in every 100 women. Riga's historical centre is s UNESCO World Heritage site, which is located at the Old Town and it's famous with Art Nouveau architecture at the New Town. Riga was founded in 1201 when the Germans established it as their primary bastion of power on the Baltic Coast. However, Latvian had been badly destroyed during world war II at year 1941 by Soviet Union and Germany.

The exchange rate for British Sterling was about:
£1 = Ls 0.75

House of Blackheads and Old Street square

Meeting the Eastern Europe culture

It has been a while I traveled to Eastern Europe. I went to Prague, Hungary about 3 years ago. Until recently, I traveled to Riga for a long weekend. When the flight landed at the Riga International Airport, I can see the snow scattered around the pathway. It was my early winter in Europe. My first impression of the Riga was it is too quiet. Probably, I was spending too much time in the crowded city like London, especially in the airports. When I first step out from the airport, it was dark, empty, cold and a long queue of cabs. I took a airport shuttle bus to the city which cost me Ls 3, which is not a bad price compared to around Ls 10 for a cab. When the shuttle bus going to the city, I was impressed with the big malls and modern bridge that is connected to the old town.

It took me awhile to reach the hotel Centra where I would stay for 3 nights and Robin had already checked into the hotel. This was the trip that we had agreed to travel together before he has his long vacation back in Malaysia. At the first night, we went to try an expensive restaurant Kalku Verti. It was a nice restaurant but I was quite surprised that we were the only few customers in the big restaurant. It was a fusion restaurant, and the food they served there were quite healthy. It was a proper 3 courses meals, starter with soup, then followed by fish and finished with a cup of special coffee and complement sorbet from the restaurant. I was stuffed with all the food, however it was digested fast when I walked back to the cold weather. However, we did not have much plan on the first night but we had ended at the B bar, which was a nice little local bar with variety of cocktails.

As recommended by Lonely planet, I tried the Hot Balzam, the local hot cocktail, which is quite similar to mulled wine in the UK. However, it tasted better than mulled wine. It was a great nice cocktail that really does make me feel warm in the cold weather. In the bar, we met with a couple from the Netherlands. They were really make our unplanned night out full with different chit chat topic. I was quite busy to response and answer the questions about Malaysia and the plan to visit around Riga. We spent the whole night chit chatting until the bar is closed. After B bar, we did not head out to any other pubs and bars. We went back to the hotel and have a rest to prepare for the next day touristic activities.

On the 2nd day in Riga, we were doing some touristic activities to visit the following places as describe in the following pictures. After the Art Nouveau district, we went to Skyline bar on the highest building in Riga's New Town. It was a nice place to rest in the evening as the scenery was beautiful and full with the lights of the buildings, streets and bridges. In that evening, we had a simple and cheap dinner at local's lido, which serves buffet style of local food. It was delicious and cheap. I was wondering why this concept is not in the UK? At night, we went to one of the pub at the city centre which had a lot of cocktail selections except the beers. It was quite interesting to see cocktails they served there and the crowd was full with pretty ladies too. ;)

On the 3rd day, we were spending sometimes in the Central Market and also some shopping at Stockmann shopping mall. Well, I will not describe more about the shoppings.

We left Riga on the 4th day morning.

P/S: The hotel that we stayed served nice breakfast too. So, we didn't spend much time to search for breakfast while we were there.

St Peter's Cathedral

The Four Musicians of Bremen

This is the other version of status of the famous Brothers Grimm story. It was about the four animals trying to work together to be a musician in order to get some good meal.

Art Nouveau District

These have survived the war and it's credited by Unesco as being the finest Air Nouveau in Europe.

The Museum of the Occupation of Latvia

The Museum was established and is mostly financed by Latvians living abroad. In this museum, it exhibits what happened to Latvia, the country and people under two occupying totalitarian regimes from 1940 to 1991. The museum is located next to the House of Blackhead.

Old Street in Riga

Train Bridge

Dishes that I tried in Riga

Central Market

Leather clothes and gloves

You can get a very good deal here. However, the material and quality is quite different from the expensive brand.

Wet Market

When I was walking around the market, I thing that I found it obvious in the market was the fish mongers, butchers and the shop keepers are mostly women. Seems like the men were not working in the market.

