Celebrating New Year’s in Manila

Thanks Leo for spilling beer all over me.

The Philippines. If I have one word to describe the country, it would be ‘magical’. I’ve been on a lot of trips but this trip really opened my eyes. I went there with 3 other colleagues, Eugene, Toine and Joana. Toine and Joana went before Christmas to checkout Palawan and met up with Eugene and I in Manila.

When I first told my family and friends that I was going to the Philippines, most of them were skeptical and worried about my safety. They would go, “why there?”, “Is it safe?”, “You’re going to get kidnapped or killed there” and many more. At first, I was quite worried as well but what the hell, life is boring without risks. Plus I had a feeling that Philippines was going to offer me a whole new experience. The whole journey was a roller coaster ride. Plenty of mishaps happened throughout the trip. It was like a love hate relationship. All our flights were delayed, our ferry got cancelled and Eugene’s laptop got stolen. Well I think partly the reason why we came across so many transportation problems was due to the weather but nevertheless it was horrible. On the more positive note, it was nice to be working in different environment though the internet was quite unstable which made work really frustrating as well. You must be thinking that it was a nightmare for me there but believe me, it was one of the most memorable adventures I’ve ever experienced. By the time I reached the end of the journey, I didn’t want to leave the country. It a beautiful country.

We were in Manila for 6 days before we left for Boracay. We had to work mostly in the day when we were in Manila, so most of our adventures happened at night. Visited plenty of awesome places and met so many friendly people along the way. My only regret was that I didn’t take enough pictures. In total, we stayed in three different places in Manila where each place offered us a different experience. The first night in Manila it was with just me and Eugene and we came back to the hostel the next day at 7am. That was a rough and crazy night.

Making some friends at the food court while trying the local cuisine.

Taking a jeepney as we head out for our journey to Mount Taal.

Checking out the horses at the base of Mount Taal.

Midway View To The Top

We’ve the reached the Top of Mount Taal.

Arrived to some awesome music. It’s more fun in the Philippines.

It’s a dance off between the locals and us.

A happy new year!

Enjoying the 360 fireworks display in Manila.

New year starts with new friends.

For new year’s eve, we were forced to stay in Manila due to our boat got cancelled and there were no cheap flights to Boracay on the 31st. We did however managed to get a flight on the 1st. On the other hand, it was a blessing in disguise as we had an awesome new year’s eve partying at Cozee Monkey with the locals and witness one of the most awesome fireworks display in my life. Finally, I was right, it was an awesome journey. Thanks Manila for an awesome time, I will be back soon.

Lion & Lion Turns 2

Lion & Lion is officially 2 years old and like any other Lion celebration, we celebrated in style. The celebration was held at Summer Residence, a huge and beautiful bungalow overlooking Genting Highlands. The place was really spectacular. Awesome music, awesome pranks and awesome fun. I didn’t manage to take a lot of photos but I did manage to capture the highlight of the day which was throwing Hugh, our MD into the pool. It wasn’t easy and it took a lot of us teaming up but we did it.

Happy birthday Lion & Lion and may we have more fun together.

Lions by the pool

The Lion family

Lions underwater

Indians Lost in Phuket

The Indians at Karon Beach

The next and final destination in our Indian trip was Phuket. Bye bye Phi Phi Islands, see you again soon. We checked out at 10AM, had breakfast and took the 11AM ferry to Phuket. The ferry journey was a lot better compared to the previous one. The weather was lovely and we managed to reach the jetty at around 1.30PM. From the jetty, we took a 40 minutes bus ride to our hotel in Patong. The name of our hotel was White Patong. We checked in and rested there for a while before we headed for lunch. The room was really cosy and clean. We were really satisfied with our hotel. In addition, it was located right next to Bangla road.

Bangla road is the main red light district in Patong. It’s where all the bars, clubs and other entertainments are located. Patong was really bustling with restaurants, massage parlours, clothing shops and many more all over the place. It’s a tourist heaven if you like partying, shopping or just chilling by the beach. People from all over the world come to Patong all year round to enjoy it’s nightlife and beautiful beaches. One tip when ever you’re shopping in Thailand, be sure to negotiate for discounts. You’ll be amaze by your own negotiating skills.

