Thursday, August 23, 2007
Wow, where to start!
It's been a pretty long time since I last posted anything, I guess it's a little late to post anything in detail about my travels since February!
In a (rather large) nutshell, I finished up the tour, travelling through Cambodia Vietnam (which wasn't as good as Cambodia), although I did get to fire an AK47 Assault Rifle which was pretty cool. Vietnam beer not the greatest. Saw some pretty horrific images and learnt some pretty nasty stuff, particularly around Phnom Penh (the prison and the killing fields) and Saigon (War Remnants Museum). But the people we met were so nice and open and smiling, it was terrific.From Hanoi in the north of Vietnam I flew back to Bangkok with a few mates off the tour, and I picked up my bridesmaid dress for my sister's wedding.
From there it was an overnight bus down to Koh Tao, an island off the east coast of southern Thailand. I was supposed to learn to scuba dive there but I ended up with a pretty bad chest infection so that was off the cards. It was also amazingly hot which didn't help. Next up was Koh Pha Ngan, home of the famous full moon parties. I stayed at an ok place with a few spiders but met some good people who I went partying with. We ended up on the beach for the Half Moon Afterparty where I dived through a ring of fire and got wrecked on a couple "buckets". Great night, yucky recovery.......
Next was Koh Samui where I just chilled, topping up the tan (which was I have to say, pretty awesome) for the last time before flying back to Singapore for a couple days and then flying home.
I headed up to Suffolk to stay with my friends Austen and Natalie for a couple nights over Easter - this was great, relaxing in the country and taking their dog for a walk. I then bussed it down to Bournemouth to stay with my sister and The Boy (husband to be) for a couple days before surprising mum and dad at Weymouth the day before I was supposed to arrive home. I don't think they were too pleased... but at least it saved dad from getting up at 4am in the morning to pick me up!
Still, at least all went well with the wedding, Tracey looked beautiful and everybody scrubbed up pretty good.As for now, I'm back in New Zealand, back in Queenstown and loving it. It's actually way better than last year, there's a good crowd of us at work and I've got a couple of cool flatmates... well I did, until they fell out over a boy and now one is moving out and we're getting a new one! The snow is pretty good this year, I've been up skiing a few times and need to get in a lot more runs before the snow disappears! My car is f*****, the mechanics don't seem to know how to fix it but I'm looking out the window over the town and there's pretty much nowhere else I'd rather be right now. I miss home a lot but am gonna try and stay here for a while longer if they'll let me.
So that's my update. Will post more when I have more or more details/pics if anyone wants them.
Sx
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Cambodia and Vietnam Tour - Week One
Big update this one...
I spent the last two days of my time in Laos in Vientiane, the capital, basically just bar hopping and walking around the occasional temple, there's really not an awful lot to do there... then last Saturday I flew back to Bangkok with Lao Airlines... scary... propellor planes... brother says they're less high maintenance than other commerial aircraft but it just felt like it was gonna drop out of the sky at any given moment. Service and food was good though. I've stayed on the legendary Khao San Road for one night before moving about 5 minutes away to the hotel where I started my tour into Cambodia and Vietnam.
On Sunday evening I met my tour group. We've got a pretty cool bunch. I'm sharing a room with a girl called Roxy who is on a career break, then there's Rachel and Mike who are on a 6 month break from England, Gareth from Wales who works for the Times and is doing an article on a few people in the group (not me fortunately... I'm really not a good example to people planning a gap year or career break...) Amy who's on holiday from Brisbane, Nina and Mike and Claire and
John all on holiday as separate couples from Melbourne, Frankie from Canada who wants to become a professional bum having travelled the world already but all work-related, and Sarah from the US who is on a long holiday too. We went out for dinner that night just off Khao San Road, then ended up on Rambuttri at a minibar on the street where we drank cocktails for a pound each. Mike has quickly proven himself to be the "I'll try anything" person of the group... having wandered off to look for pancakes, he returned with a couple deep-fried frogs, grasshoppers, cockroaches and maggots. Ewwwwwwww! But he tried each one and lived to tell the tale... Oh, and we did find pancakes... really nice banana ones with chocolate dribbled on top. yum.
On Monday it was up early to take a minibus to the Thai-Cambodia border. This took about 4 hours and I think most of us slept a good portion of it. Once we got to the border we had to walk over with our backpacks, through a no-mans-land area full of casinos - there is no local law so they thrive there. Then it took a while to get through passport control on the Cambodia side. Next up was a 5 hour bus ride along the "Boulevard of Broken Backsides"- it's pretty much an unsealed 4WD road which allegedly one of the airlines pays to keep this way so it can get people to fly instead of go by bus... I'm not sure I'd do that road again... having seen some of the potholes that we fell into or avoided together with the number of trucks parked along the road having their tyres changed... well I'm just glad we made it in one piece without having a puncture. I think the boys at the back of the bus hit the roof with their heads a couple of times after bouuncing into a pothole.
