Category Archives: Travel

I am back

Hello everyone and a very happy New Year 2014. Yap I am finally back to reality from my wonderful holiday. I am back with refreshed mind, few more kilos on my body, 5 shades darker and lots of memories.

New Caledonia (2)

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a very Happy New Year. Thank you so much for all your good wishes.

Thinking about this, I just realised that time goes so fast and it’s already been a year since I was writing a Happy New Year post from Kathmandu.

New Caledonia (13)

Anyway, I am happy to report that I loved the cruise and all my fears vanished once I stepped into the Carnival Spirit. It was so grand and majestic that I loved everything.

New Caledonia (3) New Caledonia (4) New Caledonia (5)

I already miss twice-a-day housekeeping, wonderful and yummy foods, the amazing views, snorkelling in crystal clear water, relaxing on the pool side and watching amazing shows every night. Everything made us feel spoiled and made our holiday perfect. We also meet some great people who made our holiday even better. I have so much to share with you all but before that I need to unpack, do the laundry, clean the house, do some grocery, get in touch with our families and get ready to go back to work from tomorrow.

So as I get my life sorted in the real world, please enjoy some amazing photos from our holiday. I promise I will be back with heaps of posts soon.

New Caledonia (6) New Caledonia (7) New Caledonia (8) New Caledonia (9) New Caledonia (10) New Caledonia (11) New Caledonia (12) New Caledonia (14) New Caledonia (15)

IMG_1273 New Caledonia (16) New Caledonia (17) New Caledonia (18) New Caledonia (19) New Caledonia (21)

Take care everyone,

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO

Our Story – Sawadeeka Bangkok – Part 20

This is a continuation of my previous posts. Please read the previous posts here.

As you can read from my post, we had a great time while were in Phuket. It was all about enjoying ourselves and enjoying each other’s company. We loved the place, the people and the food. The massages and shopping made our holiday even better. But as every other good thing in the world, it was time for us to bid farewell to Phuket so we caught a plane to Bangkok.

When we arrived in Bangkok and I could feel that it was so hot and humid. It was a quick dash to pick up our luggage and then a cab to our hotel.

Bangkok

The hotel, Chateau de Bangkok seemed like a nice big hotel. We always research a lot about the hotel before we book it and so far we have been happy with the result.

We were greeted with fresh orange juice when we arrived. Lucky for us, they upgraded our room to a suite so it offered a master bedroom with king-sized bed, plus a large lounge, fully fitted kitchen and spacious marble-clad bathroom with Jacuzzi. We felt happy and it was really a great start to our Bangkok trip.

That evening we were very tired so staying in seemed liked a great idea so we decided to order in and rest for our big trips ahead.

We ordered Thai style fried rice and a prawn dish. I loved the way they had our fried rice in a pineapple. Then we enjoyed some movies and also planned what we wanted to do for rest of our days in Bangkok.

The next morning, we woke up, showered and finished our breakfast before 8am. We had booked a Bangkok City and Temple tour so the guy came to pick us with a van and when we got on the van he informed us that we were only two people taking the tour that day. We both smiled as it was going to be a private tour for us and we loved it.

Wat Traimit

First stop was visit to Wat Traimit, the temple with world’s largest solid gold Buddha, 5 1/2 tons of solid gold 3 meters high Buddha . They charge an entry fee but ours was paid by the tour guide. He explained the history behind the temple.

Bangelore (1)

The Buddha status is made from pure gold and the statue is said to be worth millions of dollars at today’s gold prices. The Golden Buddha was cast sometime in the 13th century, and it survived until now because it was covered in plaster to hide it from thieves. It was discovered by accident when it was accidentally dropped as it was being moved, revealing, under a casing of plaster, a beautiful solid gold Sukhothai style Buddha. Pieces of the plaster are still kept on display at the museum.

On the way to the next stop we went around Chinatown and I was so amazed to see that Chinatown looked similar everywhere in the world. The place looked so much like the one I had seen in Malaysia.

Wat Pho

Next stop was Wat Pho (Temple of the Reclining Buddha). This Buddha was 46 meters long and 15 meters high and it was almost impossible to take a photo of the whole statue in one shot. This Buddha holds the dual honour of having both Thailand’s largest reclining Buddha image and the most number of Buddha images in Thailand. It also had giant feet, 3 meters high and 4.5 meters long with mother-of-pearl soles.

Bangelore (3)

The Reclining Buddha was built during the mid-19th-century and is brick covered with layers of plaster and gold.

On our way out to walk around the complex, we passed a long line of bowls into which people were dropping coins.

Bangelore (4)

The guide explained to us that there are 108 bronze bowls (symbolizing the 108 auspicious characters of Buddha) and people drop coins in the bowls for good fortune and to help the monk maintain the wat. We also did our bit and it was fun 🙂

Bangelore (2)

By the time we finished this tour me and AS both were exhausted because of the humidity. The guide gave us a bottle of water to drink.

