Until I really have time (and mood) to write a proper travelog for our India trip, here’s the first video featuring Delhi (New and Old Delhi) with Az throughout the clip and no ilyani!! >.< Coz the camcoder filming was my job, and he does the photo. Enjoy.
Excuse for low-quality, I just did smallest resolution possible in movie maker. I could have opt for HD but uploading (and streaming) with slower connection isn’t fun.
I guess it’s time for me to announce officially here that WE ARE GOING TO INDIA IN APRIL 2011! Got very cheap deal for AirAsia the other week so we thought no further! :P Total price of RM858 for return tickets for two persons (including taxes, luggage, insurance, airport bus etc) to New Delhi, isnt that a real bargain?
Well the reason I keep holding from talking about this to the world is coz when I think again, I know it seems weird that I’m busy planning for the trip with my (to-be) husband even before thinking and planning about wedding =.= I do look way more excited with the trip than the wedding even though it makes sense that the trip comes after the wedding. In fact, months after the wedding >.< I dont know, say I’m a weird species, I dont mind. I dont know if I ever plan anything regarding the wedding and kenduri yet. Ugh.
OHHOHO, forget the wedding, it’s not important yet :P let’s discuss about India, shall we?
Roughly that is our plan for now. Since India is too big and we can barely cover 5% of it for a 2 week trip, so we decided to go to somewhere important first. Actually the word ‘important’ isnt right here, coz all places are important, so basically we wanted to go to somewhere we feel like going first. Of course, New Delhi as it’s where we’re landing and it’s the capital, and Agra to see Taj Mahal (speaking of Taj Mahal, kindly check my post in the postcard blog with Taj Mahal postcards I received) and also India postcards in my Flickr doesnt that justify that I really need to go and see those for real? :)
And. Az suggested that we go to Kashmir. Simply coz we can have snow in the mountain there. Though in April I cant expect snowfall like winters, but it still DOES have snow in some places in Kashmir in April! We have to learn about safety there as well, and I joined some forums like IndiaMike to get to know more about the place, where to stay, what to see, the transport, hotels, etc. It sounds like a huge work to make this independent trip, but it’s been exciting planning so far! :D Our route will be: New Delhi -> Amritsar (meeting my old penpal Manu there) -> Jammu -> Srinagar -> Gulmarg/Pahalgam/Sonamarg -> Jammu -> New Delhi -> Agra -> Fatehpur Sikri -> New Delhi. Do I sound like a travel expert already? :P
And like I said in previous post about CouchSurfing, we’re looking forward to experience a few days surfing at some hosts along the way to make the “Get to know India” mission more real, and we’ve actually contacted a couple of people for the purpose and got some lovely, welcoming response :) Therefore it’s a good news, and the more I’m impatient about the trip!
Category : Memories, Photos, Postcrossing, ToyVoyagers, Travel
OMG! My long lost Postcrossing-ToyVoyagers buddy Aliah happens to start lecturing in some uni in Penang after completing her Masters since recently, so hey, she’s apparently become a Penangite as I am, though we’re about some 20km apart, but what the hell, the other day I had A SURPRISE REUNION WITH YUL-GOON!!
I mean, seriously!
The last time I met Aliah (and Yul-goon, in that purpose) was back in 2007 when I was in UIA and she was in UiTM Shah Alam and being some crazy Postcrossers and ToyVoyagers-addicts at that particular time, we traveled 2 hours by bus with handful of toys to Malacca for two main missions:
2007. Melaka.
Oh yeah, add to the mission: 3) eat Mi Bandung Muar with Kak Nurul :)) And visit her house to see HUGE collection of her stamps and postcards that simply make you faint. Or rather, make you feel like stealing them altogether! No wonder Newrule has been #1 rank on most sent/receives among Malaysia Postcrossers ever since I can remember. She is everyone’s role model okay! Even though me and Aliah have been slowing down since, after years, but Newrule still maintains her rank! Dont you think she deserves to be awarded THE MOST LOYAL MALAYSIAN POSTCROSSER EVER EXIST ON EARTH? Please give applause to Newrule! :D (pics not included here)
Oh well. Those were the moments. That was 3 freaking years ago, now tell me how could time fly this fast?? =.=
Now back to Aliah and me. Within this time, both of us have graduated, looked for job, got a job, got bored working, quit job, went back to uni to study Masters. Also, slowed down with Postcrossing and ToyVoyagers altogether. Dont know why, but perhaps this is how life goes.
And last Sunday evening, I guess exactly after 3 years, we met again.. and Yul-goon was here too YAY! :D Who would have thought? ;D
2010. Juru Autocity, Penang.
Now that Aliah lives only less than one hour away from me, I can sense that there will come the times soon I’ll see myself go for a postcards-hunt-and-toys-hangout trip with her again :P in Penang!!! Now I’m just waiting for Kelisa to be back to me.
