Lets Get Lost 2017 - MU Hotel, Ipoh

"At some point, you have to stop running and turn around and face whoever that wants you dead. The hard thing is finding the courage to do it..." ~ Suzanne Collins 

Hi readers,

So for the long labour day weekend I was attending a cousin's wedding in Ipoh. We decided to stay at the Ibis Styles hotel that got renamed the MU Hotel.

I loved my room! 

So the room has a modern contemporary feel and it has a sliding door that closes the shower and the toilet based on where you slide it. You can't close both at the same time though.

This is the seating area near the lifts 

The hallway 

It has like an internet and workspace area... 

 The lobby is pretty cute!

I do love the feel and the design. No pool though and no porter. For a short stay it was nice. Located in the middle of town and 5 mins drive from Ipoh Parade.

Rates were reasonable.

My review of the hotel is somewhere on booking.com

Until further updates, much love from Airiel and I.

Peace and love to everyone. 

Fernweh 2017 - Part 1 - Coaley's Peak

"She had a wild, wandering soul but when she loved, she loved with chaos and that made all the difference..." ~ Ariana Dancu

Hello readers,

I have returned from my travels in the UK and it was lovely. But in the midst of my travels a lot happened.

So much death in March 2017. Death is only a breath away it seems and someone beloved to me was lost. Still pretty much reeling.

This is Coaley's Peak in an area called Stroud. I was pretty much tired of the normal tourist spots in London, so I left for the countryside. Whilst most days were cold and windy and dull, temperature was around 8 degrees on average, the day I went it was sunny. 

Sri and I also went for a walk cum hike around the area. Absolutely gorgeous and breathtaking. 

More on the hotel I stayed in the countryside soon.

Much love from Airiel and I. 

Peace and love to everyone.

Fernweh 2017 - Part 1

"We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there..." 

~ Pascal Mercier

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Most Merciful.

Hello readers.

I am getting the itch to travel. And I do have places planned this year.

I have had to cancel a trip due to my grandma's ailing health.

But this trip, I promised I would take.

So off we go.

It's time to return.

Soon. Soon.

Much love from Airiel and I.

Peace and love to everyone.

Top 5 booking websites I use to book hotels

"Since the Industrial Revolution, we've treated our world like it was a hotel room and

we were rock stars" ~ Blake Crouch

Hello readers.

Some of you readers have asked me where do I book my rooms for my travels.

This post hopefully answers that question for you guys. Just to inform you that for most of my travels to other continents, depending on  the safety issues involved I would take a tour. 

But for familiar south east asian destinations, I book my rooms on these websites and it starts from the bottom to the top:-

5. AirBnb

I have honestly only used this service once before. But that's because of my preference for hotels I think. I would rather have the 'inclusive of breakfast' and 'free wifi' things thrown in when I book for a place. But you would be surprised at how much these extras cost and thats why most rooms in AirBnb is cheaper than the hotels. Plus some owners now offer free wifi.  AirBnb does not currently partner with Shopback or Milkadeal cashback and that makes it less popular for me. If you want to know what I mean by cashback go to my earlier post on getting more value for the money you spend here. On the plus side, some really awesome but hidden getaways can be found only on AirBnb like the Twinkle Villa and this awesome Private Resort and we are only scratching the surface of Selangor here. It's therefore worth to surf and to give it a try. The very real and honest reviews from the users also help immensely in making your choice.

4. Expedia

Expedia partners with Shopback and Milkadeal although you would have to check the rates on which sites offers you the most cashback. At the moment Shopback is offering 9% of the value of your booking while Milkadeal 6%. I used this site for my bookings in Melaka earlier this year. The plus side for expedia is you can opt to book flights as well so it kind of doubles as an all useful travel agent hahaha. If you click on the last minute deals icon on the site it tells you the lowest deal flights to certain destinations that you can book last minute and more flights plus hotels package at some really good prices. I have one quip about this site though, and that would be its annoying habit to change its prices to a slightly higher rate when you are ready to book after perusing for a while and would  like to  make payment. I would rather they stick to the prices they quote initially but it depends on your luck!

3. Agoda

It partners with both Shopback and Milkadeal usually at the same rate so thats a definite plus. It also has depending on the day some of the best value hotel rooms I have ever come across. The catch? Most of the greatest deals like really cheap ones must be paid up front in full and is non refundable so you must make sure that your travel plans are confirmed because cancelling is a no go. Certain deals also come with complimentary enrich miles points so you are getting a cashback + enrich miles which can both be redeemed later. Thats just super awesome! On top of that agoda has its own credit system which can be redeemed to offset against any later bookings, although you must reach certain amounts of credits before it can be used.

2. Hotels.com

This website is currently moving fast up my favourites list. What I love about it? When you book 10 nights you get one night free equivalent to the average amount per night you have spent on the 10. So lets say you have a free night equivalent to RM250? book a hotel room at RM300 and pay only RM50 being the difference.  This site also partners with shopback and milkadeal so its cashback + free nights! 

1. Booking

I am a veteran on booking. I use this for almost all my hotel bookings as most hotels agree to not charge up front and I can opt to make payment only upon check in at the hotel. Most of the time I do not have to pay extra to get that, unlike Agoda where cancellation up to a certain date or paying only upon check in will result in you paying higher rates. It partners with both milkadeal and shopback, although it does not currently offer anything else as a bonus compared to the other websites above. That being said, as my family travel plans can change drastically I usually opt for this website for family bookings (we tend to book an average of 5 rooms per trip, phewwww). 

Tip : When you want to do bookings, open all these websites at once and compare the prices before deciding. Good luck and happy travels!

Much love from Airiel and I. 

Peace and love to everyone.

