At 18.15 our flight to Helsinki leave and after 3 hours… welcome back to Finland! Aika kiva ilma tanaan! It’s nice to be back home after 2 weeks! The trip was great! Now we have enough energy to go back to work next week

After that we are ready to go back to shopping but we really have too many bags so we need to leave them in a proper location… we find at the last floor a place where we can do that… and for the first 4 hours the service is free…

We go on shopping until 19.20 when it’s time to go back to the hotel so we take another taxi. It should take 10 minutes to go back to the hotel to take our luggages and then other 45 minutes taxi to the airport… but we have underestimate something… the traffic of Bangkok…

It takes almost one hour to arrive to the hotel but luckly we are not too much in late. Few minutes to fill our luggages with all the stuff we bought and then we take another taxi. On the way we pass again 2 different tollgates. This time I see how much the driver is paying from a display located next to the traffic light that give you the access to the highway.

Once we are at the airport we are charged for a total amount of 325 Baths. Check in at the airport and normal security formalities, then we finally get on the plane. Here they serve us our dinner, and finally we try to sleep… but is not that easy… few hours later it’s already breakfast time and then… we just need to wait to arrive to Amsterdam!

We go directly to see the giant pandas but… they were sleeping… A short tour in the park and a quick lunch, then Sina wants to try the Roller Coaster so we go there and after that it was already 15.00. Today we also want to visit Yau Ma Tei also known as Temple Street Night Market so we go back to the city center. Definetly we would have need more time in Ocean Park.

We take the MTR directed to the Central station and we start looking for this market but are not so lucky. The market is hidden somewhere… We walk half an hour but then it’s time to go to back to the hotel to get our luggages and go to the airport. So no market. We are at the hotel at 18.00, and 45 minutes later to the airport. The flight is quite good. We arrive in Bangkok at 22.50 and from here directly to the hotel by taxi. The taxi driver is using a normal taxi meter but on the way he has to pay 2 toll fees. We don’t pay attantion to the amount of these fees and once we are at the hotel the driver ask us 400 Baths also if the taxi meter was reporting 300. We are too tired and we have no way to verify the amount of toll fee, so we pay and we enter the hotel. here there are really friendly people working, they welcome us and they help us with luggages so we don’t have to care about anything. After the check in we enter our room and… wow… that’s an apartment! There is also a living room and it’s huge! Also in Phuket the room was so big! Nice to be back to Thailand!

We are too sleepy now. Tomorrow we have some time to spend in Bangkok but we still have no plan.

We have to take another MTR directed to Tung Chung. This time the way is more or less half an hour long. We arrive at the MTR station and we find a big commercial center full of outlets of any kind. This city is really full of shops… but we are not there for shopping… but we are hungry so we have a quick lunch in a japanese restaurant. This time food and service are really horrible. But Buddha is waiting for us… and is not that easy to handle. His statue is located on the top of a mountain and from here we discover there are 2 ways to go there… by cable car or by bus. I don’t like the feeling of being suspended in the air for half an hour so we decide to go there by bus also if the way would have been a bit longer. We arrive to the top of the mountain and… it’s there! Buddha! but we are still not done… we can see the statue but there is a long stairs to climb… Sina’s feet are already desperate… But we gotta do it!

We arrive to the top, there is this giant statue of bronze with some people praying.

Meanwhile we listen some loud religious songs… where are they coming from? It’s from the Monastery located close to Bhudda. So we gotta visit also the Monastery! We go there and… it’s nice and quite different then the european religious places.

There is also a small village built nearby here mainly full of souvenirs shops.

At 18.00 it’s getting dark and it’s almost raining. Time to go back, but nice feeling thinking that the mission of today is completed! We take another bus and we decide to stop to the commercial center to check it out. We buy few things and then we take the MTR to go back to The Peak to have dinner in a nice restaurant over there.

