A vacation in the North of Vietnam

Hey everyone,

While the temperatures in Shanghai are rapidly dropping and the rain is splashing against the window, I decided to start writing about my trip to Vietnam in an attempt to make me feel like it's summer again.

During the Golden Week, a week-long vacation that celebrates the Moon festival and the National Day, I was told it would be wise to get out of China, which is usually invaded by tons of tourist groups during that time. So I joined my parents and younger brother on their Vietnam vacation, starting in Hanoi. The first day we arranged a guided tour to the so-called Perfume Pagoda, which is located outside of the city. On our almost three hour drive we passed through many small villages. We were very lucky, because it was the time of the rice harvest and all the village streets were lined with tons of rice grains. Everybody in the villages seemed to be participating in working on the fields, spreading the rice for drying, operating grain machines, and many more activities. In hindsight, seeing these everyday-life scenes was the highlight of the day.

Burning the leftover hey:

Sweeping and packaging of the rice:

Then we arrived at a river and took a small boat to get to the trail leading to Perfume Pagoda:

After a couple of peaceful minutes passed, we noticed some water on the floor of the boat. Soon we determined the source of the water: four little holes that got bigger by the minute. It turned out that the boat owner had just 'glued' some mud on the holes before we started our journey. As soon as all the mud was gone and water was flowing in fast, we were handed a cup and had the task of getting rid of the water. When we arrived our feet were wet and we had learned our lesson on choosing the right boat...

After visiting an old rebuilt temple, we took a cable car up the mountain.

Some shots of the temple:

Finally we arrived on top of the mountain and visited the Perfume Pagoda, a sacred cave. It was however very touristic and not a great motif, so I won't include any pictures.

The next morning we took another bus (this time for five hours...) to get to the Halong Bay, our next stop. We had planned one of the infamous cruises that offered a 24 hour experience on board, cruising through groups of cone-shaped islands rising from the sea.

By then we were a little doubtful of ship-quality in Vietnam... But our cruise ship was very nice and made up for the experience from the day before:

After tanning on the sun deck and a mediocre lunch at the fancy dining room, we and our fellow travellers were dropped off at a little fishing village. At first we were a bit sceptical of the authenticity of the so-called 'fishing' village. It did turn out to be more of a tourist village, but we still had a great time. We did a little tour on a rowing boat (Thankfully it had no holes!) , slowly passing by some turquoise house boats and the iconic islands:

Then we watched the sun set and enjoyed the calm atmosphere of the surrounding sea:

After getting up early to watch the sun rise, we had our final stop and explored one of the several famous caves in the area. It was impressive, but at the same time it was much more crowded than the day before. When we reached the end of the cave, we had a nice view of the bay:

And then our 24 hour cruise was already over... After another 5 hour bus ride, we were back in Hanoi.

The next day, we spent sightseeing in the city center. Hanoi is a bustling and busy city. There are some historic or cultural sights to visit (we went to the Ho Chi Min Mausoleum, the Temple of Literature and the 'Hanoi Hilton'). Except for the mausoleum (which was terrible) the sights were interesting, but it was not the main reason why we liked Hanoi so much. The most interesting gain of our visit came from walking through the small alleyways and street markets of old Hanoi. Since the life of people is happening on the streets, we got a detailed view into the city's both restful and busy character: a group of workers sitting at a small cafe, three old ladies playing cards in the middle of the streets, a mom cooking dinner on a little gas cooker in front of her house, shopkeepers haggling, a butcher chopping a 'hot dog' (this was so disgusting that I don't dare put up a photo on this blog...) and, most importantly, the noise from the thousands of motorcycles. Here are some pics from the streets of old Hanoi:

In the evening, we watched a traditional water puppet show and the next morning our vacation was already over...

... and now it's time for my thoughts to go back to rainy Shanghai.

The blog continues... this time: Shanghai!

