Holidaying in Thailand

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Recently Thailand has become rather a popular name when tourism is chosen as the topic for discussion, and it's not that hard to imagine why! After all, one look at its rich culture and natural resources, and we can see why Thailand has a lot to brag about itself and its "appealingness" to tourists from all over the world.

Mentioned below are some of the popular tourist attractions in Thailand.

Located in southern Thailand, Phuket is a world famous holiday destination with pictorial beauty, breathtaking beaches, amazing Thai cuisine, thrilling water sports and rich resorts for that more than perfect holiday in Thailand. This tourist spot of Thailand is known for its nightlife, seafood, romantic retreat and gorgeous coral reefs. Phuket is a very popular place for holidaymakers to visit among tourists from all over the world.

Bangkok's Canals

The capital of Thailand is world famous for its water markets and houses. Tourists and visitors on holiday in Thailand must not miss this unusual open water area with floating shops and houses. Do shop at this extraordinary water market for a whole new experience.

Tarutao Marine National Park

While you are holidaying in Thailand make sure you visit Tarutao Marine National Park, as this tourist spot offers an amazing company of plants, animals and lets you experience the best of its wildlife resources.

Suan Pakkad Palace

This tourist spot is perfect for those in love with art, as the place offers remarkable art collections. The place also lets you cherish and experience the beauty of traditional houses when on holiday in Thailand.

Temple of Wat Arun

Bangkok is known to have more than 400 temples, but Wat Arun is one of the most prominent and worth visiting one. The temple acts as a major tourist spot because of its contemporary architectural layout and unique design. Many of those holidaying in Thailand often visit this temple to capture the images on Buddha's life displayed at the temple.

National Museum in Bangkok

Bangkok's national museum is a must-see tourist attraction for those on a holiday in Thailand. The museum offers collections of striking artifacts that add a touch of true Thailand to your vacation.

Statue of Buddha

The Island of Ko Samui is famous for the popular statue of Buddha. When holidaying in Thailand you must visit this island to experience the religious feel of Thailand. The place is known to draw tourist and visitors looking for the real Thailand.

Trekking at Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is a renowned trekking base that allures all the fun and adventure loving tourists and visitors holidaying in Thailand. There is nothing better than trekking through forests and mountains in the north for those looking for some great scenery, thrill and adventure like elephant rides and bamboo rafting.

Best time to holiday in Thailand

The ideal time for a vacation in Thailand would be the months from December to March.

Source: Luki Johnson

Penang Attracts Visitors Naturally!

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Whenever I mention Malaysia to friends, they merely nod politely and change the subject. They talk instead about Bangkok's sizzling night-club scene, or the buzz of shopping in Hongkong! Well, true enough-Malaysia doesn't have that kind of razzmatazz. Nor does it need to.

It has other riches to offer.

Take, for example, Penang's Tropical Fruit Farm, and its unique Tropical Spice Gardens.

At the Tropical Fruit Farm, I join a group of visitors as they board a battered-looking truck. The vehicle pants its way up a narrow, curling road, and at the crest of a hill, overlooking the sweep of Penang Island and the Straits of Malacca, we dismount and gather around Ali, who is to be our guide throughout the tour. Although we are at a modest elevation of just 244 metres above sea level, the humidity is fierce; perspiration trickles down my neck, and my dark-glasses fog over.

However, this non-commercial orchard is well worth the sweat. Sprawling over twenty-five acres of undulating country, the Farm is also an experimental research centre. Ali is an accomplished raconteur, with a wry sense of humour, and although he doesn't go into horticultural technicalities, he introduces us to a range of curious-looking specimens: bright red dragon fruit-spiky grenades hanging off the parent cactus plant-and rambutans covered in punk-orange "hair". While it's impossible to cover 200 species of fruit in an hour, the group are nonetheless fascinated by rare varieties of betel nut palms, exotic strains of passion fruit, sugar apples-and cute miniature bananas the size of my small toe. Ali plucks pink water apples off a heavily laden tree and offers them to us; they taste slightly acrid and after my first bite, I throw what's left to a hopeful-looking crow hopping along behind us. The Miracle Fruit berry is unusual: the small crimson bead, when chewed, hoodwinks the palate, so that even the sourest lemon is tastes nectar-sweet. Naturally, everyone wants to give that a try.

There's no need to use Miracle Fruit's berries when we return to the reception area-our exertions are rewarded by drinks of sweet ice-cold mango juice and a lavish tropical fruit salad-pineapple slices, interspersed with papaya, bananas and passion fruit wedges. Durians, to my immense relief, are not in season.

On leaving the Fruit Farm, I head towards the Tropical Spice Gardens-a short drive downhill towards the trendy beach and shopping area of Bukit Feringgi. If the sun was direct and fierce at the top of the hill, I am now enveloped in green shade: a soothing world of flowering hibiscus shrubs, mauve jacarandas, lemon-fronded laburnums and scarlet flame-of-the-forest trees. Trails wind along gently sloped terraces, edged by meandering streams and waterfalls. Fan-leaved banana plants grow beside bamboo thickets and towering rubber trees, and a riot of deep blue morning glory and hot-pink bougainvillea creepers shawl the railings of miniature bridges. White and lemon orchids cling to the barks of hardwood trees.

Past the first terrace, with its profusion of crotons, cycads and ferns, (each meticulously tagged with their botanical identity), I walk up a small slope, and sit on a wooden bench. A bird whoops somewhere in the jungle foliage behind me, and I watch a ballet of royal blue-and-gold winged butterflies fluttering around a plant bearing droopy-fingered orange blooms. The afternoon air is drowsy with the hum of bees, and heavy with the scent of frangipani, mingled with the faint, but unmistakable fragrance of cinnamon. Apart from herb beds of mint, thyme, coriander and parsley, I am surrounded by a splendour of tropical spice plants-red ginger, cardamom, cloves, pepper, turmeric, nutmeg, garlic, cassia (cinnamon) and areca nut.