One of the major activities that we planned on doing in Thailand was going ATV. Therefore our main priority after lunch was to find a good deal for ATV. We walked all over Patong finding a good deal on ATV. After going through many shops, we concluded that most of the prices are relatively the same and decided to buy from a nice women along the beach. We negotiated a lot of course. The package also included flying fox and water rafting. By the time we got back to the hotel, it was already dark. We cleaned up and got ready to hit Bangla road. We had dinner and headed off to experience the nightlife at Bangla road. It was crazy. Colourful lights blinking and shining everywhere, loud music blasting from huge ass speakers, people dancing everywhere. It was awesome! To add to the excitement, the world cup was also playing that night. We chilled at a pub, had a few beers while we watched some matches. A great ending to an awesome day.

Having fun during water rafting

The following day, we woke up early eager for what’s in store for us. The bus picked us up at our hotel and after going rounds picking up other people, we were off. The journey took us around 2 hours. The first activity in store for us was ATV. ATV was nice but the track was quite dull. Wished the track was more challenging and longer. We ended up doing two rounds of the same route. It was still nice though. After ATV, we headed off for flying fox across a river. Again the line was too short and wasn’t high enough. It was alright. After flying fox, they drove us to a hut for us to have lunch. We had lunch and rested there for around 45 minutes before we headed off for water rafting. Finally something that is worth going for. The guide was very friendly and constantly kept making jokes. We went down 5KM down the river and it was awesome. Loved it when we hit the rocks! The impact was nice. After water rafting, the guides took us to a nice waterfall to cool off for a while. Chilled in the nice cold water for around half an hour before we headed back to Patong. By the time we reached Patong it was almost nightfall. We went back to the hotel, cleaned ourselves up and went for dinner. We bought a few beers and pizzas and went back to the hotel to watch the world cup games.

That’s me enjoying the water at Karon Beach

Our final day in Phuket, we decided to rent 2 bikes and venture the island. We knew there were a few beaches on the island and decided to check it out. We headed to Karon, Kata and many more. Each area had it’s own unique view. Surfing in Kata was awesome. We wanted to check out a waterfall but by the time we reached the place, it was already close. We went back to Patong. Cleaned ourselves up and chilled at the bars for the rest of the day.

Yeah surfing out to sea

Indians enjoying the water

Hit the water baby!

Sam doing an awesome selfie

Sam hitting the water

The Indians wakeboarding

That’s the cool guy that rented us the boards.

Let’s hit the road Indians and enjoy the breeze.

Indian wefie with a view.

KC doing his thing

Dinner by the beach.

We flew back to KL the following morning. Overall, it was an awesome trip and some great bromance moments. Looking forward to our next Indian trip next year. It will be even more awesome.

The Indians after landing in KLIA 2

Port Dickson International Triathlon 2014

At the start of the race.

It was a crazy weekend for me. I went for the Port Dickson International Triathlon in Negeri Sembilan. Didn’t expect me to finish a triathlon without any training. Dudu helped me and Wan register for the triathlon a few months ago but since I started working, I totally forgot about it till a few weeks before the race. I decided to just go ahead and take it easy.

We left for Port Dickson on Saturday afternoon and reached at around 5PM. We checked in to our hotel and went to Avillion Hotel to register and check out the track. Avillion Hotel was the official hotel for the race. The race will start and end at the hotel. We took our equipments and went for the awesome buffet provided. The buffet was really nice with plenty of good healthy dishes prepared. After dinner, we went back to the hotel and went to bed early as we needed to up at 5AM. The race starts at 7AM and we needed to be there by 6.30AM.

We are ready to enter the water!

We woke up the next morning and were really pumped up for the race. We arrived at the beach on time and it was full. The race ended at around 11AM. We were quite happy with our accomplishments. See you next year Port Dickson.

Hariz at the finishing line. All tired and relief.

We finished the race!

Me cycling around after the race

Indians Lost in Phi Phi Islands

Day 2 of our adventures in Thailand. We woke up at 10am and went for breakfast. At 11am, we were off for our snorkelling trip! Oh yeah, we waited for the tour guide at the tour shop and he brought us to the boat. On the downside, there were a lot of people going for the trip hence the boat was maxed out. It was alright though.

Cliff jumping from 8m high.

