4 Days 3 Nights Holiday To Phuket, Thailand - Day 02

Day 02 -

• Phuket City Half Day Tour ( Kata Beach, Karon View Point, Aquarium, Gems/Pearl Factory, Cashew Nut Factory, Bee Farm)
• Phuket FantaSea

Luckily there's no rain on the second day but it was kinda gloomy. So it was kinda difficulty to snap nice pictures on that day.We booked a local tour to tour around Phuket. The tour begin at 11:00am so we have a little time to check out Patong Beach which is just located nearby our resort.

hanging around Patong Beach

Our Half Day Tour :

Kata Beach

Kata Beach

Kata Beach looks so much cleaner and the sand is smoother compare the Patong Beach. You will notice a lot of tourists likes to hang out at this beach. There is a nice Surf House just across the road where you can learn surfing. It looks quite interesting, might consider to give it a try in my next trip to Phuket.

The next destination is heading to Karon View Point where you can enjoy a beautiful scenery. There is a view they called it the 3 Bays view. Unfortunately the gloomy weather doesn't allow me to snap a nice picture of it. 

3 Bays view at Karon View Point.

Big Buddha is one of the attraction here. The Buddha is Huge but still in progress in construction. I asked the tour guide how long more to complete this Buddha. The tour guide told us that it really depends on the donation from the visitors. If they can get sufficient fund definitely they can complete the construction faster. Just hope my next trip to Phuket this Big Buddha will be fully completed. 

Next the tour guide brought us to the Gem/Pearl factory. But to me is more like a gallery and part of the itenary they hope you will buy something there. Too bad we are not into Gem or Pearl, in fact we did request to skip it but he tour guide said they are not allow to skip the itenary.. so we just did a quite glance and off we go to our next destination which is the Aquarium. Aquarium Phuket is where we can discover many sea creatures, fishes. It was al-right but not the best aquarium i visited within this region.

Our last two places to visit are the Cashew nut factory and bee farm.

Cashew nut factory where you can see how they extract the nuts from the plant and of course they are selling all sorts of flavoured cashew nuts there too. Basically is shopping time! :)

U get to see the bees and hold the beehives for picture too. There will be a short session about the type of honey and how to choose the right honey.

By the time the tour ended was about 6pm. We have to rush for our next trip with another tourist van to FantaSea. Luckily the van came to our hotel at 6:30pm which is just nice for us.

FantaSea is a cultural theme park. We bought the tickets that we can enjoy the buffet dinner and to watch the cultural performance. it cost us about 1900Baht. Not really cheap but no harm just check it out. 

As the van will just drop us there, we have to queue to purchase the entrance ticket ourselves. I was assign to queue for the tickets. The ticketing area was really grand and the main colour is Gold. Look at the picture i took and u will know what i mean. 

FantaSea Ticketing and Entrance

We were so hungry and we do not want to miss our cultural show, we just had a quick look at the surrounding and head on the the buffet dining area. The place is really huge, it took us for a while to look for the restaurant. The dining place also give us a shock. It is really a huge dining place which i believe it can cater for one thousands of customer or more than that.

Golden Kinaree Restaurant where we had our buffer dinner.

Around Phuket FantaSea

Around  Phuket FantaSea

Visitors are not allowed to bring camera and smartphone entering the cultural performance theatre. So too bad i can't share much about that with you. It is for you to find out when you get the chance to visit FantaSea. ^_^

Related Posts :
4 Days 3 Nights Holiday To Phuket, Thailand - Day 01
4 Days 3 Nights Holiday To Phuket, Thailand - Day 03 and 04

4 Days 3 Nights Holiday To Phuket, Thailand - Day 01

It was a short trip with 5 of my buddy friends to Phuket. It was a short getaway just giving ourselves a break and enjoy the nice sea breeze. We were there during the Hari Raya Week in August. We were slightly unfortunate on the first day as it was raining from the time we step down to Phuket till late night.
So ended up we have to carry the umbrella and walking around.

Below was just our impromptu travel plan while we were in Phuket :
Day 01 - 

• Arrived Phuket around 2pm via MAS
• Check in to Burasari Resort, Patong Beach
• Walking around Patong Beach.
• Dinner nearby Bangla Road
• Shopping at Junceylon

Burasari Resort, Patong, Phuket

While we were walking along the street at Patong Beach, we saw a mobile hawker selling noodle soup. We saw some local bought it and it looks quite delicious, we decided to buy 2 bowls just to give it a trip. IT ended up indeed very yummy and it cost 50baht only. 

Yummy Food Street

The Noodle soup has build up our appetite and we decided to look for a place to have our first dinner in Phuket. We walked along Bangla Road and we found a small little road that has quite a number of food stall. We walked till the end and saw this Chiang Rai Seafood stall and decided to have our meal there. The food are good and with reasonable price. We ordered 6 dishes+ steamed rice + 2 coconut drinks + 2 large bottle of Singha Beer + 1 Gin Soda. Total damage was 1500baht and we are happy with it. 

After our yummy dinner, we continue to walk around. As it was still drizzling, we head on to Jungceylon for our first round of shopping.

Next :
4 Days 3 Nights Holiday To Phuket, Thailand - Day 02
4 Days 3 Nights Holiday To Phuket, Thailand - Day 03 and 04

A Day Trip to Sekinchan

Sekinchan is a small little town located in Selangor State, Malaysia. It is famous with its beautiful paddy fields (one of the main rice supplies in Malaysia) and it is also a fishing village. So many people like to travel to Sekinchan to buy freshly catch seafood.

My friends and i planned a day trip just to visit this little town during one of the holiday. It is about 1.5 hours journey from Petaling Jaya, passing by Sungei Buloh, head on LATAR highway and all the way to Tanjung Karang before reaching Sekinchan. It is not difficult to find this place. Just follow the Kuala Selangor sign and you will not miss it. 

