Med Cruise to Greek Islands

 Thira Port.

I have always dreamt of cruising the Mediterranean Sea; basking under the sun, enjoying the deep blue water and embracing the Greek islands. That would be a perfect holiday for me.

Last year I have gotten an opportunity to visit Greece and embarked on a mini adventure to 2 of world’s famous Greek islands, Santorini & Mykonos. The journey starts from Athinios Port in Santorini to Mykonos and then back to Athens.

Most Med Cruises cover many Aegean and Ionian islands, where one will experience breathtaking sceneries and be overwhelmed by Greek mythology and culture.

Oia town to view the famous caldera.

The blue dome church of Oia, Santorini

Santorini’s caldera was formed approximately 3,500 years ago due to a volcanic eruption which molded this beautiful island and its unique architecture, this also led to the famous myth – the Lost City of Atlantis. One place not to be missed in Santorini is Oia, which is voted to be the best place in the world to view sunset. It is renowned for its white churches with blue domes setting against deep blue Aegean Sea and perfected it with clear bright blue sky.

Most cruises take you to the island of white washed cube houses and narrow cobble stone alleyways; Mykonos. There are 3 key highlights for travelers and holiday makers alike; Petros the Pelican, a Mykonos mascot found in 1954. The Mykonos windmills, built by the Venetians in the 16th and is use to mill wheat. Last but not least the Little Venice; a place where you wind down as dusk sets in.

Petros the pelican.

Windmill of Mykonos.

Mykonos's Little Venice

There are other Greek Islands and Islets that you can visit while you are there, among them are Cretes, Rhodes, Paros to name a few. If you wish to experience a Mediterranean holiday, you can check out Med Cruises for more info.



Day 3 & 4 | Hanging Out With Pekan Baru Relatives

This is the second last day at Pekan Baru, we visited a few of our relatives here; hanging out and catching up with them. Pekan Baru is very small and not make attractions that they can offer us todate. So we ended up going for shopping of which I waited next to the car as I am not a big fan of shopping and obviously more shopping and I waited even longer next to the car. Sigh... I felt the day pass by very very slooooooooowly.

After waiting for 2 hours (seriously!), everyone gathered at the car and headed to Apotik (Pharmacy), while waiting for my aunt to get her orders; I captured a few pics of local scene of Pekan Baru

A balancing act is highly required.

Note the word "dengan baik dan benar", who is the tak benar person, please own up! Hhehehe..

This is their Mini bus...kid you not!

You can never find a peddler so smartly dress in Malaysia. They certainly took pride in the job.

How does his rear view mirror works?

Dinner time! Oh gosh! Everyone must eat at the please and take note that the jering is super jummeh!

The front view, it is just a cekai place that I insisted cause I love the jering.

Family and friends having dinner and chit chatting. After the dinner we head back to the hotel to rest and the next day we left Pekan Baru.

Day 2 | Siak - Centre for Malay Culture, Indonesia

When my aunt ask me (last year) to accompany her to Pekan Baru on a mission to trace our Malay Heritage (and perhaps to visit few of our relatives here), without a doubt I jump to the opportunity. Killing 2 birds with 1 stone sounds too good to be true.

Day 1 was great where we met Pak Tenas Effendy at his home where we learnt on Malay Heritage and Culture, it was an eye opening for all of us. You can read further HERE.

The plan was that early morning of 2nd day, we will all travel to Siak which is about 2-3 hours from Pekan Baru (depending on which rood you take) to learnt and see more of what Pak Tenas mentioned the day before.

A little bit on Siak (for those ignorant few like me, heheeheheee...) extracted from Wikipedia :

Siak Sri Indrapura is a town in Riau province of Indonesia and it is the capital (seat) of Siak Regency. Siak Sri Indrapura was the centre of an islamitic Malayan kingdom which enjoyed its golden age from the 18th through 20th century. Sultan Abdul Jalil Rakhmad Syah founded the kingdom in 1725. He was the first in a family tree of 12 sultans who would reign until 1945. In November 1945, the last sultan, Sultan Syarif Kasyim II, sent a cable to the president of the Republic of Indonesia stating his loyalty to the republic, and he contributed his properties to the struggle of independence. 