Live snake experience

While we were coming out from the King’s palace, there was a guy with a live snake around his neck offering photo opportunity with the snake for small amount. We both were excited and decided to give it a go.

Loving the snake

Loving the snake

I had done something similar in Malaysia before so I was not scared at all so we had our photo taken with the snake around our neck.

Wat Benchamabophit 

From, Wat Phra Kaew, we went to Wat Benchamabophit (marble temple). Wat Benchamabophit is a royal monastery belonging to the first class ranking of Rajavaravihara made out of Italian marbles. Our guide told us that the main statue of Lord Buddha sitting in the main hall was a copy of the famous “Phra Buddha Chinarat” in Pitsanulok province, north of Thailand.

Bangelore (5)

The temple is a prime example of modern Thai architecture. It is a four-sided structure with four-tiered roof and a corridor in the back.

Bangelore (6)

Wat Intharawihan 

Our last stop for the day was Wat Intharawihan (temple of Standing Buddha). The main features of this temple is a 32-metre high, 10-meter wide standing Buddha referred to as Luang Pho To or “Phra Si Ariyamettrai” (Maitreya).

Bangelore (7)

It took over 60 years to complete and is decorated in glass mosaics and 24-carat gold. The topknot of the Buddha image contains a relic of Lord Buddha brought from Sri Lanka.

Bangelore (9)

This temple also has a statue of the Hindu god Brahma.

Bangelore (8)

I was really fascinated by our tour of the temple that day. I can imagine now what tourists who visit Kathmandu feel like. They say Kathmandu is a city of temples and each temple is different from others.

Bangelore (10)

That was one of the many days we spent in Bangkok. Then there was my favourite thing to do in Bangkok and yap you guess it right, it is shopping.

Shopping

We caught a taxi to go to different shopping malls and markets every day. There are so many colourful taxis in Bangkok, you can easily have fun in traffic as well. You can’t believe some of the colours like baby pink, purple, yellow, red, bright green, bright yellow etc. They told to us that the colour is company coordinated so people know which cab they are in.

I knew by that time AS was shocked by the way I shopped in Phuket. So I decided that I would slow down a bit. We were still in the stage where we were getting to know each other better and definitely, I did not want to scare him 😉

Bangkok  is sometimes referred to as a “shopaholic’s paradise” so there was so little I could do to hide my excitement. There are variety of malls, markets, and everything in between and some of the best deals are even found late into the evening at trendy night-bazaars.

Just for this reason I took an empty suitcase from Sydney. We went to MBK Shopping Center, Siam Paragon, Pratunaum Market and many more. Every evening we came home with heaps of bags full of dresses shoes, bags, accessories. I used to weigh my suitcase every night to make sure I hadn’t gone over the limit. By the last day I was over 10kg of my allowed limit. This whole time AS did some shopping but was really happy for me to buy stuffs and he was getting used to my habit. 🙂

Spending time with AS was so much fun but our holiday was almost coming to the end. I will write what happened next in my next post. Till then take care.

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO

Go to part 21

Counting down

As I mentioned before, we will be going on a Cruise to New Caledonia soon and I am counting down the days until the day arrives. This year has been really long and I am glad holiday time is almost here so I can relax and enjoy the remaining days of this year. We will be spending Christmas on board so it will be a different experience.

I have to say I am a bit anxious about this particular holiday because I will be spending most of the time in the ship. This is our first cruise and being first time cruisers we were a little bit apprehensive and are doing a lot of research. I have sailed before but never been on a cruise so I am having mixed feeling. I am busy doing my research to make sure I don’t make any mistakes and reading everyone’s’ experience I can see that most of them really enjoyed it so I am hoping to come back and report that I had a fun holiday.

The most worrying part for me is seasickness. I normally don’t get sea sick and I am going to take heaps of medications as well to help me be normal but sometimes you can plan all you want and still things may not work out so a bit worried about it.

Most of the holidays we go to, I have full day plan for nearly all days so I know what I am doing and in control of everything but this holiday we are going to have few sea days and I have no idea how we should spend those. I have been doing my research and there seems to be heaps of things to do in Carnival like going on water ride, golfing, swimming or just relaxing but still not having a proper plan is making me worried a bit.

Apart from that, I think most of the things should go smoothly. I will spend 2 weeks with my loving husband by my side just relaxing, swimming, snorkeling, eating and enjoying ourselves. Can’t thank him enough for make my birthday so special and making me so happy with the cruise as a birthday gift.

If anyone has been on Carnival Spirit before, your suggestions will be highly valuable.

