Tea & croissant: The Prep Work
Going away on a 2week trip requires some level of planning. Going away on a 2week trip to UK and EU requires some level of detail.
However, when you are notified of the said trip in the same month (barely 3weeks notice), you really don't have much time to do all that. But, that's really what happened and why this blog has been awfully quiet for the past few weeks.
Just landed on Malaysian soil last Saturday evening, I first got to know about my trip in early April. It was supposed to be a company trip but I extended it into a personal holiday. Thus, it was a week in London followed by a week in Paris. The planning took a fair bit of time and effort. What to do, what not to miss, when best to visit, it was honestly quite draining. Of course, if you have the money to splash, just go with the flow. Otherwise, here are a few things I find worthy of your attention:
Google Trip
During my last trip (Taiwan), I regretted slightly for not coming up with a proper itinerary of where and when to go. Not because my cash was overflowing then, merely my laziness was beyond control. It's no secret that an exchange rate of 1:5 and 1:6 does wonders to your laziness and motivation.
You may wonder why I crossed out Google Trip that was the darling of the wanderlust when it first came out. Sure, it does take a lot of the planning and mapping by coming up with the full itinerary. However, it lacks the flexibility for you to make modifications as you may not want some attractions and have others in. There is supposedly a feature to allow you to customize their suggested trip but after few hours, I gave up on it all together.
Google Map
Trusty ol' Google Map may not seem like much and even cumbersome but it was easier for me to plan out my itinerary by:
Google Drive
I ended up storing my itinerary on an Excel in Google Drive for sharing reason:
Thus, apart from my company, I need to thank Google for coming up with a suite of products that helped with this trip. This is a 6day itinerary. If you are interested, comment below and I'll send you the file. This is particularly handy if you have many people to please and need to jot it down in a central location. However, it is still recommended that you print out the itinerary. Not just to save your phone battery but there were some cases where at immigration checkpoints, the officer would request to see your itinerary to make sure that you are not trying to illegally smuggle into the country.
Visa requirement
If you are holding a Malaysian passport, you don't need a UK visa. Same goes for France but you can check here too for further details.
Pickpockets
Europe or Paris specifically is notorious for pickpockets. Of the 10 people I tell about my (then) upcoming trip, 8 would tell me the horrors of people not noticing that they got robbed. Out of which, 2 would have experienced it themselves. There's no point of bringing a bag and zipping it up as they have rather sophisticated MO when they want your valuables. A colleague experienced it first hand on her last day while alighting off the metro (local train) when a group of teenager girls offered to help out with her luggage (her family was traveling with kidS). Thinking of how sweet they were, she only realized later that while 2 were helping her, one was helping herself to my colleague's purse which was inside her handbag. There are aplenty of such stories and scams so don't turn your holiday into a tragic memory just because of that.
Payment
I've never felt as handicapped for not having a credit card until this trip. In London, you can use the paywave or other similar form of contactless card payment which our government has been pushing for in the past year. You can use it in most of the restaurants and even on the train station. Like our TouchNGo card. They also have Oyster Card that's a pre-loaded train card but only makes sense if you are a heavy traveler. Paris' metro still utilizes normal tickets which you can buy with your credit card at the self service kiosk. The similarity between both cities are that you are safer with either a Visa or MasterCard. Amex is getting more recognition but there are still some places that don't accept it. Obviously, cash is king but you also don't want to get mugged.
Transportation
Google Map is helpful in determining the route and live updates on delays and station shutdown. I find that when traveling sans data connection, it's best to have an inkling of an idea where and how to get there. For London, you can use the Transport for London's site to plan your commute. The same goes for Paris via vianavigo. Both of these systems are color coded. While London's lines are given names, Paris' are simply numbered. Of the two, I prefer the latter because I cannot remember names for the life of me. Unlike our train system, both are frequent (average every 5minute) and timely. London's underground is more modern though which Paris' looks like a hole in the wall (sometimes, it was literally just a hole bore through the ground with no proper tiling on the wall and ceiling) that there are few stations that reek of urine. I'd like to think it was animals but there are some homeless people who call the stations home.
Language
If you have problem communicating in London, it's unlikely that you'll be able to survive in Paris at all. Have Google Translate ready. The French speak mainly French though they know enough English to ask you to pay up. Some places have menus in both French and English. Failure of which, just install the translator on your phone and aim the camera at the menu. Yes, it does real time translation from pictures. Very handy.
Data connection
Probably you'll be more knowledgeable in this domain but this is my experience. Another colleague went and came back from UK before me so I took his UK SIM card which still had some credit and data left. There are many which you can buy there are many telco providers there but I used EE and they had good coverage and speed. A SIM makes more sense if you are a lone traveler.
Since my SIM was only good for UK (there is roaming option), we got a pocket wifi from Travel Wifi. While the speed and connection were OK, the device itself kept dying on us that we had to constantly recharge it. Our ass luck perhaps.
~~~~~
This concludes the first post of this series. Stay tuned for more.