We got into Siem Reap at about 5.30 in the evening and our hotel was much nicer than I'd thought. The trip I'm on is run by Intrepid and is one of their "basix" packages - no frills. So to have a western toilet, toilet paper and hot water was a very pleasant surprise. We all went out for dinner to a local restaurant and had our first taste of Khmer food. I had a curry which was a bit bland - apparently they think westerners really don't like spicy food so deliberately don't put it in the food they serve to us.
The next day, Tuesday, we got up at 5am as we were heading out to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise.
I spent the last two days of my time in Laos in Vientiane, the capital, basically just bar hopping and walking around the occasional temple, there's really not an awful lot to do there... then last Saturday I flew back to Bangkok with Lao Airlines... scary... propellor planes... brother says they're less high maintenance than other commerial aircraft but it just felt like it was gonna drop out of the sky at any given moment. Service and food was good though. I've stayed on the legendary Khao San Road for one night before moving about 5 minutes away to the hotel where I started my tour into Cambodia and Vietnam.
On Sunday evening I met my tour group. We've got a pretty cool bunch. I'm sharing a room with a girl called Roxy who is on a career break, then there's Rachel and Mike who are on a 6 month break from England, Gareth from Wales who works for the Times and is doing an article on a few people in the group (not me fortunately... I'm really not a good example to people planning a gap year or career break...) Amy who's on holiday from Brisbane, Nina and Mike and Claire and
John all on holiday as separate couples from Melbourne, Frankie from Canada who wants to become a professional bum having travelled the world already but all work-related, and Sarah from the US who is on a long holiday too. We went out for dinner that night just off Khao San Road, then ended up on Rambuttri at a minibar on the street where we drank cocktails for a pound each. Mike has quickly proven himself to be the "I'll try anything" person of the group... having wandered off to look for pancakes, he returned with a couple deep-fried frogs, grasshoppers, cockroaches and maggots. Ewwwwwwww! But he tried each one and lived to tell the tale... Oh, and we did find pancakes... really nice banana ones with chocolate dribbled on top. yum.On Monday it was up early to take a minibus to the Thai-Cambodia border. This took about 4 hours and I think most of us slept a good portion of it. Once we got to the border we had to walk over with our backpacks, through a no-mans-land area full of casinos - there is no local law so they thrive there. Then it took a while to get through passport control on the Cambodia side. Next up was a 5 hour bus ride along the "Boulevard of Broken Backsides"- it's pretty much an unsealed 4WD road which allegedly one of the airlines pays to keep this way so it can get people to fly instead of go by bus... I'm not sure I'd do that road again... having seen some of the potholes that we fell into or avoided together with the number of trucks parked along the road having their tyres changed... well I'm just glad we made it in one piece without having a puncture. I think the boys at the back of the bus hit the roof with their heads a couple of times after bouuncing into a pothole.
We got into Siem Reap at about 5.30 in the evening and our hotel was much nicer than I'd thought. The trip I'm on is run by Intrepid and is one of their "basix" packages - no frills. So to have a western toilet, toilet paper and hot water was a very pleasant surprise. We all went out for dinner to a local restaurant and had our first taste of Khmer food. I had a curry which was a bit bland - apparently they think westerners really don't like spicy food so deliberately don't put it in the food they serve to us.
The next day, Tuesday, we got up at 5am as we were heading out to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise.
We had hired a guide for the day, Yous Sa, who spoke amazing English considering he's never been there, and has the most wonderful cockney accent on top of it - we don't know how he acquired it, although I've heard a twinge of it in other people since then, but you see this Cambodian dude standing in front of you, and as soon as he opens his mouth you expect rhyming slang to come out of it. Terrific dude. Angkor Wat was amazing. The pictures of this place just don't do it justice. It's one of those places that is really peaceful 
but really imposing and you pretty much walk around with your jaw on the floor. After watching the sunrise, we walked around to the other side and then up the 37 steps to heaven. I say steps, but you could practically call it a stone ladder it was so steep, you're crawling up on all fours... thank god they put a handrail on one of the sets of steps so we could get down without breaking anything... or dying, which apparently does happen.
We came out of Angkor Wat at about 9am ready for breakfast so all went over to a restaurant for a hearty meal of eggs, bacon, and fresh baguettes. I have to say, they do a mean breakfast out here! Next up was Ta Phrom, where some of the movie Tomb Raider was filmed. Yous Sa did a wicked impression of Angelina Jolie! This temple is really interesting, it hasn't been restored and there is a lot of rubble lying around it, and trees growing out of and on top of it! It's the strangest thing to see, I thought I'd wandered into a fairy tale when we went in.