I am very excited about our destination. I have heard a lot about New Caledonia for years now and always wanted to go there and now we will be stopping there in less than a months’ time. I always love tropical holidays with lots of sun, sand and sea and this one is going to be one like that too. As all of you know, I am a summer person and tropical holiday is my cup of tea 🙂

One of the stop for us is Isle of Pines and I have seen so many amazing photos from this place. Isle of Pines was dramatically formed by a series of volcanic upheavals and is truly beautiful.

Another stop is Lifou which is within the Loyalty Islands of New Caledonia and known for their coral reefs and limestone caves.

Hope this holiday will be exciting and fun so we can book more cruise holidays in the future too.

See you with my next post soon.

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO

Sculpture by the sea 2013

Like every year, hubby and I decided to go for a walk to see sculpture by the sea. However, this year, we decided to go for a sunrise instead of in the afternoon.

The night before, we went to bed early to wake up at 4.00am. AS woke up and tried to wake me up but I couldn’t. Instead, I woke up at 5 am and realise that we are goona miss the sunrise. Anyway, we got ready and reached Bondi beach. I thought it would be easy to get parking so early in the morning but to our dismay, we have to park farther away from the beach as we couldn’t find one nearby.

When we got there we realise that it was so cloudy, the sun had decided to hide behind the clouds so even though we had been there at 5:40am, we would still have missed the sunrise. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the walk. I’m sharing some of the photos from the day.

Sculpture by the Sea is staged along the Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk. The coastal walk begins at the bottom of Notts Avenue, which runs off Campbell Parade, Bondi. The coastal walk can also be accessed by stairs at various points along the exhibition route at Hunter Park, Gaerloch Avenue and Pacific Avenue. The exhibition finishes at Tamarama Park, Marine Drive, Tamarama.

Like every year, they had some amazing ones and some fun ones and some weird ones.  Enjoy the photos.

Sculpture by the sea (1) Sculpture by the sea (3) Sculpture by the sea (4) Sculpture by the sea (5) Sculpture by the sea (6) Sculpture by the sea (7)

P.S: Do not forget to nominate  your favorite blog .

Nominations open for NEPALIAUSTRALIAN’s Blog Award 2013

Our Story : Phi Phi and Krabi – Part 19

This is a continuation of my previous posts. Please read the previous posts here.

Every moment I spent with AS was so precious and both of us were so happy together. I didn’t want to think about anything else but us at that point. I felt blessed that AS was in my life and couldn’t wait for him to come to Sydney to spend the rest of our life together.

I felt a sense of stability with him and I couldn’t imagine my life without him. That amazing bliss we felt when together was like sunshine, happiness, and chocolate cake all rolled up in one. I felt our relationship was made in heaven and he was the man that was going to be my husband.

Phi Phi

To visit Phi Phi Island, we booked the tour and arranged to be picked up from the hotel at 7.45 am. The tour included island visit, snorkeling, lunch, afternoon tea and pick up/ drop off to the hotel.

We slept late the night before so I was struggling to wake up in the morning. AS was already awake and had his shower. I quickly ran to the shower and got ready. Then we rushed to the rooftop of the hotel for our breakfast. We waited for the van to pick us up to go to the port where the boat was waiting for us to take us to Phi Phi.

The van picked up a few more people on the way to Karon beach where we were briefed on our day. We all were given a sticker so the guide would know that we belong to his group. Everyone introduced themselves and we found out that there were three friends from Poland, a couple from Perth, a couple from India on their honeymoon and a few other people.

We took a speedboat and were on our way. I sat next to AS and held his hand and looked one of the best views I have ever seen. After almost an hour’s ride the boat stopped for our first stop in Maya Bay Island.

Phi Phi (2)

Ever since seeing the movie, The Beach, I have been interested in the island. The view was really breath-taking and the water was crystal clear and the sand amazingly white. The guide told us we had an hour there.

At one end of the beach, there were boats lined up against it. There were so many people on the island, so many boats in the water, and so much going on. Everyone seemed relaxed, taking photos or swimming or lying on the beach getting a tan.

Phi Phi (1)

We decided to snorkeled for a while. It was just beautiful and after a few minutes’ walk on the beach our time was up. So we hopped on the boat again.

After half an hour on the boat, they stopped at a new area for snorkeling.  It is on the other side of Maya bay. The place looked stunning and when we snorkeled, we saw lots of beautiful and healthy coral.

Phi Phi (4)

We stayed about 20 minutes as they fed bread to the fish so they would swarm around us. We saw some great fish, a lot were the same but the colours were bright and they ranged in all sizes. We saw a big bright blue one that shimmered in the turquoise water and with the sunlight shining through. I wish we had more time there but we were back on boat and off to the next stop, Monkey Beach.

As soon as I got to the beach, I saw lots of monkeys around. I am really scared of monkeys so I didn’t dare to go close but AS was running behind the monkeys taking their photos.

The place was just divine and the day was perfect. The guide informed us that we would have our lunch there and then we could go out and explore the place.

