How I started travelling

My friend James drived me to Johor Bahru in 1986 which is my first time travelling out of the country. The second time is my coworker  organised a group trip to Genting Highland to Malaysia in 1989

Undoubtedly Johore Bahru is my most visited foreign states, the next was Batam of Indonesia which I whiched 4 times and enroute to Selat Panjang. Since than I had visited 37 countries

Numerous countries I travelled more than one time, all the countries I travelled to is holiday.

I hoped to travel to all the developed countries around 30.

My criteria for frugal travels are accomodation near the city spectacular view and chinese foods. I used all mode of travels. Backpacking, free and easy follow group tour and solo.

I had travelled to 4 continents 

Between 1998 to 2007 I had stopped travelling bring up 2 children

My travels photos https://www.instagram.com/p/BqEO9Zbg0zY/

Doha Qatar

http://travelguide.sg/Article/37-and-counting/

Amazing adventure in Copenhagen

The last second day of my tour, the tour director informed us, that the next day, the last day we got to find our own program there were no program for the group.

She told us to organise 4 person to take a cab to the city as it was expensive to take the cab alone to the city centre, as our hotel was quite a distance from the city centre.

I asked around but nobody want to go together and the tour director didn't want to organise a tour coach to bring us to the city centre and I don't want to waste the time flying so far to do nothing on the day.

I went back to the hotel to pray earnestly.

Next morning, I woke up early went to our breakfast, met up with 4 persons in the group, this time they agreed to go together, and walk around 10 minute to the Mass Rapid Transit. It was Friday I was surprised that the MRT was quite empty, and it was fully automatic, no staff was station there.

Most of the population there speak Danish.

We got to go to the retail outlet to buy the ticket, some distance away.

We dropped at the world longest shopping street‘Strøget’ from one end to another end.

I bought a wallet for my wife but unfortunately it was lost in the MRT.

After shopping we decided to go for a river cruise at Nyhavn river

After the cruise we took the MRT back. 

I found out that I had left the gift that I had brought for my wife at the MRT.

When I came back to the hotel, my friend ask me to take the lunch at the hotel. The staff was slow as there was not enough staff there, I took the most expensive hamburger in my life, which cost me S$30.

Searching for Chinese restaurant in Vienna

When I went to tours I usually search for Chinese foods. As usually in Vienna, from my hotel after some sightseeing and photo taking.

The Central Business District is within walking distance from the hotel where I stayed, the Intercontinental Hotel. 

The amazing church is one of the largest there. St Stephen’s Cathedral. 

The exquisite stained glass were beautiful.

After walking and taking photos for sometimes I decided to look for a Chinese restaurant.  I found a Chinese restaurant.

You can see the bowl of seafood soup was huge, the chef formerly work in Singapore as he told me, it cost nearly 3 times in Singapore. The chef told me the food here in Vienna mostly are fusion, the cooking style which mixed with other countries like Japan

My amazing story of overcoming incredible odds was featured in Stomp - Singapore Seen

http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/this-urban-jungle/from-sleeping-on-the-street-to-travelling-the-world-0

How I overcome incredible odds of family disharmony, poverty and sickness, sleeping in the street through chanting to travelling around the world:
http://gakkai-experiences.blogspot.sg/2013/06/my-incredible-experiences.html#.WHRcALZ96Rs

The adrenalin rushing trip to Neuschwanstein Castle

In my younger days, I saw a magazine of the german castles.The spectacular and magical castles fascinated me, I hope to see them one of these days.

The group  tour end in Czech. In Singapore I arranged with the tour agency to continue to travel to Munich to see the Neuschwanstein Castle on my own.

From Prague to Munich I nearly lost my way, after the tour group went separate ways on my own, I was directed in Singapore to take a train as the Singapore tour agency manager told me, as I asked the person at the enquiry counter, if by train I need to go upper floor to look at the electronic display board for the notice of the train arrival to board it.

