Travel stories: Hiking at Mt. Batulao, Batangas

If you ever wondered what is it like climbing up and down the back of a stegosauras, hiking Mt. Batulao is the closest one you can get to experience this.

For a hiking novice, it was an extremely grueling hike. But it was all worth it because when we moved to Manila, hubby and I made the resolution that we must travel in the Philippines. We regretted that we didn't do more of this when we were in Indonesia.

We left Makati at 630am today for a 2.5 hours drive to Tagaytay, and started the hike at about 9ish. After slightly over 3 hours, we finally reached Batulao's pinnacle. Along the way, there was plenty of walking up and down numerous hills and valleys, which was pretty alright, until the last stretch for peak ascent. By this time, the sun was right on top of us, and I was so afraid I was gonna pass out from the heat! To give you an idea how hot it was, hubby and I could see heat haze, where the air was so hot that it kinda waved and shimmered right in front of our eyes!

My peak ascent picture just got photo-bombed by a cloud!

But the view at the top that greeted us, it was all worth it! Brilliant, unfettered view of Taal Lake and Batangas, as far as the eye can see.

Going down Batulao is the part that is akin to walking on the back of stegosauras. Up and down, and up again, and down again we went, until every uphill going filled me with dread because it meant there's a downhill ahead and feeling own bodyweight bearing down on me poor knees.

Walk the stegosauras!

An added challenge of Batulao is that the dry season made the trail dry and sandy, and thus, lacking grip in certain parts. While at the top, we shared our lunch with Melvin, our 14 year old guide, and that certainly paid off. On the slippery slopes, I had to rely him to provide extra support.  *blush* Strictly for the physically fit and certainly not for the faint-hearted.

As I'm blogging this, my knees are feeling the after-effects. It certainly brings back memories of climbing Mt. Kinabalu aeons ago and had to suffer achy legs and painful joints for a week after. However, it had been good fun, with friendly expats from the IN community. I am certainly looking forward to more adventures! 

Travel stories: Dive and makan-makan trip to Manado/Bunaken

Yay! Hubs and I managed to go for our first dive trip after getting our open water dive cert. We so badly needed this because it has been 6 months ago since we completed our dive course zilch diving action. ;p To refresh what we have learned, we even reviewed the open water video clip the night our departure to Manado/Bunaken. Thank god that upon arrival at Manado, our dive instructor Wulan who organised this trip, took the group to Manado Bay for a dive check and everything we learned came back to us.

While in Manado, we stayed in La Rascasse Resort that overlooks Manado Tua and Bunaken island on the horizon. La Rascasse is a typical dive resort - basic amenities but clean. The rooms are air-conditioned and fitted with hot showers as well. Food-wise, we were surprised that La Rascasse serves up very good dishes. We certainly have no complaints upon eating our first meal there, after enduring a 3-hour journey on Lion Air that did not serve any food/beverages.

View of La Rascasse very own jetty and dive center

Hospitality at La Rascasse is top notch. The resort manager, Jeffry Massa and his staff are extremely friendly and made efforts to ensure their guests have a comfortable and enjoyable stay at La Rascasse. For example, one of the member in our dive group requested "Nasi Kuning" a local specialty for packed lunch during the one of the dive trips and it was considered done. Similarly, Jeffry also asked us if we like to try another local specialty "Bubur Manado" for breakfast and voila on the next day, there was "Bubur Manado" bought from one of the shops outside the resort, served up at the breakfast buffet.

A local specialty for breakfast - Bubur Manado. I had 2 bowls of this!

The dive sites around Bunaken are simply amazing. Underwater visibility was very good and Hubs and I were really excited by what we saw on both days. I will never forget a few personal "firsts" - a giant clam "contracted" underwater, the opportunity to see up close-up a giant turtle perched on its resting place before slowly swimming away, a giant Napolean wrasse and schools of butterfly fishes swimming gracefully that for a moment, I thought I was in an underwater garden.

Manado Bay

The island of Manado Tua

 Unbelievably crystal clear water

Sunset at Manado

Local peddler on a boat. Our group bought smoke cakalang

(i.e. skipjack tuna) to share as in-between dives snack ;p

Specially ordered packed lunch i.e. Nasi Kuning with smoked cakalang

On our last night in Manado, a few of us together with some of the dive guides went to a nearby restaurant i.e. City Extra for dinner. Apparently coconut crabs are a local specialty so we gotta have that before we leave. And it was very yummy indeed, although personally I prefer the coconut crabs cooked in black pepper sauce because it kinda masked the slight bitter taste of the crab meat.

