MYSIN Trip 6 - Legoland and back

One of the joys of traveling for me is the chance to sample the different fares of food that is available in those places. Be it Goa or Shimoga or whatever place we've been to, I make it a point to find some local places and try it out. As it turned out, I was not alone here in that.

That is one of the reasons why we endlessly searched for the local stalls or places we can sample the local food than going for the more fancier fare or the fast food.

Viva Food Haven, Tanjung Bungah

Sibi learns to eat with Chopsticks

When we walked down the road in Tanjung Bungah, looking for some place to sample the Penang cuisine, we had absolutely no idea where we were going. It was raining so lightly, the roads were deserted, it was beautiful to just walk around. That's how we ended up in the Viva food haven, a local hawker stalls area with a multitude of shops to sample all we want for a fair price.

 Thus we ended up eating through thin, crispy Apoms, the delicious Penang Laksa, Mee Goreng mamak, the local Fried rice, a make-your-own Tom Yum shop and much more. The Apoms are nothing but our own Appams but more thinner and crispier and sweeter. No need to add any coconut milk or sugar, you can eat six in one go (for 3RM!). Mani Annan, who was making it here also offers some local insights at free of cost as well. The Laksa lady was charming, helpfully explaining the ingredients and the Tom Yum had some fancier items in it as well.

Mee Goreng

Of course, the most reliable part of Malay Cuisine for the Indian palate is the Roti Canai and Nasi Lemak with Sambal. We had them in the breakfasts in the hotel and in a local food stall in KL Brickfields, where the owner helpfully made some pooris for Vanathy as well.

It is a little tougher to find the stalls in Singapore, distance and that we were constantly running around the city made it a little difficult. But we managed to do some sampling. The Food republic in the City square mall is an excellent place. Kimchis and Bee Hoon were excellent here.

Claypot Rice

The Malaysian food street in Sentosa is a must visit place. We ran through some excellent Clay pot rice, Char kway teow and soups. It's a pity that the Korean food street is yet to open. The anniversary dinner in the SukhoThai restaurant threw up some interesting Thai food, including an excellent Tom Yum soup with little purple Octopus arms and squids.

Lunch!!

As it tuned out, Sibi became my partner in searching for these places and also in trying out the various dishes around.

Day 8

There are places you go with low expectation and they turn out alright. We decided to go to Legoland only because of the kids fascination with all things Lego. I had no idea what was in store but it turned out to be a charming little park.

Racing..

Though it has its own rides around, where Legoland differentiates is the activity areas it has. There is the Imaginarium, the different academies, all of which were super fun for the kids, the Miniland which was another interesting place and the Build and test areas were all activity areas, which combine expertly learning and fun together.

Robotics Class..

Imaginarium with its program and build activity was the most fun for the kids (and the wife!). Its simple programming combined with a little robotics to ensure that it is fun and also a little learning on the basics of the programming.

Build & Test

The Doctor!

There was less crowd, being a weekday and so there was barely any queues at all and it suited us well. It ensured that we covered all the rides and could come out on time. Since the Legoland closes by 6PM it becomes a little tight to ensure that all the places are covered.

Miniland

Driving School

After a tiring ride back to the hotel, we flew back to KL the next day. This is the final day of the trip and we were tired and Chennai was calling. We had one more place to go.

Batu caves has been the place I've visited every time I was in KL but has never seen. Though I've been to Batu, I never felt the urge to take the stairs to the cave. This time I wanted to fix that.

KTM Komuter

The brand-new KTM Komuter service to Batu is the cheapest way to get here. and the large Muruga statue looks at you intently once you get out of the train. The 300 stairs to the cave were real steep and small. With the kids running fast, we climbed to the cave pretty fast and then into the cave system.



The temple in the cave itself is small and after giving thanks for making the trip fun and success, we checked around the caves. There were unruly monkeys all around, the caves look like some artificial movie set in the mountains. It does give the same feel as visiting any Muruga temple here with the road side shops all around which sells trinkets for a premium and look for the culpable tourists.