After that MTR again to Tsim Sha Tsui where our hotel is located. Here we spend few hours going around the city and checking the other shops in here and after this exhausting day we are back around 23.30.

From here we go to the MTR Central and we walk in direction of The Peak that gives the best view of the city’s skyline and harbour from the Lugard Road lookout! To get to The Peak it’s needed to take a particular tram… It takes 15 minutes to find the place but once we are there to buy the ticket… they are also selling tickets for the Madame Tussauds Museum next to The Peak so we decide to buy a combo ticket that gives access to both attractions! The tram arrives and… on the way we understand why it’s called The Peak… The climb is unbelivebly steep…

We arrive to the top and it’s full of shops selling chinese things… We buy everything is on our way before to end up to the Madame Tusseaud Museum! We get in and it’s full of famous people! There are also many asian artists that we have never seen before… But we can see how asian people get crazy for them!

It takes 1 hour to visit the Madame Tusseaud Museum then we finally go to The Peak Terrace… The view is simply amazing!

We go back to the hotel to leave all the things we bought, then dinner in an italian restaurant nearby the hotel. A good pizza and a good salad to calm down hour hunger. Then we go around our neighborg for shopping.There is a tremendous confusion on the street at any time. Prices of the electronics and cosmetics are really cheap.

Now Sina got tired. It’s 22.00 and we go back to the hotel. Looking for the big meeting of tomorrow… the Giant Buddha…

Then the price of the petrol… Ladies and gentelmens… you cannot immagine. Petrol here cost 0.68 MYR per liter… that converted in euro is 0.125 euro per liter… it’s crazy to think that in Europe we pay it 10 times more…

We arrive to the International Airport of Kuala Lumpur and there is a lot of confusion. We spend 1 hour eating something and visiting the few shops, then we do the check in and the boarding. On the plane we meet a friendly malaysian that asked us what we have seen in Kuala Lumpur. We basically answer the Petronas Towers where the main thing, and he got almost mad cause he say we missed many other nice things. The flight was ok… so when we arrive in Hong Kong and we get our luggage.

We go to an Info Point asking how to get to the hotel and the taxi prices. The lady at the Info Point suggests us to take a taxi cause it would have cost only few Hong Kong Dollars more then the public transportation. At the exit of the airport, we realize that the Hong Kong airport is full of unauthorized taxi drivers. One of them also showed us an ‘authentic’ taxi driver license… we wanted to make a comparison so we asked him how much his price would have been and he wanted to charge us the double of the price of a normal taxi… with the excuse that the price communicated by the Info Point was per person… moreover he was not having any authorized taxi label on the roof of the car or any taxi meter in the car…
We give our best greetings to that driver and we go to the taxi station. Here it’s easy to identify real taxi cause the cars are red or green with a big taxi label on the roof of the car. It takes half an hour from the airport and we payed 240 HKD (24 euros). We arrive quite tired to the hotel and we go directly to sleep at midnight.

15 minutes for pictures and videos then time to have dinner in a restaurant nearby the Petronas Towers. We go back to the hotel to relax a bit and then we go visiting the Hard Rock Cafè of Kuala Lumpur! Nice with the prices more then european!

Go back to sleep around 23.00. Tomorrow next destination Hong Kong!

Kuala Lumpur Lesson Learnt
- always order water in bottle anywhere in the Asian restaurants
- don’t spend more then 2 nights in the city center of Kuala Lumpur but go visiting the rest of Malaysia

Best of Kuala Lumpur: Petronas Tower, Cheap Taxi, Cheap Fuel
Worst of Kuala Lumpur: Not to much to do in the City Center

We spend the afternoon in this shopping mall… After few hours I don’t know who was more exausthed… if Sina busy trying all the kinds of shoes or me just cause I was with Sina In the shopping mall we also find a shop where they were promoting massage chairs… So we had our dose of relax

After that it’s time to eat, so we stop in a really nice restaurant where we order 2 good pizzas. We are back to the hotel around 18.00 when Sina start to feel a bit sick. Later at night we decide spending an hour at the bar of the hotel with some singer performing and then directly to sleep.

