I've been to one of the 7 wonders !

We all knew that Great Wall of China is part of the 7 wonders of the world. I'm glad that I manage to visit of the 7 wonders. Climbing The Great Wall was indeed an amazing experience. Plus, it is a detoxification journey because you will sweat a lot. There's three main great wall of China- Badaling, Mutianyu and JinShanling. We chose Badaling great wall for our first experience as we were told that it suits first timer the best.

We travelled to beijing north station and bought a ticket at the counter. I would advice you to buy the ticket one or two days earlier as the train to badaling is very limited. There's two trips everyday if I'm not mistakne One in the afternoon and one in the evening. You can take a bus there too but I have no idea where to get the bus. But you can take a bus to return to Beijing. You can easily find the bus at the exit. We met a guy from Singapore and he told us that he can only buy the 'standing' ticket because he was late. Standing ticket means you have to stand all the way throughout the journey in China. Yeah..what an odd system but it works for a country with huge population.

The train travelled around 110km/h which is pretty fast. The seats are spacious and they can turn the seats around if the train moves in the opposite direction.

When you reach the station, you will see this sign or you can just follow the crowd. All of them will go to the same place for sure.

The front door of Badaling.

They do sell tickets in the train. They will tell you that the queue is very long and try to persuade you to buy the combo ticket (great wall+museum). We chose to buy the tickets at the counter instead as we don't really trust any ticket agent/tour agent in China after the trip to Lv Shun. The best thing is they offer student price too! (RM 22.50 if I'm not mistaken)There's no queue at all when we were at the counter.

Climbing The Great Wall is never an easy task. But, I'm amazed by the China citizen as old man/woman who is around the age of 60 climbed The Great Wall with us. Besides that, kids were running here and there. haha. I remember a man telling his son 'If you think climbing The Great Wall is difficult, what do you think about the people who built this? Don't you think they are more tired than you?"Very true right? It hit right at our heart. ahha.

There's a few place with stairs and some without stairs. But, the slope are steep. very very steep. It was like 60 or 75 degree. Luckily there's handle all along the way so that we can hold it to support our body so that we can go further. Do wear a pair of good shoes if you do not want to roll down the great wall.
 
If you can't finish TGW, you can look for this sign and go down by cable car. Pretty useful huh? We chose to walk instead of using the cable car though.
 

We finished the great wall in 2 hours plus. It was pretty fast actually. The reason is because our train reached there around 11am and our train back to beijing was 3pm. So, we didn't rest much because we were afraid that we will missed the train.

If you are going to visit Badaling, do walk till the end as the scenery will be different and the sense of achievement is very fullfilling. We met a few people who went there with a tour and they told us that their tour guide asked them to walk back when they reach the first hill. They do not have enough time to finish their journey. They do sell souvenirs and food at the exit.

Let me show you some picture before I end this post :)

The view from top.

 Me and my travel partners at TGW.

 Us at the exit ! There's a bear farm at the exit. Nah..not panda bears. Just the normal brown bear. You can feed the bears too.

There's buses at the exit which will send you to Beijing city. Or you can just walk for 10-20 minutes from the exit to the main entrance and then you can take the train back. The taxi driver there told us that the walk will take us about 50 minutes and he wanted to charge us RMB 100 for that. We didn't take the taxi as we were not rushing for time at all. Luckily the walk was short enough :D

I do think that your stamina must be real good to complete the whole journey. Bring more water and also some snack.It's common to see people enjoying their picnic at TGW. Btw, the toilet is very far from each other and we will need to walk very far to the toilet. I didn't went in and hence I can't tell how's the toilet. :)

If you are planning to get something memorable, you can engrave your name on the keychain. I think it cost around RMB 10 or more for those fancy ones. It's like a small certificate because they will write the date you climb TGW. Don't get them at the souvenirs shops below TGW.  They are so overated. You can get it at the start of The Great Wall. It's cheaper compared to the one at the exit. =) 

That's all from Badaling.

If you are interested in climbing The Great Wall, let me know!

We can do it together someday.

