Cambodia Part II, Siem Reap

Pictures from Siem Reap can be found here from Picasa!

Siem Reap is nowadays a popular tourist destination, with a large number of hotels and restaurants. Many of the smaller establishments are concentrated around the Old Market area, like our hostel Angkor Thom with rooms for 8 USD per night so 4 USD per head. More expensive hotels can be found between Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport and the town along National Road 6. There is a vast variety of mid-range hotels and restaurants along Sivatha boulevard, and mid budget to mid-range hotels in the Phsar Leu area. The Pub Street is the center of backpacker life day or night!

As the tripadvisor and lonely planet plus some local tour procures suggested we decided to do the small and grand circuit tours of the Angkor Temples, first starting with the small one and then next day the grand one. Of course we did some minor modifications to the plans so that we were able to catch the sunset and sunrises in best locations.

The Small Circuit takes in several of the major and minor temples in the area. Beginning at Angkor Wat and running for seventeen kilometers the circuit takes in the major elements of Angkor Thom, Ta Phrohm, and Banteay Kdei, and some of the minor but interesting temples such as the Baphoun, The Terrace of the Leper King, The Terrace of the Elephants, the Twelve Prasats, Spean Thma and Sras Srang before returning to Angkor Wat.

We started our tour from the Spean Thma and Sras Srang skipping the Angkor Wat on the first day because we had planned to catch the sunrise there on the next morning. We ended our first day with a sunset view from top of the mountain temple Phnom Bakheng.

Ta Phrom was built in the late 12th century by Jayavarman VII as a shrine to his mother and is another must for anyone coming to Siem Reap. As a monastery there were nearly three thousand priests here including eighteen high priests. Ta Prohm is unforgettable due to the massive trees that were left here intentionally by the archaeologists working on the site. While clearing back the forest it was decided to leave them in place to serve as a reminder of how the original discovers found it and other temples. Many of the trees have grown around and through the remains, and soar high above the temple.

Phnom Bakheng served as the temple mountain of the first city of Angkor as opposed to the previous center of Roluos. The capital built on a lone hill offers panoramic views of Angkor Wat. Angkor Thom and the surrounding areas. It is best visited in the late afternoon for a spectacular sunset or in the early morning for sunrise over Angkor Wat.

Angkor Thom was built by Cambodia's greatest builder, Jayavarman VII. This ten square kilometer city is enclosed by an eight meter high wall and encircled by a hundred meter moat said to have been inhabited by fierce crocodiles. There are five twenty meter high gates in the wall in each of the North, West and South walls and two in the East Wall. Access is via causeways over the moat that are flanked by the statues of fifty four Gods on the left and fifty four devils on the right, all seemingly engaged in a game of tug of war.

Bayon is located in the geographical heart of Angkor Thom. The fifty four tower temple is a quite remarkable sight. Initially the temple seems to be a shapeless mass of grey and brown stone but as one approaches one realizes that each of the towers is in fact carved and there are over two hundred huge enigmatic faces of Avalokitesharva bearing down on you wherever you turn. The amazing and unique temple of Bayon is easily the most popular sight after Angkor Wat.

The twenty-six kilometer Grand Circuit is an extension on the little circuit but taking in Preah Khan, Preah Neak Pean to the Eastern Mebon and the various monuments like Ta Som, Preah Rup, before returning to Angkor Wat and is highly recommended for anyone spending three or more days in the complex. The Big Circuit encompasses a good representation of the rich variety of architecture here.

We started the second day waking up at 4:30 am to catch the sunrise over the Angkor Wat and otherwise it went as preplanned. Although we decided not to visit the Rolous Group locating further away as it seemed that they had nothing more to offer for us. So we ended up changing our plans to cover the Water Village locate also further away.


Angkor Wat is the cultural home of the Khmer people and its form, in various guises has appeared and is still on the national flag. Had it been located in the Mediterranean basin it would have been one of the eight wonders of the world. The Lost City of Angkor was to remain undiscovered by Western archaeologists until the late 19th century and ever since has continued to amaze all who see it for the first time: neither words nor pictures do it justice. Angkor Wat is a legacy of the might that was once the Khmer Empire, a detailed history of which has been carved into the many walls of this fortified temple. The temple is accessible by a giant stone causeway across the hundred ninety meter moat, itself an incredible feat of engineering, to the west face of the Wat.

The tuk-tuk ride to the Water Village took around 30 minutes to get there followed by another 30 minutes of small boat ride. In the village we enjoyed some refreshments before renting local style canoes to visit the Flooding Forest and the Flooding fields. The trip took altogether around 4 hours back and forth, we were really pleased. A must thing to do if visiting, but just to note, make sure that it is watery season, because in two months those fields and forest will be without water, just bare land.

The tuk-tuk with a driver for two whole days cost us 31 USD for four people. In the end we decided to tip the driver with 4 extra making total 35 USD and he ended up hugging us. He was so kind to us with waiting and helping to get the best out of our trip, he was also really patient with us wanting to catch the sunset and sunrise. Normally you have to pay extra to see them. The 3 day tickets to see the temples were 40 USD per head.

On the third day I joined my Danish buddy to the shooting range, he was destined to shoot a clip with AK 47. After 30 rounds and 60 USD, the day followed with mostly all manly activities starting with beers, drinks and pizzas continuing 14 hours straight. We also enjoyed some great frog barbecue and burgers, yarrr! We also met again with some guys we first met in Phnom Penh and partied with them, great and crazy night!

Last day was just for resting before leaving to the next country. Actually there has been some changes to our plans. We are not continuing to Laos but rather than taking a night bus to Bangkok, Thailand from where I'll continue with just my Danish bro to Phuket with a domestic flight followed by a ferry ride to the Phi Phi paradise islands.

Ps. I already bought train tickets from Helsinki to Seinäjoki on December 23rd at 13:06 o'clock! Just wait Christmas, here I come!

Vietnam Part III - Nha Trang and Ho Chi Minh City

Pictures from Nha Trang and some from Ho Chi Minh City can be found from my picasa album!

Nha Trang

We arrived to the hotel at 6 am with the open bus. Found an affordable accommodation right away, only 6 USD per night. We booked the rooms and jumped back to bed to rest till 9 am, after which we enjoyed a breakfast on the roof terrace with beautiful view opening over the Nha Trang beach and city. After the breakfast we wandered couple of kilometers by the shore.

Nha Trangs is actually the most famous seaside resort-town in Vietnam. It is more lively and urbar in character than other beach destinations like Phu Quoc and Mui Ne, also serving as a scuba diving center of Vietnam. One cannot wander the street noticing that it has reached its current state due to Russian tourism, which can be seen everywhere as everything is translated also in Russian.

