4D3N Krabi Couple Trip

After much procrastination, I'm finally posting this !! HAHAHA !!

August definitely travelling month for me (YAY !!) Recently me and my boyfriend just went to Penang for our couple trip (read all about it here =)) To be honest, I've visited Krabi before (2 years ago for my birthday trip LOL) so this is my second time visiting Krabi =) It's okay for me since it will be new experience for my boyfriend as his birthday gift.

I'm sure that there are lots of blog about Krabi that you can refer to, however when I search, most of them mentioned about staying at Ao Nang (the top location if you like crowd) and yes, I've stayed there before. Or there are some of the blogs that mentioned about how to travel within specific budget (not that I'm looking down on them since I'm budget traveler as well but I'm willing to stretch a little bit of my budget). But here I am, writing down on my own experience at Krabi for the second time of my life with total spending around SGD 1,000 for two people =)

Since my boyfriend doesn't really like the crowd, I need to do a bit of research where to stay (one of my weakest point, doing research LOL). In the end, I decided to stay at Klong Muang, quiet and further away from town but with accessible restaurant and bar =) But warn you, if you go at the monsoon season, expect not to see much at this beach ~

The distance from the airport to Klong Muang is roughly around 30+km. If you took the shuttle bus that you book from the airport it will take roughly 50mins (since they will stop the other passengers at Ao Nang first). Just a reminder, don't booked the airport transfer from the accommodation if you travel by yourself or with your couple, just because it's super expensive. I try to asked from the accommodation I'm staying and they will charge me at THB 1,200 for one way. Meanwhile if I booked from the airport it will just cost me THB 400 for one way. But again, it depends on the number of people travelling. If you travel with family (5 and above) probably it's best to booked from the accommodation as the one from the airport charged you by per person =)

The airport shuttle bus

One thing that you might not like if you're staying at Klong Muang; you will find quite far to go everywhere. It took us around 30mins to go to the Night Market at Krabi Town 😐 meanwhile if you're staying at Ao Nang, probably shorter time =)

I admitted that going Krabi on August might be a bit of silly decision as it is the monsoon season. The weather forecast was not supporting my mental health too (it showed me thunderstorms weather for the full four days of my trip). BUT !!! We are definitely blessed and lucky as well that the weather extremely awesome !! OK, to be honest we met the rain three times. Once was during our visit to Hong Island, enroute going back to hotel from the night market was before checking out from the hotel to airport =)

Anyway, before I bored you with lots of words, I shall share with you my itinerary. Let's scroll down!!

DAY-1 (Departure from Singapore, HELLO KRABI)

• Depart Singapore at 11.00AM (Scoot Airlines), reached Krabi at 12.00pm+ (note that there's one hour difference timing.) Cleared immigration and left airport at 1pm+ (there are quite long queue)
• Took the shuttle bus from airport (mentioned above) and reached at our hotel at 2pm+ (read about our accommodation The Pelican Krabi by clicking this link 😃)
• Had late lunch / early dinner at Sunset Bar (super recommended !!)
• Went to 7-Eleven, getting some chips and beers 
• Booked our Hong Island, cost us at THB 1,500 (approx. SGD62) and night market trip, which cost us at THB 1,000 (approx. SGD41). We had private van (those 7-seaters van) to the night market !!
• Went back to hotel and totally slacks (I took a dip in the bathtub using my Lush Bubble Bath 😍)

Taken at Krabi Airport =)

Sunset Bar view (totally recommended) you can watch sunset from here while having a boost =)

Nice view eh =)

Mandatory thing to do when you're at the beach as couple? Haha (it was written by him =) thank you for being so sweet as always haha)

