T43. Danga Bay, Johor Bahru

Nice pose.

I have seen this landmark before, now I know where it is.

Now what is this Country Garden all about.

Here is where I go into detail.

Country Garden is a very ambitious property development project taking place at Danga Bay, Johor Bahru.  It has the motto of a 5-star Living For You.

This strip of land called Danga Bay Waterfront is located within the southern coridor of Iskandar, a greater Johor Bahru development area.  I have a feeling this project is going to be a big success with Bukit Serene where the Royal palace is located as a background overlooking Singapore across the strait.  But the big question is, how much is the property going to cost us.

That's why we are here!

Looking for property require concerted effort, so I need to bring all able bodies around.

This guy could've been frozen for not paying the parking fee.

Watery table top.

A family outing turn bad... just kidding.

Within the vicinity, there is also a marina to dock your boat and yacht.

I like this photo, water, boats, cloud.  masterpiece.

Scale down hot-air balloon.

I was expecting a big crowd here but as it turned out, it wasn't.  O ya, I remember the heat.  I am sure this place is a first choice at night but we couldn't wait.  We have business in KL.

Infinity swimming pool.  Let's catch up with the Sands.

So, let's decide.........

No decision of which property to buy, all decisions pending and we drove back to KL.

T42. Thien Chung Grotto, Halong Bay

Still within the Halong Bay vicinity, there are a number of caves or grotto. Included in the itinerary is a climb into a grotto called Thien Chung, which is located at Dau Go Island.  There is other cave within the island itself called Dau Go Cave, but we just went into the first.

Thien Chung grotto means heavenly cave, located about 4 km from the tourism wharf.  The cave is 25 meter above sea level and illuminated with colourful light making it so splendid as we step inside.

Dau Go Island, the location for the grotto.

Some info about the entrance fees.

I have made a few one-minute video so please take a look.  It is not more than one minute each so it won't eat into your broadband so much.
In some video I purposely left the audio on to show you how noisy it can be in that cave.  Well it was a weekend no wonder there were so many tourists.

 

The forever famous camera angle.

 One more video won't hurt I guess.  This is really nice.

Dau Go cave just next to the grotto.

T41. Legendary Halong Bay

The iconic kissing chicken.

 The highlight of our visit to Vietnam is obviously the Halong Bay.  

Halong Bay is located about 150km east of Hanoi.  The most convenient transportation method is by renting a car or in our case renting an MPV with the driver and a guide. They are from a tour operator called MTV for Muslim Tour Vietnam.  Mr. Trong is not a muslim, but he is used to transporting and tour-guiding muslim tourists.  He even learn Indonesian language now.  Commandable.
Even though the google maps says the time to travel is 2 hours 39 minutes, it is normally estimated to arrive in 4 hours due to traffic as well as roads condition.

The guide, Mr. Trong.

There is one stop each way during which you can find souvenirs in painting in any size.  No photographing allowed so we can't show the sample, but we love the painting and the drawing only to be turned off by the rather steep price.

The stopover place with plenty of painting.

 About 4 hours after leaving Hanoi, we arrived at the location with the operators for our junk boat waiting to greet us.

 There are two types of junk boats, one for day tripper like us, and the other three-storey boat for staying overnight.

Boat for day tripper.

 Everything set and ready and off we go.  Just enjoy the pictures, no less stunning and breathtaking.

Halong bay which consists of more than 1600 islands, are actually limestone formation and look like film set for avatar.

The junk boat is large enough to accommodate about 50 passengers but we were surprised to know that we have the whole boat for ourselves.  Actually we have paid the rent for the whole boat plus the excursion, the transportation to and fro Hanoi, tour guide and lunch amounting 118USD per head. 

The boat for us.

 If the picture doesn't tell much on how it feels, try checking the video here.  It would help.

 

 

 

masterpiece

 

 

 

 

Halong Bay icon

 

The kissing chickens: obviously those are rock formation that resembles two chickens look like kissing.  Check below if that is true.  Whatever it is, this has been used as the Halong bay icon.