Hey everyone,

it has been too long since I last updated my blog. After arriving in Shanghai for an internship at BASF two months ago, and after several comments what happened to my blog ;) I finally realized that it would be a good idea to continue. So here it is, volume 2 of my blog: Shanghai impressions.

The first few weeks

I'm not gonna lie to you: the first few weeks were (again) challenging and exhausting. The first week I stayed at a hotel close to my office, which is located at a chemical park approximately one hour away from the city center. While getting adjusted to the work was already tiring enough, I had to travel to the city center every evening of the week, to find an appartment. After experiencing the vast crowded highways and the lack of restaurants, shops and weekend life in Pudong (the part of Shanghai where the office is), I knew I wanted to find an appartment in Puxi (the 'older' part of Shanghai, aka the city center). However, I noticed soon that distances here are unbelievably huge, compared to European cities and even compared to Taipei. It was difficult to decide on an area to live in, since even a single area in Shanghai can have several million inhabitants, distances to neighboring areas are huge, and it is impossible to walk anywhere unless the place you want to walk to is in a neigboring street. In the end, I decided on an area called Xujiahui, in the south of the center. Appartments there were in my price range (generally, appartments in Shanghai are quite expensive) and the many restaurants and shops, as well as the proximity to the bars and nightclubs of the French concession were just what I wanted. However, it takes me one and a half hours to get to work in the morning, via shuttlebus...

After one week, I found a nice appartment to live in, on the 21st floor with 3 housemates, who are all very nice and sociable, just what I needed after coming to Shanghai all alone. Below is a picture of the center of Shanghai and the area I live in:

After one month Jannes moved in. This is our room right now: Not bad, it even has a balcony!

Below is a picture of our living room. Don't worry, it doesn't always look like this: the picture was taken during our Halloween party.

Finally a picture of my neighborhood (bad quality because I took it with my phone):

It took me another two weeks to get adjusted to my new environment and my work. During that time, I got to know some people, went out to restaurants and bars and had a great time. Then September was already over and time seemed to have passed too quickly.

In the next blog entry I'll tell you about the trip to Vietnam in the beginning of October.

Malaysia

Hey everyone!

It's been a long time since my last blog, I know... So what has happened since then:

After I came back from the Phillipines, my exam period started. In the middle of June, exams were over and my family (my parents and my younger brother) visited me in Taipei for a weekend. The date they chose was a little unfortunate, since this was during 'natural disaster' period. In one week, we had a flooding and 5 earthquakes and the week after that a small Taifoon!

So, as you can imagine, I was very happy to flee from this end-of-the-world scenario to Malaysia, just before the Taifoon hit. I was going together with Jannes and the occasion of the trip was to visit an old classmate of ours (Felix) who was studying in Malaysia for a semester.

The first day, Jannes and I did some sightseeing in Kuala Lumpur. We took the train to the city and were surprised by how clean and modern the surroundings were. The highlight of Malayian trains: a whole carriage is reserved for women.

Here is one of the major attractions in KL: The Petronas Towers:

The next attraction: Masjid Jamek, which used to be the national mosque:

The special flair of KL comes from the very diverse cultural heritage. Next to Malayians, common ethnicities are Chinese, Indian and British/European. Most of these different influences are combined at the Merdeka square, where Colonial residences stand next to the Sultan Abdul Samad Building, all with skyscrapers in the background.

Colonial residences: feels like a tropical Europe:

 Jannes chilling on the Merdeka square:

The Sultan Abdul Samad Building: used both by the old Colonial as well as the current government:

After walking through China town, we ended up at an Indian temple:

In the evening, Felix had invited his classmates for dinner and we joined them. Food in Malaysia is even cheaper than in Taiwan and quite tasty. Next to good food we enjoyed the conversation with the Malayian classmates. We were surprised to hear that two thirds of students at the university were female. We also noticed this ratio at the dinner table (picture by Felix):

Afterwards we went to an amusement park, where I noticed that the concept of 'kitsch' was not lost on the Malayians: the highlight of the amusement park was a 'garden' filled with brightly glowing plastic trees. We also learned that Japanese and Chinese are not the only Asians who love to take pictures. After a one hour photo session with the classmates and being asked by several passerbys to 'model' for their pictures as well, we no longer had the wish to ever become celebrities.