DAY-2 (Hong Island Tour and Night Market

• Had breakfast at the hotel, 9am picked up from the hotel to Hong Island (sadly we were picked up at 9.30+). Luckily the distance of our hotel to the pier to go Hong Island is just 10mins time 😊
• We stopped at three islands, took pictures, swimming and snorkeling (swim and snorkel part is only for my boyfriend, I was just playing with water HAHAHA)
• Completed the tour at 3.00pm (they did not extend it longer although in the middle of the trip there in an incident. Someone just took the nap and didn't go back to the boat at the right time, causing delay to  the next destination. SIANZ!). Reached the hotel at 3.20ish and we slacked again
• Picked up at 6.00pm sharp to go night market (you definitely need to visit here if you're on weekend trip).
• Driver sent us back to the hotel and picked us up at 9.00pm (exactly the timing we requested). The previous tour I joined (2 years ago LOL) gave us specific timing hence I couldn't really enjoy myself with all the food and entertainments.

View from the pier. Can you spot the speed boat? =)

The first island stop. We did not go down on this island (not allowed to)

The second stop - Thanboke Khoranee National Park

Next stop - Pakbia Island

Last stop - Koh Lao Ladding

Krabi Walking Street night market (Friday - Sunday night, 6pm to 10pm)

These two stalls must visit !! Awesome food and cheap cheap =)

DAY-3 (Private van booked using Klook.com, cost $90+ for 8 hours)

• Had breakfast at the hotel (the same food items, only one or two differences 😐), picked up at 9AM, but we went out slightly late (thanks to boyfriend who woke up late for breakfast LOL)
• First stop at Tiger Cave Temple (Wat Tham Suea), climbed up all the way 1,237 steps !! I've climbed before 2 years ago and I noticed that there were few steps of the stairs were closed and changed to other routing (did not manage to take picture of it). If you climbed up and see the gold hand-railing, it is the new steps! Remember to wear decently ! If you happened to wear mini pants or not knee length, donate THB 20 at the entrance and get a slip-over cloth that you can wrap from your waist down.
• Next stop was at Hot Spring Klong Thom. We took almost an hour road trip to go from the temple.We did not spend long time here (around 30mins-45mins). We walked from the entrance to the hot stream around 6mins, soaked in the water around 20mins, and walked out again to the entrance using the other paths, looking at the greenness surrounding the areas. Entrance fee was THB 160 per person and since we have private van, the parking cost THB 30. If you follow tour, I believe all the expenses are covered =)
• Last stop, BIG C !!! SHOPPING BABY !!! HAHAHA !! It was my boyfriend first visit to Big C (he heard the name before, but never really step into it). I told him, it is the snacking paradise LOL !! And indeed, we spent an hour there filling our cart with snack LOL. We spent approx. THB 1,600 just for snacks 😄
• Back to hotel around 5PM+ (due to traffic jam) and then we went for a walk at the beach, trying our luck to see the sunset, but alas, too cloudy 😞
• Had romantic dinner at The Beach House. Oh well not really romantic LOL. If you're using credit card, please be careful. We were told that the terminal was not working after they had swiped our card and the staff asked us if we had another card to be used. After discussion, we went to the resort opposite (might belong to the same owner) to use the credit card machine. Luckily this time it went through.

After climbing the 1237 steps at Tiger Cave Temple, you are rewarded with this awesome view =)

The Hot Spring =)

DAY-4 (Departure from Krabi, back to bitter reality at Singapore LOL)

• Enjoy ourselves for the last breakfast at the hotel (this time they served porridge and surprisingly it was quite good !! I had two bowls LOL) 
• Spent time at the swimming pool
• Went for massage (the trip will not feel complete if you never go for a massage at least once if you're at Thailand HAHA)
• Went for lunch again at Sunset Bar (the owner still recognize us, probably due to low season LOL)
• Back to hotel, packed our stuff, and depart from hotel to airport at 6pm (we requested for late checkout). We booked the shuttle from the airport from the same tourist kiosk where we booked our Day-2 activities =) The private shuttle cost us THB 600.
• Reached airport at 6.50pm, had dinner at the only decent looking cafe (Zurich Bread cafe) in the area we were at, check-in and passed all immigration. Our flight got DELAYED !!! by 1/2 hour (sianz). Reached Singapore at 2AM, looking like zombie 😢

The massage shop that we went

Walking around Pelican Krabi ~

In the middle of the road. Less people, less crowd =)

At Krabi Airport...

