Dream achievement...still a long way to go.

Cities visited (pink spots) 

I remembered the first time my mother asked me if I want to go to Bangkok with her and a few other relatives, and I thought that would be once a lifetime traveling abroad. But I did not expect my first ever international trip has becoming my cravings until today. I guess that the infectious traveling virus was transmitted to me, being my mum as the vector of the virus. Who else? With a contrasting opinions of traveling with my old man, she never complains about me wasting time and procrastinating my current priority. In fact until today, we are becoming travel companion to each other, though in most trips previously, we had minor argument about this and that. But of course, as a daughter, and of course she as a mum, we need each other to ensure we get to see what we want to see while traveling, and return home safely.

In the past 20 years, when I was a school girl, my mum traveled here and there, to the States, India, China and Australia, without my dad. She really did enjoy herself seeing this beautiful world. At that time, backpack traveling was uncommon so she relied so much on the tour agent. But heyy..at least she managed to achieve her dreams. And when I started to travel, she, too,  travels the way I travel. Thanks to the world-wide-web for being one of the most important information provider and made us work our dream.

In 5 years time, I manage to visit 13 countries only. I cannot deny that I am aiming to visit more countries in this 5 years but it seems that it cannot be fulfilled. And perhaps, I realized that one I visited a country, I would ensure that I reach every part of a country. I cannot afford to travel like those Europeans, Americans or Australians, where they travel for like a month minimum and get to see almost everything in the countries visited. But maybe once I have got my own 'treasure chess' I will do the same thing too, especially in Europe. Ok..ok...keep that Europe thing for later.

At the moment, I have visited countries in South East Asia but I predicted that I will be traveling again to other parts of Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Philippines. Burma is supposed to be re-visited but given the current religious turmoils and some difficulties while traveling there, I guess that plan needs to be kept aside first.

Cities to visit (blue spots)

In Indonesia, I wish to enjoy myself in the stunning Lombok island, dive in Komodo and Raja Ampat, and explore the other side of Indonesia, i.e Flores, Sumbawa, where Islam is not the main practice here. Oh I hope to get a cheap flight to Semarang and hop on a boat to Karimunjawa island. And in another few years time, I will definitely experience diving in Sangalaki where the closest city is Balikpapan. And lastly, I expect to see the different cultures in Makassar of the Sulawesi, where this is the place of one of my ancestors. And looking at this list, I know at least RM20k is needed to cover all places I want to be at. Diving trip is very costly and I guess some shopaholic skanks might downgrade this diving activity. Well, if shopping can fulfill ones 'lusts' and desires, so does traveling and diving. But I do not know what is shopping got to do with gaining life experiences. I hope someone will enlighten me about this.

As for Thailand, I want to fly to Bangkok, and check-out what do they have in Hua Hin and Pattaya, and course to visit the ancient city of Ayutthya. And secondly, I want to re-visit Koh Samui in the right season, as my visit in year 2007 was a disastrous visit as it was monsoon and I did not get to enjoy the beautiful scenery, calm sea and sunny sky. I have no plan to dive in Thailand as most of the diving trips are overly priced and the dive sites are incomparable to the Indonesian dive sites. But I cannot deny that Thailand is generally much cleaner and it has one of the beautiful beaches and islands as far as I can remember.

Vietnam is another nice country to be visited only if one can manage to avoid scams and cheaters. But it is unavoidable, just go with it and enjoy  every single thing Vietnam has to offer. I wish to visit the coastal area of Nha Trang and highland city of Da Lat as a rejuvenation of exhausted soul and re-sparkling the dim and lazy pair of eyes. And I will not forget to shop for the beautiful cloths to *wink*wink*

And finally in Philippines, I want to dive in Anilao and Puerto Galera, and spend some time for eye remediation in Boracay and Palawan.

As for East Asia, I only manage to visit China but a 2-3 trips are needed before I totally done with this charming country. I have jotted what I have in mind when I manage to book cheap flight to and from China for traveling within November and December 2013. This will be a trip where I will try my best to left mt footprints at the numerous UNESCO World Heritage Sites around China. The cities where I can easily access the Heritage Sites, include Hangzhou, Suzhou, Huangshan, Nanking, Chengdu, Xi'an, Chongqing and a few others where I cannot recall at this point of time

I still need to make plans for Taiwan and Japan too. If everything goes well, I will be traveling to South Korea, covering 4 cities (Seoul, Busan, Gyeoungju and Jeju) and Japan, covering cities nearby Tokyo, ie. Nikko, Kamakura and Hakone. My 2nd trip to Japan will be somewhere end of next year, covering Kansai region and Sapporo. Japan is such an expensive country to visit but once visited, it is going to be very valuable and fun.

My mission to visit most of the places in Australia is still in progress. Managed to book couple of tickets to Melbourne and Gold Coast where these cities will be my point of entry to get to other destinations. Of course my ultimate goal is to dive in the Great Barrier Reef from Cairns, but it seems that it will be a bit expensive to reach Cairns, or alternatively Townsville.

I have endless traveling dreams and it is rather difficult to spill everything here. It seems that the more I travel, the more I will dream, make plans and push myself to ensure those dream come true. Ashkuru ilallah (i am thankful to Allah) for giving me the chance to see the bits of this Earth.

Manila & Cebu, Philippines

My first trip to Philippine was truly a mixture of emotions, shocked, impressed, surprised, happy and disgusted. Shocked that this part of country is not what I have been imagining. I mean, initially I thought Manila is a city resembles Bangkok or Saigon, but it is not. I do not want to elaborate more on this. Impressed to see the historical remnants eg. Intramuros. Happy to get to see Philippines, and precisely, the cities of Manila and Cebu. Disgusted to see 'lechon baboi' here and there. But all in all, Philippines has its own beautiful sides especially it glorious and amazing underwater.

OK, so we took AirAsia to get to Clarke Field early in the morning. After 4 hour or so, we arrived Clark Diosdado Macapagal International airport and took a taxi to Manila city which is almost 2 hours away. It is really far and because of that, we did not have much time to see Manila in close. On our way to Manila city, we passed through Mt. Pinatubo, an infamous volcano in Philippine which has caused major disaster in the past eruptions. Other than witnessing this amazing volcano, we slept all the way to Manila. The journey was smooth and I'm impressed because they have such a smooth and wide highway road without potholes here and there

When arriving in Manila, we first searched for a hotel and checked-in, could not remember the hotel name though. And later, we hired an MPV and a driver to take us around Manila. We visited Philippine Cultural Centre, Jose Rizal Monument and The Intramuros. I love the environment in Intramuros as it looked a little like Europe in the Medieaval time. By the way, 'intra' means within and 'muros' means wall, so basically it was a visit to check out what they have within the walls. There are a cathedral, a fort, community buildings and several others.

It was really difficult to find halal food in Manila, so we just had our dinner at clean restaurants(clean as in they do not have 'lechon baboi' on display) and requested for dishes without any sort of meat except seafood.

And by the way, pictures taken in Manila were posted here before but for several reason, I have removed it.

The next day, we woke up early to catch flight to Cebu. Our 'el capitan' woke up the earliest and he went to the McDonads and got us Fillet-O-Fish and tea for our breakfast. We departed Cebu from Nino Aquino International airport (it looks more modern and organized than the Clark Field airport). The flight took only 1 hr ++. At Cebu, we were greeted by our dive guides, Windy and Jun Jun and took us to our chalet. We rested and got ourselves ready for diving.

To be frank, I love Cebu underwater a lot, especially at Mactan Island. The beaches are clean and the underwater visibility was superb. Need to reopen my dive log to write some short report here. I managed to take couples of pictures here.

Stonefish

Nemo and its home

Pipefish..I think

Chromodoris magnifica

My first encounter with seahare

Obese pufferfish