After Ta Phrom, we visited Angkor Thom. This is a complex comprising many temples, including the Bayon which is the one with the faces on the columns. Again, this is a really mystical place and you can easily get lost in there.
After Angkor Thom we went for lunch. We sat at the edge of the restaurant, and local kids were constantly asking us to buy stuff. This is one of the most difficult aspects of travelling around here. You see all these little kids selling stuff, and they look so adorable, and you know they're really poor, and you really want to buy something from them but obviously you can't buy from all of them. So when you finally do buy something only for another little girl to offer you something and you say no and she says "why you no buy from me?", your heart breaks for her. Saying no is probably the equivalent of saying "I don't like you" in her mind. In practical terms, whether or not you buy something from one of these kids can mean whether or not they go to school the next day and it is really hard not to feel responsible. I guess you just have to harden yourself and know that if you do buy something you're helping someone if not everyone.
After lunch we went to a land mine museum. This was just horrible and I don't think anyone walked out without tears in their eyes. We were shown around the museum by a 19 year old whose right leg had been amputated below the knee. He had gone into the jungle as an 8 year old with his brother and sister, stepped on a mine and lost his leg, his brother and his sister. It was awful hearing him tell his story in such a matter of fact way, and none of us knew what to say to him. He showed us all the different types of mines that they are clearing and you just can't understand why anyone would invent such things. It's such a terrible legacy for the country, where 50% of the population is under the age of 18... but I haven't met a single kid who doesn't have a smile and a bright hope for the future.
That night we went out for pizza and then on to a club... where most people got rather wasted.
The next day I got up fairly early - around 8.45, as I wanted to get some laundry done and then some of us had talked about going to one of the posh hotels in Siem Reap to use their pool for a few hours. Only three of us made it to the Angkor Palace Spa Resort... everyone else was too hungover! For $18 we had the use of the pool, the gym, sauna, steam room and a three-course lunch. We only used the pool - and we only came out because we were hungry! It was a really lovely setting but I think we had the right idea - pay around $10-15 to stay where we did and then pay to use the pool rather than paying $150 a night to stay there!
When we got back to our hotel, people were just about feeling human again, and we all set off for Tonle Sap - this is a huge lake in the middle of Cambodia where there is a floating village complete with school, church, temple, football pitch and basketball court. We took a boat trip out around the village and stopped at one of the restaurants where they had a fish and crocodile farm. Any time you went near the edge of the floating restaurant all you could hear was "one dollar" - for bananas, for coke, for beer... after we left we convinced the captain to hang around to let us watch the sunset - and any time we came anywhere near anything, someone would row out to meet us as fast as they could to sell us more bananas or drinks!
We got back to the hotel later than planned, and our tour leader thought we had fallen in! We were dining with a local family that night so we felt a bit guilty for holding things up but it all worked out well. We ate loads of food, and danced with the kids.
On Thursday we took a public bus to Cambodia's 3rd largest town, Kompong Cham. We were a bit apprehensive about the bus but it was air-conditioned and quite comfy as long as you weren't 6 foot tall. We got into the town around lunchtime and after a nice burger we were off on our
excursion. We were going out over a bamboo bridge to an island in the middle of the Mekong. Most people cycled but me, Nina and Roxy hopped on a moped and rode out pillion, which was a lot of fun. The bridge gets rebuilt each December as the monsoon destroys it each year. It felt a wee bit rickety going over it...
but really imposing and you pretty much walk around with your jaw on the floor. After watching the sunrise, we walked around to the other side and then up the 37 steps to heaven. I say steps, but you could practically call it a stone ladder it was so steep, you're crawling up on all fours... thank god they put a handrail on one of the sets of steps so we could get down without breaking anything... or dying, which apparently does happen.
We came out of Angkor Wat at about 9am ready for breakfast so all went over to a restaurant for a hearty meal of eggs, bacon, and fresh baguettes. I have to say, they do a mean breakfast out here! Next up was Ta Phrom, where some of the movie Tomb Raider was filmed. Yous Sa did a wicked impression of Angelina Jolie! This temple is really interesting, it hasn't been restored and there is a lot of rubble lying around it, and trees growing out of and on top of it! It's the strangest thing to see, I thought I'd wandered into a fairy tale when we went in.
After Ta Phrom, we visited Angkor Thom. This is a complex comprising many temples, including the Bayon which is the one with the faces on the columns. Again, this is a really mystical place and you can easily get lost in there.
