Before I start with my trip de adventure... I would like to mention that my most worthwhile trip during the period since my last blog uptill this one was to Mystic Nepal. The place is a good one time visit... If i get time someday, i'll write about that trip as well...(hey hey.. who am i trying to fool).
Enough.. let me forgive and forget my mistakes....
After finishing almost entire India (okaay... i know its not even 10%), I planned my first "phoren" trip, A 10 day trip to Malayasia and Singapore (trip to US was an official one and without meaning to offend I dont count Nepal as "phoren"). It was just two of us...me and a very very close friend "Evan". Its quite a unique name, but then, no ordinary name would have justified my friend's persona... :)
13th February 2007, me and my friend board the Malayasian airlines flight to KualaLampur at around 12 in the night.
Genting Highland Resort
14th February : Indoor theme park
After a six hour flight we reached Kul airport early morning. Malayasia time is 2.5 hours ahead of India. From the airport, our travel agent's taxi picked us up and we headed towards our first destination "The Genting Highland Resort". For movie buffs this years Zee Cine Awards were held in this very resort last Sunday. The journey from Kul to Genting was a 1.5 hours drive...Same distance on the best of Indian roads would have taken atleast twice the time. The highway was 8 lane, beautifully landscaped and very very .. very clean. At around 11 we reached our hotel in Genting.."The Resort Hotel". We checked in and decided to take some rest before venturing out.
Genting highland is a very small hill town and has two theme parks... Indoor and Outdoor. The weather there was awesome... Sort of cool with a slight mist in the air...We had two days here and decided to visit the indoor theme park first. The place was kind of confusing... It took us some time to figure out the way to the entrance to the Indoor Park Plaza. On our way we found a Malay temple. It was a smallish temple with no one around. We took some photographs and moved on.
Indoor theme park was like a big mall buzzing with activity. There were fun rides and eateries all around. Because of the Chinese New Year which starts from 18th Feb and Valentine's day, the place (and in fact all the places that we visited on our 10 day trip) was beautifully decorated. One common feature of Chinese decoration were the red round paper lamp shades hanging from the ceiling, another one being the dancing lions' puppets. Less than half an hour at the place and we knew that our fears of not finding vegetarian food were to come true in a big way. Pizza hut was a familier logo and we decided to try our luck there. Thank God, they had this single veggie pizza on their menu, and it was good too. With our stomachs calm, it was time to ride the rides... :) The place had dozens of rides, some kiddish, some good ones and a few adventurous. Notable ones were "The Haunted Adventure", "Venice Gondola", "MonoRail".. By evening our bodies had given up and we decided to return to the hotel
15th February : Genting Outdoor theme park
Next morning we woke up early, had our breakfast at the hotel and moved towards the outdoor theme park. This place had the kind of rides both me and Evan are fond of. The best ones were "The Space Shot: a free fall experience from a great height", "Cork Screw: A real roller coaster" ,"Flying Coaster : Roller coaster with you lying on your stomach" and "Flume Ride - Made us all Wet". Other good ones were "Bumper boat", "Dinosaur Land", "Spinner"and "Pirate Train". It was a good fun filled day.
Kuala Lampur
16th February : Kuala Lampur City
The next morning after the breakfast we checked out and started our journey back to KL where we were to spend next two days. On our way, we took the KL city sight seeing tour. Our first visit was to the Batu Caves. It was a temple build in a cave on the top of a mountain cliff and required us to climb around 450 steps. But the cave was beautiful and had an aura about it, although it was stinking a bit due to dampness. After that we went to the King's Palace which we were obv not allowed to enter, so took photographs from outside, Malaysia National Museum which gave us some insight about Malay traditions and then the famous Twin Towers but from a distance. At around 4 we reached our hotel : "The Crown Princess". After checking in, we took some rest and then visited the Twin tower's shopping compex in the evening.
17th February : Mines wonderland
This was our most boring day on tour (of course in comparison to others..). In the day time we went to "Little India" a street market. Their we found our first Indian Restaurant of the trip. In the evening we went to a place called "Mines Wonderland". Its a huge shopping complex with a theme park built on top of a once tin mine. We did some shopping there and then took a boat ride that took us around the mine. Speciality of that ride was a concept known as "Lock Down". The boat was locked in a channel of water and then was taken to a depth of around 7 feet by clearing the water channel from underneath. Similarly on return the boat was taken up the channel.
