Journey of Life

Finally, I reached to the final post for our trip to China. As the saying goes, all the good things will come to an end, and this trip will be the memorable one.. There were still plenty of time since our flight back home was early in the next morning. We couldn't get an extension night, but only allowed to check-out the hotel before 6 pm. Good thing we were able to slot-in half day tour within the city. That day, we left before 8am to visit the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace.

A trip to Beijing is not complete without visiting the Great Wall. This was the day that we enticed most. As one of the best preserved Great Wall sections, we visited the Mutianyu section located about 60 km from the hotel. Rose told us that Mutianyu is older than the top-notch Badaling section and less crowded. Once reached at the Mutianyu valley, it was pretty chilled atmosphere with the heart-pounding, can't wait to get our hand touched one of the world's seven wonders. The fully-restored Great Wall section has been renovated, making it easier and safer to climb. We ascended the section through cable car to reach the wall section

First met with Rose While we were in Beijing, our daily sightseeing trips were taken care by 'Maggie Zhang Tour'. I was told by Maggie as it was autumn and the best season to see Beijing. We only stay for 4 days and 3 nights, yet so many interesting places to be visited and not to forget the shopping spots. Fortunately, we able to cover most of the significant tourist spots as suggested by our tour guide. We were given 8 hours max per day. We may schedule the visit to the Beijing attractions at our own pace. Tasted the halal/vegetarians local cuisine rather than stopping at typical tourist spot, and flexible according to our need.

It was a leisure free & easy on the day of the 7th. I was half-day away presenting a conference paper at Shaanxi Hotel, 12 km  to the southwest. I'm all alone when my family stayed in, and it feels a bit worried having difficulties to communicate with local. Anyway, things like this was a revelation of how much I missed my family when I simply dissipated to travel alone. By noon, with much of the hardship to hail a taxi to the difficulty communicating, I safely back to my family at the hotel, and we made a comeback to the Muslim Quarter for lunch. As the day progresses into more anticipating, as we look forward to Beijing tomorrow, that afternoon we uneventfully spent that day soaking in the city life.

The local time was no difference with Malaysia time, in fact the prayer time was about 30 minutes early. Fang picked us earlier that day as we were ready by 8am. For the early stop, we headed to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, a Buddhist Pagoda built during the Tang Dynasty. It was a big complex. To the north is the famous North Square, the Tang Ci’en Temple Site Park and the East Garden, also lies the West Garden; and to the south the South Square. We came from the main north gate of the Daci’en Temple. A group of pink lady was having a praying ceremony in front of the temple and that area was shrouded with smoke of the  burning incense .

Don' t get confused with Renminbi and Yuan, the PRC's (People's Republic of China) currency. It is similar to that between Sterling and Pound, which respectively refer to the currency and primary unit (source: Wiki). I got so confused when the tour agent, Kathy quoted me in RMB, whilst upon checking on the conversion stated CNY. It is not Chinese New Year, it is Chinese Yuan. Fourth day of the trip was mostly a free & an easy traveling day. Our two and half hour flight to Xi'an departed from HK airport in the afternoon. We only arrived at our hotel in the evening. It was a spacious room with two queen beds and a small kitchen completed with the necessary utensils. But the real catch is that the hotel located within the ancient Xi'an city wall. It was said that this city is the end of the ancient silk road.

The quick ride across the harbor As we didn't plan to go to HK Disneyland, so we check out the Tsim Sha Tsui neighborhood. Err... Yup!! We didn't plan to have fun at Disneyland, One might wonder... :D, We have been to Paris Disneyland in 2012 and since we only have two nights in HK, so we saved Disneyland maybe with Macau/Shenzen trip next time! Right after breakfast, we took a taxi to the Victoria Harbour. It was not so crowded in the Star Ferry as we managed to seat the upper deck. Maybe it was in the Sunday morning. A rather quick ride to the other side of the harbor offered the moment reminiscence of previous boat rides or river cruise. But this one remains the most spectacular ocean crossing we had been through.

I wuz here, HK airport! We went for a holiday to China between October 18-28, 2013.  Our holiday often will visit at most 3 cities where we will be staying at least two nights in each place.  Historic sites, museums, landmark and so are places that not only do we visit, we will explore the best possible given that we have the opportunity to be there. As being said, tourists take pictures, the travelers keep the memories.. :P ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo We landed at Chek Lap Kok airport in the late Friday evening, The flight MH432 to Hong Kong took nearly 4 hours, and it has the same time zone in Malaysia, No jet lag or whatsoever, but we still feel the fatigue of travel. Anyhow, brisk immigration procedure at the HK airport made things easier. We had booked in advanced a round trip Vigor's shuttle bus that cost HKD $103 for 3 persons. The ride crossed the Lantau Island and Kowloon before reaching the Hong Kong island.

