We started planning this trip back in January 2006, numerous research via the Internet has been done. Initially, we thought of backpacking all the way. Later, we came across the budget camping tour – Kelana Convoy which we find it’s really a good deal. Then, we changed our mind with camping tour then extend our trip with some backpacking on our own around the UK.

It’s really a good experience for both of us even though it’s quite tiring. All in all, it’s nice! Check out our route as below…

30th March 2006
Nothing much for today, yinmay still working for first half of the day, but I am on leave the whole day. We took Cathay Pacific CX 724 (5:25pm) to Hong Kong enroute to London (BA 026)

31st March 2006
Arrive at Heathrow 5:00am. Bought 1 day London Pass and Travelcard. Head down to Bayswater and look for Astor Quest Hostel at Queensborough Terrace. 8:00am brekkie at Astor (continental, not too good tho!). Next, checkout the meeting point for Kelana Convoy @ Speakers Corner. With London Pass, here we go…

• St. Paul Cathedral
• Millenium Bridge
• Tate Modern
• Shakespear Globe Theatre
• Borough Market
• SouthWark Cathedral
• Britain At War Experience
• HMS Belfast (WWII Warship)
• Tower Bridge
• Tower London
• London Aquarium
• London Eye

1st April 2006
Join Kelana Convoy @ 8:00am. This tour has 49 members (47 muslim malays + 2 of us), 3 tour crews (Hairul, Harry, Akmal) and 1 driver (Peter). Travel all day long from London to Dover, cross the sea using P&O Ferries to Calais (France), head down to Carrefour to get some sleeping bags and food, continue our journey to UITDAM campsite at Amsterdam. Arrive around 8:30pm (10 hours of bus ride), get our cabin respectively and lookout for shower area. Gosh! It cost 1euro to get 5 minutes of hot shower (cold shower is FREE, but who wants that?). At last we didn’t shower, just do some washing at the basin in our cabin. Dinner – soup daging and rice. Can you believe we actually eat by the sea? It’s freezing cold, bloody windy…but we still eat because all of us are just DAMN hungry!

This is the first night of the 9 days camping tour, it’s just make us feel so horrible! But it’s a good experience after all

2nd April 2006
In the morning, breakfast – french toast by Harry (in the tent). We were brought to cheese and clogs factory, a stone throw away from our campsite. Then, we head down to Volendam – a small fishing village in Holland. We had some “seafood” lunch there. Afternoon, we were in Central Amsterdam taking a canal cruise to have some insight view of Amsterdam from water. Since I been this place before, quickly, I bring yinmay to checkout the Manneken-Pis fries, really famous in Amsterdam (long queue!) After touring around the city, we were happily coaching back to our campsite. But! Our cook tent crashed as a result of strong wind blowing by the sea. No cook tent tonight! Good luck to crews :Þ

3rd April 2006
Left Amsterdam for Brussels. First stop – Mini Europe in Bruparck. This place was magnificient! With all the miniature buildings around us, it’s just like having a quick tour around the Europe. Nice! Many shots taken here, checkout the photo section! Next, we head to Brussels (the capital of European Union). Visit the city center, to name a few – Grand Place, Monument of Manneken-Pis. Lastly, we settled down in a campsite along the way to our next destination tomorrow – Luxembourg. HURRAY! Hot shower in this campsite is FREE OF CHARGE and bathroom is in our cabin! Not to forget our dinner menu by the “woohoo!” guy – AYAM TOMYAM

4th April 2006
Around 9:30am, depart from Brussels campsite heading towards the next destination – Luxembourg. We were given about 2 to 3 hours city sightseeing. Hairul (the boss) show us the “Fortress” where the entire town was between two cliffs. From the top, we can see an overall spectacular view of the fortress! Next, continue our journey to Switzerland which took about 7 hours (including several stop for toilet and snacks). On the way up to Lauterbrunnen, we were told (by the woohoo! guy) the view surrounding is very nice but since it’s dark, we have to leave it for tomorrow. Checked-in and dinner is De Pasta!

5th April 2006
Today, it’s the snow mountain excursion day, 2 options – Kleine Schedegg (40 franc) or Jungfraujoch (130 franc). Most of us opt for KS while several more wealthy dude head up to the TOP OF EUROPE! For me? KS too! It’s 2061m above sea level and the weather up there is freezing cold with strong wind blowing everywhere. We had some hot meal in one of the restaurant with Azman and family. Then, catch up with some of them playing snow slide. Lastly, we go down to Wengen, another small town on the way back to our campsite – Schützenbach. We do quite a bit of shopping over here since there are many shops open and it’s not so cold (at least not snowing) at this place. On the way walking back to campsite, we visited the watch shop in Lauterbrunnen town and yinmay bought a swatch! It cost 70 franc. Many nice shots has been taken along the way, do checkout at the photo section…

6th April 2006
It’s the travel day again, a whole day from Lauterbrunnen to Paris. The long long journey took approximately 10 hours with few stop over several services along the motoways. Sightseeing in the bus, Teka-Teki from everyone, stories from the old gang (orang lama), onboard entertainment Arrive at campsite at Joinville-le-Pont around 9:30pm, the name of the campsite – Camping du Tremblay. Harry say this is the 2 stars campsite which the cabins are really small and no proper cooking facility. Kelana Convoy crew again show their power in “speed-cooking”! Dinner – Sardin fish plus vegetables with rice. Both of us really eat plenty of rice (never before!), it’s hot and filling although the actual taste of the food is “so-so” only. Hot shower in this campsite is FREE but it’s about 3 minutes walk (under such a cold weather) away from the cabin. Another tired day…

7th April 2006
Whole day thrill out at Disneyland Paris. We went to Disneyland Park (while there are Disney Studio and Disney Village). In Disneyland Park, again there are Adventure Land, Fantasy Land, Discovery Land, Frontier Land and the Main Street USA. We took many rides, shows and bought some souvenir too! Lastly, we get a chance to take photo with Disney character – Minnie and Tigger (yinmay’s favourite!) It’s really a fun day. Since we are out the whole day without the crew, our beloved cook – Mr. Woohoo! has more time to prepare the dinner – nasi kenduri with chicken.

