Cing Jing Farm, Taiwan

7 Nov

En route to Cing Jing Farm (情境農場), we stopped by a few places, like the Holy Tree (神木), Yu Mountain (玉山), and Husband - Wife Tree (夫妻樹). The driver brought us to try the real local food, it was very nice and I remember it was very cheap too. I didn't see any single tourist apart from us. 

After lunch, we continued our journey to the famous Sun Moon Lake (日月潭). We took the boat around the lake, nothing special though. I didn't really like it, it was too crowded with tour groups. The day was almost always drizzling. 

We reached Zhai Xing Guesthouse (摘星民宿) pretty late at night. Zhai Xing guesthouse is really cozy and comfortable. The owner is really nice. They have pickup service to the nearest eating place in Cing Jing Farm. Finally, we had our hotpot in Taiwan. It was not authentic Taiwanese food as such, but given the cold weather, the hotpot tasted so good. The weather in Cing Jing Farm is much colder than Taipei. 

8 Nov

The weather is again not good. We were greeted by a drizzling weather. The guesthouse provided free breakfast for us. Their milk tea is really nice, I miss it now. 

The guesthouse apparently provided pickup service to the Green Grassland (青青草原). We went there after breakfast, it was really beautiful despite the unfriendly weather. Everything is so green. I love it! There is a food centre just beside the Green Grassland, serving some local delicacies. The horse performance in the afternoon was worth visiting too. 

It was amazing that we could walk for the whole day, even we managed to walk back to the Little Swiss Garden. It was too late to go in though. Hence, we went to the Carton Restaurant. The restaurant is so special, everything inside the restaurant is made of carton. Even the food was served in paper plate. 

9 Nov

Again we rent a car from Cing Jing Farm to Hualien for 2 days 1 night. It cost us TWD7500, a bit expensive but it really saved a lot of our time. We had to leave very early in the morning. Zhai Xing Guesthouse is really good, strongly recommended!

Alishan, Taiwan

After delaying this travel blog for so long, here it is, my Taiwan trip.

5 Nov
This trip is not so budget that we took Cathay Pacific flight. It is indeed one of the best service airlines except for the fact that we had to waste time by transiting in HK. We reached Taipei in the evening and took Kuo Kuang bus from airport to Taipei Main Station. The bus is convenient and the journey took about 1 hour. We bought the HSR ticket to Chiayi for the next morning. We stayed at Ni Hao Hostel for the night. The hostel is new and clean, the location is just right beside Taipei Main station.

6 Nov
The train left Taipei at 8am and reached Chiayi at 9.30am. We changed to the minibus to go to Alishan from Chiayi and reached Alisan at around noon time. We checked in to Shin Shin Guesthouse, the owner of the guesthouse is really nice and helpful. It was very kind of her to explain us how to go around in Alishan National Park. She also helped us to get the train ticket for sunrise trip the next morning.

Our Plane

First Lunch!

We started our Alishan tour by getting our local lunch. The park itself is not that big, we could finish it in half day. The main attractions of the park are the Sister's Lake (姐妹潭) and the temple (受鎮宮). Apart from those, there are some old trees and weird-shaped trees. We managed to catch a glimpse of sunset. It was beautiful.

One of the few hours with blue sky during our stay in Taiwan

Sister's Lake (姐妹潭)

Looks like a PIG?

The Temple (受鎮宮)

Sunset in Alishan

7 Nov
We woke up early at 4am in the morning to take the train up to Zhu Shan (祝山), just to find out it was drizzling. We still went up and the rain never stopped. No sunrise for us. We went bank to the guesthouse in deep disappointment and packed our stuff. We are going to our next stop, Cing Jing Farm (情境農場) in Nantou County. We rent a car for this, it cost us TWD6000 for the trip.

Cloudy Sunrise

We took this train up to Zhu Shan (祝山)

Ho Chi Minh - Tra Vinh

This trip is so special to me as this is my first overseas charity trip I ever done in my life. In partnership with Saigon Children Charity, 38 staffs of our company went to Tra Vinh to help in their building upgrade project. It was indeed a tiring but fulfilling experience and this marked the first step in my philanthropic journey.

25 Oct
After changing our flight times several times, finally Tiger Airways fixed our flight to Ho Chi Minh City at 03:35pm. 4 of us who wanted to explore Ho Chi Minh City before going to Tra Vinh left. We booked single room at Vy Khanh Guesthouse. The hostel is nice and clean and Ms.Vy, the owner of the guesthouse is very friendly and helpful to us. It is a family-run business. Ms. Vy and the family are staying in the same building.

