Day 5: Throughout Belgium

It was the day Kak Ngoh had to end her holiday with us and flying back to Ireland to resume her life as a student. We left Varredes at 6am (the only time we managed to follow the itinerary schedule! selalunya behind the schedule aje...hehehe) and headed to Tille, where the low cost Paris Beauvais airport located. Bukan dekat ye, amik masa 1 1/2 jam juga nak sampai. But fortunately kami x sesat lagi. So by the time we arrived, it was just the nice time for Kak Ngoh to check-in and we all can sit down for coffee and breakfast.

Twins sgt sedih bila tau kak ngoh dah nak kena balik Ireland....

Coffee at the airport was amazingly expensive. For a small cup and only half of it filled with coffee, the price was 1.50 Euro. I wonder how is it in Charles de Gaulle international airport. Luckily I managed to make some sandwiches before we left our mobile home.

After Kak Ngoh had boarded her flight, we started our journey to Brussels, Belgium. We arrived at Atomium at 12.30 noon and had our packed lunch and then took photos around the big monuments until we got bored after half an hour. We didn't take the tour inside the Atomium because we must leave for Lisse in Holland by 3.30pm. I booked a hotel there and since I did't book using credit card, the condition for our hotel room to be confirmed, I must reach the hotel by 6.00 pm. Brussels was just a stopping point.

If you wonder what is Atomium is all about, here some info i extracted from Wikipedia:

The Atomium [1] is a monument built for Expo '58, the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. Designed by André Waterkeyn, it is 102-metres (335 ft) tall, with nine steel spheres connected so that the whole forms the shape of a unit cell of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times.

Tubes which connect the spheres along the 12 edges of the cube and all eight vertices to the centre enclose escalators connecting the spheres which contain exhibit halls and other public spaces. The top sphere provides a panoramic view of Brussels. Each sphere is 18 metres in diameter. Three spheres are currently (2008) closed to visitors, others are easily reachable with escalator. The vertical vertex contains a lift which was considered very fast and advanced at the time of building (the speed is 5 m/s)^[1].

Twins @ Atomium Park

But we still had a couple of hours, so we decided to get to some other tourist attractions in Brussels. During my planning, I only considered Atomium and I didn't include other places in Brussels as I thought about the time constraint. So I really did not have any idea where we should go. We only wanted to get some Brussels souvenirs and the ones in Atomium were not impressive. I did ask some passers-by where the places to get the souvenirs and they told me it was far away from the Atomium.

So we used Garmin. Garmin has this facility that can indicate to you the shopping places, fuel station, tourist attractions and some others in the vicinity. So we checked under the tourist attractions and noted this particular place called Grote Markt - located some 22km away from the Atomium. I did remember during my research of this place called Grote Markt in Brussels. So I believed this must be the place where we could buy some souvenirs.

So off we went there. As we moving away along the highway, I had this kind of feeling that we were not going to the right place because all the signboards showed we were leaving Brussels. But I was still optimist.

Then we arrived to this town area. We were surprised to note that the area was rather quiet than the hassle-and-bussle the normal big city would have or the tourist-area-look. Finding a car park also was very easy. The twins were sleeping at the time, so since we only wanted to get some fridge magnets and Belgium chocolate, my BIL said he would wait in the van to watch them while Kak Ti, cik HB and I go check out the place.

The area no doubt was surrounded with historical buildings but then it seemed like we were the only foreigners there. People were looking at us and the look were not friendly, I tell you! I greeted (because I wanted to ask for info) some passers-by with "Bonjour" and they ignored me. I thought they speak French because in Atomium, it seemed they do. But then I realized that all the signboards are in Dutch and then I remembered from my internet reading that some part of Belgium speak French, some Dutch and some Deutsch. Oh my....no wonder I was being ignored!

Fortunately, we saw a small signboard "Tourist Information Office" on one of the historical buildings. So we went to the office and met this one lady who spoke good English and very friendly (surely they do, they deal with the tourists, right?). So we told her our situation and then found out that we were no longer in Brussels. We were actually in this small town called Aalt. She told us to get to Grote Markt in Brussels. And I told her that our navigator told us that the Grote Markt located here. She checked Garmin and noticed that the Grote Markt in Brussels is called by different name in this navigator. Haih.....

Kak Ti & I @ Aalt

So we couldn't get to buy any fridge magnets or Belgium chocolates. Kak Ti managed to get herself some beautiful postcards of Aalts at the tourist office. We definitely couldn't get back to Brussels because we had to start travelling to Holland. So forget Brussels!

Then as we were leaving Aalts, we encountered another problem. Cik HB wanted to reload fuel but all the fuel stations we found, had no attendants and you have to use either your debit card or credit card. CikHB tried his German debit card but was not valid. Then he tried his credit card but then the machine asked for PIN number. The problem was, he couldn't remember his credit card's PIN . In fact none of four of us who have credit card knew our PIN. In Malaysia you can always use credit card for fueling or anything without having to use the PIN number except when you want to withdraw cash from ATM machine, no? It just never occurred to us that we would ever need to get cash using credit card, that was why we couldnt be bothered to remember. Bad..bad habit!

Anyway, after travelling quite sometime looking for fuel station that would accept cash (and worrying whether there was enough fuel to go around before we succeed), we saw this one fuel station with attendants. And she accepted cash after finding out our problem. Fuh!!! Lega....

I like houses in Belgium....so clean, so nice-looking...

In the meantime, I called the hotel and told them we couldn't make it on time and will be late about an hour or so but still want them to secure our rooms. Ok, they said....lega lagi. So we didn't rush. Couldn't actually...with the drive speed limit and traffic jams. Holland's highway were packed at the time ok! We arrived in Lisse at 7.30pm and glad to find that the hotel was nice and the staffs were friendly.

Next episode: Amsterdam