Get ready to embark on an unforgettable journey as Marriott Hotels proudly introduces the newest gem in its crown: Perhentian Marriott Resort and Spa. Nestled on the pristine shores of Perhentian Kecil Island in Terengganu, Malaysia, this resort is a tropical haven waiting to be explored.
A Tropical Oasis Awaits
Picture this: turquoise waters, powdery white sands, and lush greenery as far as the eye can see. That's the backdrop for Perhentian Marriott Resort and Spa, where every corner tells a story of natural beauty and Malaysian heritage. As Marriott's flagship brand debuts in Terengganu, prepare to be enchanted by the irresistible charm of this tropical sanctuary.
I was in dire need of a holiday getaway in 2020 and decided, with my friend, to book at Club Med Cherating for a 4D3N trip. Why Club Med?
Why not? It had everything inclusive of the price, from food and drinks (plus booze) all day, activities, two beaches, two swimming pools and the sea right at the doorstep of my room. It was the perfect place to go especially in a time of a pandemic when you just want to minimise exposure and contact with people and just not think about what and where to eat for your next meal on holiday.
I can't believe this is my first OCR of 2019. Have I really been that out of touch with my fitness side? I think the answer is clearly yes. Sad die me :(
I even had a reader who joined in one of my bootcampy sessions and told me she realised I didn't write so much about OCR about anymore. That was a wakeup call to me and could possibly be why I signed up for Viper Beach and Viper Arena.
Okay, I know I have a backlog of my Turkey postings to write. Heck I even thought I could get it done while I was away in Langkawi for this media trip. Ha ha ha, what a joke that was. So once again, Turkey takes a backseat because.I just can't wait to tell you about this resort because IT. IS. SO. DAMN. PRETTY. Especially the infinity pool that looks out onto its own private beach.
Have I got you interested and envisioning your next holiday yet? I have? Great! Because this hip and happening resort is located just an hour's plane ride away in the island of Langkawi, Kedah. The name of this paradise is Dash Resort Langkawi by Ri-Yaz Group and is situated at the very end of Pantai Cenang, giving it an exclusivity coveted by many resorts along that stretch of beach.
Over the last weekend, YAB Tun Mr Mahathir arrived in Langkawi to officiate the grand launch of the all new trippy, very Alice-in-Wonderland Dash Resort Langkawi. And I was honored to have been invited to attend the event after two days of enjoying the resort itself. I must say, it was one of the most relaxing trips I've had in a long time. But more on that in my resort review later on!
I am officially 30 years old. I am officially in my 30s now. I am..still mentally in my 20s so basically nothing has changed.
Except achieving one of my dream of spending my birthday in Japan. Like any true Japan-fan, a birthday getaway to the Land of the Rising Sun was the goal and on my 30th birthday, I was in Japan at the top of Mouth Fuji.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me start with the first town we visited upon arrival in Japan during our trip on 1-9 July (summer season). Kamakura was beautiful, peaceful even except on weekends when it's becomes the ideal beach getaway destination for visitors from Tokyo. I booked our two night stay at Webase Hostel Kamakura, near Yuigahama beach and two train stops away from Kamakura station.
After a comfortable 7 hour flight and a one night stay at First Cabin Haneda airport (a comfortable capsule-concept hotel which I blogged about before), I was ready to head down to Kamakura. I had booked my group near Yuigahama beach at a rather new hostel, WeBase Hostel. Upon arriving it was clear that the better term should be postel.
source: tripadvisor
Kamakura was a popular seaside destination for international AND local tourists with Enoshima Island within easy access. Yuigahama on the other hand was blissfully void of people and WeBase was the ideal base for us to start our adventures in Kamakura.
Have you already started planning for your 2017 vacays?
Well, if you haven't, this might given you that incentive to start planning on where you want to go next year! Because the AirAsia Free Seat campaign is back and gamed to run from 13 - 19 June! The travel dates are from 4 Jan to 21 Aug 2017!
AirAsia is giving away up to three million promotional seats in its latest Free Seats campaign across its entire short- and long-haul network. Starting from a base fare of RM0, excluding taxes and fees, guests can fly to any of the more than 120 destinations in 24 countries served by AirAsia and AirAsia X, the low-cost carrier said in a statement.
We came across Coastes in Sentosa Singapore by luck. We were hungry and tired, having just ran through a 10km, 10+ obstacles OCR, Viper Challenge. Post race, we returned to Costa Sands resort, my hotel on Sentosa to freshen up before heading back to the beachside strip in search of food.
Thankfully, Coastes caught our nose and our eyes with the delicious scent of seafood and its blue and white hues perfect for the beachside setting.
Finding a reasonable place to stay on Sentosa island, Singapore is near impossible. I say near impossible because I or rather my mother found a freakishly reasonable hotel called Costa Sands Resort. If you're expected a rundown dodgy hotel with loose windows, cobwebs in the ceilings with an eerie silence, you couldn't be more wrong. Although not at its prime, Costa Sands offers all the facilities needed for an enjoyable restful stay on the island.
Costa Sands is located on the hillside above Siloso beach with a staircase leading straight to the beach road and the row of restaurants located at the seaside. Being placed on the hillside amidst a jungle and a trail gave it a lovely hideaway, back-to-nature concept especially with its Kampung Hut chalets.
When I got the announcement that Viper Challenge was heading to Sentosa Singapore, I was like 'hell yeah! Sign me up!' mainly because I've never been to Sentosa island. So my team and I signed up and come 23 Jan we all headed South.
