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I’ve been meaning to write about my Hong Kong trip for months now. It’s been postponed for nearly 5 months. Oh well, better late than never.

I was in Hong Kong from 27 December 2010 till 1st January 2011. A good 6 days and 5 nights I must say. Initially before I went there, I didn’t know what to expect. I know Hong Kong is one of the Asian tigers and I imagined it to be very developed; similar to Singapore. Boy, was I in for a surprise.

Day 1 (Monday, 27th December 2010)

Related posts: Hong Kong Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 (Day 4 to 6 coming soon)

We arrived in Hong Kong Airport around 9AM. The airport is, as I expected it to be, massive and modern. From there, we took the Airport Express Line to Hong Kong Station, which is on Hong Kong Island.

Note: click on images to enlarge

Hong Kong MTR map

I was shocked to discover the Airport Express Line made us cross 3 islands under water! From Lantau Island (this is where the airport is located), to Tsing Yi Island, to Kowloon, and then finally Hong Kong Island. From Hong Kong station, we took a cab to Wan Chai. We could have taken the MTR but we had large bags to carry around.

Over the next few hours of exploring the city, I got the shock of my life to see how advanced Hong Kong really is. Their skycrapers, their public infrastructures, the amazing MTR, the public transport system, how systematic the people are, everything is just mind-blowing. They are definitely way ahead of Singapore in terms of development (which is my initial benchmark of an advanced South East Asian country).  It’s a good thing I stayed there for 6 days as the shock really took a while to settle in.

View from the apartment

We stayed in Wan Chai (one of the districts in Hong Kong), at one of our friend’s apartment. The friend had a nice cozy place on Queen’s Road. The unit was on the 27th floor, which is very high by Malaysian standards. From the apartment’s balcony, I could see other buildings around us were much taller. It’s amazing to see tall buildings being quite near to each other and each of them are about 30-40 stories high (photo below)

Tall apartments close to each other

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Day 3 (Sunday, 27th March 2011)

Related posts: Siem Reap Day 1, Day 2, Day 3

Part of the tour package we signed up with Seagul Tourist was a half-day visit to Tonlé Sap. In Khmer, Tonlé Sap means “Large Fresh Water River” but it is popularly translated as “The Great Lake”. Tonlé Sap is the largest freshwater lake in South East Asia, 2^nd largest in the world.

Note: click on images to enlarge

Tonle Sap Map

The Tonlé Sap is a major attraction for two reasons: the lake expands and shrinks dramatically based on the monsoon season. From November to May, Cambodia’s dry season, the Tonlé Sap drains into the Mekong River at Phnom Penh (2,700 square km). However, when the year’s heavy rains begin in June, the Tonlé Sap backs up to form an enormous lake of nearly 16,000 square km! That’s with 8 meters gained in depth! (check out the map above for the difference between dry season and wet season)

On the way to the Tonlé Sap jetty we passed by a few villages. It was interesting to note that the traditional village house in Cambodia looks exactly the same as the one in Malaysia. Even the sarong and the top that their women wear looks similar!

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Day 2 (Saturday, 26^th March 2011)

Related posts: Siem Reap Day 1, Day 2, Day 3

Today is our 1 day Angkor tour. Soknin (our tour guide) picked us up around 8AM. We headed straight to the Angkor registration counter. There were different counters for different ticket types.

• 1 day pass: USD20
• 3 day pass: USD40
• 7 day pass: USD60

Since we signed up for the 1 day tour, Soknin went to the counter to pay and collect our tickets. We also had to line up to take a photo ID for our 1 day pass. The photo ID is used to enter the various temples that we’ll be going on later.

Angkor registration

Our first stop was Angkor Wat. OK, for those who are not familiar with the Angkor temples, refer to the map below.

Angkor Temple Map

Angkor Wat is only 1 of the many temple complexes in the whole area. The Angkor Wat complex is 1.5KM by 1.5KM. And other complexes are way bigger than that. It was after I visited Angkor Wat that I realized I should have taken either the 3 day or 5 day tour. I’m a big ancient history buff and there were other temples complexes that I wanted to see that are just too far and couldn’t be covered within the 1 day trip.

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Day 1 (25th March 2011)

Related posts: Siem Reap Day 1, Day 2, Day 3

This is my blog entry of our 4 days 3 nights trip to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We took the Air Asia Go package for RM1139. Below are the details:

• Hotel (Prince D Angkor Hotel) + Flight = RM865
• Transfer from airport to hotel = RM12
• Transfer from hotel to airport = RM12
• Angkor Wat 1 day tour (small circuit) = RM161
• Tonle Sap floating village morning tour = RM89

We arrived in Siem Reap around 7:45AM, just as scheduled. I was impressed with the airport. It was modern, the staffs were friendly and it was of modest size (for a town like Siem Reap).

Siem Reap Airport - baggage collection

Baggage pickup was a breeze as our flight was the only flight that arrived that morning. On our way out some of us converted our US Dollars to the Cambodian Riel. The exchange rate was around USD1 = 4000 Riel. I didn’t change any as I’ve been told the US Dollar is very much in use here (due to the fluctuations of the Cambodian Riel).

Near the exit, I spotted an Axiata Hello mobile service provider shop. Axiata is a big Malaysian mobile brand, hence I walked over to see what packages they were offering. Turns out the prepaid plan (USD 10) had good value for money. I was mainly interested in the data plan as I’m a facebook and twitter on-the-go kinda guy. They have a prepaid Blackberry plan where the daily data plan is USD0.75 for 10MB. I signed up for that one. Activation took around 5-10 minutes and right after that I was able to tweet and facebook immediately.

Siem Reap airport - pickup

We were greeted at the entrance of the airport by a tour guide from Seagull Tourist, Mr Thun Soknin. A very polite and friendly Cambodian. He explained to us basic Cambodian culture, 2 of which I shall point out here:

1. Cambodian women do not shake hands with men, they only do the Sampeah
2. The Sampeah has 4 different “respect levels”, from friends or peers (at chest level), to adults or parents (at mouth level), to Buddhist monks (at forehead level) and finally to god or Buddha (above your head)

It is interesting to note that Malay custom has a similar concept when performing a “sembah” (similar to Sampeah) to royalty. For example, in the Perak royal court, the sembah at mouth level is done to “Raja bergelar”, the one at forehead level is performed to “Raja Muda” and the one above your head is performed for the Sultan.

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Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa

Finally, the long awaited Malaysian movie of the year was released a few days ago. For those who haven’t heard of this movie, check out the trailer below. Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa is based loosely on the actual Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa that written in the 16th Century (historians are still unsure exactly when it was written).

I went to see it with my family a few days ago and this is by far the best action-epic movie that a Malaysian producer has ever made. It was amazing. The cast, the fighting scenes and the special effects.

Anyway, here are my reviews [SPOILER ALERT]:

• Very good action scene. Fast paced, realistic fighting choreography and impressive show of epic battles
• Interesting plot with sub-stories, although they could improve by providing more depth on other characters
• Excellent casting. They got the perfect hero, and the heroin
• Brilliant display of culture and dressing of the time (~2nd Century CE)
• Beautifully written classic Malay language, especially the poems, absolute classic
• Not so brilliant choice of music, they should have created a proper theme song
• The ending was a bit rush, you would agree if you had watched it. They could use a few more scenes to show what happened after the battle. For example, they could use a scene to show Merong’s body brought back to his village and Embok crying over his body, while putting her hand on her tummy (she was pregnant), saying “zuriat-zuriat mu akan berlansung dari kandunganku and jadilah mereka raja-raja yang teragung di tanah ini” (English: your descendants would live on from my womb and they would be great kings of this land). Yes, that was my modest attempt at classic Malay.

All in all, it was a great effort by KRU Studios. I felt really proud watching it. Malaysian production has come a long way, and this movie is definitely gonna make it internationally. They have room for improvement, and I hope from here onwards we’ll be creating even bigger and better epic movies!

Last week me, my brother and 3 other friends went to Kinabalu Park, with ambitions to scale the peak of Mount Kinabalu.

Before I start off, here are some basic facts about Mount Kinabalu:

• It’s 4095 meters high (13,435 ft).
• It’s the highest mountain in Malaysia, 3rd in South East Asia
• 20th in the world (in terms of peaks by prominence).

I first attempted to hike up Mount Kinabalu back in October 2010, but failed at Laban Rata, which is at 10,734 feet. I was affected by acute mountain sickness (AMS, also known as altitude sickness) and that essentially was the end of my trip. I didn’t do my research thoroughly and at the time I was hit by altitude sickness, I didn’t even know it was that! I thought it was some sort of severe headache or fever!

According to online guides, one of the ways to prevent altitude sickness is by having extreme fitness (yup, that’s right, extreme) or by getting Diamox. I’ll write a separate article on Diamox later. I figured I’ll never get anywhere near extreme in terms of fitness, but I guess improving mine by a lot would definitely help. Some people get altitude sickness, and some don’t. You might be as fit as a marathon runner and still be affected by altitude sickness (to a certain level). It’s a genetic thing. Everybody’s different. But by having a high level of fitness, you can somehow reduce its affect to a tolerable level.

The key takeaway from my failed attempt was that the mountain is a harsh place. Only people that have attempted high altitude hiking would understand what it really takes to scale mountains. It does not discriminate against men or women, the young or the old. That is the key thing that you must understand when dealing with high altitude hiking.

Training Regime

My training involved lots of running on different gradient level. For 4 months, I ran around 2-3 sessions a week, in which  each session would be 6KM long and I’ll be running up and down the hills in my neighbourhood. I would constantly push myself to ensure I’ve maxed out my energy and stamina in each session. To be honest there are certain sessions that I end up throwing up after running due to overexerting myself.

Hike

So, after some serious training, I headed back to Kota Kinabalu on 22 January 2010. I used the same travel guide, MatthewPaul Travel and Tours (email: matthewpaultravel@gmail.com). We arrived at Kinabalu Park around 4PM. We checked-in into our park accommodations. We were all excited with the chill weather.

Kinabalu Park - accommodation

Kinabalu Park - our room

Meals are provided at Balsam Restaurant, which is near Kinabalu Park’s HQ. The restaurant is a 10-15 minutes walk from our rooms, but with the chilly weather and the rich view of the forest around us, we really enjoyed walking along the path and inhaling the fresh cold air around us.

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Tan Son Nhat International Airport

I didn’t set my expectations very high. Being a socialist country with a deep war history, I figured the development would be about the same as Jakarta, or perhaps less. I was in for a big surprise when I landed at Tan Son Nhat International Airport (HCMC’s international airport). Their airport is modern, clean, efficient, and they really captured my heart with the “ASEAN” lane. Their airport is miles ahead of Jakarta’s sleazy and dirty airport!

Caravelle Hotel

We checked into Caravelle Hotel, which is right smack in the middle of District 1. We had a nice view of the city. One smart thing that I did in this trip (which I should have done for the Jakarta trip) was that I got myself a travel guide book. I highly recommend getting a travel guide book to everyone as it helps you to plan your trips better and so that you know what are the key attractions of your destination.

HCMC Travel Guide

Halal @ Saigon

As all of us were hungry, we went to explore the nearby areas for restaurants. Mum smsed her friend to see if there are any halal restaurants in the area. Surprisingly, our hotel is quite near to the Muslim quarter in the city. We reached the Muslim area less than 10 minutes. We had lunch at a restaurant called Halal at Saigon. The food was awesome and reasonably priced. I was surprised to find the staff there speaking Malay! Later I found out the owner is a Malaysian lady, so perhaps they learnt from each other?

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I’m a history fan. Recently, I found out that Matahari Books started a project to rewrite Sejarah Melayu in a lighter and easier to read version (they also added humour to it). Link below:

http://www.mataharibooks.com/sejarahmelayu/

They call this project Sejarah Melayu Reloaded. After reading a few chapters on their website, I started promoting it to my family and friends. I insist that they must read it.

Sejarah Melayu

I totally understand the difficulties in reading old text. I have my own hardcopy of Sejarah Melayu at home. You have to be a die-hard history fan to want to read the original copy. Just like Shakespearean English, the original Sejarah Melayu has an elaborate (not to mention archaic) language structure that the average person would have difficulty understanding. The Reloaded version is funny enough that it builds up interest for the average reader. What better way to make the younger generation understand history better!

Kudos to the guys at Matahari Books! If you guys ever produce a printed version (perhaps with some pictures in it), that’ll be awesome!

I went for a short holiday with my mum and sister to Jakarta from 3rd August to 5th August 2010. I had a few days of leave to burn hence the short notice travel. Getting the tickets was easy as AirAsia’s website (AirAsiaGo) was really user friendly. They also offered amazing rates hence I chose the best hotel offered, the Mandarin Oriental.

Our flight departed at 7AM and we arrived some 1 hour 55 minutes later. My first impression of the Jakarta airport was that it was exactly how I had it in mind, a similar version of the Subang airport back in the 90s but slightly more dull. What I didn’t anticipate was the power outage. Yes, there was a blackout just as when we were passing Customs for 5 mins.

Our transport to the hotel from the airport was smooth as there was somebody waiting for me there. The taxi system was efficient (we took the Silver Bird) and it’s meter based. The trip to the hotel took us nearly 1 hour and the cost was 270,000 Rupiah (~RM90).

View from hotel

The Mandarin Oriental was superb. It was the only thing throughout the whole trip that exceeded my expectation. The service was top class, the room was amazing with a fantastic view of the city. The restaurant had an excellent choice of ala-carte menu and a mouth-watering breakfast buffet. If  there was something about the trip I was pleased about, it was the hotel. Definitely worth the money.

Plaza Senayan

Senayan City

In the afternoon (on the same day we arrived), we took a cab and went to Plaza Senayan. Apparently it’s  similar to KL’s Star Hill. I wasn’t there to shop but I had to accompany sister & mum as they had things they wanted to check out. After that, we went to Senayan City, which was right in front of Plaza Senayan. 

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Given the scenario, you might find yourself not being able to access your task manager (local network policy, company policy, user access rights etc). And the thing is, sometimes, you just need to access it to kill an app, or to kill a process, or to check the computer’s performance etc.

As usual, before playing around with the registry, always back it up (guide here). But to be honest, this is just a minor edit, hence the risk factor is very low.

To quickly enable it, click start.

Click Run and paste the following command into the text field:

REG add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v DisableTaskMgr /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Click OK. That’s it! That should solve your problem!