Vy Khanh Guesthouse room

Ben Thanh Night Market

After checking in and booking tour for the next day, we went out for dinner at the place suggested by Ms. Vy. We went to Ben Thanh market that night. It's only 10 minutes walk down. Ben Thanh night market sells various things at bargain-able price. It looks very touristic to me and they tried to sell as expensive as possible. Some of the stuffs there are of good quality though. Hence, the key is you need to know how to bargain and understand the quality of the stuffs you are buying.

26 Oct
The second day we left pretty early in the morning to join the tour group to Mekong Delta. It was indeed irritating when we needed to wait for around 15 minutes because some people were late. We went to the jetty and took 2 hours boat to Mekong Delta. We visited their bee farm, coconut plantation and tasted their tropical fruits which were nothing but papaya, mango, pineapple etc. There was a boat rowing session in between.

The tour was a bit disappointing to me. There is nothing really great to be seen. Lunch was included in the tour, but it was only rice, a piece of chicken and some overcooked veggie. The rest of the stuffs we needed to buy including drink. It was raining near the end of the trip.

Mekong Delta View

Boat Rowing

After the tour, again we went to Ben Thanh market, we managed to catch a glimpse of their day market before closing and strolled down in the night market again.

27 Oct
We met the rest of the group in the airport in the morning and ride the bus to Tra Vinh. The journey took around 5 hours and we reached the school in the late afternoon. The students welcomed us and we distributed some gifts for them. They looked so excited in welcoming us even though we hardly could communicate with them.

Sunset at Tra Vinh

The students welcomed us

After dinner at Cuu Long Hotel, we walked around Tra Vinh city. It's a small and quiet town, we bought grilled sweet potato on the street. And it was really nice.

28 Oct
OK, the hard work began now. We went to school early in the morning and the students welcomed us at the gate by marching band. We were divided into 4 groups and each were assigned a room to whitewash and paint. I realized that painting is not an easy job. It is really back breaking and tiring. The teachers cooked authentic Vietnamese food for our lunch. Our group managed to finish the painting by the end of the day.

Welcomed by Marching Band

29 Oct
Another half day of hard work. Our focus today was to clean the floor from paint drops. It was a tedious work too. We needed to scrub the floor basically. During lunchtime, we gave talk on hygiene to the students too. The whole event was closed by performance given by the students and teacher.

They performed for us

We left Tra Vinh after lunch. I was very tired and slept almost the whole journey. We reached Ho Chi Minh around dinner time and straightaway went to Ben Thanh market AGAIN for dinner and shopping. I bought two sets of adidas training attire.

30 Oct
Today is free and easy program. We went to War Remnant Museum first. Seeing the pictures of Vietnam War's victims made me so sad. How can be human beings so cruel to each other. Next we went to Independence Palace. Nothing much to see here, it's a pretty modern palace. The design is impressive though. We tried to go to Notre Dame Cathedral but we didn't go in. I had my lunch in a traditional market, thanks to Jac, my Vietnamese friend. It was the best food I had in this trip. After lunch, I went back to airport to fly back to Singapore.

War Remnant Museum

Independence Palace

Notre Dame Cathedral

Best Food for the trip

Siem Reap, Cambodia

If I were to describe this trip in one word, it would be awesome. Visiting a country with such an up and down history was really an eye-opener for me. I went with my classmate in NTU who really has a great interest in history. So, here is the story.

28 July

We took Jetstar flight direct to Siem Reap. The schedule is not very good for us, it flew at 2.55pm, so basically we lost half day there. We booked a double room in Rosy Guesthouse and they provided us free airport pickup by a tuktuk. The guesthouse is clean and simple, location is good as well. We also booked a van from a driver recommended by our friends for the entire stay in Siem Reap for USD90.

The driver picked us up at the hostel at 5pm and we went to the Old Market of Siem Reap. There are lots of stuffs there, bargaining is a must. USD is really widely accepted in Cambodia and I saw people even use USD more often than their own currency.

It was raining afterwards and the electricity went off. So we had dinner at some small restaurants with no electricity. We also tried Angkor Beer for 50 cents/can.

29 July

The driver picked us up at the hostel at 8am in the morning, he's so kind to bring us to a local food stall to try local Cambodian breakfast. It was the best food we tried there, quite similar to Vietnamese pho.

Best food

Our first stop for the day was Tonle Sap lake. The boat tickets cost us USD15/person. We took boat along the river and ended in Tonle Sap Lake. This is where all the poor people and refugees are staying on the boat floating on the water, the so-called Floating-Village. Their living condition is so poor that they don't even have proper house. The boat trip took around one hour. Tonle Sap in Khmer language means fresh water lake. 

Floating Village at Tonle Sap

From Tonle Sap, we proceeded to visit temples. We started from the South Gate of Angkor Thom and the Bayon. It again took around 1 hour plus to walk around the Bayon.

