Autralia Travel Bucketlist

I saw a news ad on Facebook saying that Australia's Federal Government thinks that overseas travel might not be starting until 2021. This is quite sad news for me because I definitely want to visit my family in the Philippines and of course would very much like to see other countries as well. On the other hand, this is an opportunity for us to travel within Australia and conquer travel bucketlists here!

If given the chance to travel around Australia, here is my list (no particular order):

image courtesy of parksaustralia.gov.au

1. Uluru - I would like to see the Ayer's Rock or Uluru. Although people cannot climb it anymore, I would very much like to see it with my own eyes. Also to experience what Alice Springs could offer.

2. Darwin- My in-laws went to Darwin and they had such a nice time there. This explains pretty much why I want to visit there.

3. Cairns - The great barrier reef is near this city and would very much like to visit one of UNESCO world heritage site in Australia. Though I haven't tried diving before but I could learn!

4. Brisbane - Visit my friends over there. See what Brisbane is :)

5. Broome - I would like to experience sunset camel rides and walking along the dinosaur tracks!

image courtesy of redsuncamels.com.au

6. Canberra - I want to visit the capital city and maybe try to stay at the famous wildlife lodge where you get to see the animals from your lodge room!

7. Tasmania - I wouldn't mind coming back to this state. I haven't gone to Wineglass Bay and Port Arthur.

image courtesy of discovertasmania.com.au

I'm sure there is still a lot more than I can add to this list but this is already a handful! God knows when this Corona virus would end and I hope I still have the time and money to spare and tick these things off my list :)

Thank you for reading and 'til next blog!

Abuse to Health Care Workers is Not OK

image courtesy of www2.health.vic.gov.au

I've been hearing from the news about nurses or health care workers being verbally abused in the street. Some are even called horrible words such as "disease spreaders" and even splashed with dangerous acids. Some are being spit on or threatened. I felt very sad and afraid for myself upon hearing these stories. My colleagues who also heard about these stories, would now change to their everyday clothes before coming and after work. 

These are appalling behaviors and as frontliners who risk our lives to save other lives, we do not deserve this. We have families to come home to and we also have lives outside of work. We need to shop for essentials just like any other ordinary person. 

I hope and pray that people will not behave this way against us health care workers. Please stop the hate. We are all in this difficult time together and there should be no room for spite, but only of kindness and hopefulness that we can make it through this pandemic.

Hoi An 2018

Since I do not have new travels to write about obviously due to Covid 19 wreaking havoc in 2020, I will take it as an opportunity to do throwback blogs about our previous travels. I will try to write as much as I can remember :)

Back in 2018 before I moved to Australia, Joel and I went for a South East Asian trip and visited parts of my country: Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. In Vietnam, we went to Ho Chi Minh and Hoi An and Da Nang. In this blog, I'll focus on what we did at Hoi An. Hoi An has always been a part of my travel bucket list because of it being one of the Unesco World Heritage Sites.

The nearest airport from Hoi An is Da Nang International Airport. Our hotel from Hoi An offered us a taxi pick up from the airport to the hotel which was great because we could not be bothered to look for the bus or pick out a taxi that might charge us an exorbitant amount. The ride was about 40 minutes for the distance of about 29 kilometres.

The check in was quick and we just headed out for a quick dinner outside. The next morning they offered us their complementary breakfast before we headed out. Yum!

Aside from eating, these were the things we did in Hoi An:

1. Marble Mountain- This is a cluster of five mountains including Kim Son (metal), Moc Son (wood), Thuy Son (water), Hoa Son (fire) and Tho Son (earth). According to the flyer we have received, this popular place of domestic and international attraction was classified as a national historical and cultural relic by the Ministy of Culture in 1980.

We bought a ticket to get to the caves

We climbed up  the very steep steps in this mountain/cave

The crowd on the way to the top.

Finally got to the top and this was the view.

Now time to go back down, bit scary!

Next, we bought another ticket to get to the water mountain.

Another set of stairs!! No crowd this time.

Found a map of the place. Did not know it was huge!

Walking around, we found pagodas of different kinds.

and caves in this mountain as well but we were lazy to really go inside, having seen a cave earlier

and of course,  the view point

There are 2 ways to go back down from the mountain. One was obviously to walk back down and the other one was to take the elevator. This is really helpful to those that have sore legs from all the steps in and around the mountain.

Down below, you can't miss to shop at the many stalls mainly selling emerald statues.

2. My Son Holy Land 1/2 day tour - 99,000VND

The temples built here were from the 4th to 13th century. We booked our ticket through the Sinh Tourist shop in Hoi An. We could have easily bought it online but we chose to physically get it from the shop the day before the tour. We originally planned to have the sunrise tour but it was not available. We then decided to just do the half day bus tour for 99,000 VND or 5 USD. You can read more about it here.

3. Walk around the Hoi An old town

We did this for 2 nights out of 3 that we were in Hoi An. Upon walking towards the old town, a number of stalls can be seen selling merchandise and souvenirs.

Slowly the lights of the lanterns can be clearly seen while walking towards the town. They were enchanting!

Lots of food places to choose from ranging from fancy to midrange restaurants in the old town to street food.

Tried out the fried ice cream :)

It was relaxing just to walk around the town while eating (and window shopping).

Thank you for reading and 'til next throwback blog :)