Top, from left to right: Black pepper coconut crabs, steam coconut crabs, humogous crab claw

Middle: Our dive group members

Bottom, from left to right: Smoked prawns, squids cooked in ink, stir-fry pakis with papaya flowers

On our last day in Manado, we had some time to spare before our flight back which we hired a car to drive us to Manado city for massage and lunch. I certainly think that massage after diving is an excellent idea and the masseuse at Tikala Spa were really good. As usual, we asked for strong masseuse and gotta say I really enjoyed the deep tissue massage to rub those tired muscles. :) And the price was quite reasonable as well I must say. For a two hours session, we paid Rp 265,000 per person which included one hour of foot massage and one hour for full body massage.

For lunch, Wulan recommended us to try this restaurant called Puncak Manado. Situated on a bit of a hill, Puncak Manado offers bird's eye view of the city. And the food, needless to say, is another brilliant meal which showcases the Minahasa cuisine.

Bird's eye view of Manado from the restaurant

Clockwise from left: Ayam isi di bulu (chicken baked in bamboo),

Sogili woku woka (smoked eel), stir-fry pakis and papaya flowers,

and condiments of sambal and dabu-dabu (tomato salsa)

When we first touched down in Manado airport, I was strucked by this triangular stained glass feature in the main departure hall because it's kinda unusual to see this kinda of structures in a Muslim country. As it turned out to be, Christianity is the predominant faith in Manado. And it is very evident along the main road leading to the airport - it is dotted with a lot of churches of various denominations every couple hundred meters.

For our flight back, it turned out that our original Lion Air flight was cancelled and they moved us into a later flight operated by Batik Air, a premier subsidiary airline of Lion Air. I thought this was a rather thoughtful gesture by them - to offer prayer cards in the seat pockets to pray for safe journey. And the prayers are available for most major faiths: Islam, Protestant, Catholic, Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism! How cool is that!

Until we meet again. Manado/Bunaken has been most unforgettable...

Travel Stories: Chillin' Out @ Redang Island

We took a short break to Redang Island in May this year. It was an impromptu trip which Hubs planned for, just before I was due to go for a small surgery. We took Berjaya Air, which was a first for both of us and it flew us direct to the island. One small inconvenience though - since Berjaya Air operates out of Subang Airport, which is like 5 minutes drive away from our home, it was a little bit difficult to arrange for taxi transport to bring us to the airport. Luckily, Hubs has a reliable contact :))

A short 45 minutes ride and voila! we were at Redang. The airport in Redang is pretty basic, no conveyor belts which deliver the luggage and we had pretty much unload it ourselves.

Since the trip was impromptu, most of the hotels were pretty booked up. Even the hotel which I stayed in i.e. Redang Beach Resort on my previous trip 8 years ago was fully booked, as well as the more expensive Laguna Redang. Hubs finally managed to book us at Coral Redang Resort. I quickly googled up the hotel site and from the pictures there, it looked kinda aged. I had my reservation but we had no choice. Hubs reassured me that he specifically requested the newer rooms before he confirmed the booking. And everything turned out alright! The chalets were new like, 6 months new and more importantly clean! Seriously the management should update the site with pictures of their new chalets. Anyway here they are! :)

We made friends with one of the senior staff. His name is Arjuna and he's a really really decent and friendly chap. We even managed to get him to show us the deluxe chalets which has its own living area!

We took the full board 3D2N package plus 1 extra night stay. I dare say that everything at Coral Redang worked out well - decent and new rooms, friendly staffs and even the food is pretty good. Saturday night was barbeque night, and the grilled prawns were especially good and more importantly fresh. Other days was a mixture of Western and Malaysian food and no complains from me. :)

There were a few resident squirrels that were really friendly. They don't disturb the guests but were pretty curious critters. And you can see them scurrying and hanging around the hotel pool bar and restaurant area. Cute!

Travel: Pinang Peranakan Mansion @ Penang

When my Twin and Bro-in-law from the US visited recently during Chinese New Year, we did a family trip to Penang. It has been 17 years since my sisters and I left home that my family undertook a family holiday during Chinese New Year. My Twin decided Penang because of the street food Penang has to offer for her husband who is a chef and all of us agreed, simply because of food again. Hehe.

We also had the opportunity to visit the Pinang Peranakan Mansion, a privately-owned museum that showcases the rich-in-tradition culture of the Peranakans or Baba and Nyonya. My mother was really excited to visit this museum because one of the favourite Singapore Chinese drama i.e. The Little Nyonya was filmed entirely here. Shall not say much and just let the pictures do the talking.

