Late Report from the Backpack Runners

My friend Richie and I went to visit Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), Singapore, and Johor Bahru (Malaysia) from December 23 until December 27. We have three days in Ho Chi Minh, one day and a half in Singapore, and one day in Johor Bahru.

When I write this post's title, I mean it literally, because what we did mostly in this trip were either walking or running, since Richie and I are used to walking fast everywhereeee, I consider it as running :D. That is it. Okeeey, actually I want to write the complete report of this traveling, but I found that Richie has successfully writen it very detailssss. So please kindly check her journals divided by day, Ho Chi Minh Day 1, Day 2, and Day3. Yeah, please. :)

And here are some pictures you may not find in Richie's blog hihihi

We and the dolls of Vietcong troops at Cu Chi Tunnels complex. Cu chi tunnels itself located 30 kilometers away from Saigon, fortunately we got a nice tour bus brought us to the eggshell craft workshop firstly before we headed to Cu Chi.

These are some souvenirs made by eggshell, oh they are sooo pretty and that is why they price very expensive. We, the budgeted backpackers, obviously could not afford it.

And the man standing between the two girls is Long, our funny tour guide ;) Richie did almost all the communications with him because she could understand what Long is saying faster than I did. I need a really long time and think even harder in comprehending his words due to the lack of good English pronunciation.

Visiting Cho Ben Thanh market somehow presented a familiar feeling for me, where here Richie and I can do bargaining as well as what we've usually done when we were shopping in Indonesian's markets. and Richie is right, please offer a logical price when bargaining, I got shoed by the sales girl because I bargain the price to only 15% of her offer price. You know what the sales girl said, "ARE YOU CRAZY? NO! GO GO GO! YOU GO!" Hahahah I am sorry, I thought in Indonesian rupiah when bargaining, and I carelessly forgot to convert it into Vietnam Dong. :))
(at that time, 1 IDR = 2 VD)

Day 4, after we arrived at Singapore last night, we scheduled our one day trip Johor Bahru using the yellow bright colored Causeway Link Bus (CW1). The bus fare was pretty cheap (compared to Jakarta's city air-conditioned bus), but unfortunately, Richie and I got tricked by the signage, board at the Simgapore's immigration checkpoint. And there we were, walking for almost 3o minutes from Singapore's Woodlands Checkpoint to Sultan Iskandar Customs, Immigration and Quarantine Complex in Johor Bahru thinking that it was the right way to go get our Causeway Link bus back, but NO, we have walked across half the bridge till a man with motorcycle told us that it's impossible to reach Malaysia's immigration checkpoint by walk, unless if we persist to keep walking, it will need one or even two more hours. HUAHAHAHAHA. No way for it so we went back to Woodlands and then we have to enter the Singapore's Immigration Duty Office to explain that mistake.

After did some sight-seeing and book shopping in Johor Baru City Square (at first we thought it was Kotaraya Shopping Mall, but it wasn't), we went back to Singapore in the evening, all I can say about the trip to Johor Bahru was: we just tried to consider that our repetitiously bad lucks as funny things we could laugh at together. and until midnight we were just walking (hmmm, at this time we're not running) and experiencing the crowds at Orchard road and finally bought juices at Esplanade before we went back to her sister's apartment at Amber road.

The last day, we kept on walking (read this as running please) from one place to place. I said to Richie, the sums of our walking distances is the same as the distance if we start from Bojonggede (West Java) to Pasar Minggu (South Jakarta) and go back to Bojonggede again. Hahaha. Very tiring.

But we survived! We made it, Ki! :D

PS: One ridiculous thing that Richie made me realize was that the photo in my passport (which had been issued in 2007) looks TOTALLY different with the real me now, people who ever knows me at around that year and before, could easily know why.. hehe, it's simply because at that time I still (for your information) weighed 165 lbs. Since I have won fought those lbs (hihihi) of course my 2007's face was muuuuuuch chubbier than today's. This passport photo matter has caused me encounter full of suspicious distrust stares from the ALL of the immigration officials who checked my passport, and the proccess in those checkpoints took really quite some time. Hahaha should I have a new one with the latest photo inside?