Our first stop was cliff jumping. We’ve always wanted to try cliff jumping and this was our huge opportunity. We reached the area and were given shoes to climb the cliff as the rocks were really sharp and steep. Due to the huge amount of people on the boat and limited shoes, we had to take turns using the shoes. There were 3 levels where you can jump which are 8m, 10m and 12m. It didn’t really seem that high from the boat but once you go up, your legs start to shake.KC was one of the first to get to jump. He went for the 8m jump. We were shouting at him from the boat, “don’t die KC!”. It was hilarious and his jump was a success. That idiot enjoyed it so much that he went up again when he was supposed to swim back to the boat and let the others use the shoes. Bugger. Well, he went up again and jump but the 2nd time wasn’t a success. He got too tired from jumping and started to struggle. He tried swimming to the boat but our boat was too far. Luckily for him there was another boat that was nearby, threw him a life jacket and saved him.

Sam and I getting ready for cliff jumping.

Finally, it was me and Sam’s turn to jump. We managed to get some shoes and I jumped off the boat and started swimming towards the shore. Though after swimming for a few seconds, I remembered that Sam couldn’t really swim and he wasn’t wear a life jacket so I looked back and waited for him. He jumped into the water and started to panic. I swam to him and asked him to relax but he kept on struggling. Finally, the boatman threw us a life jacket and stayed still there while I swam towards the shore. He was eventually picked up by the boat. You owe me one Sam.

It was my turn and I climbed up the rocks and got to the top. It was actually quite challenging and I wondered how the girls managed to climb as it was quite steep and you needed to pull yourself up. Anyway, I went for the 10m jump. I would have tried the 12m jump but because there were a lot of people, the guide only let us jump the 8m and 10m. The 10m jump was very high anyway. I climbed out to the branch, listen to the guide’s instructions and jumped. It was awesome! I wished I could climb back up again and jump another time but the boat was going already, so we had to swim back to the boat.

Everyone was back on the boat and ready to go when we realised that KC wasn’t on the boat. We told our guide and because of KC, the boatman had to go to the other boat and picked him up. He gave his usual fucked up amused face and came on the boat. It was hilarious.

That’s us snorkelling in Phi Phi Islands.

The next stop on our tour was snorkelling. The boat took us to a beautiful spot in between two islands. It was quite shallow, thus we were able to walk. It was just lovely. We swam around with the fishes, enjoying the refreshing water and beautiful scenery. It was paradise. We stayed there for about 20 minutes before we headed off to our next destination which was Maya Bay.

Maya Bay was the controversial island that became famous after the movie ‘The Beach’. The movie was shot on the island where the movie crew remodelled and flattened the beach using a bulldozer. Though according to the locals, after the devastation of the 2004 Tsunami the beach was naturally restored to it’s original state. Well that’s a relief. We were heading towards the bay when the tide was really rough, so we had to go to the island through the back way. The back way turns out to be quite exciting, we had to go through some caves, climbed some rocks and walked through a village to reach the bay. The bay was stunning! Crystal clear water, white sandy beaches, it was like in a postcard. When we saw the beach, we just ran towards the water and jumped in. It was so refreshing! We relaxed on the beach and talked about how incredibly beautiful the place was.

That’s us swimming at Maya Bay.

That’s us enjoying the water at Maya Bay.

We spent roughly 40 minutes at Maya Bay before we headed back to the boat. By the time we reached the boat, it was already 6.45pm. Our final stop would be swimming with the planktons. We arrived at the spot around 7.15pm and had to wait there till around 7.30pm for the planktons to light up for us to see them. I on the other hand, really needed to pee. I kept telling myself to jump into the water and get it done with, but I didn’t want everyone to stare at me as I’ll be the only one in the water, so i waited and tried my best to hold it for 15 minutes. Now that I’m writing about it, it’s actually quite funny. It was 7.30pm, why couldn’t we jump in yet! A few minutes later, the guide jumped in and told everyone we can come in. I was the first one off the boat and there I went, peeing with the planktons. I brought in my GoPro to take some videos with the planktons, turns out the video was too dark and we couldn’t see anything. I did manage to see with my own eyes the planktons lighting up. So that was kinda cool. We spent roughly 10 minutes there before we headed back to Koh Phi Phi.

KC and I before we went through the caves to get to the boat.

Once we reached Phi Phi Islands, we went back to the cottage to change and clean up. We had dinner soon after, and went for a body massage. After walking the whole day, all we needed was a body massage. The massage wasn’t so good but it was cheap, so we didn’t complain. We bought some drinks and burgers and headed back to our cottage. Chilled at the balcony and headed to bed for a nice sleep.