Hope this itinerary can be a reference for your future trip 😄
We will be travelling to Australia coming October and hope I don't procrastinate so much on writing about it so I can share our itinerary to you all 😂
Have a great day ahead !!

4D3N Couple trip to Penang, Malaysia

Finally !! The most anticipated holiday this year come to me !! You might wonder, it's only a short trip to Penang, why have to be so excited. For me, it's kinda special since I'm going with my boyfriend and I will visit his parents for the first time (〃ー〃) (nervous and shy and excited, mixed feeling !!)

But, put that all aside, since I never wrote down any of my trip to Penang, I decided to write one post about it. I've been to Penang for a lot times since I was young, mainly is to eat and accompanying my mom for routine medical check-up. I still visit Penang but only for special occasion such as my colleague wedding on last 2016 or the most recent earlier this year on January for bonding with my church mate =) Now, I'm going again for more special reason, visiting my boyfriend parents o(^▽^)o

Anyway, in this post, I'll post on my flight itinerary as well as the places we visited =) There isn't much place though as we were quite packed with family matter (didn't even know my parents will be at Penang too) Leggo !!

FLIGHT ITINERARY

I searched my flight using Skyscanner and managed to get cheaper tickets for our travel period (it is Singapore's National Day hence the prices of the tickets skyrocketing too. Probably because everyone needed a getaway =)) Thankfully I managed to snatch tickets at the price of $ by Malaysia Airlines.

I was quite disappointed though cause for the flights timing back to Singapore was changed =( Supposedly we can take the flight back at 2pm (hence shorter layover timing and I can get to spend more time with boyfriend family), but it was rescheduled to freaking 9.55am !! AND THE LAYOVER TIME !!! It became 5 hours, dang it !! But luckily, we managed to go to Mitsui Outlet Park KL Sepang and did some window shopping there =) Oh, and I got a pair of Nike Shoe + running pants (totally worth it man !!!)

Our flight itinerary

To be honest, I was quite stressed at Mitsui because of the tardiness of the bus driver .They never follow the schedule timing that they gave us. I was so stressed that I might missed the flight or if there was long queue at immigration and all these stuffs to the point my boyfriend was stressed too LOL. Sorry boyfriend for being so fussy on timing =p and I keep on complaining hehehehe (thanks for your understanding !!!)

The screenshot of the bus timing. We were supposed to take the 14.20 bus from Mitsui, however, the bus driver decided to go for his lunch and all of us can only take the bus at 14.50. I can hear people complaining (myself included !!) and some actually took the taxi as they couldn't wait longer. Imagine if you miss the flight just because of this =(

PLACE WE VISITED

To be honest, we did not managed to visit all the places in my list. We only managed to go few such as Chew Jetty, few of the street arts, Leong San Tong Khoo Kongsi, Kek Lok Si temple, and Penang Hill. Meanwhile for the cafe, we only managed to visit China House and Awesome Canteen. The rest of the time, we spent it at the car (thanks to traffic jam) and spent with family (drinking tea or having meal). I know nothing much I can share with you but hope this post will intrigue you to visit Penang more (even you've visited, you probably would like to visit again for the food HAHAHA)

I will only touch a bit on all the places, but will go into details for Penang Hill. I really want you guys to go to this place call The Habitat Penang Hill. It is really a place that I never have expected exist in Malaysia LOL. So I will definitely write a special entry just for this place =) Meanwhile the rest of the place that I visited will be written down here =)

Chew Jetty

Think most of the people will heard and visited this place by now. One of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, and you can have decent scenery from here =) There are quite a number of shops selling clothes or others stuffs (PS: The price is quite expensive as this has become one of tourist area, don't convert it to SGD and says it cheap!!)