In the cave

After the afternoon was spent in the shopping malls and in the KLIA shopping areas, we boarded our flight back without incident and reached Chennai.

MYSIN Trip 5 - Singapore - The Crossing

Somehow some of those days we look forward to happens to be together and doubles the joy of it. It was so with the 24th and 25th of August. While the first one is the day we got hitched, the second one is the day the live wire of our family, Vanathy was born. It is always a joy to have a daughter in the house and it is double the joy to have one like ours.

There are somethings that makes a place enduring enough to keep talking about it. Singapore is one such place. There are a lot of things that are good and a few that are bad as well. The uniformity of the place is one such thing. But the good ones first.

When you travel with a family of four, you find out, pretty fast that traveling around in taxis cost about as much as the public transportation. This is at least true in Singapore (definitely not in Malaysia!). This we found out on our first day and ever since, took taxis more times than the MRT or bus. And chatting up the taxi drivers reveal things about the place more than anything else.

Almost all the taxi drivers we came across, all of them Chinese, were courteous and were willing to talk about Singapore and the happenings in the city. That's how we ended up riding through the Singapore night life festival and at least had a glimpse of it. That is how we also ended in going to the Chinatown and had a quick look at the beautiful decorations done for the Mid-Autumn festival celebrations.

Almost every one of the drivers were trying to tell how the different races, the Chinese, Malays and Indians, live happily together and how they have many Indian friends or the Dosas they've eaten etc. Without the specter of the race riots that happened a few months ago, I wouldn't have given second thought to it. But knowing that, I was always thinking whether they are trying to talk about the riots without really talking about it.

And there was a one old Chinese driver, who kept muttering during the ride, jumped a couple of signals (it was late in the night) and was not really willing to talk. So there is always an exception to the rule.

But once you start looking at the other side of the straits, you understand the difference.

Day  7

Birthday Cake

Today  (August 25) was Vanathy's birthday. So myself and Sibi got up early and went around to find a good cake to celebrate. We found it in the nearby departmental store. A Marble cake for the Mid-Autumn festival. It is a nice way to celebrate the birthday as well as the festival. So the new dresses were put on, cake cut and ready for the River Safari day.

If you've time to go to only one place in your Singapore visit, River Safari should be in the top of the list.  Not because it is fun or anything but that it is educative, it has beautiful exhibits covering the different river systems of the world and for kids, it has a couple of fantastic river rides.

And instead of the 2 hours we planned, we ended up spending twice the amount of time there. The other attraction of the River safari are the two Giant Pandas. Though we've seen the Giant Panda's in an exhibit in the Atlanta Zoo some time back, here it it more closer and with no glass wall in between, it was fun to watch. Again, the kids had loads of fun here with not much crowd, we could hang around for whatever time we wished to be around.

Rain started coming down in force for 15 minutes now and we started back for our crossing back into Malaysia. This time, it will be by road.

To cross into Malaysia, by road, via the Woodlands CIQ and the Causeway, you can take a bus, get down and walk through the immigration and then hop onto another bus. Given that we've had our luggage to  carry around, we chose the taxi. Again, you can take the Malaysian taxi in the Johor taxi stand in Queen's street and drive right through the immigration, without having to get down at all and get dropped in the Johor taxi stand. For a little extra, the driver was willing to drop us in the hotel itself.

But it was a wet day and with heavy traffic at the border, it was tiring as well. But everything went well and we got dropped in our hotel. Checking into the room at the 25th floor of the hotel brought some sanity into the day of border crossings and incessant rain.

Doubletree hotel

Opposite to the Doubletree hotel we've stayed in Johor, there is a Restoran Amma, written in Tamil as well as 'அம்மா உணவகம்'. Turned out the owner of the place was a die-hard MGR fan with special reverence for Amma. Hence the name and the food was excellent eating as we did listening to old MGR songs.

