Seeing as I am sitting in a Starbucks in Kuala Lumpur airport with 6 hours until I board my flight to London I have a sneaky suspicion that I may be writing what might be my last blog...of this trip anyway.
Ummm, even just writing that's pretty upsetting!
I remember writing the first all those months ago in May 2009, 5 weeks before setting off to Heathrow’s terminal 5. I can't remember what it was about, pear cider and DVDs I think but it seems a million miles away from where I am now and only yesterday at the same time.
As you might expect i'm going through that clichéd self-reflective deep and meaningful stage...actually i've been doing that since day 2 or 3 back in LA. That's being a left handed Aquarius for you I guess.
Looking through my journal and blogs reminds me of all the randomness that's happened, the thousands of new faces i've come across and the 'interesting' situations i've found myself in. I can't imagine being in a place for more than 5 days now so have come up with a plan to hang out in hostels and Aussie bars to re-adjust myself to life while still feeling like i'm on the road, it might work...might not.
So anyway, back to the Thai Islands. After I finished my diving course on Koh Tao we ended up staying there for another 3 days, at first the weather played nice and the sun shone but by late afternoon we were woken from our sandy slumbers by fat drops of water falling on our faces and reminding us that even paradise has its off days.
Unfortunately, this off day turned into an off 2 weeks and although fun was to be had, it wasn't to be had with a growing tan.
Without the beach as an option more importance became placed on the evenings and the continued destruction of our livers. We had a good couple of nights out and met some unlikely randoms including the perhaps overly friendly Gary who drove Lottie and I up and down the promenade on his moped many, many times.
In the cloudy haze of vodka-redbull Gary seemed fun and a bit of a 'character'...in the sharp sober light of the next day it was clear he was just plain chav and to be avoided whenever possible.
The other highlight of Koh Tao was Ali the pancake man. This guy is a legend amongst those in the know, he makes the best thai pancakes i've ever come across and with such skill and pride. He's probably been doing it every day for years...litrally.
I ordered my usual (banana and nutella) and in seconds was presented with a chunky, chocolatey, bananary creation that melted in the mouth and sent the taste buds to heaven.
We decided to get out of Koh Tao fairly rapidly to try and chase the sun over to the west side of Thailand. This involved catching a boat to the mainland and then 2 more buses to the town of Krabi. It turned out to be a full 12 hours travelling (pretty standard now) and we arrived later than expected. Spontaneously we jumped in a cab to the town of Ao Nang, we'd heard it was supposed to have more life to it than Krabi and served as a good connection point to the stunning Railey Beach which we'd planned to visit the following day.
However, plans often change and when we got to Ao Nang I realised we might have well as bought a one way ticket on the tourist bus to 'Seedy Town'. This place was pretty grim. Very overpriced, too many 'happy ending' massage parlours, bad food, old men with young thai women and to complete the towns unfavourable portfolio a set of suped up supercharged tuk tuks lurked on a street corner complete with body kits, neon under lighting and throbbing subwoofers. All fairly hilarious really.
Unfortunately we woke once more to pouring rain and seeing as Lottie only had 4 days of her Thai holiday left we scrapped the visit to Railey Beach and just made the last boat of the day over to Koh Phi Phi, the party island. Our mentality here was, if we can't get the sun, once again, we'd go for the red bull. And that's exactly what we did.
Even shrouded in cloud Phi Phi was a beautiful island. Jaw dropping vertical limestone cliffs, turquoise waters and soft fluffy sand. We tried to ignore the fact it would have had a better vibe if the sky was blue but even without that we partied hard and all came good when we realised that not only one set of friends was also on the island with us, but two! Chris and Andrea who we'd met in Vietnam arrived within seconds of us and Dan, our northern bud from Singapore had also come to play.
There were loads of bars to try out, my favourite being the Reggae Reggae bar because the centrepiece is a large boxing ring where the public are encouraged to get up, don gloves and helmet and fight other random travellers for a measly bucket. It makes good entertainment and I was dyingggg to get up there and fight another girl, all the chick flights we saw were pathetic, really weak. Unfortunately I never did get the chance, maybe next time.
Our other local was the Irish Bar, it sold 3 for 1 buckets. Enough said.
One day we hired a longtail boat to get that productive feeling back and see some of the local area by sea. We went over to Bamboo Island, a tiny deserted island but picture postcard perfect and also Phi Phi Lai. Home of the infamous Maya Bay, also known as 'The Beach' from the book and film. Being a huge fan of both I loved standing where I knew Leo Di Cap had been and milked every second of it.
It was a great day and after much jumping in and out of the boat, backward somersaults and back flips we headed home to the big island for food.
On Chris and Andrea's last night we were on the beach dancing when the heavens opened and the monsoon rains came to party with us. It was obvious they weren’t going to stop so it became a case of if you beat them, join them. Obviously we couldn't beat monsoon rains so we danced on the sand and in the rain like devils possessed, soaked to the skin and bone, clothes and hair hanging limp from everybody. It was all a bit tribal but really fun and random.
I'm dribbling on now aren’t I, only 5 hours till I board the flight so might as well carry on...
By day 7 (and STILL no sun) Tina and I were Phi Phi'd out. Lottie had gone home, Dan had moved on and Chris, Andrea and Matt had all jetted off down to Malaysia. We decided we couldn't stay on the island anymore, it had had its fun with us and spat us out and now we had to leave. We opened a map and searched desperately for a new destination, somewhere to hold us for the 5 days we had left before embarking on the journey home and eventually, we found it. Koh Lipe.
Neither of us had heard of Koh Lipe before that afternoon but less than 12 hours later we were cruising south on a chartered speed boat under blue skies and fluffy white clouds (typical on the day we leave!). That's the great thing about travelling, so spontaneous you never know where you might end up.
It turned out that Chris, Andrea and Matt had also spied Koh Lipe on their journey down and it was all smiles as we were reunited on the new island.
The weather held up the following day and once again we chartered a longtail boat to take us out into the big blue for some snorkelling and sunbathing on the untouched beaches. This time the day couldn't have gone better and we splashed about in the currents (which were disturbingly strong I might add), bathed under palms and watched a pretty magnificent sunset from the bobbing helm of the boat. Paradise indeed.
And really, that brings me to now....the days after that were a bit non-descript, the weather faded and the looming prospect of packing for the final time was hanging over my head like the grey clouds outside our bamboo bungalow. It's been a medium sized mission getting here this morning involving a very wet boat, a bumpy minibus, a cramped tuk tuk, a claustrophobic night bus and a freezing cold coach but eventually, we made it, we are here at KL airport, for the third time, eating our third Mc Donalds and receiving our third immigration stamps.
Tina has just arisen from the dead on the table next to me which is good because I was beginning to think she'd past away at the last hurdle, but alas no, she's reaching for that banana chocolate muffin again.
I know it'll be awesome to see family and friends back home but I feel so disconnected from England at this very moment it's hard to imagine being back, it feels like another destination on my trip and then i'll be off again... who knows, maybe I will ;)
Monday 13 December 2010
Friday 26 November 2010
The Price of Beauty
Pulling into Phnom Pehn I was pretty hesitant as to what to expect. Our bible the lonely planet warns potential visitors that it's an intoxicating place that you'll either love or hate, or maybe even both but just on different days. The journey into Cambodia from the Mekong Delta wasn't too long or painful but for some reason felt exhausting. There was a lot of climbing in and out of a miniature speed boat and the hot sun felt doubly strong on the skin as we waited for our passports to be stamped and returned at the floating boarder.
Our bus dropped us off at the corner of a particularly dingy road and aggressive tuk tuk drivers were falling over themselves to get our business. The constant shouts of "LADY, LADY, LADY" were tiresome to say the least.
Eventually we found a nice guy to take us to a guesthouse and we checked in just as the skies opened and emptied the equivalent of the Pacific Ocean on us.
On our first day there we had planned to visit the 'Gold and Silver Temple' in town but soon realised we were a. inappropriately dressed and b. not that bothered about seeing yet more gold buddhas. We still had Angkor Wat to visit up in Siem Reap and were trying to avoid 'temple burn-out'.
Instead we got a lift to the renound Killing Fields where thousands upon thousands of people were massacred and buried during the era of Pol Pots Khmer Rouge regime in the 70's. There were 9,000 skulls on display as a tribute to the dead but I couldn't work out whether it was a tasteful of not.
Still, the museum was interesting and I managed to top up my historical knowledge. On the journey back our driver offered to take us to a firing range to try out some AK-47's or other equally traumatic weapons, I think his offer could have been timed better to be honest, there was already too much death in the air.
The other thing I immediately noticed about Cambodia were the number of disabled people on the streets. Everyone seemed to have been affected by war or tragedy and it was sad to witness, especially when trolleys of amputees and writhing children with contorted bodies were wheeled right past your restaurant asking for money.
On day two it was off to yet another site of sadness, the S-21 Genocide Museum where more poor innocent Cambodians were captured, held and tortured for months before being shipped off to the Killing Fields to be finished off and buried in the mass graves.
The S-21 building was originally a school for the local children which had been transformed into an eerily disturbing prison of barbed wire and wooden boxes to house the men, women and children. It really was disgusting to see and made my stomach turn that people were, and still are, capable of inflicting so much pain and anguish for no reason at all.
We had a couple of nice dinners and walked around the town a bit but those were the two main things we did. It was obvious that the area was soaked in poverty and needs a lot of TLC before it and its people can recover.
After Phnom Pehn we headed north to Siem Reap, home of the mighty Angkor Wat temple and many, many others We only spent a couple of days there, one doing the temple rounds and another chilling in the town, getting a nice cheap swedish massage.
Although Angkor Wat was amazing and very stunning I think I was more captivated by the two I saw back in Indonesia, the buddist 'Borobodur' and Hindu 'Prambanan'. I guess that's the problem of having such a reputation, there's a hell of a lot to live up to. I particularly liked the temple where Angelina Jolie was taken for the film Tomb Raider. It was a natural film set in itself and ancient trees had grown round and swallowed up the brickwork and carvings of the place. Doorways leading into pitch black were framed by gigantic roots that looked more like octopus tentacles than vegetation, loved it.
Tina and Matt chose to stay up in Siem Reap for a third day but I left alone on the night bus to get down to Sihanoukville on day 2. It was a fairly uneventful night time journey but I enjoyed the solo adventure and got quite a few reality checks when I found myself standing in the middle of nowhere at 4am surrounded by nothing but Cambodian goats!
I arrived into the beachy coastal town at sunrise and felt really liberated to be back by the sea again, especially as the inky black sky merged into a rainbow of navy blue, purple, pinks, oranges and yellows. I did the usual business of grabbing my bag and bartering a price with a motorbike driver and in no time at all was whizzing through the empty streets to my guesthouse, wind in the hair and smile on the face.
It was only 6am but I knew where some friends were staying and what room they were in so I made sure they got a nice early awakening to the day by sneaking in and jumping on their beds haha.
Sihanoukville went really fast, we spent 5 days there but they all merged into a bit of a drunken blur. There was a good group of people to hang out with and it was really nice to do the social thing again. It's apparently the 'place to go' for some beach action so that's exactly what we did, some beach action combined with some Cambodian style holiday vibe.
It was pretty sad leaving Jon and Craig on the 18th, we'd been travelling with them from the day we entered Laos and although we had to move on, so did they. We said our goodbyes and then that was that, we started the long process of getting down to the Thai island of Koh Phangan in time for the full moon party.
We caught a bus to Phnom Pehn (which broke down twice, lost it's air con half way through and was full of screaming babies and brown nappies), got a tuk tuk to the airport, a plane to Bangkok airport, a taxi in to Bangkok city, a taxi back to Bangkok airport (15 hours later), a flight to Surat Thani in southern Thailand, a coach to Don Sak pier, a ferry to Koh Phangan and FINALLY a jeep truck to our hotel.
All that took about 36 hours.
From that moment on, carnage ensued. It was just ridiculous. The thai redbull out here really does contain all sorts of illegal things because anyone who drinks it just goes loopy...it's great! I'll skim over the details but on our first night which was supposed to be a quiet one we went down to Haad Rin beach and didn’t get back till 6am. Our second night, the night before the big party which we were going to 'take easy' we ended up at a pool party and very much IN the pool until 4am, and then it was full moon day where we didn't hang up the dancing shoes till 11am the following morning.