We had a short walk and had our Durian Ice Cream (freshly made!! we waited for 5mins+ for the guy to prepare it). The cost is at RM10.00 (approx SGD3.00+) but worth it since it's very hot that day. Scroll down to see the pictures that we gotten at this place =)

Location: Weld Quay, 10300 George Town, Pulau Pinang
Entrace fee: FREE !!
Opening hour from 9AM to 9PM

At the entrance =)

The blue sky at Chew Jetty

Panorama shoot using my P20Pro at Chew Jetty

Freshly made Durian Ice Cream =)

Picture taken at the entrance of the Durian Ice-cream stall =) 

Street Arts
Everyone surely knows that Penang is famous for their street art ! Especially the picture below =)

The most famous street art =)

You have to wait quite a long queue for this one. Since I'm not the type keen to have my picture being taken (I like to take picture, don't get me wrong ok hahaha), so I just took the art photo and walked passed by hahaha. I did not managed to get a lot, so scroll down for all the pictures I have =) I did not captioned every single pictures, cause to be very honest, I don't know what to put on the caption ! 😂

Leong San Tong Khoo Kongsi and Kek Lok Si temple

I believe these two places are the top most visited =) you can't simply miss the wonderful architecture of the temples !! It's my first time to step to Khoo Kongsi, but as for Kek Lok Si, I can't even remember anymore as I always visit it when I was still a child (too many holiday at Penang HAHAHA)

Kek Lok Si is indeed one of the temples at Penang that all tourists will pay a visit at least once to admire the view and praying. Though I've visited few times, I never really visited the Pagoda (climbing up the stairs) and ring the bell as we make our wish =) There's another Guan Yin Statue (you can have look at it even you're not at Kek Lok Si cause it's super tall !!) and I visited it before. You got to take a cable car to go to the statue as it's located high on top (if I don't remember wrongly, you got to pay for this too =) So instead of Guan Yin Statue, I chose to go the Pagoda with my boyfriend to climb up a number of stairs as our long due exercise hahaha.

Location: 1000-L, Tingkat Lembah Ria 1, 11500 Ayer Itam, Pulau Pinang
Entrance fee: Different entrance fee applied. If you want to visit the Pagoda it cost you RM 2.00 (lesser than SGD 1)
Opening hours: I'm not sure what time they opened but it's best if you leave the place before 6pm =)

PS: If you visit this place, don't forget to eat the food at the market nearby. I guarantee you, THE BEST !! You won't be able to find the awesome taste at Singapore HAHAHA

The view from inside of the Pagoda (after climbing up few stairs)

The Pagoda

From the inside of the Pagoda. Do you see the Guan Yin statue? =)

Wishing Bell =) Apparently you make your prayer or wish and then you rang the bell three times =)

For Khoo Kongsi, you will need to pay an entrance fee (nothing is free when it comes to heritage place hahaha. Just think that you are helping on the maintenance fee LOL). You can't find this place like exactly on the side street. You will need to walk pass by small path named Cannon Square (look for below picture for your indication =)) You'll walk pass by a boutique hotel, walk straight all the way straight and you'll see a security guard asking you to turn right to the office to get your entrance sticker =)

We do not managed to explore longer as they closed at 5pm sharp (we managed to take a stroll until 6pm, but they will close the lights inside the temple at 5 !!) Nothing much to learn from here as I don't have the time to read properly on the history and all (we reached at 4pm after walking through the street arts) If you never been to this place, I suggest you to go once to see the magnificent architecture =)

Location: 18, Cannon Square, George Town, 10450 Pulau Pinang
Entrance fee: RM 10.00 (approx. SGD 3.30)
Opening hours: 9AM - 5PM

At the right hand side of the hidden street, you may see this indication =)

The Stretch of the road =)

The front view of Khoo Kongsi

Night view from the screen projector inside Khoo Kongsi =)

I don't wish to bore all of you by keep scrolling down so I decided to write another entry for the cafe visit or just purely on the food part =) Hope this post will encourage you to go Penang even its just for a short vacation (although I can assure you, you will at least need a week to fully enjoy your vacation with all the food !! hahaha)

Click here to go to full details of the food story =) (this will be updated in the next few days. Thank you for your patience 😊)

Out from Singapore for 3 Days 2 Nights ! Desaru, Malaysia !!

