Summer in Europe

With Alysia heading to college this fall. We want to take a summer trip to places we have always wanted to see. Croatia and Austria are the two on top of the list.

The logistics of visiting these 2 countries were complicated and required lots of planning. Our trip involves 8 flights, 3 ferry rides and 1 rental car. We stayed at 3 airbnbs, 2 hotels. Overall, it was one of the most enjoyable and surprising 2-week trips we have had in a long time.

In Croatia, we visited - Dubrovnik, Islands of Korcula and Hvar, and, Split. While in Split, we also visited Plitvice Lakes National Park. In Austria, we only had time for Vienna.

Dubrovnik, is dubbed pearl of the Adriatic with its deep history and amazing scenes. The highlight of the old town is climbing the Wall. Nowadays, old town is packed with tourists. Lots of cruise ships are docked here for shore excursions. Dubrovnik has become too well known as a consequence, high prices have followed. We enjoyed our 3-night stay in an airbnb.

Dubrovnik Pics

Korcula, is a quaint old town on a small island about 1.5 hours by ferry from Dubrovnik. It's the most populous Croatian island not connected to the mainland by a bridge. It's also claimed to be the birth place of Marco Polo. The island is known for its Posip Cara white wines, which is one of the best we had anywhere. We had a really relaxing 2 nights in Korcula in an airbnb.

Korcula Pics:

Next up, we took the ferry from Korcula to Hvar. Hvar another small island town with a party vibe, It's a place to see and to be seen. The harbor is lined with million dollar super-yatchs and all-night discos with youngsters from all over the world. We took walks along the island paths in the early morning when no one is around. It's an ideal setting for a relaxing getaway. We're glad spent 2 nights in an airbnb.

Hvar Pics:

After two nights in Hvar, we ferried to Split, Croatia's the 2nd largest city after its capital, Zagreb. Split has an interesting mix of old and new. The old town is near the harbor in a maze of historic buildings and alleys. We purposely got lost walking in the old town. Our most memorable dinner was at small local restaurant called Matejuska, it was one of the best meals we had in Croatia. The most popular ice cream shop in old town Split (#1 on Tripadvisor), if not in all of Croatia is called Luka. The ice cream is so good that on a daily basis, tourists and locals lined up 20 deep for an amazing ice cream in waffle cone for about $1.20. While in Split we rented a car and drove to Plitvice Lakes National Park. It's an amazing series of lakes and water falls. The turquoise water with koi-like fish waiting swimming in clear water. We spent 3 nights at Le Meridien Split.

Split Pics: Plitvice Lakes Pics:

In our opinion, Croatia is very underrated. Its amazing scenery, delicious food and most important of all, incredibly friendly people. Croats are some of the most friendly people we have encountered traveling in Europe, if not the world.

On this trip, we were able to squeeze in one place that we have always wanted to visit, Vienna, Austria. Vienna with is deep history for arts and culture, we weren't disappointed. The city's amazing architecture, truly reflective of the Hofburg empire in its glory days. We stayed at the fame Park Hyatt Vienna. The hotel is a former bank. The hotel's interesting past is shown in its opulence decors. For example, the swimming pool's bottom is designed with gold bar patterns because it was built in the same spot where bank's gold vault used to be.

The food in Vienna is very German, if you know what I mean. So we seek out Vietnamese restaurants knowing that Austria has a good numbers of Vietnamese diasporas. After a couple weeks of mostly Croatian seafood, we were hungry for some home cooking. We found 3 Viet restaurants, the first two were barely passable. But on the final day, we found a little place that was authentic as it could be, called VietThao, owned by a young Vietnamese couple whose wife is the chef who emigrated to Austria 14 years ago to join her Vietnamese-Austrian husband who has lived in Vienna for 35 years. We had a great lunch prior to leaving Vienna.

Vienna Pics:

On this trip, we discovered new places, learned new culture and enjoyed it tremendously. With the exception of the summer heat which we didn't like. We will definitely want to revisit these places in the shoulder seasons for milder weather. Until next time...trip.

Sichuan & Yunnan Adventures

After nearly a decade, we returned to mainland China. On this trip, we decided to take the less travelled route to the Southwest part of China, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. We visited, Chongqing, Lijiang and Chengdu. We survived on my few words of Mandarin, Alysia served as our main translator. CAIS finally paid off.

Chongqing, formerly known as Chungking. It's a large city with a population of over 28 million people. We used Chongqing as our base to visit the UNESCO World Heritage site, Dazu Rock Carvings. The steep hillsides of the Dazu area contains an exceptional series of rock carvings dating from the 9th to the 13th century. They are remarkable for their aesthetic quality, their rich diversity of subject matter, both secular and religious, and the light that they shed on everyday life in China during this period. They provide outstanding evidence of the harmonious synthesis of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Dazu is about 3 hours bus ride from Chongqing.

Chongqing pics

After Chongqing, we visited one of the most famous tourist sites in China, Lijiang in Yunnan. While in Lijiang, we also hiked the Tiger Leaping Gorge, the Grand Canyon of China. Lijiang old town is also one of UNESCO heritage sites. It's home to the Naxi (Nakhi) ethnic minority. Naxi people are interesting in that the women are the head of the household. They are colorful in custom and culture. The surrounding villages of Baisha and Shuhe brought us back to ancient times. It's one of the most fascinating places we have visited. While in Lijiang, we traveled 3 hours to the Tiger Leaping Gorge. We bravely scaled the mountain down to the river. It was an experiencing we will never forget. Scary to think back about the climb.

