syndrome Homes and of cracked nail polish

tidak kemas pengecatan di tangan kanan saya haha :p

3 clear cases bought at Homes, 1B. I went there 2 days in a row -_-"

I can stacked em easily and the most important is i know what in which hehe.

Word-less wednesday

harvested from my small garden :) pesticide free.

ulat sayur (or caterpillar?) comes out of their comfort zone

SR Itinerary and souvenirs to buy

I have a rough plan on my SR (Siem Reap) itinerary way before i purchased the air tickets haha but that stays as a plan till the biggest RM0 AirAsia's sale materialized it, turned out, there was never rm0 ticket for international flights duh. Nonetheless, we paid RM420 return tickets for 2, KL-SR only, with luggage(s). Good catch i must say. The only setback were the domestic flight tickets, return tickets for 2 costs us more than the international tickets -_-".

So, this was my planned itinerary. It's good to have this as a guideline for your trip, just to provide you with the sense of confidence of knowing what to do in foreign country. This is when you need a lot of researching which is one thing that i'm good at. Here goes

Day 1

- Reach SR, check in at GTV (refer previous post)

- Visit war museum (entrance fee usd5/person- as of Sept 2011 coz it was usd3 before)

- Visit cultural village (entrance fee usd11/person)

- Lunch at Villa.

- Go Angkor to purchase ticket, and use the free 1 hour to roam around Angkor Wat.

- Dinner at Khmer Kitchen resturant, Pub street.

Day 2- Angkor day

- Angkor Wat for morning view

- Visit Angkor Thom, enter through south gate

- Central Angkor Thom (Bayon, Phimeanakas, Terrace of the Elephants, Terrace of the Leper King)

-Ta Phrom (Tomb Raider)

- Angkor Wat for sunset

(Red ones were skipped, it was raining hence no sunset pics. Phimeanakas, Terrace of the Elephants are reachable by climbing and it was slippery.)

Day 3- Free and easy

- Old market, Pub street ( we spend the whole morning there buying souvenirs, went back to Villa about 2pm)

- Artisan D'Angkor

- Angkor night market (skipped  this due to heavy rain grr, dinner at Villa's restaurant)

Day 4

- back to Malaysia.

We hired a driver to bring us around, and his name is Mr. Same Savat, which i discovered after reading good feedback about him in tripadvisor. I opt for a car rather than tuktuk coz it was raining season and i was glad about the decision after i witnessed how 'amazing' these tuktuk drivers on the road ohmai.

If any of you want to try Mr Same's taxi/tuktuk service, you can reach him via his facebook : search  Angkor Best Driver (Cambodia best driver), alternately you can email him which is provided in his FB profile as well. He was punctual all the time, and he told us with so many local stories/ histories only khmer people knows . He speaks english well, considering he only went to school at the age of 15 due to war. 

' I had to run to school everyday' he said, which i believe to avoid him being the victim of stray bullet.

He also advised me on my itinerary and suggested me few places that are famous among the foreigners. If you decline, he wont force you to do it. 

Moving on, these are the souvenirs that we brought back home.

click to enlarge

Painting, rolled inside the mengkuang case.

Spices for own/gift, teas as well

Jasmine rice -_-

T-shirts, cambodian shawl, 100% cotton blanket -_-

Keychains, bookmark

Fake (or excellent imitation?) khmer rouge story-based book. They even have fake lonely planet here.

I got all these from the old market. You'll heard this often. 'Lady/Sir would you like to buy samsing' :D

Be their first customer of the day, and they'll agree to any price that you offer (depending on ur skill :p) coz they believe that, if they give you lower prices, you'll tell that to your friends. And that leads the friend to buy things from the same stall again. Double the traffic but not offering the same price anymore. Clever. I dont know if this is based on religion belief (perhaps morning has some kind of special symbol of smthg) or business strategy, cant tell but this sure benefit me a lot haha.

'lady, i give you morning price. afternoon, price is not same. morning price and afternoon price is different', the seller said. So i can conclude that if they use the term ' i give you morning price' to you ,simply means you are their first customer. Like me and my husband hahaha. At first they offered me a piece of cambodian silk shawl at the price of usd10, but at last they lower the price down to usd4 after i pretend not to seem interested...padahal :D

Ok, i think that's all for now.