Lots of love,

Iuhnix

Melbourne Night View

Introducing Melbourne night view at Southbank. Over across the Yarra river, the view is pretty spectacular over looking Melbourne busiest train station; Flinders Station and also Melbourne CBD buildings. This is where people gather for fireworks on new year's eve. I did not join in the fun but i did view it from the 25th floor apartment not too far away. It was 43 degree on new year's eve. Yikes

Along the river there's a few attraction just a short walking distance from each other. There the Aquarium, Crown casino, Eureka Skydeck, Federation Square, Flinder Station, The botanical garden a longer walk as well as the NGV, National Gallery of Victoria.

That's all for now. Happy 2011 everyone. Hope you all have a great year ahead and do come back for more updates.

What's awaiting you for year 2011?

Happy New Year Everyone!

Sorry for the lack in updates in the past months.

We had exams and went for a few trips in December. =)

So, you must be wondering what's awaiting you here in Year 2011 in our blog?

In the first half of the year, we will bring you to Myanmar, Taiwan, Australia, Thailand, China and Europe.

The four blogger had been traveling hard enough last few months and will be continuing their journey in January as well as 2011.

Hence, please stay close with us for year 2011.

p/s: One tip for getting new updates is to follow our blog! =)

Stay tune and have a great year ahead!

Cheers
Letter from editor=)

Cameron highland part 2.

One thing about backpacking is that you will never know what happen next when you are travelling. Things might just pop up and you need to solve it. If you missed day one, click here.

One of one friend fell sick in the middle of the night. Food poisoning. She was very sick till the extend that she wants to go to the hospital. The problem is there's no public transport at 2am at Cameron Highland. People sleep as early as 9pm. @.@ We had no choice but to wake the inn owner up. She was really kind and she drove us to the hospital immediately. We felt very sorry for her. We were happy with the hospitality offered by Cameronian Inn. The doctor asked someone from the hospital to send us back at 530am. Yeah..530am. We woke up again at 730am to cancel our tour package which we already paid for it earlier. The van suppose to pick us up at 815am. We told them our situation and manage to get back RM20 instead of RM25 as they had already paid the comission to their agent. Well, RM20 is better than nothing right?

We continue our journey later at 10am.
We went to Taman Pertabalan Tanah Rata which is just beside the Tanah Rata bus stop. It look more like a playground to me. We spent some time there while waiting for the bus to Kea Farm. The bus will depart every hour from Tanah Rata bus station. It will go all the way to Simpang Pulai if I'm not mistaken.

 Gigantic fruits opposite the Tanah Pertabalan Tanah Rata. Ain't they look like the kids from Ten Brothers?

The weather was pretty bad. It was drizzling. =( The bus dropped us off at Tea Plantation. The bus driver was very friendly. You can tell them where you want to stop. We became friends with the bus driver later because we took his bus so many times in the same day. Well, it is good to mix around with the locals. That's the point of backpacking right?

At the beginning of our walk to the tea plantation. Note that the plantation is close on Monday. That means we can't visit the factory on monday. Still, we went there on Monday.

 The beautiful scenery along the way.

 The Robertson Rose Garden which we dropped by when we were on the way back to Kea Farm. Nothing much there. Not many rose though. Looks like people's garden to us.

 As we mentioned earlier, the tea plantation was closed on monday. But, we get to see the tea plantation after walking for 1km. We gave up walking to the main place. No point going all the way there just to drink boh tea right? Hence, we stayed at the plantation and took some pictures before we left for Kea Farm.

The rain drop gets bigger and we were lucky that a guy volunteered to send us to Kea Farm. That was our second free ride at Cameron Highland. All we need to do is wave our hand.  

The bee farm and butterfly farm is just before Kea Farm. We didn't went there as we had been there before.

They have a few strawberry farm around that area and we didn't went there too because of the weather.

Food hunting @ Kea Farm.

Must try-steam sweet potato and strawberry ice-cream.

 Sweet potato @ RM2.00

We saw this! Malaysia Forest Viagra? ROFL

More food hunting.

 Sweet Potato Ball @ RM2.

 Fried Shitake Mushroom @ RM3.

