Mount Kinabalu Trek (3 Days 2 Nights)

Recommendations

1. Try to spend your first night close to Kinabalu mountain region than the airport. The elevation gained help you to acclimatise.
2. One inner layer and one outer jacket are ok to beat the cold. The temperature at the summit would be around ~2 Celcius. Definitely not under 0.
3. Book your tickets in advance (like 2-3 months). There are restricted number of permits allowed every day.
4. Practice climbing stairs (downwards as well) to strengthen your legs.
5. Use a waterproof hand gloves. You would use ropes and quite a possibility they get wet.
6. One pole is ok. No need to take two. 

Just climbed the highest mountain in South East Asia - Mount Kinabalu (4095 meters above sea level). Though the climb is only 2 days and is far easier compared to climbing Kilimanjaro, you definitely need to train yourself before attempting Mt Kinabalu. I learned through my research that the terrain contains stairs, so this time I spent much time climbing 30 storey building. Twice. Three times a week. This helped me this time but it did affect me a bit while climbing down. Also, I would suggest that you strengthen your arms and shoulders muscles a bit, as towards the top, you need to use ropes as the climb becomes steep.

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Mount Kilimanjaro Trek (6 Days Machame Route)

Recommendation and Tips

1. I would recommend to go for 7 days Machame route instead of 6 days if you have not done high altitude hiking before. If you go for 6 days, then on Day 4 you would be walking a good 8-10 hours (ie cover two days of trekking in one day) followed by 5-6 hours break and then trek again for 6-8 hours summit climb in the night. Not to forget you have to climb down as well. It becomes just too much to handle if you are not trained.
2. Make sure you have your toe nails trimmed. Mine was not and it hurts while climbing down as trekking shoes are hard from inside.
3. Generally people do safaris after climbing Kili. Serengeti has so much to offer compared to Lake Manyara/Tarangire.
4. You could rent most of the trekking stuff from your tour agent. I was booked with Zara Tours and their collections were good quality.
5. I ended up paying a tip of US$250 (in a group of four climbers) plus some additional for an assistant guide.
6. Dinner will be served by 6:30-7pm everyday. Suggest to come out of your tent by 9 or 10pm to view the beautiful sky.
7. Yellow fever certificate is usually required for African and South American countries. It was not required for India or Singapore residents.

What did I train on?

You will find many itineraries, experiences online so I will try to cover something else in this post. This is the first time I did a trip on my own, and mountains and hiking were never close to me. So it would be wrong to say that I was not nervous. I was but I read a lot and made sure that I have a good exercise regime to train up. I was going gym three times a week and spending most of my time on walking treadmill 15 degrees incline at 3.5 km/hour for 45 minutes. Followed by climbing steps up to 30 floors (gradually increasing it to 90 floors). Followed by squats. Now after climbing, I realize that spending time on following will help in your climb - on your shoulders (as you carry nearly 5 kgs everyday), on climbing down and on your back. I would have been better off if I had worked on these.

Boracay Island - 3 Nights/4 Days Trip

Just completed a 4 Days/3 Nights trip to beautiful Boracay Island. Here goes my recommendation

Recommendation and Tips

1. Try to arrive at Caticlan aiport instead of Kalibo. 2-3 hours can easily be consumed while traveling from Kalibo to Caticlan jetty port where you will be taking a boat ride to the island. Caticlan airport is just 5 minutes ride to the port.
2. We made end-to-end journey reservation from Kalibo airport to our resort via Southwest tour. It costs ~560 pesos per person. You could buy tickets on arrival as well.
3. We loved station 2. Reserve a hotel that opens up to the beach. We chose Boracay Regency.
4. Take a mat and lie down at the beach in night. You will not regret the view of the sky.

We loved Boracay Island for two reasons - Phenomenal Sunsets and Excellent White Sand. Both of these things made our journey quite memorable. Although, reaching Boracay Island is not so straightforward. From Singapore it could take anywhere from 9-11 hours (end-to-end time). So I feel that you should plan for at least 3 complete days to enjoy the beach.

There are lots of sports activities available in Boracay - you could go para sailing, island hopping, banana boat, snorkeling, sunset sailing etc. We did not do any of this as we have done all in some other trip. Just relax on the beach, take a dip in the water, drink and read a novel. Just destress ;)

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11 days visit to New Zealand - South Island

Recommendation

1. Choose good AirBnBs (which are a bit high on a hill, we chose at Fernhill and Frankton (both in opposite direction to get diff views) in Queenstown. You will not regret it
2. If taking helicopter ride on Franz Joseph, chose the one which drops you higher (HeliHike) for further hiking. Glaciers are receding.
3. Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki offer unbelievable views. It should be there in your trip.
4. Going to Puzzling World (in Wanaka) on a hot day could lead you to frustration when searching for routes in the maze.
5. You should book a good car (higher power) as many drives pass through mountains.
6. Accommodation in Milford Sound (only one lodge) gets filled up pretty fast, so book them early if planning to go during festive season.
7. There are lot of scenic routes in South Island, so you would want to stop at every point to take pics. At most places, you would find look out point which will anyway offer spectacular views. So follow the signboards.

