The Reunification Palace. This is where the tank broke into and stopped the war. We went there quite late and it was closed. So we went on another day.
The main post office of HCMC.
People’s Committee Building.
Opera House.
A statue we saw outside the post office.
Cathedral of Notre Dame. That statue of Lady Fatima was said to have wept before a disastrous event happened in Vietnam some years ago.
Picture taken at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City
It was a nice short trip to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). I must say it is a very nice place and its a must in your South East Asia tour. They have their very unique culture with a little bit of French and American influence. There’s a lot nice tasty food to eat. Beef with vermicelli is a must. Pork chop rice. Monitor lizard and rat/mice. Argh…. so many nice food. Their coffee is so yummy and cheap. Almost every stall you have your coffee will be the same good taste. No worries of which shop serves better coffee. They are all the same.
Cheap good stuffs. At first, my objective of going to Vietnam is to see the dugout tunnels the Viet Congs used during the American War (or Vietnam War that we already know). Cu Chi (pronouns : khou chee). Well, not only that I saw but also a weird religion they called Caodaism. We went to Cao Dai Temple and Cu Chi Tunnel for a day trip. It is about 2.5 hours drive out of HCMC.
Ok. I’ll elaborate more with along my pictures soon. Stay tuned folks. Kham mer.
Ha… I’m back in KL…. home sweet home. My short stay in Singapore at Boon Lay was nice… had Korean food with szers sister. But then, would really like to know if there’s anything thats unique of Singapore… i’m talking about food. Went to Holland Village and i think its a nice place though the eateries are the same kind of those you have in Bangsar.
I saw Lim Kee (klang) Bak Kut Teh while on the way to bus station. Why Klang? Singapore dont have their own unique foodlike what we have in MY. Ipoh hor fun,penang laksa, klang bak kut teh, ampang yong tau foo (singaporeans call it niang tau fu. Weird? Mr Niang introduced it to Singaporean) and the list goes on. Well, i only know of Singapore mee hoon.
Anything else? No offence to Singporeans………………………………… peace.
Yooooooooooooo !!! Hi everyone ! I’m having a great time here at Ho Chi Minh City with Szer and her friend Ah Siang. He’s our tour guide.
The coffee here is great.
Oh yeah…. be going off to Singapore with her tonite and… then Vietnam. Woohoo. Not flying by Air Asia but Tiger Airways.
Typical indigenous house/tent.
He’s preparing drinks for the visitors. That’s liana tree.
Ng… so thirsty.
Then the village headman showed us how to start a fire.
Within minutes, fire was started.
This is the headman’s son.
Now he’s showing us how to make blowpipe darts (sumpit)
Daniel F tried but screwed up.
For sale: darts and blowpipe. Rm25
Now he shows us how to blow.
Its actually very hard to blow.
Eddie lit his cigarette from the firestarter.
Then it was my turn.
I don’t really encourage people go into their house and take pictures. This make the orang asli felt like they’re an exhibit.
Group picture.
Related post:
http://endroo.blogspot.com/2006/12/taman-negara-day-1.html
http://endroo.blogspot.com/2006/12/taman-negara-places.html
http://endroo.blogspot.com/2007/01/taman-negara-canopy-trek.html
The canopy walkway in Taman Negara. The longest suspension bridge in the world measuring 460m - 500m in length. Suspended 25-40 metres off the ground. Taman Negara trip is not complete without experiencing this. Some people had their balls shrunk, but I wonder what is there to be afraid of. I just love jumping on the bridge. I’m scared of heights but not this. Part of it were closed for maintenance. We only walked about 250m of it.
Some of my homies shivered before stepping onto the bridge. Geeez.
Group photo before going up.
This little German kid was cute.
Waiting for others to complete the canopy walk.
Me in action
Only 4 person at any one time on the platform (on the tree) ; 5 metres distance from each other on the bridge
Posing under a tualang tree
This is tongkat ali tree
Exhausted?
Our guide, Miss NG, said she’s on leech treatment. According to her, leech produce some “thinner” into our blood (which is normally thick and dark red in colour) to enable it to easily suck when its lighter. Some people with thick blood should try this treatment. But you must let countless of leeches to suck you for a duration of i-don’t-know-how-long.
Miss Ng explaining to us about the benefits of tongkat ali… apart from the fact it can enhance our sexual stamina.
After the now-bloated leech sucked Miss NG and dropped off her hand, we put it among an army of ants and the ants were more than happy for food to fall from the sky.
We tried climbing on something like what Tarzan used to swing around in the jungle.
This is Ken.
Encik Ee. Our second guide.
2 of my best buddies, Lee and Ng
Lee almost fell from the thing. Having a couple of kilos extra really a pain in the ass.
So, these are the floating restaurants.
This is where we had our breakfasts and dinners
Me and Lee at the front office of Mutiara Taman Negara
At our hostels, waited for the rain to stop before going off for rapid shooting
Ken’s girlfriend in red.
My dorm. Thats Eddie in blue.
My bunk on the left. Tow Kay’s on the right.
They said like army camp.
Wild boars terrorized the neighbourhood
The hotel management wanna hire more gardeners to clean up the mess the boars left
Soon Keong in facial mask.