After Angkor Thom we went for lunch. We sat at the edge of the restaurant, and local kids were constantly asking us to buy stuff. This is one of the most difficult aspects of travelling around here. You see all these little kids selling stuff, and they look so adorable, and you know they're really poor, and you really want to buy something from them but obviously you can't buy from all of them. So when you finally do buy something only for another little girl to offer you something and you say no and she says "why you no buy from me?", your heart breaks for her. Saying no is probably the equivalent of saying "I don't like you" in her mind. In practical terms, whether or not you buy something from one of these kids can mean whether or not they go to school the next day and it is really hard not to feel responsible. I guess you just have to harden yourself and know that if you do buy something you're helping someone if not everyone.After lunch we went to a land mine museum. This was just horrible and I don't think anyone walked out without tears in their eyes. We were shown around the museum by a 19 year old whose right leg had been amputated below the knee. He had gone into the jungle as an 8 year old with his brother and sister, stepped on a mine and lost his leg, his brother and his sister. It was awful hearing him tell his story in such a matter of fact way, and none of us knew what to say to him. He showed us all the different types of mines that they are clearing and you just can't understand why anyone would invent such things. It's such a terrible legacy for the country, where 50% of the population is under the age of 18... but I haven't met a single kid who doesn't have a smile and a bright hope for the future.
That night we went out for pizza and then on to a club... where most people got rather wasted.
The next day I got up fairly early - around 8.45, as I wanted to get some laundry done and then some of us had talked about going to one of the posh hotels in Siem Reap to use their pool for a few hours. Only three of us made it to the Angkor Palace Spa Resort... everyone else was too hungover! For $18 we had the use of the pool, the gym, sauna, steam room and a three-course lunch. We only used the pool - and we only came out because we were hungry! It was a really lovely setting but I think we had the right idea - pay around $10-15 to stay where we did and then pay to use the pool rather than paying $150 a night to stay there!
When we got back to our hotel, people were just about feeling human again, and we all set off for Tonle Sap - this is a huge lake in the middle of Cambodia where there is a floating village complete with school, church, temple, football pitch and basketball court. We took a boat trip out around the village and stopped at one of the restaurants where they had a fish and crocodile farm. Any time you went near the edge of the floating restaurant all you could hear was "one dollar" - for bananas, for coke, for beer... after we left we convinced the captain to hang around to let us watch the sunset - and any time we came anywhere near anything, someone would row out to meet us as fast as they could to sell us more bananas or drinks!
We got back to the hotel later than planned, and our tour leader thought we had fallen in! We were dining with a local family that night so we felt a bit guilty for holding things up but it all worked out well. We ate loads of food, and danced with the kids.
On Thursday we took a public bus to Cambodia's 3rd largest town, Kompong Cham. We were a bit apprehensive about the bus but it was air-conditioned and quite comfy as long as you weren't 6 foot tall. We got into the town around lunchtime and after a nice burger we were off on our
excursion. We were going out over a bamboo bridge to an island in the middle of the Mekong. Most people cycled but me, Nina and Roxy hopped on a moped and rode out pillion, which was a lot of fun. The bridge gets rebuilt each December as the monsoon destroys it each year. It felt a wee bit rickety going over it...On the island is a small village, and as we rode through it the children were just getting out of school and kept running up to us saying "hello""hello"and holding out their hands for a high five... they were so cute and it was great fun high fiving them all.
On Friday we took another public bus into Phnom Penh, the capital, where we had lunch at a restaurant that does a lot of great work in the community. They reach almost 2,000 kids on a daily basis, helping them with problems such as drugs, homelessness and prostitution, and get them a place to stay, get them into school, and give them skills to get jobs and support themselves. The restaurant is staffed by Teachers and Students, all of whom are in the programme. And the food is great.
After lunch we got in a minibus to take us to Takeo where we were staying with a local family for the evening. We were told that the family was very poor and to expect really basic conditions. I figured after trekking in Chiang Mai and staying with the tribes there I would be pretty well prepared. But it was much nicer than we had been led to believe, and the family certainly wasn't that poor. It was the first night of the Chinese New Year so we bought some fireworks for the children... as soon as they saw them their eyes lit up... and they practically yanked them out of our hands... with almost disastrous consequences... it's not that they were kids and didn't know what they were doing, because they did - that was the scary part - they don't have nice health and safety laws and safety guidelines on the boxes out here so the kids see no harm in getting as close as they like to the fireworks while we look on and start screaming at them to get away!
