Beautiful Maldives

I am looking forward to this honeymoon trip from last year when I plan for my marriage ceremonial dinner. We brought a return MAS air ticket to Male for around RM1500 per person. Our Maldives trip is a week with 6 nights where I am planning 2 night stay at Male and 4 nights stay at island resort.







Our flight arrival and departure at night where there are none seaplane transfer at night so we have to stay a night on airport island for a night on arrival. Then at 8am the next day, there is a seaplane transfer with Trans Maldivian Air to Reethi Beach Resort at Baa Atoll. The seaplane takes around 35 minutes to Baa Atoll with beautiful view of Maldives Atoll.






Finally we arrives Reethi Beach Resort on our second day at 10:30am and it is really beautiful where the white sand cover the island with blue turquoise water. We have given a room number ‘208’ water villa and we love the room very much too with sea view from the bed. We have a good rest after our arrivals in the evening before we proceed to join the management cocktail organize by the resort management. Then we proceed to Alifan restaurant for our dinner.

The third day of our Maldives trip would be a full day island itinerary where I went for a diving trip and my wife go for a massage therapy. Then we have a relax noon before ending our day with a romantic dinner at Reethi grill.






On the fourth day, I was planning a 2 dive trip with the dive school but there are some miscommunication on timing which I miss the boat but I still manage to go for a house reef dive and then meet my wife and enjoy the rest of our days on our water villa. There is an attraction not to be miss on Reethi beach resort which is the fish feeding and it is pretty amazing to witness huge stingray around the shore.





I had my last dive on the fifth day of our trips to Hura Cave dive site with multi color corals. Then in the afternoon at 3pm we went for an excursion to a near local island for shopping and also sunset. It was a nice trip for a short excursion. We end our dinner at Moondu bar and restaurant for a last night romantic dinner.







Our sixth day at Maldives and final day at Reethi where we were directed to depart at 3:45pm back to Male and we still have a half day to enjoy the water villa. We walk around the island and also enjoy at the sunset bar before fully relaxing at our room. I have try to jump out from our villa for snorkeling but the wave are too strong and visibility are not good too. So I decided to stay at the balcony to watch the sea view.

Then we took the seaplane to transfer back to Male where we took a dhoni from the airport island for a fare price of USD1 to reach Male city. Then another taxi fare from the jetty at Male to reach Dace hotel for about USD2. We had a early dinner and rest early.






The final day of our Maldives trip waiting for our departure flight at night, so we have a whole day for shopping and city sightseeing at Male. We brought some souvenir near the independence square, then visit the Islamic centre and pass the Hukuru Miskiiy. We have a break with drinks at Traders Hotel before ending our trip with a visit to the fish market but it is too late to visit the market at late noon.

Valentine Day @Bangkok

We took a different flight Luftansa to Bangkok. Reaching bangkok at night on the first day of our journey. Staying at I-Residence Silom which near the BTS Chong Nonsi station. I am satify with the average room at I-Residence.

Second day was a tiring day as I need to tailor made 2 tuxedo, black and white for my dinner. We manage to go back to the shops I made previously, Tailor Smile along silom road. Then in the afternoon we proceed to chatuchak market for a wild shopping.

We are so lucky to be able to celebrate valentine at bangkok where I have planned a valentine itinerary. We start off our valentine day with a romantic lunch atop of Baiyoke sky restaurant for a lunch buffet. It cost us around Baht580 per person.Is a great place for relaxation and also enjoy bangkok scenery. Then we proceed to central for some warehouse shopping before proceeding to "IN LOVE" bar and restaurant for our valentine dinner but too bad is was full and long queue. So we decided to have a valentine dinner beside the jetty.

The fourth day was a heritage tour to ayutthaya city to visit some grand heritage temple at old city of ayutthaya. Then end of the day we went to MBK for some light shopping and brought some mango rice for dinner.

The fifth day was a final shopping and some massage before heading back Kuala Lumpur.

Penang Food Heritage

I would like to break the normality of my blog where I would like to introduce penang food to readers instead of just heritage sites. After staying 2 days at penang town center and I actually found all the recommended food that I would like to try. The 2 food highlight I would like to introduce is penang char kuay teow and penang lor mee.





Penang char kuay teow is really a long chinese food heritage in penang. Previously I try the sister char kuay teow near lorong selamat which I prefer mostly. This round I try another which is called Ah Leng famous penang char kuay teow near lorong dunlop off jalan anson. I order the one with duck egg which I found it not much difference to a normal one. But overall the char kuay teow still very delicious.





The second recommendation is the penang lor mee that located in the heart of penang core zone near lebuh ah quee. It is hard to find good food around that area as everyone also mention there are only good food near komtar. But to break the normality again, I really search for this penang lor mee and it is nice and special to taste it with sugar or garlic.

Walking Penang UNESCO World Heritage 2011

We heading to Penang for our pre wedding photos over the weekend. As you know I am really into world heritage sites and I would put piority to my own country world heritage sites like melaka and penang. We visited melaka on november 2010 which is 2 months ago.