After those three days I was finished, a walking zombie. Koh Phangan had had its way with us and spat us all back out.
We all felt bad for not really seeing any of the island except the party area so on our 5th and last day we hired a 4x4 jeep to take off road and into the jungle. It was an awesome day full of highlights but hanging onto the back of a truck while whizzing through rainforest meant i've now got about 400,000 big, fat, red, angry, itchy mosquito bites which look atrocious :(
I loved hiking up to the highest viewpoint on the island though where we found a tiny wooden shelter complete with pillows and hammock and a local guy serving iced tea, beer and playing Bob Marley. So cool.
From Koh Phangan we very groggily made our way to Koh Tao by the sea sick making, packed to the rafters ferry. Ever wanted to feel what its like to be squashed into a space smaller than your skull? Take this ferry.
We've been here a few days now and the group has been split up for a bit while we all do our own thing. I'm doing my SSI diving course for the next 3 days so am currently holed up in a little one bed wooden bungalow which I THOUGHT was cute and charming until I woke up covered with another million bites, this time from disgusting bed bugs. They’re all over my legs and body and have sort of merged with the huge mozzie ones so now I just look truely rank.
I'm actually lying on the bug ridden bed now typing this and can almost feel the parasites tucking into dinner as I type. Tomorrow, after my 2 dives i'm packing up my bags and getting the hell out of here and over to where Tina and Lottie are staying. It's annoying though as my accommodation price is included with my diving course....bed bugs included too though, not worth it.
Anyway, all is going well, the diving is going great. It'll feel good to finally be a fully certified diver and being here has put yet more ideas for the future in my head. To be continued...
Time for bed now, along with my microscopic little friends. Night night.
Our bus dropped us off at the corner of a particularly dingy road and aggressive tuk tuk drivers were falling over themselves to get our business. The constant shouts of "LADY, LADY, LADY" were tiresome to say the least.
Eventually we found a nice guy to take us to a guesthouse and we checked in just as the skies opened and emptied the equivalent of the Pacific Ocean on us.
On our first day there we had planned to visit the 'Gold and Silver Temple' in town but soon realised we were a. inappropriately dressed and b. not that bothered about seeing yet more gold buddhas. We still had Angkor Wat to visit up in Siem Reap and were trying to avoid 'temple burn-out'.
Instead we got a lift to the renound Killing Fields where thousands upon thousands of people were massacred and buried during the era of Pol Pots Khmer Rouge regime in the 70's. There were 9,000 skulls on display as a tribute to the dead but I couldn't work out whether it was a tasteful of not.
Still, the museum was interesting and I managed to top up my historical knowledge. On the journey back our driver offered to take us to a firing range to try out some AK-47's or other equally traumatic weapons, I think his offer could have been timed better to be honest, there was already too much death in the air.
The other thing I immediately noticed about Cambodia were the number of disabled people on the streets. Everyone seemed to have been affected by war or tragedy and it was sad to witness, especially when trolleys of amputees and writhing children with contorted bodies were wheeled right past your restaurant asking for money.
On day two it was off to yet another site of sadness, the S-21 Genocide Museum where more poor innocent Cambodians were captured, held and tortured for months before being shipped off to the Killing Fields to be finished off and buried in the mass graves.
The S-21 building was originally a school for the local children which had been transformed into an eerily disturbing prison of barbed wire and wooden boxes to house the men, women and children. It really was disgusting to see and made my stomach turn that people were, and still are, capable of inflicting so much pain and anguish for no reason at all.
We had a couple of nice dinners and walked around the town a bit but those were the two main things we did. It was obvious that the area was soaked in poverty and needs a lot of TLC before it and its people can recover.
After Phnom Pehn we headed north to Siem Reap, home of the mighty Angkor Wat temple and many, many others We only spent a couple of days there, one doing the temple rounds and another chilling in the town, getting a nice cheap swedish massage.
Although Angkor Wat was amazing and very stunning I think I was more captivated by the two I saw back in Indonesia, the buddist 'Borobodur' and Hindu 'Prambanan'. I guess that's the problem of having such a reputation, there's a hell of a lot to live up to. I particularly liked the temple where Angelina Jolie was taken for the film Tomb Raider. It was a natural film set in itself and ancient trees had grown round and swallowed up the brickwork and carvings of the place. Doorways leading into pitch black were framed by gigantic roots that looked more like octopus tentacles than vegetation, loved it.
Tina and Matt chose to stay up in Siem Reap for a third day but I left alone on the night bus to get down to Sihanoukville on day 2. It was a fairly uneventful night time journey but I enjoyed the solo adventure and got quite a few reality checks when I found myself standing in the middle of nowhere at 4am surrounded by nothing but Cambodian goats!
I arrived into the beachy coastal town at sunrise and felt really liberated to be back by the sea again, especially as the inky black sky merged into a rainbow of navy blue, purple, pinks, oranges and yellows. I did the usual business of grabbing my bag and bartering a price with a motorbike driver and in no time at all was whizzing through the empty streets to my guesthouse, wind in the hair and smile on the face.
It was only 6am but I knew where some friends were staying and what room they were in so I made sure they got a nice early awakening to the day by sneaking in and jumping on their beds haha.
Sihanoukville went really fast, we spent 5 days there but they all merged into a bit of a drunken blur. There was a good group of people to hang out with and it was really nice to do the social thing again. It's apparently the 'place to go' for some beach action so that's exactly what we did, some beach action combined with some Cambodian style holiday vibe.
It was pretty sad leaving Jon and Craig on the 18th, we'd been travelling with them from the day we entered Laos and although we had to move on, so did they. We said our goodbyes and then that was that, we started the long process of getting down to the Thai island of Koh Phangan in time for the full moon party.
We caught a bus to Phnom Pehn (which broke down twice, lost it's air con half way through and was full of screaming babies and brown nappies), got a tuk tuk to the airport, a plane to Bangkok airport, a taxi in to Bangkok city, a taxi back to Bangkok airport (15 hours later), a flight to Surat Thani in southern Thailand, a coach to Don Sak pier, a ferry to Koh Phangan and FINALLY a jeep truck to our hotel.
All that took about 36 hours.
From that moment on, carnage ensued. It was just ridiculous. The thai redbull out here really does contain all sorts of illegal things because anyone who drinks it just goes loopy...it's great! I'll skim over the details but on our first night which was supposed to be a quiet one we went down to Haad Rin beach and didn’t get back till 6am. Our second night, the night before the big party which we were going to 'take easy' we ended up at a pool party and very much IN the pool until 4am, and then it was full moon day where we didn't hang up the dancing shoes till 11am the following morning.
After those three days I was finished, a walking zombie. Koh Phangan had had its way with us and spat us all back out.
We all felt bad for not really seeing any of the island except the party area so on our 5th and last day we hired a 4x4 jeep to take off road and into the jungle. It was an awesome day full of highlights but hanging onto the back of a truck while whizzing through rainforest meant i've now got about 400,000 big, fat, red, angry, itchy mosquito bites which look atrocious :(
I loved hiking up to the highest viewpoint on the island though where we found a tiny wooden shelter complete with pillows and hammock and a local guy serving iced tea, beer and playing Bob Marley. So cool.
From Koh Phangan we very groggily made our way to Koh Tao by the sea sick making, packed to the rafters ferry. Ever wanted to feel what its like to be squashed into a space smaller than your skull? Take this ferry.
We've been here a few days now and the group has been split up for a bit while we all do our own thing. I'm doing my SSI diving course for the next 3 days so am currently holed up in a little one bed wooden bungalow which I THOUGHT was cute and charming until I woke up covered with another million bites, this time from disgusting bed bugs. They’re all over my legs and body and have sort of merged with the huge mozzie ones so now I just look truely rank.
I'm actually lying on the bug ridden bed now typing this and can almost feel the parasites tucking into dinner as I type. Tomorrow, after my 2 dives i'm packing up my bags and getting the hell out of here and over to where Tina and Lottie are staying. It's annoying though as my accommodation price is included with my diving course....bed bugs included too though, not worth it.
Anyway, all is going well, the diving is going great. It'll feel good to finally be a fully certified diver and being here has put yet more ideas for the future in my head. To be continued...
Time for bed now, along with my microscopic little friends. Night night.
Sunday 7 November 2010
Is it Lizard Proof?
Bangkok was crazy, Kanachaburi chilled, Chiang Mai historic, Pai a hippy haven, Laos...well that was completely Laos. Blog over.
Ah only kidding, but in all seriousness it does seem that Central and Northern Thailand has a lot to offer to people seeking all types of adventure. One of the hardest things about 'travelling' in my opinion is the deciding on where to go. You've got thousands of tiny villages, hundreds of well known towns and more than a handful of 'must see' cities in a potentially unexplored country. Now add the temples, waterfalls, canyons, mountains and activities into the mix and there's just too much to consider. Infact, it's an indecisive persons nightmare, and that's only for one country!
I'm now 1 year 5 months and 8 countries into this incredible journey and still have 2left (both months and countries) to come. How have I got here (on this 11hr night bus filled with cinema style red leather recliner seats and not very friendly locals to be specific) and how did my brain cope with the decisions to be made up until now??
I'm thinking like this because Tina and I have had time to kill where we are and have used it to plan our itinerary up until we fly to the Thai islands in late November. We're going to be pretty short on time in Vietnam and Cambodia because we want to be on Ko Phangan for the full moon party and my head is swimming with dates, places, times, modes of transport, place names, accommodation names, peoples names, it's crazy!
Nothing an iced coffee (2nd of the day) can't sort out though.
We arrived into Bangkok on the 24th September and it was just what I expected, chaotic. We'd chosen to stay in the most chaotic area of town of course as that's the quickest and easiest way to get the vibe of a place but still, adjusting to the pace was something we had to do pretty quickly. The other thing about Bangkok was the weather, it's still monsoon season down there and the humidity levels were through the roof. You only had to turn off the cold shower and you were dripping again before you had dried off! With the heat came amazing thunder and lightning storms every single evening though which I loved and watched from the hotel balcony.
One evening we had left the guesthouse to brave the rain (thinking the worst was over) and look for a restaurant when the clouds let loose even more and a huge flash cut open the sky right above us. I was absolutely soaked even
though we'd only been walking for 5 minutes, Tina less so in her poncho(!) and we were both shielding ourselves from the storm with flimsy miniature umbrellas. Mine was particularly crap and gradually buckled under the weight of the water until I was left trying to shelter myself under 6 metal spikes sticking into the air at stupid angles like some kind of deformed metallic spider.
Bangkok seems like ages ago now but there was ALOT of shopping combined with some sightseeing and after 5 days (which felt like 5 weeks) we were ready to go. On our last day we had the added stress of trying to send home yet another parcel before closing time and having absolutely no money to do so. It was one of those moments where you think 'what the hell am I going to do now? We're absolutely screwed.'
It all started when Tina realised she'd lost her bank card in the post office and didn't have the cash to send her parcel. Although a bit of a bad shock we still had mine as a back up and planned to withdraw cash for the both of us with that.
That was until the ATM sucked mine into oblivion for no good reason less than 30 minutes later.
Here we were in Bangkok with no cash and no cards to get any with. I was f-r-e-a-k-i-n-g out with glazed eyes staring into space picturing all the terrible things that were coming our way and Tina was laughing hysterically at the stupidity/desperation of the situation.
In a strike of inspiration she realised she had one more unused Barclaycard hidden away in her bag and that we might be able to use that...but then the ATM refused to give us the cash and said we had the wrong pin!! It doesn't sound very stressful writing about it now but trust me, it was.
It was 4.56pm, the post office closed at 5pm, we were soaked through with the humidity, people were yelling at us in Thai from all directions and I was about to explode.
To cut to the chase, yes we eventually worked out the pin and got some cash but I had to have my bank courier out a new card to a random depot in Laos and get there on tuk tuk to collect it...another adventure right there!
After the drama of Bangkok we were pleased to escape to Kanachaburi, famous for its River Kwai and the bridge over it. We checked into a very cute little guesthouse called Sugarcane Lodge II and all was good until Tina walked into the bathroom and let out a huge scream before walking back out again with fear in her eyes. She said there was a lizard the size of a small dinosaur on the wall behind the door but it was long gone when I went to have a look.