It’s been a while since I posted something no-nonsense lately.. so here goes one, finally. A report from my last family holiday in Langkawi island. I’m just gonna put some pics on Mangrove tour that we had, since it was pretty unusual, at least to me, apart from the more usual stuff you may find yourself doing on an island holiday.. beaching, snorkeling, shopping (yeah, Langkawi is heaven for shoppers, yay for duty-free price!). I only found out recently that even cars are significantly cheaper in Langkawi than in the rest of Malaysia… which I still cant find myself a good argument why and how, but here’s an excellent proof from Honda’s website. I mean, you can get a CR-V with RM50k cheaper in Langkawi for God’s sake!! O_O But you cannot just go shopping for a car and bring it back instantly, coz a car bought in Langkawi has to stay in Langkawi for at least 5 years (if I’m not mistaken) before can be shipped out to the mainland. Then again, dont you feel like moving to there at once anyway? Not bad okay, buy a small piece of land, build a good small apartment and you’ll be making loads of money by running a busy island resort easily. Tourists keep flooding to there like waterfall. Ah yes, include to that, car-rental service too, and it’s a sure thing you have spent your bucks to something totally worth for business. Az himself used to work as an accountant in a hotel in Langkawi for a couple of years, and God knows how leisure his life was at that time ;P (sorry, I didnt mean to mention Az in this post purposely okay, just something worth sharing that coincidentally he used to work in Langkawi).
Now back to Mangrove expedition. Panjang pulak intro… :P
Mangrove tour takes place around the part I circled with red.. where you can find mangrove forest all around in between swamps and small islands, beautiful eco-systems, that’s it. The boat trip varies according to packages, the one we opted was RM200 (originally RM250) per boat of 3 hours sightseeing all around the hidden part of this magnificent island, plus eagle feeding (yes, believe it!), plus bat cave tour, plus Kilim Geopark, plus dining on a floating restaurant in the middle of ocean (okay, food was separate price).
The birds are eagles okay. Dont play-play. And when I was still having suspicious feeling of how safe it could be to feed eagles, it turned out that we dont actually feed them manually :P rather the boat-driver-cum-narrator would slowly throw pieces of chickens into the water before driving the boat around the area for us watching from afar, witnessing how fast the eagles come out from nowhere, speeding to the water surface to grab the food and fly away eating, and come back to water again for next food available.. real good catch!! *big claps* And there were loads of them. I guess they’re so happy that everyday people come all the way by boat to feed them with chickens here :D
It was rather amusing when we were going through mangrove swamp with river-like water, and shortly later come out into widest view of green-blue ocean.. and suddenly going through another area of mangrove swamp again, and later the sea water again.. and we got to see tiny monkeys and crabs living their quiet life by the swamp and river banks.. well, it’s helluva fun of National Geographic- like eco tours! :D This Kilim Geoforest Park in Langkawi has been listed as Unesco Geopark in 2007. Now anyone wants a postcard from here? ;-)
We passed by many (yes, many!) posh boats and yatches like this being “parked” along the streams.. the boat-driver told us they belong to rich Europeans who sailed long-term to this region, usually for weeks to a couple of months, before heading to the next destinations. And it instantly strikes me of how adventurous the idea is! Really, to think that those people only spend their life going on holiday all the times without the need to go work.. hmm..
We dropped by this Gua Kelawar (cave of bats) for another quirky adventure.. walking through paths built on the swamp into a deadly dark cave.. and you could only see thousands of bats hanging onto the cave wall and ceilings with a help of torch-light. SPOOKY! Though my camera-phone was hopeless to take pics in such darkness even though we could see light and the bats, so no bats pics here, but OH! I prepared a short video of this tour, and you could see some light revealing the bats when I was in this cave, but as usual I cannot access to YouTube with USM internet so there’s no other way to upload it now. Maybe later.
Ahah, so after hours of expedition, it’s good to lunch in this restaurant floating in the middle of ocean.. what do we have here? Fish and lobster and shrimps caught fresh from their nest (well actually we had dropped by the restaurant earlier to order and choose our food before continuing the rest of the tour and as soon as we came back 1.5 hours later, the lunch was ready and we didnt have to wait :)). And the ikan pari (stingray fish) was the most bigass stingray fish exist around, as he’s claimed to be.. weighing over 100kgs! His name is Johhny ^_^
So okay, it was my third trip to Langkawi in my life history (first was 1988, second was 1998) so it’s been ages since the last one which I almost forgotten what we were doing then, and it was good that we did something new this time. Soon I get to access YouTube I’ll upload the short clip :)
Category : Photos, ToyVoyagers, Travel
Huhuhu.. thanks to digging out my long-abandoned Flickr album yesterday, I found these bunch of photos from last year during my visit to Tamadun Islam Monument Park in Terengganu, which gave me realization that 1) I was meaning to blog about this monument park since long.. 2) I have been such a big procrastinator for having forgotten it altogether! T_T Yes it was since ilyani.wordpress.com era actually, so you know how bad I can be at remembering things.