Finally I gotten the chance to visit Desaru ! This visit is special for me as I am not exploring to the famous Desaru fruit farm or Ostrich farm or to see fireflies at night. It's a 3 days 2 nights trip, what did I do if I didn't visited those places which a lot people recommend?

Basically, first day when we reached Desaru, we just chilled. The second day is race day (scroll below to read more on this) with seafood night and the last day is purely chill, shopping at JB and went for a cafe tasting 😋

So, let's begin the journey !!

I shall start with what we did when we reached Johor. We decided to have lunch at Hwa Mei Bak Kut Teh (华美) which is located around 10mins from the Johor Custom. It's bit tricky though as the shop is located in a very small corner of the road.

The BKT shop)

I thought it will be those traditional served BKT (in one big hot pot with all the meat inside), but I was wrong. To be honest, I'm quite a bit disappointed as this is not as what I expected, but it's okay as the taste is still the herbal BKT that I miss so much. Three of us ordered one big bowl of pork ribs, small bowl of organs (I did not touch any of it)

Food that we ordered on for our lunch

For three rice and three drinks with all the food we ordered total spent was RM50.00 (inclusive of 6% GST), in SGD it's around $17 (conversion rate of 2.95). Below is the snap of the dish individually, see if you are tempted by them. If yes, then give it a try. No harm in trying eh =p

Big portion of Pork Ribs cost RM18.00

Preserved vege (Mei Cai) small size - RM7.00

The organs (😨) small bowl - RM12.00

After the lunch, we headed to Desaru straight away. It was quite smooth journey and it took us around 1 hour 15mins following Google maps (distance at 76.4km). Weather was good as well !

Looks cloudy on the beginning of the journey =(

The cloud decided to spread out and giving me nice view to take pic =)

So how did we end up choosing Desaru for our weekend getaway?

I decided to join my boyfriend for Desaru trip as I am rooting for him and his friend as they joined 113 Desaru Johor - 113 Triathlon (2km Swim, 90km Cycle, 21km Run) held at Lotus Desaru Beach Resort on the 5th May. I never see him in the race and decided to give it a try =) Plus I never visited Desaru, so why not !

Few pictures taken using Huawei P20 Pro.

I've labelled the picture so you can read each description below 😊

1. The banner spotted on the road before turning in to the resort
2. The start line of 113 Triathlon, the Elite (approx. 5 persons only) will get to start first
3. The beach to swim
4. 113 Triathlon route map
5. Route map for three categories (113 Triathlon, 113 Sprint, and 113 Mini)
6. Finishing line !

Although the race is at Lotus, we decided to stay at Sand & Sandals Resort & Spa as suggested by my boyfriend's cousin. It's also because I saw the room pictures from the cousin and fall in love with it. Lotus was quite an old establishment and the room might not be that clean as well, hence we decided to top up few dollars more.

After the race, the guys totally knocked out and rest for another few hours before we went to have our seafood night at Sengat Seafood Restaurant, which is 30mins (31.1km) drive from the place we stayed. Good food however location wise is totally unpredictable (we thought we were LOST!) but all in all, it's worth the experience =)

And on the very final day, we just chill at the beach/pool and checked out at 1pm and went for shopping at JB ~

Instagram worthy? 😂

I'll wrap up my stories on this entry. There are quite few stories that I will write more linking up to this trip and I'll update all the links here, so stay tuned !

»»—— To see the review for the place we stay, you can click here 😄

»»—— To see the review for the seafood place, you can click here 😄

»»—— To see the review for the cafe we visited this time at Johor, you can click here 😄

»»—— To see the review during the race of the 113 Triathlon by my boyfriend, you can click here 😄