Saturday, August 15, 2009

Land's End - Cape St. Vincent

Normally, your vacation trip which you carefully planned would contains one or two or sometime a few highlights which makes you feel that you have come to the right place and the money worth spending. Algarve in Portugal is one of the places where it gave me such feeling. Hence, I would like to share with you one of the highlights of my recent vacation trip to Europe in this post - The visit to Cape St. Vincent.

We started early on that day because Cape St. Vincent is located about 180 kilometers away from Albufeira town where we stayed at the west. There is a highway (A22) running all the way to the west and ends at somewhere near Lagos. From Lagos, we exited from the highway into the winding country roads. After another 45jutty minutes, we finally arrived Point of Sagres and Cape St. Vincent is just 2 kms away from here.

Cape St. Vincent is the most south-westernly point of the Europe continent and also called the "Land's End" of Portugal. In Portugese, it is called Cabo de Sao Vicente. It is located approximately 6 kilometers from the small village of Sagres. For those who wish to come here, you can either rent a car and drive there or join a tour. I did not see a bus goes there when I was there.

Wow!
That was my first expression when I first arrived at the cape. I was quickly fascinated by what I see. We were right at the edge of Atlantic ocean!

Standing just next to the edge of the vertical cliff at the cape, feeling the wind from the Atlantic ocean blowing against your face and listening to the big waves crushing against the rocky surface of the cliff. I really felt that I could stand there forever breathing!

This is the closest I dare to stand near the cliff.
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Tread carefully on the jutting rocks! You can walk all the ways to the far end of the cliff.
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The light house. Still the most important landmark for the vessels which sail to the East and West.
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Little market just outside the light house.
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If you forgot to bring your camera here, no worries! You can grab some postcards back. :)
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One of the beaches near Sagres Point.
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At Sagres Point. The far end is Cape St.Vincent.
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Sunday, August 9, 2009

Kampung Buah Pala

24 户人家 vs. 65 间房屋
24 families vs. 65 houses

发展商 vs. 村民
The developer vs. the residents

发展的脚步 vs. 保卫家园和土地
development vs. defending the homes and lands

50万 vs. 3百50万
500k vs. 3 millions 500k

献议 vs. 拒绝
Offer vs. rejection

理性 vs. 情绪化
rational vs. emotional

黑白 vs. 口舌
black and white vs. verbal

豆蔻村, 槟城最后一个印裔村。
Kampung Buah Pala is the last Indian village in Penang

纷纷扰扰了多时 。
A village in turmoil.

她是否能敌得过发展的巨轮呢?
Is the village capable of fighting against the development?

保卫家园是要付出什么代价呢?
What's the price of defending your home?

谁是最后的赢家呢?
Who's going to be the last winner?

答案即将揭晓。
We will know soon.

我感觉悲剧即将发生。
I have a feeling that something bad is going to happen soon.

希望我是错的!
But I hope I am wrong!

Entrance.
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The 'famous' signboard.
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The SOS! banner.
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The residents actually camp at the entrance of the village to protect their village.
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The houses.
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Saturday, August 8, 2009

ilha da Armona

Someone recommended to my friend that Armona Island is a must-visit destination if we were at Algarve, Portugal. So, with the assistance of a GPS receiver, off we drove to this little town of Olhao from Albufeira. From the port of Olhao, we took a ferry to Armona Island. The island is 15-20 minutes away from Olhao by ferry. It is a popular destination during summer for local and foreign holiday makers. Armona Island is such a small island. When I was there, I did not see a motorised vehicle there. The people here transports basically everything using the push-cart or bicycle. Stepping foot on this island actually gives me a feeling that I indeed coming to a beach instead of an island because I can see the beach sand practically everywhere. The beach houses here are primarily painted with blue and white color and I feel that I am back to Santorini again (with a beach!). We did not have a map of the island when we arrived at this beautiful sandy island. So, we just walked from the jetty to the other end of the island. The walking took us about 30 minutes under the hot sun which almost 'melted' me. Almost towards to the other of the island, I 'gave up' and pulled out my little umbrella to protect me from the scorching sun. We had our lunch there while waiting for next ferry to go back to Olhao.

We had some good time there!

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We toured around the market at Olhao while waiting for the ferry to Armona island.

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Approaching Armona island. Holiday makers start to go the island for beach vacation.

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Jetty of Armona Island. We had our lunch at the restaurant (the only one that's opened that day) at the back of this signboard.

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Nice little blue and white beach house.

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You practically step onto a beach once you get out of the house.

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The other end of the island from the jetty. Great (but hot!) weather. I 'gave up' at this point and pulled out my ever-ready umbrella here. :D

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Looking towards the Atlantic ocean. About another 300 meters to the ocean but we made a U-turn at this point because we were melting fast!

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