So! I went there with family & Iago during Hari Raya vacation coz my parents wanted to visit here so much given that my sisters & grandma had been here the year earlier right after sending us to Kuala Terengganu airport to depart for Hajj. And for my own, I was hosting Iago the ToyVoyager from Brazil at that time so I thought it could be cool to take some pics there. Well, actually I *did* upload the same pics (the only different is Iago was on every pic) on Iago’s travelog before so no wonder I had forgotten to do it on my own blog >.<
” Hi, I am Iago and I was excited to visit here with ilyani :)”
Oh oh, since ilyani.net is not actually a traveling toys blog, here I’m uploading Iago-less photos only okay.
Taman Tamadun Islam (translates to Islamic Civilazation Park) is located in Wan Man Island in Kuala Terengganu, and is the most significant monument park ever built in this region, housing 21 replicas of historical monuments and mosques from all over the world. I couldnt help but gasped when I saw the sacred Dome of the Rock right before my eyes! I mean, I wasn’t even in Jerusalem! O_O
Yup, the monuments here were built so detailed that they resemble almost exactly the original buildings from the original place, only the size is smaller. I was told that most (if not all) replicas here are made to scale 1:8 compared to original building. Yet, the beauty of these historical monuments of centuries of age is enough to make you amazed of realization how people manage to build such architecture during their era.
I dont know if I can ever visit the real shrine in Jerusalem, so getting brief ideas of how it looks like here seems to be great already! The interior views of the “Dome of the Rock” replica was also made to look as its original.. and I cant help but stunned, even they built the Foundation Stone at the center of which in the Muslim belief, Prophet Muhammad used to step on during the Isra’ & Mikraj event. It also has significant value to the Jews as they pray facing the very stone. BTW, the Dome of the Rock replica is the only monument replica here built big enough for people to enter inside it.
Now from Jerusalem we went ahead to Andalusia in Spain :) where this Alhambra palace & fortress was built in the 14th century by the Moorish rulers at that time. I guess Az should have probably been to the original Alhambra since I understood he went backpacking to Andalusia before.. and hm, for me I would just be happy visiting Alhambra replica here ^_^
A few more monuments of very ancient century, I can guess: Top: Aleppo Citadel of Syria (dates 3000 BC!!!) Bottom left: Agadez Grand Mosque of Niger – a weird looking structure which was made of clay (!) built in 1515. Bottom right: Great Mosque of Samarra of Iraq, built in the 9th century. Okay I’ve linked the names to its Wikipedia page since I’m lazy to story more, so go read there if you’re curious about the (original) buildings.
Whoooo! Taj Mahal! :P Who would have thought, I already visited this gorgeous building here! :P I know this is irrelevant to this post, but kindly go see my Taj Mahal postcards I received here. :P Which doesnt make me enough to visit only the replica, I hope I’ll be seeing the real Taj Mahal soon! :) I guess this doesnt need introductory anymore, since everyone knows the Taj Mahal was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in loving memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal, back in the 17th century.
Yeah now I realized when I’m writing this post, I have the same curiosity and feeling as when I used to blog about my postcards long ago, coz it was the only time I managed to go research on Wikipedia of every particular historic place and buildings or people on the postcards I was writing about. LOL. Hard work, right? :) Okay, Clockwise from Top Left: 1) Badshahi Mosque of Pakistan (built in the 17th century) 2) Qolsharif Mosque of Russia (16th century, rebuilt 1996) 3) Lutfallah Mosque*** of Iran (17th century) 4) Mausoleum of Abu Nasr Parsa of Afganistan (17th century).
Now you must be wondering how huge this monument park is? Yep, it’s so huge! They provide buggy service which stops in a few places for a while so you can get down and go around the replicas to take pics and stuff! Now, the very tall minaret here is the Kalyan minaret of Uzbekistan – it’s original building measures 48 meters tall and built in 1127AD. Amazing, right?
And two huge mosques here are: Top: Mohammad Ali Pasha Mosque of Egypt (built in 19th century) and below is pic of Süleymaniye Mosque of Turkey, second largest mosque in Turkey built in the 16th century (and I have a postcard from here too!). I wonder if Az has been here as well.
The most familiar among all should be the Holy Masjidil-Haram*** of Makkah, Saudi Arabia. Coz the original mosque is too huge, the replica seems too small :D Seriously, I was amazed with the similar-pattern of marble they used to build this mosque replica!
The Prophet Mosque*** of Madinah, Saudi Arabia. Same case with Masjidil Haram, the replica now looks too small. Yet, being here rather brings you sentimental value pondering these great Islamic architecture from all around the world.
Now, you’ve been to many countries seeing their most historical monument, just in a few hours! :D And I didnt even cover ALL monuments yet! (sigh, I missed taking some pics thanks to the buggy ride speeding too fast =.=). Other monuments can be found in this park are:
Therefore, if you’re going to Terengganu next time, and you havent been to this monument park, then you definitely should! Think about traveling to these 21 different places around the world, it only can happen in this park! :) Amazing, right? I know I wont afford traveling literally to every of those places to see the original buildings (the only ones I have been to their real buildings are ones I marked ***) not sure about the rest, hopefully ada rezeki, I’ll be seeing a few more in future ^_^
For more info about Taman Tamadun Islam, please visit tti.com.my.