One of the pictures: The girls and me in front of the garden (picture by Felix):

The next day we got up early and started our voyage to Tioman, an island close to Kuala Lumpur together with Felix and his room mate Hanno. It took us a whole day to get there, first taking the bus to Mersing, and then a ferry to the island. We didn't reserve a hotel room, so it took us a good hour to find one. In the end we still were done early enough to enjoy the sunset:

 The next day we participated at a round-island tour. Here you can see our group in the boat:

Our tour wasn't off to a good start. After getting to the first beach, our boat stopped working and we had to wait one and a half hours for a replacement... Not a very promising beginning, especially since big chunks of oil were floating on the water and swimming was made painful by stingy jellyfish. Still, we enjoyed the beach:

Finally, a new boat arrived and we continued our tour:

And then it got a lot better! First, we saw some dolphins next to our boat (picture by Felix):

 Afterwards we stopped at a jetty next to the forest:

On our tour through the forest we saw some nice butterflies, a giant spiderweb and a flying reptile. Here it is walking up the tree:

After a 15 minute walk we stopped at a waterfall. This time it really was a nice picturesque waterfall (not like the one in the Phillipines) and we cooled off a little.

Jannes and Felix in the middle of the waterfall:

Then we did some snorkeling at a coral reef and were positively surprised by the many fish and glowing underwaterworld.

Here is a picture taken with Hanno's underwater camera of me snorkeling:

And after we came back we enjoyed another beautiful sunset at the jetty:

The next day we relaxed on the beach and did some snorkeling again. We saw some nice fish, and took cool pictures of Nemo with the underwater cam:

...Another sunset (picture with underwater cam):

And after a last evening at the beach our vacation was already over...

Overall it was a relatively short and eventful vacation. Malaysia is an exciting country and I feel like there is still much more to see and to go back for.

One week in the Phillipines

Hey guys,

June has started, and with it comes a sad realization: only one month left! Nevertheless, I won't let this get me down, since a lot of exciting travels in Taiwan and Asia still lie ahead.

And, not to forget, I just came back from an amazing one-week vacation to the Philippines, together with Jannes, Nil and Ines (friends from university). Here it goes:

Day 1

Though the island Palawan in the Philippines is only a 3 hour flight from Taipei, it took us a whole night to get there, since we had to wait five hours in Manilla (capital of the Philippines) for our connecting flight. Our first impression of Puerto Princessa, the regional capital of Palawan, was that of a small village: tin huts, rural roads and we could hear chickens crowing in every corner. We were a little surprised by this circumstance and realized that there was nothing much to do in the town. We gladly arranged our departure to El Nido the following day.

Though it was a small town, Puerto Princessa had two interesting sights to offer: one the one hand the many family-owned businesses, usually either convenience stores, hairdressers or any other kind of shop, as you can see in the picture:

And on the other hand its traffic, which was dominated by an abundance of tricycle taxi (motorcycles with a seat extension) which we also used to get around town:

Here you can see the condition some of the tricycles are in....

Day 2

Early in the morning we left for Puerto Princessa's bus terminal, where we took a so-called 'Rorobus' to get to El Nido. It was actually a comfortable journey because the bus was air-conditioned and spacious. We later heard stories from other tourists that took far less comfortable vehicles to get to El Nido, stuffed in tiny vans, or sitting in the normal buses next to dead chickens...

Below: Tired travelers waiting at the terminal in the early morning:

Fortunately this was not our bus:

We arrived in El Nido after six hours and went straight to our hotel. We were positively surprised by the perfect location of the hotel and our room. The hotel itself was outside the small (but busy) village center, in between the forest and the sea. It was always empty and quiet. Our room was right next to the sea and we had an amazing view.

Below: Jannes chilling on our porch:

Planning our trip with Nil and Ines at our hotel:

Enjoying the beautiful sunset:

Day 3

Since we found out the day before that there was no actual beach in El Nido, we planned an island-hopping tour by catamaran to the many karst stone islands that make El Nido a tourist attraction. In the morning we 'set sail' aboard the 'Jasper Jake' with captain Jeffrey.

That day we saw a lot of beautiful beaches, breathtaking karst formations and famous lagoons. While all these sights were without a question amazing, I was a little bit disappointed by the underwater world that we also explored: most corals were dead and the tourism had left its signs.

Nevertheless, all was well above water: we saw many amazing beaches that looked like copies of a travel agency's posters:
 

We visited two of these beaches. Here you can see a happy Jannes, aka Robinson Crusoe, on a more or less deserted beach:

And we had a lunch that the actual Robinson Crusoe would have been jealous of:

One of the highlights of the trip: the big and the small lagoon. Since the small lagoon was just accessible via swimming, I can only share pictures of the big lagoon with you:

Day 4

After the great time we had on our first day in El Nido, we decided to repeat the adventure and arranged another island-hopping tour with captain Jeffrey. This time, we were six people, since Ines had surprisingly met two Spanish friends from her university in Taipei the previous night.

All aboard: our group for island-hopping on the second day:

Again, we saw some beautiful islands and a lot of different fish during our snorkeling sessions. However that day I kept away from some snorkeling tours since I had a bad sunburn on my back from the other day.

Nevertheless, while the others went snorkeling, I was relaxing on the beautiful beach, which definitely wasn't a boring thing to do....

Jannes enjoying the view:

Our boat, the 'Jasper Jake':

We also went to two caves, one of them more spectacular than the other. Especially the visit of the first cave was exiting, since we swam into the cave and did some snorkeling there:

Here we are on our way to the second cave, which was a little hidden away from the beach:

The final highlight of the trip was a stop at 'Snake Island', an island that looked a little bit like a snake due to a thin, long sand arm that was partially underwater and connected two islands together:

Jannes and me standing on Snake Island:

Day 5

This day was a little problematic... Originally, we had planned to leave El Nido early in the morning and take a boat to Coron, an island famous for its diving sites. The evening before we had already arranged a boat ticket. You can imagine our frustration when the travel agent who sold us the ticket informed us only on the day itself that the boat leaving for Coron was overbooked and that we couldn't get a place after all. Since this was the only boat leaving on that day, we were left with no choice and had to stay in El Nido. After doing some calculations, we decided it would also be pointless to take a boat to Coron the following day, since this would only leave us with half a day to spend there. Therefore, we would stay in El Nido for the remaining holiday. Nevertheless, our anger left us quickly, since our past two boat trips had been exciting and we immediately planned another trip for the following day.

Day 6

We made the mistake of planning this trip with another boat, which gave the whole day a more touristic note (we were now traveling with two other couples that we didn't know). Also, the captain was not as experienced, and due to his bad planning we had to leave away two of the original stops. However, we did some nice snorkeling again, and we even saw a couple of big sea turtles!

Again, we saw some cool karst stone-formations:

...and some more:

 Climbing through a little hole to get to a hidden cave:

And at the end of the day we went to helicopter island (aka Joshi island), which you can see me kissing in the picture below:

Next to the funny form, we enjoyed the island's beach, on which we saw a monkey and a big iguana.

Day 7

Our last day in El Nido we spent relaxing and getting a massage/sunburn treatment. In the evening we had a nice dinner at our favorite crepe restaurant:

And then the vacation was already over... Overall, we had a great time in El Nido, despite our failed trip to Coron, doing a lot of adventurous and romantic tours. As I already mentioned, sometimes the islands were a little too crowded with tourists, and the underwater world in El Nido's immediate environment seems to have suffered from this. For an actual diving vacation, El Nido is not a good spot, I think, but for a romantic couple's retreat it was perfect!