Our ride for the few days
Everyone’s doing facial mask
The look out point where we saw deers at night with the help of our torch lights
Having a drink at one of the floating restaurants*Extended edit.
On the way into Taman Negara
Helping the guys out of the cave
Ms. NG explaining to us why we should conserve the forest. Global heating, weather change etc.
Going to the cave, Gua Telinga
Sorry for not posting this earlier. Blogger locked my publishing accidentally and now they have rectified it. So, here’s my 3D2N trip to Taman Negara from 15-17 Dec 2006 with my homies and some of their friends.
We reached Jerantut way too early. Were supposed to meet at the hostel at 8.00AM for breakfast and collect our crap complimentary t-shirts from the travel agent. We reached at 6.30AM. Walked around and waited for the town to wake up.
Hotel Seri Emas is just opposite this catchy red building but why we were asked to wait at this hotel? Maybe they open very early and we can use their washroom. Oh yeah, it is NKS’ office in Jerantut.
I think this is the most striking landmark in Jerantut. NKS Hotel & Travel, our travel agent. This is where we had our breakfast and boarded the bus to Kuala Tembeling.
Kuala Tembeling jetty.
One boat was not enough for all of us….. 24 pax. So, 6 fellas hopped onto this special boat with 2 kwailos. The two boatmen raced to keep us entertained during the 3-hours boat ride.
When we reached our hotel, Mutiara Hotel, it was already lunch time. Checked in and headed straight for lunch at one of the floating restaurant. The food at the floating restaurant was better than at the hotel. We had our lunches at floating restaurant and dinners at the hotel.
After lunch, we went cave exploring. We saw a lot of bats, spiders and a white snake in the cave. Too bad I didn’t manage to take any picture because my hands were full of bat droppings.
All so tired after the cave adventure.
Back in the hostel, Soon Keong trying out his poncho.
These ants bit my toe and it bled. Luckily that was just a split-second experience. No swells no nothing. Only a few drops of blood on my slipper.
Look at the ants !! They are huge.
Waiting for dinner at the hotel’s restaurant
After dinner, we attended a compulsory video introduction of Taman Negara. They said it is compulsory for all organised group trip. Then, after the compulsory video, we proceeded with the night jungle trekking.
Spiders were all that we saw the whole nite.
For more informations about Taman Negara, please read xes‘ posts about it.
At Santa Workshop, Portuguese Settlement.
Geographer Cafe: Hong Kiat and Cely/Ching Ling; background - Daniel and Lex
Daniel (Hang Botak) kissing the albino phyton.
The river in Melaka town
Candid one while they were crossing Jonker Street.
BBQ at Glory BeachHi there. Just got home after a nice weekend break with fellow bloggers at Glory Beach, Port Dickson.
On the first, we had BBQ at the beach. It was just a light-scale BBQ. Not much of food were wasted, only a few of those burnt chicken wings and sausages. We just wanted to enjoy the company of each other. As for the drinks, JD and the green tea took centrestage. We played a game which required us to draw for our team mates to guess what we are drawing. I forgot the name of the game. Oh yeah.. Pictionary.
The next day, we went to Melaka for a day trip. Yeah… Melaka. But this time with a different bunch of people, so it was worthy. Ching Ling (Cely) met Jason Mumbles, a local, who brought us around Melaka town for food. Well, as usual, the chicken rice ball. I don’t know what so great of it, but every chicken rice ball shop were packed with patrons. Its just like another chicken rice stall/shop selling the steamed or roasted chickens. Just that its rice were squeezed into ping-pong ball lookalike. We ended eating some curry laksa and then went walking around, shopping for some souvenirs. After that, we headed to the famous Geographer Cafe (where they shot the famous chinese hongkey flick More More Tea Inn [Momo Cha] ). We had the upper section all to ourselves. It was a relaxing place. tihtahpah gave a few of us a massage. Man, she’s good.
After that, Jason brought us to this cake shop at Bandar Hilir… where the cake they have there can only be found in Melaka. Oh, ok. I don’t know what cakes were those but it tasted good. Nay, not a cake lover though. YY’s cheeeeeeeeeesse cake is afterall still the BEST. After eating cake, we went to the Portuguese Settlement for a spicy dinner and the preparation there for Christmas was so nice and warm. Its like a whole community affair where everyone came out to the street to help out to put up lights, banners, decorations, ornaments etc. Children were running here and there, cars with loads of tourists kept coming, caroling troupes practiced different versions of Feliz Navidad. They even have a house named Santa’s Workshop. A giant Santa balloon erected and decorated at the outside of the house. Caroler were singing at car porch. It was so merry. I love it.
On the way back to PD, it rained so heavily. Back at Glory Beach, we eased and showered and then watched the Arse-anal vs Chelski game (they drew 1-1). Then we all chatted the whole nite till 5-6 AM. Today, jammed all the way back to KL because of Selangor sultan’s birdday.
*edited on 14 Dec 2006
Must read links:
A company of strangers
Splendid trip
Chillout weekend
My PD/Melaka trip
Trip to Port Dickson with strangers
Meeting anonymous bloggers on sunday, at Malacca
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