Kea Farm is like a open market. You can get cheap vegetable, fruits,flower and etc from there. We bought what we want and left for Tanah Rata. We had to skip the rest of the place as it was raining. Our initial plan was walk all the way down to Brinchang and take a bus from there.

We went back to the inn to keep the stuff we bought and took the next bus to Smoke House. The Smoke House is located between Tanah Rata and Brinchang. The initial plan was visit Smoke House and a few place around that area but the rain spoil our plan again.  =(

I shall let the pictures do the talking for the rest of the post.

 

We took the bus next day to Ipoh to meet up with other friends and headed back to KL after that.

The end.

Thanks for reading and stay tune for more updates ! =D

Jalan-jalan at Cameron Highland

Backpacking Cameron Highland was something new. Of all the blogs that I had read via Innit, bloggers usually drove to Cameron Highland. Unlike us, we took bus just like the foreigners. It was a good experience. Backpacking is possible at Cameron Highland if you are willing to walk, walk and walk. :)

The Cameron Highland bus station.

We checked out the taxi system upon arrival and also the tour. We took the tour at first but we cancelled it last minute due to some emergency. Will talk about it next :)

Tour offered by the local travel agency!

We took the 1030am bus from Bukit Jalil with 15 foreigners and reach Cameron Highland at 330pm. The bus was in very bad condition. Water dripping and spoilt floor. T.T We stayed at Cameronian Inn during our stay there. Despite the reviews we got from internet, the place turned out better than expected I would say. We paid RM100 for a triple room with attached bathroom but they allowed four of us to stay there.

We took the local bus up to Brinchang at 430pm. You can find the bus from 830am-730am at Tanah Rata bus station, but the last bus from Kampung Raja is at 630pm.

Our first stop was 'Strawberry Moment' at Brinchang, near the weekend night market.

The interior. Not many customer there since it was weekday. We liked the environment a lot and the food of course.

Menu

We ordered a few item since it was our lunch and tea time.

Strawberry Strudel @ RM7.90. We agreed that it doesn't taste as good as recommended by others.

Strawberry Milkshake @ RM 10.90. They put too much whipped cream and we don't really like it either.

Strawberry crepe @ RM 12.90. If you are happen to be at Strawberry Moment, you must must must try this! This is the best thing we had at Cameron Highland ! Love it =)

Pasta in Tomato Sauce! We will recommend this dish as well. The pasta is nicely done with delicious tomato puree.

They have the long strawberry strudel too @ RM 29.90.

You can visit the souvenir shop next to the cafe. They sell local made food such as strawberry tea, all sorts of jams, chocolates and etc.

Interesting gift box which consist of Strawberry Chocolate @ RM 5.90.

We wanted to visit the Night Market but the place look horrible. The night market site was filled with rubbish all over. Hence, we decide to skip the night market instead. I personally think that it will be better to go there on saturday instead of sunday. Brinchang night market is only available on weekends. We had steamboat instead after our tea time. There's nothing much at Brinchang town so we thought that it will be better to dine in at the steamboat restaurant since we have nothing to do there. There's two rows of steamboat restaurant at Brinchang. Many choices are available for tourist. The price range is from RM10 to RM12 I think. That's what we got. There's steamboat restaurant at Tanah Rata too but it will be more expensive. The cheapest you can get at Tanah Rata is RM14/RM15.

Another thing is that you get to negotiate with the waitress. A lady came to us and offered RM10 to us but she told us quitely that we could have free flow of food except for prawns. Another man offered us RM12 with free flow of tea. We went to the lady of course. I think you can get better deal as you walk along the row of shops. We were too lazy. lol

If you are wondering what's so special about steamboat at Cameron Highland, their speciality is the charcoal steamboat where they put the charcoal inside the metal tube. That's how they keep the soup warm. We didn't go for it as we wanted to have two different flavours of soup instead of one.

The typical yinyang style. Do becareful as some of the shop charge different rate for Tomyam soup. =S

We headed back to the hostel after dinner. We missed the last bus but we manage to stop a tractor to send us back to Tanah Rata. We did enjoyed the ride back :)

Will continue with day 2 soon. Stay tune !

Adios.