LV vs another holiday

I came back from another fabulous holiday to Siem Reap, which set me back by $600.

The following week, I was at a chit chat tea session with my girlfriends when A started showing us her new trophy buy: a new LV handbag, proudly bought at a discounted price of $600.

Seeing the look of disgust in my face, A retorted: "How much did you just spend on your holiday again, my dear? My bag can last me more than 2 years. And yours? Gone in 4 days!"

My god, the most expensive bag I ever owned was a 40 litres backpack that cost $90, and I would hesitate to buy even a $60 handbag. And she has just added another expensive buy to her not so cheap collection. Of course, I love bags, just as I love holidays. But not enough to spend so much on something that I'm likely to get sick of after a while.

So give me $600 now, I'll rather spend it on another holiday.

Give me an LV bag? Thanks but no thanks. I think my holiday experience can last me a memory of a lifetime.

In search of the sunflower fields

Seems that every flower on earth is my favourite flower.

Well, my other fav flower is sunflower. So imagine the thrill and disappointment when I was in France some years back, when we passed by sunflower fields in the train and yet unable to get off to take photos! In the end, we only managed to take a distant shot of the fields in Avignon.

Which was why I was thrilled to pass by sunflower fields again in Myanmar unexpectedly. Sunflower fields lined up the road leading up to the Yangon airport, and I was glad to be able to stop by for a few minutes to take some photos.

Actually, I like any kinds of flower fields. Me and cousin got equally excited to pass by lavendar fields when we were hiking in Provence.

Now on orchids

My other fav flower is orchids.

This has nothing to do with it being the national flower status of Singapore. I'm not that patriotic.

Lotus, I like it because it gives a sense of serenity.
Orchids evokes an aura of elegance. My favourite orchid is the golden showers, as they really look like dancing fairies. A pity I haven't shot any photo of a big bunch of this flower yet, but the image is strongly imprinted in my mind.


This one is also taken in the farmart in Kranji. I guess, someday soon, when I visit the orchid garden in Botanic Gardens, I'll just go crazy with my camera.


This is taken in Hanoi, near Ho Chi Minh Masoleum.

Flower power

I love flowers.
And I love taking photos of flowers. Here's some of the nicer ones I've taken on my trips so far. Hopefully, I'll be able to build up a bigger and better collection in time to come.

I was lucky to catch the iries in full bloom while in Tokyo. Other than cherry blossoms, Japanese seems to be obsessed with iries and have gardens totally dedicated to it. So imagine when the iries are in full bloom, Japanese just flock there to enjoy the sea of white and purple flowers pretty before their eyes.

This was taken at the iries garden next to Meiji Shrine.

This was taken at the Imperial Garden East.

Lotus is one of my favourite flowers. This one on the left is taken in Nara, shy and alone in a small pot in a temple.





And you can imagine that I almost went crazy with my camera when I saw 2 lotus ponds right in front of Angkor Wat.


In Zhuozheng Yuan in Suzhou, with no lotus in bloom, I've to content myself with just pictures of its leaves. Hopefully, next time, I'll be luckier.


Closer to home, you can find a lotus pond in Sungei Buloh.


This pretty one is found in the farmart in Kranji. Hmmm...one day, I'll like to have a small lotus pond in my garden if I were ever to own a landed property.

Enough of lotuses for now till I have new photos of them. After looking at these flower pictures, I'm actually craving for lotus rice and lotus desserts.

More on Krabi

This place is certainly not for lazy bums.

For the 5 or 6 days there, we've kept ourselves busy with different activities each day: sea kayaking, rock climbing, snorkelling, canoeing, hiking etc. Never worked my muscles so hard before.

Railay is a popular among the rock climbers and it's not hard to understand why when you reach the place. There's so many limestone cliffs to scale, and the scenery once up there is superb. The combination of cliffs, sun, sand and sea are intoxicating that sometimes, you are tempted to dance up the cliff surface and rapell straight into the sea.

Climbing is a sport to make beautiful people. All climbers seem to have enviable body you can die for - lean muscles at all the right places. So you can imagine that it is a very watchable sports: orgling at good-looking people dancing vertically up steep hanging cliffs amidst dramatic landscapes.

What is less attractive about these climbers are the tonnes of plastic bottles they left behind at the various climbing spots.

The Andaman coastline is also perfect for kayaking. This trip has really allow me to work various parts of my muscles and explore different kinds of landscape. Here, we're transported to the muddy mangrove swamps tuck among the limestone caves. As we glide quietly through the water, we can feel nature at its best - almost undisturbed. Time almost stopped for us too, as we rested by the banks and witnessed the tide receding away from us.


The monkeys are so spoilt by the tourists and guides that I wonder if they still know how to find their own food. I can't really blame the local guides for feeding the monkeys to please their clients. It's city bumpkins like us, that are also so detached from nature that we get fascinated easily by the monkeys and couldn't help getting excited by the sight of these creatures jumping after our food.

