Going Places (April 2012 onwards)

---

Going Places (April 2012 onwards)

A string of places to visit had been planned to welcome the season of spring from April 2012. We are more or less firmed up with our Desaru getaway happening sometime on the first weekend of the month - a place synonymous of childhood, a place that I had heard for more than 20 years and a place that I'm finally going to visit.

Our Bandung trip (also dubbed the Paris of Java given its cool climate) is confirmed even though Silkair rescheduled our flight for the Singapore-Bandung leg from 6th April till the following day. We had no choice but to call off the entire booking and re-booked our flight plans with Airasia instead. The flight swop saved us a total of SGD45 - that's roughly the price of 1 night's hotel stay in Bandung. In a way, the flight cancellation was a blessing of disguise for 3 of us.

Finally, the kingdom of Laos would become the 18th country (7th country in ASEAN) to fall under my travel spell on 17th April 2012. As exotic as it would seem, I'm thankful of the promotional fares on Jetstar and Vietnam Air in making this journey possible.

I would first be doing a brief stopover in Ho Chi Minh City to include Vung Tau before flying into the Wattay International Airport in Vientiane. Hopefully, I would be able to pick up a couple of words on the Laotian vocabulary and visit the major historical sites in this former French colony.

Moving forward, other places identified for the rest of the year include Cameron Highlands and the resort island of Cebu in central Philippines. Oh yah, I had just been informed that I might be needed to stay in Perth for a couple of months in the new company I'm joining. Depending on my workload, this might present an opportunity for me to visit other parts of Australia in the later half of 2012.

---