We went to this small restaurant where the table was set for our lunch. It was Thai lunch with chicken curry, seafood, vegetables and rice. We love Thai food so I and AS were happy with the food while some of the other people were complaining about the food.

Phi Phi (6)

The lunch was actually quite nicely presented and delicious with a wide array of choices. They also served tropical fruits platter. There were some girls selling ice-cream so I ordered vanilla ice-cream with mango topping and AS ordered chocolate ice-cream with chocolate topping.

I always think having an open mind and enjoying the local cuisine is the best way to explore a new place. That is how you learn more about the food, the place and the people. I have always found Thai people to be friendly and very helpful. The whole time we were there we never had any problem with people or food.

Phi Phi (5)

After the lunch we walked around and took some photos. As we were informed earlier that there would be another snorkeling session in the middle of the ocean so we decided to just walk on the beach and play with the water until we went on the boat again.

The place was really beautiful and I know I could live there forever. I even suggested to AS that maybe we should move to Thailand to live there one day 🙂

Phi Phi (3).

Then it was time for us to go back to our boat. After a short ride, we stopped again and it was another beautiful spot. The water was crystal clear, shiny, with marvellous turquoise colour tones and very clean. It’s a true luxury to take a swim when the water temperature is just perfect so you can cool off from the summer heat. The guide threw some food on the water and we could see so many colourful fish swimming towards us. We were near the reef so the floor of the ocean was just below us.

By the time we were done and were escorted back to the both, both of us were very tired. They gave us some juice and fruits and we were on our way back to the mainland. It felt like a very long time to reach the mainland and we just cuddled and enjoyed the view.

It was great to be in AS’s arms and enjoy the magnificent view of the lovely beaches and surroundings. The van was waiting for us to drop us off at our hotel and a warn shower in the hotel felt beautiful on my skin after the wonderful trip.

Late that night we went for massage and dinner and came back straight to sleep as we had another trip booked for the following day to go to Karbi.

Krabi

We had decided that we also needed to do a trip to Krabi since AS’s cousin highly recommended it. As it was more remote than Phi Phi, she said it had even better views, less people and amazing atmosphere. So we booked our trip through the hotel again. This trip cost us around AUD$80 p/p which also included island visit, snorkeling, lunch, afternoon tea and pick up/ drop off to our hotel.

I was so exhausted from the trip the previous day that I was too tired to wake up and get ready for the trip. AS made sure that I was awake and ready for breakfast before the van comes to pick us up. I took my own time waking up so I had to quickly get ready and rushed through breakfast to catch the van.

As on our previous tours, a van came to pick us up and then picked up a few other people on the way to the port. We were given a sticker and we introduced ourselves. This group was smaller than the one we went to Phi Phi with.

We were doing the trip to three islands of Ko Poda, Ko Gai (Chicken Island) and Ko Tub, with its sweeping three-pronged sandbar, plus the beautiful Phra Nang Cave Beach on the Railay peninsula.

Krabi (1)

It took us more than an hour in the speed boat to reach our first stop in Krabi Koh Poda but it was all worth it when I saw the magnificent view once we reached there. It was a real quiet island and there was one another boat only so I felt like we were in some remote part of the world, far away from civilization.

Krabi (4)

When we arrived it was a sunny day with blue sky. For the holiday we were blessed with perfect weather on every trip we had taken thus far. We had time to relax and see the place while the lunch was getting ready. One of our favourite things to do is to take long walks on the beach.

The remote island meant we had the beach all to ourselves and we enjoyed every minute. I was having so much fun on the beach that I got carried away and made a big heart in the sand and wrote A+ M.

The beach is famous for its white beaches and turquoise water and we were not disappointed. It was great to swim and relax before the lunch was served.

Krabi (3)

After that we went to Chicken Island, with the odd rocky outcrop that earned it its name makes a good photo op. Chicken Island is really called “Axe Island” or Koh Hua Gwan; it was dubbed “that chicken island” by Krabi’s first tourists and the nickname stuck.

After a few photos we were taken to snorkeling sites near Ko Yawasam and Ko See, rocky outcrops with abundant coral reefs and marine life. The backdrop for swimming was stunning with the huge limestone cliffs towering in the background. The sunset over the water was the best I’ve seen.  So beautiful and romantic 🙂

Krabi (2)

For afternoon refreshment fruits were served and I was tired but happy to get back to our warm bed. It was a long ride back to the port and then to the hotel.

We changed, got ready and went for dinner which was followed by an hour long aromatherapy massage and I also had manicure and pedicure.  It was great to be able to relax at the end of the day.

Next stop, Bangkok 🙂

Till then, take care.

M from nepaliaustralia

XOXO

Go to Part 20

You may also like:

*Our Story – Apart again : Part 16 *Our Story – We meet again : Part 18 *Our Story – Meeting the Parents – Part 13