Located on a small hill at the mouth of the Cai river at Nha Trang, we found the temple of Po Nagar. It is said to be named after the goddess of local origin who is said to have created the earth, eaglewood and rice. The temple was built and rebuilt in 7th-12th centuries during the Hindu period of Champa and thus the images of the goddess takes the form of Uma, wife of Siva.

The temple is nowadays used by Vietnamese people and they have dressed the goddess in Buddhist robes. There is speculations of comparison between this temple and the towers of Lolei, near the Angkor Wat in Cambodia, which were built at the end of the 8th century.

Next place we visited was the Long Son Pagoda, which is the home of the giant seated Buddha, and it is the oldest Buddhist pagoda in town. The pagoda was established in 1963 and built on the site of the first pagoda in Nha Trang to honor the monks and nuns who died demonstrating against the Diem government. The famous giant seated Buddha is 79 ft. tall and has a shrine inside.

While walking back to the hotel we stumbled upon the Nha Trang Main Cathedral. The construction was started by the archbishop Louis Valet who had the top of the mountain blown off with 500 mines to obtain flat surface of 4,500 square meters. The cathedral was finally completed after 7 years of construction in 1935. The cathedral still holds its majestic beauty and its unique architecture.

When we arrived back to the hotel the girls met this older random Russian guy who was just arrived to the Vietnam and was completely lost. We continued to our room, but awhile later they all stumbled upon our door to ask us to join. Long story short, we ended up sharing a bottle of vodka with Igor on the roof sharing some stories. Apparently he had spent 20 years roaming the sea as a ichthyologist, and also that almost all of his cousins live in near Turku. The guy didn't speak any English so the girls worked a bit as a translators. It was a really weird evening and a night.

The next morning started with a walk around the close by quarters while enjoying some street food. We then separated to groups of boys and girls. I ended up resting a while before going to gym for one hour and thirty minutes followed by a solid thirty minutes of stretching.

Later, as a one group again, we enjoyed a nice dinner with some crocodile meat on the side. Others said that it was a bit more chicken like but for me it was a bit more white fish meat like than chicken - same same but different.

Also after the dinner my 1 year 11 months unplanned Movember ended. After the dinner we went to barbershop to cut my hair, and around 20 minutes later I had become 5 years younger. I love my new old hairstyle, how's that cutie in the picture? The whole thing was filmed and archived.

After the dinner we went actually to order a movie night on a local cinema like theater. The cinema had room for almost 20 people and you were allowed to book what you wanted to watch, we ended up choosing the Daybreakers. I could classify it as a B-grade vampire action strip with some idea in it, IMDB gives quite surprising 6.1 out of 10. In the end it was a entertaining movie enough but not that much to say or to add. We had the whole theater for ourselves which was nice. To note, it wasn't actually like a proper theater, it was more like a living room private cinema.

For the next day we had booked a 4 island boat tour. The boat got backed up with around 30 to 40 people ranging in age, sex and nationality, mainly some older Chinese and American people in our situation. First stop was an aquarium island, which we had to pay 50 000 dong (1.5 USD) more to see it. Was a bit of a ripoff though, it was even smaller aquarium than the one in Särkänniemi back in Tampere, but I still enjoyed it with all the sharks and weird coral fishes etc. they had.

Second stop was close by the Monkey island. There was a possibility for swimming, jumping off from the boat roof and lots of different expensive water sports. They also offered a change for scuba diving for the price of 25 USD, luckily snorkeling was free, but as a misfortune, the past night was so stormy that it had made the seabed unclear. I didn't feel like swimming although the sun was shining, ended up just blazing myself in the sun.

Third stop was close to the Bamboo island, we actually anchored ourselves next to a floating fishing village where you were able to buy some food to be cooked for you. The lobster felt really pricey, a one huge over a kilo in weight lobster cost 120 USD and the animals were left to rest in peace. After that the backs of the benches were turned down and they formed a big table. The lunch was offered, it was amazing, the food so vast and vary accompanied with fruits later. After the dinner was cleared it was time for a party, the "boat nr. 4 trip" crew had their own boy band and so they started to play music. We also tried some sea urchin.

Everyone from any different culture had something to sing, I had to sing "Jaakko kulta herää jo..." song. My Russian friends song the communist song that goes in Finnish something like this "Sirppi ja vasara ne taivahalla loistaa", but as a young girls they were, they didn't recognize the song. And we are quite unsure if the band was actually singing it in Finnish. It took me quite awhile to understand the "Jaakko kulta" song too from their pronunciation. My Spanish friend started with the Macarena song, which he didn't know at all. He actually guessed that song is going to be for him. The song was followed by a party song that got all the people dancing on the table. After that we heard or rather saw quite a good version of Spanish national anthem. And also other people from all the different cultures or countries song something; some French, Canadian, American, Chinese and Vietnamese to say at least.

Performances were followed by a open bar floating party in the water, so if you wanted to join you just had to jump in. The crew throw always some liferings "pelastusrengas" in to the water for everyone to float with while drinking the local port wine that was offered for the brave ones. And of course, what else, I was one of the first ones to jump into the water - styling the entrance with a back flip from the roof of the boat followed by applause. After a while of floating and drinking we started to do more jumping with my Spanish friend.

The last stop was on Moon island. It was a beach island, not a resort and you had to bay 20 000 dong (1 USD) entrance fee. The weather was rainy so the beach didn't tempt that much but we entered to the beach and started to play some cards. Just before leaving the island we got a grasp of sun to put a smile back on our faces. While going back to the shore the sky fell loose and water was pouring like never before, okay, I admit, a bit of execration.

In all together we enjoyed the boat trip, thank you crew of the boat nr. 4!

After the trip I stumbled upon some reviews about these 4 island tours on Internet. Most of them described our tour really precisely in details, except that on those tours the reviewer didn't enjoy, what a pity to them. But I guess it is always the group and the friends who makes the atmosphere. We had also already heard about these boat trips from other backpackers the girls met in Hoi An and they told the boat trip to be the most fun thing on their Nha Trang visit.

After the trip we chilled awhile and confirmed our open bus tickets to Ho Chi Minh on the following day. We went to book something for the last day too but in the end decided to skip ostrich and elephant as well as expensive water park rides. After that we divided, the girls wanted to party and I wanted to see a movie with my Spanish friend. We chose to see Peter Jacksons movie District 9. The movie was entertaining but not quite what we expected. It could have been a bit better if would have understood the aliens speaking to each other because the alien language of the Prawns was only translated in Vietnamese. Luckily we were still able to follow arch of drama in the movie. The movie has surprisingly high 8.1/10 in IMDB.

