Way Up North part 2

Okay, lets continue from the previous post. Halfway from Hatyai to Krabi, there was an RnR. The place was beautiful and very clean. It also houses a cafeteria for Halal Foods (its southern thailand of course, half of the population were muslims). There were also many malaysians at the RnR as well. There were also stalls selling street food, majority of them were Muslim sellers, so its quite easy to get halal street food. Most of them could even speak Bahasa Malaysia, but with a Kelantanese dialect of course haha. Oh I forgot to mention about the jawi writings i saw back in hatyai. The jawi was writing was Malay, but kelantanese malay of course, it said exit in english writing but in jawi writing, it said Jalan Tubid haha, which means the same. Luckily I had a close kelantanese friend back in university, so i could understand some of their vocabs. But jawi in kelantanese, totally new to me haha.  

A shot of the three of us in the van on the way. Mind the monopod, at the end of it is not a gopro nor a handphone, it is a digital camera which you rarely see nowadays lol

In the van were other malaysians. The two other women were malaysians working at KWSP if i'm not mistaken. They are spending some nights in krabi and then continue their journey up to phuket later. We hung out with them in Krabi.

So the following are somewhere around krabi, not Aonang yet. Oh Aonang is the place where we are headed to in Krabi. 

We eventually reached Aonang around 530pm local time. The scenery was indeed beautiful and magnificent. Its like you are in a movie or something. I am really out of words on how to describe the rocky hills which were everywhere around us and anywhere you look.

But that wasnt just it, there was more for us soon, which I will post the photos in the next blog post. So we settled down for the night and headed out to the Aonang Town Strip, because we were indeed very hungry and in high desire for thai food. There were many muslim shops around, not to worry. So we had tomyam, green curry and prawns with veggies. It was nice. Only costs us RM30 for three persons. Not so expensive for a tourist place lol. They even had these famous krabi pancakes thingy,but the reality is, it was Roti Tisu we call it in malaysia (or very very thin pratha ) add nutella or bananas or whatever to it, and voila! You have a krabi pancake. It was very tasty. I had three of them on my first night there haha There was even a coconut nutella one. I thought they were going to put dry coconuts, but they put freshly sliced coconut pulp in between the pancake and nutella on top. I was like, wow!  It was indeed a unique experience. Oh, coconuts are dead cheap there and really tasty, they use Pandan Coconuts, the really nice tasting fragrant kinds. 

Here is an example of the pancake. The next time i'll go to a mamak, i might just bring a tub of nutella or hersheys chocolate and ask for roti tisu pisang extra planta and no susu pekat manis. I could literally make millions selling these in this country lol. Here are some shots of the Aonang Strip.

Later on that night, we ended up hanging out at the beach and took some photos. Selfies are a must of course lol

Most of the photos were taken with a Fuji F 660 EXR Semi DSLR Compact Camera. It is light and it has manual mode and many other wonderful features. I would totally recommend buying one! So this is for our first day in Thailand, stay tuned for the next post.

All the way up north to reach the south of somewhere

First of all, I didnt get any of my organs stolen. All my kidneys, lungs and etc are in tact. I finally made it up way north by land. I started off my journey to Krabi, Thailand , from Kuala Lumpur Sentral (KL Sentral) by train. yes. train. Honestly, I havent been on long haul trips by train in this country for ages, by ages I mean almost two decades.

We couldnt get the bunk beds to HatYai because they were full, so we had "Superior" Class seats instead. I wouldnt say it was first class airline seats, but the seats were largely comfortable enough for a long journey. Besides, it was a train, i can get up and walk around to the cafe coach. It was cheap too, like seriously cheap, RM48 per person from KL all the way to Hatyai, approximately a 600 km journey.

Talking about  KL Sentral, the mall connected to it is open, it is called "NuSentral" or something. Quite a nice place though, with restaurants and stuff, cinema opening soon too. Hanafi (Ted) and me hung out there before we board our train. Because we had hours before our train departs from KL Sentral. We also had to wait for our travel mastermind Izyan Arina(Yan). It was the three of us, Ted, Yan and Me.

Ted and me got hungry and ate at KFC while waiting for Yan, Then Yan arrive and join us, Then we were called to board our train. The KFC is situated where you wait for your train. Sort of a departure hall. 

Ted's and my stuff

All aboard! A shot for the parents to prove that i'm not going to run away or anything (lol)

Yes, a selfie is a must!

From inside the coach. The seats were big and comfortable.

The night before, I didnt slept much. I slept late and woke up early and went shopping with ted to buy some stuffs for the trip. We decided not to sleep later because we wanted to get a shut eye in the train. We were so wrong haha I still ended up sleeping around 3am. Luckily for us, the cafe coach was 24 hours. So we hung out there for an hour.