I am targeting the heritage core zone for the photo shooting around beach road. After recommendation from the passionate photographer, we plan to take the photos at jetty in the morning then proceed to beach road where logan heritage located and end up on armenian street and kuan yin temple.







Anyway sunday was the photo shooting day and I hardly walk around the world heritage core zone. I took the opportunity on Monday to walk around with Jess to Kuan yin temple again, cheah kongsi and Dr.Sun Yat Sen museum.





My main target of this penang vacation is to visit penang 2 UNESCO restoration winner, which is Cheong Fatt Sze mansion and sulfolk house. I drop by at Cheong fatt sze mansion and is also call 'Blue Mansion' for a overall photo. I didn't enter the mansion but I save the best for last to Sulfolk house which located outside the core zone. It is a beautiful restoration if you can imagine the previous condition of the house.






Here is the result and effort of the penang photo shooting.

Weekend break at Kuantan Tembeling

Kuantan is the capital of Pahang state located near the east coast of Peninsula Malaysia. We are taking a short break for 3 days 2 nights at Kuantan for a breakaway for mostly food searching as there isn't any much attraction over there.

When we reach on friday, 7th of Jan afternoon, we had our lunch at Kemaman Kopitiam which is similar to Old Town Kopitiam and there isn't any fancy about this kopitiam. We also visited East Coast mall which say to be the largest in Kuantan. I guess the mall is sufficient for kuantan. Then we quickly check into kuantan tembeling resort for our stay. Our first day are quite simple as we are waiting for a group of friends from KL to proceed for our food hunting. We just end our day at teluk cempedak for macdonald as dinner.





Second day would be more interesting as we start our day at Hoi Yin restaurant for famous curry mee in Kuantan but I believe it is too commercial. We have a little break at teluk cempedak for kite even there isn't much wind.






Then we proceed to Chukai town near Kemaman which is around 60km from Kuantan which I found it little far but lucky we had a friend, wong that are familiar around that place. We had a famous 'Yong hai' or stuff crab at chukai town. This is pretty good taste I had so far for the trip. Then we proceed to Hai Peng Kopitiam which I believe it is the original Kemaman kopitiam comparing to the one at kuantan. Original mean it is located at Kemaman as Kemaman is a district in terengganu state.

Then after our lunch and tea break, we are heading back kuantan. We pass by a turtle sanctuary near club med and we visited for a short break. Reach back kuantan tembeling resort and rest. We had our dinner at a simple restorant at Kuantan which are quite cheap around Rm13/person for 5 person. We had fish, squid, clam, tahu and a vegetable. We also had the famous Satay Zul for supper as it is also recommended. I would say it is commercial again but it is worth a try when you visit Kuantan.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011

HAPPY NEW YEAR BLOGGER !!!

I believe we are looking forward to the year of rabbit and a bright 2011 year ahead. As for myself it would be a busy year as there are plenty of planning and sharing this year. Hope you get the experience sharing too. Keep in the loop!!

Cheers

Visiting Melaka UNESCO World Heritage

Both I and Jess have a trip to Melaka for photo shooting last weekend. Planning started from about one and half month back. Our assignment on the trip was successfully completed and thanks to all the energetic and motivated photographers like Robin and Frederick. Definitely I am not forgetting my other friends that accompany the journey of tiring photo shooting.





I am taking this opportunity to walk around the day before around Jonker street area. We stay at Hotel Puri, one of a famous Baba Nyonya peranakan mansion and the environment is really amazing. Then we walk upward along Jalan Tan Cheng Lock and reach the entrance of Jonker street night market. We quickly visit the oldest temple at Melaka, Cheng Hoon Teng Temple which is worth the visit.




Then a little further walk down the road of Jalan Tokong would be Kampung Kling mosque. I believe the mosque is hidden from the attraction as it is not really noticeable when the crowded night market are lighting up along the whole Jonker. We had our dinner opposite Jonker boutique hotel near the stage.



After dinner we walk around until the river bridge mouth near famous Chung Wah chicken rice shop and we took a Melaka river cruise along the Melaka river for the price of RM10 per person. Along the river you will see the heritage house along the river but bare in mind that this river cruise cannot compare to romantic river cruise like Venice as it might be crowded with local family or tourist on the cruise. Put your expectation a little lower and enjoy the heritage of Melaka as a tourist.





We continue our heritage walk the next day during our photo shooting. We started at 7:30am from Puri hotel to Stadthuys, namely the red administrative area by Dutch and we proceed up until St Paul church for our 1st shooting location. Walking down to the other side would be A’Famosa the famous Portuguese ruin fortress but we skip that place for our 2nd location. We went back to Hotel Puri for our 2nd location shooting and had our lunch at the hotel restaurant. The whole hotel is really vintage and antique.



Our 3rd location shooting would be a beach out of town namely Klebang beach. Our Melaka trips are indeed a fruitful result.