Fernweh 2016 - Krabi

"To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries..." ~ Aldous Huxley

Hello readers.

I have just been back from another one of my travels.

Reviews soon.

I was here in 2011, and am back here again in 2016. 

Full circle. It was time to make new memories. And it was great.

I have not blogged about Morocco even but let me do it bit by bit.

Tons and loads of things.

Sigh

Soon, I promise.

Much love from Airiel and I

Peace and love to everyone.

Lets get Lost 2016 - Morocco

"To wander is to be alive" - Roman Payne

Hello readers.

It's been a while. I am wandering again. Taking pieces of my angel son and palestine daughter with me as I go.

 

     

Breathtaking, isn't it?

I will blog about it more when I return.

Much love from Airiel and I.

Peace and love to everyone.

Fernweh 2016 - Pulau Besar, Melaka

"You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this..." ~ Henry David Thoreau

In the name of Allah, the Beneficient, the Almighty.

Hello readers,

I hope all of my muslim readers and friends have had a blessed Eid ul Adha. Selamat Hari Raya Haji. This year, just like every other year, Airiel went off for the holidays with his dad.

I have learned that to help with the time passing by in his absence, plan for solo short vaccay trips so you don't feel it so much!

Anyways, on a semi work trip, I managed to take a couple of excursions in Malacca. Playing tourist in my own country is awesome! Malacca, a UNESCO World Heritage site is steeped in history and places to visit.

I will break my visit up and spots I went into a couple of posts. First up is my trip to Pulau Besar.

Pulau Besar is located about 25 minutes boat ride off a jetty located in the merlimau area. Just waze or google map Jeti Tanjung Batu. 

There is a one time entry fee of RM5.00 for cars to the Jetty. 

 Park and then buy your ticket to Pulau Besar. Its only RM15.00 to and from the island. The time the ferry sets off can be seen in the pics above. I timed my beach hunting trip from 12.00 a.m and coming back at 3.30 p.m.

Whilst waiting for the ferry to take off (ferry is the last red one on the side), just chill and enjoy the view.

Once the ferry is ready to depart, a loud honking sound can be heard and off I go on the ferry. 

Stylo lah this bird chilling ... 

It's a 25 min boat ride where you can just put earphones on and listen to some music... 

 And voila, you are at Pulau Besar!!

 One with the welcome sign is a must.

 I saw a Museum which was unfortunately closed at the time I went.

I was told that this was a bird house? I have never seen one and was so fascinated.

 There is a food court area fronting the beach about 5 mins walk from the jetty where you can have lunch, get this map and rent a motorcycle for RM15 for an hour. I rented a scooter and with this trusty map in hand, went on my exploration.

My primary goal was to hunt for beaches, as you can tell by now I am obsessed with beaches and the sea, but there are a lot of tombs and graves around the island of rather prominent islamic figures that are responsible for the spread of the faith in Malaysia and south east asia region. Pics are as above, so I visited those too. There are also some wells, and the famed nenek kebayan well, tomb, batu belah (yes, THE batu belah batu bertangkup), the tomb of the tujuh beradik. What I found fascinating was the presence of an entire hotel complex, frozen in time and abandoned in all its majestic splendor. I didn't take any photos of those, it was just way too eerie. There was also an abandoned golf course, at the opposite side of the island where it is absolutely deserted, but the roads around it was still accessible which is where I went with my trusty scooter. There were some parts like the Nenek Kebayan well, a cave and a few locations which no matter how much I searched I could not find for some weird reason after a while which I gave up.

I was later told that this place is frequented by those who believe in the supernatural and mysticism, given the tombs and graves that are present here and the myths surrounding them, which explains why so many people were camped out in front of some of the tombs, and why I saw a bearded guy carrying a sword covered in yellow cloth errrkksss.

My advice? Ignore the mystics, and just enjoy the natural beauty of the island. The deserted side of the island has beautiful, sparkling, clear waters where you can just lounge for hours on end, with a book and earphones blasting with music. Just look at the pics above. So so beautiful.

After about 3 and a half hours, it was time to return the scooter and head back. It was fun Pulau Besar! Thank you for having me! Teheee.

Until the next update readers. 

Much love from Airiel and I. 

Peace and love to everyone.

Fernweh - Letsgetlost 2016 - Journey to Sapa

"A story is like a moving train; no matter where you hop on board, you are bound to reach your destination sooner or later..." ~ Khaled Hosseini

In  the name of Allah, the Beneficient, the most Merciful.

Oh my, updates are so slow on this blog it is now Ramadhan 2016!.

But I promised so I shall deliver!

Now its the epic train journey to Sapa from Hanoi where I actually threw up in..hahahaha.

For the journey I took the Tulico Express train. NIN and I decided that whilst the standard cabins bunk four beds, we will buy all 4 so we had the cabin all to ourselves. This was a wise decision.

Outside view 

Muka excited going on an overnight train haha 

 These 2 bunks were mine. Can you imagine if there were 4 people in the cabin? It would have been a tight squeeze. For us 2 it was just right.

It was quite cozy 

 Our bunks!

 The train provides, water, light refreshments which includes hot vietnamese coffee in the morning, wet towels and other items which you can order from the menu shown above. We just took the water and light refreshments. Coffee on a moving train was just too much for us and we skipped.

The journey takes the entire night and you will arrive at Lao Cai around 6 in the morning.  Here we are at the train station! After the train ride it was about a 45 min van ride up the hills to Sapa!

You can make your own bookings for these trains from Vietnam Railway. Their website is here.

Okay, this part is done!. I have some more foodie updates. Soon!!

Have a good weekend ahead and peace and love from Airiel and I to everyone.