Lijiang pics

Our final stop was Chengdu in Sichuan province. Sichuan is home to the Giant Panda. Seeing the panda up close was the highlight of our trip. I also took some videos of the Panda (toward the end of the link below). They are extremely adorable in their habitat.

Chengdu pics

Bali to Saigon and in between

Prior to United's announcement of the increase miles required for award travel. I quickly thought a destination to use our miles before the increase, a destination I've always wanted to go is Bali, Indonesia. After many hours on the phone, I finally got an itinerary for our summer travel for the 3 of us. Our strip routing is as follow:

San Francisco (SFO) - Los Angeles (LAX) - United First Class
Los Angeles (LAX)- Bangkok (BKK) - Thai Airways Business Class
Bangkok (BKK) - Denpansar, Bali (DPS) - Thai Airways Business Class
(Destination for 4 days)
Denpansar, Bali (DPS) - Bangkok (BKK) - Thai Airways Business Class
(Stop for 1 night)
Bangkok (BKK) - Singapore (SIN) - Singapore Air Business Class
Singapore (SIN) - Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) - Singapore Air Business Class
(Stop for 7 days)
Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) - Seoul, Korea (ICN) - Asianna Airlines Business Class
Seoul, Korea (ICN) - Los Angeles (LAX)- Asianna Airlines First Class
Los Angeles (LAX) - San Francisco (SFO) - United First Class

Yes, it's lot of flying around, to me it's not only the destination but also the journey itself. Since we are flying in premium cabin, we will get lots of sleep and it won't be tiresome when we get to our destination. To be continued....

Iguazu Falls, Argentina April 2008

With much anticipation, we finally made it to South America. Our trip started in Las Vegas where we stayed a night to visit our friends who we haven't seen in a few years. We got a really awesome Business Class fare on Mexicana Airlines that was too good to pass up ($1350/person). However, having flown many other carriers in Business class, I would rank Mexicana near or at the bottom. Anyway, lets get on with the trip.

After approximately 10 hours flight, we landed in Buenos Aires. We took an Aerolinas Argentina flight to Iguazu Falls. I have to confess, I've never heard of this world famous wonder until I started to research for the trip. If you think Niagara Falls was grand, Iguazu is about 10 times bigger and grander. Iguazu Falls is in the northern part of Argentina bordering Brazil. After our short flight north we landed in Iguazu and took a taxi to our hotel, Sheraton Iguazu. The nice part about the Sheraton is it's right inside the Iguazu Falls national park. It's the only hotel within walking distance to the Falls. We booked regular room on points and got upgraded to a nice suite along with a bottle of wine and snacks. Our suite has a balcony with the view of the falls.

I'll let the pictures describe what a breath taking place it is. No wonder they are calling Iguazu Falls the new 7 wonders of the world.

Sapa, Vietnam June 2004

Even though I was born and raised in Vietnam, but I've never been to Sapa until our visit to Vietnam in 2004. Sapa is a mountain township in northwest Vietnam near the Chinese border. Fansipan mountain is located in this area, dubbed "the roof of Indochina", (3143m or ~10000ft). We took the overnight train from Hanoi departing at midnight and arriving in Lao Cai train station at aroun 6AM. After a short bus ride through the mountain pass, we arrived at our Hotel Victoria. The hotel is on the mountain side overlooking the valley. Sapa has gotten very popular with Western tourists, though the French came to this region during the colonial era as evidence by a roman catholic church in the middle of Sapa's main square. While dinning at the hotel we had conversations with tourists from New Zealand and Israel. The hotel was good standard for the this remote region. It included breakfast for less than $30/night. Though, it's probably much higher now.

The next morning we got up early for our guided trek through the valley. The trek was about 5 hours and our hired guide spoke English, he's a young man from the central province, which was a surprise for us because we expected someone indigenous to the area. However, he was a nice young man and knew enough about the area to keep us entertained.

The H'mong, Dao, Tay, Giay are 4 distinct minority groups in this area. They have their own colorful clothing. I remember seeing, black, hot pink and aqua green for each of the groups. They lived the same way for hundreds of years, other than tourism, their way of life remains the same today.

Sapa is one of those places that I would definitely return again. It's a place to get away from it all, though, I hope the influx of tourism hasn't ruined it.

Old woman throwing tantrum at HKG

Note: Satire is used for the translation and it's not real.

She's basically saying the plane is still there why did you closed the door, why don't you let me board. Airlines employee was trying to calm her down and told her that they will put her on another flight. If this was in the U.S. she would be in jail already. - LOL. Here's the original version - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbVw7entkxg

Lastminutetravel.com hint #1

Got your dollar bills ready?
On LastMinuteTravel.com, the world goes on sale starting January 26 - for 15 minutes every day, Monday thru Friday.

Visit www.lastminutetravel.com and explore the hotel page.
It will be blue skies and smooth sailing once you book your next hotel stay for $1 per night.

You'll see Cancun offer with a date 1/17AMEST printed on the boat

Citi Thank You Points

Citi recently announced that the fixed points for flights will no longer be available starting March 1st, 2009. This is a huge blow to the TYN program. Unfortunately, I have never paid much attention to the Thank You Points program until the party was almost over in the summer of 2007 as posted here on Flyertalk. However, after the devaluation, it continued to be an attractive option for miles and points connoisseurs. Because Thank you points were relatively easy to obtain and you can still get 3 cents per point using fixed points strategies for the domestic business class redemptions. The game was still good until now. After March 1st, I'll be using the Citi Platinium Amex card less and returning to one of my favorites, Starwood American Express Card.