The Menu card

While inside, it was hard to feel that you are in a forsaken corner of Malaysia. For that was what Johor amounted to. At least the places we went around. It was run-down, looking like a cheaper version on Singapore with none of the neatness or the glitz associated with Singapore.

So, the next day dawned.

MYSIN Trip 4 - Singapore - 2

There are a few days in everyone's life that becomes memorable for one reason or other. For me, there are few such days that remain etched in my mind. The days of my kid's birthdays. The sequence of events on those two days is still in mind.

Our wedding anniversary is another one. I do not remember all the things that happened on that day or the order in which it happened. But it remains the most important day in that I married a girl who made a profound impact on our life for the past 13 years and counting. 

Since then, it has become some sort of a ritual for us to celebrate the anniversary in some place exotic or have a quiet dinner or do something or nothing depending on the mood in that year. Every anniversary has its own set of memories and whenever we look at the month August every year, there is always something we find to remember about.

So it was this year. This year it was in Singapore and we've planned nothing for that day except to visit Universal studios and nothing more.

 

Amusement parks as a rule do not amuse me much. I am more a guy who prefers to be left alone with a book and good food rather than the excitement of roller coasters. But it was for the kids and at some level, being a fan of Madagascar and  Shrek, I've also wanted to see what fun it can bring.

So the day started with all the excitement that accompanies the visit to amusement parks. Only that J wanted to check on the date and confirm that it was our anniversary. So we did the mandatory anniversary shoot and started.

Universal Studios Singapore is probably the smallest one of all the Universal studios out there and we realized that once inside. Though we rushed into the rides and other fun, there was not much crowd and hence the queues were shorter and quicker, half way through we relaxed a little knowing that we aren't going to miss anything.

One of the things you notice in various places in Singapore is the amount to Chinese tourists that come through. You can find them wearing a similar color hat with the tour/travels name etched in it or following a guy with a flag like we used to do when we go for school tours. It is amazing when you realize that about 70-80% of the crowd in all the attractions is people from China. And they buy like crazy in the gift shops of these places as well. Shows who the next superpower is going to be.

Universal Studios, though with lesser number of rides than in California or Florida, matches them in terms of its overpriced foods, road shows and in the fun quotient. 

 

  The kids managed to go for a second serving in most of the rides and enjoyed the day.

We wanted to cover the Merlion park in the night to finish the day off. The taxi driver explained about the Grandfather, Father and Son Merlion's in Singapore and helpfully, showed us the locations. We managed to catch the grand father and father.

The river front 'Father Merlion' is a beautiful place, more beautiful to see it late in night. There is less crowd (it being Sunday evening) and with the fantastic views, it is the kind of place you want to spend your anniversary evening.

We reluctantly took off from there for dinner in a Thai restaurant (the Tom Yum was fantastic!) and realized that the anniversary is over for this year.

MYSIN Trip 3 - Singapore - 1

August is a good month to travel through South Asia. It is the in-between month. The South-West monsoon aka the Summer monsoon is at an end and the North East monsoon is yet to start. The in-between months are not hot and not wet as well. The weather is humid to rainy at times and if you can understand the vagaries of weather during this time, it is much more pleasanter to travel around.

Throughout our trip, we carried one umbrella. Though the monsoon was at an end, it still can bring surprise thunderstorms and rains at will. The umbrella (one for four of us) is just to make sure that the kids are not caught in the rain and depending on the strength of the rain fall, all of get to play a bit in it as well.

The forecast for Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Singapore for all the days we traveled predicted rains in the evenings. Though we didn't see any in Kuala Lumpur, we did experience mild-strong rainfall in Penang and Singapore, in the nights and sometimes, drizzled in the mornings. We managed to get wet in couple of occasions as well.

So it was that while walking back to hotel after having dinner in Penang, the rain started. It was not heavy or even a thunderstorm. It was just a slow and silent fall of rain drops which makes you want to get wet. The sea deck in the lobby of the hotel was washed in the rain and was looking beautiful.

