About My End of Year Travel

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7 airports, 5 cities, 2 countries, and one heck of a journey.


Before I start let me just explain why there are 7 airports and only 5 cities. Some of the airports that I got off to were just for transit, and there were only 5 cities that i actually stayed in for at least 24 hours. Ok moving on~~

My family and I went on a 3 and a half week holiday to Thailand and my home country, Indonesia. Well, more like my mum, my sister and I hahaha, my dad had to go back to Malaysia after our Thailand trip for work. Ok... So where do I start? Hm, let me start from the day after I landed in Phuket.

11 December 2017
Starting off the day with a mini photoshoot, because I thought my outfit looked bomb that day so I asked my sister to take pictures for me. If you follow me on Instagram you might have seen the pictures.

              

They're the same as the ones posted here hehe. Anyway, the plan for that day was to go to Phuket Trick Eye Museum. It's a place full of paintings that creates a 3D illusion when you take pictures. There were lots and lots and lots of paintings. All of them were very nice and if you have an extremely creative mind you can definitely create very creative photos. However for me I didn't quite enjoy it there as I don't have a really creative mind so, i think it depends on one's creativity in order to find this place enjoyable, or maybe that's just me.



So after we visited the trick eye museum we went to Jungceylon Mall to eat and do a little shopping, then we walked from the mall to Patong Beach. We didn't do much at Patong Beach, just took photos and then after that we went to Premium Outlet Phuket to do some more shopping haha. Then we head back to our resort to get some rest for our next adventure the next day, a boat ride to Phi Phi Islands.


12 December 2017
Click here to see the vlog!
This day was the highlight of my entire trip to Thailand. A 9 to 5 tour to Phi Phi Islands, 8 hours of fun. Before we go on the boat ride though, there will be a briefing of what we're doing and how long we're going to stay in every place we go. If you don't come back to the boat in the stated time, then kiss your tour group goodbye, because the tour guides wait for no one. Aaanyway, throughout the entire boat ride to our destination, I was mesmerised by the view. The sunlight reflected on the clear waters of Phi Phi Islands, mashaAllah it was so beautiful. I was stunned.



In this tour we visited Phi Phi Le, Phi Phi Don, Monkey Island, Viking Cave, Maya Bay, and... that's all the place I can remember. After about 40 minutes we've finally reached our first destination, I can't remember which one but we stayed there for about 40 mins - 1 hour so people could go snorkelling. Then afterwards we went to have lunch and went to all the other places that I have mentioned, and then finally, at our last destination we went swimming at the beach, go for a 5 minute walk to see the other side of the island, chill and just have quality time. After about an hour there we headed back to the briefing point and then head back to our resort, and that's a wrap for the day. I probably made the trip sound like it wasn't interesting at all, but trust me, a tour to Phi Phi Islands is a must go if you're in Phuket. Period.


We didn't do much the next day because we've already went out from morning 'till evening the past 2 days so we decided to just stay at our resort to get some rest, also because we have a flight to Bangkok the next morning.


14 December 2017
After we landed, checked in to our hotel and got some rest, we went to check out Siam Center and wow, this mall is amazing. Very big and and nicely decorated, and.. ugh I don't even know what else to say the point is, it. is. amazing. This mall also connects to its sisters like Siam Paragon, Siam Discovery, and MBK Center. If you cross over to Siam Paragon and go in to Paragon Dept. Store you'll find a LOT of cute outfits. However, if you want to shop here you might need to break the bank because most of the items sold here, are very expensive.

Like this one time when I saw a very unique pair of jeans (it had embroidery, patches, bows, lots of other things the designer just sewed on. Honestly it kinda looked like the designer didn't know what they were doing lol, but some how it still turned out nice) and the cost of it was beyond imaginable. 32,500 Baht (RM4000+) for a pair of jeans?! Oh my.

But yeah that's how the day pretty much went, and then the next day we visited Madame Tussauds.


15 December 2017
Not gonna lie, I never knew there was Madame Tussauds in Bangkok. Well, when you travel you discover new things. As you all probably already know Madame Tussauds is a wax figure museum
for famous people. It's not that interesting but its nice because you get to see an extremely realistic (from a far it doesn't look super realistic so you gotta see it up close) wax version of your favourite celeb. At Madam Tussauds Bangkok there were the first president of Indonesia, Albert Einstein, Mark Zuckerberg, Mozart? or Beethoven?, David Beckham, Christiano Ronaldo, Captain America, Oprah Winfrey, One Direction, Beyonce (Although her wax figure doesn't really look like her),  Johnny Depp, and many more!