I stayed at Costa Sands resort, a budget hotel about a ten minutes walk to the race village and start line on Palawan Beach. On race day, we were all (amazingly) on time and rearing to go in the first wave. After a 15 minutes delay, we were off.
Running along the beach was a different experience for many of us who have never done an obstacle race on the beach. For one thing, it was really scenic. Sentosa island really had the perfect setting for a race like this. The cloudy overcast with a cool breeze from the pristine (freaking clean) sea was perfect for a run on the beach.
I was supposed to climb Mount Kinabalu last June but after the earthquake that shook Ranau and destroyed the mountain trails, that was obviously a no go this time. For the mountain that is. I was still determined to fly out to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah and enjoy a well deserved relaxing holiday by the beach. So just two weeks before my trip, my friend recommended Langkah Syabas Resort, an isolated beach resorted located just 30 minutes south of Kota Kinabalu.
A quick Google search of the resort won me over and this post will show you ten reasons why.
The night before, we stayed in the hotel and watched American Ninja Warrior.
We were in bed by 10pm and this was why. We had to be up by 2am to catch the
pickup van that took us up North to Lovina beach where a boatman greeted us in
his odd looking boat.
We gave up our sleep (actually we slept on the way to Lovina which resulted
in the worst sleep of the trip) for a chance to see dolphins at sunrise.
Marketed as a dolphin-watching sunrise cruise, we bought the deal over Groupon
months in advance at about RM90 per person and it included transportation to
and fro Lovina from any hotel in Kuta.
So what do you do in Perth when you are only there for 5 days, 4 nights? Actually in my case, it was really 4 days, 4 nights because I flew off in the wee hours in the morning on the fifth day. Things to do in Perth 1. Swimming with dolphins, Rockingham
Forget aquariums and Sea World. Nothing beats seeing these amazing animals in the wild, just going about their daily lives. The fact that we are allowed to witness this makes all the more special. You can opt to fly up to Monkey Mia if you are there on a long trip or just go to Rockingham for a half day trip.
The art of doing nothing is actually not true. It was just something I saw on a t-shirt in the resort's souvenir shop. There are actually quite a lot of things to do at Huvafen Fushi. But with the view we had and the relaxed mood we were in, it was just as easy to just laze around and do nothing.
Non-motorised water sports are complimentary so everyday, my sis and I went snorkeling. Each guests gets their own set of snorkeling gear that they can keep with them for the rest of the stay. The underwater was simply stunning. I never quite understood the appeal of scuba-diving but having seen what the shallow reefs had to offer, I am tempted to tryout for a scuba-diving license now. Over four days, I spotted a reef shark, a sting ray and a tiger fish. Too bad, there were no sea turtles in sight. Motorised activites are chargable to the room so plan your days carefully.
Underwater world.
We also went kayaking on our second day there. In the middle of the afternoon. With the mid-sun beating on our backs, we went around the whole island in a hour. Bad move because it was really hot! The kayaks have a glass bottom which lets you look at the reefs beneath you. I prefer snorkeling for an upclose view of the reefs. Still no sea turtle.
Kayakking under the sun.
The resort also has a daily stingray feeding session at 5:30pm. The stingrays have been coming to the lagoon beach for ten years now so it's pretty much clockwork routine for them and allows them to be familiar with humans. (God bless Steve Irwin's soul..). The resident stork whom I call Si Bangau also drops by every evening for food.
Stingray feeding
On days when all we wanted to do was chill out and escape the sun, we hung out in the island library, the Lair and played with the gaming consoles. I was so happy when I found Need For Speed. (yes, I do realise that I went all the way to Maldives to play video games). The resort also has a resident kitty cat which demanded to be let into the Lair when we got there. I wanted to ask if I could take it to our room....
Now seeing dolphins is a personal dream of mine so we booked ourselves on the resort dolphin cruise as soon as we got there. The cruise only takes place on Sundays from 4 to 7pm at USD175 per person. But if there are more than 6 people, it gets cheaper. What an experience it was, being able to see wild dolphins in their natural habitat. According to our guide, Lana, this particular pod has over 200 dolphins in it and during that hour, we certainly saw plenty of them. It was magical.
Dolphin sighting.
0%Here's a video of the dolphin cruise: http://youtu.be/tbZVCUPpSgQ . I had to remove the actual sounds because it was just too noisy from the wind and other tourist boats. Music in the video is by Daniel Veerapen, an Malaysian artist.
There are many things to do in Huvafen Fushi. You can adopt a coral reef and plant it yourself. Then in 50 years (if Maldives hasn't sunk) you can come back and marvel at your contribution to Mother Nature.
Or if you're Asian like us, then take lots of pictures. Whilst there, we noticed all the Asian guests had DSLRs and digital cameras everywhere they went hence the theory: picture-taking is an Asian thing.
It's impossible to take a bad picture in Maldives. In fact the only thing that can spoil a picture is, well, us. We took tons of pictures; camwhoring, weird shots, jumping shots.... this shot below...
Fireball!
We were saddened when the evening for us to check out came about. The resort manager, Marco and our Thakuru, Nahu saw us off at the jetty as the speedboat took off for the airport. The resort representative escorted us to the Singapore Airlines check-in counter and bide us farewell. We boarded our plane and prepared for the comfortable ride home (flight experience here) It was a memorable vacation to Maldives and Huvafen Fushi was the dream resort (read about it in my previous post). The food was delicious (drool over it here) although I was missing teh tarik by the first morning.
Pristine blue waters, colourful reefs and fishes, majestic dolphins, friendly locals and resort staffs...I see now why Maldives is the place to visit before you kick the bucket.
To finish off this post, a momento of our holiday there.