Saturday we took the minibus down to Sihanoukville on the coast where after having a yummy lunch and a couple jugs of pimms (made by a barmaid who'd never made it before so it was rather alcoholic...) we hit the beach. We all dived straight in the water to cool off and it was heavenly. We had the great idea to build a human pyramid so some of the girls tried climbing up on the guys' shoulders - but couldn't get their balance with the waves. Then some local kids swam up and we invited them to get on our shoulders and have a fight. I think we all almost drowned there and were absolutely exhausted by the time we made it back to shore.
In the evening we went to a bar that was giving away free food and vodka shots and cheap drinks... we all had a go (or five) at the vodka shots - they had themselves an ice ramp with a gulley running down the middle so they just poured the vodka in and we waited at the bottom to receive the chilled vodka. We had a boat trip planned for the next day so I just got a bit merry and left before midnight, helping John get Claire home... but most of the others stayed on for a few hours and were still drunk when we got on the boat the next day!
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Laos
(There's a post below this which I drafted a couple days ago and have only just finished... unfortunately the blog goes by the date you start drafting it, not the date you publish it...)
I've been in Laos for a few days now and am loving it. I've already missed out on so much though so this is definitely somewhere I want to come back to!
I came over on Friday from Chiang Mai by minibus to a town called Chiang Khong and from there we took a boat across the Mekong to Houie Sai in Laos. I was basically on a package that loads of people had booked to get them down to Luang Prabang. So we spent the night in Houie Sai and got introduced to my new favourite thing: Beer Lao. This is great stuff... apparently the Germans wanted to hi-jack it but the Lao wouldn't give them the recipe. But it's definitely one of the best beers I've had. Am having... whatever.
On Saturday we all herded onto a couple long slow boats to get down to our half-way point, the town of Pak Beng. We were told horror stories beforehand, about how it would be a race up the hill once we got off the boat to find accommodation because there just wasn't enough of it... and that they only had electricity from 6pm - 7.30pm each day.
The boat journey was about 6 hours or so long (I managerd to snag a couple comfy seats), and we reached Pak Beng just before it started getting dark, and raced up the hill... but there were loads of people from guesthouses there asking if we needed a room. We pretty much took the first one we found and it cost less than 3GBP. A group of us all went out for dinner and Beer Lao. Then it was back for a good night's sleep cos we had another 6-9 hour boat journey the next day, depending on who you asked.
The journey the next day on to Luang Prabang was a little less comfortable... we didn't manage to get seats at all this time so sat on the floor up just behind the captain and played cards for most of the journey. A lot of Lao people were on this bus and kept looking in to see if they could figure out what we were playing and what the rules were... We were playing Cheat and Switch and just laughing hysterically for most of it.
Once we reached Luang Prabang we were once again in a race for accommodation. This time I found somewhere a little more luxurious, with a nice soft mattress, an ensuite, and electricity! That night we all went out for dinner and Beer Lao... and I ordered a Lao Sukiyama (or
something, can't quite remember now), which one of the girls had recommended... so the waiters came over and removed the middle of the table and put a quasi-barbecue in the whole, then put a big ceramic bowl with water and onion on top of it. Next out came some vegetables and vermicelli. And then came the raw chicken with an egg on top. Well I was flummoxed... I was paying 1.75GBP for my meal, and they expected me to cook it myself! Nevertheless, it was great fun, and a really good tasty meal.
The next day (Monday), I went to the museum in town and did a bit of organising... and shopping. This town is a nightmare. It was ok during the day cos you didn't have to go in any of the shops, but at night, all the little market stalls come out into the street and set up all the way down it! So needless to say I got sucked in and came out with about $30US worth of stuff which mum and dad should be receiving in a few weeks. Hope you enjoy it all!
Yesterday I got the bus down to a town called Vang Vieng. On the map, this town is halfway between Luang Prabang and Vientiane (the capital, where I fly out of on Saturday) but in practice, the road is through mountains so takes twice as long to get here. It's a beautiful, if rather hairraising drive. However bad the road up to the Remarkables was in Queenstown, I think this was worse!
But we made it safely and I'm staying in a nice guesthouse called Babylon.
Van Vieng, though, is a really quirky town. Set against the stunning backdrop of the Karst mountains, the town is full of restaurants that have these little booth-like things set up, which involve sitting on a raised floor on cushions around table and watching movies/friends episodes/cartoons/friends episodes... the Friends bars are the worst, they just play episode after episode after episode... but the movie bars are good fun.
And the pancakes are to die for. As I walked back to my guesthouse last night there were loads of street stalls selling pancakes... not quite like what dad does back home though! They start off with a ball of dough-type stuff and whack it down on the table and begin to flatten the heck out of it, much like you would a pizza base, until it was about 18 inches diameter. Then they chuck it into this huge flat wok and cook it with whatever you want on it... yummy!