However, when you are notified of the said trip in the same month (barely 3weeks notice), you really don't have much time to do all that. But, that's really what happened and why this blog has been awfully quiet for the past few weeks.
Just landed on Malaysian soil last Saturday evening, I first got to know about my trip in early April. It was supposed to be a company trip but I extended it into a personal holiday. Thus, it was a week in London followed by a week in Paris. The planning took a fair bit of time and effort. What to do, what not to miss, when best to visit, it was honestly quite draining. Of course, if you have the money to splash, just go with the flow. Otherwise, here are a few things I find worthy of your attention:
During my last trip (Taiwan), I regretted slightly for not coming up with a proper itinerary of where and when to go. Not because my cash was overflowing then, merely my laziness was beyond control. It's no secret that an exchange rate of 1:5 and 1:6 does wonders to your laziness and motivation.
You may wonder why I crossed out Google Trip that was the darling of the wanderlust when it first came out. Sure, it does take a lot of the planning and mapping by coming up with the full itinerary. However, it lacks the flexibility for you to make modifications as you may not want some attractions and have others in. There is supposedly a feature to allow you to customize their suggested trip but after few hours, I gave up on it all together.
Google Map
Trusty ol' Google Map may not seem like much and even cumbersome but it was easier for me to plan out my itinerary by:
- Search for places that you want to visit on the map
- Star them once found
- Start at a certain point/location then slowly build your itinerary from there
- You get to read reviews of those places you are interested in
- It shows the opening hours & days (can plot which day of your trip to go)
- The distance from one point to another is shown including commuting by public transport and cost (this one probably depends on the location as some countries may have
crappynon-standard fees) - You can use it on your laptop/desktop with a giant screen for easier reading and open the same map on your mobile device. Google Trip is only available on mobile, no desktop.
- Share to your travel mates but I didn't test this feature out because my travel mate left the bulk of planning to me =_=
Google Drive
I ended up storing my itinerary on an Excel in Google Drive for sharing reason:
 |
| My analytical&detailed self was very pleased with this outcome |
Visa requirement
If you are holding a Malaysian passport, you don't need a UK visa. Same goes for France but you can check here too for further details.
Pickpockets
Europe or Paris specifically is notorious for pickpockets. Of the 10 people I tell about my (then) upcoming trip, 8 would tell me the horrors of people not noticing that they got robbed. Out of which, 2 would have experienced it themselves. There's no point of bringing a bag and zipping it up as they have rather sophisticated MO when they want your valuables. A colleague experienced it first hand on her last day while alighting off the metro (local train) when a group of teenager girls offered to help out with her luggage (her family was traveling with kidS). Thinking of how sweet they were, she only realized later that while 2 were helping her, one was helping herself to my colleague's purse which was inside her handbag. There are aplenty of such stories and scams so don't turn your holiday into a tragic memory just because of that.
Payment
I've never felt as handicapped for not having a credit card until this trip. In London, you can use the paywave or other similar form of contactless card payment which our government has been pushing for in the past year. You can use it in most of the restaurants and even on the train station. Like our TouchNGo card. They also have Oyster Card that's a pre-loaded train card but only makes sense if you are a heavy traveler. Paris' metro still utilizes normal tickets which you can buy with your credit card at the self service kiosk. The similarity between both cities are that you are safer with either a Visa or MasterCard. Amex is getting more recognition but there are still some places that don't accept it. Obviously, cash is king but you also don't want to get mugged.
Transportation
Google Map is helpful in determining the route and live updates on delays and station shutdown. I find that when traveling sans data connection, it's best to have an inkling of an idea where and how to get there. For London, you can use the Transport for London's site to plan your commute. The same goes for Paris via vianavigo. Both of these systems are color coded. While London's lines are given names, Paris' are simply numbered. Of the two, I prefer the latter because I cannot remember names for the life of me. Unlike our train system, both are frequent (average every 5minute) and timely. London's underground is more modern though which Paris' looks like a hole in the wall (sometimes, it was literally just a hole bore through the ground with no proper tiling on the wall and ceiling) that there are few stations that reek of urine. I'd like to think it was animals but there are some homeless people who call the stations home.
Language
If you have problem communicating in London, it's unlikely that you'll be able to survive in Paris at all. Have Google Translate ready. The French speak mainly French though they know enough English to ask you to pay up. Some places have menus in both French and English. Failure of which, just install the translator on your phone and aim the camera at the menu. Yes, it does real time translation from pictures. Very handy.
Data connection
Probably you'll be more knowledgeable in this domain but this is my experience. Another colleague went and came back from UK before me so I took his UK SIM card which still had some credit and data left. There are many which you can buy there are many telco providers there but I used EE and they had good coverage and speed. A SIM makes more sense if you are a lone traveler.
Since my SIM was only good for UK (there is roaming option), we got a pocket wifi from Travel Wifi. While the speed and connection were OK, the device itself kept dying on us that we had to constantly recharge it. Our ass luck perhaps.
~~~~~
This concludes the first post of this series. Stay tuned for more.
Comments
Post a Comment