Vietnam, Singapore

It is the 2nd day of Chinese New Year and celebrations are much different to when I was growing up. This time round, it is a lot quieter and low key; no big family get together and dinner or big queues from auntie to auntie/uncle to uncle asking for red packets (a tradition where the unmarrieds receive red packets from marrieds filled with money).

Anyhow, I'm back in KL after being in Vietnam and Singapore for 1.5 weeks. The trip started off in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam with a reunion with my friends. It was nice to see familiar NZ faces again after such a long time. I hadn't seent these friends seen they left NZ 2 months ago.

In general, I found Vietnam extremely over rated. I was very disappointed but nonetheless a good experience. Traffic in Vietnam came as a total shock to me. I thought Malaysian traffic was bad but Vietnam was 10x worse! There is no sense of care or safety. There are also no road rules. On a one way street, don't expect traffic to come from only 1 way...traffic still comes from the other direction! Car/motorcycle horns constantly fill the air. Horns are not used as they are in NZ to voice annoyance or anger but more as a way to say that "I'm behind you" or "Watch it, I'm coming through and get out of my way". It was a rare sight to see only 1 or 2ppl on a motorcycle but rather a family of 4 or 5! It was unbelievable...

Back to food, most food was sub-par. A lot of eating was seen but not a lot of feeding. We never felt like we ever had been fed after each meal, feeling hungry again after 2 hrs. Having said that, there were 2 meals that were VERY enjoyable-'Pho' and 'Ban Xeo', traditional Vietnamese soup noodles and Vietnamese panckae respectively. Apart from that, all very disappointing.

My reflections on Vietnam: it's worse than Malaysia...I guess I can't complian anymore; Malaysia, though I never intend to leave here ever again is much better than Vietnam in terms of economically, hygiene, food and mentality.

After a week in Vietnam, we headed of to Singapore. Originally, this was the leg of the trip that I was least looking forward to but I was proven wrong.

The highlight of the Singapore trip was a dinner at Aurum. It is one of the few molecular gastronomy restaurants in Asia. My friend found the website while we were still in NZ and after checking it out and asking round we decided we'd make a nite of it. We were VERY impressed with the food, service needed some work but the food made up for it. You'll have to wait for photos....

I had their degustation menu that was on offer that nite. 9 courses, 1 cocktail & 2 glasses of wine later...I was very very satisfied. I'd be back in a heartbeat. (I'll dedicate a seperate post to do justice to the food and along with it photos, so hang in there).

The following nite, we went to try out Les Amis. It has been up and running for many years now and has definitely made a real name for itself in the Culinary scene. However, we were quite disappointed especially after the meal we had the nite before at Aurum. A real anti climax...Service was amazing but food didn't match up to it. Wine list was ridiculously huge but interior design and layout was good. They just needed to work on the flavours and combination of each dish considering the prices they charge! Oh well...now I know.

So, I'm back in KL now with the mob and it's pretty quiet. But we are still doing heaps of eating, what else?! They'll be here for another week or so, which equates to MORE eating...

Tomoz we are heading up to Genting Highlands. As the name suggests it is a highlands situated in the East Coast of mainland Malaysia. It is a popular holiday location for both locals and tourists alike as it is nice a cool (~16-20C) as oppose to the usual hot and humid weather. It should be a good day out...

Til the next post...

p/s: I don't have anyway of downloading photos from my camera to the computer thus I have not posted any. I will do so asap when I get my hands on a cable or wait til I get back to NZ. I do apologise...I am very annoyed at myself for forgetting to bring it with me. :(