Langkawi Island
18th February: Reached Langkawi
18th morning we took a flight to Langkawi Island in Malaysia and reached there at around 12 in the afternoon. No one was there at the airport to pick us up... After waiting for around 15 mins, when I was just about to call our operator, there came running a lady from distance shouting "adeya .. adeya".. I somehow figured out she was trying to say Aditya.. :). Her name was Nadia.. our tour guide in Langkawi. Our hotel "Holiday Villa" was at around 45 mins distance. This was the best hotel for our entire trip. Single storeyed, cool calm and on Sea Shore... :)... After freshening up, we took a taxi to nearby "Cenam Beach".
Cenam Beach : Para Sailing Experience :On Cenam beach, we had the most adventurous part of our journey. We did "Para Sailing". Flying high in the air on a Parachute, tied to a boat sailing in the sea with a rope. It was engaging, enthrilling, exhilarating, and what not... After the ride we went to a nearby indian restaurant Papadam and had good sumptuous north Indian cuisine.
In the evening we took a stroll on the hotel beach and a light drink at the beach bar. It started drizzling a bit and the feeling was awesome.
19th February : Langkawi City Tour and the amazing Sunset Dinner Cruise
The next morning we took the Langkawi city tour. Again Nadia turned up 30 mins late. The city tour included visit to under water world : a home to a huge variety of marine fauna.. All kinds of fishes, snakes, whales, dolphins, sea dragons, sea lions, corels.. And the Penguins : My first face to face with this beautiful creature. After that we visited a Batik factory, Semilang waterfall (hardly any water there), Eagle Square (symbol of Langkawi) and the Billion duty free shopping zone.
In the evening we went to enjoy the sunset dinner cruise. It was an evening in the sea on a big boat with snacks and drinks on the house. The idea was to enjoy the sunset from the middle of the sea with good light background music. The experience cannot be described in words.. After the sunset, we boarded a small boat which took us to the shore... onboard we had an experience... Millions of very small sea surface fishes were jumping around us many of them ending up inside our boat. We were all jumping around.. One even entered my tee... eeeeeeee
Langkawi was great fun...
Singapore
20th February : Reached Singapore : Night Safari
20th early afternoon we took a flight to Singapore and reached there in the evening. Checked into our hotel "Hotel Carlton". After talking to our tour guide and hotel travel agent, we figured out we had too much to see with too little time. So without wasting any time, we took a taxi to the night safari, first of its kind in the world. Its a kind of a wild life sanctuary which houses animals that venture out in the night. There are walking trails and a tram that takes you around. Animals ranging from jackals, wolves to lions and tigers were spotted. It was a great experience.
21st February : Singapore city sightseeing : Sentosa Island
Next morning we took the Singapore city tour. Places visited included Singapore river where we took a boat ride, which took us the Merlion statue : Symbol of Singapore, Raffle's point, a gem factory and finally the China town.
After the city tour, we headed towards the Sentosa Island. Its a smallish island away from mainland Singapore connected via cable car. The cable car ride was awesome giving a beautiful panoramic view of the sea and singapore city. Whole of Sentosa island is sort of a fun theme part with various rides/activities available. We enjoyed Images of Singapore museum, sky tower ride, Underwater world (Langkawi one was better) and a 4D show (Noida one is much much better). But the attraction of the day was the "Dolphin Show". Dolphins doing all sort of jumps, dances and tricks... It was simply superb. Because of time paucity we had to miss the musical fountain show which we later heard was not to be missed.
At night we went to the Mustafa 24 hour shopping centre.. One stop shop for any and everything.
22nd February: Jurong Bird park and singapore zoo
Next morning we went to the Jurong bird park. 16 million colors in the windows palette, yet I found some colors on birds which i had never seen... We also saw the bird show which included a singing parrot. My friend Evan got a few pictures clicked with two beautiful birds sitting on the hands.After the bird park we went to singapore zoo. It was huge and we were somewhat tired, so we had to miss some parts of it. Also by then we have had enough of wild life... :)
Later in the evening we went to meet one of our old friends Akanksha and her husband Munish settled in Singapore. We had dinner together at an Indian restaurant and the bill was on them :D. What more, they had got gifts for both of us as well.... :) After the dinner we spent next few hours at the Mustafa shopping centre buying souvenirs for everyone back home.
And back to home :
Next day we took the flight back to Delhi... After all, All good things have to come to an end.
These 10 days were the best times of my life. Fun, adventure, thrill and what not...
Oh , I think i have not yet mentioned these were the most romantic days of my life as well... But then it was expected.... I was on my HoneyMoon ... ;).. My best friend Evan, happens to be my soulmate Eva Mukhija... I look forward to many more such trips around the world with her...:)
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