After that incident her trust in Thailand was gone and when the loo started smelling like a regurgitated sewer it was game over for Sugarcane Lodge. We did move to another bungalow but there were mini lizards on the windows there too!
The next day we took the 'Death Railway' train over the River Kwai all the way up to a place called Namtok which was a nice journey and took us past some imposing mountainous type scenery. It's called the Death Railway because of all the men (mostly POW's) who died in the process of building it under Japanese supervision during World War II so it was quite a sobering trip when thinking about the history behind it all.
Once in Namtok I had a nice coconut/chicken soup and saw some German tourists strip down and bare all under a massive waterfall which was rather comical.
The rest of Kanachaburi was spent eating nice curries and having a massage and pedicure. I can't get enough of the massages even though it was a little weird and a big reality check lying virtually naked on the floor in a dimly lit room while a little Thai lady rubbed oil into my legs.
We took a 12hr bus north to Chiang Mai after a couple of days there and settled into a nice guesthouse only to unsettle out of it the next morning when I discovered another of our little lizard friends sitting underneath the loo seat waiting to share it with us. It wasn't the best start and when Tina found out we were as good as gone.
I really liked Chiang Mai, it was much more chilled than Bangkok and much smaller, it felt historic and was made up of 4 city walls that encircled the 'old town' which we were staying in. The streets were small and windy and cafes and bars more intimate. My only criticism was that it felt very empty and needed more people floating about for an atmosphere to build. There were a lot of older white men around with their wrinkly arms draped around much younger Thai women though which was quite disturbing to the eye.
We did some activity type stuff in Chiang Mai, the first was a 1 day trek in which we walked up to a hill tribe village, went bamboo rafting and unfortunately, rode an elephant. I say unfortunately because although hesitant about doing it in the first place, when we got to the elephant park (a patch of mud at the side of the road) they were bound to disgustingly short chains, were being hit by Thai idiots and looked very worse for wear. I absolutely hated it and have to admit, shed a few tears as we reluctantly climbed onto the poor things back :(
The bamboo rafting was pretty funny though and helped raise the spirits as we floated down the river getting soaked at the mercy of our 11 year old driver and guide.
The next day Tina went on a cooking course and I did the Jungle Flight zip line which is basically flying from platform to platform through the jungle at tree top level, it was great!
Our next stop was Pai, a little hippy town even further north and up in the mountains. We had planned to rent mopeds for our time there so as soon as we'd found a room we hired some out and whizzed up to a little waterfall a few kms out of town. We'd unknowingly timed our spontaneous ride with sunset and on the way back found a cafe balcony to sit on and sip some drinks while overlooking the golden fields of Northern Thailand below us. That definitely got us excited for the full days riding we had planned for the next day.
Things got off to a bumpy start with Tina falling off her moped at the first junction, I hadn't noticed so sped off alone with the wind in my hair and a smile on my face. It was only 5 minutes later when I turned around and saw a bunch of asians behind me I knew something had gone a miss.
Eventually we got underway with map in hand and sped down the windy roads to a number of local spots such as a little canyon, some hot springs and another waterfall. The weather couldn't have been better which made the exploring extra fun, it was a very good day!
Pai was our last stop for the first part of Thailand and after 4 days there we booked ourselves onto the notorious 2 day slow boat which goes from Chiang Khong down the Mekong River and into Luang Prabang in Laos. The boat cruises for 2 days with a bunch of other travellers and I found the whole thing really cool. The best bit and what we'd hoped would happen was to meet some other like minded people along the way and within 10 minutes we got chatting to 4 others sitting nearby. (We ended up travelling all of Laos together and will do some of Vietnam too i'm sure which is cool).
The 2 days went surprisingly quickly and we passed the time by playing cards and admiring the gorgeous Laos views. Infact before we knew it we were pulling up into Luang Prabang, Laos's jewel of the north and our new group of 6 began the hunt for some decent accommodation.
Ironically (and this always seems to happen) we ended up back at the very first place we checked out and set up camp there. It was a big old house made up entirely of rich dark wood like boat cabins so I nicknamed it The Titanic which kinda stuck with everyone.
You could really see the French influence in the architecture of Luang prabang and a lot of the restaurants were trying (some more successfully than others) to recreate European style menus. We had great weather and visited a gorgeous waterfall area on our second day which had a rope swing and rocks to jump off which of course we did.
On our third day Tina and I split from the others for a bit to hire some battered old bikes and cycle round the town to get a feel for the 'real Laos'. It was the best way to see things and we even bumped into a cute little sunlit grotto where some of the bright orange monks robes were hanging out to dry on a washing line, it made a good photo.
I hadn't felt particularly well that day and by the time we got back to the guesthouse a really nasty bug had taken hold and had me doubled up in a cold sweat with serious sickness. The next 12 hours were miserable and I moved out of the bedroom to spend the night living in a crumbled heap on the bathroom floor :(
Fortunately the whole thing passed within 24 hours and we were still able to leave for Vang Vieng late the following day.
The minibus journey down took about 6 hours and showcased some of the best mountain scenery yet, really dramatic panoramas and a chance to see tiny rural villages come to life as we bolted through. We had yet another insect dilemma that night when we returned from dinner to find a GIANT grasshopper climbing lazily across our duvet as we opened the door. Tina didn't see it and picked up a pile of clothes inches from it's long spindly legs.
'Step away from the bed. I repeat, step away from the bed' was the only instruction I could think to give! (We resolved this one by kidnapping a drunk backpacker from the street outside and holding him hostage until he removed the offender).
The highlight of Laos, actually, of Asian backpacking was tubing the next day, it's one of those things you can only hope exists and when you get to do it feels like a weird dream because it's just sooooooooooo good.
You basically get in your swimwear, hire a large inflatable tube of the day and get a tuk tuk up to a point in the Mekong river a few kms up to a start point. From there you spend the day drifting from bar to bar, rickety wooden huts on stilts serving potent vodka/redbull buckets and shots of local whisky. There's music banging out from each one and by the 4th one everyone is completely wrecked! Good times :)
Apart from tubing there's not a lot to do in Vang Vieng so we moved on to the capital, Vientiane. There was even less to do here and apart from some ten pin bowling with the locals and a mini adventure I went on to retrieve my bank card from a DHL depot in the middle of nowhere not a lot else happened. The highlight was jumping on the back of a scooter with Craig and exploring the crazy roads on wheels.
We got our Vietnamese visas sorted and booked ourselves onto the 24 hour bus from Vientiane to Hanoi, Tina decided to get there by plane so we split for a day (the first in 10 months!).
The bus journey actually went ridiculously quickly and I really enjoyed it, probably because John, Craig and I had the best seats at the very back which was like a big sofa. John, who makes me laugh way too much popped 8 Valiums and was out for the count most of the time anyway!
We stopped at some extremely random 'restaurants' on that journey, one which had a bag containing a big live lizard thing trapped in it (for eating?!) and another with a jar of dead snakes decomposing into a yellowy fluid, supposedly for drinking but the thought makes me want to vomit.
After successfully crossing the boarder and being let into Vietnam we cruised on into the capital of Hanoi and I was reunited at the hotel with Tina.
It was all a bit non-stop because less that 12 hours later we were up at 4am to catch a 10hr train with the locals up into the mountains to a place called Sapa. Tina and I were to spend 2 days there before returning back to Hanoi to meet up with Matt, a friend from home who's spontaneously come out to join us for the next 2 months.
Unfortunately the weather in Sapa took a turn for the worst and the thick white fog obscured any kind of spectacular views for most of the time. We did take a hike down to a local mountain village which was worth the effort though and also got chased by a tiny little tribal woman with one tooth. She was surprisingly scary.
We returned to Hanoi by night bus and decided to sample the Valium we'd bought back in Bali, 2 of those later and we were out for the count until the rude driver shook us awake and shouted "HANOI, HANOI, HANOI" in our faces at 4am.
I never did go back to sleep that night but the next day we somehow dragged ourselves around the Temple of Literature which was pretty and did alot of organisation for the upcoming weeks including booking ourselves onto a 2 day boat cruise in Halong Bay.
Matt arrived the following day and just like that 2 became 3! The beer out here is 8p a glass.....yes, 8p a glass. So we thought it'd be rude not to sample some while playing cards in the old town. I was happy because Matt has brought out his new Pentax DSLR and let me run around the city like a kid in a candy shop snapping away like the paparazzi.
Our boat cruise in Halong Bay was really nice and scenic, we got to sleep on an old Vietnamese junk boat and the area is an absolutely stunning collection of 2,000 limestone cliff islands jutting out of the sea at all angles. There are over 750 traditional boats that take hoards of tourists like us around the area and you get to visit an hugely impressive cave as well as watch the sunset while kayaking about the bay and eat lots of seafood type stuff on board. It was a nice 2 days and good to access to a different side of Vietnam.
From Halong we flew down the coast to Danang airport (skipping the historical town of Hue due to central coastal flooding)and went straight to Hoi An. Here we were reunited with the boys, had a few good nights out and explored the old town which is a protected historical site.
After a couple of lazy days there I managed to persuade Craig to split from John for a while and join Me, Mich and Matt in Delat for a few days. Once again we boarded a night bus and began travelling even further down the coast but this time more in land and back up into mountain territory. We arrived there 24 hours later and were soon to discover that we had been the last bus allowed up onto the dodgy roads because of the weather.
Aside from the rain Delat was a great way to see yet another face of the land and we found a great motorcycle tour company to hire some mopeds from with a local guide for a day. There was just the 4 of us cruising around these tiny villages and riding round bendy desolate roads, our guide described the areas, told us myths and temple tales and even took us to a local friends place for a fantastic lunch of traditional Vietnamese food which was delicious. I really, really enjoyed that day.
Time as ever seems to be speeding up again and after Delat the four of us grabbed a 12hr bus down to Ho Chi Minh city, formally known as Saigon. It felt quite a bit more western than Hanoi, more touristy which wasn't a bad thing just different.
It wasn't a grotty or crazy as i'd been warned and we spent our time there sightseeing, all the usual things. I particularly enjoyed visiting the Vietnam War Remnants Museum where there's a massive collection of photographs, information and artefacts from the war on display. It was shocking but extremely interesting at the same time.
And FINALLY, that brings me up to the present day, this is a blog that has got completely out of control in length! We left HCMC this morning and have decided to do a 2 day Mekong Delta tour as a way of getting up to the Cambodian boarder and into the capital.
Today we visited a local floating market, saw coconut candy and rice paper being made and then got taken on a little boat cruise amongst the Mekong islands. Unexpectedly we were then told to jump on battered bicycles and cycle down dusty roads to the restaurant we were having lunch which was another fun bonus.
Right now i'm seriously lacking in sleep and wish I wasn't sitting on this random boat being dive bombed by mosquitoes but ah, it's all part of the fun right?!
Ah only kidding, but in all seriousness it does seem that Central and Northern Thailand has a lot to offer to people seeking all types of adventure. One of the hardest things about 'travelling' in my opinion is the deciding on where to go. You've got thousands of tiny villages, hundreds of well known towns and more than a handful of 'must see' cities in a potentially unexplored country. Now add the temples, waterfalls, canyons, mountains and activities into the mix and there's just too much to consider. Infact, it's an indecisive persons nightmare, and that's only for one country!
I'm now 1 year 5 months and 8 countries into this incredible journey and still have 2left (both months and countries) to come. How have I got here (on this 11hr night bus filled with cinema style red leather recliner seats and not very friendly locals to be specific) and how did my brain cope with the decisions to be made up until now??
I'm thinking like this because Tina and I have had time to kill where we are and have used it to plan our itinerary up until we fly to the Thai islands in late November. We're going to be pretty short on time in Vietnam and Cambodia because we want to be on Ko Phangan for the full moon party and my head is swimming with dates, places, times, modes of transport, place names, accommodation names, peoples names, it's crazy!
Nothing an iced coffee (2nd of the day) can't sort out though.
We arrived into Bangkok on the 24th September and it was just what I expected, chaotic. We'd chosen to stay in the most chaotic area of town of course as that's the quickest and easiest way to get the vibe of a place but still, adjusting to the pace was something we had to do pretty quickly. The other thing about Bangkok was the weather, it's still monsoon season down there and the humidity levels were through the roof. You only had to turn off the cold shower and you were dripping again before you had dried off! With the heat came amazing thunder and lightning storms every single evening though which I loved and watched from the hotel balcony.