Till next SR posts. This SR mood is going to stay for a while :p so please bear with me :)

Where to stay in Siem Reap

Throughout our 4d3n trip, we stayed in Golden Temple Villa, a decision i made after a thorough research of the place. The selling point of this place among all is the location whereby old market, pub street, angkor night market, Artisan d'angkor and food stalls are just within walking distance. Boleh exercise konon. Plus, there's a guard around the vicinity of the villa and he was there most of the time. So safety assured.

Upon arrival we were served with welcome drink (cold calamansi juice that brings you straight to brain freeze) and cold towel (need it so much, it was scorching hot on day 1!). That was so refreshing.

We chose a room with double bed and ac, and equipped with 82 freaking tv channels to choose from. It costs us only usd16/night, worth it bebeh.

The villa provides free wifi, zero fee bicycle rental, free fruits, tea and coffee in the restaurant and free 20mins massage. I redeemed my 20mins massage right after i came back from visiting Angkor. Omai. Heaven.

Here are some random pictures of the villa and it's facilities.

click to enlarge

The staffs are helpful as well, and they made an effort to communicate with/entertain you albeit poor in english. And the same goes to most of the Cambodians in the market. That is something to me. The thoughts of it warms my heart so much, wish to go there again next time.

Till next SR post.

This place stays dear to my heart.

Bayon Temple

..regardless of any countries i'll travel to in future.

I had fun making memories in Siem Reap. Will blog about it soonest.

Till then.

Another few days

semua notes (usd1,5,10,20,50,100) sama besar. bikin bingung.

It only takes a week for usd to rise from rm2.96 to rm3.05. Sepa suru beli lambat2. At least i manage to get a good rate unlike few places yg sell rm3.07 worst, rm3.12. Mana lagi kalau bukan airport :p. In case u're wondering where im heading to with usd in hands, tidak jauh ba. Sini Asia jg. Tapi itu negara guna usd as their trading currency bukan national currency dorang sendiri. Nda tau kenapa. Then u might ask 'what so special about the place', easy. It has the *self proclaimed* 8th wonders in the world and i've been wanting to visit this place after reading a heart wrenching travelogue in which i'll tell in another post.

Anyway, this ancient structure diminish with time, today i might see a perfect relief of an apsara lady. Maybe in a year time who knows? Mengkali hilang suda tangan dia haha. With this fact, any other places in my travel list can wait, this one cannot dui. 

Amaciam? Bole teka sd ka? Yg sd tau tia bole teka ah :D 

Till then.

Acquired taste

 

Like other strong foods that are often acquired taste for some people, sotong kangkung is no different. A direct translation of Sotong kangkung  would be convolvulus cuttlefish oh wow vulvuluvus what? Or by descriptions it is a food that comprises the cuttlefish and blanched kangkung, mixed with dark sauce and ground peanuts. I believe the variations of this food lies in the way they made the sauce. Ada sos yang cair, ada yg tidak cukup hitam, ada yg sos dia merah aduh. 

This particular sotong kangkung @ Bukit Padang do it very nice and deliziozo. My pick is always sotong + kangkung (u can opt for sliced/diced cucumber) + finely ground peanut + lada banyak2. I can eat the rm10 portion all by myself, i kid you not.

the stall,very near to the kg Nelayan Restaurant @ Bukit Padang

mobile phone quality pic of the sotong kangkung

 

 

 

 

 

 

Has anyone taste it? Or do you have any suggestions of places that serve tasty sotong kangkung? Let me know ya!

Till then.

4 things

Not in particular order.


Newly open Giant Tabuan, the first In Kch few days before raya. The magnitude of traffic congestion it cause? Jgn cakap lah. Anyway,yeay to Giant.


Those who'd permed their hair can relate to this; frizzy, dry, hair loss due to hair breakage. Boy how determine i was to restore my hair to the before-condition. So i went for hair treatment at a salon which my hubby frequented, and since he's paying i went for the best treatment using Joico's product. My hair undergone the familiar process like shampoo duh, conditioning, hair masking plus planet2 around my head like in the pic, and one new step which my hair is applied with protein something, if only i can borrow the bottle and read the label. After blow dry, my hair is set like this





I looovvveeeee this big time. Even after 2 days my hair is still soft and smells soo good. This gives me hope to further repeat this treatment without having to chopped my hair short. Im keeping this long hair since last year for my wedding reception ok, so u get the gist.





My very first moist choc cake, very moist i like.


My very first (lagi) ayam pansuh or in iban, manuk lulun. Kurang masin, a testimonial by MIL. Lepas ni tidak mau malu2 letak garam lah haha. Till then. Toodles.