Wait no more for the much long awaited flight is now on! Cebu Pacific is now flying direct from Manila-Siem Reap beginning April 2012. Travelers from Philippines will now enjoy the beauty of Angkor Wat in very affordable prices, and this means Filipinos will have the opportunity to fly nth times easier and faster anytime of the year. Woohoo!

This is absolutely exciting for us (Filipinos) who work here in Cambodia, because we now have more options to choose from whenever flying back to our homeland. My only wish is for CebPac to have a direct Manila-Phnom Penh flight for I am based here. Adding to the fact that more Filipinos are situated in Phnom Penh than Siem Reap, so let us cross our fingers for this to become a reality soon.

For now, let’s grab this chance and book in advance. Fly now and visit us in Cambodia!

palatandaan ba ito or fashion? yung mga maleta ko nilagyan ko ng pink na ribbon to make sure na madali ko silang makikita pag nasa airport na, at natuwa naman akong sobra nung makita ko yung ibang bumabyahe na ganun din ang ginagawa. Uniform di ba

Nothing beats the feeling of being surrounded by my love ones and there’s no way that anyone will be able to take away the excitement in my heart whenever I am with them. So let me share my family’s trip to Pi starting from the beginning

July 16 – It was the last day of school and it’s pretty hectic with all the stuff that we needed to do up to the last minute before we headed to Mekong Express bus station for our Phnom Penh-Ho Chi Minh trip. Bus ride is always cheaper than flying, that’s why my husband and I decided to take the longer but cheaper route rather than to spend more money in buying plane tickets. The 6-hour ride cost $12 per pax with a free bottle of cold water and light snacks, which I always love because they’re the only bus company who has this kind of services. At 2pm, the bus took off Phnom Penh and by 8pm we’re already in Maximark Ho Chi Minh, which is 10 minutes away from Tan Son Nhat Airport. Our flight’s at 12:30am via Cebu Pacific Airlines, so we still have some 4 hours to rest at the airport while waiting to board. The kids took this opportunity to play around and run after one another.

July 17 – We finally arrived Manila and we’re all welcomed by my husband’s family at the NAIA Terminal 3. It was such a great feeling. Touched down home base

Our first “almusal” as I’ve requested:

- garlic fried rice, pritong tuyo (fried dried fish), sopas, hotdogs, pan de sal, and cheese. Burp!

T’was a long trip going back home but all the tiredness paid off as soon as we saw the smiles from our family’s faces.

The rest of the first week was very hectic because we needed to finalize the details for Aiken’s 3rd birthday, so keep posted for my next articles where I’ll share bits and pieces about our POEA experience and the celebration of Aiken’s birthday at Frio Veranda.

I’m going to bed now, yawn! I need to escape the house early tomorrow because I’ll be thrift hunting with my sister Chele at Divisoria. It’s going to be a fun day shopping once again and I hope I can stretch my budget to buy all the essential things I need to buy

Xiao Xiao is one of the famous Chinese restaurants here in the city, their food is good and the price is cheap. Beside Xiao Xiao is another Chinese resto which is known for it’s sumptuous garlic pork ribs and Khmer style seafood porridge. Both have their own unique menu suited for everyone’s food palette.

When we arrived, the English speaking waiter attended us. However, I don’t find him so friendly when I asked him about the dishes. He seems to be in a hurry when I haven’t even browsed all the pages in the menu. It’s annoying when someone pushes you to order something when you know clearly what to pick for dinner. Anyway, after a few minutes, I finally concluded my search and ended with a mouth watering set of dishes.

Breaded Squid – $8.00

Soft Shell Crabs – $14.00/kilo

Marinated Beef – $6.00 (Super tender and tasty!)

We also ordered 2 plates of seafood yang chow for $5.00 per large plate, this is good for 6 people and a large plate of bok choy in garlic.

Rating the place, I’m giving 9 stars for the food, 8 stars for service, and 9 stars for the food prices. It’s a good place for the family who loves to eat Chinese cuisine, plus their prices isn’t that bad at all. This place is highly recommended.

We have waited for almost a year since Boss Nick booked our tickets to Kuala Lumpur as a gift to the family and finally the long waiting is through. Together with Manang Lucre, Pong, Andrea, Aaron, and Aiken, we all packed our bags and headed to one of the first world countries in Asia.

Knowing that we have very limited amount of time to stroll around the city, we decided to visit the places that will be fun and exciting for the kids.

When we landed in Kuala Lumpur International Airport-LCCT, my cousin Taj Mahal was already waiting for us at Old Town Coffee Shop. It’s such a blessing to have someone we know in the city for we managed to save a lot of money that’s supposed to be spent for taxi because she’s got her own car, oh yeah! The ride from KLIA-LCCT took us a while as it’s really far from the city proper. It’s an hour ride by taxi and it’ll cost you about  RM90-RM120 or about US$30-U$40. Along the way, kids loved the scenery of fast ride and beautiful city lights. At 10PM, we finally arrived our hotel.

Jalan Alor is known as the “hawkers” street in KL. At night the whole street transforms to an eccentric food haven where many tourists enjoys different Chinese cuisines. Food here is cheap and tasty too!