As most people there at Prague don't speak english, they kept asking me to see the display board.

I wait until 11 pm and panic, I don't seem to see the train no on the ticket displayed on the board. and went into the train boarding area to ask.

There was a misunderstanding, which I went up myself and ask a staff there, which don't speak English, he told me to go inside the train, fortunately one person, while I was going into the train, told me this was not the train, after looking at the ticket.

So I went down to ask the enquiry counter staff, she brought me to a ticketing counter and directed me to a counter for me to decide to take a bus or train, to pay a fee to change it. My ticket supposed to choose between a coach and taking a long distance coach, we rush up, but it already gone.

Oberammergau Munich Germany on the way to Neuschwanstein Castle

So I got to go back to change the to to 1pm from 10.30 am. I reached  Munich 5 hours later, non stop on the coach and next morning walked 10 minutes to a place to wait for the coach,  which went to different locations to pick up passengers  to see the castle. http://www.neuschwanstein.de/englisch/palace/.

The heavy mist surrounding the castle

The tour director related the story of how the mad king was in heavily indebted ridden trying building this castle in the hair, the castle was very popular.

Even it was raining heavily yet it did not stop the huge crowd  waiting for the bus to bring them up to see the castle, I had seen the replicates of the castles in 3 Disneyland in 3 countries, this is the original one.

The inside was awesome and mystical, many come to see the exquisite crafts and objects sourced from all over Europe and the magnificence fittings.

Henry at 363 world most iconic landmarks

Scroll to enlarge:

http://www.panoramio.com/photo_explorer#view=photo&position=0&with_photo_id=102374589&order=date_desc&user=7128440

Henry at 100 of the world popular spots of the world

Henry travels to 100 of the world most amazing scenic spots of the world

To enlarge photo:
http://www.panoramio.com/photo_explorer#view=photo&position=0&with_photo_id=91699908&order=date_desc&user=7128440

Row one: 1 Pompeii Italy, 2 Zurich 3 Forbidden City Beijing, 4 Geneva Switzerland, 5 Paris, 6 Vancouver, 7 Camel Hill, Xian, 8 Vancouver city, 9  Bangkok, 10 Xian.

Row two: 1 Bergen Norway, 2 Stockholm, 3 Mexico border town, 4 The Opera House Sydney, 5 China town Sydney, 6 Blue Mountain Australia, 7 San Francisco, 8 Cable Groose Mountain, Vancouver, 9 Genting Highland, Malaysia, 10 Thames River UK.

Row three: 1 Lijiang River China, 2 Grand Canyon USA, 3 Los Angeles USA, 4 Steam Clock, Vancouver, 5 River Seine Paris, 6 The Alpine Switzerland, 7 Groose Mountain Vancouver, 8 Prayer Hall Grand Palace, Beijing, 9 Las Vegas USA, 10 Tahoe Lake USA.

Row four: 1 Kweilin Cave, 2 St Peter -  Cologne Germany, 3 River Rhine Germany, 4 Tokyo Disneyland, 5 Holland, 6 West Lake Beijing, 7 Guangzhou, 8 Paris Disneyland, 9 US$1 million Las Vegas,  10 Hong Kong Shopping centre.

Row five: 1 Hong Kong Central Business District, 2 Hollywood Los Angeles, 3 Chao Praya River Bangkok, 4 On top of the Great Wall of China, 5 Qin Shi Huang Relic Xian,  6 Qin Shi Huang tomb, 7 San Francisco Bridge, 8 Fisherman Wharf, San Francisco, 9 Teracotta Xian, 10 Universal Studio USA.

Row six: 1 Selat Panjang, Indonesia, 2 Vancouver, 3 Canberra Australia, 4 Kweilin Hill China, 5 The Sibelius Monument Helsinki Finland, 6 The Mermaid, Copenhagen, 7 Copenhagen river cruise, 8 Oslo Vigan Park, 9 Ship ride from Sweden to Norway, 10 Oslo.