The next morning, when we boarded our plane in Penang for Singapore, I have caught a terrible cold. While I was happy that the kids managed to stay out of it, cold and the travel caused some terrible aches in the head. I was almost sure, the only thing I will manage to do that day would be to sleep.

Days 4-5

When we landed in Changi for the next leg of the trip, I was running a slight fever with cold. The only thing I wanted to do was to check-in and sleep.

After suffering through the hands of the taxi drivers of Penang, it was something of a surprise to see a metered taxi in Changi. All the taxi drivers we've got in Singapore (with the exception of one) exemplified what is good about this country. Talking to the drivers help in understanding what is going on, where to go and what to do easily.

As planned, after checking in and a quick lunch, I slept for an hour. Though not fully recovered, decided to do the MRT hops to get to the night safari.

Of all the places we went around in Singapore, the one place that disappointed everyone was the night safari. Not that it was bad, its just that the crowd that day, the wait for the trams, the fight with the queue-jumping idiots and the persistent sneezing and cold made me want to go to the hotel and sleep.

Crowd!!

And above all, the endless procession of deers, peccary, buffaloes in the exhibit made me think of the Vandalur with a fondness I've never felt before. Except for the uniqueness of going around in the night, there is nothing worthwhile here. The 'creatures of the night' show was good but that is just trained animals running through the hoop. Overall, when we reached the room by midnight, I took in the tablets, the cough syrup etc and slept like a stone.

Next day I was feeling better and started for the S.E.A aquarium. I purchased all the tickets online beforehand to avoid standing in lines and felt that it was a good decision. We could focus on getting in and out of the attractions without waiting for the ticket queues. After a short hop in the MRT to Harbourfront, we decided to skip the mono rail and take the boardwalk.

 

Ibn-Battuta and Zheng He

The aquarium is probably worth spending your entire day on and we did spend about 4 hours. The exhibits are educative, the awesomeness it inspires in the kids is a sight to be seen and watching schools of fish swimming around brings a zen-like peace to the mind which is hard to get out of. There is a lot of history exhibits on the silk route and the trade through Singapore. A must-see place if there is one.

After a late lunch, we started for the Gardens by the bay. If there is something that can sustain the zen-like peach brought on by the fishes, it is the gardens. We didn't get into the paid areas, but walked around the excellent gardens in the other areas.

Mushroom Garden

 The super tree grove was the best (though it is only an exhibit of Ferns and the trees there are not actually trees!). I did manage to lose the wife and the son here, before long finding them again. The gardens become lovely when the lights come on and it was difficult to walk out.

Walked to the Singapore Flyer through the Helix bridge and the Singapore Flyer experience was only average. Probably because we were exhausted to see the sights and used the 20-minute ride as relaxing time.

View from the Flyer

After a quick dinner in the road side stalls of the Kitchener road, hit the bed by midnight.

MYSIN Trip 2 - Penang

Often it is a book that introduces us to locations we've never heard of. And not just introducing, the book often kindles the fire within to visit and see the places. It is one of the curses and cures of reading a book. What happens afterwards often tells whether the book is great or not.

I've read many such books and many of which have kept the fire burning to visit the places associated. No need to relive the characters or the incidents, but to be there to see for oneself what the book explains in so many pages. Often the distance of time is too long to even associate a place with the book but if you are alert, you can catch glimpses of the book written all around the place.

Pa. Singaram wrote one book (or rather, one and a half, an unfinished book) long time back called 'புயலிலே ஒரு தோணி' (Boat adrift a storm). It was deemed a classic and was forgotten. I came to know about it 10-15 years back but couldn't get hold of a copy. Then you read about it in reviews, other essays mentioning how great it was etc. So it was till a few years back, when the book was re-published, I read it for once, then again and again.

The book describes the story of Pandian, who travels from Chennai to Medan to work in the Chettiayar's pawn broker business there. He travels around Malaya (as it was called then) and Singapore. The Japanese invasion happens and it disrupts the entire region's life as it was lived before. Pandian roams around Penang and joins INA when it was formed.