Hotel – we stayed in Season’s View which is also located in Jalan Alor. It became an advantage for us because we’re situated in the Golden Triangle where places are very accessible. Our room with large beds is only $50/night. It comes with a complimentary breakfast too at the Old Town Cafe.

Where did we go? The trip was devoted for the kids and with that in mind all the places we visited are for them. We went to Menara Tower (one of the tallest towers in the world), Menara’s Mini-Zoo, Aquaria at KLCC, Petrosains (Museum), Petronas Tower (the tallest building in the world), the Pavillion, National Geographic center. We basically had the whole day wondering to these places so we weren’t able to visit some more. Hopefully next time we’ll be able to stay a little bit longer.

I’ll be writing a detailed story about our trip next time, especially for those who are interested to know where to stay and what to do in KL. For now, I’ll wrap my story with a BIG smile Xiao!

Shells! Shells! Please buy some shells!

Foot massage? Only $6 for an hour…

Num pan chok, 2000riels ($0.50) per order

Samba

Arrived at 12 noon, we all headed immediately to our hotel rooms to place our bags and soon we went to the seaside for our lunch. Occheateal Beach is the best place for swimming and seafood. There are plenty of cottages for everyone to rent and food is not expensive. They have a wide range of choices to choose from and since were in the beach, we feasted on many crabs, fish, squids, prawns, and so much more!

So what did we do? We spent Saturday afternoon swimming in the calm waters of Occheateal, picture taking with the “hot” teachers of CIA, danced to the beat of Apsara music during dinner time, we had dance exercise early morning of Sunday with our fab Teacher Winnie, went on island tour, and swam with lots of fish! Hell yah, we all had fun

I hope next year more teachers will come

For those who are planning a holiday in Sihanoukville, here’s some info that you may find helpful:

$6.00 (Mekong Bus Tours) – Bus ticket from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville

$30.00-$40.00/room at Seaside Hotel or White Beach Hotel. These hotels are just right in front of Occheateal Beach. You can also get a room from $15-$25 located in the main roads. There’s no need for luxury cabins as there’s a wide range of choices for you to choose.

$10-$15 per cottage

The food’s price depends on what you order

$10 for 10 minute ride of banana boat

$30 for 30 minute ride of jetski

$40 for half day rent of boat going to the islands. This includes life jackets, snorkels, and goggles.

$1/pax for a whole day play at the beach’s inflatables

Nakakatuwa sila and in fairness, they have done something interesting, because most of the time, passengers do not pay attention when they try to teach you the basic safety procedures. At least sa dancing act nila, maganda ang naging feedback ng mga tao. Kudos Cabu Pacific! Sana next time pagsakay namin, mapanood namin kayo

It’s my first time to be at Kirirom together with my husband Nestle, he came with me because he’s after the Chambok waterfalls which is up in the mountain, but sadly, we didn’t go there as the trails are quite dangerous. In the resort, you can do quite a few things – visit the mini-zoo, ride the ponies, do the rope slide (which scared the hell out of me!), biking, swimming, kayaking, and enjoying nature. The place is perfect for families who wants to escape the busy life in the city. There are many cottages where you can relax and do some BBQ. The resort also have rooms rooms for ren just in case you want to spend more time with your love ones.

My students are all game to try the activities they have and we really had a great time bonding together, plus they’re all nice and quiet during the trip, no one is a pain in butt all through our journey. Most of them spent their time biking around while me, Neath, Dara, Rithy, David, and Him went to try the rope slide. I was so amazed with the little kids who did the slide first, I mean they’re way smaller than me and all of them were not scared to jump off the base. While when it’s my turn, they had trouble sending me off because I don’t wanna let go, hahaha! My knees were all shaking and I could feel my heart beating fast, as if it’s going to jump first out of my chest, geez! I will admit that I am afraid of heights and after that jump I swear that I will never do it again

Rithy

Neath

David

Dara

Teacher Joyce

The short field trip brought me and my students closer together and we are looking forward for more activities like this. To those who’d like to come to Kirirom, it is advisable to rent a car to make your travel easier. You can book it to any local travel agencies here in the Penh. It’s been a long day…I hope all the teachers had a good time with their youngsters. I’m out to sleep now

It’s holiday for 4 days in Cambodia and since we didn’t make any plans, we decided to go to Udong Temple with the whole family.

No laborious preparation needed, just prepacked food, drinks, a few clothes for changing, the tuktuk and we’re all set to go. It took us 1 1/2 hours to reach the temple and as soon as we arrived we immediately ate because no one bothered to eat breakfast.

Before starting the trail, there were these 3 young boys who insisted to be our guides, actually I do not or we do not need them but because Nestle enjoyed talking to the kids, he contracted all of them to be our guides on our way up to the temple. One of them tells the story while the other two fans us. We are like king and queen being served by our little servants They even carried our things so we won’t feel tired walking. After an hour we decided to go down and soon we paid them

When we reached the vehicle, I suddenly realised that we weren’t able to take much photos on top, so I insisted Biggie and Nestle to climb again for some really nice photos. What’s 500 steps to a person who is very insisting

The family had a blast, everybody enjoyed. I am always thankful for this kind of family bonding as it strengthens our relationship with one another. Our next trip will be at Tak Khmao Mountain, we will be visiting the animals there

For more Udong Temple pics, please visit here.