Krabi beaches

I love beach holidays.

It's an irony cos:
1. I don't swim well (having acquire the skills only in adulthood);
2. I am not water confident, so don't fancy swimming in the sea;
3. I get seasick easily, even by just snorkelling in choppy waters;
4. I can't dive (yet);
5. I don't fancy barbequeing myself under the scorching sun.

My aim is to search for the perfect dream beach. I've started this search by going for beach holidays as much as I can, beginning with our neighbours, esp M'sia and Thailand.



Krabi currently ranks quite highly in my ranking of beaches. Phranang beach really scores for its dramatic landscape and fine clean sand and crystal clear water. It certainly helps that there's only 1 bloody expensive hotel fronting this beach, thereby preventing the place from becoming noisy and messy. A pity the corals surrounding the area is not too impressive. But definitely a romantic place to catch the sunset, or to watch hunks scaling the steep cliffs. Railay West is nice as well.

I'm definitely coming back to this place. There's so much things to do and feel there that I've not even had the time to explore other nearby islands like Phi Phi and Ko Lanta.

Unicycling in Desaru

I have slope phobia, but somehow this stretch of bumpy dirt track did not taunt me. I love it here.

Groovy bike

Groovy, isn't it?
Found this in Bangkok
Idea is pretty close to my dream car: a hot pink mini

Tioman

2 times to Tioman and not discounting a 3rd time within a year from now.

It's close and cheap enough to make regular trips there. While the beach and corals there are definitely not the best in Malaysia, it is certainly beautiful enough to make the half day journey there worthwhile. Monkey Bay is certainly my favourite. ABC beach is also nice, clean and quiet with good food and friendly staff, making my stay at ABC chalet rather worthwhile.


Tioman is certainly another place to waste my time away, soaking in the sun and sea the whole day. Makes me so lazy that I've yet to explore the other parts of this island, including the offshore Coral Island.



Hmmm...fishes are still quite abundant near the shore though the corals are somewhat damaged. Not too much rubbish floating around. Hopefully, the tourism there will remain sustainable and tourists will be mindful to bring their rubbish (not corals) back.

Kukup

Another sleepy place to do nothing and be lazy.




Catch the sunrise and sunsets. Watch the tide comes and goes. Observe the clouds paint the sky as you waste your time away.

It's a place where time almost comes to a standstill and you can do everything in slow motion.

It's also another place to reclaim my childhood memories. I can still vaguely remember my family trip here in search of seafood. Also tucked in a small corner of my mind is a school trip where I bought keropos home.



Seafood is aplenty there though I suspect the price is inflated by the Singaporean food hunters. What I like about the food options here are the family-run hawker stalls operating right at the verandas of these houses on stilts in this tiny fishing village. Another cheap and yummy option.



The villagers (and tourists) should seriously get into action to retain the rustic charm of this place. They have no qualms about throwing rubbish into the sea at their doorsteps and doing their washing and letting all the detergents flow into the water. It's a miracle that fishes still survive here.

Kota Tinggi waterfalls

It's a trip to reclaim my childhood memories.

When I was a kid, the waterfalls is one of our favourite day trips to escape the heat in Singapore.

20 years down the road, it's good to see that the waterfall is still pretty much the same. I still enjoy having a powerful water massage by one of the rapids in the upstream.

What is sad is that the whole place is almost overtaken by stupid tourist developments in the downstream area. Of course, nothing is free now and we have to pay to enjoy nature.

Other than ugly concrete chalets that eat into the forested areas, construction is also undergoing to build ugly water slides over the stream. Ouch...I can almost feel the rocks crying out in pain for having to shoulder the weight of these metal and concrete structures over them.

The tourism charade is completed by the rows of eateries and souvenir stalls lining the road up to the waterfall.

Sorry, no outside food is allowed, barring people from bringing their own picnic basket.

Sungei Renggit-Teluk Ramunia

For little escapes away from Singapore, we do not have to look far.

It may not be the best beach, but being far from the maddening crowd, it's still a nice little escape.



I enjoy particularly the ride on the sand during low tide. Despite having only a creepy brakeless rented bike, it's still nice to race with the little crabs on the sand. The hermit crabs are most fascinating. While moving back into their little heaven in the sand, they are able to sense me from a distance and pretend to die all of a sudden.

Well, I almost caused the death of one and definitely make it less happy when my friend decided to bring him home. Glad that it is still surviving at least.

Food wise, forget about the pricey seafood in town. The little Malay coffeeshop and satay hawker in the village is definitely tastier and more value-for-money.

Random thoughts

Not that I enjoy writing or write well.
But one of my (numerous) dreams is to become a travel writer, ie to make a living out of travelling and adventures.

While this dream is still a remote possibility, I've decided to take baby steps in documenting my random thoughts during my little adventures.

Hopefully, my dream of embarking on a big adventure will be realised very soon.

The adventure begins...

I'm still exploring bloggersphere and setting up my template, but the adventure has just begun...