The story with its descriptions of life of Tamils in the Malay peninsula as it was in the start of the 20th century and through the second world war is gripping and it put the seed into my mind to visit at least some of the parts described in the book.

So it was that we visited Penang.

Day(s) 2-3

A view of Penang as the plane approaches the airport

Air Asia has a check-in policy in that if you cannot check-in your baggage one hour before the flight, you cannot travel. Without getting into the virtues of such a policy, it is suffice to say that when we tried to check-in at KLIA on August 20, 2014, we missed the deadline by 30 minutes.


There were only two options, either move to another flight to Penang one hour later and pay the difference or let a few travel in the flight without the baggage and one of us can take the next one. So we decided that I will be staying back to take the next flight while J will take the scheduled one with the kids. Our trip to Penang was off to a really rocking start.

 

   So after a delay of 2 hours, we checked into the hotel in the Tanjung Bungah in the north-eastern tip of the Pulau Pinang, as it is called locally. After such an eventful day, we decided to stay back and enjoy the beach for the evening.

Tanjung Bungah beach

The next day went to the Monkey beach in the North-western tip of the island inside the Penang National park. The taxis of Malaysia can give a tough ride for the autos for Chennai in terms of fleecing the customer. 60% of the money I've spent in Malaysia is for the taxis and except KL, public transportation is pretty much non-existent elsewhere. In fact, I've roamed around the interiors of Tamil nadu in public transportation which can be relied on and is more frequent than anything I've seen in Malaysia.

Penang National Park

Monkey Beach

Monkey beach is isolated stretch of beach with a few BBQ stalls and few tourists around. Andaman Sea here is like a huge swimming pool with hardly any waves and no depth at all. And there was no monkeys anyway. The boatmen again try to fleece you for all its worth and it is actually tiring to keep arguing with every guy you meet on the money.

Returning from the Monkey beach, we took a cab again, this time a 65 year old Tamil, for the trip to Penang Hill and Kek Lok Si temple.

The driver's father settled down in Penang about 70-80 years  back and the driver, Arumugam, was born in Malaysia and was brought up here. He shared a lot of information on the conditions in Malaysia, the relationship of the Tamils with the Malays and the Chinese etc. He also showed us some remnants of the Japanese occupation in Penang, including the head quarters of the Japanese colonel, locally called 'Thalavetti' (one who beheads), a ghastly name for the Colonel Tadashi Suzuki. It was a disturbing history which again reminded of the atrocities described by Singaram in his master-piece.

Funicular Train

Penang Hill is a colonial town which was used by the Britishers to avoid the sultry climate of George town during the summer months. A Funicular train runs to the top and it is a pleasure to ride it. The hill has some beautiful views of Georgetown and the Penang bridge that connects with Butterworth.

View from the top

Kek Lok Si temple was closed and we returned to our corner of beach for the night to prepare of our flight to Singapore. The only place I could not get to was the Thanneermalai Murugan temple, though I could get only a glimpse of it from the bottom of the hill.

The hawker complex

The dinner in Penang on both the days was at the local hawker complex near where we stayed. We could sample a lot of Penang specialities like the Ayam Laksa, Mee Goreng and the usual favorite, Tom Yam. There is one stall which sells Appam run by a local Tamil, Mani. Selling 6 Appams for 3MYR, it was cheap and the Appams were real good.

So it was on the fourth day, we started for Singapore.

MYSIN Trip 1 - KL - Petronas towers

It was a long time coming but it did came at last. The trip to the SE Asia is something we've been planning for the past few years and had to be postponed for one reason or other. And the destinations were also difficult to finalize, Hong Kong and Singapore or Singapore and Bali etc. But finally decided to look at it from the kids perspective and decided that Malaysia and Singapore would be the best for the kids. The locations, kid related activities and the host of amusement parks will ensure that the kids will not get bored and will have fun.