Today I went tubing down the river... great fun... just sitting on a big rubber ring watching the world go by and hearing "beer lao beer lao beer lao" every hundred yards or so... we stopped off after about half an hour at this riverside
bar for a few hours, soaking up the sun and watching people swing on the flying fox and wondering how many swings it would take for them to get up the guts to let go! After a few hours I headed on down the river... until it got to about 4.15pm and I'd had enough of paddling backwards and having my arse grinding on the rocks at the bottom... it's the dry season so the river was so shallow in places that you had to get up and walk across! So I cheated and got a tuk-tuk back into town - we think it must've been a good 1.5kms back to town from that point!
I've been in Laos for a few days now and am loving it. I've already missed out on so much though so this is definitely somewhere I want to come back to!
I came over on Friday from Chiang Mai by minibus to a town called Chiang Khong and from there we took a boat across the Mekong to Houie Sai in Laos. I was basically on a package that loads of people had booked to get them down to Luang Prabang. So we spent the night in Houie Sai and got introduced to my new favourite thing: Beer Lao. This is great stuff... apparently the Germans wanted to hi-jack it but the Lao wouldn't give them the recipe. But it's definitely one of the best beers I've had. Am having... whatever.On Saturday we all herded onto a couple long slow boats to get down to our half-way point, the town of Pak Beng. We were told horror stories beforehand, about how it would be a race up the hill once we got off the boat to find accommodation because there just wasn't enough of it... and that they only had electricity from 6pm - 7.30pm each day.
The boat journey was about 6 hours or so long (I managerd to snag a couple comfy seats), and we reached Pak Beng just before it started getting dark, and raced up the hill... but there were loads of people from guesthouses there asking if we needed a room. We pretty much took the first one we found and it cost less than 3GBP. A group of us all went out for dinner and Beer Lao. Then it was back for a good night's sleep cos we had another 6-9 hour boat journey the next day, depending on who you asked.
The journey the next day on to Luang Prabang was a little less comfortable... we didn't manage to get seats at all this time so sat on the floor up just behind the captain and played cards for most of the journey. A lot of Lao people were on this bus and kept looking in to see if they could figure out what we were playing and what the rules were... We were playing Cheat and Switch and just laughing hysterically for most of it.Once we reached Luang Prabang we were once again in a race for accommodation. This time I found somewhere a little more luxurious, with a nice soft mattress, an ensuite, and electricity! That night we all went out for dinner and Beer Lao... and I ordered a Lao Sukiyama (or
something, can't quite remember now), which one of the girls had recommended... so the waiters came over and removed the middle of the table and put a quasi-barbecue in the whole, then put a big ceramic bowl with water and onion on top of it. Next out came some vegetables and vermicelli. And then came the raw chicken with an egg on top. Well I was flummoxed... I was paying 1.75GBP for my meal, and they expected me to cook it myself! Nevertheless, it was great fun, and a really good tasty meal.
The next day (Monday), I went to the museum in town and did a bit of organising... and shopping. This town is a nightmare. It was ok during the day cos you didn't have to go in any of the shops, but at night, all the little market stalls come out into the street and set up all the way down it! So needless to say I got sucked in and came out with about $30US worth of stuff which mum and dad should be receiving in a few weeks. Hope you enjoy it all!Yesterday I got the bus down to a town called Vang Vieng. On the map, this town is halfway between Luang Prabang and Vientiane (the capital, where I fly out of on Saturday) but in practice, the road is through mountains so takes twice as long to get here. It's a beautiful, if rather hairraising drive. However bad the road up to the Remarkables was in Queenstown, I think this was worse!
But we made it safely and I'm staying in a nice guesthouse called Babylon.
Van Vieng, though, is a really quirky town. Set against the stunning backdrop of the Karst mountains, the town is full of restaurants that have these little booth-like things set up, which involve sitting on a raised floor on cushions around table and watching movies/friends episodes/cartoons/friends episodes... the Friends bars are the worst, they just play episode after episode after episode... but the movie bars are good fun.
And the pancakes are to die for. As I walked back to my guesthouse last night there were loads of street stalls selling pancakes... not quite like what dad does back home though! They start off with a ball of dough-type stuff and whack it down on the table and begin to flatten the heck out of it, much like you would a pizza base, until it was about 18 inches diameter. Then they chuck it into this huge flat wok and cook it with whatever you want on it... yummy! Today I went tubing down the river... great fun... just sitting on a big rubber ring watching the world go by and hearing "beer lao beer lao beer lao" every hundred yards or so... we stopped off after about half an hour at this riverside
bar for a few hours, soaking up the sun and watching people swing on the flying fox and wondering how many swings it would take for them to get up the guts to let go! After a few hours I headed on down the river... until it got to about 4.15pm and I'd had enough of paddling backwards and having my arse grinding on the rocks at the bottom... it's the dry season so the river was so shallow in places that you had to get up and walk across! So I cheated and got a tuk-tuk back into town - we think it must've been a good 1.5kms back to town from that point! Tomorrow I head on to Vientiane, the capital, for two nights before flying back to Bangkok so I can begin my tour through Cambodia and Vietnam on Sunday. Can't wait!