Ted being creative with the balaclava or buff or whatever they call em

I joined him too

The last photo before I went dead

These guys shot me while I was sound asleep. They were train zombies/

Ted and Yan were pretty much up all night and even made friends with the train officer lol

We arrived padang besar around 9am to get our passports check and stuff. We were there for around an hour. Didnt took any photos there, as we were morning zombies and very hungry. We boarded the train and arrived Hatyai around an hour later. As we arrived hatyai, we also didnt took any photos as we were in a hurry to reach Krabi. It was a 4 hour ride from Hatyai to Krabi. We reached there and went into the van and continued our slumber. I however was awake along the journey. The rest, since they didnt slept the night before, were sound a sleep. I got to enjoy the journey along Hatyai to Krabi, It was fascinating seeing thai villages.

Fingers off the keyboard for now. I will update more in the next post.

Post Graduation Holiday

Upon graduation, it is an opportunity for unemployed fresh graduate to have some time off after their long struggle to complete their studies. After many heated debates with my parents, I finally get to follow my friends for a trip to Krabi, Thailand, by LAND! woohoo!

So this is basically the first time for me going on a hippy holiday or backpacking or whatever you call it. Its a holiday to be enjoyed on a very tight budget. Very tight I mean tight.

So I will start off my journey from KL Sentral at 1030PM to Hatyai by train. It will take around 12-13 hours. Then from Hatyai I will continue my journey to Krabi by van or bus for another 3-4 hours, and I will arrive in Krabi around the afternoon on the 28th of August. I havent planned on when to get back basically. Hopefully, during the trip I wont get any short notice interviews for jobs haha.

So the train ticket for 2nd class from KL to Hatyai is RM48. I'm planning to stop by Penang on the way back to give grandpa a visit.

Anyway, thats all for now. I hope I will blog from Thailand soon.

Graduation!

This is my first post-graduation blog post. Each time I start writing a new post, it always start with I havent post anything for a long time. Seems that my post writing skills are fading. Anyway, I have graduated! and jobless. Got to where I aimed for, for my overall results and I am extremely happy with it, though I missed 1 semester for Deans List award, which costs me the overall Vice Chancellors Award. Oh well, mistakes were done and realized and accounted for. Time to move on. I hope with whatever I worked for for the past 5 years of post school life was well worth it for my future career!

Anyway, speaking of post graduation, the trend I saw among the people around me (or the people I know on the internet) it seems that upon graduation. comes with tying relationships closer. Some are getting engaged, some are getting married, some are getting babies. Gosh I am getting old. Anyway, all the instagram posts or facebook posts or whatever posts related to marriage or close relationships made me thought, I saw so many long term relationships, as in those that has been in a relationship for many years since high school, university or whatever are starting to get engaged and married. It got me think that all these people are finally seeing the finish line in their relationship, what the hell I've been doing for the past 6 or 7 years?

So I texted a good friend of mine on the matter and here is what I've got from the discussion (written in bold and italic for dramatization):

"You were living your life and testing out waters"

"You were broadening your options"

"And you were making sure that you are always spreading"

-By Halina Zaini 24th of August 2014-

Those 3 sentences made a lot of sense. Anyway, its not like I was not in a relationship or whatever in the past few years. I had a few relationships. But after watching some really good videos on youtube, I realized that my relationships were not because I was ready for the next step and want to go serious, it was merely because I was delusional. Delusional as in everyone else had a gf, why not I? so it was a matter of indirect competition or a society standard of some sort. 

I dont even make a good partner anyway lol. When I was in a relationship, I was not the sort of a control freak. I dont care at all what my partner do or hang out with. I have this principle, "if I'm not married to you, I will not get jealous with whoever you hang out with or whatever you do, you deserve your freedom", lol. Though my partner at that time was slightly the opposite, but I didnt care, I still go out with other people and stuff. Its not like I'm attracted to them or anything, I just like hanging out, especially in very small numbers, large numbers can be chaotic sometimes lol. Though my partner was not very happy about it. She got her freedom, she just doesnt want me to have mine lol We ended breaking up eventually. It was the longest relationship I ever had, if we were still together, we might just get engaged by now. (LOL ME GETTING ENGAGED AT THIS AGE WTF? HAHAHAHAHA) Anyway, I was proud to call her my gf when I was in a relationship with her, though it had some losses, but I guess I am bit wiser now (haahahaha, seriously the "wiser" part is super funny for me hahaaha)

I guess those who are around my age who are already engage or married had their understanding way earlier than other people and its even greater that you got your parents blessing too, because that is normally the hardest part (HAHAHA). 

After the previous relationship, I did not stop searching. There were great women that also caught my eye. But still, I am not ready for it, because I need to be wiser if i were to take care of another soul... (WISER hahahaha, i need to stop with this wiser thingy hahahaha) Honestly, I see myself going into the 30s single and with the "I've been around the world" face haha.

Now I am in the post graduation (unemployment) phase. Hopefully everything goes well in the near future and most importantly I could score some interviews. Right now, I am living on 3-5 hours of Call of Duty Ghost on the PS4 for good brain stimulation LOL. Luckily my dad bought me the PS4 as a pre-graduation present. My PS3 broke earlier this year :(. Anyway, thank you dad! Oh, I heard news the playstation network is out for a day or two. First it was for maintenance as officially told by sony. But now there is news that it is out because it is hacked, because it is not down as it is supposed to be, which was planned to be tommorrow. 