It is also one of our quirky customs to have the vacation trips coincide with our wedding anniversary which falls on August 24, to ensure that we were in a different location to celebrate it every year. With Vanathy's birthday falling on the August 25, it is twice the reason for doing the same. So the dates will be around that.

Also, we wanted to do it on a budget (to the extent possible!) since both me and the wife were big spenders. So things have to be planned around the budget and it means cutting down on a lots of things we usually go for in the vacations. Though we managed to stay within the budget, we still could find ways to splurge on the hotels, travel etc through various deals, early booking etc.

The preparations were to constantly scour for deals, finalizing the trip plan, where we want to go, what we want to do, how long to stay, maximize the time spent in places we want to go to, how to travel, travel logistics like visas, local transport etc. I did not want anything to be left out to surprise during the trip itself (though things did happen that threw the plans out of gear a few times as well, but it would be boring if it didn't happen that way after all!). Since we did not want to do a package tour (we never do!) the planning has to be extensive and through since we were traveling with kids as well. 

For me, the excitement of the trip is the planning. You have to read so may sites, learn, understand, go around searching for deals and think like a local to understand the travel in that area. The easy way out is to do a package tour but that wouldn't be a tour at all. There were a multitude of sites that I used to do the planning and some of which are Tripadvisor, Agoda, Malaysia Tourism, Your Singapore etc.

So it was all set.  

Day 0

Kuala Lumpur is a city which has some good memories for us. Its where we had our short honeymoon. It is a place I've visited multiple times (mostly on transit visits for a day or so). And the city itself reminds me of Chennai and other Indian cities and so you don't feel out of place even once.

We planned to use KL only as transit points this time as well and planned to visit Petronas towers and Batu caves only. The plan was to use it as the start point to go to Penang and beyond. But we will spend our first night on the trip here and visit Petronas Towers alone before taking off for Penang.

Where is our baggage?

So we landed in KL without incidents. The Air Asia flight was smooth and kids were all flutter with excitement on the trip and I slept through the flight as usual. One thing that always tries one's patience is the trip from KLIA to the city and it did this time as well. 

After checking in the hotel late evening, we decided not to visit Petronas in the night and instead walked around the Brickfields area. Our trip coincided with the Chinese Mid-Autumn festival and wherever we went we could see the festivities in full. So it started on our first night in KL.

There was a Chinese temple near the hotel and there was an endless procession of deities in decorated floats with loud music all around. Sibi was all excited and took to the spirit of the occasion and started enjoying himself.
  

There were priests in full dress with strange head gears and people were offering food on the road sides for their blessing. There was this full roast pig on the road which was 'blessed' by the priest by having it sliced with a butcher's knife in his mouth. There were fire crackers and in general a feisty atmosphere.

The next day was our visit to Petronas towers. It took some time while planning to find out whether to go for the Petronas or the KL tower but we finalized on the Petronas. We took the MRT from the KL Sentral and reached the Petronas towers for our 9AM visit.

The ticket queue is long and unless you're fine with the timing of visit being decided randomly, there is no reason to stand in it. Booking it online is much more easier to plan the visit for the day. The tickets are costly (though a limited free tickets are issued everyday in the queue) but the visit is worth it. 
  
The visit happens in two steps. First you visit the sky bridge which connects the two towers. It is a beautiful place with fantastic views of the city and then you are taken to the 86th floor for a view from the top. It is a fantastic place where you can feel the movement of the building under your feet and has again a lot of beautiful views. 


Huge skyscrapers have a way of exciting one's nerves. I remembered the visit to the other famous twin towers, which are no more, while visiting here. I happened to visit it 8 months before its destruction and though plain looking architecturally compared to the Petronas, was simply awed by the amazing views of Manhattan from its observation deck. 

May be because the sky scrapers remind us all of the ingenuity of the humans and our inherent competitiveness to build higher and higher only shows our thirst to achieve more and more.

We were off to KLIA again for the flight to Penang.