Oslo Trip (21st - 24th August 2009)

2009-11-06T02:06:00.001-08:00

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Facts about Oslo

Oslo, the capital of Norway. It's also the largest city in Norway. The city is also a hub of Norwegian trade, banking, industry and shipping. It has over 575,000 inhabitants and covers 454 square kilometres, 50% are forest. The city is located at the head of the 100 kilometre Oslofjord. The fjord's 40 islands are great for recreation, and many of them can be reached by ferry. The prestigious Nobel Peace Prize is awardd annually on 10 December in Oslo City Hall.

My experience in Oslo

Even I have been staying in Europe for a few years, I have never been to any city in Norway. The only Scandinavian city that I had explored in year 2005 was Sweden. I felt like it was ages ago. This year, I had decided to travel to Oslo and paid a visit to Runar, who had been working together with me on the same assignment in UK. It was about 2-3 years since I last met with Runar. So, this was a good time to catch up with him.

I traveled to Oslo on the August with Norwegian air, which offered a good fare to Oslo. Of course, Runar and Bjørg were available using that period before they started their summer vacation plan. It was a pleasant journey from London to Oslo. There's no flight delay, some bearable queues at the security check. I thought it was a smooth journey and lucky enough to have sunshine in Oslo for the whole trip.

The first impression of Oslo was it has more walking space and a lot of self service devices to purchase train ticket. The ticket will cost more if I purchased it from the counter. Fortunately, Runar has time to meet up with me at the Central Station of Oslo. Then Runar brought me up to the highest building in Oslo (just on top of the train station) and had a quick glance of Oslo. It was quite surprised that there is not much tall and new building around Oslo.

I spend my first evening in Oslo at Runar's place. Do some Chinese dishes for him and his friends. It was like a 2-3 courses meal. Unfortunately, everyone was busy and enjoying the meal. No photos had been taken to proof that I know how to cook. Nonetheless, it was a great evening to catch up with the old friend and experience the cool gadgets that Runar had fixed in his house. It was a fun and relaxing trip as we were just cycling and walking around the city.

The following are the photos taken during the visit in Oslo, I try not to explain every single places as the photos are self explained. ;)

Vigeland park
The walking baby on the left of the photo is the famous sculpture in the park. It's the only sculpture that is not Norwegian, but a British which was walking at Regent park in London. The bronze and granite sculptures were created by Gustav Vigeland.

Some close-up testing on the wild flowers taken from the old fotress.

Opera house
The new modern building in Oslo. It has a very nice place to visit.

Viking Ship Museum
The trip in Oslo will never complete without visiting the Viking ship. The Norwegian is famous with the Viking legendary.

Walking around the city

City Hall
The building of the top photo is the City hall. It is where the Nobel prize is being presented. Unfortunately, it was closed for the election during my visit there.

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Bangkok Trip (5th - 8th October 2009)

2009-11-01T05:58:00.001-08:00

Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, which is also known as Krung Thep Mahankhon. It is located at the mouth of the Chao Phraya River. The city is full with cultural landmarks and attractions in addition to its notorious entertainment venues has make it synonymous with exoticism. Even Bangkok is full with its historic wealth, its rapid modernization and development reflects the cityscapes. The grand palace, and its thousands of temples, bazaars, red light districts, food and people have managed to get millions of people internationally to visit the countries.

Even Bangkok is just about an hour or 2 away from Malaysia, I haven't gotten a chance to visit until recently. This was my first time to be in Bangkok. It was a 4 days visit trip, but I spent my first day in the airports due to the flight delay and waiting for the flight. I was quite impressed with the new airport in Bangkok, which was quite modern and at the same time with the Siam's taste, full with the Hindu and Buddhist legends.

I was staying at Conrad, Bangkok which was located in Wireless Road (Witthayu). Unfortunately, not much of the taxi drivers know the name of the place. Eventually, I need to show them the location in the Map or the special card written in Thai, distributed by the hotel. The taxi rates in Bangkok is quite reasonable. It was so cheap and I have not exceed £2 on most of the trips within the city.

Grand Palace, was the only touristy activity that I had done in Bangkok. Sounds wasted, but I was trying to chill out in Bangkok instead of hectic travel. I have spent almost half the days in the grand palace to enjoy the culture and historic rich arts and scultures. The only colour that I remember in the palace is gold. Everywhere in the palace is painted with gold and with Siam's rich cultured art.

The rest of the time, I was walking around the cities for food, and shopping. Khao San road, a short distance road full with road side bars, pat thais, and shopping. It is a place where most of the western tourist will rest and hang out along the street at the night time.

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