New Zealand South Island journey has been the most spectacular journey thus far. Routes are most scenic, first time on glacier - hiking, different color lakes, milford sound, seals, beautiful views of queenstown, gorges etc etc. We avoided Sky Diving and Bungee as we have done it before. But in all, driving south island is a ggreat package. I'm listing down my journey route, nights we spent at different places and costs etc to plan your own trip. We landed in Christchurch and decided to go anticlockwise as shown in figure below. From my research, it didn't appear that we should be spending anytime in ChristChurch so we left directly from airport and stayed at Hokitika.

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EuroTrip - 14 days Trip to Switzerland, Italy and Austria (Part 3)

Part 1
Part 2

So finally got the time to write about the third leg of our Eurotrip - first being Switzerland and second Italy. Our last 4 days were spent in musical cities of Austria - Vienna and Salzburg. Here are my recommendations and tips -

Recommendation/Tips

1. Use Rick Steves audio guide to tour Vienna. They are good
2. Most of the things to see in Vienna is around St Stephens Cathedral, so you may want to look out hotel for rent closer to this area
3. There are lots of people (dressed properly) outside the Opera House selling tickets. Do not get tricked into their sweet talks as they sell for more and gives you seat which may not be good to view the stage
4. You should have legendary Sacher tart at Sacher Cafe near Opera House, Vienna
5. In Salzburg - go to Wolfgangsee lake (via bus) and hire an electric boat. You can then visit the entire lake on your own. Shop closes before 6pm
6. Ride a bicycle in Salzburg to visit places like Hellbrunn palace and the fort. You will enjoy the ride

Click on Read More link below

EuroTrip - 14 days Trip to Switzerland, Italy and Austria (Part 2)

Part 1
Part 3

This post covers 5 days trip itinerary to Italy that includes 2 days in Rome, 1 day in Florence and 2 days in Venice.

Recommendations/Tips

1. Follow Rick Steves Guide for monuments visit in Italy. They are good and free to download
2. Buy entry tickets online to avoid queuing in the lines
3. Stay close to Pantheon area in Rome to enjoy  wonderful street lane experience
4. While booking a hotel in Venice, see if you could get a room facing a canal. You will get a good experience of Gondolas passing by
5. When you (as a couple) take a Gondola, prefer sharing it with 2 more people; otherwise it is difficult to take pictures of yours as a couple
6. Have Gelato ice cream every day :-)

We had earlier planned to stay in Rome for 3 days and rest in Venice. But many of my friends told me later to not miss Florence, so I shortened Rome by one day and gave half day to Florence. We used AirBnB and chose a place close to Termini station. Owner of the house was an old Italian lady and she made sure that our stay was as comfortable as it could be. On the first day we visited a lot of places because of our shortened trip. We followed Colosseum > Palantine Hill > Roma Forum > Venezia Palace > Piazza Navona > Pantheon > Trevi Fountain > Spanish Steps > Colosseum (in Night).  You could avoid Palantine Hill and Spanish Steps if you are in a hurry. All others are just masterpieces which cannot be avoided at all.

EuroTrip - 14 days Trip to Switzerland, Italy and Austria (Part 1)

Part 2
Part 3

The Eurotrip has ended and, gosh, what a splendid trip it was. 14 days trip to the serene natural beauty, magnificent historical architectures, lakes and monuments that you attach with your childhood memories passed so quickly that two weeks of vacation felt less. We visited Switzerland, Italy and Austria on our debut Europe tour. Choosing countries/cities in Europe is always difficult and the foremost thought behind our planning was to have a mix of few things. So we started off with a visit to Switzerland to see the natural snow-capped mountains, followed by visiting architectural monuments in Italy and, finally, ending the trip with visiting the musical cities in Austria. In all, I was very happy with my planning as we found that just doing one thing, such as visiting monuments, churches, etc, would become utterly boring. After seeing so many beautiful churches in Italy, I doubt if I can go and see another beautiful church which is just across the street in Paris. So, in that way we never got bored and always looked forward to what the next city has to offer.