Last morning in Nha Trang also my Spanish friends birthday started with a good two hours session exercising at the gym followed by some stretching. When leaving from the gym and walking across the street to buy some fruits for breakfast from a street stall, the saleslady popped up a question, where are you from? Followed by a statement, you are so handsome. Made my morning and got a smile on my face. The rest of the day was spent relaxing in the hotel lounge and diner before the open bus company picked us up at 7.30 pm towards Ho Chi Minh.

Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh, formerly Saigon, is the biggest city in Vietnam in terms of residents and population density. The capital of Vietnam, the Hanoi is still bigger in terms of ground coverage. Some say that Ho Chi Minh and Megong Delta has nothing to offer except views of reality of the harsh local life in Vietnam. They are not favored by tourist or backpackers that much.

We arrived to Ho Chi Minh early in the morning, around 6 am. We had scheduled to meet with our Danish exchange student friend at the Ben Than market at 7 am. One thing to remember from Ho Chi Minh was that in the morning the park was filled with people exercising, walking, running, stretching and playing badminton. Close to the big roundabout in front of the Ben Than market main entrance we reunited with Frederik and turned our heads towards a bus station, more precisely just a street to get a bus ride to Cambodia, more precisely to the capital Phnom Penh.

Vietnam Part I - Hanoi, Halong Bay and Sapa

Some pictures of the journey can be found in picasa and facebook.

I woke up at 8 am after a six hours of restless and shallow, but not a sleepless night. I guess I was a bit worried because I didn't have a place to stove my excess luggage for the vacation period and we were leaving to the airport in one and half hour. Past night was also my last night in the NUS UTown Graduate Residence. In the morning I was calling through number of my friends to find out who had booked the accommodation over the vacation period and would be home around December 20th. And in the end I found one, just minutes before leaving to the taxi. Actually, when the taxi came, we still had to wait almost 15 minutes to for my Spanish roommate, again... but thats already quite normal, everyone knows that he'll get lost or etc.

And so, off to the airport. I shared a taxi with my traveling buddies to be for the next month. My Spanish roommate and two lovely girlfriends from Russia. We arrived to the airport just in time before closure of the check-in and boarded the plane just 5-10 minutes before takeoff. The flight took three and half hours, and actually I can't recall if was I sleeping or not, presumably I was. I can only recall my crazy Spanish friend using an orange plastic back tied to his ears to cover his eyes, so funky looking.

I had applied for visa before hand through an Vietnamese immigration site, but we got a bit screwed. We bought the multiple entry visas because the price difference between single entry was so ridiculous low, only 5 dollars. But after paying the tickets, we received the receipt and confirmation email which stated that

*Note:The fee you have paid is NOT included stamping fee at Vietnam airport: 25 USD for single entry and 50 USD for multiple entry.

and again we realized that nothing comes for free. After buying the visas, I also realized that Finns can actually go to Vietnam for fourteen (14) days for free without a visa like Russians. However, I ended up using the visa application, because I wanted a new cool looking visa into my passport instead of just a basic stamp.

Hanoi

On the flight, I also checked out a place for us to stay from the Lonely Planet, an affordable backpacker accommodation called Backpackers Hostel. After landing, we hailed a meter from the airport and drove to the Old Quarter of Hanoi to check in at the hostel. When arriving to the door a guy jumped at us and started asking about if we had a reservation which we didn't have, because otherwise it was full. He then offered to take us to a different hotel, just a bit further away which was supposedly part of the same group and we followed... We bargained the price of the room and also the trip plans he tried to offer. After an hour of discussion we ended up paying 222 USD each for a two days one night trip to Halong Bay, two days two nights trip to Sapa and a open bus tickets valid for month which we'll use to travel to south, all the way to Ho Chi Min (Saigon). The open buss tickets were perfect for us, we can jump off at any place we want and continue the trip later when we would like to advance.

The first night was spent in Hanoi, we walked around the Old Quarter for couple of hours, enjoyed some local cuisine with couple of beers on the side, and finally went to bed around midnight.

Halong Bay

We had a long day upon us, we woke up just before 7 am and headed down for breakfast. The ride from Hanoi to Halong harbor took around four and half hours with a 25 minute break at a tourist gift shop place, from where we bought these whole pineapples, the best ones I have ever had so far!

Not for the fainthearted... Also on the highway we saw an accident that had happened just a bit earlier; on the middle of the road there was a young lady lying under a mattress and a fallen scooter a bit further away. But unfortunately for us some guy just lifted the mattress to check her situation and we saw that all the guts and brains had spread over the pavement. There was no police or ambulance coming at that time, luckily there were at least some people decent enough to cover her remains with the mattress. May she rest in peace.

The girls had heard about the Halong Bay boat trips previously. They were told to be famous with backpackers partying overnight at the boats. There was about sixteen of us boarding the boat. First started to head out towards Halong Bay while enjoying a very good lunch. After lunch we visited the Halong Bay limestone caves which were quite beautiful, even though already a bit too touristic with all the lights and stuff for my taste.

After the caves we headed towards a floating village with at least fishermen and fish farmers living there beside the tourism workers. From the floating houses we rented some kayaks and paddled out to the sea to feel the views and the sea for almost an hour, the most amazing thing in a while! After the kayaking we continued towards one of the bigger inner islands, which actually had roads going inside. We anchored the boat there and enjoyed a really nice dinner. We were also given a permission to go to swim there, but the water didn't look so inviting in the cold ocean air after the sun had set. Almost everyone gave up sooner or later, we continued chilling at least till 1 am.

The wake up was around 7 to 8 am. After the breakfast some of the others went swimming while we were jumping flips and tricks from the boat railing. We got back to the shore around noon and headed for lunch at Halong City. Around 5.30 pm we reached Hanoi and our Hai Nam hostel. We spent the next couple of hours wandering through the city while looking for a book store. I bought some allergic medicine and we also bought some fruits to go, and actually I found this small foot stall on the street that sold local döner kebab, it was like a pita kebab inside a paquet - just perfect!

After 8 pm we were picked up for the night train to Lao Cai and Sapa. We were promised our own cabin for four but we ended up in a six person prison cell. I didn't think it was that bad, but I'm quite good in adapting. The train departed at 9.50 pm and we arrived to Lao Cai at 6.30 am after a somewhat rested night. From there we continued 35 kilometers more with bus to Sapa through snaking mountain roads. We enjoyed our breakfast at Sapa Summit Hotel. At 9 am we were assigned with our guide to be, a young lady called Si from the Black H'Mong tribe. For the trekking we got a small, but very nice addition to our group. We were accompanied by one Danish girl, Serbian-Spanish guy and an older Swiss lady.