South Gate of Angkor Thom

The Bayon

We had no choice but to have lunch at Angkor complex. It's an OK food for tourist price. After lunch we directly go to our main destination, the mighty Angkor Wat. It was really a huge temple, built in the 12th century. There is a long walk to do here. I love the view of Angkor Wat with reflection of it on the water. We have to spare 3 hours to walk around the temple.

Angkor Wat Gate

Love this view a lot

The sky was cloudy but we decided we wanted to try our luck for sunset. We went to Pnomh Bakheng Hill and it was raining when we reached there. The stairs up there is very steep and small that people have to use both legs and hands to climb.

We closed our day by having a buffet lunch at Koulen II restaurant with Apsara Dance performance. It was really a touristic place. But since we had nothing else to do, we decided to give it a try. The buffet cost us USD12/person.

30 July

We woke up at 4am in the morning in the hope of seeing sunrise at Angkor Wat, just to find out it was raining heavily outside. So plan was changed, we went out again at 8am in the morning for Kbal Spean and Banteay Srei. Our driver again brought us to a local stall to try another Cambodian food.

It took around one hour to reach Kbal Spean. There is 1.5 km trekking to be done in Kbal Spean to reach the river where all the carvings are. Part of the trek is quite difficult, however we managed to climb up and down. There is a waterfall also down there and the water in the river is clean. I saw some travellers tried to bath there.

The Carvings

Kbal Spean River

Kbal Spean Waterfall

On the way back, we visited Banteay Srei. It's a Hindu temple older than Angkor Wat. The stone that was used to build Banteay Srei is different from Angkor Wat's stone. It was brown colour and the carvings are more detail in Banteay Srei.

Banteay Srei, different style from Angkor Complex

We also visited Cambodia Landmine Museum in Siem Reap, it was founded by Aki Ra, former Khmer Rouge soldier who later became a deminer. The museum has lots of collection of demined landmine, from small to big as well as some bullets used in the war.

31 July

Left with half day today, we went out at 5am to Angkor Wat to try for sunrise, but again unfortunately, the sky was cloudy, we can't see any sunrise. However, the good thing is we started the day very early. We visited basically the Angkor Thom complex and Ta Phrom which was once used to shoot movie Tomb Raider.

Cloudy dawn at Angkor Wat

Starting with Ta Phrom, it was a very old temples, more damaged than other temples. Lots of old trees squeezed the temples, which make the main attraction of the temple. Then we proceeded to Ba Phuon temple which was part of Angkor Thom, Elephant terrace and Terrace of Leper King. It was raining again so we had to end the day, went for lunch and moved to airport to fly home.

Ta Phrom, where Tomb Raider was shot

Ba Phuon Temple

Another Temple, abandoned in 1431

Elephant Terrace

Terrace of Leper King

Overall, I like Cambodia, stuffs are so cheap there, temples are so nice and people are so friendly.

Nuwara Eliya, Srilanka

25 Jun

Learning our lesson from Sigiriya/Dambulla trip, we left Kandy early in the morning for our last stop, Nuwara Eliya, the "Little England". En route to Nuwara Eliya, we made a stop at Labukale Tea Factory. We had a guided tour to the factory, tasted tea with chocolate cake and bought some tea leaves back. It was a scenic route from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya with all the tea plantations along the way, the road is small mountainous road though. We managed to made it for lunch at Grand Hotel in Nuwara Eliya with Sachini and Indra.

En route to Nuwara Eliya

A cup of tea from Labukale Tea Factory

After lunch, we checked in to Governor's Chalet. It was the best in the trip, the chalet is right beside Gregory Lake. One chalet could accomodate 4 people, 2 on the ground floor and 2 on attic floor. The only disappointment was that June is not good season for visiting Nuwara Eliya. It rains almost everyday. Hence, we could not do much outdoor activities.

Gregory Lake

In front of our Chalet

After checking in, we visited a Rama temple that was claimed as the only Rama Temple in the world by Srilankans. We also went around Nuwara Eliya town and visited St. Francis Xavier Church there. We packed kotthu roti and chinese roll back. Dinner was at Governor's Chalet's restaurant. The food is good and service is slightly faster than other places.

Rama Temple

St. Francis Xavier Church in Nuwara Eliya

26 Jun

We decided to relax in the morning, took our slow breakfast, and started our trip back to Colombo only at 12 noon. We reached Kithulgala resting place at around 2pm for our late lunch. The food is OK only and as usual, the service is slow. Nothing much to do at this place except for meals. We continue our long journey to Negombo beach, on the way we made our stop to buy some cashew nuts as well. We reached Negombo beach around 6.30pm, a bit too late to take nice photos there.

Waterfall!

Negombo beach is only 1 hour away from Colombo airport. We made it back to the airport at 9.30pm and waited all the way to our midnight flight back to Singapore.