2009! No more ALREADY!

Ew, I can't believe I just said that! Wondering what am talking about. It's the title ofcourse. Of all the people, it's me using Singlish lingo in my day to day vocabulary. The latest fad of mine summarizes my 2009: acclimatising to the Singaporean way of life. The lion city as you know is everyone's envy; be it's reputation for being one of the cleanest cities in the world or it's (in) famous water reclamation technology (euphemism for recycled water!), it does give you a few extra nods whenever you mention you are based in Singapore. 2009 marked my second year here and it was another eventful journey for me. Not only did I learn a thing or two about Singapore but I also explored a few other countries, some of which I never fancied (more on that later), not even in the wildest of my dreams. Well, that's nothing new for someone like me who always finds himself in the right place at the right time but just by mere accident. Call it serendipity or whatever you want, I have always found success or happiness in places I least expected them. Since it was a great traveling year for me, let me start from my travel expeditions this year.

January 2009- India-Home

I started my year with a refreshing visit home, after a gap of around more than a year. Back then, I had just got my first few paychecks and was getting a feel of seeing amounts much in excess of my miserly student stipend I was used to seeing in my monthly bank statements. I realized it was a good time to pay a visit to my family, whom I was missing terribly. So I booked my tickets and was ready to set off to my homeland, but wait I was not done yet. I was going home after getting my first few paychecks and I still haven't bought bought anything for my kith and kin. The top priority on my agenda now was to find appropriate gifts for everyone I could think of. I kicked of my shopping with my biggest infatuation: the big G. No not gals but gadgets, for one you can't buy a gal off the shelf and two shopping for gals is one of the toughest jobs in the world and more so when you are not buying gadgets for them. Let's not talk about that and stick to the task at hand: gadget shopping.

Given my dad's infatuation to photography (he had a DSLR when he was 22-23 and a Camera in those days was a rare possession), I was hunting the electronic and print media for deals on DSLR kits but given my poor knowledge in photography, I was heading nowhere in zeroing in on a kit even after a couple of weeks of market and photography research. I was running out of time and I decided to forgo DSLR and turned to my specialty: cellphones. I was looking for nothing too fancy but feature laden for my dad's phone for that's how by dad prefers his machines to be. It was rather easy to decide on Nokia E66: elegant and functional it was just perfect for my dad but I was not sure how many of those fancy features my dad would use. And yeah, I also bought my Nokia 5800 in January from Malaysia (thanks to my friend), for it was not launched in Singapore yet and I was running out of patience after waiting for it for more than 3 months.

Coming back to my India tour, armed with a few souvenirs for my friends and relatives, I boarded the plane to Bangalore. Hitting Bangalore, I was more than surprised by the BIAL airport. I have already blogged about it earlier and as you may know, that post of mine is on BIAL's testimonial now. It felt great to be at home with my family and friends and yeah we even hit the road to OM beach over a weekend for one of my best weekend getaways. Before I could realise, it was time to fly back to Singapore and I was back at my desk by the next working day (after a weeklong break).

February 2009- Vietnam

This is one country, I never thought I would ever visit. Thanks to my Vietnamese friends for not only organizing this trip but also ensuring that we didn't face any difficulties finding vegetarian food in this beef loving country. I missed something rather important here: this main purpose of this trip was to attend our friend's wedding in Hanoi on 19th Feb, but being fun-loving people that we (me and my friends) are, we took this opportunity to get a feel of this beautiful country. We started our tour with a city tour of Hanoi on day 1 and then heading to Halong Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The next day we were back in Hanoi to attend our friend's wedding and thanks to his Mom, who arranged a Bollywood performance for us!

After the wedding day, we headed to Sapa, a hillstation known for it's ethnic minority groups comprising of Hmong, Dao and Tay live. I was personally amazed by the Hmong kids trying to sell some handicrafts to tourists here. You would be amazed by their English, which was better than that of our tour guide! And yeah the kids are persistent, take a look at this video (courtesy-Saurabh) to get an idea on how we were chased:



In all it was a great trip and the first one for our group after our graduation. We wished we could repeat this feat more often and we did!

From Vietnam trip-Feb 09

April 2009-Pulau Besar Malaysia

Photo Courtesy-Linh

If you happen to be in Singapore and you still haven't been to this place, then I must tell you are definitely missing something. This is one of the most beautiful beaches (that I have been to) and is so close to Singapore (just 4 hours by road) and is best suited for weekend getaways. The best part is inspite of its close vicinity to the lion city, it is not touristy as you would expect it to be. The neighboring Tioman islands gets the bulk of tourist crowd, leaving you with peace and unexploited territory to enjoy. Check my post on Pulau Besar for more details.

August 2009-Entau Rompin, Malaysia

Another 3 day weekend and we decided to head to Malaysia again. Having had a blast of a time at a Malaysian island in our previous weekend get-away, we decided to get a feel of the Malysian Jungle this time around. May be we were inspired by Sony India's "Is Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao", which was being hosted in some remote jungle in Malaysia. Well, this one is more for the adventurous pards among us and being one of the hold blooded among them, I was really looking forward to this trip. Did it leave up to my expectations? Well not really, may be I had high expectations, but hey I discovered that I am a good marksman. May be I can give Abhinav Bindra a run for his money. Now, only if he would shoot with a blow pipe, like I did!