How the time flies! We must say that we barely to get know Hanoi city of the time constraint. Hopefully we can make a come back in the future and explore other parts of Vietnam. Our outbound flight scheduled at 3 pm. Before checking out, we spent some time having breakfast at the Diplomatic Lounge.  Nu'man also spent time at the pool. At noon time, Vietnam Drive  picked us up in the afternoon and headed to Hanoi airport. Bye-bye Vietnam!!!

It took around two hours and half drive to the jetty before we embarked for Halong Bay trip. Once we boarded into Song Bien 19 , we knew that this would be an interesting island trip, as opposed to typical snorkeling and islands hoping activities. Halong Bay was the shot for Kong movie in 2017 and the island itself was called Skull Island. We were given a sitting table with an Australian family of three. As I mentioned earlier, there won't be any snorkeling or swimming on this trip, as you can tell based on our attires. So, what we gonna do? Let's the pictures do the talking...

We had internal flight up to Hanoi this morning on Vietnam Airlines. Noontime, we arrived at bustling city of Hanoi, VietnamDrive picked us up from Noi Bai International airport. I used up my membership privilege to book for a suite at Intercontinental Hanoi Westlake. To our surprise, we had been upgraded to a premier suite that facing lake...yeahhh!!We were given a welcoming drink as well as delectable sweet and savory treats at the Diplomat Lounge. We skipped our heavy lunch then. Yup... it was served all-day long and we can hopped in anytime as many as we want to!

If Cambodia has it Angkor Wat and Indonesia has it Borobudur Temple (both ticks are still off in our bucket list), Vietnam has it own decades old Hindu temples in Quảng Nam province, located specifically in My Son Sanctuary. Built by the King of Champa between 4th to 14th century are dedicated to the worship of the god Shiva. After an hour, we reached the sanctuary about 70 km southwest from Da Nang. The site is surrounded by mountain ranges and the temples are quite scattered. We just follow the signboard that dictate the temple's sequence along the trails.

Feeling tired from yesterday tripped out of the city to Hue, so we only had half-day tour for today. I also presented my paper for ICUFN conference later in the evening, at the hotel. So, this going to be a short post. VietnamDrive had arranged to visit the Marble Mountain, about 10 km from the hotel. There was a stairway of about 150 steps or more leading to the top. But we would rather to take the lift to reach to the summit. Several Buddhist grottoes existed became the main attractions that tourist flocked. It also offered a magnificent views surrounding the area. After spent about an hour at the mountain, we proceeded to the Museum of Cham Sculpture. It was a site known as "the garden of sculpture" before the museum was erected in early of 19th century. The museum displays the Cham sculpture found in Danand as well as nearby districts. One of it was My Son, an architectural district that we will visit tomorrow.

It was our last morning in Saigon city. We had a domestic flight to Da Nang in the evening.While there were still plenty of time before the checked-in, we just meandered around the city, and for my wife last minutes shopping. We also bought along souvenirs and some local delicacies.After having lunch at the nearby restaurant, we had a late check-out and get ready for the pick-up to the airport. We were thought of skipping several sites just because the 3 days of our stay was not enough. As we still had a plenty of time, the driver stopped us at several tourist spot for a photo shot. We stopped at Saigon Notre Dame Cathedral that has two bell towers established by the French Colonist (you might know it by its name) in the 18th century. We also passed through the Saigon Central Post office and the Reunification Palace, the former Presidential Palace. At around 4 pm, we arrived at the airport, and checked-in for the late evening VN 1326 flight to Da Nang!

From the First Indo-China war, it was a long history. Back then in 1955, Vietnam involved in the Second Indo-China war that lasted almost 19 years. It is much towards the Communist alliances backed by the Russian in the north by the American and its alliances in the south. Vietnamese referred it as the war against the America. The tunnels were used by Viet Cong soldiers as hiding spots during combat, as well as serving as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters for numerous North Vietnamese fighters. The tunnel systems were of great importance to the Viet Cong in their resistance to American forces, and helped to counter the growing American military effort. ~ Wikipedia

Hey, everyone!! It's time for us to share our moment while travelling to Vietnam. We've been alternating in visiting between East Asia and other part of the World for the past years. It's all started when I was travel alone to Egypt for company business trip, in 2008. Since then, I was contemplating to plan for holiday circulating the continents each year. Best part we had covered this French-colonized country from the south to the north of visiting its three cities, Ho Chi Minh, Da Nang and Hanoi.