One evening we had left the guesthouse to brave the rain (thinking the worst was over) and look for a restaurant when the clouds let loose even more and a huge flash cut open the sky right above us. I was absolutely soaked even
though we'd only been walking for 5 minutes, Tina less so in her poncho(!) and we were both shielding ourselves from the storm with flimsy miniature umbrellas. Mine was particularly crap and gradually buckled under the weight of the water until I was left trying to shelter myself under 6 metal spikes sticking into the air at stupid angles like some kind of deformed metallic spider.
Bangkok seems like ages ago now but there was ALOT of shopping combined with some sightseeing and after 5 days (which felt like 5 weeks) we were ready to go. On our last day we had the added stress of trying to send home yet another parcel before closing time and having absolutely no money to do so. It was one of those moments where you think 'what the hell am I going to do now? We're absolutely screwed.'
It all started when Tina realised she'd lost her bank card in the post office and didn't have the cash to send her parcel. Although a bit of a bad shock we still had mine as a back up and planned to withdraw cash for the both of us with that.
That was until the ATM sucked mine into oblivion for no good reason less than 30 minutes later.
Here we were in Bangkok with no cash and no cards to get any with. I was f-r-e-a-k-i-n-g out with glazed eyes staring into space picturing all the terrible things that were coming our way and Tina was laughing hysterically at the stupidity/desperation of the situation.
In a strike of inspiration she realised she had one more unused Barclaycard hidden away in her bag and that we might be able to use that...but then the ATM refused to give us the cash and said we had the wrong pin!! It doesn't sound very stressful writing about it now but trust me, it was.
It was 4.56pm, the post office closed at 5pm, we were soaked through with the humidity, people were yelling at us in Thai from all directions and I was about to explode.
To cut to the chase, yes we eventually worked out the pin and got some cash but I had to have my bank courier out a new card to a random depot in Laos and get there on tuk tuk to collect it...another adventure right there!
After the drama of Bangkok we were pleased to escape to Kanachaburi, famous for its River Kwai and the bridge over it. We checked into a very cute little guesthouse called Sugarcane Lodge II and all was good until Tina walked into the bathroom and let out a huge scream before walking back out again with fear in her eyes. She said there was a lizard the size of a small dinosaur on the wall behind the door but it was long gone when I went to have a look.
After that incident her trust in Thailand was gone and when the loo started smelling like a regurgitated sewer it was game over for Sugarcane Lodge. We did move to another bungalow but there were mini lizards on the windows there too!
The next day we took the 'Death Railway' train over the River Kwai all the way up to a place called Namtok which was a nice journey and took us past some imposing mountainous type scenery. It's called the Death Railway because of all the men (mostly POW's) who died in the process of building it under Japanese supervision during World War II so it was quite a sobering trip when thinking about the history behind it all.
Once in Namtok I had a nice coconut/chicken soup and saw some German tourists strip down and bare all under a massive waterfall which was rather comical.
The rest of Kanachaburi was spent eating nice curries and having a massage and pedicure. I can't get enough of the massages even though it was a little weird and a big reality check lying virtually naked on the floor in a dimly lit room while a little Thai lady rubbed oil into my legs.
We took a 12hr bus north to Chiang Mai after a couple of days there and settled into a nice guesthouse only to unsettle out of it the next morning when I discovered another of our little lizard friends sitting underneath the loo seat waiting to share it with us. It wasn't the best start and when Tina found out we were as good as gone.
I really liked Chiang Mai, it was much more chilled than Bangkok and much smaller, it felt historic and was made up of 4 city walls that encircled the 'old town' which we were staying in. The streets were small and windy and cafes and bars more intimate. My only criticism was that it felt very empty and needed more people floating about for an atmosphere to build. There were a lot of older white men around with their wrinkly arms draped around much younger Thai women though which was quite disturbing to the eye.
We did some activity type stuff in Chiang Mai, the first was a 1 day trek in which we walked up to a hill tribe village, went bamboo rafting and unfortunately, rode an elephant. I say unfortunately because although hesitant about doing it in the first place, when we got to the elephant park (a patch of mud at the side of the road) they were bound to disgustingly short chains, were being hit by Thai idiots and looked very worse for wear. I absolutely hated it and have to admit, shed a few tears as we reluctantly climbed onto the poor things back :(
The bamboo rafting was pretty funny though and helped raise the spirits as we floated down the river getting soaked at the mercy of our 11 year old driver and guide.
The next day Tina went on a cooking course and I did the Jungle Flight zip line which is basically flying from platform to platform through the jungle at tree top level, it was great!
Our next stop was Pai, a little hippy town even further north and up in the mountains. We had planned to rent mopeds for our time there so as soon as we'd found a room we hired some out and whizzed up to a little waterfall a few kms out of town. We'd unknowingly timed our spontaneous ride with sunset and on the way back found a cafe balcony to sit on and sip some drinks while overlooking the golden fields of Northern Thailand below us. That definitely got us excited for the full days riding we had planned for the next day.
Things got off to a bumpy start with Tina falling off her moped at the first junction, I hadn't noticed so sped off alone with the wind in my hair and a smile on my face. It was only 5 minutes later when I turned around and saw a bunch of asians behind me I knew something had gone a miss.
Eventually we got underway with map in hand and sped down the windy roads to a number of local spots such as a little canyon, some hot springs and another waterfall. The weather couldn't have been better which made the exploring extra fun, it was a very good day!
Pai was our last stop for the first part of Thailand and after 4 days there we booked ourselves onto the notorious 2 day slow boat which goes from Chiang Khong down the Mekong River and into Luang Prabang in Laos. The boat cruises for 2 days with a bunch of other travellers and I found the whole thing really cool. The best bit and what we'd hoped would happen was to meet some other like minded people along the way and within 10 minutes we got chatting to 4 others sitting nearby. (We ended up travelling all of Laos together and will do some of Vietnam too i'm sure which is cool).
The 2 days went surprisingly quickly and we passed the time by playing cards and admiring the gorgeous Laos views. Infact before we knew it we were pulling up into Luang Prabang, Laos's jewel of the north and our new group of 6 began the hunt for some decent accommodation.
Ironically (and this always seems to happen) we ended up back at the very first place we checked out and set up camp there. It was a big old house made up entirely of rich dark wood like boat cabins so I nicknamed it The Titanic which kinda stuck with everyone.
You could really see the French influence in the architecture of Luang prabang and a lot of the restaurants were trying (some more successfully than others) to recreate European style menus. We had great weather and visited a gorgeous waterfall area on our second day which had a rope swing and rocks to jump off which of course we did.
On our third day Tina and I split from the others for a bit to hire some battered old bikes and cycle round the town to get a feel for the 'real Laos'. It was the best way to see things and we even bumped into a cute little sunlit grotto where some of the bright orange monks robes were hanging out to dry on a washing line, it made a good photo.
I hadn't felt particularly well that day and by the time we got back to the guesthouse a really nasty bug had taken hold and had me doubled up in a cold sweat with serious sickness. The next 12 hours were miserable and I moved out of the bedroom to spend the night living in a crumbled heap on the bathroom floor :(
Fortunately the whole thing passed within 24 hours and we were still able to leave for Vang Vieng late the following day.
The minibus journey down took about 6 hours and showcased some of the best mountain scenery yet, really dramatic panoramas and a chance to see tiny rural villages come to life as we bolted through. We had yet another insect dilemma that night when we returned from dinner to find a GIANT grasshopper climbing lazily across our duvet as we opened the door. Tina didn't see it and picked up a pile of clothes inches from it's long spindly legs.
'Step away from the bed. I repeat, step away from the bed' was the only instruction I could think to give! (We resolved this one by kidnapping a drunk backpacker from the street outside and holding him hostage until he removed the offender).
The highlight of Laos, actually, of Asian backpacking was tubing the next day, it's one of those things you can only hope exists and when you get to do it feels like a weird dream because it's just sooooooooooo good.
You basically get in your swimwear, hire a large inflatable tube of the day and get a tuk tuk up to a point in the Mekong river a few kms up to a start point. From there you spend the day drifting from bar to bar, rickety wooden huts on stilts serving potent vodka/redbull buckets and shots of local whisky. There's music banging out from each one and by the 4th one everyone is completely wrecked! Good times :)
Apart from tubing there's not a lot to do in Vang Vieng so we moved on to the capital, Vientiane. There was even less to do here and apart from some ten pin bowling with the locals and a mini adventure I went on to retrieve my bank card from a DHL depot in the middle of nowhere not a lot else happened. The highlight was jumping on the back of a scooter with Craig and exploring the crazy roads on wheels.
We got our Vietnamese visas sorted and booked ourselves onto the 24 hour bus from Vientiane to Hanoi, Tina decided to get there by plane so we split for a day (the first in 10 months!).
The bus journey actually went ridiculously quickly and I really enjoyed it, probably because John, Craig and I had the best seats at the very back which was like a big sofa. John, who makes me laugh way too much popped 8 Valiums and was out for the count most of the time anyway!
We stopped at some extremely random 'restaurants' on that journey, one which had a bag containing a big live lizard thing trapped in it (for eating?!) and another with a jar of dead snakes decomposing into a yellowy fluid, supposedly for drinking but the thought makes me want to vomit.
After successfully crossing the boarder and being let into Vietnam we cruised on into the capital of Hanoi and I was reunited at the hotel with Tina.
It was all a bit non-stop because less that 12 hours later we were up at 4am to catch a 10hr train with the locals up into the mountains to a place called Sapa. Tina and I were to spend 2 days there before returning back to Hanoi to meet up with Matt, a friend from home who's spontaneously come out to join us for the next 2 months.
Unfortunately the weather in Sapa took a turn for the worst and the thick white fog obscured any kind of spectacular views for most of the time. We did take a hike down to a local mountain village which was worth the effort though and also got chased by a tiny little tribal woman with one tooth. She was surprisingly scary.
We returned to Hanoi by night bus and decided to sample the Valium we'd bought back in Bali, 2 of those later and we were out for the count until the rude driver shook us awake and shouted "HANOI, HANOI, HANOI" in our faces at 4am.
I never did go back to sleep that night but the next day we somehow dragged ourselves around the Temple of Literature which was pretty and did alot of organisation for the upcoming weeks including booking ourselves onto a 2 day boat cruise in Halong Bay.
Matt arrived the following day and just like that 2 became 3! The beer out here is 8p a glass.....yes, 8p a glass. So we thought it'd be rude not to sample some while playing cards in the old town. I was happy because Matt has brought out his new Pentax DSLR and let me run around the city like a kid in a candy shop snapping away like the paparazzi.
Our boat cruise in Halong Bay was really nice and scenic, we got to sleep on an old Vietnamese junk boat and the area is an absolutely stunning collection of 2,000 limestone cliff islands jutting out of the sea at all angles. There are over 750 traditional boats that take hoards of tourists like us around the area and you get to visit an hugely impressive cave as well as watch the sunset while kayaking about the bay and eat lots of seafood type stuff on board. It was a nice 2 days and good to access to a different side of Vietnam.
From Halong we flew down the coast to Danang airport (skipping the historical town of Hue due to central coastal flooding)and went straight to Hoi An. Here we were reunited with the boys, had a few good nights out and explored the old town which is a protected historical site.
After a couple of lazy days there I managed to persuade Craig to split from John for a while and join Me, Mich and Matt in Delat for a few days. Once again we boarded a night bus and began travelling even further down the coast but this time more in land and back up into mountain territory. We arrived there 24 hours later and were soon to discover that we had been the last bus allowed up onto the dodgy roads because of the weather.
Aside from the rain Delat was a great way to see yet another face of the land and we found a great motorcycle tour company to hire some mopeds from with a local guide for a day. There was just the 4 of us cruising around these tiny villages and riding round bendy desolate roads, our guide described the areas, told us myths and temple tales and even took us to a local friends place for a fantastic lunch of traditional Vietnamese food which was delicious. I really, really enjoyed that day.
Time as ever seems to be speeding up again and after Delat the four of us grabbed a 12hr bus down to Ho Chi Minh city, formally known as Saigon. It felt quite a bit more western than Hanoi, more touristy which wasn't a bad thing just different.
It wasn't a grotty or crazy as i'd been warned and we spent our time there sightseeing, all the usual things. I particularly enjoyed visiting the Vietnam War Remnants Museum where there's a massive collection of photographs, information and artefacts from the war on display. It was shocking but extremely interesting at the same time.
And FINALLY, that brings me up to the present day, this is a blog that has got completely out of control in length! We left HCMC this morning and have decided to do a 2 day Mekong Delta tour as a way of getting up to the Cambodian boarder and into the capital.
Today we visited a local floating market, saw coconut candy and rice paper being made and then got taken on a little boat cruise amongst the Mekong islands. Unexpectedly we were then told to jump on battered bicycles and cycle down dusty roads to the restaurant we were having lunch which was another fun bonus.
Right now i'm seriously lacking in sleep and wish I wasn't sitting on this random boat being dive bombed by mosquitoes but ah, it's all part of the fun right?!
Sunday 3 October 2010
Eat, Drink, Travel, Eat, Drink, Travel.
It's blogging hour again and this time i'm on another Air Asia flight leaving Kuala Lumpur and heading towards Bangkok...very exciting! I've got Eminem shouting in my ear, an empty sweet packet beside me and a blank screen in front of me so lets go.
The Lonely Planet sings the praises of Thailand something chronic and i've read every page about the city so feel prepared to land amongst the chaos which is undoubtedly heading our way. Lady boys, go go bars, unrelenting touts, endless curries, pad thai dishes, cheap beer, bring it on I say, i'm ready for you Bangkok.
So since I last posted 2 weeks ago Tina and I have done our little circuit of the Malaysian peninsular and ended up where we started in KL.
Our first stop was Malacca in the south west and as usual we kinda ballsed up the timing of our visit without realising. It turns out that the religious festival which had left KL so quiet was the same festival that prompted all the locals to take a weekend holiday down in Malacca and therefore left us buggered when trying to find some accommodation. We thought we'd be all carefree and 'travelly' by rocking up and looking for a place once there but when the guesthouse owners started laughing in our face it became worryingly clear there were not many rooms to be had.
Luckily we came across a table of locals in one of the hostels that were very sweet and managed to book us into a room at a place they knew (although it was horribly overpriced) and then gave us free food and beer which always goes down well!
There was Vung, born in Melacca but now living in Chessington back home for over 25 years. Tang, the owner of another local hostel and Joe, who was a 60 something classic New Yorker of Italian decent with an outrageously brash accent and spoke about being on the run from the Mafia after selling up his businesses and emigrating abroad.
We only spent 2 days there which was more than enough time to soak up the vibe of the place and had some great unexpected food experiences - namely an amazing banana/strawbs milkshake, crazy good Chicken Rendeng curry and an epic breakfast at the 'travellers cafe. It's funny how important food becomes when travelling, the day really revolves around meals and drinks out. I love it so thank god the only other person that loves it more than me is Tina!
From Malacca we caught a coach down into Singapore, which was a bit something and nothing in my eyes, it was nice and i'm glad we went but nothing particularly grabbed me about the city. It was bursting at the seams with shopping malls in which I wasn't allowed to buy anything and seemed to lack a cultural identity because everything was either Chinese or Indian influenced. It was extremely clean though and the public transport system was excellent...but it's all so new and has been designed for modern man so I guess it should be.
The highlight of my 3 days there was the free scooter tour that our hostel put on and we were lead around the city on two wheels whizzing from museum to park to library to Chinatown to harbour front, we even got to skate along a section of the F1 track they were erecting for the grand prix!
We also adopted a nice guy called Steve but we called Dan for some reason and dragged him along on our day trip to Sentosa Island. Sentosa is marketed as 'Asia's playground' and supposed to be full of theme parks, pretty beaches and luxury resorts but something must have gone wrong somewhere along the line, maybe the budget ran out or the builders went bust but it had an unfinished dilapidated vibe about it and everything was sort of, falling apart.
When we finally reached the beach we were met with the beautiful view of about 50 oil tankers all just sitting out at sea. Very bizarre, almost post-apocalyptic actually.
Anyway, Sentosa wasn't all that bad, we had fun and ate the new 'Magnum Gold?!', not to be mistaken for 'Magnum Gold'. We were shocked to discover this new flavour masquerading as our all time favourite limited edition flavour from Australia (The difference being caramel inside not honeycomb sauce...I can't believe i'm even writing this, okkkk, so moving on....).
We had a 7.45am flight to catch from Singapore up to KL and then a connecting flight booked to take us up to Kota Bharu in the very north east. This meant getting up horribly early and in the middle of the night but having a sausage and egg Mc Muffin followed by an Oreo Mc flurry for breakfast at the airport compensated for it lol.
We were only using Kota Bharu as an over night pit stop before heading down to the Perhentian islands which was a good thing really as it wasn't much to look at. The vibe was much more muslim up north and even though we were covering our shoulders/knees some of the locals still seemed to think we had three heads.
I'm ashamed to say we ended up having a second Mc D's for dinner(!) We tried to be authentic and buy from the street markets but after circling the same stalls 10 times we just couldn't bring ourselves to eat it...whatever 'it' was. I mean, to get to the food at one stall you had to practically fight your way through a curtain of flies, not tempting.
The next morning we hopped onto a minibus which took us down to the harbour town of Kota Besut and from there took the 30 minute speed boat ride to the Islands. The Perhentians is made up of 2 islands, Besar the 'big island' and Kecil which we were staying on. Good accommodation is pretty hard to find on Kecil but as usual we'd done our research and were v.happy with our wooden stilted bungalow at Senja Bay resort on Coral bay.
The next 3 days went by in a blur of pancakes, milkshakes and sunbathing by the sea but it was Tina's birthday on the Sunday so we made it extra special by going out for a delicious breakfast, followed by a 3 hour snorkelling trip where we followed a turtle and shark, a beer at sunset (of course) and then the most amazing dinner at Bubu restaurant on Long Beach.
In the morning I'd set up a little birthday shrine of coral on our balcony to present the prezzies and homemade card I’d been working on but it typical blasé fashion she walks out, looks straight through it and says "Right, down the beach?!' haha!
On our last day in paradise we had to be extra careful about being in the sun as our malaria tablets seem to make us feel as if we're being burned alive for some reason. We just lounged about on the sun beds and chilled out with our adopted Perhentian boy Ben.
Ben specifically told me that I should be honest on the blog about the people we meet so I have no qualms in saying what a tosser he was and how pleased we were to leave him behind, marooned all by himself muhahaha.......ah only joking, he's very nice :)
Before we knew it it was time to leave and we scrapped our idea of catching the 'jungle train' to the Cameron Highlands (sometimes things just arn't worth the hassle) and we took a direct bus there.
Up in the mountains there was a distinct chill in the air and for the first time in over a month we even got to wear leggings, exciting times! We drove 1300 meters up and found ourselves surrounded by a series of rolling green hills covered head to toe in a patchwork blanket of tea fields and strawberry farms, it was very cute.
The main town wasn't as quaint as the Lonely Planet made it out to be but there was still an air of Englishness about the place. Probably because of the tea and scones on offer at some of the hostels, which yes, we did sample within an hour of sliding out of the mini bus.
We only spent one full day there and used it by doing a half day tour of the area, firstly to a pretty rose garden way up on the hillside with stunning views over the land and then to a strawberry farm, bee farm, insect/butterfly house, bhuddist temple and the main attraction, a visit to the Boh tea plantation where we enjoyed a great cup o' tea :D.
Blah. blah, blah, skip forward 48 hours (we went back to KL for our flight) and now we're back to the present and headed straight for the crazy capital of Bangkok...
Bring. It. On.
P.S Because I haven’t got round to posting this until now we’ve actually been to Bangkok (4 days), Kanachaburi (2 days) and am now up in Chiang Mai. I never knew keeping on top of a blog would be so hard! Update to come shortly...
The Lonely Planet sings the praises of Thailand something chronic and i've read every page about the city so feel prepared to land amongst the chaos which is undoubtedly heading our way. Lady boys, go go bars, unrelenting touts, endless curries, pad thai dishes, cheap beer, bring it on I say, i'm ready for you Bangkok.
So since I last posted 2 weeks ago Tina and I have done our little circuit of the Malaysian peninsular and ended up where we started in KL.
Our first stop was Malacca in the south west and as usual we kinda ballsed up the timing of our visit without realising. It turns out that the religious festival which had left KL so quiet was the same festival that prompted all the locals to take a weekend holiday down in Malacca and therefore left us buggered when trying to find some accommodation. We thought we'd be all carefree and 'travelly' by rocking up and looking for a place once there but when the guesthouse owners started laughing in our face it became worryingly clear there were not many rooms to be had.
Luckily we came across a table of locals in one of the hostels that were very sweet and managed to book us into a room at a place they knew (although it was horribly overpriced) and then gave us free food and beer which always goes down well!
There was Vung, born in Melacca but now living in Chessington back home for over 25 years. Tang, the owner of another local hostel and Joe, who was a 60 something classic New Yorker of Italian decent with an outrageously brash accent and spoke about being on the run from the Mafia after selling up his businesses and emigrating abroad.
We only spent 2 days there which was more than enough time to soak up the vibe of the place and had some great unexpected food experiences - namely an amazing banana/strawbs milkshake, crazy good Chicken Rendeng curry and an epic breakfast at the 'travellers cafe. It's funny how important food becomes when travelling, the day really revolves around meals and drinks out. I love it so thank god the only other person that loves it more than me is Tina!
From Malacca we caught a coach down into Singapore, which was a bit something and nothing in my eyes, it was nice and i'm glad we went but nothing particularly grabbed me about the city. It was bursting at the seams with shopping malls in which I wasn't allowed to buy anything and seemed to lack a cultural identity because everything was either Chinese or Indian influenced. It was extremely clean though and the public transport system was excellent...but it's all so new and has been designed for modern man so I guess it should be.
The highlight of my 3 days there was the free scooter tour that our hostel put on and we were lead around the city on two wheels whizzing from museum to park to library to Chinatown to harbour front, we even got to skate along a section of the F1 track they were erecting for the grand prix!
We also adopted a nice guy called Steve but we called Dan for some reason and dragged him along on our day trip to Sentosa Island. Sentosa is marketed as 'Asia's playground' and supposed to be full of theme parks, pretty beaches and luxury resorts but something must have gone wrong somewhere along the line, maybe the budget ran out or the builders went bust but it had an unfinished dilapidated vibe about it and everything was sort of, falling apart.
When we finally reached the beach we were met with the beautiful view of about 50 oil tankers all just sitting out at sea. Very bizarre, almost post-apocalyptic actually.
Anyway, Sentosa wasn't all that bad, we had fun and ate the new 'Magnum Gold?!', not to be mistaken for 'Magnum Gold'. We were shocked to discover this new flavour masquerading as our all time favourite limited edition flavour from Australia (The difference being caramel inside not honeycomb sauce...I can't believe i'm even writing this, okkkk, so moving on....).
We had a 7.45am flight to catch from Singapore up to KL and then a connecting flight booked to take us up to Kota Bharu in the very north east. This meant getting up horribly early and in the middle of the night but having a sausage and egg Mc Muffin followed by an Oreo Mc flurry for breakfast at the airport compensated for it lol.
We were only using Kota Bharu as an over night pit stop before heading down to the Perhentian islands which was a good thing really as it wasn't much to look at. The vibe was much more muslim up north and even though we were covering our shoulders/knees some of the locals still seemed to think we had three heads.
I'm ashamed to say we ended up having a second Mc D's for dinner(!) We tried to be authentic and buy from the street markets but after circling the same stalls 10 times we just couldn't bring ourselves to eat it...whatever 'it' was. I mean, to get to the food at one stall you had to practically fight your way through a curtain of flies, not tempting.
The next morning we hopped onto a minibus which took us down to the harbour town of Kota Besut and from there took the 30 minute speed boat ride to the Islands. The Perhentians is made up of 2 islands, Besar the 'big island' and Kecil which we were staying on. Good accommodation is pretty hard to find on Kecil but as usual we'd done our research and were v.happy with our wooden stilted bungalow at Senja Bay resort on Coral bay.
The next 3 days went by in a blur of pancakes, milkshakes and sunbathing by the sea but it was Tina's birthday on the Sunday so we made it extra special by going out for a delicious breakfast, followed by a 3 hour snorkelling trip where we followed a turtle and shark, a beer at sunset (of course) and then the most amazing dinner at Bubu restaurant on Long Beach.