Sapa Trekking - day 1

And so we started trekking towards the villages and the home stay cottage in Black H'Mong tribe. After descending three hours and crossing the gorge with the main river, we then arrived to one of the bigger villages of the Black H'Mong tribe. There we enjoyed our lunch and visited one primary school, where nowadays they actually teach English for the children. Our guide told that she had learned her English speaking skill just from the tourists. On the way down we gazed upon on some of the most beautiful views before enjoying a lunch in the village, and after lunch continued to another village a bit further away for the home stay.

The views on the way down were amazing, snaking mountain rivers and vast rice terraces ascending to the mountains and reaching the clouds. I tried to capture them with my camera, but one really can't imagine the whole feeling through a lens. We arrived to the home stay around 2 or 3 pm. There we first enjoyed some local green tea and after that just walked around for two hours circling in and out the village and roaming the close by trails. They also served us some fries with fresh garlic which was very nice from them. We also saw lots of kids returning from the school with donated Unicef backpacks.

Around 6.30 pm we enjoyed a perfect Vietnamese dinner with the host family of the host stay. The food was amazing, it varied from different dishes of tofu to chicken and pork, from rice spring rolls to fried vegetables and cabbage salad etc followed by some self made rice wine - which in my opinion was one of the most nice ones to drink. After the dinner we started chilling out together, listen some reggae from my laptop and play some card games together. We also tried and actually managed to take some pictures of the stars after the sun had set. Around 11 pm we all called it as night and hit the sack.

Sapa Trekking - day 2

After a well rested night, maybe the best one in a long while, we finally woke and got up around 9 am. The host family had prepared a breakfast for us consisting pancakes served with running honey and bananas, muy bien! After the breakfast we packed our bags and got ready for the journey ahead. We knew it wasn't going to be as long as the first day, but we hoped that the views would be different and the route a bit harsher.

We had a decision to make: up to the mountains or continuing by the contour towards bamboo forest, another village and a waterfall. Because of all the smog gathered and a high possibility of rain, we decided not to risk going to the mountains.


The trails of the second day were amazing, we spent the day walking across rice terraces, jumping over descending mountain rivers and trying to find a steady ground while ascending and descending muddy trails. Everyone except me dipped themselves or their shoes in the muddy rice terrace fields. We also trekked our way through the bamboo forest. I also crossed this very old and squeaky suspension bridge over the river gorge with my Spanish friend. The trail to the bridge was the first clue to realize that it wasn't used anymore, it was the steepest mountainside without any footage and secondly because the bridge was actually closed with rusty barbwire from the end we entered. But we managed to throw the backpacks over and to squeeze ourselves through it.

After crossing to the other side of the gorge we climbed up a while to catch a lunch before a bus ride back to the Sapa Summit Hotel. Here I had the best noodle soup I have ever had, and of course I added some more chili to spice it up, or it just might be that I had a proper appetite after the days of walking. We showered at the Summit Hotel, visited the village and markets of Sapa before dining and taking the bus to Lao Cai to catch another night train back to Hanoi.

Back in Hanoi

The night train arrived to the Hanoi station around 5.15 am, from there we shared a taxi and dropped the Serbian-Spanish guy at the bus station before continuing to our tour hotel, Hai Nam. There we refreshed ourselves a bit before visiting the Vietnam's founders, president Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum and palace area. I wouldn't had though that it would actually be impressive to see preserved remains or body of someone, but it was.

The rest of the day was spend wandering around for six hours just exploring the city and the views before catching the open buss at 8pm towards south.

A quick visit to Philippines

You can find the pictures from here on picasa or facebook.

A short word about Tiger Airways punctuality. As I told my friend while heading to the airport, we are in no rush. Previously, we got a call from Tiger customer service on Saturday saying that my friends flight has been changed from the morning flight to the evening flight. After coming back from the beach party at Azzura beach club, I got a call around 6am on Sunday morning, just couple of hours before we were supposed to leave to the airport - my flight was postponed too, but that was okay, now we had the same flight to attend to. We arrived to the Changi Airport Budget terminal around 2.30pm where we realized that we didn't have any details about the flight changed. We started asking around the counters and they started bouncing us around, but finally after 30min waiting we got ourselves a tickets to Clark, Manila. And as always, we almost missed our flights boarding which for the first time happened like scheduled. Even though we boarded the plane in time, we had to wait an hour for permission to departure, all of this without any information shared.

And so we arrived to Manila Clark, 100km off the target - money gives and taxi gets. We ended up taking a two hours taxi drive to inner parts of Manila, to the area of Malate. Ermita and Malate are the one place in town where to see lots of travelers enjoying the old neighborhoods stretching south from Rizal Park and east from the Manila Bay. It offers accommodation in every price range.

We had looked up an backpackers estate named Pension Natividad from Lonely Planet. It is a nice budget place. Set a bit back from the street and couple hundred meters from the Manila Bay. Outside it offers a long shady area for meeting other travelers and it also hosts a 24 hours coffee house with excellent breakfast. On the first night we headed to a close by 24h Pit Stop market to get some water and couple of beers. And so we chilled outside the estate planning our next day.

Monday was a day for sightseeing. We decided to checkout what Lonely Planets "see Manila in two + two days" had to offer. We woke and got up around 9am and headed to enjoy the best American breakfast I've had in these past 4 months! After breakfast we headed out for a quest of finding a hanging lock for the secure locker to hold our valuables.

Around 11am our trip started, our primary destination was the old area of Intramuros with Fort Santiago and Rizal Park in Ermita. First we headed towards the bay to check out the view. I admit, I got scammed by a horse tuktuk rider, "let me take a picture my ass." I should have just took a picture of him contrary and asked to give me 20 pesos. But yeah, that's practically nothing, like 35 euro cents...

From the shore we started zigzagging towards the Intramuros, we  knew it was towards north, just before the Pasig River which is the main river. After 50minutes walking through the Rizal Park we had seen a local movie filmed, visited a Chinese Garden, gazed upon some memorial statues and miniatures of Philippines 7000 islands floating in a vast watery pool.

Around half past noon we had seen also the Plaza de Roma with the 7th reconstruction of Cathedral of Manila and found our way to the Santa Clara Street in Intramuros. There we visited the most famous Fort Santiago guarding the vital entrance to the Pasig River. The walled city of Intramuros was founded 1571 by Spanish troops and thereafter, has been invaded by Chinese pirates, threatened by Dutch forces, and held by the British, Americans and Japanese at various times, yet it survived till the closing days of WWII, when it was finally destroyed in the Battle of Manila during the US bombing.

As a culinary tourists we decided to get something really tempting, something that really hits the spot and... ended up smashing it at Pizza Hut... Around 6pm we reached home. It was time for some planning beers, and planning. I have actually been craving to get into a proper beach to bath in the sun - to get some manly tan lines! The late night was actually spent reading happenings in Finland, Europe, everywhere, I have to admit that I've been in a bit of a news shade. We also watched the movie Kumar and Harold go to the White Castle before calling it night.

Our plans were to hop on a charter bus and head about 30km south of Manila to a beach resort close to Cavite, although these plans were ruined by the rain that kept us in until half past noon. We were supposed to plan something new but the closing change of t-storm kept the Internet channels dead. Although it allowed us to revise our memories by watching the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Finally the rain stopped and we headed to a post office about 2km in distance from our apartment. Just hoping that the postcards will find their way, because we were just told to leave them standing on an empty counter.

After the trip to the post office we headed towards the roundabout of Del Pilar which we had passed previously. We entered a premiere restaurant Adriatico for a proper meal. We enjoyed a full three course meal under 15euros per head consist of the best Hummus with Pita bread I've ever have had, tasty Chicken Corn Soup, delightful Penne del Puttanesca, Caramel Glazed Walnut Cheesecake and Chocolate Dressed Banana Crepes with premium San Miguel beer and coffee America.

While eating we realized a flaw in our plan, we were supposed to walk around the area of Malate to Manila Botanical and Zoological Gardens, but we were just too full. After a while of digesting we were ready to continue. We walked through slums filled with people and animals coexisting. Chickens and roosters roaming free with cats, dogs and children while some folk sleeping on the streets or trying to make living by offering tuktuk rides or selling something - actually anything. At the gates of the Zoo and Garden thingie we immediately realized that I would not have anything to offer after the one we saw in Singapore. This one only had the size of an big football field enclosed by busy streets from all around.

After the refreshing walk in the cloudy, but really moist and warm atmosphere we arrived back to our estate around 4pm. The rest of the day was spent reading news from back home and around the world. We also spent couple of hours planning our upcoming spring semester back home in the Technical University of Tampere, and my friend finished weekly work for his bachelor thesis. We chilled outside the backpackers lounge zipping beer and enjoying ourselves until 1am before calling it night.

On Wednesday we decided to travel a bit closer to the Clark Airport to the Angelos City. After a well slept night, refreshing cold shower and American breakfast with hot coffee, we were more than ready to checkout. The security guard of the pensions hailed us a cap and we drove to the Philtranco bus terminal in Pasay, Manila, 5km in distance. From there booked a tickets to a bus to Clark. Imagine the price difference, 4000 pesos taxi drive was only 450 pesos with a bus.

The bus took us directly to Clark airport and so we had to hail a cap to get us to the hotel in Angelos City close by. We had previously checked a quite affordable place online, stating only 1500 pesos night. Although in the end it was only 1350 pesos per head, due to 10% cash discount, it was just that we had to buy separate rooms so the price doubled. The hotel was nice, we had a quiet pool with a bar on the side and a restaurant at the back, and not to forget to mention, a free pool table to use - and so we did.

Angelos City was a bit contrary compared to the outskirts of Manila metropolis with 12million people and being the 18th biggest in the world. Although it wasn't as shady as the Malate, it showed another side of the Philippines. As one British guy stated to me at the poolside "Philippines is good for two things; one girls, two diving." He actually ended up sharing a part of his life... He had just found out that he had a three years old kid back here in Philippines and he had came here for two weeks time to make it legal, so that the bastard child would not be or get killed, and would have a change in life.

The reality hit you. The streets of Angelos City were filled with somewhat beautiful 20 year olds hanging out with older westerns, sometimes two to four with the same guy, and still the guys were flirting to some more girls. While chilling at the terrace of the Beer Garden bar and restaurant, enjoying some San Miguels and Nachos Grandes, we could see guys disappearing with the girls to the shady street across, and after a while later returning with a hint of a grin and a smoke on their lip. We called it night around 01am after some more pool and couple of more beers.

We woke up at 5am and backed our stuff and headed down for checkout. The nice girl at the counter helped us by ordering a taxi for us too. Everything went without surprises although at the airport we had to withdraw and exchange some extra money due to the airport service fee of 600 pesos per person on international flights. And so we arrived back to Singapore; for me to sleep on last night at UTown and for my friend to catch a flight back to Finland. It actually made me a bit homesick, but I think the morning flight to Vietnam will cure it!

NUS finished

On Saturday morning at 11am on 19th of November 2011 - I had finally finished my studies in National University of Singapore. I was actually first one that I know to finish the studies completely. Moreover, the upcoming two weeks are meant solely for final exams and some of my friends are finishing their studies in the beginning of December, good luck for all of you guys!

After my last exam, we headed out to celebrate with my Finnish visitor and a good Pakistan friend. We went into an Italian restaurant called OChre in Somerset, one of the busiest and most expensive areas in Singapore,  the Orchard Road. The restaurant has a wide range of excellent but a bit expensive pastas and pizzas. There is actually some thinking behind the decision to choose this restaurant. I had previously heard a rumor about all you can eat pasta and pizza buffet offer for the price of 22sgd on Saturdays from 11.30am to 3pm. It was there, when we realized that it wasn't a buffet, we were actually allowed to order as many pastas and as many pizzas we wanted from the menu with the fixed price even though the pizzas and pastas cost more than that price separately. In the end we managed to indulge ourselves with six different pizzas and three different pastas before our bellies started bursting - the best pizzas and pastas that I have had in a long long while.

The upcoming night was filled with excitement. I had some free tickets to a beach party I helped to promote and sell tickets to. The night was success in every way, the swimming and partying in the beach clubs pools was refreshing. We started heading back home at 4am and finally went to bed at 6am already anticipating the following trip to Philippines with my friend from Finland.

Ps. Pictures will follow later, it takes eternity and a half to upload anything here in Philippines...

Travels to come

While being visited by my good friend back from Finland, we are leaving to Manila (Clark) in Philippines on Sunday 20th of November. Don't yet know what to do there but it will come up in time, and I have my Lonely Planets, thanks! We'll return back from Philippiles on 24th for my friend to catch his flight back to Finland on that same day.

I'll have my second to last night in Singapore over the following night leaving to Vietnam on November 25th.

To sum up some of our plans, we are travelling in a group of four to Vietnam. I, my spanish roommate and two lovely Russian girls to accompany us. With my roommate we made a pact, if there is multiple points of interest to see, we'll throw a coin to decide, living the life by a change.

For Vietnam, we only bought tickets to go up north to Hanoi and will be travelling from there towards south to Ho Chi Min in two weeks, covering the distance spanning them apart.

From there we'll continue to Phom Phen in Cambodia and furthermore to Laos over the next one and half weeks. I've planned to return back to Singapore on December 20th to sleep my final night and catch a plane back to Finland on 21st of December arriving to Helsinki on 22nd.

So I'll see you all back home over the Christmas.

Ps. My journeys doesn't end there! I just booked the AlppiHupellus trip 5.1.-16.1.2012., to Méribel in Les 3 Vallees in France. To the largest unified skiing location in the world!

So whats next - keep em coming!

Past weeks

Here is pictures of my trips to Universal Studios, Pulau Ubin and Singapore Zoo!

There has happened quite a lot after the trip to Hong Kong and Macau. First of all, as I already realized after Bali, that I'm a bit late with my school work, I've been studying some long ten hour days filled with couple of hours of exercise at the gym or by the pool.

I was also visited by my good friend back from Finland who is an exchange student in Bali at the moment, and whom I met previously in Bali. He was accompanied by his villa-mate, a Finnish girl also as an exchange student. I shared our flat to them to couch surf for the duration of their trip. It was nice to have more life in the apartment and my roommates didn't mind at all, thank you guys!

With them and some other friends from Singapore, I also visited the acclaimed world tallest rooftop bar, the 1 Altitude on top of the One Raffles building. They enjoyed Singapore and we had some good times, even though I had to do some studying too at the same time.

After their visit, the trip to Penang was up, it was amazing, nice gathering of good friends I've made here in Singapore.

I also visited the Singapore Universal Studios, and to say, it was actually pretty amazing. I liked the roller coaster rides of Battlestar Galactica, the spooky trails under the pyramids filled with mummy's, gazed upon the varieties of dinos in Jurassic Park, enjoyed a full fledged Waterworld show with watery chases and explosions, saved the princess Fiona with Shrek in 4D, danced and sung with the Ass, stepped upon a 5level hurricane hitting Manhattan with Steven Spielberg and listened the Monster rock musical just to mention a few... We spent around 9hours there, it was worth the money!

At school it has been quite a work, I would really much like to tell what I've been up to with my studies but I haven't had the time or concentration to do it. Just to sum it up quickly... As a group project, we composed a video lecture of Chinese remainder theorem. I held two presentations about Context-Sensitive Program Analysis as Database Queries and one presentation on topic of Analysis and Usage of Fuzzy Logic for Optimized Evaluation of Database Queries. As a pair project we implemented three algorithms on Hadoop, the algorithms were PageRank, Shortest Path and K-Means Clustering and returned a 25 pages report on it. On another module we are at the moment finishing our 35 pages survey on Software Outsourcing.

I've noticed that for me to be efficient, I need to work out, that is one of the reasons I started to go to the gym or / and to the pool four to five times per week. I also started running again a while back, whit my roommate we circled through the university's inner route which spanned over 5.5 kilometers in around 40 minutes.

Over the past week on November 10th, I received my Student Pass. Now I'm legally finally legally in Singapore after my first three days in July. As you might know, tourist visa is a single entry 90 days, but I've been abusing that fact... Now I can travel safely for the rest of my stay before handing the Student Pass back before departing back to Finland.

I also got a Finnish visitor arriving from New Zealand, where he had spent the past ten months as an exchange student. After four nights, actually just yesterday, he continued his journey to Germany.

At the moment I've been visited by my good friend back from Finland! I consider myself lucky to have visited by so many friends here. Just this Monday, 14th of November, we visited the close by island Pulaud Ubin, which is a part of north east Singapore, located between the countries Malaysia and Singapore.

I had visited the Pulau Ubin already past year, but my two Finnish friend had not. The ride to the ferry terminal took around 1h30min with MRT and bus. The actual bum boat ride from the Changi Point Jetty Terminal to the Pulau Ubin took only around 10 minutes.

While visiting the island, you can experience the Singapore 20-30 years in the past. Fishing village with roaming wildlife and uprising civilization. The Pulau Ubin can be seen in half a day riding a mountain bikes. We actually saw over three meter long Komodo Dragon and some fishes wiht lime green glowing eyes while cycling through the jungle and mountain bike trails.

We also visited the Singapore Zoo, it had quite a lot to show us, actually we both recalled that last time we had been in a Zoo was back in preliminary school in Korkeasaari or Ähtärin Eläinpuisto.

Now I'm facing my final project deadline on Friday and one and only upcoming exam Saturday morning. Hope to cope them through!

To celebrate the end of the school, we are having a beach party on Saturday, it is actually managed and organized by a business student from Germany who asked me to promote the event too. The party is called Rapture of the deep - Berlin meets Singapore!

Penang revisited

Pictures can be found from picasa and facebook!

If you can recall, I actually visited Penang already on my first weekend as an exchange student. It was a bit controversy decision for me to go there for a second time, but as planning it, I realized that on the first time we really didn't see that much of it.

The day to travel arrived, twenty of us backed our backs and headed towards the Kranji MRT station and continued to Singapore customs in Woodlands. For me it took a while to get past the border...

I actually have to make a confession, I don't yet have my student pass (visa). I had three months of time from 7th of July onwards and I arrived to Singapore on 27th of July. I went to ICA to complete the formalities on 17th of October but after three hours of queuing and paper swapping they realized that my in-principle approval letter from the National University of Singapore had become void already, no shit... I was asked to contact my University and obtain a new letter immediately, cause I've practically been living and traveling as a illegal immigrant since the first weekends journey to Langkawi and Penang, and back. I reapplied for the letter and made the 90 SGD payments again to complete the formalities, I received my new IPA letter on Thursday 27th of October but decided not to go to the ICA for completion cause I had an exam on my PhD module on Friday just before leaving to Penang.

So now you know the reason why it takes a bit longer for me to go through the customs, to clarify, I don't have any problems at the border and they didn't have any questions (this time). But just to be sure I had my IPA letter with me to Penang. After crossing the Singapore customs we continued to cross the border bridge to Johor Bahru border in Malaysia and towards the bus terminal in Larking.

We ordered the bus to depart from Larking just to save some bucks with the travel costs. The trip cost were around 110 SGD per head which included the ten hour bus rides both ways and a accommodation in serviced apartments. The night was spent driving like crazy, of course we stopped to meet our good friend 7 Eleven to get some drinks which followed by a series of toilet stops. The bus was great, seats big enough and comfortable to sleep or have a movie theater in it! We occupied the last rows and put up a movie theater, I had speakers with me as always, who else would provide the party music. I recall us watching Captain America and American Psycho.

Brakes squeaked, we had arrived to our destination in Pulau Penang, to the town and beach resort area of Batu Ferringhi with lots of hotels like Hard Rock Hotel with Hard Rock Cafe night club. We left our bags to the reception of our serviced apartment cause there were no rooms empty at the moment, respectfully it was only 7am. We brushed our teeth and refreshed our travel strained bodies beside the pool.

As a group we started to walk along the beach street to find a open breakfast place. It felt weird, everything seemed empty like in a ghost town, no lights in the hotels, only some people washing cars trying to make a living. After a short walk we found two open restaurants that had a breakfast menu, and guess with what I settled; an American breakfast with bacon, sausages, beans, fried eggs and toasts, but of course I ate my precious dragon fruits that I had brought along all the way from the UTown Cheers. I just can't get enough of dragon fruits, It makes me a bit sad to imagine how will I replace those in my diet back in Finland.

By the way, to rewind couple of days, we went to see a movie in cinema back in Singapore. We watched the Killers Elite and there was a man bringing Dragon Fruits to Jason Stathams character! I believe they are the reason behind his real charm and power.

After the breakfast we walked back to the apartments to check if anyone had returned, but none had. We decided to jump in to bus and head to the main city of Pulau Penang, to the Georgetown.

Georgetown is actually the second biggest city in the whole Malaysia and the capital of the island and state of Penang. It has been made as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008. The atmosphere of Penang is often likened to reflect Singapore back in the 1960s and 1970s.

We take our tour around the harbor scenery, visited the Little India and Chinatown sightseeing all the heritage buildings, the temples and markets. To note, the rainy season in Pulau Penang is in September and October turning down a bit already on November. Nevertheless we had a good weather for the most of the day until we decided to take a taxi towards the Penang Hill.

Penang Hill is a mountain reaching 833 meters above the sea revealing astonishing view over the Georgetown and the surrounding ocean. It is only reachable by either Penang Hill Railway viaduct build between years 1906 to 1923 or by a jeep trail which is only allowed for walking and small vehicles like scooters etc.

So because of the stormy weather we decided to head back towards the city and back to the Batu Ferringhi to meet others for dinner and pre-partying for the Saturday evening. Rest of the day was spent in a joyful spirit in the apartments, by the pool, in the streets and inside Hard Rock Cafe.

Sunday morning started with a mediocre headache, actually the worst that I have had on my trips, but it was fine after some painkillers. My friends had rented scooters to drive around the island and I asked to join. We were driving two on. We headed towards the mountains. We crossed the area of Teluk Bahang with the artificial freshwater lake and dam and all the way through the Kampung Batu Kecil to the town of Balik Pulau. The view from the spiraling mountain roads were breathtaking. We stopped for breakfast at a fruit farm in the mountains after passing the Teluk Bahang Dam. From there we continued the rest of the way. On our way back we found the other scooter boys and got our gang together for a picture.

Rest of the day was spent on a beach in front of the Hard Rock Hotel, we did some water sports like banana driving with seven people. Quite nice but a bit disappointing, the speedboat guy didn't make us all drop off until we started to tip the banana by ourselves.

After that I took a one to two hours nap at the shore of the beach while waving water cooling me down. My friend woke me up by bringing me a drink to refresh myself and we decided to go chill in the ocean. After the drinks we had a great idea of doing back flips from each others shoulders. After couple of jumps it was my turn. On the second jump I felt like stepping on top of something alive while my leg going in it. But I wasn't sure. I jumped the third time and while making my way back to the surface I felt like a whip hitting around my wrist burning and electrocuting it all at the same time. I had accidentally got my hand inside jellyfish tentacles and it was wrapping around my wrist. Luckily I was close to the shore, I walked out of the water without knowing what to do, my hand burning and swelling. My friend poured some fresh water on it which was amateur mistake, but how could we have know. One local from the beach shouted to me and told us to get some vinegar from the hotel to rub on it and so we did. Other solution and said to be better would have been peeing on it. Just for you to know! I was told not to take a shover or use any soaps for at least one hour to let it settle.

While walking back from the hotel pool we saw the warning signs indicating jellyfishes. Luckily these weren't the poisonous ones as the local guy told us. You could feel the hand burning a bit over a 24 hours but now it's already starting to be fine. It seems like I won't be getting a permanent scar from it after all, which is actually most usual in these cases.

Five minutes after we had threated my hand we saw the guy darkening like it was falling down, the locals told us to get inside in five minutes and so we did. The rain was amazing, it emptied the streets of people and filled them with water. The storm was over as suddenly it arise, although it roamed almost an hour.

Around 6pm our bus had arrived and we jumped in for the trip back. The movie theater was again formed and this time we enjoyed movies like RED (recommendable action movie) and Gladiator (legendary as always). Around 4am we reached the border customs of Malaysia and Singapore and got home back to UTown just before 5am.

Again a great trip with lots of memories. Thank you everyone!

Hong Kong and Macau - Unexpected awaits

Picasa and facebook albums for pictures from Hong Kong and Macau! Pictures from the Bungee Jump in Picasa and facebook albums!

It has already been over three weeks since the trip to Hong Kong and Macau. While writing this I'm traveling back to Singapore from Penang, Malaysia where we enjoyed a weekend with friends. Actually I'm already back in Singapore, chilling in our apartments common area lying on the sofa while listening some Finnish reggae.

...

ja vaikka ootkin kaukana sielä

kuule 

me tavataan vielä

...

and even though you're faraway there

listen

we'll meet again

...

And so we landed on Hong Kong international airport after four hours of airtime. Most of the time was spent on sleeping but after three hours I decided it's time to focus on a bit about where we would spend our nights. I used the last hour of the flight wading through Lonely Planets on my laptop. We found several places for our budget in TST, Tsim Sha Tsui. Actually TST is a major tourist hub with various restaurants and shops to cater tourists. Previously it was known about its food courts and hawker centers whom had already vanished a long time ago.

We shared a taxi with another backpacker and headed towards the TST. He had already booked his accommodation. The ride from the airport was beautiful, the road twisted through harbors, shipyard cranes, high-raisers and graceful bridges while everything lighted up beautifully. We arrived at TST around 11pm and realized that most of the hostels and hotels close for the night at that time. We walked around for almost an hour without any luck, although we checked out some apartment but they were a bit too expensive compared to the price we had read about.

We were already about to head back to one of the more expensive ones but then luckily, in a corner of the road, some indian guy shouted that do we need a room and yes, we did. He offered to show the room for us first before we had to pay anything etc. He took us to a narrow dark road between big high-raisers just capped by horizon, supposedly was to be a shortcut. I remember looking my friend into his eyes and seeing the same dubious gaze that was overwhelming me too. We were going to be mugged, we thought. The man saw our distress and insisted us to follow him by convincing that it was a real shortcut to the hostel. Ok, we followed and actually everything went well, we got our nice enough room with air-con and wifi for a reasonable price. The room was really small but big enough to sleep, we weren't planning on staying in the room, rather walking all day around.

People living and playing in cardboard box houses
above the busiest street of Central Hong Kong

We had agreed to meet with the guy we shared a cap with to look around the TST over the first night. We were 10min late from our meeting place so we lost him, but it didn't stop us. On the first night we started checking around the bars and clubs around the TST area. At third club we met some weird group. They started to talk to us by asking if I'm a rugby player etc. one of the guys was 34year old CEO from Canada for his own company going to Finland for a business meeting to meet the Rovio brothers to talk about the rise of Angry Birds, how they found and used the market... and in the end we got back to our apartment around 5am. I had my laptop with me and decided to check´a bit what to do the next day, but luckily I found a friend in skype from Finland to keep me company and suddenly the sun was already rising. I went to bed after 7am.

Unexpected awaits

Over the second day we had arranged to meet with my Finnish friend in the Central, Hong Kong. Actually he is working in Zurich but was on a business trip in Hong Kong. So we met in the Central and headed for dinner at Soho area located in the Hollywood road area. The whole area consists of pavement and open street escalators just for pedestrians. We took the escalators the whole way up and started heading back down visiting various pubs and sightseeing the area. Around 7-8pm we decided to head back home to change into proper clothes for late supper and clubbing. By the time my friend was rather interested about my work and educational situation which we talked quite a lot, we also talked about his international job and what he has been doing over the past years. The company he works for has offices in Zurich, Paris, Frankfurt and Espoo and now he was in Hong Kong for a month long marketing project trip - sounded pretty nice!

Lightshow of Hong Kong harbor front buildings

Around 9pm we arrived back to Central to meet my friend and guess what... his CEO for dinner. Actually my friend had spoken about me to his CEO previously. So we had a nice dinner, from where we continued in to a bar, second, third, fourth... Long story short, at some point between the conversation I was asked to apply for a master thesis position and workplace in a year or two in Zurich during the week. We had some cigars to shake hands and continued into a A-list night club to celebrate the Hong Kong night life. From there we left around 5.30am towards the MTR (you read it right, Mass Transit Railway compared to MRT, Mass Rapid Transport of Singapore). The first MTR train to TST left at 6.06am and the gates were opened, around 7am we got back to our apartment to catch shuteye.

We were woken up by our lost friend at 11am. We were supposed to meet him at his apartment around 10am but luckily he didn't wait and started to look for us. It was actually a weird coincidence that he founded his way back, it was the same guy that picked us from the street that waved for our friend too. None of the people he asked had heard about our hostel in Chungking Mansions on the 36-44 Nathan Road. Actually the building is well know as the most affordable accommodations in Hong Kong. The building is filled with independent low-budget hotels, hostels, shops and other services. I could say that it is a place worth visiting, it has been previously described in literature as a "post-modern Casablanca - all in one building".

The sunday was spent walking around the Hong Kong Central area, visiting The Peak also referred as Victorias Peak with the amazing view over the opening sky scraping landscape of Hong Kong. We also walked the whole three kilometers route around the Aberdeen Country Park mountain beside The Peak. While walking around the mountain you could see the view opening to every side, definitely recommend! From the top of the peak we took a taxi to visit the Aberdeen part of the Hong Kong on the other side of the island. It was beautiful with its dining boats and ferries light up in the darkening night. After dinner in  Aberdeen we took taxi back to Central and visited the ferry harbor to check where the ferry departs for Macau. We saw the light show of Hong Kong and visited one of the busiest Mac Stores in the world filled with mourning fans to give their condolences to late Steve Job and his life work building Apple. The rest of the day was spent walking around the TST to show it to our found friend. We called it a night around 5am.

Macau

Macau Tower

Actually the main reason behind the journey to Hong Kong was to visit at Macau just to jump the worlds highest bungee at AJ Hackett Macau Tower. The bungee is jumped from the platform standing at the height of 233meters. I had made the booking for me and two of my friends already over a month in advance.

We had the best breakfast in a while at the Pret A Manger close to the Macau ferry terminal. If you don't know about Pret a Manger, you really should check it out! The ferry ride from Hong Kong Central to Macau took around one hour which we spent watching the movie Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas to get us in the proper mood for casinos. Just to note, the amount of money spent in Macau casinos is already triple the amount that flows in Las Vegas.

We spent the day walking around the city, just gasping our breath over the expensive view of casinos more bigger than another. The day disappeared swiftly, suddenly it was already 6pm and our supposed jump was to happen at 7pm which was the latest time for jumping on week days. We started to head for taxis, tried and tried to get one, some stopped but most just drove past. None of the taxis wanted to take us to the Macau Tower and it was raining, we were all wet. Clock turned to 6.45pm, we were told to be at the tower at least 20min before jumping time. We were already late, this could not happen! How can we miss our only change for the jump just by the fact that taxis wont take us. We were thinking that it might be that they won't let us jump due to the strong storm wind and rain but not by the fact that we would be late...

We started running towards the tower, we remembered from the map that there was a big water gap between so we started to sprint around it towards the tower. We just run, we were all wet from the rain and sweat when we reached the tower. I had already changed to my best clothes for the casinos and now they were all wet... but that didn't matter, we reached the tower at 7pm. We run around to find the way to get up there and in the end were appointed downstairs towards the elevators reaching the top levels. At downstairs we found a guy who called upstairs and asked if there is time for us to jump, they told us to rush up quickly. After paying the tower entry fee and couple of minutes later we reached the 62floor, where we were approached by jumper coordinators. We were told that the weather conditions are really bad but they check the possibility for jumping, we paid the 2499HKD for the jump per each. Normally the paid jump is not reimbursable due to bad weather but in our situation they told that they would reimburse it which was nice. It took a while but we were allowed to jump around 7.30pm.

I was the first one to go! The free flow of over 6 seconds with speed reaching close to 200km per hour before starting to rebound back up within 30meters of the ground. One of our group had the most severe case of fear of heights, but I think the jump cured him a bit!

Guinnes World Records Bungy Certificate

We hereby certify that Harmanen Juhana has successfully jumped off the world's highest Bungy platform at 233 metres above ground here at the Macau Tower; and is officially entitled to ask the world "Do you have what it takes?"

We all made our jumps and we are hooked! We received our AJ Hackett membership cards which will give us 20 percent discount at every AJ Hackett activity around the world and the next two jumps at Macau Tower for 888 HKD each and the fourth jump for free!

After the jump we walked back to our guesthouse to take a shower and ready ourselves for the upcoming casino night. We checked some casinos: Casino Lisboa and Grand Lisboa, Sands Macao, MGM Grand Macau, Wynn Macau and Galaxy Starworld etc. Of course we played... and lost some. This was the first night which we decided to call as night a bit earlier and we reached the guesthouse around 3am just 4hours before we had to depart for the airport.

Macau, hear me! Next time it will be at daytime with the jump video!