Travelling,Shopping and Food in Asia

It has been a while ...or shall I say I have not made any trips to any mall in KL. So I decided to go during Awal Muharram as I expected there weren't any traffic jam.N I was right. Traffic was perfect. I have not really explore Pavillion. And this is my 3rd visit to Pavillion n most of the time I went to meet up friends an chit chat at those eating outlet...can't even remember the name... I used to work around that area however Pavillion was still in progress years ago. I was hungry n went down to the so call food court....WOW!so nice...like those in Singapore. And u can find all sorts of variety and from different countries. I saw one particular stall which is quite different from the rest, it was fried prawn noodle serve in Nipah leave...YUP not banana leave. We usually have out Mee Goreng or Char Koay Teow serve on banana leaves.

So this one is different..I had that before while in Atria food court Singapore.And it tasted very good while I wasin S'pore.This one is not too bad either however the sambal chili quite dissapointing.And not quite the same as it expected it to be. Too diluted. And it cost me S$4.00 in Spore. And the one in PAvilion cost me RM7.00. Ummm...I think is too expensive for a Malaysian. And m comparing dollar to dollar count. Why can't they charge us only RM4.00.Is the nipah leaves imported from Singapore and the prawns, noodle are imported from Singapore?FYI, we have all the resources and I dunno why Malaysian always have to pay so much for food. When Singaporean pay lesser in their own country.Is the rental very high?Atria is also located at the prime area - Orchard Road.And m sure their rental don't come cheap either.And many years ago, I could get a glass of soya milk at S$0.80 and while in Malaysia, we are being charged at RM1.00 during that time.Wonder what is the different?

 Anyway, here are some food that I managed to capture.Food looks great but m not sure about the taste. By the way, I don't recommend the Pan Mee....I think normal hawkers centre taste better.Tried some tarts... really good. I tried the durian tart and egg white with milk (healthier)...it taste good without the yolk and can taste the milk too

Went to work in d morning for half day and rushed back home to catch a taxi to LCCT. Got my free ticket (who else Air Asia lah) since last year n cost me about RM300 (KL/HCMC/KL) which include 15 kg bag charge.(is expensive cos fuel surcharge involved)....I didn't get refund even though the fuel surcharge is no longer applicable for this year. Flight was delayed for 1 hour and by the time I reached HCMC it was 7.30pm (HCMC is 1 hr behind M'sia) . And poor boy (Eric from hotel) waited for us and was very hungry. WOW! it was a Freelander 4x4.WOW! this budget hotel definately got a little bit of class.It was a wet wet wet day.It took us about 30 - 45 min to reach District 1 which was bustling at nite and we were so confused with our bearings .

According to Eric - it was the beginning of rainy season or the wet season (was there late April to early May). And finally we reached our hotel, and the driver stopped by the road side and some ladies came running to us with umbrellas, OMG where's the hotel, do I have to walk somewhere. For a moment , I regretted to have book this hotel. The next thing was, they took us to walk down an alley...OMG where are they taking us too? Was clueless, and the more regrets I had. Thought it was a red light district area.Finally less than 1 min, we reached the budget hotel which was run by the family and...WOW! so clean.So they gave us the key. We all have to leave our passpost with them. Reason being every night they need to report to the nearest police station who are the in house guests.So police will know that all tourist do not carry their passport. My room was on the 1st flr, and I had my triple sharing room. Towels super white, comes with mini bar (beer, juices,mineral water etc - chargeable of course), bathroom was clean with soap, tooth brush & paste and hot shower too....So was I happy with room ...YES...!Actually, it was good to have the hotel at this quiet alley cos it is less noisy compare to the hotel by the main street. So the next thing was, we went for some munch and Eric actually gave us some restaurant name ...got a lot of choice but we have no choice but to eat there. Quite expensive.M expecting some hawkers food like Thailand...U know what I mean. This restaurant called Gom was just next to the famous Travel agent called Sinh Cafe. Can you imagine 4 pcs of Spring Roll (Vegetarian ) cost me VND45000 (RM10.00)....it is not cheap at all being a 3rd world country. What d heck , we really dunno where we are ,so makan saja lar. Then we went to get some mineral water 1.5L @ VND8000 (RM1.80) and I found out there is this convenient store further up d road cost VND5000 (RM1.10). By the way, it is only drinking water not mineral water.Mineral water will cost more. It is advisable not to drink any roadside drinks which may cause diarrhea, however I guess being Malaysian, we are used to hawkers' food...so I did drink and eat roadside hawker's food... so far no problem. And end of my first day in Saigon Hotel that I stayed in was www.nhatthaohotel.com . How it looks like, it is exactly what u see on the website.

Here's some uploaded photos Vietnam - Ho Chin Minh City, Dalat & mekong Delta

Chao!