Hard to believe that Indonesia use to have Sultanate huh, we are so use to it being a republic.

A little of geography for everyone.... For those who wonders where in the world Pekan Baru is; it's practically "facing" Melaka (Malacca) on Indonesia soil. You can travel either via air or sea, obviously the later takes longer in time.

The journey takes us pass a few "famous" bridge. Kinda forgot the name :p

The road heading to Siak can be very barren at times.... that can make the road trip abit mundane.

After a few wrong turns and hours of delay, we finally reach Siak, the first sight was amazing. As I said in my previous entry, their mosque trademark is colourful dome!

We decide to stop for lunch first, note on the restaurant name - Selera Setia Raja (Royal Taste?! Hope my translation is accurate). The food is very similar to Malaysia local Malay food - masakan padang.

We finally arrive at Siak Palace (Istana Siak), it was built by a German architect hence the architecture doesn't resemble our local's. One of the most valuable collection is the Sultan’s Throne Seats are wrapped in gold.

No!!! As we arrive there very late, we didn't manage to take a walk inside. Gerammm...

One thing I notice here is that Siak is superbly clean, SQUEAKY CLEAN.... See it for yourself, despite that they have stalls in front of the Siak Palace, the road cleanliness is their highest priorities. Respect!

I don't know why this picture was taken, but I guess I like the yellow colour bridge. Hahhah....

Masjid Syahabuddin in Siak.

Makam Pahlawan Sultan Syarif Kasim II dari Siak or basically it's tomb.

This is the most fascinating thing I experience in Pekan Baru, buying petrol from bottle. Serious!

Makes me laugh like crazy!

 

We reach Pekan Baru at dawn, it was a long drive.

*Scheduled post*

Hyperlink : Wikipedia, RanselHitam

Hashtag : #PekanBaru, #lilyriani #lilyrianitravelholic #Indonesia

Day 1 | My First On #FireFly and In Pekan Baru, Indonesia

This was a last minute trip (back in June 2011) as I was pujuked (persuaded) by Mummy (my aunt) to accompany her to Pekan Baru - "Tracing Malay Heritage" trip, reason being she is not that healthy and fit (with high blood pressure and heart problem etc, alaaa sakit orang tua). But I also suspected the fact that I like to travel and I am a simple person aside from being superbly chatty lar (ada perasan & riak di sini! Hahhaha...). This mission was under Puteri Islam (Yup! Kid you not, however I did not join this association though; don't ask why).

Mummy picked me up at wee wee hour of the morning and we sped to Subang Airport Terminal. Here's the thing, this was my first experience boarding Fire Fly, I seriously and honestly did not know what to expect (maybe this was for the better). All I know is that Subang Airport is sooooo OLD. I went there when I was young.... that was like ages ago.

What a shock when I reached Subang Airport Terminal....

It was clean, new and clean. Did I say CLEAN? Well... CLEAN! Hhahahha... and not over...err.... populated. It was more like a walk in a mall, a SMALL mall.

When it was our time to board... I was feeling kinda excited. Gosh! Then I remembered, am gonna go on board a Fokker plane... which was my initial thought but I twitted Adam Eben and he said it's an ATR 72-500. Seriously, I don't know much about airplane, BUT I do know that BECAUSE THE KIPAS (FAN/PROPELLER) IS ON THE OUTSIDE HENCE INSIDE FELT EXTREMELY HOT!!!! Hhahahah... lawak bodoh! Ignore the stupid joke. Anyway, the last I flew in FAN-OUTSIDE AIR PLANE was during my primary school days shuttling between KL & Singapore on shopping trip with parents. Apa lagi.... took my camera out and kelam kabut snap some pics. Dulu tak da camera maah...

The minute I came on board, I laughed non-stop cause the interior was sooo comei and kecik (cute and small) . The handcarry compartment kecik giler ok! My hip knocked over the aisle seats... aiyoo yooo... need to diet.