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Lots to cover...
Phew, what an exhausting last few days! I've done quite a bit since I last posted so this might be a biggie.
First off I went on a day trip out of Bangkok last Sunday to Kanchanaburi to see the bridge over the River Kwai, take a trip on the Death Railway and to see some tigers up close and personal. The tigers were the absolute highlight. They are raised from birth by a group of monks, so they are billed as being "tame"... so you can get taken around about half a dozen tigers and stroke them, and if they're docile enough at the time, you can get really close to them. We got there about an hour before feeding time, and they definitely knew what time it was! So we had to approach from behind them each time.
Then on Monday evening, I took the overnight train from Bangkok up to Chiang Mai in the north of the country. This was a really long trip, and I didn't really sleep much on the train, but I met some people and the time passed quicker than I'd thought it would.
We arrived late into Chiang Mai, at about 9.30am and I was whisked away to the guesthouse to re-pack my gear to start a 3 day trek around the hill tribes of the area. I then met the people who would be on my trek. They were Carly and Becky, plus Chris who they'd met on the plane on the way over, Fantin and Guiseppe (a Thai/Italian couple) and a family from Denmark who were only doing a 2 day trek.
On the first day we drove a way out of Chiang Mai to a waterfall for lunch and then to the drop off point. We then walked for a couple of hours to the village where we were staying for the evening. I hadn't really read up very much on what to expect, so I thought the villages were going to be very primitive... no electricity and not much in the way of running water. Well they had electricity... and some people had televisions... but running water was a little harder to come by. We took a tour of the village, then our guide cooked us a yummy dinner and we sat around the fire for the evening being taught tricks by a couple of the villagers.
The next day we broke camp at around 9.30 and walked ... and walked... and walked... to be fair the walking was broken up by visiting some really pretty waterfalls. By the end of the day I had blisters on my feet so was extremely glad to see the village we were to stay at. This village was much more... civilised... than the first one. We all upgraded to our own little hut with an ensuite for the night, and I treated myself to a massage since it was my birthday. Again we had a lovely dinner (our guide was a great cook) and sat round the fire with a few beers to chill out before bed.
The next day we hiked out to another waterfall where a couple of mad people were jumping in from what looked like insane heights. Fromthere it was an hour's walk into town for lunch, and then a quick drive to go bamboo rafting. This isn't like white water rafting... it's literally a few bamboo poles tied together with a sort of seat across the middle, then a dude at the front punts it along, and someone stands at the back and helps out. I sat on the middle with Fantin while Guiseppe helped punt, and Carly Becky and Chris were on the front one. We were never gonna stay dry on that raft! I shouted ahead to Carly and Becky to see if they were soaked yet and they said they weren't... so our guide took that as a sign that they weren't getting into it enough... so he jumped onto their raft and tried to sink it! From that point on it was war between Chris and our dude...
Next up was elephant riding. Well. I got onto an elephant with Chris and the first thing it did was swing it's trunk over it's head asking for food. If we didn't give it bananas it would breathe all over us... yuk! I think we picked the hungriest, most contrary elephant there! At one point we had gone halfway up a slope and it decided it was mega hungry so started going over the side of the slope which was really steep. I thought we were gonna fall over it's head!
They took some good pictures of us on the rafts and elephants which I'll send home once I get back to Bangkok.
First off I went on a day trip out of Bangkok last Sunday to Kanchanaburi to see the bridge over the River Kwai, take a trip on the Death Railway and to see some tigers up close and personal. The tigers were the absolute highlight. They are raised from birth by a group of monks, so they are billed as being "tame"... so you can get taken around about half a dozen tigers and stroke them, and if they're docile enough at the time, you can get really close to them. We got there about an hour before feeding time, and they definitely knew what time it was! So we had to approach from behind them each time.Then on Monday evening, I took the overnight train from Bangkok up to Chiang Mai in the north of the country. This was a really long trip, and I didn't really sleep much on the train, but I met some people and the time passed quicker than I'd thought it would.
We arrived late into Chiang Mai, at about 9.30am and I was whisked away to the guesthouse to re-pack my gear to start a 3 day trek around the hill tribes of the area. I then met the people who would be on my trek. They were Carly and Becky, plus Chris who they'd met on the plane on the way over, Fantin and Guiseppe (a Thai/Italian couple) and a family from Denmark who were only doing a 2 day trek.
