My Apartment in Hanoi

by Bernard on July 2, 2009 · 0 comments

in Asia

Sometimes, business travels can be really good, but sometimes not.

My last trip to Hanoi was one of good ones. I had a fully furnished studio apartment to myself for almost 2 months. It comes with 42″ LCD with 60+ channels (even they have RTM1), 24/7 Wifi high speed internet, a fully equipped kitchen, washing machine & dryer and daily room cleaning!

They even have a indoor swimming pool, sauna, jacuzzi and a almost perfect gym. The thread mills even have a 15″ LCD attached to it so I can watch ESPN while running. Doesn’t seem to bad eh?

I guess there’s nothing much I could complain or request .

My Studio Apartment at Somerset Hoa Binh

My Studio Apartment at Somerset Hoa Binh

A Fully Equipped Kitchen

A Fully Equipped Kitchen

The Work Desk

The Work Desk

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Making My Way to Luxembourg City

by Bernard on June 8, 2009 · 0 comments

in Travels

It would be my first real weekend in Germany.

I arrive the weekend before, but all I did was to sleep and sleep and sleep to adjust my body clock.

So, this was during the last week of August 2008. The summer was still very much alive here and autumn was so far away.

Together with a friend, we planned a day trip to Luxembourg. It’s not that far away, really.

One way journey would only take about 4 hours. They would tell you that by European rail standards, 4 hours is not far. Far would be something like 9-10 hours.

The journey to Luxembourg  includes a 1 hour bus ride from Aachen to Eupen, a small Belgian city at the Germany-Belgium border. Eupen is also the last town where the Belgian national rail network stops.

At Eupen, we bought our train tickets at 41 Euros each for a return trip. The journey would take 4 hours. We had to change trains at Liege Guillemins with a waiting time of about 30 minutes in between.

And after 4 hours inside the train, we arrived in Luxembourg.

That’s country number 17th on my passport, and still counting!

Some photos of how this beautiful Luxembourg City looked like. More photos of Luxembourg City here.

The Adolphe Bridge in Luxembourg City

The Adolphe Bridge in Luxembourg City

The Royal Palace in Luxembourg City

The Royal Palace in Luxembourg City

View of the Fortress From Above the Valley

View of the Fortress From Above the Valley

The Fortress from Another Side of The Valley

The Fortress from Another Side of The Valley

Old Fotress in Luxembourg City

Old Fotress in Luxembourg City

Luxembourg City's Main Train Station

Luxembourg City's Main Train Station

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Dive @ Pulau Tioman

by Bernard on June 4, 2009 · 0 comments

in Travels

Less than 3 weeks after my trip to Perhentian, it was Tioman this time.

I thought I’d better go for another diving trip before my next overseas assignment that most likely will end towards the end of August. By that time, I would have missed the best part of the diving season this year.

So, Tioman it is.

Blue Water Ferry Boarding Pass

Blue Water Ferry Boarding Pass

It was my first time to Tioman, so I was suprised with the ferry boarding pass system they have there. Gave my ferry ticket to the counter, register myself and they gave me a boarding pass. All I did with it was to walk some 15-20m and pass it to the other personnel. And now, there’s only 1 ferry operator to Tioman since the accident in the middle of the sea last year.

It was a 2.5 hours boat ride from Mersing to Tioman. The ferry stops at a few jetties there and mine was the third. Kampung Tekek jetty to be exact. It’s also the only duty-free jetty there. Not the whole Pulau Tioman is duty-free.

Babura Resort's Colorful Van

Babura Resort's Colorful Van

Babura Resort - Long House Room

Babura Resort - Long House Room

I was greeted by a colorful van, courtesy of the resort (I would say wooden long house) that I’ll be staying for the next 4 days; Babura Seaview Resort.

Dumped all my bags into the room, the diving bag with all my gears at the dive center at Tioman Reef Divers. It’s just next door and is owned by a Malaysian husband and his Japanese wife.

Then, we had our super quick lunch and immediately geared up for the first dive at 1430.

The Dive Centre - Tioman Reef Divers

The Dive Centre - Tioman Reef Divers

The first of our 8 dives was at Tiger Reef, some 20 minutes boat ride away. Lots of nudis down there and other small creatures. The best thing was seeing other divers cam whoring for the whole 60 minutes dive with their new cameras.

The worse thing? Having the new divers with camera kicking up all the sands at the bottom. And even worse, scaring the hell out of the fishes with me ended up with no fishes to see.

Then we had our 1 hour surface interval before dipping ourselves into the water again at Labas Island.

Dive Sites in Tioman

Dive Sites in Tioman

The second day was reserved for the best dive site. Before I came, I asked those who dove here often which is the best site. They all have the same answer. Chebeh. To go the Chebeh, it’s a 20 minutes boat ride from the dive center.

Not a good thing if you’re a seasick person.

Once we’re there, the signs weren’t that good. There were quite strong currents. We wanted to dive the pinnacle. But to do this, we had to swim from the descent line was which some distance away. The current might take us away from where we wanted to go.

So, change of plan. We dove the lagoon there instead.

Then we had our usual 1 hour surface interval before jumping into the water again at Malang Rock, just behind of Chebeh. It was a shallow dive, 15m max. On average it was 11m as we already had a quite deep dive earlier.

Myself At Chebeh During Surface Interval

Myself At Chebeh During Surface Interval

Had our lunch and 3 hours of surface interval between before jumping back into the water. This time it was Renggis. One of the best dive sites. Visilibty was very good. 15m maybe. I encountered a really big green sea turtle, the resident there. Then we have 2 blue spotted ribbontail ray, scorpionfish and the titan triggerfish.

The third day, we dove at Soyak Island in the morning. Visibility was very bad. I would say it was like 4-5m at best. It improved a lot towards the end of the dive at 7m depth when I was at the coral garden. If I’ve known (as if I do) this earlier, I would have stayed at the coral garden from the start of the dive. And I wouldn’t have stayed elsewhere at 20m for 45 minutes getting lost and having nothing to see!

It was Chebeh again and Genting Ba for the third day as I didn’t really dived Chebeh the day before.

Okay, what’s so good about Chebeh that I wanted to dive there again?

Besides the varieties of creatures living there, the underwater landscape is simply amazing. There are rocks you can swim through, small caves you can enter, and then exit at a beautiful coral garden at 6m depth. Sorry, no underwater photos of Chebeh. Maybe next trip.

So, which was the best dive site?

Chebeh has to be one of it. No doubt about that. The second would be tiger reef. I would really love to dive Tiger Reef and Chebeh again this August with my camera!

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