The main entrance to the mansion

The mansion follows the historical Chinese residence known as siheyuan or 

courtyard surrounded by four buildings in a quadrangle

Entrance to a hall located on the left of the courtyard

Entrance to another hall on the right of the courtyard, which is 

decorated with elaborately carved wooden doors

Inside of the hall.

View of courtyard from the first floor

A room dedicated to showcase all the decorative items and wares collected by the owner's family.

Collection of Peranakan dining wares

A tapestry of intricate golden design depicting a flying crane

A typical Peranakan bed and chamber

A decorated stand with enamel wash basin and chamber pot

A back corridor leading to kitchen and informal living quarters

An ancient piano

A collection of tiffin carriers, enamel pots, hot water flask, coffee pots, kettles and hot pots for steamboat

A typical olden day kitchen

Ancestral hall to remember the dead

A carving of deities that is normally found in Chinese ancestral halls

Serenity...

****

Pinang Peranakan Mansion
29, Church Street,
10200 Penang, Malaysia

Travel stories: Bintan Lagoon Resort at Bintan Island

This trip turned out to be a few "first" for us.

The 1st First. I consider both of us as travel-savvy. Hence it was highly inconceivable that we both set the wrong time on the alarm clock. Hubs thought he did but realised that it was set at 5am weekday and the day we traveled - Saturday. As for me, I overheard Hubs informed Pak Sumiran (our driver) that we wished to depart for airport at 'setengah enam' (literal translation 'half six'). I did not realise that over here 'half six' actually meant 'half to six' i.e. 5:30am and not as in the English way of 'half past six'. So I set my alarm to get up at 5:30am. So you can imagine the tornado-ish jump-out-of-bed-get-ready-in-5-and-mad-dash-out-of-the-house action that went on.

The 2nd First. We were SO late for airport. Home to airport should take about 45 minutes without traffic. We made it in 20 minutes. Traffic was a breeze coupled with some fast driving from Sumiran. Phew!

The 3rd First. Bintan is an island in the Riau archipelago of Indonesia. To get to Bintan, there's 2 routes: via Batam on "super" local airlines or via Singapore on Garuda Indonesia before catching a ferry to Bintan . Hubs opted via Singapore because he's not going to risk our lives boarding the "super" local airlines, i.e. these airlines do not have very good safety record. *touch wood* Can't believe actually got out of the country to get back into the country again after 6 hours on the road. Just filling up the arrival/departure cards can make one go into a state of confusion.

The 4 First. Bintan is a playground for Singapore and her expats. Or rather the part where all the resorts are situated. When we arrived at Bintan Lagood Resort, we could only check in at 3pm (like who in the world checks in at 3pm these days?!) and so we went to the resort's coffeehouse for lunch. First we noticed of the menu was everything was priced in SGD, although official transactions (read: hotel receipts and billings) are stated in Rupiah. Secondly, the place is overrun by weekenders Singaporean. Everywhere we went we could hear people "jiang hua yu" (speak Mandarin). And by the time we got to our room, I noticed that the hotel is equipped with 3-pin sockets instead of 2-pin. So out goes the window the universal adapter. 

But all in all, the resort is rather nice. Great pool, refurbished modern rooms and white sandy beaches. The staff speaks excellent English as well. Weekends are crazy with all the families and vacation groups. Go during weekdays if peace and quiet are what you are looking for.

Our room with a view - overlooking the pool, well tended gardens and the sea beyond.

Nice big pool with plenty of sundeck loungers

My usual activities: breakfast with a view, catching up my read and R&R by the beach

Travel stories: Flight delayed.

My recent flight was rather eventful by KLM standards, IMO. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a love-hate relationship with them, like everyone does with Air Asia or MAS. In fact, I think it's the best option for KL-Jakarta route on proviso that you are not bound by time of arrival/departure. 

Although this route is only serviced by one flight per day, but it has so many things that I *heart* KLM for. Numero uno - big planes i.e. Boeing 777-300 because KL is a stopover point for long-haul Amsterdam-Jakarta. Secondly, no weird cabin smell that can induce a headache or nauseous feeling, especially on MAS and Air Asia planes servicing domestic and regional routes. For Air Asia, it's the dreaded rush of fume smell just before take-off that makes me sick. Last but not least, little stuffs to pleasant-ise the journey - lavender-scented hot towels, in-flight entertainment and decent meals.