Planning was done entirely by us which took a bit of time, lot of reading, however, it was a great experience as I read a lot about what to visit and not visit and filter out unimportant things. We visited Interlaken, Jungfraujoch (Switzerland), Rome, Florence and Venice (Italy) and Vienna, Salzburg (Austria). Wonderful experience it was. I’m helping out with our itinerary (click Read More below) and places to visit, our experience, fares to visit monuments and few tips that may help you with your planning.

Places/Countries Visited in the World

One of my criteria to come to Singapore for my higher studies was travel. Travel across the world. And the below figure shows the current status. These are the countries where I have gone on holidays. There are more countries that I have visited like Vietnam, Malaysia etc but only for business. So, I have not marked those.

1. The best has been Capetown so far, but diving in Cairns is not behind at all.
2. South America, Europe and South Africa (other than South Africa) are largely untouched. Even US for that matter.
3. There are just so many countries/continents left :-(

South Africa - Cape Town and Kruger Safari

Continuing our travel journey, I went to South Africa this christmas and new year. I must say that I'm really impressed by Cape Town and Kruger National Park. So far, this experience has to be the most amazing; surpassing the Great Barrier Reef - Cairns that I did six months back.

The Safari
We took a flight from Singapore to Johannesburg (via Dubai) and booked our safari at Naledi Enkoveni in Balule Private Nature Reserve. We chose Balule as it has Olifants river passing by and Naledi is ranked 1 in that area. And Naledi did a fantastic job as well. We planned for 4 safaris (2 each day) which we regret because we both just loved the safaris and believed that we should have spend an extra day. We were able to view Lions, Hippos, Rhinos, Elephants, Impalas, Giraffes, Buffaloes, Zebras, Kudus, Dears, Wildebeest, warthogs and many others. The joy of finding them in a humongous jungle and then spending one hour watching them and listening to ranger's amazing stories about animals is unbelievable. We went pretty close to these animals and trust me there is no need for Binoculars. Yeah, of course you see animals pretty close in zoos, but then the animal has been trained to sit in the cage or the limited open area. In jungle, the excitement is there all the time. You need to find the animal, chase them and finally spent time watching them. We spent at least 45 mins watching each of the big four and trust me never felt that 45 mins were so long. The safari has left both of us with special memories and believe that we will be doing another later in our life. Some of the pictures below.

Cape Town
We then returned from  Kruger to Johannesburg and took a flight to Cape Town. Cape Town is a very beautiful city and offered lots of areas/places to go. We had 6-7 days and we spent every day doing only one activity. I guess we are changing as in our previous travels, we were focusing on our checklist - that is how many things have we seen. In this process, you get see many things, but surely one does not spend too much time about extracting pleasure out of seeing that unique place or thing.
We rented a car, which was a good thing because we came to know later that during the christmas and new year time, there were just no cars to be rented in any of the well known car rental companies. So, book your car well in advance.

We visited following places and all of them are beautiful.

1. Table Mountain - Gosh, what a beautiful place it is. Pleateau on the top of a mountain. We spent 5 hours on the top and experienced amazing weather change from clear to windy to cloudy to clear. Amazing views. Watched one of the best sunset ever.

2. Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens - Again a fantastic place. Amazing weather, beautiful scenery all around.

3. Stellenbosch and Franschoek - Lots of wine yards in these two areas. Was so much impressed by the overall scenery that decided to go twice to this place. You should do wine tasting (at least couple of times). Wines are very cheap as well. So make sure you get couple of them when you return back.

4.  Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope - Place where Atlantic meets Indian Ocean. The entire drive to Cape Point is absolutely amazing. One should drive from the Indian Ocean side and return back from the Atlantic. This way you can see amazing sunset while coming back as well as take a sundown drink at Camps Bay (Happening place). While going to the Cape Point, you should definitely stop at Boulders Beach to say hello to Penguins. Yes, Penguins .. can you believe it? Also, we were lucky to see a group of Ostriches while going from Cape point to Cape of Good Hope. You turn your car and you see Ostriches on the road. This is amazing and thats why South Africa made me surprised so much.

We missed Robben Island because tickets were all sold out due to so much tourist traffic. But I have been to Alcatraz before so it was ok for me.

Overall, this was a well spent christmas and new year. Hope to visit safari soon. But now next summer I believe is a time for some architectural visit. Lets see where journey takes me in June.

Great Barrier Reef - Natural Wonder of the World

Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is one of the seven wonders of the natural world and the only living organism visible from outer space. The images of the reef at Google Image Search excited me tremendously and the thought of going there and experiencing the marine life gave us goosebumps during the trip planning. Here and there, just decided to go there and experience the most divine, natural, unperturbed marine life on earth. But there was more to come other than just Marine Life.