Hooray! I got a sit next to the propeller (normally I prefers aisle seat but this was different (sebab jakun kan), giler bising but it's ok as I get to take cool pics, I figure I can live with this noise *wink wink*. Can you see the Pekan Baru river's kelok. Hemmm...wonder whether is there any river cruise or something of that sort.

The journey took us approximately 45mins, the airport was fairly small and it's those type you need to walk to the terminal. Saunafied!

The first thing that caught my eyes were a couple of private jets laying around, ambooiii... kaya gak orang Pekan Baru nih. I thought they were small town people... TET! WRONG! Underestimated them. Ya AMPUNNNN!

One thing I also noticed is that their mosque roof top... colourful and cheerful! This was captured on the way to the hotel.

The Soeman HS Library, read HERE to check out the interior, kinda cool (I've hyperlinked from a local blog, hope she don't mind).

Menara Lancang Kuning - Government Office. Apparently night view is even nicer. 

 

View from across our hotel, I thought it looked like old skool Tanak Melayu back in the 60s.

We reached The Premiere Hotel - it was very decent, clean and accessible.

Don't expect any room pics, somehow I don't have a habit of doing.... What I wanted to share here was that despite it's Pekan Baru, a small town on Sumatera Island; the lifts here were very advance ie you need not slot in your card as per normal 5 star hotels, instead you just need to tab it. Terer dak?!?

We quickly freshen up and headed down to wait for our transport. Just then, near the ballroom foyer, I caught the sight of local wedding, seek permission to peep and take pics of the wedding dais (pelamin).

This is the dayang (lady-in-waiting) bringing in the hantaran (a form of gift/dowri).

Very elaborated wedding dais.

Fancy huh! Sure kaya giler nih!

This are the well-wishes cards... gigantic riiiight!

As mentioned earlier, this trip was to trace Malay Heritage in terms of written culture. Here, we have the opportunity to meet up with Pak Tenas Effendy renown Father of Malay Culture in Indonesia (mind my translation as I can't find a good English coverage of him) at his house to learn more of the Malay Heritage.

You can read more about him from HERE, it's in Malay language though.

Snapshot from MalayuOnline (website takes a while to download) :

Tengku Nasaruddin Said Effendy or more popular as Tenas Effendy was born on November 9th, 1936 in Tanjung Malim sub village, Kuala Panduk village, Pelalawan.

He spent his time doing studies in almost part of Riau and Riau Islands, entering one sub village to other sub village met many origins society inhabitants and exterminated historical places. Tenas arranged pantun, idioms, proverbs, parable, gurindam, maxim, metaphor, long song up to traditional architectural buildings.

The research results were about spoken literature recorded in collection approximately 1.500 of records. Due to his long journey in the cultural study and writing activity, Tenas succeeded collecting more and less20.000 idioms, 10.000 pantun and other writings about Malay culture. His writing competence and depth knowledge on culture attracted many institutions to share his thoughts in seminars, simposiums, and workshops started from Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei until Dutch.

Malay carving, slight different from Indonesian, I believe it's the flowers and alun.

This was the books he shared with Puteri Islam... My aunt bought all four, I plan to loan it from her when I have the time (to read it...). After flipping a few pages, you will be surprised how much we in Malaysia have cross-cultured our customs with Hindu's as some of you might have already known.

He then took us to where he lives which is right next door to meet up with beautiful wife), inside; I was fascinated with this Arabic tile just like those in Spain. I think I am so gonna adopt this.

The Malay architecture preserved and restored.

He also have a madrasah (school) for the kids and orphanage in the neighbourhood. I felt so small standing next to him... a man with big heart & mammoth of wisdom.

My aunt and Puteri Islam went in and meet up with the kids.

Dinner was treated by our relatives (Yup! I am half Indonesian, hence many relatives back here) at Bumbu Desa. They have outlets in Malaysia as well, but slight different in taste though.

Kot ada yang bodoh bawak masuk kan kan kan....

The dishes.... Foreign giler... Am only familiar with the basic of what my mom cooks at home.

Ops..... Lapar lak... Jom Makan!

Hyperlink credit : doena-days, MelayuOnline