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Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

Getting there : First impression on Taiwan

03 Sep

Chinese everywhere. Being living in Malaysia for almost all my life, I’m not used to be seeing Chinese and only Chinese all around me when I first landed in Taiwan’s Taoyuan Airport (TPE).

The immigration officer that manages the queue was a Chinese, the other immigration officer that checked my passport was a Chinese as well. The police, the cleaners and anyone else that keep the airport operational are Chinese. Well, this is a norm in Taiwan, of course.

The main gateway to Taiwan is the Taoyuan International Airport (臺灣桃園國際機場) with the IATA code, TPE. Opened in 1979, the airport was known as Chiang Kai-shek International Airport. It is the airport that serves the nation’s capital Taipei city and it’s suburbs.

Quoted from Taoyuan International Airport’s wikipedia

Taiwan Taoyuan handled a total of 21,616,729 passengers in 2009.[1] It is the fifteenth-busiest air freight hub in the world[3] and thirteenth-busiest airport by international passenger traffic.

Connectivity from the airport is good. I took the shuttle bus from the airport to Taoyuan High Speed Rail (HSR) station in a mere 10-15 minutes journey that only costs 30TWD per person.

From the station, you can get to almost everywhere in the country from Taipei at the north to Taichung in the middle to Kaoshiung in the south.

Quoted from Taiwan High Speed Rail’s wikipedia

The system holds the record for the world’s longest viaduct at 157.3 km (97.7 mi), from Pakuashan in Changhua County to Zuoying in Kaohsiung.[27] The system also ranks Taiwan as the country with the third-fastest trains, with express trains from Taichung to Zuoying averaging 244.7 km/h (152.0 mph) over 179.5 km (111.5 mi).[28]

Alternatively, there are also bus services right from the airport itself that basically connects you to all the vital places all over Taiwan.

Transportation that really works! Comparing to Malaysia’s transportation, it’s like living in heaven here in Taiwan. Different means of transportation connect to each other as seamless and easy as possible.

Heck, you do not need to climbing up and down checking out and back in again in Taiwan when you need to switch to another line when commuting using subway system.

In Malaysia, one can only ponder.

In Malaysia, one can only ponder upon how Taiwanese’s transportation work so beautifully connecting with each other at tremendous rate of efficiency.

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Posted in Taiwan

 

New Zealand – March 2010

17 Apr

Nope, it’s not me unfortunately but surely I’ll step on the Kiwi-land on back packing trip in the future.This time, it’s my parents that went to New Zealand on a tour group for 10 days. It costs them more than RM15k per person I think.

I heard of a lot of wonderful stories from them after they came back from the trip. It was a really enjoyable trip experiencing the heaven like scenery and on experiencing how people make their living there at this little country near the south pole. Needless me to comment about how astonishing and beautiful the landscapes there are, just do a bit of Googling and one can see tons of them. I would presume that you at least watched The Lord of the ring, right? The movie is made there.

Well, anyway, I’m in no position to be to deliver their experience here precisely though but it was really an enjoyable trip! Worth it! Photos and videos captured would speak for them.

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Click here to view all photos in slideshow

Auckland – City of sails

Auckland is known as the ‘city of sails’, and an often quoted – though difficult to prove – statistic is that there are more boats per capita in New Zealand than anywhere else in the world. (Quoted from NewZealand.com)

At a farm

Crystal clear river with fishes

Blue pool

On the move, some landscape captured along the way.

I hope I know at which cable car station they are at though.

Serene, peaceful, beautiful town. My parents said that you can never get into traffic jam as they have once counted that there are only 5 cars that pass through a town road in 10 minutes.

Oh wait, some time you do get into traffic when sheeps are making their way across the road to feed on other grassland.

That’s all for now. Enjoy your weekend folks.

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Posted in and the rest of the world

 

Road trip to Hat Yai, Thailand

22 Feb

Driving on the street of Hat Yai

It has been slightly more than 10 years since I last visited Thailand.

It was really an eye opening experience being able to tag along Wendy and her friends to Hat Yai last month. And of course many thanks to Ah Sea for being our driver! Without her we would be literally blinded in the alien land up north.

It took us about 5 hours ride from Penang as we decided to go through the not-so-hectic Padang Besar (Perlis) check point rather than the usual Bukit Kayu Hitam (Kedah) entry point. Arriving there, we first checked in to the drive-in hotel and later on went out for lunch.

The name of the hotel is Leelawadee Resort (thanks to Wendy for remembering!) I can’t really recall what is the name of this hotel but and it’s reasonable cheap! It only costs us about 350 baths per night!
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Navigating the Halong Bay

19 Oct

Halong Bay

Alright, this round I’m going to tell you the story about our second stop during our days in Vietnam. As the title can tell, we are heading to Halong Bay on the second day of our 5 days tour.

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Posted in Vietnam

 

World second largest rice exporter

08 Oct

One week before Hari Raya, Wendy suggested on going on a trip somewhere to kill the free time on the Raya week. So, I went and searched around for cheap tickets on places around. Too bad, in the end of planning, Wendy needed to stay put at home to take care of her parents. I’m sure we can go on trip again in the near future when her father gets better!

Anyhow, I went on with my parents in the end. It was a 5 days 4 nights trip to the world second largest rice exporter country. The country with over 3 thousands kilometers of coastline. Insane.

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We traveled using MAS’s as it offers hassle-free transit and it’s actually slightly cheaper than Air Asia. Furthermore, we don’t need to pay a single cent for the meal served on board.

Flying for 3 hours plus without (FREE) food and drinks can be starving and thirsty.

Quan An Ngon

We had our fist lunch at quan an ngon in the Old Quarters after arrival. It’s a well known place among the locals and tourists. Many have recommended this place so we gave it a try.

bo bia What you see on the left is what Vietnamese love to eat. Often, they like to wrap their food around like this. It’s something similar to Japanese’s temaki.

Well, I must say that we are not really “into” the local foods over there. Nevertheless, it is a very good experience!

Just enjoy the photos I took during the trip and I’ll tell you more in the next post.

Staying alive is a key to another great trip, you will know why in the next post.

Till then, take care.

PS: Oh ya, if you are viewing the photos in the photo album, make sure you try the slide show feature ya!

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Posted in Vietnam