As we grew our search, we came to know that GBR is much more than marine life. It is an excellent destination where one can not only enjoy the marine life, but also experience beaches, beautiful view of cairns via skydiving and excellent road trip to Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation. The more and more search grew our confidence that we are really going to a place we ever envisioned  we would go in our dreams.

Finally, after spending lot of hours finding about what all things we should do we came with a 7 days itinerary for our trip. The main things that we decided to do were -

• 2 days and 1 night cruise in the reef, 
• sky-diving from 14000 feet, 
• road trip from Cairns to Port Douglas to Cape Tribulation and 
• 3 days - 2 Nights stay at Sheraton Mirage, Port Douglas.

Let me share my experience with the important areas/activities I covered during this trip.

Great Barrier Reef
Well, if you havent done scuba and snorkeling in your life, I learnt during this trip that how refreshing it is to know more about the life that exists in the water. We booked our tickets on Ocean Quest for 1 night and 2 days trip. In these 2 days one can do upto 5 snorkeling dives and 2 scuba dives. For diving you dont really need to know swimming. There will be a guide who will make sure that you can dive well. I was impressed with the physical strength of these guides. During snorkel, one guide could carry two people along with him easily. All you need to do is to clutch the swimming pad and move your legs. And the guide will pull the pad via rope. Awesome !!!

I would recommend you to take a camera which I didnt do. Although they will take pics of you in your scuba dive on the first day, but you get to see the beautiful corals with unbelievable colors during the snorkeling time and you just want to capture the moments, the unimaginable corals, the violet-blue-orange-brown-green-and god knows what all colored fishes, the giant clamp, turtles, star fish etc. We got many pics clicked and here is one with the wally.

 First night at the reef was also very special. I have never seen so many fishes, sharks together. The guide focused the lights closer to the boat which attracted all kinds of fishes. The movement was so fast and since it was dark, it is nearly impossible to get a good picture with a normal camera. The below picture captures the moment but it is a bit hazy.


The food was ok and Ocean Quest cook did make something for us who are vegetarians. The rooms are decently sized (only issue could be that the bed is slightly wet once you move into the room). But I believe in the scheme of larger things, these small issues are ok. We got to experience changing weather, sunset, sunrise and what not.

Sky Diving
After our 2 days excursion at the reef, it was time for sky dive. We booked our tickets at SkyDive Australia. We had our full trust on our guides (what else we could do otherwise). As the plane started to take off, the feeling of doing something like this was apparent on our face and hands (due to goosebumps). As the small aircraft lifted, we got the glimpse of beautiful cairns. The sky was clear so the sight was awesome. As we were climbing high, the temp was dropping. The moment of truth arrived when we reached 14000 ft and the guy slided the gate and asked to sit on the edge of the plane with our legs hanging in the air. The feeling cannot be described here at all. Everything was there - excitement, fear, disbelief of falling through the sky, hearing your heart beat in that tremendously loud aircraft noise, thinking if parachute will open up or not and what not. The guide just asked us to cross our hands, move a bit back and then he pushed me and himself out of the plane. I have absolutely no idea what happened at that point in time. I was falling, just falling and I dont remember anything probably for 5-10 seconds. And then I was like got into the world of consciousness when the guide tapped my shoulder (it was an indication of making an arc shape). And then I realized that I was falling, falling and falling. I was screaming hard but I could not hear my own voice; the air was gushing so fast through my ears that it was nearly impossible to hear anything. And the guide used his hands to do all the maneuvering, move in circles - clockwise, anticlockwise etc. The free fall lasted 60 secs and the parachute opened at around 4000 ft height.

I was spellbound and it is easy to say that this has been my most incredible time of my life. I dont know if I my going to do it the second time, but this is one such event which I will never forget (even if I want to).

Road Trip to Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation
Immediately after sky diving, we rented a car from Hertz and started our journey to Port Douglas. Stopped at 3 beaches during our journey and took fabulous pictures of the scenery around. Port Douglas is a very small town and we relaxed for next two days. We booked our place at Sheraton Mirage and had a good stay there. The hotel has a big lagoon which was very good to swim and relax. On our last day we went ahead to Daintree Rainforest. We then further drove to Cape Tribulation. Cape Tribulation is the place where beach and rainforest meet. But after the trip we felt that it was too long a drive to go there. It could be avoided because it is no vastly different from many other beaches we went.

In all it was a very satisfying trip, had never been to such a place and enjoyed to the maximum. Keeping the advice of our friends alive in our heart and mind, we look forward to another exotic and wild destination in December 2012.

The planning has begun.