Our first destination is to visit the paddy field. well us who didnt really do much homework, only realised that the paddy field is not as green as we expected. Because now is the planting season, all the paddy is still just a tiny little plant there. So for those who really wish to visit the green paddy fields, the best time to visit is March and September. The Harvest season is on June and December where the paddy fields are golden yellow colour. To have more details on the best time to visit Sekinchan, do visit this link. 

For us , since we were already there so we still enjoy ourselves snapping a lot of pictures of the not so green paddy fields scenery. ^_^

Sekinchan Paddy Field Scene in January

Next, we want to do some shopping before heading for our late lunch. They sell seafood, dry food, snacks and of course not forgetting Sekinchan rice.

This is the place where we did our shopping.

After shopping we asked the shop worker where we can have a  nice seafood lunch. He recommended a restaurant called Ko Hua just opposite their place. We actually listen to his recommendation and give it a try. Unfortunately the food wasn't as good as what we expected. Not highly recommended by me that's for sure.

Our Lunch

This is the restaurant but not as good as we expected.

After Lunch, we went to their famous beach - Redang Beach just to relax and chill out. The beach is not fantastic. Not meant for swimming but it is for sure a good place to take nice picture.

 Not far from the beach you can see a lot of fishing boat.s Another interesting scenery for photographer. Some locals also will do some fishing too.

Bagan Sekinchan - Fishing Village

Bagan Sekinchan - Fishing Village

We left the place around evening 6:30pm. On our journey back to Petaling Jaya before reaching LATAR highway, we saw this interesting stall - A Cendol Bakar Drive Thru stall. You can actually drive thru to buy their Cendol. Interesting! I will always thought only fast food chain with have drive thru concept. ^_^

I do enjoy myself for this short trip though I didn't manage to see the green paddy fields. But it will be a good reason for me to return and pay a visit to Sekinchan again. For those who just want to leave the city and have a relaxing trip. Personally, I think Sekinchan is one of the good place you can consider. 

Backpack to Myanmar - May 2012 : Yangon

Myanmar , a country that i am not familiar of. I still remember when i got the cheap flight to Yangon via Air Asia, I was a bit stunned and thinking how is my travel plan should be. Not many backpack info i could find that time but luckily at least there are some handful and good ones i can refer to. Thank god! :P And i am going to be exploring Myanmar for 13 days! excited and worried too... really a mixed feelings. 

Unlike other South East Asia, this is the only country that Malaysian still need to apply a visa to enter the country from Myanmar Embassy. The visa application takes approximately 5 days to get it done and it cost about RM80.00. As i am a lazy bum, i actually paid additional RM30.00 to get the travel agency nearby my office to get it done for me. :P

Another headache part before entering Myanmar is getting the BRAND new US Dollar notes. I read a lot about them being very particular about the money. The notes must not be folded, stained  and not even a little dot appear on the cash note. Never in my life that i have to check all the cash money i am bringing piece by piece just to ensure it is really BRAND NEW! *headache*

In my travel plan, the first destination will be Yangon since that is the first city i will be landing in Myanmar. Right after will be Bagan, Inle Lake and lastly Mandalay. 

In Yangon, the must visit place is the Shwedagon Pagoda. It is the biggest pagoda in Yangon and i was so fascinated with the architecture. The entrance ticket is USD5 for one whole day. This mean you can exit the temple and enter the it again within the same day. I actually went 2 times, one in the morning to look at the view during the day and second time in late evening to have a glance of the night view. Make sure you are wearing proper attire to enter all the pagodas in Myanmar. 

That's me at Shwedagon Pagoda. It was cloudy when i was there. 

Shwedagon - the surrouding

 As i was there the day before the Wesak Day, the biggest festival for Buddhist. I saw a lot of locals still doing their prayers and offering. Impressive!

The prayer's offering

The monks

Shwedagon - the surrouding

Saw this cute statue . Cannot resist and took a picture with HIM. ^_^

Shwedagon - the surrouding

Shwedagon - the surrouding

Shwedagon Pagoda - Night View

Apart from the pagodas, just spend some time walking around Yangon city checking out the place and the lifestyle of Yangon during the days. I get to find quite a number of interesting things to see. Pictures below will tell you all what i saw. :)

Paying a USD1 taking a ride on Circular train from their train station at platform 7 is also a nice way to checkout the surrounding of Yangon. But this will take you 3 hours to complete the ride as it really goes around Yangon and return back to Yangon main train station where your journey begin.

One of the Street near City Hall in Yangon City

There is a street that selling a lot of second hand books. 

Their Public Phone

Passed by on of the church near Aung San Market

Passed by on of the church near Bayoke Aung San Market

Entrance of Bayoke Aung San Market

Shopping at Aung San Market

Street View - Transportation you may see 

Some interesting street food

Street food

Yangon Train Station where you can take the Circular Train ride.

This is how the interior of the train looks like.

Circular Train is at Platform 7

Along the train ride - you will pass by the car junkyard 

The locals selling quill egg in the train to the passengers

Circular Train will pass by some market that is just setup along the train rail.

Nice Village and Nature scenery you can enjoy during the Circular Train ride. 

Night Life in Myanmar is not really that fantastic. You can't really find much pubs and bars around. I found a little beer garden  nearby Ocean Pearl Inn Hotel; had some snacks and local beer with some travellers I met there. But you can't hang out too long as they closed at 11p.m. Anyway I always tell myself, it is better than nothing at all. :P

Night Hang Out in Yangon. Myanmar beer - I love it!

My next destination after Yangon -> Bagan. Bought the night bus ticket and time to suffer for a 10 hours bus ride. Bagan here I come!! :)