Anyway, that is all from my random post grad ramblings. I will post some more interest things in the near future. Cheerio! 

Quick Holiday Getaway

The semester has started a few weeks ago, so its still early in the semester, for us final year students would understand, the first 2-3 weeks would be considered as "go have fun with your friends before assignments start coming in".

So recently we were faced with haze,dry taps, drought, hot weather, a lost plane and many other stuffs. I decided to have a holiday to somewhere i've never been before, so i decided to go to KUANTAN. I've never been to Kuantan, i've always wanted to go there since the first semester studying in UiTM Shah Alam, i am already in my final semester, so why not give it a go, so i did.

I went to kuantan last week, i stayed at a hotel in teluk cempedak called, TC Beach Hotel. I went there for two days. I have many friends there studying in various learning institutions there such as IIUM and UMP.

So I started my journey on Saturday, the 16th of March 2014. As I woke up in Shah Alam, god the haze was already inside the house, i couldnt even breathe, the house was out of water too. So i had to go to somewhere else to get a shower lol. Around 930, I arrived UM to pick up Miss Atiqah Syahira also known as the infamous Tuna. Somehow the weather was beautiful in KL, she mentioned that it rained in the wee hours of the morning. After picking her up, we were off to Kuantan. I had no idea of how to get there, luckily my best friend "Garmin" was there to help lol. We stopped at Genting Sempah around 1030 ish. Since i didnt aint a thing since the night before, we had brunch at the McDonalds there. The weather was beautiful, it was sunny and the wind was breezy. Tuna managed a selfie before we continued our destination around 1130-ish.

Sorry Tuna, i stole this pic from ur instagram haha 

(i have no idea why my face is so creepy in this pic hahahah)

So it was my first time ever driving through the infamous highway to Kuantan. Along the route, there were so many durian stalls. I wanted to stop by and have a bite, but Tuna aint a durian fan sobs sobs. We arrived Kuantan around 1 ish. We headed directly to the living quarters of the IIUM students and met up with Haidar and Syaima. Around 2 ish, we had lunch nearby a nasi kukus shop thingy. Haidar didnt join for the rest of the trip, so it was just the three of us, Syaima, Tuna and me. Our first stop was IIUM Kuantan of course. We checked out the campus and I was interested in checking out the pool, though it was closed :(

Yes, Dentistry

After checking out IIUM Kuantan, we headed to CHERATING! But first we went to Teluk Chempedak to check into the hotel i'm stayin at.Oh the girls stayed at IIUM.

Click to view full panoramic view!

 We passed through the infamous Gebeng to get to Cherating. The roads in gebeng were ermmm interesting. It is a paved road, but full of red earth, yes, red, literally. We had mild showers along the road and big ass lorries with tyres covered in red dirt, so it kinda gave my car a bad ass makeover haha. We stopped by a "Keropok Shop" to get some authentic keropok and then continued to cherating for a picnic.

Lil' Stiggo here went Rallying (yes, the name of my car is Stiggo the Polar Bear, comel tak? haha)

Cherating Beach

Selfies are a must ( i dont need a monopod, my hands are long haha)

The girls posing with their Roti Kapit Ice Cream

After Cherating, we continued our journey back to a place called Tanjung Lumpur in Kuantan to get some dinner, because we were super hungry. Syaima showed us way to a seafood shop. I seriously forgot the name of the shop, i only remembered it had the word "petai" at the end. The food however was delicious and very cheap. We only paid RM60 for a variety of dishes.

Ikan Bakor!

After dinner, i sent the girls back to IIUM and meet them up later at Teluk Cempedak. So i went back to the hotel to refresh myself and suddenly there was a knock on the door. Guess who it was? it was STOMPEL!!! haha I was so glad he came. Later on in the night, haidar and the girls came and we hung out by the beach. Leah manage to come too. MORE SELFIES!!!

After hanging out, the girls went back to IIUM. While stompel and haidar, we stayed at the hotel. 

Gay Selfie lol

Feed him chicken wing to wake him up

After leaving Teluk Cempedak, we headed to East Coast Mall to meet up with the girls

Gossip Girls

Haidar

After hanging out, we headed to i have no idea where they bought lunch to tapau haha then we went to a beach which i have no idea what the name was, but it was beautiful and we had our picnic lunch there.

Last selfie of the day

Right after our picnic, we said our goodbyes and head to UMP Pekan to send leah. The journey to UMP Pekan was interesting. UMP Pekan itself was also interesting. For the first time in my life, i saw stray cows and sheeps in a university compound, yes, stray... UMP Pekan however, was beautiful, it was right next to a beach. Didnt manage to get any photos there though sobs sobs. So we said goodbye to lea and headed back to KL. Next time i visit kuantan again, i should bring a camera with me. 

The trip to Kuantan was very happy indeed even though it was a short one. And to Syaima, thank you so much for being such an awesome guide, without you we would indeed have no idea of where to go and the trip would be meaningless haha. I am very sorry that i had no idea where to take you to around JB, besides Legoland and JPO during your last visit to JB haha.

Dirty lil' Stiggo on the way back at Genting Sempah