In the morning I'd set up a little birthday shrine of coral on our balcony to present the prezzies and homemade card I’d been working on but it typical blasé fashion she walks out, looks straight through it and says "Right, down the beach?!' haha!
On our last day in paradise we had to be extra careful about being in the sun as our malaria tablets seem to make us feel as if we're being burned alive for some reason. We just lounged about on the sun beds and chilled out with our adopted Perhentian boy Ben.
Ben specifically told me that I should be honest on the blog about the people we meet so I have no qualms in saying what a tosser he was and how pleased we were to leave him behind, marooned all by himself muhahaha.......ah only joking, he's very nice :)
Before we knew it it was time to leave and we scrapped our idea of catching the 'jungle train' to the Cameron Highlands (sometimes things just arn't worth the hassle) and we took a direct bus there.
Up in the mountains there was a distinct chill in the air and for the first time in over a month we even got to wear leggings, exciting times! We drove 1300 meters up and found ourselves surrounded by a series of rolling green hills covered head to toe in a patchwork blanket of tea fields and strawberry farms, it was very cute.
The main town wasn't as quaint as the Lonely Planet made it out to be but there was still an air of Englishness about the place. Probably because of the tea and scones on offer at some of the hostels, which yes, we did sample within an hour of sliding out of the mini bus.
We only spent one full day there and used it by doing a half day tour of the area, firstly to a pretty rose garden way up on the hillside with stunning views over the land and then to a strawberry farm, bee farm, insect/butterfly house, bhuddist temple and the main attraction, a visit to the Boh tea plantation where we enjoyed a great cup o' tea :D.
Blah. blah, blah, skip forward 48 hours (we went back to KL for our flight) and now we're back to the present and headed straight for the crazy capital of Bangkok...
Bring. It. On.
P.S Because I haven’t got round to posting this until now we’ve actually been to Bangkok (4 days), Kanachaburi (2 days) and am now up in Chiang Mai. I never knew keeping on top of a blog would be so hard! Update to come shortly...
Saturday 11 September 2010
What is it with people exposing themselves in Malaysia?!
Something blatantly obvious to both Tina and I was that we were definitely the minority on our flight from Indonesia over to Malaysia. I know this sounds obvious but really, big foot and the loch ness monster would have had a better chance of blending in than us in our neon sunglasses and haviana flip flops.
Just after I finished writing the first blog I had the unpleasant shock of walking down the isle and opening the toilet door on some poor old unsuspecting Indian grandmother who was firmly wedged into the tiny space in front of me. She definitely wasn't pleased at my discovery but lock the door for gods sake woman!!
We landed without problems and even met an older American guy called Benjy who shared a cab with us into the city to bring the cost of the fare down. It's pretty interesting meeting people for a fleeting moment, learning something about their lives and then never seeing them again. Benjy was from LA originally but had retired and moved to Chang Mai in Thailand 6 years ago, a random choice.
Although we arrived in town just after lunch it turned out to be a very uneventful day and was spent checking into a gross guest house, paying, walking out of the door and discovering a much nicer one 10 metres down the road, returning to the gross one, arguing for our money back against the lady boy on reception (we lost), checking out, re-checking in at the new place, paying again....you get the idea. It was worth the hassle though, this place is a diamond in the rough that is Chinatown and the free internet and breakfast are good perks.
So that day came and went, we tried to go out for dinner but again rather typically we'd landed in Kuala Lumpur on the Muslim equivalant of Christmas eve and everything was dead. I ended up scorching my taste buds into oblivion on a NOT mild korma at a restaurant called Spicy Corner (yes maybe the name should have been a hint) and rolling back to the hotel feeling a tad unfulfilled.
Today again, didn't go to plan but wasn't a complete disaster. With it being their Christmas Day even the famous Petronas Towers were closed and our intended trip of going up to the 41st floor sky deck which was supposed to be the highlight of KL for us didn't happen. Instead we ended up heading straight to the KLCC mall (an absolutely vast 6 floor monstrosity) and being enticed into its expensive looking shops with wide eyes and open mouths.
I'm not exaggerating but today, I found this mall experience both incredibly depressing and exhilarating at the same time. I've been wearing the same 20 items of clothing for over 15 months now, I'd virtually forgotten that the possibility of other clothing existed. Other designs, colours and shapes...
What made the whole thing really REALLY bizarre was seeing a Debenhams, a Marks and Spencer, Zara and the queen of them all...Topshop! It was like entering a temporary portal to England and it threw me.
I ran my fingers over the velvety fabrics, the silky and expensive looking rails, the glittery, sparkling (and overpriced) accessories and then caught sight of a disturbing sight in a tall full length mirror. Wincing, I realised it was my incredibly unfashionable and traveller-bum looking reflection. How had I come to look like this! I've never craved a full wardrobe replacement shopping spree so much it was painful.
Anyway, I did allow myself the mini splurge of buying a necklace, bracelet and hair band from Accessorize (another shop that made my mouth fall open) and then felt the intense and immediate guilt of spending 23 pounds, yes pounds, on those three things.
I grabbed Tina, encouraged an urgent evacuation from the KLCC pronto and then ate another mind blowingly, explosively hot bowl of noodles.
On our way home just when we thought the day's excitement was over we got lost again and ended up walking down a dark alleyway in Chinatown. Rounding a corner we both got more than we bargained for and were faced with an old Malaysian man with his trousers around his ankles holding onto his 'member' firmly, pointing it at us you could say. I don't want to go into detail but it truly has scarred the eyes and Tina's face was an absolute picture.
Think we'd better leave KL now and head down to Melaka!
Just after I finished writing the first blog I had the unpleasant shock of walking down the isle and opening the toilet door on some poor old unsuspecting Indian grandmother who was firmly wedged into the tiny space in front of me. She definitely wasn't pleased at my discovery but lock the door for gods sake woman!!
We landed without problems and even met an older American guy called Benjy who shared a cab with us into the city to bring the cost of the fare down. It's pretty interesting meeting people for a fleeting moment, learning something about their lives and then never seeing them again. Benjy was from LA originally but had retired and moved to Chang Mai in Thailand 6 years ago, a random choice.
Although we arrived in town just after lunch it turned out to be a very uneventful day and was spent checking into a gross guest house, paying, walking out of the door and discovering a much nicer one 10 metres down the road, returning to the gross one, arguing for our money back against the lady boy on reception (we lost), checking out, re-checking in at the new place, paying again....you get the idea. It was worth the hassle though, this place is a diamond in the rough that is Chinatown and the free internet and breakfast are good perks.
So that day came and went, we tried to go out for dinner but again rather typically we'd landed in Kuala Lumpur on the Muslim equivalant of Christmas eve and everything was dead. I ended up scorching my taste buds into oblivion on a NOT mild korma at a restaurant called Spicy Corner (yes maybe the name should have been a hint) and rolling back to the hotel feeling a tad unfulfilled.
Today again, didn't go to plan but wasn't a complete disaster. With it being their Christmas Day even the famous Petronas Towers were closed and our intended trip of going up to the 41st floor sky deck which was supposed to be the highlight of KL for us didn't happen. Instead we ended up heading straight to the KLCC mall (an absolutely vast 6 floor monstrosity) and being enticed into its expensive looking shops with wide eyes and open mouths.
I'm not exaggerating but today, I found this mall experience both incredibly depressing and exhilarating at the same time. I've been wearing the same 20 items of clothing for over 15 months now, I'd virtually forgotten that the possibility of other clothing existed. Other designs, colours and shapes...
What made the whole thing really REALLY bizarre was seeing a Debenhams, a Marks and Spencer, Zara and the queen of them all...Topshop! It was like entering a temporary portal to England and it threw me.
I ran my fingers over the velvety fabrics, the silky and expensive looking rails, the glittery, sparkling (and overpriced) accessories and then caught sight of a disturbing sight in a tall full length mirror. Wincing, I realised it was my incredibly unfashionable and traveller-bum looking reflection. How had I come to look like this! I've never craved a full wardrobe replacement shopping spree so much it was painful.
Anyway, I did allow myself the mini splurge of buying a necklace, bracelet and hair band from Accessorize (another shop that made my mouth fall open) and then felt the intense and immediate guilt of spending 23 pounds, yes pounds, on those three things.
I grabbed Tina, encouraged an urgent evacuation from the KLCC pronto and then ate another mind blowingly, explosively hot bowl of noodles.
On our way home just when we thought the day's excitement was over we got lost again and ended up walking down a dark alleyway in Chinatown. Rounding a corner we both got more than we bargained for and were faced with an old Malaysian man with his trousers around his ankles holding onto his 'member' firmly, pointing it at us you could say. I don't want to go into detail but it truly has scarred the eyes and Tina's face was an absolute picture.
Think we'd better leave KL now and head down to Melaka!
Anyone know of a good bug exterminator?
Hello there again,
It's a good thing I feel like writing today as not only am I due a blog update, i'm sitting on an Air Asia flight to Malaysia and have 2 1/2 hours to type away. This is my 13th flight since leaving the UK nearly a year and four months ago and they're beginning to feel like the only piece of familiarity in my life, like little pockets of time that connect one adventure portal to another. Like I say, we're leaving Indonesia today and heading for the bustling city of Kuala Lumpar with its considerably larger population than i'm used to of 1.5 million.
It's been a busy few weeks and we've squeezed lots of things into our time in Indo, we did cut it slightly short though by making the last minute decision to cut out a visit to Jakarta and fly straight from Yogjakarta (central Java) to KL instead. Apparently Jakarta is a bit of a rank city, over populated, over polluted, over developed and has on going politcal tensions with the Malays making it not the safest place at the moment so every day saved now is an extra one down the line later in the Thai islands :)
So going back to Bali...
We finished off the holiday part of our time there by filling the days with a combo of relaxation, good food and more shopping. A salon called 'Smart' got to know us quite well because of our frequent visits for manicures, pedicures, facials and massages...and I know it's extravagant but I just had to try the '20 finger' full body massage where you're 'served' by 2 therapists! (Was good but maybe a bit too much going on to relax!).
We also visited some great little Indonesian restaurants in Kuta, one called Keputat and the other The Clay Pot, we both tried traditional dishes which were awesome...even though I did order way too much by mistake :/
As the week drew to a close we had left some of the best stuff till last by taking a walk down to the beach for the famous Legian sunset which we viewed from a local cafe institution called Double Six (the chicken satay was excellent here). In the evening we utilised those free VIP tickets we got from the local guy at Gado Gado the week before and got dressed up to pay a visit to a couple of clubs, one called Cocoon and the other Bacio. Much to our delight the alcohol for invitation guests was free and the music (house, of course) and entertainment was great.
Our last night was equally good, another good meal at an italian restaurant (and run by one) and then a live gig by Aussie Gold Coast band Tjuana Cartel who rocked it. I'd been meaning to go to their gig when I lived in Surfers but couldn't make it so was pretty happy to see them live on the beach at Ku De Ta in Bali! It was our 3rd trip to Ku De Ta in a week but justified because I think it's the best bar i've ever been to...ever.
The following morning was the usual rush of packing, checking out and ordering a taxi. We were headed for the Perama office (local tour operator) who were shipping us over to the Gili Islands just off the coast of Lombok, the next island over to the east.
Anthony recommended the Gilis and he wasn't wrong to do so, the islands are tiny, just three spots of land made up of white beaches, palmy coconut groves and wooden bungalows but it was a little paradise. We were staying on Gili Trawangan, the busiest one (even though you could hardly call it busy) and during our three days there we took a boat over to Gili Air (2nd busiest) which was practically deserted. God knows what quiet Gili Meno was like!
I'll try not to bore you with the finer details but after some hunting we found some good priced accomodation in the heart of the village amongst the locals and got down to the business of eating fresh fish and drinking beer, very important obviously.
Tina and I had just been talking about her extremely strong fear of animals and how it had begun to affect her enjoyment out here in Asia when something of particularly bad timing happened. We'd just got back from dinner when I strode into our bathroom to use the bin, I hadn't bothered turning on the light but as I placed my water bottle on the floor something dark and large moved on the wall about 3 inches from my hand.
Jumping back I slammed my hand onto the switch to reveal the biggest spider I have ever had the misfortune to come across in my life, it was greeny/black and large, and that's all the information I needed to know to get the hell out of there.
It's fair to say that I don't deal with spiders very well. Snakes? Fine. Rats? Fine. But spiders? Not fine. I screamed nice and loud (as expected) and began to break out in a cold sweat. what ensued was half an hour of chaos which resulted in me running out to the village and grabbing a random local who didn't speak English and dragging him into our room until he removed the offender. It was 11pm which made me feel extra bad as he had to wake up his mates who were all asleep in preparation for their Ramadan worship at 3am but we were both near hysterical and they had no choice.
In the end we had three Indonesian guys locked up in the bathroom with a broom and a series of banging, crunching and yelling noises ensued. Then it went quiet...
Eventually they emerged with a broken mirror, destroyed picture frame and the dead spider. Needless to say the whole event didn't go down too well with Tina who was already feeling extrememly fragile from all the stray cats and dogs outside.
I thought after that we'd be fine but the following night I walked in to find a big fat cockcroach scuttling across her
pillow.
While on the Gilis we also met the French and Italian Stefan and Alassandro who invited us to their hotel's private beach to watch the sun set behind Bali's three volcanoes. It was nice, a campfire, beers and lots of travellers lying back and enjoying the live music. The circumstances how we met those two was pretty funny...basically...I stole their double stuff Oreos.
We were walking around the island and stopped off at a bungalow bar to indulge in a smoothie when I spotted the unopened pristine packet of goodness hiding underneath our table. Like any normal person I assumed they'd be left or forgotten about and seeing as i've I have a healthy addiction to double stuff Oreos helped myself lol. You can imagine my profuse apologies when Stefan came wondering over looking for them eek!
Once we left the Gilis we had a pretty uneventful stopover in Lombok, although beautiful and much more deserted than Bali we were staying in a bit of a ghost town and some of the people I saw were more than weird.
From Lombok we began the long and slightly painful 3 days of travel back over to Bali and across onto Java. I think we did something like 36 hours of travel in 3 days. The only plus from this trip was meeting Patrick and Agnes from Austria who became our new buddies. I was very happy to discover that Patrick is a fellow kitesurfer at the same level who loves to do kite surfing holidays with his mates and extended an open invite my way to join them. Bring on Greece, Spain, Tahiti and of course Hawaii again!! :)
While crossing islands on the ferry the local boys seemed to have a fixation with our small group and started taking out their mobile phones and trying to get inconspicious snaps of us. It really began to piss me off (i'm sure the blonde hair doesn't help) so I used my sarong as a headscarf so only my pair of mirrored aviators popped out of the burka like slit on my face. They probably thought I was taking the piss out of them oops but no-one was getting a photo of me without my permission!
Our destination was Mount Bromo for a sun rise hike and eventually our minibus was climbing up the mountainside in the pitch black towards The Cemero Inn, our accommodation for the night. Unfortunately for us, the acommodation was a big pile of crap.
This place was more suited for a family of bed bugs than a bunch of weary and travel tired backpackers and Tina and I couldn't stop laughing hysterically when the local guys showed us to our "room". A cell in Alcatraz would've eminated more warmth and invitation than the 4 square feet infront of us. We both popped a sleeping pill and set the alarm for 3.30am, it was the only way to get us through.
The actual walk was really enjoyable, Patrick, Agnes, Tina and I layered up against the cold and began shuffling forward into the darkness with our torches. We didn't have a guide and took a wrong turn resulting in a decent sized detour and nearly missing the sun rise, the very reason we were there(!) but With nothing but grey dust around us in every direction we were lucky to stumble upon the right route and once I knew the summit was acheivable pushed forward despite having to shed layer after layer of clothing to compensate for the constantly increasing temperature.
Determined not to miss this I stroad on ahead and pulled myself up the 'stairs of death' a near vertical climb to Bromos summit while shouting words of encouragement behind me such as "Nearly there guys! Come on, only another......238 steps to go!!!". Anyway, we all made it in the end and it was beautiful, a great start to the day.
There wasn't any time to hang about in Bromo, by 9am we were back in the minibus and continuing west towards our next stop, Yogjakarta. Yogja gets great reviews in the lonely planet and is depicted as a bit of an arty town with its roots based in traditional batik work and a scattering of restaurants worth sampling.
We spent three days in total there and although I didn't get to see the famous bird market nor the Kraton (main historical attraction!) because of bad planning we did get alot of vital planning done as well as odd jobs and decided to skip the visit to Jakarta and jet off straight to KL from where we were.
Highlights were going to Via Via for dinner (twice because it was so good) with Patrick and Agnes, visiting two famous and beautiful temples (the buddist Borobudur and hindu Prambanan) and haggling a guy down from 50,000 rupiah to 15,000 for the cutest little leather belt pouch ever.
No idea what to use it for but it's sooooooooo cute.
It's a good thing I feel like writing today as not only am I due a blog update, i'm sitting on an Air Asia flight to Malaysia and have 2 1/2 hours to type away. This is my 13th flight since leaving the UK nearly a year and four months ago and they're beginning to feel like the only piece of familiarity in my life, like little pockets of time that connect one adventure portal to another. Like I say, we're leaving Indonesia today and heading for the bustling city of Kuala Lumpar with its considerably larger population than i'm used to of 1.5 million.
It's been a busy few weeks and we've squeezed lots of things into our time in Indo, we did cut it slightly short though by making the last minute decision to cut out a visit to Jakarta and fly straight from Yogjakarta (central Java) to KL instead. Apparently Jakarta is a bit of a rank city, over populated, over polluted, over developed and has on going politcal tensions with the Malays making it not the safest place at the moment so every day saved now is an extra one down the line later in the Thai islands :)
So going back to Bali...
We finished off the holiday part of our time there by filling the days with a combo of relaxation, good food and more shopping. A salon called 'Smart' got to know us quite well because of our frequent visits for manicures, pedicures, facials and massages...and I know it's extravagant but I just had to try the '20 finger' full body massage where you're 'served' by 2 therapists! (Was good but maybe a bit too much going on to relax!).
We also visited some great little Indonesian restaurants in Kuta, one called Keputat and the other The Clay Pot, we both tried traditional dishes which were awesome...even though I did order way too much by mistake :/
As the week drew to a close we had left some of the best stuff till last by taking a walk down to the beach for the famous Legian sunset which we viewed from a local cafe institution called Double Six (the chicken satay was excellent here). In the evening we utilised those free VIP tickets we got from the local guy at Gado Gado the week before and got dressed up to pay a visit to a couple of clubs, one called Cocoon and the other Bacio. Much to our delight the alcohol for invitation guests was free and the music (house, of course) and entertainment was great.
Our last night was equally good, another good meal at an italian restaurant (and run by one) and then a live gig by Aussie Gold Coast band Tjuana Cartel who rocked it. I'd been meaning to go to their gig when I lived in Surfers but couldn't make it so was pretty happy to see them live on the beach at Ku De Ta in Bali! It was our 3rd trip to Ku De Ta in a week but justified because I think it's the best bar i've ever been to...ever.
The following morning was the usual rush of packing, checking out and ordering a taxi. We were headed for the Perama office (local tour operator) who were shipping us over to the Gili Islands just off the coast of Lombok, the next island over to the east.
Anthony recommended the Gilis and he wasn't wrong to do so, the islands are tiny, just three spots of land made up of white beaches, palmy coconut groves and wooden bungalows but it was a little paradise. We were staying on Gili Trawangan, the busiest one (even though you could hardly call it busy) and during our three days there we took a boat over to Gili Air (2nd busiest) which was practically deserted. God knows what quiet Gili Meno was like!
I'll try not to bore you with the finer details but after some hunting we found some good priced accomodation in the heart of the village amongst the locals and got down to the business of eating fresh fish and drinking beer, very important obviously.
Tina and I had just been talking about her extremely strong fear of animals and how it had begun to affect her enjoyment out here in Asia when something of particularly bad timing happened. We'd just got back from dinner when I strode into our bathroom to use the bin, I hadn't bothered turning on the light but as I placed my water bottle on the floor something dark and large moved on the wall about 3 inches from my hand.
Jumping back I slammed my hand onto the switch to reveal the biggest spider I have ever had the misfortune to come across in my life, it was greeny/black and large, and that's all the information I needed to know to get the hell out of there.
It's fair to say that I don't deal with spiders very well. Snakes? Fine. Rats? Fine. But spiders? Not fine. I screamed nice and loud (as expected) and began to break out in a cold sweat. what ensued was half an hour of chaos which resulted in me running out to the village and grabbing a random local who didn't speak English and dragging him into our room until he removed the offender. It was 11pm which made me feel extra bad as he had to wake up his mates who were all asleep in preparation for their Ramadan worship at 3am but we were both near hysterical and they had no choice.
In the end we had three Indonesian guys locked up in the bathroom with a broom and a series of banging, crunching and yelling noises ensued. Then it went quiet...
Eventually they emerged with a broken mirror, destroyed picture frame and the dead spider. Needless to say the whole event didn't go down too well with Tina who was already feeling extrememly fragile from all the stray cats and dogs outside.
I thought after that we'd be fine but the following night I walked in to find a big fat cockcroach scuttling across her
pillow.
While on the Gilis we also met the French and Italian Stefan and Alassandro who invited us to their hotel's private beach to watch the sun set behind Bali's three volcanoes. It was nice, a campfire, beers and lots of travellers lying back and enjoying the live music. The circumstances how we met those two was pretty funny...basically...I stole their double stuff Oreos.
We were walking around the island and stopped off at a bungalow bar to indulge in a smoothie when I spotted the unopened pristine packet of goodness hiding underneath our table. Like any normal person I assumed they'd be left or forgotten about and seeing as i've I have a healthy addiction to double stuff Oreos helped myself lol. You can imagine my profuse apologies when Stefan came wondering over looking for them eek!
Once we left the Gilis we had a pretty uneventful stopover in Lombok, although beautiful and much more deserted than Bali we were staying in a bit of a ghost town and some of the people I saw were more than weird.
From Lombok we began the long and slightly painful 3 days of travel back over to Bali and across onto Java. I think we did something like 36 hours of travel in 3 days. The only plus from this trip was meeting Patrick and Agnes from Austria who became our new buddies. I was very happy to discover that Patrick is a fellow kitesurfer at the same level who loves to do kite surfing holidays with his mates and extended an open invite my way to join them. Bring on Greece, Spain, Tahiti and of course Hawaii again!! :)
While crossing islands on the ferry the local boys seemed to have a fixation with our small group and started taking out their mobile phones and trying to get inconspicious snaps of us. It really began to piss me off (i'm sure the blonde hair doesn't help) so I used my sarong as a headscarf so only my pair of mirrored aviators popped out of the burka like slit on my face. They probably thought I was taking the piss out of them oops but no-one was getting a photo of me without my permission!
Our destination was Mount Bromo for a sun rise hike and eventually our minibus was climbing up the mountainside in the pitch black towards The Cemero Inn, our accommodation for the night. Unfortunately for us, the acommodation was a big pile of crap.
This place was more suited for a family of bed bugs than a bunch of weary and travel tired backpackers and Tina and I couldn't stop laughing hysterically when the local guys showed us to our "room". A cell in Alcatraz would've eminated more warmth and invitation than the 4 square feet infront of us. We both popped a sleeping pill and set the alarm for 3.30am, it was the only way to get us through.
The actual walk was really enjoyable, Patrick, Agnes, Tina and I layered up against the cold and began shuffling forward into the darkness with our torches. We didn't have a guide and took a wrong turn resulting in a decent sized detour and nearly missing the sun rise, the very reason we were there(!) but With nothing but grey dust around us in every direction we were lucky to stumble upon the right route and once I knew the summit was acheivable pushed forward despite having to shed layer after layer of clothing to compensate for the constantly increasing temperature.
Determined not to miss this I stroad on ahead and pulled myself up the 'stairs of death' a near vertical climb to Bromos summit while shouting words of encouragement behind me such as "Nearly there guys! Come on, only another......238 steps to go!!!". Anyway, we all made it in the end and it was beautiful, a great start to the day.
There wasn't any time to hang about in Bromo, by 9am we were back in the minibus and continuing west towards our next stop, Yogjakarta. Yogja gets great reviews in the lonely planet and is depicted as a bit of an arty town with its roots based in traditional batik work and a scattering of restaurants worth sampling.