The bus is quite comfortable. It will take 5 hours to arrive to Kuala Lumpur. We leave at 11.00 and after half an hour here is the border. The check of the passport is really quick… and after that… we are in Malaysia! Speed limit is 110 km almost on all the way. They also serve us a meal on the bus but I really have enough of asian food. Mumy get ready cause when I come to italy I have my request list

We arrive to Kuala Lumpur. The bus stop right in front the Petronas Towers! Massive! First impression is that this city is a small New York. 1.6 million of people living and high buildings everywhere.

We need a way to go to the hotel. We are carrying luggages and we have no idea how far the hotel is. Somebody ask us if we needed a taxi. We ask the price and for 20 MYR (4 euros) we would have arrived to the hotel but we didn’t have cash so we kindly ask the driver to stop to an ATM machine. The driver take us to the car… and believe me… it’s a really old car.

We get in the car and… ladies and gentlemans… it doesn’t work… the driver cannot switch the engine on… We wait 5 minutes until the car is ready to bring us to the hotel. There is quite much traffic. Quick stop to the ATM machine. Then few minutes of driving and we are at the hotel. It seems nice, huge, and it’s located at walking distance from the Petronas Towers… We do the check in and then time to relax.
At 20.00 we have time for a quick tour of the city center and dinner. Sina start to feel a bit sick so we go back to the hotel where there is a show. We spend 1 hour there and then sleeping at midnight.

Wake up at 12.00, we missed the breakfast again. Once ready we go to the Sentosa train station. From there, we take a train to Harbor Front. We are too hungry so we stop in a place called Food Republic. This is full of food places specialized in different kinds of food, chinese food, cantonese food, singapore food… There is a big choice. We order some chicken with pasta and then a great soup for 14 SGD (7 euros) for 2 persons. Food is really good.

1 hour to find the bus office from where to buy the tickets to Kuala Lumpur, we buy 2 bus tickets for 49 SGD (25 Euros) each person. Now free time! We want to try the cable car of Singapore that gives a panoramic view of the city! 23 SGD each person and here we go! We are so high! It’s wanderful but I have to keep my eyes closed all the trip long

We take the MRT to go to see the main street of Singapore: Orchard Road. In the MRT there is a poster who makes the citizen aware of how to prevent the security problems.

We are finally in Orchard Road! There are shops everywhere! It seems this country is not feeling the economic crisis we have in Europe. Sina start wandering a new pair of shoes. We go around for an hour until we find a pair of shoes she likes… And then voila’ Sina is super happy! So I take advantage of this moment to take her to check the biggest Apple store of Singapore. Great prices here! A Macbook can cost something like 30% less then Europe. I start wanting to buy everything is in the shop but we still have to check out Hong Kong in few days… So Danilo relax… Outside it’s full of brand stores: Prada, Gucci, Calvin Klein, Armani… seems to be in Milan… but with the only different that… here there are no italians! Finally a place where I still haven’t found any italian!

We go to another shop to buy a camera. The seller shows me a Nikon S220 for 395 SGD (200 Euros). I don’t know the actual price of this camera in Europe but we just go to visit another shop in front of this one and here the same camera costs 250 SGD (125 Euros)… Was the price of the first shop a real price of a tourist price? At the end we didn’t buy anything…

It’s getting late now. We had enough of Asian food so a quick burger and an ice-cream, then back to the hotel.

Sleeping at midnight. Tomorrow next country: Malaysia.

Singapore Lessons Learnt
- Asian capitals are as good and civilized as the european capitals (maybe even more).
- Spend at least 3 nights in Singapore

Best of Singapore: friendly and respecful people, high technology level everywhere, great transportation system, everything cheaper then Europe (except fines), organization of the country, cleanliness of the streets.

Worst of Singapore: humid weather.