Check my post for more details on Entau Rompin and this outing.

September 2009-India-Home

By this time I was missing my family and thanks to my friend for pointing out an ongoing promotion with Malaysian Airlines to Bombay or should I say Mumbai. I booked the flights and didn't tell my parents (infact none of my friends in India) about my visit. I was flying to Mumbai airport for the first time and I wasn't really impressed by the airport. Further the cab driver gave me a grand welcome to the city, flouting traffic rules by a handful in a ride that was no less than a roller coaster ride for me. All throughout the 45 min ride, I was constantly telling myself, "this is India, you were born and brought up here, no need to freak out in your own country!"

The best part of the trip was my grandma opening the door to me and finding just my suitcase at the doorstep (I was hiding at the sides to see her reaction). After a few seconds, I jumped right in front of her and her reaction was something I just cannot put into words! It took them (my family) a couple of minutes to sink-in that I was infact home and after a long time I had mom's food at home and it was just surreal!

October 2009-Japan

JAPAN- This is another country which I never fancied but am glad that I visited this land of Samurais. One of the most striking features of this nation is that its a land of striking contrasts: a place where hedonists and altruists practise their lifestyles in peaceful co-existence. Somewhere in the middle is the bulk of the population here, and more importantly, Japanese are one of the most courteous people you can ever meet. All throughout our trip, we heard so many "Arigatou Gozaimashita"s (Japanese for Thank you very much), that it became a part of our day-to-day vocabulary!



We started with Tokyo touring around Asakusa and Sensoji temple and then moved to Akihabara before proceeding to Shibuya and Roppongi. It was a great start to what panned out to be an amazing trip. I never really found the time to blog about this trip, but it will be coming soon (sooner than you might expect!).


November 2009- Genting Highlands

Photo Courtesy-Pong

After almost 2 years in Singapore, I finally found time and the right group of people to go to Genting Highlands- the gambling abode of Singapore-Malaysia. It's not all about gambling though, it has one of the better theme parks in this part of the world and the scenic beauty is breath-taking. Somewhere midway between the theme park/casino and the foothill is the beautiful Chin Swee Temple where we were put up. It's kinda ironic, how the sculptures in the temple go to great lengths picturing the after-life of gamblers among other sinners in hell; right at the foot of the most (in)famous gambling destination of Malysia-Singapore.

We had loads of fun here with one of our friends winning RM 1300 in the slot machine! Even I won like RM 150 in my very first attempt at slot machine but I didn't play much after that. On our way back to Singapore, we were almost fooled by a local transport company who sold us phony tickets for Kuala-Lumpur to Singapore but then we were too smart for that. We traced the person who sold us the ticket and just when voices were about to be raised, the Police chipped in and the transport company had to make alternate arrangements for us. In all it was a good trip where some of us made more money than they spent!

December 2009-North India




Given the amount of traveling I had done so far in 2009, I had to sign-off in style and what's better than hitting Incredible India for the year end vacation? Technically I was supposed to be a host but being from the South part of India, most of the places on our itinerary were new to me (except for Delhi and Agra). So yeah, I was super-excited about this trip for one I was finally getting to see Jaipur and Amritsar and two I was with friends from four other nationalities, who were eager to get a feel of some of the most popular tourist destinations of the world.

Photo courtesy-Saurabh

Any blog post on this trip is incomplete without reference to this LCD TV I bought for my folks back home. Why did I buy such a huge TV? Well, I wasn't expecting it to be this big to start with? I won it in a bidding event during year-end sale of one of the biggest electronics store in Singapore and the demo model didn't look as intimidating as this package is. It was one of the reasons, our trip got off to a delayed start as the customs officials blew the whole thing wider than 42" of LCD panel! More on that in another post.

Coming back to the trip, oh boy, we had a blast. We covered the Golden Triangle, having landed in Delhi, we proceeded straight to Jaipur, spend 2 days there and then hit the road to Agra. After Agra, our next destination was Amritsar and then we spend the new year's eve in New Delhi, before heading back to Singapore. Another blog post on this trip coming soon.

In all 2009 was a great year for me. I covered UNESCO world heritage sites across three nations- Vietnam (Halong Bay), Japan (Temples and Shrines of Nikko) and India (Taj Mahal, Humayun's Tomb, Red Fort, Qutub Minar)this year. I learned a lot about myself and also got to travel to some of the best destinations in this part of the world. I could have even made it to the Gold Coast on an all paid trip, courtesy Nokia who wanted me to be a part of the fifth and final episode of Nokia N900 Offline As it Happens Campaign. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it to the trip because of the time lag in obtaining an Australian visa for an Indian passport holder. The folks at Nokia were thinking am a Singaporean and hence didn't need a visa to enter Oz land! Anyway, let's now take a look at the video, of which I could have been a part of: