Trip: Indonesia – Weekend On Bintan Island

So finally we can be proud of “beautiful” stamps in our passports that we got from Indonesian immigration officers . Apart from the stamps, there is also a big, one page-size visa that we had to apply for in order to spend a weekend on Bintan – an Indonesian island neigboring directly (1 hour trip by catamaran from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal) with Singapore.

Unless you stay longer than 7 days, you pay only 10 USD for the Indonesian visa. A longer holiday in this country costs you about 3 times more.

Trip Indonesia Bintan Island Nirwana Garden Resort

The 2 day stay at Nirwana Gardens Resort belonged to those very relaxing, pleasant weekends when you enjoy doing nothing but swimming in a nice pool, walking up and down the beach and having some delicious food (a huge buffet with meat and sea food variety on Saturday evening and a delicious breakfast on Sunday morning ). It was also one of the 2 weekends when Verena – our friend from Tübingen – Patric’s home town is visitng us. Despite some funny typical clichés , which so many of us bring over from very distant and different Europe, she is getting more and more open to the Asian culture and its citizens and obviously enjoying her stay here in Singapore very very much !

The only chance to get a little more active during our stay – wakeboarding offered by the sport club at the nearby ManaMana Resort – was blown away by the windy and cloudy Sunday weather . Well, since that was something we definitely could not change, we continued enjoying the sweet laziness .

Bintan is very close to paradise … very nice beach, clean transparent water, beautiful hotels … perfect for a relaxing and not too challenging holiday close to Singapore, but … still far away from the real paradise like the Perhentian Island in North-East Malaysia where we spend delightful 3 days at the beginning of our stay in Asia.

More photos will follow soon!

“Malaysia Truely Asia” – 2 day teambuilding event

It’s been a while since we last updated our homepage. Last weekends we have been pretty busy preparing our job applications, and decided to take a short break from traveling

There is however one event that is definitely worth a short notice – a 2 day trip with my team to Malaysia. I was honored to join my dear colleagues by their yearly team building. It was a very very interesting experience – a perfect chance to integrate with them, get to know them better and learn more about their team spirit, personal views, hobbies and families. Apart from that, of course, it was another escapade to Malaysia, which Patric and me already visited a couple times.

We went by bus, and our final destination was Avillion Port Dickson – a delightful hotel on the Malaysian West Coast. (http://www.avillion.com.my/). In the pictures enclosed you can take a look – Romantic chalets located beyond the sea surface, beautiful swimming pools, delicious cuisine and other facilities.

There were obviously certain activities planned during the event. On the first day, right after crossing the Malaysian border we went go carting (http://morris-racing.com/kartingmalaysia/johor_kart.php). That was so much fun! For most of us a first time go cart experience, but since we are all natural sports talents , after half an hour warm-up we were racing like crazy, reaching very high speeds

Next day, on our way back we spent 2 hours on the Eagle Eanch in Port Dickson where out challenges were: Archery and horse riding. It soon turned out I will never be an archery master but nevertheselss I gave my best and made some progress during the 1 hour intensive shooting horse riding was more like a cozy horse walk…the guides did not look too motivated and were so slow that even the poor horses almost fell asleep…:) (http://www.marimari.com/hotel/malaysia/eagle_ranchpd/).

The atmosphere was great during the whole trip – we definitely enjoyed ourselves throughout the whole 2 days. Such an event is a beautiful tradition developing the team spirit and company loyalty, to be recommended to every corporation.

See all the photos here or watch the slideshow here

TAG Paintball Singapore

This weekend all of us were looking forward to play paintball or “Gotcha” as we say in Germany. We all became very flustered that Saturday morning. We booked the openfield paintball court for 2 hours. It is located near the OCC or Orchid Country Club.

The address of the playing field is: Orchid Country Club, 1 Orchid Club Road Singapore 769162. Contact number 6324-0038 / 9662-0038

We took the MRT from Bugis station to city hall and switched to the North-South-line to NS 14 which is Khabib. Once arrived there we took a cab to the OCC. It was only about 4 SGD. The paintball area is not that easy to find. You need to enter the OCC club and it will appear on the right hand side. You need to look very carefully because it’s all covered with a green net to keep the paintballs inside.

Initially we ordered 2000 paintballs for 11 people. The game started with a security instruction and a whole set of strict rules. This was a bit annoying but if you got hit by a paintball the first time you will know why those rules are so important.

We built 2 teams (5 against 6 but with one Dutch guy … ) and started the game. It was really exciting; everybody was wearing a breastplate and a mask to cover the face. There were many barrels and other items to hide behind. 2 tactical objects that were very important were the bridge and the tower. From those points you had a very good overview of the whole combat field and a perfect position to sniper “the enemy:

Why did I mention the Dutch guy earlier?? Ok, as I saw him the first time this morning coming out of the plaza he already looked a little pale. I asked him if he was alright an he said: “Just a normal hangover, I came home at 6 am“. After the first round of the combat this “normal hangover” literally knocked him out. He was totally pale and the referees decided to take him out of the game. This was a very wise decision as you can see on some of the pictures.

Apart from that “incident” the game was just perfect. We even decided to get another 2000 paintballs to extend the game to 2 hours.

TAG paintball is really fun to play and I would recommend it to everybody that is not afraid of bruises. Those small spherical balls made of a thin gelatin can really hurt and sometimes give you red and blue bruises. Did I mention that not a single paintball hit my breastplate … instead I got hit at the arm, at the legs etc etc …

Oh another thing … don’t play against the Canadians as the media always wants you to believe that they are harmless. This Canadian guy playing with/against us, turned out to be the number one assassin.

For more information just visit their website at www.paintball.com.sg

Trip – Vietnam – Hanoi

We just came back from a 3 day weekend trip to Hanoi, Vietnam. That was an amazing experience, the most interesting & exciting, I think, that we have made so far since we started our internship in Singapore. Actually there are so many things that I would like to mention about that I do not know where to start

I hope, that even if I do not manage to give you the whole picture of the places in Vietnam that we saw, the great pictures will do the rest!

We flew with Vietnam Airlines, not the typical “tourist” airline like Tiger Airways. I mention this because of the food they served. We expected something very Asiatic and got a dish that was very much like we are used to eat in Poland or Germany: a beef stroganoff, mashed potatoes and salad. Well, anyway, the flight was ok, and this was not the first time we had the chance to enjoy the local Vietnamese cuisine.

Vietnam is one of the few remaining relicts of socialism in this world. And of course the landscape, the culture and the people themselves are influenced by the system they live in. When booking the flight, we did not know that the weekend we chose for our trip was when the Vienamese people celebrate the reunification after the Vietnamese war (or as they say the american war) and a long time of French colonialism. So during this weekend not only the traffic was extremely heavy, but also the propaganda posters and the government flags were everywhere!! I couldn’t stay indifferent to that…since the system change in Poland I haven’t seen it “live” anymore and even in my country I was too little to really remember how the daily life in socialistic reality looks like.

During our 2 day stay in Hanoi, we saw many things typical for a country with socialist regime. Apart from red flags hanging everywhere during the national holiday weekend, one can easily notice the very low life standard of the countries citizens and the legal rules which often seem to be irrational:[ good example for a not very rational legal solution is (or used to be) the habitation tax based on the facade width which has made the Vietnamese people building their houses make up for it in height. It caused the houses look really funny with their extremely "skinny" facades (look at our pictures), On the other hand, however it has also a practical explanation: Vietnam doesn't have much land and its population is increasing unbelievably fast. This causes the property in the cities to have very high value and space to be occupied very carefully].

Another characteristic element is that there are no western brands to be found in shops. Actually there are no shops in a normal sense (:)) just simple, “market type” stalls selling literally everything, but mainly goods of very poor quality. The only exceptions are: local art and paintings specifically as well as the local craft (e.g. crockery or the beautiful hand made chop sticks) which are very popular among tourists visiting Hanoi. A communistic country also has limited contacts to other countries: The visa cost us 100 SGD (about 50 Euros)! The prices we paid for things bought in Hanoi were at least 10 times the price paid by local customers. And last but not least, there are Lenin statues to be met in the streets…something that is slowly pushed into past even in Lenin’s father land – Russia.

We spent two days in Hanoi in the city’s Old French Quarter, in the Sunshine Hotel (recommended by the lonely planet) and felt like we were overflooded by the cities unique, typical Vietnamese atmosphere. We were amazed to see the narrow streets invaded by scooters and bicycles. You have to picture streets crammed with a multitude of two-wheelers that outnumber cars by 100 to 1, extremely buzzing and honking; they make the air so polluted that it is almost impossible to breathe – that’s why many of the people wear very characteristic, special face covers-air filters.

You also have to picture us crossing the street, when what you have to worry about is not two lanes of cars but a dozen lanes of mopeds with no sense of traffic regulations. THERE ARE NO traffic regulations on Hanoi streets as it seems: the bigger vehicle is always right and while crossing the street just let the cars/mopeds pass you. DO NOT STOP is the primary rule stressful enough for us to get a slight headache at the end of tiring but very exciting day in Vietnam’s capital city!

There are not many typical sightseeing spots to recommend in Hanoi. The places special atmosphere, its noises, its smiling people and its great food are the things you just cannot miss!
There are however two things that are a “must” while visiting Hanoi:

the Water Puppet Show at the Mua Roi Nuoc theatre at the northeast corner of Hoan Kiem Lake

a local food court named (“Quan an Ngon“) and located in 18 Phan Boi Chau street

At the foodcourt we enjoyed a truelly amazing dinner! The food was fantastic, you just must love the Vietnamese people favorite – the famous spring rolls. The food court looks actually like an outdoor restaurant with beautiful wooden furnishing and variety of very local, authentic food. You can eat a la carte, or simply go to single stalls with a waitress and order whatever looks or smells good to you you won’t be disappointed, we promise!
And of course do not miss the whole Old Quarter district – with its narrow, crowded and loud streets, old houses and tiny market stalls it is the real heart of the city. It’s the best to book a hotel somewhere nearby or directly in that part of Hanoi, and live in the heart of the bustling Vietnamese capital!
There is a very nice, beautifully lit up alley: Bao Khanh, on the north edge of the lake, where small cafes and bars (often placed on the houses’ roofs) are inviting you for a glass of beer (Bia Hoi as the local brewed beer is called), Vietnamese snacks or tasty deserts. If you are a beer fan, it is certainly worth dropping by to the local pub/small brewery where local “red beer” is served (Ma May street), a few meters away from the hotel we stayed at. Last but not least, if one feels they have a spare hour or two, try out the local massage offers. For 10 US$ you get an hour of pleasure for your body and soul! And if this is not sufficient, the ladies can always get a manicure or a pedicure (4 US$/each). If you are staying in the Sunshine Hotel we can recommend the SF Spa (16 Hàng Buồm – Hoàn Kiếm – Hà Nội)

On the second day we decided to do a one day trip to Halong Bay which we booked at one of the many travel agencies in the old quarter. The trip cost us 18 US$, including the transportation in a minivan to the harbor, the entrance for the Halong Bay area, the boat trip, lunch on the boat and the entrance to the caves.
The bay consists of 1,969 limestone monolithic islands, each topped with thick jungle vegetation, which rise spectacularly from the ocean. Several of the islands are hollow, with enormous caves. Hang Ä�ầu Gổ (Wooden stakes Cave) is the largest grotto in the Halong area.[wikipedia]

The bay was World Heritage listed by UNESCO at the 18th meeting of the Committee of the World Heritages of UNESCO (in Thailand on December 17th, 1994).
The trip was one of the most impressive tours we have been so far. Even the 3 hours ride from Ha Noi to Halong Bay harbor, wasn’t boring at all. This country offer such a diversified landscape, in a million different colours dependent on the sunlight, that no one should miss. The trip itself was relaxing, well organized and due to the beautiful weather simply glorious.

Since we did that tour to Halong Bay on April, 30, which is reunification day in Vietnam, the place was packed with tourists (see photo). However it did not spoil the special allure and charm of the bay!

View the slide show of Vietnam – Hanoi Photos
or
See all the photos here

It's SingTime

Trip: Indonesia – Weekend On Bintan Island

“Malaysia Truely Asia” – 2 day teambuilding event

TAG Paintball Singapore

Trip – Vietnam – Hanoi

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