European break

There has been a break in the SE Asia traveling as we went back to Europe for 10 days.

A nice little tour including London pubs:

A poor start of the rabbit year for some rabbits (Borough Market, London bridge):

A fantastic exhibition at the Tate Modern (millions of hand painted ceramic sunflower seeds in the Turbine hall):

Then we passed Paris but we were too busy eating drinking and catching up with friends to take photos...

And finally skiing in Switzerland, including some mountains without snow, some with snow, colourful bears climbing cranes and a parma ham (comfort food after hours on the slopes!)


I'm now nearly up to date with the blog (1 more missing article on the Philippines) but no worries more will be coming, we are off to Sumatra next WE!

Boracay and Ati-Atihan in Kalibo

This is before finishing the first article on the Phillippines that I start this second one.
We are keeping an eye on a list of 25 things to do in SE Asia and the Ati-Atihan festival of Kalibo was one of them! So several months in advance we had booked our WE. As Kalibo is close to the world famous Boracay we decided to cover both in 3 days.
As usual when you fly to the Philippines, the flights are over night so after 2 flights and 4 very painful hours in a plane (with a sinus at a different pressure than the rest of my head), we make it to Boracay. The airport is on a different island but it takes 15 minutes to get to the hotel, beautiful!
On Boracay island, the sand is white, the sea is transparent, life is really hard....

In order to clear my sinus (and to have a look at the local sea life), we go for a morning dive. The rest of the day is spent walking on the beach, sleeping, eating, jumping in the waves and gathering information about kite surfing possibilities. We still want to get on the board at some point!




Unfortunately, the wind doesn't want to come, so on Saturday, we switch our kite surfing plans for jet skiing. We had never done that before and it was really coooool!
Like quad biking, it is much better when you are driving than when you are at the back! (or may be I'm just a better pilot than R... ;-)
We enjoy a beautiful seafood BBQ on the beach and an early night of sleep as we are leaving early for Kalibo on sunday morning.
It is not looking too good on the morning: the heavy rain doesn't want to calm down but we still press on. We even take a local bus for 90 minutes ride to Kalibo. That was interesting.... Apparently my femur is way too long to fit between seats and when you think 3 people is a bit of a squeeze at the back of a car, try 4! Apart from that, it was a pretty good ride.
We get dropped in the middle of town and straight away we bump into the first tribe!



I'll try describing the general idea of the festival even if it's far from easy. It's officially Jesus's week, but Jesus is a child in this story, not a baby or an adult as usual but a toddler. So, a tiny statue of Jesus child is taken out of the church for a walk in the streets:



it also include a lot of tribal music and outfits:



and that's for the live experience:


some transvestites:
some very religious people:


and a lot of drinking!!!!!!
The way back to Sg was very smooth, despite a very complicated flight schedule, we even managed to watch Lara croft on the airport TV to catch up with the Angkor temples! In conclusion, the festival is really worth it but I'm also very glad I couldn't find a hotel in Kalibo and was FORCED (yes yes!) to stay in Boracay because apart from the festival, the town has really nothing to offer...

Oh, just a last photo, after all the drinking, the tribes, the transvestites, here is what you could read in front of the church:

Hanoi and HaLong Bay

Step 4 of the December holidays, north Vietnam. Different from the south in many ways, one of them being that Facebook doesn't work in the North!

After a delayed afternoon flight, we make it to our hotel in Hanoi by dinner time. (the airport is really far away from the city!) lovely location, we are right in the centre, near the cathedral. Going out we notice that lots of people are outside of shops, drinking while seating on really tiny stools, they appear and disappear everywhere (the stools) depending on people affluence!
Just looking for the restaurant, we have already decided that we will like this city, there is a home feeling to it! And I didn't really know what to expect of Hanoi as I had read mixed reviews...
On the 30th of December, we have the entire day to discover the city so we visit a couple of temples, we walk around the lake,

we admire the juxtaposition of French colonial architecture, narrow Asian streets with markets





and communist style for all recent political institution, including Ho Chi Minh memorial. (he died in Hanoi)


It's a very interesting mix, full of history!

In addition to architecture, the French have left a love for bread and large avenues with trees on each side; it's actually very similar to the French quarter in Shanghai!
We have the most wonderful lunch in a tiny alley where we point at everything to order.

On the evening, we decide to participate to the use of the tiny stools and go out for a drink, it is quite an experience: the main drinking spot for locals is a street junction (for expats, hotel bars), at midnight, there's no one left and at the first seeing of a police van, the girls selling dried fish disappear running... (I haven't really figured this last point out)
The day has passed really quickly and the time in Hanoi is over, tomorrow we are leaving for HaLong bay.
It's an early start as there are 4h drive and we are starting our cruise by lunch time. We have booked 2 days and 1 night on a junk, these old style Vietnamese boat cruising the bay.
The journey is not really exciting, we stop for a short break half way in a weird place selling all the touristy things a tourist in Vietnam could ever buy, including giant marble statues...(don't ask...) Arriving at the boat terminal, we meet the million other tourists who are here with us to enjoy this 8th world marvel. But as soon as we board our boat we feel more secluded and the feeling of being one sheep following the other goes away. There are only 15 of us on this boat so it's nice and cosy.
During the 1st few hours, we stay outside on the bridge admiring these big rocks poping out of the water everywhere.





We also make a stop at a gigantic cave which was used by the fishermen as an escape during typhoon. First, here are a couple of views from the platform:


The cave is enormous, it could fit a village which is good news as we meet again the million tourists from the terminal...
Just after sunset we go kayaking in between the rocks, even managing to go through one!

We cross path with a big tanker (no idea what it is doing here) and a big cruise ferry; slightly out of place vessels....
The staff has prepared us a beautiful new year eve dinner (with the best spring rolls I have ever had) and it is outside, on the bridge of the "Jewel of the bay" that we celebrate the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011.
Happy new year!
Being the victims of the 1st of January iPhone bug, we miss sunrise but we are awake to climb one of the rock and get this lovely view of the bay:
Then we spend a good hour on the beach working on producing a decent photo for our christmas/new year card!

After another good lunch, it is time to disembark and say good bye to half of the group, we are heading back to Hanoi for our flight back to Singapore on the 2nd. It is unfortunately time to go back to work.
But this is not the last time you will read posts about Vietnam, we loved it and I'm looking for an occasion to apply for a multiple entry visa!