Destination: Bangkok (17 - 21 December 2019)

this trip to bangkok is fully sponsored by by brother, abg ijan! he booked us (my parents amd i) the flight tickets and accommodations. so, we flew with thai airways! actually my sister in law, kak intan was invited to be a lecturer at NIDA college for a couple of months. furthermore, my nephew, izz (abg ijan's son) had a rugby tournament there. initially, only my parents would go but then the invitation was extended to me (i'm one lucky girl, right?! hehe..)

17 December 2019 (Tuesday)

our flight was around 8am from KLIA, we arrived at bangkok maybe around 10am. abg ijan picked us up with a car he rented for the day. ooo, before the trip, abg ijan told me to buy thai travel simcards and it really is convenient. the simcard only costs RM12, valid for 8 days with 19GB 4G data. bought them at lazada. so, on our first day, kak intan took us on boat taxi (public transportation) in bang ka pi area for NIDA college is situated there. later that evening, we went to the hotel abg ijan booked near bangkok. kak intan called grab. for me, the most convenient way to travel if you are in group is by grab. unfortunately, i forgot to activate my debit card (couldn't get the verification code because it was send to my malaysia's phone number) before going there, so i couldn't use grab.

18 December 2019 (Wednesday)

today, i joined a tour booked fat klook to ayutthaya. ayutthaya was capital of the Kingdom of Siam, and a prosperous international trading port, from 1350 until razed by the Burmese in 1767. it is located about 80km from bangkok. early that morning, i walked to the nearest bts station (about 20 min from the hotel). itinerary is as follow. i joined this tour alone since the others had other plan, beside my mother couldn't walk much since her feet are swollen. the real reason i chose this tour in the first place is because thai historical drama series, love destiny! i binge-watched the series at netflix and i kept rewatching my favourite scenes. there are maybe about 20 people in the tour, a mixed bunch, came from different part of the world. since, i'm travelling alone, i had to ask strangers to take my pictures. so, there are not a lot of picture of me. overall, the tour is great and i highly recommend it to all of you!

main casts of love destiny

Bang Pa-In Royal Palace

Wat Lokayasutharam

Wat Phra Si Sanphet

Ayutthaya Floating Market

Wat Mahathat

Sunset boat ride (Wat Chaiwatthanaram)

19 December 2019 (Thursday)

we took a tourist hop on/off boat along chao phraya river. we started at sathorn central pier and stopped at grand palace. here, i went to rent thai traditional cloth from sense of thai. another influence from love destiny. while i changed into the costume, my other family members already entered the grand palace. my mom had to use the wheelchair for her feet were getting worse. we met inside the grand palace. once we explored the grand palace, we went to see thai masked dance performance at Sala Chalermkrung Royal Theatre, it was included in the grand palace entrance ticket. the play was interesting and we got the chance to take picture with a couple of the performers

 after that, we split into two goups; my parents with abg ijan and kak intan, me with the boys, izz and areef. the nephews and i went to wat pho while the others went to mbk centre. the boys act as my photographer of the day, haha and they took beautiful pictures. thanks to them i got a lot of pictures wearing thai traditional cloth worth my rental money! then, we took grab to mbk centre where we had dinner. done with dinner, we went to asiatique with the car rented by abg ijan for the next day we planned to go to Damnoen Saduak Floating Market and Maeklong Railway Market.

tourist boat route

The Grand Palace

Sala Chalermkrung Royal Theatre

Wat Pho

souvenir shopping at Asiatique

20 December 2019 (Friday)

on this day, we went to Damnoen Saduak Floating Market which was about 2 hours drive from bangkok. we took the boat ride but we didn't buy anything much. still the boat ride was fun! we then had lunch at armeen halal restaurant.the restaurant owner didn't speak malay but she told us she received a lot of customers from malaysia. there was another malaysian family eating lunch there as well. if not mistaken, they are from bangi. once lunch is done, we stopped for a while, just to take pictures at maeklong railway market. since it was already late in the evening, not many stalls were opened. most of them were closed already.

Damnoen Saduak Floating Market

Maeklong Railway Market

21 December 2019 (Saturday)

abg ijan called a grab for us to the airport early this morning. it was time to say goodbye to bangkok. maybe, inshaAllah i want to come here again to visit the temples or museums that i didn't get to see.. thank you abg ijan and kak intan for this wonderful trip! may Allah bless all of you, amin~

Destination: Macau (27 - 28 January 2018)

27 January 2018 (Saturday)

As for our first day in Macau, we booked a trip via TripAdvisor. So, by the time our ferry arrived at Macau, our tour guide, Marco was already waiting for us there. We joined a group of other people and took a bus. Here's the list of the places we visited:

• Venetian Macao (the biggest casino in Macau)
• Macau Tower
• Pastelaria Koi Kei (where we bought their famous Portugese Egg Tarts)
• Sarado Square
• A-Ma Temple
• Na Tcha Temple
• Ruins of St Paul (the main attraction that really brought me to Macau, I've seen it from the famous Korean drama series, Princess Hours)
• HRC (we went here by ourselves, it wasn't included in the tour)

It was a very interesting experience going into the casino. Before we were allowed to enter, they will check our passport. Since we visited early in the morning, the casino was quite empty but there were still people gambling. At first, we were afraid that people were going to stare at us (since we are wearing hijab), but apart from the guards at the entrance, everybody just minding their own business (for sure they need to focus fully on their game). We went in for only about ten minutes. The casino was also a shopping mall.

We went to Macau Tower (338m) next. If you are feeling adventurous enough, you could try bungee jumping from the tower. We watched a few people jumped and Marco told us the more women jumped compared to men. There's also a glass walkway and since I have a little fear of height, I walked as fast as I could through it and minimized my looked down. And then we visited all the places listed above (sorry, I couldn't provide the exact details since I forgotten most of them, huhu..)

From HRC,we took a bus ride to our hotel. Our hotel in Macau is so much better even luxurious compared to our hotel in Hong Kong! We freshened up a little and we went out again for dinner and souvenir shopping. Actually our hotel is in the same area as Sarado Square. So we revisited back the places we went earlier and watched the night version. We did all these on foot since it was in walking distance from our hotel.

28 January 2018 (Sunday)

Our last day, we visited Macau Science Center and as you can guest we spent almost three hours here! The center is very large and it offers many interactive exhibitions! It is a very great and interesting place to visit. If you are a fan of science, this is a must visit for you. In order to get there we took a bus. We need to walk a little bit to the nearest bus station from our hotel. After the center, we went back to the hotel to take our already packed bags and took a taxi to the airport.

Destination: Hong Kong (25 -27 January 2018)

Flight Details

Hotel Details

25 January 2018 (Thursday)

• Tsim Sha Tsui
• Hong Kong Museum of History
• Night Cruise
• Hard Rock Cafe
• Temple Street Night Market

Honestly, I didn't remember much about this trip since it was two years ago. So, again like Laos entry, this entry will also be short.. The most distinct thing I remember about this was I took this trip almost right after my manic episode. Our flight was early so we were at KLIA2 as early as 5am. Once arrived, we took a train to our hotel at Tsim Sha Tsui (the whole journey took about two hours). The location of the hotel is very strategic (in the city, easy to access public transport) BUT there was one major problem. It was not as advertised. This was the worst hotel we've stayed in EVER! The owner (who not even a local) was also nor very helpful neither friendly. The room was very small. Luckily we were only there to sleep.

Our flight from KLIA2 and our train ride from Hong Kong International Airport

At HK airport

Our hotel room

Once checked in, we continued to roam around Tsim Sha Tsui and then took another train ride to visit Hong Kong Museum of History. Since both of Miss A and me love museums, we spent almost three hours there. There was a 'World Heritage along the Silk Road' exhibition. Done with the museum, we went to Tsim Sha Tsui Star Ferry Pier to take the night cruise, 'A Symphony of Lights'(60 Minutes). After the ferry ride, we went to Hard Rock Cafe and Temple Street Night Market to but souvenirs. It was quite easy to find halal food in Hong Kong. We then called it a night and went to sleep in our tiny room hotel, for tomorrow we were going to the main highlight of our visit to Hong Kong that is DISNEYWORLD!

Museum Part I

Museum Part II

Night Cruise

Beautiful night scenery

HRC and Temple Street night market

26 January 2018 (Friday)

• Disneyland
• Victoria Peak

We took a train ride to Hong Kong Disneyland and if I'm not mistaken, it was about 30 minutes. We arrived at Disneyland around 9:15am. We already bought the ticket from Klook (it was cheaper than the one bought at Disneyland). So, we had fun and Disneyland, took a lot of pictures. And as you can guess, we spent the entire day there! We left around 6:50pm. Our next stop was Victoria Peak. We took a tram ride but we were a little bit unlucky that day. It was foggy and we couldn't enjoy the scenery as much as we hope to see. Still, we manage to take a few decent photos. That concluded our stay at Hong Kong for the next day, we were going to Macau!

Train ride to Disneyland

At the entrance (so excited!)

Street view

Attractions/Rides

Happy faces

Until we meet again

See how foggy it was (Victoria Peak)!

27 January 2018 (Saturday)

On this day, we were leaving Hong Kong and took a ferry ride (Turbo Jet) to Macau. Our Macau tour guide was already waiting for us there, so to be continued...

Macau, here we come...