Orange Coloured Sky

Back from Japan. Here a little preview of the Japan trip. This is taken on the first day of arrival in Rinku Town, a small town adjacent to Kansai International Airport.

Will update as soon as I have gotten everything sorted.

Next destination is Java Island. Stay tune=D

The magnificient Angkor Temples!

Hola ! 
I'm going to bring you to one of the main UNESCO heritage site in South East Asia.
It was discovered by the French.
Can you guess where is it?







It's Angkor Wat ! Angkor refers to temple in Hinduism and Wat refers to temple too but in Buddhism. Hinduism and Buddhism was adapted by the kings in different era. The king will decide the religion when he rule the country. The temples there were either inspired by Hinduism or Buddhism. For example, if the first king believe in Hinduism and the second king believes in Buddhism, they might just alter the sculpture of the temples or build a completely new temple. Some temples have a mixture of Hindu and Buddhist influence.
We shared a tour guide with 3 other travelers from the guesthouse. We met two of them in Saigon when we were doing our Melkong Delta trip. The charges for tour guide is USD 20 per day. Our tour guide is Mr.Vanna and he's very good. We booked a tuktuk for USD 15.

My experience in Siam Reap is the highlight of my 9 days trip. It started up with throwing up three times in the morning. fml

We bought the one day ticket at USD 20 each. The pass has our picture on it so the guards can check. 
My friend and I went to Angkor Wat at 430am to watch the sunrise! We asked the others to come with us but they would rather watch the sunset. lol.

It was raining season in June so the sun didn't show up at all. :(

We took a stroll inside the Angkor Wat temple. The weather was pretty good and we took a few pictures. We were glad that we went to see the sunrise. You will know why later :)

This was my favourite shot of the day. I adjusted the setting of the camera and the outcome was great without editing. It was taken at one of the temple inside Angkor Wat. There's a total of five temples.

After that, we went back to the guesthouse to have our breakfast and meet the rest. My body doesn't allow me to consume any food for breakfast either. :(

We started our tour with Sras Srang. Vanna told us that the king use it for swimming or bathing with his wives. There's suppose to be a temple in the middle but it drowned if I remember it correctly. It's good to hire a tour guide because they will tell you every single details so that you can have very good understanding of the temples. Or get a guidebook for USD 5. You can't just go in there to take pictures because you will get bored very soon everything look the same. =)

I was feeling really bad for the rest of the day so I didn't take any pictures. The weather was cooling and the sky was pretty dark for photography too. 

My friend told me that its better to capture the moment by our own eyes because pictures couldn't tell how magnificent the place is. Angkor temples are amazing. 

After that, we went to Angkor Thom,Ta Phrom, Ta Keo and Terrace of Elephants. 

The only picture I took in Ta Phrom before I felt worst. =(

 In case you don't know, Ta Phrom is the temple where they filmed Tomb Raider. And Angelina Jolie took the same picture from where I stood according to my tour guide. Vanna was very encouraging. He took us to all the best spot to take pictures but unfortunately all of us felt hot, thirsty and tired to take pictures. I wish I didn't fall sick on that day. 

Vanna told us to look from the hole and  tell him what we saw. Don't you think that it looks like a human trying to climb the temple?

Later on, we proceed to Bayon Temple. According to Vanna, the king is a happy king so you can notice the smile on the face of the sculpture.

Vanna, our tour guide explaining the wall sculptures. The artist record the daily activities of the local by carving them on the wall. You can see those sculptures are actually chinese.

We went for lunch at 12 noon and the rain start pouring. I drank coconut water for lunch instead of eating solid food.  The rain continues after lunch. However, we still make our way to the main temple-Angkor Wat. I didn't take any pictures after that because I was busy avoiding myself from getting wet. The rain didn't stop at all.

I'm very impressed with the stories told by Mr.Vanna. He's very dedicated to his job. Well, he make sure that all of us understand the story and history. He repeated the Ramayana story for 938492834092 times. I heard of it before when I was in Bangkok. So, it wasn't a new story to me. 

Here's some guides if you are going to the  Angkor Temples. 

1. Never buy stuff from the kids. They will keep bugging you until you buy more stuff from them. 

2. Never ask for the price unless you are interested in it.

3. You can bring your own food/snacks if you are on a tight budget. The food sold in those restaurants are very expensive. You can also request your driver to bring you out of the park to have lunch. 

4. If you want to visit the outlying temples and big circuit, you will need a multiple day pass. The one day pass is only enough for the small circuit temples as stated in this post. 

5. Wear comfortable shoes  because the steps are very slippery. 

6. Avoid wearing shorts and sleeveless shirt because they might stop you from entering some temples especially the main one in Angkor Wat. Bring a scarf to cover up.

I will stop here today.

p/s: I'm not posting according to my trip. I shall post up my itinerary soon ! 

From the editor who suffered a lot after eating amok fish. =)

Putrajaya 02

Cruise Tasik, Putrajaya

Taken at Cruise Tasik, Putrajaya with D90.

Off to Japan soon

Hey ya! My Japan trip is in 3 days and I have yet to finish planning yet cause I wanna make the most out of my trip, trying to fit in as many places as possible. I ll be going for eight days, though its seems long but I still feel that I can't covered the places I wanna go.

So here's a brief itinerary:

Day 1:
Arrival at Kansai International Airport
I'll be heading to Sakai for the famous tomb stone and also Sumiyoshi to visit the Sumiyoshi Tashi Temple via the Nankai Line, then back to Rinku Town for the night.

Day 2:
Leaving Rinku Town and heading to Osaka via the Nankai Line to Namba Station. From there, I'll be changing to the Midosuji Line to Shinsaibashi Station. Our hotel for 7 nights will be at Hearton Hotel Shinsaibashi Osaka. It's pretty reasonable for only RM 1400 for that 7 night, and it's close to the Station making sight seeing very easier.

After Check-in, I'll be using the Osaka Unlimited Pass as it provide free admission to most of the popular tourist attraction in Osaka and unlimited ride on public transport for the day.

Day 3:
Will be spending the whole day in Universal Studio Osaka. Universal Studio is only accessible via the JR line. I'll be taking the JR line from Osaka Station to Universal Studio Station

Day 4:
Will be visiting Kobe half the day,hopefully there's ample time to visit the Himeji-jo in Himeji.

Day 5:
Heading over to Kyoto. Most probably will be covering the UNESCO Herritage Sites in Northern Kyoto as well as going up the Kyoto tower and catching a glimpse of geisha in Gion District

Day 6:
Will be taking a relaxing day in Osaka visiting the Osaka Castle which was closed on Monday in the morning and then heading to Namba district and Dotombori to dine and shop.

Day 7:
Back for another day in Kyoto, covering the eastern side of Kyoto or heading to Nara. Pretty unsure yet. We will see how it goes.

Day 8:
The Gion Matsuri Festival will be held in Kyoto on this day (17July) and I guess this will be the highlight of the trip. Hopefully slight sight seeing in between.

Day 9:
Catching the early train back to KIX to fly back to Malaysia.

Ciao! Off to finish my planning. Hope all goes well!

Putrajaya 01

Hi readers,
This is a sneak preview from our photography trip at Putrajaya lately. The picture above was taken in Taman Botani.

Stay tune for more postcard like picture.

Love,
Iuhnix (Miqtravellers)

Thailand Travel Guide 02

Hi! Sorry for being MIA for so long. We were too busy with trip plannings and stuff. Two of us are heading to HK and Japan this week! Ain't that awesome?
I think choosing the right accommodation is a real pain when it comes to trip planning. As for me, we opt for cheap and good hostel because we only need a place to sleep at night.
I stayed in Lamphu House when I was in Bangkok.  Well, it wasn't a hostel. The place look more like a hotel to me. We stayed there for 3 nights and we tried 3 different rooms. Long story.

I wanted to book the Quad room at the first place but it wasn't in the list when I fill in the reservation form. Perhaps you can email them instead to book the room as it's very ideal when you are travel in four.
In the end, I book the fan room(400B) with shared bathroom for the trip because we thought that it will be like the one in our uni hostels.
The room was nice but it was so stuffy at night because May was the hottest month of the year. FOL. I couldn't sleep at all on the first night. They have a small fan attached to the ceiling and obviously it didn't work well. When I said shared bathroom, it means shared between man and female. Too bad I didn't take any pictures from the bathroom. You might see strangers who only have their towel on them when you are brushing your teeth. Remember to stay calm. LoL

On the next day, we went to the reception counter and ask for A/C room instead. They gave us the quad room with private bathroom at 980B. The room was great because it was huge and we have a balcony to hang our clothes. The other bed is opposite the one you saw in the picture below.

On the third morning, we have to move to a new room because someone book the quad room before us. We moved to the standard room(With A/C at 630B) with private bathroom instead. There's a double bed with tables and place to hang your clothes inside. 

As for the fourth night, we stayed in Silver Gold Garden Suvarnabhumi Airport Hotel. We paid around RM50 for a room via Agoda.com which includes free airport transfer.

It's a good place to stay because they have night market in front of the hotel and Tesco is located right next to the hotel! It is definitely a good place for last minute shopping. XD

My friend told me that there's a lot of cheap hostel around KS road area but we need to explore as they don't have a website.

Perhaps you can keep that in mind when you go Bangkok ! :)

That's all for the accomodation part.