Anyway, I digressed. It was 10 minutes passed official departure time and we were still parked at the gate. Next came the pilot's voice on air, announcing that flight was delayed due to overfuel. This should not cause a problem upon taking off but it's definitely dangerous when we land in Jakarta. To complicate matters, it was easy to put in fuel but definitely tricky to unload off the extra fuel, which the pilot foresee would delay the journey by 1 hour. In the meantime, the ground crew had to look into unloading unnecessary weight off the plane to cut down the delay. Half an hour into waiting, the pilot voice came on again, announcing that we were good for take-off, just as the plane was departing from the gate. Hurray!

But... Yes there's a but. As we were taxiing to the runway, the notorious KL thunderstorm came upon us and minutes later, pilot announced again due to the unfavourable weather condition which was creating havoc on wind directions and such, we would have to sit out until the weather clears up. Thank god it wasn't long though.

Delicious meal - Selected for you by KLM. Simple but smart psycho-marketing tactic.

Travel stories: Thank God for technology (although I'm still in a fix over my iPhone battery)

I wasn't exactly late when I arrived at the airport yesterday for my return flight to Kuala Lumpur. I was there slightly over 2 hours prior takeoff time due to uncannily clear traffic, hence theoretically I have quite a comfortable margin to check in and clear immigrations. That is of course, had I done internet check-in.

But I totally forgot about it and mentally kicked myself a thousand times over for wasting an hour's time surfing the net while at Hubs's office, when I saw the snaking queue for counter check-in. Back in KL, I have used mobile check-in and drop off my luggage at the luggage drop-off counter by showing the QR code sent to my iPhone for domestic flights. Some friends also informed they have checked-in with no problem by showing their e-ticket on their smartphone at the check-in counter. But this is Jakarta airport we are talking about. The Nugrah Rai International Airport in Denpasar is even more modern than this. In fact the airport was only equipped with free wifi as of May this year if it wasn't for some ASEAN meeting.

Jeez! What a stew I am in! I decided then, I shall not wait forever like this, and I shall test the untested. Since there's free wifi (thank god it was strong signal throughout), I proceed to check-in online at KLM mobile site with my iPhone, while switching queue to the luggage drop-off, and managed to get my pdf boarding pass sent to my email at the end of the process. To be on the safe side, I also requested for my boarding pass to be sent to the airport. By the time it was my turn at the counter, I showed the pdf boarding pass on my iPhone and voila! without much hassle I got the hardcopy. Yay!

Travel stories: Beach, bum and beers at Pulau Tioman

Hubs and me, we *heart* beach bumming ever since the bug bit us during our honeymoon to Railay beach in Krabi. Hence when a couple friend of ours, Ivan and Pink, asked if we were keen to go to Tioman with them during the recent Merdeka-Raya long holiday, we went "why not" since we were already planning to go to Kluang to visit my parents.

This is my 2nd time to Tioman after some 20 years hiatus. And it hasn't change much from what I remembered. Although there are now more chalets and better infrastructure, Tioman still has the laid-back fishing village feel to it.

We stayed in Kg. Genting where another friend, Gary co-runs a dive center. These are pictures in and around Kg. Genting.

A group of student divers trooping off for their off-shore dive lesson while we contented ourselves with sea creatures that's visible to us at low tide. A sea cucumber, mud skipper, some mussels and ahem, some fresh fishes that Gary manage to get from the local fishermen

We also did some snorkeling close by and manage to spot the usual suspects - clown fish, few varieties of parrot fish and even a couple of angel fish.

Come night fall, what else there is except for more beers! And Hubs had a close encounter with a blue genie :)

One major turn off about Tioman is the unreliable ferry services. Unlike Redang/Perhentian where most of the resorts there provide complimentary boat transfers to the islands, all visitors of Tioman have to rely on third-party operated ferries, of which their erratic service left an unpleasant experience. We got detoured twice!

First was going to Tioman, where the operator told us we could hop onto an earlier ferry, but only to realise that operator failed to remind the captain to stop at Kg. Genting jetty and the captain for whatever reasons also decided not to stop at Kg. Genting jetty, when he was supposed to. We had to wait for an hour before catching another ferry that was making its way back to Mersing. Second was leaving Tioman, where we also hop onto the 10am ferry, failing to notice that the destination bound is Tg. Gemok/Endau, some 20km north of Mersing, bordering Pahang. The operator also did not inform us of our mistake when he cross-checked our tickets. In the end, a good samaritan took us in her car to the Endau bus stand where we caugh a taxi back to Mersing to pick up our car.

Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise, because when Hubs texted our friends to inform them of what happened, we found out that the 1130am ferry bound for Mersing actually skipped Kg. Genting jetty altogether because it was filled to the brim. The next ferry scheduled for the stranded visitors was only at 7pm. Gosh!