8th April 2006
Second last day of the tour, we go around Paris city center. First of all, the Eiffel tower. We went up to the top where we can really have a bird-eye view of the entire Paris. Then, with Mobilis travel card, we go by Metro to Avenue de Champs Elysees, this is the main shopping district with many fashion outlets and coffee shops. Next, Musee Du Lourve, the largest museum in the world! We almost got lost in there, I bet without the map you won’t be able to make your way out! Many historic stuffs here, especially the Monalisa painting by Lenardo Da Vinci. We were told the metro subway is “world” complicated in Paris but after a day travelling, we still think this is manageable In the evening, we get on to a boat cruise along the River Seine for final sightseeing on many of the historic buildings in Paris. Dinner – Ayam masak merah (ter-masin) with rice.

9th April 2006
Kelana Convoy tour end today, starting from 9:00am depart from Paris, crossing at Calais to Dover via P&O ferries again. Arrive at London around 5:30pm. We took bus 148 from Park Lane to Bayswater. Stay a night in Astor Quest again. This time, we went to Tesco Express to get some “prepared meal” and heat them up in the kitchen at Astor. At least it’s some hot and proper meal. Going without the group, we are more relax, at least we don’t have to rush for food. Followed by a hot shower and had a great sleep! Coming up next – Bath.

10th April 2006
Breakfast – Tomato soup with pot noodle (from Tesco). Checkout at Astor, took bus 148 from Bayswater to Victoria Coach station. Looking at the coach station, all I can say is “it’s hundreds time better than what we have in Puduraya”. Our bus depart at 11:00am to Bath, enroute are all wide motoways, nothing special. This bus stop at Heathrow, Chippenham. Swindon and lastly arrive at Bath around 2:20pm. Pulling our heavy luggages walking with the help of map and ask around, finally we found YMCA (hidden behind buildings). Check-in and settle down, walk around Bath city center, visit the Abbey (a church) and donate 5 pounds to them. It’s a nice church with lot of history behind it. We even sit thru a short service session. While walking, we came across a Hong Kong Bistro – a chinese restaurant that serve oriental food. That’s great! But for that night we still get ourselves some cooked food from Mark and Spencer – egg fried rice and chicken curry.

11th April 2006
There is a continental breakfast include the the price of our room. I would say the continental breakfast served here is much better than Astor (of course the room is more expensive too!) We plan to meet up with Amanda, she arrive at the Bath Spa train station at 9:30am. Three of us bought the hop-on-hop-off city sightseeing bus ticket to tour around Bath. First stop, we hop-off at Royal Crescent, walk around…Amanda show us the so call charity shop (i.e. Oxfam, Shaw Trust, etc) Things selling in there are much cheaper as those are used items donated by the public for fund raising. Then, we sit in a coffee shop chit-chat and catching up as we haven’t met each other for quite some time. Next, we go to the famous hot spring – Roman Bath. Since it’s a rainy day, most of our time spend in the city sightseeing bus touring around Bath and surrounding. Not much photo taken tho!

12th April 2006
Today, we suppose to go to the next destination – Windsor. This time we travel by train (just to get different experience). A high speed train send us from Bath Spa to Reading, took a local service train to Slough and change again to Windsor Central Station. A great walk from Central Station to Alma house B&B. This is the best accommodation throughout the trip, twin bed with shower and breakfast in room. Around 2:30pm we walk along the town center to Windsor Castle. This suppose to be the largest and oldest occupied castle in the world. It’s really nice! We manage to take photo with the famous British Red uniform guard. Two main buildings in there, St. George Chapel and The State Apartment. Believe it or not, this is still a working palace where the Queen will occasionally spend her private weekend here. In Windsor, there are more charity shops where you can get cheap cloth (if you like). Mainly most shops in the UK closes around 6:00pm, especially Easter is around the corner. Dinner (cum lunch) – Burger King.

13th April 2006
It’s the Lego day. From the town center, we took a Legoland shuttle straight to the one (out of four) Legoland in the world. From the map it look small, however, it’s quite big and seperated into several “lands” and “cities”, it works just like Disneyland. Both of us took some thrill rides and watch a few stun shows including the well-known 4D movie (you feel the real snow!) And, not to forget yinmay got herself a UK driving license here in Legoland (just to drive the Lego cars). There is a land call the Miniland where many famous attractions were built by Lego bricks. It’s just like Mini Europe in Belgium but this is the England version. We end our day with dinner at Thai restaurant in Windsor.

14th April 2006
We decided to visit those charity shops to see whether we can get some cheap stuffs before flying back. However, it’s raining in the morning. Also, today is Good Friday and long Easter weekend, many shops open late and close early. We walk a bit in the town as the rain getting heavier, without thinking twice we get on to bus 77 and head straight to Heathrow waiting for a couple of hours in Terminal 1 to board our flight – BA 025 at 6:05pm to Hong Kong enroute to KL via CX 721. In Heathrow, we manage to try on the famous English Fish & Chips, not that great after all but we just feel the trip is not complete with trying that.

15th April 2006
17 hours of flight plus waiting time (in Hong Kong). Finally we touched down around 6:30pm at KLIA. We are back!