We spent three days in total there and although I didn't get to see the famous bird market nor the Kraton (main historical attraction!) because of bad planning we did get alot of vital planning done as well as odd jobs and decided to skip the visit to Jakarta and jet off straight to KL from where we were.
Highlights were going to Via Via for dinner (twice because it was so good) with Patrick and Agnes, visiting two famous and beautiful temples (the buddist Borobudur and hindu Prambanan) and haggling a guy down from 50,000 rupiah to 15,000 for the cutest little leather belt pouch ever.
No idea what to use it for but it's sooooooooo cute.
Wednesday 25 August 2010
Balinese Beauty
But it's not all doom and gloom by any means...
It's goodbye Australia and hello Asia as I enter my seventh and final chapter of this adventure. Destination Bali is the first stop and I swear its been the promise of this holiday that's kept us going through the darker times of Melbourne. Those days and nights when I thought I was going to throw a plate of steak in George's face and then smash it over his head feel long gone and my time out here in paradise feels all the sweeter knowing that it's my hard work and his money that are going to pay for the months ahead.
It was a pretty emotional taxi journey out through the CBD to the airport, we passed Tina's old office and even the door of the Eureka Tower which is the tallest building in the southern hemisphere and where we had our first night out. Fitting really, ending where it all started in a way.
Arriving at the airport we were suddenly aware that this was it and hopefully all our planning was going to pay off for a smooth journey. Alas this was not to be...it turned out to be an absolute stress buster and i'm surprised we didn't explode with what happened! We were at check in when the red lipped Virgin ground staff lady promptly informed us that we needed an onward ticket out from Indonesia to board the flight and get into the country...ARGHHHH!!! (This happened to us in NZ too so you would have thought we'd learned our lesson).
We were already running late and were last to check in anyway so this was not good news. We made a mad dash to the internet computers and kicked off the annoying kids playing on them to get onto Air Asia's site and book a flight FAST. It was so stressful and all in RP currency so didn't make sense, everything was in millions!
We chose a date, booked it and finally thought the drama was over but then realised we couldn't print the itinery out as evidence. After haggling with the Virgin Blue staff to print it out we realised they'd only e-mailed through an insurance policy, not the actual ticket...DOUBLE ARGH!!!!
In the end a nice lad checked us in despite thinking we hadn't actually booked a flight as the flight number was different to the usual Air Asia number so we thought we'd been conned. It was his 2nd last day so luckily he didn't give a f*** but in theory he shouldn't have let us on. Then we ran flat out to the gate and into our seats, which amazingly were together and we even had a spare one next to us. The flight went fine although we were on edge the whole time about not being allowed into the country at customs because of our dodgy Air Asia booking!
Anyway we got in and that's all that counts so now i'm pleased to say i'm typing this from the hotel 'pool beds' feeling very relaxed and sun soaked. I'm not sure what it is about the two of us but Tina and I seem to have this ability to attract good things at the moment and have had all sorts of benefits/unexpected goodies thrown our way. On check in we were instantly upgraded to the luxury villa that comes complete with private pool, loungers and 'relax couch' area, there's a beautiful four poster bed complete with muslin drapes which is gorgeously romantic not that we need it (!) and even a......BATH! I haven't had access to a bath since I left England which is, yes, a year and 3 months ago, hence my excitement.
On our first dinner out we got chatting to the matre'd who turned out to be a part time tour operator too who could help us out with trips, not only that, he just happened to have a pair of VIP tickets to club night happening the following Friday which he gave to us, random!
Our first few days have been typically jam packed and although we both just want to lie by the pool and veg out we're both struggling with turning off our in-built OCD compulsions, the need to see and do everything that there is on offer. Our hotel is based near the beach on the border of Legian and Seminyak which is a great location as it's far enough away from Kuta (the mental tourist hub) to be peaceful yet in the heart of everything.
It's now day 4 and the first time we've just got up and done nothing, the first couple of days we both went crazy by trying to buy everything on offer in Kuta. The cheap prices and combination of markets and holiday vibe have proven deadly and my purse is noticeably emptier than it was just a few days ago....however I am wearing a couple of nice silver rings and a new bikini now though ;)
On Saturday night god knows how it happened but yet again I managed to utilise my contacts from The Terrace and got us two free tickets to the infamous Ku De Ta White party. Ku De Ta is one of those swanky club/bars on the beach which hike up drink prices to shocking amounts yet get away with it for being such a great venue.
The white party was the bars 10 year anniversary party and tickets on were sale for over a 1,000,000 rupier each, that's about 80 quid. Through the power of strategic emailing and skype I got in touch with a club owner back in Melbourne who then got in touch with his 'Bali contact' who then met up with us to get us in.
It was an epic night and had some of the best house music i've ever heard being played for 6 hours straight, amazing!
Yesterday Tina and I managed to get ourselves away from the coastal areas and inland via a minibus to Ubud. A fairly
touristy but much more rural village that's well known for its silver jewellery and a sacred monkey forest sanctuary. The journey up there was great, I just switched on the ipod and zoned out to my tunes while watching the scenery change from moped infested roads to shimmering paddy fields.
We had a fun day haggling for things, sipping beers with incredible views out over the farmland and wandering around a very 3rd world style market. We even checked out the monkey forest (something i'm surprised Tina agreed too although very relunctant!) and watched them steal food from people and cause all sorts of havoc. It was cool seeing the baby monkeys only a meter or so away from us but not so cool when the mummy beared her teeth and looked like she was about to rip the flesh off our bones.
Talking of haggling, it's something I should mention just because of how hirlarious the situations have been when we're doing it. The poor Balinese locals don't have a chance when we let loose on them and it's fair to say our tactics of bullying/begging/yelling at them seems to be working a treat. Sunglasses also seem to have become a bit of a running joke out here. Every stall, and I mean EVERY stall sells hundreds of fake Ray Bans, they're everywhere! Tina and I have this thing where we get lured into the shops by the pretty colours and then spend hours looking at pairs. A few nights ago things got a bit hysterical when we got a taxi into Kuta to go out for dinner and both ended up coming back to the hotel with 2 extra pairs of shades and NO dinner, thus taking my total to 8 pairs. It's actually ridiculous.
Apparently we both now have Balinese boyfriends, both who run sunglasses stalls and who want to take us for a ride on their mopeds hahahahahaha.
Right, think that's probably enough for now?! If you've made it this far then thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy the installments to come. Bali really is beautiful, this is my first time in Asia but it's everything I hoped it would be, I love it here. I'm sure the stories will get more and more random...........
It's goodbye Australia and hello Asia as I enter my seventh and final chapter of this adventure. Destination Bali is the first stop and I swear its been the promise of this holiday that's kept us going through the darker times of Melbourne. Those days and nights when I thought I was going to throw a plate of steak in George's face and then smash it over his head feel long gone and my time out here in paradise feels all the sweeter knowing that it's my hard work and his money that are going to pay for the months ahead.
It was a pretty emotional taxi journey out through the CBD to the airport, we passed Tina's old office and even the door of the Eureka Tower which is the tallest building in the southern hemisphere and where we had our first night out. Fitting really, ending where it all started in a way.
Arriving at the airport we were suddenly aware that this was it and hopefully all our planning was going to pay off for a smooth journey. Alas this was not to be...it turned out to be an absolute stress buster and i'm surprised we didn't explode with what happened! We were at check in when the red lipped Virgin ground staff lady promptly informed us that we needed an onward ticket out from Indonesia to board the flight and get into the country...ARGHHHH!!! (This happened to us in NZ too so you would have thought we'd learned our lesson).
We were already running late and were last to check in anyway so this was not good news. We made a mad dash to the internet computers and kicked off the annoying kids playing on them to get onto Air Asia's site and book a flight FAST. It was so stressful and all in RP currency so didn't make sense, everything was in millions!
We chose a date, booked it and finally thought the drama was over but then realised we couldn't print the itinery out as evidence. After haggling with the Virgin Blue staff to print it out we realised they'd only e-mailed through an insurance policy, not the actual ticket...DOUBLE ARGH!!!!
In the end a nice lad checked us in despite thinking we hadn't actually booked a flight as the flight number was different to the usual Air Asia number so we thought we'd been conned. It was his 2nd last day so luckily he didn't give a f*** but in theory he shouldn't have let us on. Then we ran flat out to the gate and into our seats, which amazingly were together and we even had a spare one next to us. The flight went fine although we were on edge the whole time about not being allowed into the country at customs because of our dodgy Air Asia booking!
Anyway we got in and that's all that counts so now i'm pleased to say i'm typing this from the hotel 'pool beds' feeling very relaxed and sun soaked. I'm not sure what it is about the two of us but Tina and I seem to have this ability to attract good things at the moment and have had all sorts of benefits/unexpected goodies thrown our way. On check in we were instantly upgraded to the luxury villa that comes complete with private pool, loungers and 'relax couch' area, there's a beautiful four poster bed complete with muslin drapes which is gorgeously romantic not that we need it (!) and even a......BATH! I haven't had access to a bath since I left England which is, yes, a year and 3 months ago, hence my excitement.
On our first dinner out we got chatting to the matre'd who turned out to be a part time tour operator too who could help us out with trips, not only that, he just happened to have a pair of VIP tickets to club night happening the following Friday which he gave to us, random!
Our first few days have been typically jam packed and although we both just want to lie by the pool and veg out we're both struggling with turning off our in-built OCD compulsions, the need to see and do everything that there is on offer. Our hotel is based near the beach on the border of Legian and Seminyak which is a great location as it's far enough away from Kuta (the mental tourist hub) to be peaceful yet in the heart of everything.
It's now day 4 and the first time we've just got up and done nothing, the first couple of days we both went crazy by trying to buy everything on offer in Kuta. The cheap prices and combination of markets and holiday vibe have proven deadly and my purse is noticeably emptier than it was just a few days ago....however I am wearing a couple of nice silver rings and a new bikini now though ;)
On Saturday night god knows how it happened but yet again I managed to utilise my contacts from The Terrace and got us two free tickets to the infamous Ku De Ta White party. Ku De Ta is one of those swanky club/bars on the beach which hike up drink prices to shocking amounts yet get away with it for being such a great venue.
The white party was the bars 10 year anniversary party and tickets on were sale for over a 1,000,000 rupier each, that's about 80 quid. Through the power of strategic emailing and skype I got in touch with a club owner back in Melbourne who then got in touch with his 'Bali contact' who then met up with us to get us in.
It was an epic night and had some of the best house music i've ever heard being played for 6 hours straight, amazing!
Yesterday Tina and I managed to get ourselves away from the coastal areas and inland via a minibus to Ubud. A fairly
touristy but much more rural village that's well known for its silver jewellery and a sacred monkey forest sanctuary. The journey up there was great, I just switched on the ipod and zoned out to my tunes while watching the scenery change from moped infested roads to shimmering paddy fields.
We had a fun day haggling for things, sipping beers with incredible views out over the farmland and wandering around a very 3rd world style market. We even checked out the monkey forest (something i'm surprised Tina agreed too although very relunctant!) and watched them steal food from people and cause all sorts of havoc. It was cool seeing the baby monkeys only a meter or so away from us but not so cool when the mummy beared her teeth and looked like she was about to rip the flesh off our bones.
Talking of haggling, it's something I should mention just because of how hirlarious the situations have been when we're doing it. The poor Balinese locals don't have a chance when we let loose on them and it's fair to say our tactics of bullying/begging/yelling at them seems to be working a treat. Sunglasses also seem to have become a bit of a running joke out here. Every stall, and I mean EVERY stall sells hundreds of fake Ray Bans, they're everywhere! Tina and I have this thing where we get lured into the shops by the pretty colours and then spend hours looking at pairs. A few nights ago things got a bit hysterical when we got a taxi into Kuta to go out for dinner and both ended up coming back to the hotel with 2 extra pairs of shades and NO dinner, thus taking my total to 8 pairs. It's actually ridiculous.
Apparently we both now have Balinese boyfriends, both who run sunglasses stalls and who want to take us for a ride on their mopeds hahahahahaha.
Right, think that's probably enough for now?! If you've made it this far then thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy the installments to come. Bali really is beautiful, this is my first time in Asia but it's everything I hoped it would be, I love it here. I'm sure the stories will get more and more random...........
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