Although Penang's Butterfly Farm isn't unique-both Kuala Lumpur and Singapore have similar attractions-it nonetheless grabs my attention for well over an hour, As I try to capture shots of butterflies flickering like brightly-coloured confetti around me, I notice a small boy beaming with delight as a gigantic Raja Brooke, black with dramatic emerald green markings, settles on his hand. His older sister, meanwhile, is transfixed in front of a glass-fronted display window as a cocoon starts to split open to reveal a soggy-winged brand new butterfly. Apart from about 120 species of winged performers, there are other resident virtuosos. Two small horned toads stare beady-eyed at me, and a spiny stick insect freezes into camouflage mode on a brown twig. Next door, a tarantula is wooing his mate, and family life also seems to be thriving in the scorpion household, with baby scorpions shimmying around their mum. In the world of beetles, a large stag beetle flexes his mandibles (equivalent, perhaps, to a macho guy showing off his biceps?), and a long armed Scarab brings to mind a stylized Egyptian emblem.

So is Malaysia boring? Is Penang 'ho-hum'? This is a country where Nature is prolific and flamboyant-see it, taste it, smell it and touch it. It beguiles. It intrigues. And it draws visitors like me back time and again!

Source: Margaret Deefholts in islandsinfo.com

Video of killer waves hitting the shopping paradise island of Penang

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Tsunami Disaster Memorial in Banda Acheh

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BANDA ACEH (Indonesia) - INDONESIA opened a US$5.6 million (S$8.5 million) museum on Monday to commemorate the 230,000 people who died in the 2004 Asian tsunami.

The four-level building in hardest-hit Aceh province exhibits photographs of victims, stories of survivors and an electronic simulation of the massive undersea earthquake that triggered the 10-metre-high waves.

It also describes the tremendous outpouring of support from governments, companies and individuals in the aftermath of the Dec 26, 2004 disaster, which caused death and destruction in a dozen nations.

More than $13 billion was pledged to house and feed survivors and to rebuild devastated coasts.

The government says the museum, designed by local architect Ridwan Kamil, is an important part of the recovery process, paying tribute to those who died and explaining to future generations what happened and why.

The opening was not without controversy.

More than 700 families are still living in barracks in Aceh, which was home to two-thirds of the victims, and some were disappointed to see millions of dollars being spent on a monument.

'They should be taking care of us first,' said Anisah Tahir, 50, who has been living with her husband and two children in a tiny room in a squalid camp in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh. 'We need a decent place to live and sleep,' she said.

Indonesia is located in the so-called Pacific 'Ring of Fire,' an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin, and is one of the world's most earthquake-prone regions. -- AP

Source: www.ap.org

Earthquake detected in Southern Sumatra

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KUALA LUMPUR: An earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale occurred at 7.10am Monday in southern Sumatra, Indonesia, according to the Malaysian Meteorological Department.

The epicentre of the quake was 134km southeast of Bengkulu in Sumatra and 723km southwest of Johor Baru, it said in a statement.

No tsunami warning has been issued, it added. -- Bernama

Source: TheStarOnline

Georgetown Penang Malaysia Shopping Guide

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Georgetown offers some delightful shopping opportunities in the form of modern shopping complexes and streets with cultural souvenirs and goods.The malls offer a range of shopping for modern goods ranging from fashion to electronics and jewellery to gadgets while the cultural shopping areas enable you to see and admire cultural designs and lifestyles of the different races in Penang.

KOMTAR
KOMTAR, which stands for Kompleks Tunku Abdul Razak, is a famous landmark in Penang and the tallest building on the island. Inside the tower is a small shopping mall that houses a limited range of goods and merchandise. What most people come here for is to take a ride up to the top for a panoramic view of the entire island, where you can see the Penang Bridge and Butterworth on the mainland.

PRANGIN MALL
The Prangin Mall is a relatively new shopping complex located right next to the KOMTAR building. The mall houses over 600 outlets in 8 levels, ranging from fashion to electronics and groceries to household appliances. This is also a popular destination for bootleg goods, especially DVDs of movies and music.

CHINATOWN
The area around Campbell road is Penang's very own Chinatown - this is the place where the first Chinese migrants to Malaysia settled. The old buildings, clan houses and shop lots are very well-preserved, offering visitors a glimpse into the history of Chinese settlers in the early 1800s'. For shopping, a lot of Chinese-centric commodities go on sale, such as jade jewellery, Rolex watches, traditional clothes, herbs, medicines to more modern products than include branded electrical products and luggage bags.

LITTLE INDIA
Situated around Lebuh Queen and Lebuh Chulia, Little India is just right next door to its neighbour Chinatown. For an Indian cultural shopping experience, Little India will amaze you with its 'Indian' sights, sounds and smells. The shops and stalls that line the streets stock everything Indian - from silk garments (sarees) to stainless steel Tiffin carriers and Indian sweets to flower necklaces. The atmosphere is permeated with the din of Bollywood music emanating from record shops and people talking and walking. Just down the street is the Mahamariamman Temple, a historic place of worship for the Indians of Penang.

JALAN PINTAI TALI (ROPE WALK STREET)
Antique lovers should take note - Jalan Pintai Ali or Rope Street stocks a large variety of antiques such as porcelain, chains, coins, glass, ceiling lamps and antique clocks. Prices are negotiable, so don't give up till you've got the price you wanted. On a side note, no one can bring out of the country any antiques under the law without permission from the export Director General of Museums, Malaysia. However, antiques brought in and declared at customs are allowed.

Source : www.penang.ws