Pizza Hut at the end of the Universe

An Evening at Kota Tinggi, Malaysia

A Hike to Gunung Panti

I was introduced to Couchsurfing.org quite sometime back by one of my friends. It sounded interesting, but I was not too keen to try it out then. However, recently I have been really interested in going out and exploring the possibilities. I decided to join in a group of people to hike Gunung Panti mountain in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. The hike was organised by Philip from couchsurfing. Philip is a Filipino and is a regular hiker and had hiked Gunung panti 8 times before. The group seemed large, with 25 people in it. I made a choice based on my gut instinct and joined them on the hike last Sunday.

At Woodlands MRT

I prepared myself for the hike, packed a sling bag with essential items from a list made by Philip. Everything was being communicated to everyone in the group through a Whatsapp group created out of convenience. The estimated expense was 30-40 MYR or Ringgits. As I was staying up for long hours for quite a few days, i was finding it difficult to sleep early so that I can get up at 5 AM on the day of hike and get ready. Eventually, I went to bed at 2 AM and the excitement did not let me sleep properly.

Things that I packed

The amazing spectacle of Angkor Wat

Hi everyone, so I am back on the blog after quite a long time. This time, I will share my first ever experience as a tourist in a foreign land (Cambodia). It’s been over a year for me in Singapore, but I came here as a student. All this while, I had some very nice experiences, but could never find time to write about them. But this one is special and I must document it. This should also help other prospective travelers to Angkor Wat, Cambodia.

Angkor Wat

So, I planned this trip at very short notice. I had no group at first, but wanted some company as I lack experience as a lone ranger. I managed to get 3 of my friends on board at first, but 2 of them could not manage to stick around. Finally, I and Sumedh (my senior at NTU) went on with the trip. We flew Tiger Airways from Singapore on 27th October (Sunday) and reached Phnom Penh at 12:30 PM local time. The flight was short and easy. Since the trip was only 2 days long (we had to return on Tuesday morning), our main purpose was to visit the great Angkor Wat temple. To be honest, I had no clue about anything else in Cambodia. This is not a good practice and I recommend that you know quite a bit about a place before you pack your bags.

Checklist for International Travel- Done by a group of NTU students, who wrote, re-wrote and finally have this up here!

    Its a highly comprehensive list of items that you would like to pack your bags with. Although many things are optional, you can be sure that at least you won't miss out on anything if you follow this.

Clothes

• Three to Five pairs of jeans/Cargoes/Capris/pants
• Five t-shirts
• Three formal shirts ( for guys).
• One or two formal skirts or pants ( for girls)
• Ten sets of inner wear
• Four sets of casual wear - for sports, night wear. Carry tracks, pyjamas etc. If you live on campus, you will practically live on these.
• Hand kerchiefs
• A light weight travel jacket (optional, need not be too thick nor heavy, it is not for cold climate)

Girls - Salwars are fine to wear to college. Kurtas, Jeans, Leggings are mostly preferred. It is really hot here, so carry cottons. A saree can be bought, if you have space. Nice to have. Purely optional.
Guys - Most of them lived on jeans, and t-shirts. Cargoes are great too. Formals only for interviews, in the end of course. If you plan to go to India in between - you can skip it.