Row seven: 1 Central Business District Helsinki, 2 Uspenski Cathedral, Helsinki Helsinki, 3 Bergen Norway, 4 Helsinki, 5 Helsinki, 6 Christchurch New Zealand,  7 Istanbul Turkey, 8 Stockholm harbour, 9 Stockholm, 10 Oslo suburb.

Row eight: 1 Oslo suburb, 2 Valdres Norway, 3 Flam Norway, 4 Kjosfossen waterfall Norway, 5 Voss Norway, 6 CBD Copenhagen, 7 Bergen Norway, 8 Bergenhus fortress Bergen Norway, 9 Bergen, 10 Bergen Norway.

Row nine: 1Tvinde Waterfall near Voss, Norway, 2 Flam Norway, 3 Sognefjord Norway, 4 Hallingdal Norway, 5 Geilo Norway, 6 Oslo Norway, 7 Amaliehavn fountain Copenhagen,  8, nyhavn canal copenhagen, 9 Scandic Hotel Copenhagen, 10 Scandic Hotel Copenhagen.

Row ten: 1, The MRT of Copenhagen, 2 Sydney Harbour Bridge, 3 Taisekji Temple behind Fuji mountain Tokyo, 4 Queenstown New Zealand,  5 Queenstown New Zealand, 6 Vancouver City, 7 Amsterdam canal, 8 Wat Arun Bangkok, 9 Botanical Garden Calfornia, 10 Taipei 101 world tallest building.


To be continue

The 150 most popular destinations of the world

Henry travels to 188 of the world most popular destinations:

Henry Leong at 188 of the world most popular tourist attractions

Henry in 338 most popular travels destinations of the world

Henry Leong's photo galleries

Our children

Batam

At a live seafood restaurant near the sea, Batam


At the Batam kelong, watching the wonderful sights of rising morning sun and sunset.




In some Chinese New Years I spent my holidays with my relatives in their house in Batam. The pace of life there is relaxing, not so fast as Singapore, their seafood is fantastic and inexpensive.

Among all curry I like Indonesia curry, the best because of it natural taste
At an Indonesia curry restaurant
My relatives drove my whole family to different restaurants in Batam.

The 88 restaurant have rows and rows of inexpensive seafood stalls. There were TVs with large screens around showing football shows.

There were lions dances and a lots of firecrackers were let off, reminiscence of the early 60s days in Singapore were firecrackers were allowed.

I tasted a few countries spicy sotong(squid) I like Indonesia the best.


In a different trip, the kelong at Batam, Indonesia which were organised by People Association for singles. I think these program that I joined, were among the happiest & the most memorable.

Indonesia had ten thousands islands, which some are very interesting to explore.

In the morning when I woke up to watched the beautiful sun rise and set, what an enchanting sight. Late into the night can watch the beautiful moon. I because of little air pollutions which made the atmosphere so wonderful.

Karaoke were provided. Sing your heart to content. Because the kelong now caught less fishes, so they were converted to tourist attractions. We can view the fisherman pulled up the nets with their daily catch from the kelong.

Fresh spicy seafood were provided for our meals, were some of the tastiest because of the freshness.

30 of my wife family members went to take photos in a photos studio, when I visited her at
Selat Panjang, an Indonesia Island.

It was first time for the the photo studio had to take pictures for such a large family. Subsequently my mother- in- law had eight more grandchildren .

Photo at my mother in law house at Selat Panjang four hours journey by boat from Singapore

To reach there it needed at least 3 and the half hour by boat. First we got to stopover at Batam.

It was an exciting journey. At the island their pastimes are riding a motorbike round and round the island at night.

I was curious that in the morning they let their chicken out of their houses to roam around. At night the chicken know how to find their way back home.

One of my most romantic moment was to hired a trishaw (tricycle) to ride, around the island with my future wife.


View my slideshows:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/henryleong/