Chinese New Year Open House Celebrations at Taiping, Malaysia

Malaysia, in line with its multi-cultural status celebrates many festivals from various ethnic backgrounds and religions. Their three main popular festivals are the Eid ul Fitri to celebrate the end of Ramadan, the Chinese New Year and Diwali. Each of these major festivals belong to a different religion, namely, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. Malaysia is a secular country and proudly portray themselves as 1Malaysia. I got a sense of this unity when I attended their Chinese New Year Open House at Taiping in the Perak state of Malaysia.


Even though this was a festival celebrating the Chinese New Year, a lot of people from various ethnic backgrounds and religions participated in this colorful event. Till I attended this event, I hardly understood the concept of an open house, but once I became a part of this event, I understood that open houses are a way for Malaysia to help its citizens and its visitors to enjoy its various festivals. Each time, a different city is chosen as the host city depending on the work it has done for the country. And each open house focuses on bringing a great festival to its people.


At this open house, I got treated to some fantastic local food, stunning dance performances, a sight of Malaysia’s prime minister and an entertaining fireworks display at the end of the event. The highlight of the event for me were the lion and the dragon dances. The act of balance of the lion dance is something that I find very interesting. Plus, these dances and performances gave me so many insights into the colorful Malaysian Chinese culture.


If you ever happen to be in Malaysia during an open house or during the festival days, I would recommend you to be a part of them. Like all festivals, it helps us understand the local culture better and it is a celebration with great food, fun and frolic. What more do we need as travelers and human beings?

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Tourism Malaysia invites me to Chinese New Year Open House Event

After close to 6 months, I am back in the beautiful country of Malaysia and this time on an invite from Tourism Malaysia to participate in the Malaysia Open House celebration, a program that brings together people from all walks of life to celebrate Chinese New Year and foster unity and harmony of 1Malaysia. I am currently in a quiet town called Taiping that has a colonial feel to it. And this is where this event will be held tomorrow (Feb 8, 2014) amidst esteemed delegates from the government of Malaysia and other guests.

I arrived here this morning after a short drive from Kuala Lumpur’s Bukit Bintang area where I stayed the previous evening and night. I didn’t have much time at KL, but managed to squeeze in some time to explore the Twin Towers yet again and some of the malls of the Bukit Bintang area. I also got to taste some exotic tropical fruits on the way to Taiping.

The plan for today is to enjoy the oldest museum of Malaysia and also go on a night safari. Tomorrow is more an event day, which will allow me to see cultural performances, taste interesting local foods and meet like minded people.

After the event, I am headed to the Royal Belum rainforest park at Pulau Banding where I spend a couple of days visiting waterfalls, aboriginal villages, rafflesia sites, fish sanctuaries and more before returning to Kuala Lumpur for some small shopping. This is an area that all locals seem to rave about and I am very excited in visiting this tract of rainforest and spend some quality time in true nature.

This 5 day trip organized by Tourism Malaysia will let me explore a side of peninsular Malaysia that I haven’t seen before and one that is slightly off the beaten track especially for foreign tourists.

For this trip, I ended up getting myself a one year multiple entry visa to Malaysia and I hope to use this multiple entry visa properly in visiting as much of Malaysia as possible. Malaysia as its tag line goes is Truly Asia and I personally feel that it deserves many visits!!

I am hoping to click many pictures and find lots of stories for all you people. Do stay tuned for lots of interesting stories about the Chinese New Year Open house and other off beat destination stories from Malaysia.

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Never travel during the Chinese New Year: My Nha Trang Story from Vietnam

Before traveling to Vietnam, do ensure that your travel dates are not near ‘Tet’, the Vietnamese New Year and definitely not in the 10 days after Tet. If it is, be ready to pay higher prices for everything (travel, food and accommodation) and sometimes be shooed out of a city just because there are no rooms to sleep in that city. If you are sensible, then you will plan your dates after the holiday season is over else, if you crazy like me, you will be treated to a great adventure. This is my adventure during the Tet holidays when I was made to travel from Mui Ne to Nha Trang to Danang to Hoi An, all in a single day, just because I chose to travel during Tet. Now, you might wonder that the entire world travels during the Christmas/New Year holiday season and we still find places to stay, albeit by paying a higher fee. The Tet, is similar, though it happens on a different scale. It comes in that time of the year when the tourists are still in Vietnam so the rooms are ready fairly booked and then the entire country (rich, middle class and poor) go into holiday mode. People visit their families, go out on day trips, drink all day, go to exotic places, get their photos taken and all the typical holiday stuff. The only difference is that the rest of the world has many holidays and hence the citizens of those countries split their holidays. In Vietnam, there is only one holiday, Tet, and the rest of the year, the Vietnamese work hard.


Hence, when Tet comes, the country literally shuts down for 11 days. Even the capital shuts down for 4-5 days. The places that don’t shut down are places catering to the holidaying crowd and they charge a premium for it. If you ask why, they will say ‘Happy New Year’ and expect you to understand it. Food prices go up by about 20%. It is even written on the menu cards in restaurants. Cost of travel goes up 3 to 4 fold. A $6 bus ticket from Mui Ne to Nha Trang cost me $18. The biggest jump takes place in the hotel prices. A $5 hotel can go up to as much as $70 depending on the city and the hotel location.


The worst place to be traveling to is Nha Trang, Vietnam’s most popular beach destination and Mui Ne, the adventure beach destination that is close to Ho Chi Minh city. Even before I left Ho Chi Minh city on the 2nd day of the New Year, I knew it would be difficult to travel, but wasn’t aware of the enormity of the crowd. It took me 5 hours to find a place that fit my budget in Mui Ne and after paying 3 times the regular price for a bus ride to Nha Trang, I found out that I got lucky at Mui Ne and Nha Trang is the true thing. I searched for a hotel from 5:30 AM to 10 AM, only to find out that all the hotels were booked in the city. I knew it would be bad as last evening when I had checked the internet, 90% of the places were sold out and the ones that were available were too expensive. Even the hotels that I had called were booked. But, I was not ready for a ‘Sorry we are full’ and ‘It is Happy New Year, we are full…full…full’ kind of statements.


I was forced to look outside Nha Trang and this led me to book myself on a train to Danang, a coastal city in Central Vietnam. Thankfully, I got some hard sleeper seats. The train was scheduled to leave Nha Trang at half past one in the afternoon and hence I had enough time to kill in Nha Trang, which is a decent looking coastal town. I headed straight to the beach, dropped my bags there, went for a swim with the mighty waves and then paid $1 for a fresh water garden hose bath right on the beach. After freshening up, I fixed up my hammock under the coconut trees to relax for a while while the holidaying crowd whizzed past me. After a short nap, I walked to the nearby Nha Trang center for a wholesome lunch meal while I watched the Nha Trang marine drive from high up.

My train left the Nha Trang station in the afternoon and after 10 and a half hours of breezing through lush green countryside, beautiful coasts and mist covered mountains, I reached the town of Danang. Thankfully, I had caught up on some sleep in the train and thus had enough energy to haggle with the taxi drivers for a ride to Hoi An, about 35 kms from Danang. When I arrived at Hoi An, it was mid night and again I was treated to the same statements of ‘We are full and it is Happy New Year’. Thankfully, a local helped me in finding a good place, though I paid $35 for it. I am sure he got some commission for himself from the hotel staff, but nonetheless, he helped me. As you can see, if you wish to travel during Tet, it will be crazy, very expensive and a real pain. If this doesn’t matter to you, then rock on, else stay put in one place during Tet. Better still, stay out of Vietnam till everything returns to normalcy.

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