 
 

So yeah that's it for the 15th, on the 16th I flew to Surabaya, Indonesia, stayed overnight and then the next morning took a 4 hour car ride to my grandparents's house. The main reason we visited our grandparents was for me to learn how to drive (I think), so during our stay there I took a driving course. Then about a week later (23 December 2017) me, my mum, my sister, and my grandma went to visit my cousin in Malang.

On the 23rd itself we didn't do much after we got to my cousin's house because we were knackered, but oh my I was really happy because I finally got to see my little cousins after 3 years. After we got some rest my cousins' fam took us to our hotel (there were 9 one of us in a car), and on the 24th, our next adventure begins.


24 December 2017
We visited 3 places that day. Kampung Warna-Warni (literal translation: Colourful Village), Bakso President (a restaurant, and bakso basically means meatball soup), and Museum Angkut (Transportation Museum).

Kampung Warna-Warni looks like somebody dropped a paint bomb on the village because everything is so colourful, the walls were painted many different colours, a ton of murals, and even the ground was painted as well. Definitely a must go if you love art. Plus the place is very "instagrammable", pics taken there would be a nice addition to your feed.


          


I didn't get to explore the entire village because it was so hot and crowded, stairs were very steep and I was in heels lol so we decided to leave after like 30 minutes.

After we left Kampung Warna-Warni we went to have lunch at a restaurant called Bakso President. What makes this place special is that it's located right next to the train tracks. Literally right next to it, there's probably only like a 20 metre (or maybe less) distance from the restaurant to the train tracks. So when you're eating there and a train passes by, you can feel the ground shake, like a mini earthquake (oooh that rhymed haha).

   

After lunch we headed to Museum Angkut in Batu city, which was only like an hour away from Malang. As it is a transportation museum, it's obviously filled with lots of old/antique transportation from all over the world. Going here will take you back to late 1800s and mid 1900s. But this isn't just some ordinary museum where you walk in and just look at displays of old cars/motorcycle. It'll take you around the world as well.

         

After you entered the main hall just follow the path and next thing you know you're in Europe. If you've been here you'll know what I'm talking about. I'm really sorry I can't explain this properly so I highly recommend you to go to Museum Angkut if you're in Batu/Malang so you get what I'm trying to say.

            

And yeah that's the end of the day, we went back home to my cousin's house and then later on that evening my other cousin came, so then there were 13 of us in total.

The next day All 13 of us went to the Mall to just have a look around, ate lunch and went back to my grandma's house. 13 people, 2 cars, 4 hours on the road.

We stayed at grandma's for about a week just.. having quality time y'all. I haven't seen them in years so being able to see them again after so long makes me really happy. Did I mention that my cousins are 7-12 year olds? Another reason why I was really happy to see them, cuz they're kids, and, well, I love kids. They're still so cute and pure and innocent. Makes me kinda sad to think that the next time I see them they'll probably be teens and pre-teens.

Ok so fast forward to the day I go back to Kuching >>>.

4 January 2018
So... it turned out my flight from Pontianak to Kuching got cancelled, cuz the airline said they were having relationship problems with Malaysia. My mum was given an alternative, which was to go back by bus. It was no problem but the thing was, the next bus leaves at 9 pm, so we'd reach Kuching at 5/6 am the next day. Well, what other options do we have? So we agreed and found someone who could take us to the bus station.

When we were on the way there my mum asked the driver whether he can take us straight away to the border and he was like "yes m'am", so my mum asked my dad whether he would wanna pick us up at the border (the driver said we'd arrive there by 6 pm fyi) and he said yes. He was quite unsure though cuz he thought immigration closes at 6 pm, but the driver said it closes at 9 pm, and neither one of us knew what time the border actually closes, so we trusted the driver (he sounded really convincing).

It was around 5 pm when my dad called my mum saying immigration had closed. Ah, another obstacle preventing us from reaching Kuching on the 4th of Jan. Well, there was nothing else we could do other than finding somewhere to stay overnight. Not long after the call we found a small inn near the immigration offices and decided to stay there. The next morning, my dad came to pick us up and finally made it back home. Aaaand that's then end of it. A very memorable experience that I'll probably never forget.

If you have made it through the end of this post, I thank and appreciate you for spending the time to read this long ass blog post. Seriously though, thank you so much! xo


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