On the first day we drove a way out of Chiang Mai to a waterfall for lunch and then to the drop off point. We then walked for a couple of hours to the village where we were staying for the evening. I hadn't really read up very much on what to expect, so I thought the villages were going to be very primitive... no electricity and not much in the way of running water. Well they had electricity... and some people had televisions... but running water was a little harder to come by. We took a tour of the village, then our guide cooked us a yummy dinner and we sat around the fire for the evening being taught tricks by a couple of the villagers.
The next day we broke camp at around 9.30 and walked ... and walked... and walked... to be fair the walking was broken up by visiting some really pretty waterfalls. By the end of the day I had blisters on my feet so was extremely glad to see the village we were to stay at. This village was much more... civilised... than the first one. We all upgraded to our own little hut with an ensuite for the night, and I treated myself to a massage since it was my birthday. Again we had a lovely dinner (our guide was a great cook) and sat round the fire with a few beers to chill out before bed.
The next day we hiked out to another waterfall where a couple of mad people were jumping in from what looked like insane heights. Fromthere it was an hour's walk into town for lunch, and then a quick drive to go bamboo rafting. This isn't like white water rafting... it's literally a few bamboo poles tied together with a sort of seat across the middle, then a dude at the front punts it along, and someone stands at the back and helps out. I sat on the middle with Fantin while Guiseppe helped punt, and Carly Becky and Chris were on the front one. We were never gonna stay dry on that raft! I shouted ahead to Carly and Becky to see if they were soaked yet and they said they weren't... so our guide took that as a sign that they weren't getting into it enough... so he jumped onto their raft and tried to sink it! From that point on it was war between Chris and our dude...
Next up was elephant riding. Well. I got onto an elephant with Chris and the first thing it did was swing it's trunk over it's head asking for food. If we didn't give it bananas it would breathe all over us... yuk! I think we picked the hungriest, most contrary elephant there! At one point we had gone halfway up a slope and it decided it was mega hungry so started going over the side of the slope which was really steep. I thought we were gonna fall over it's head!
They took some good pictures of us on the rafts and elephants which I'll send home once I get back to Bangkok.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Bangkok or Bust
I arrived in Bangkok on Tuesday and it's been quite an adventure. I can't make up my mind whether I love or hate this place.
I flew up here with Air Asia, the region's low cost carrier, and it was a good flight. I then got a taxi to Charlie House guesthouse where I'm staying, and so far it seems like the taxi driver who got me here from the airport is the only one in Bangkok who knows where the place is!
Yesterday I wandered around the Grand Palace, which was absolutely beautiful, everywhere you looked was a photo opportunity, although you couldn't take photos of the Emerald Buddha. From there I headed to Khao San Road, that legendary backpacker ghetto... which didn't look too much like a ghetto to me, but there was only about 2 places along the road that I would've stayed at! I had a nice pad thai for lunch and then walked over to the canal and got a boat down it and back up. Back at Khao San Road I had to get back to my hotel... and that was a bit of a nightmare really... Suffice to say I arrived back about an hour later than I should have and had seen more of Bangkok than I had originally intended...!
Today I headed out to the subway to try and find my own way round a bit more, and ended up at Khao San again. I ran into a dude from TAT (the tourist people out here) and it seems that the new government is really putting a big push on tourism out here in light of recent events. I ended up at their offices and before I knew it I was booked on the train up to Chiang Mai next Monday, then going trekking, elephant riding and bamboo rafting around the hill tribes for 3 days/2 nights... omg how scared am i at this... and then heading up into Laos at Hui Xuay (sp?), making my way down the Mekong to Vientiane the capital and flying back to Bangkok in time to start my tour into Cambodia and Vietnam. I also booked a learn to dive course on Ko Tao for an open date in March. This I'm really looking forward to... and gives me a clearer picture of what I'm doing on the way down to Singapore... not sure I'm gonna make it to the Perhentians, which I'm a bit disappointed about, but we'll see. (I think this is gonna be the bust part!)
This evening I got the sky train and MRT back to the hotel now that I knew my way, and stopped off at the night bazaar along the way... and went on this big ferris wheel and got some pretty cool views of Bangkok at night.
Tomorrow I'm moving digs to somewhere a bit cheaper and preparing for the trip up to Chiang Mai. You might say I'm bricking it, having to live without my kitchen sink for a few days...yikes! But I guess there's really no point in coming out this way if you're not gonna leave said sink behind for a while and the trekking is a "must-do". So I"m gonna do it.
For the next couple days I'm gonna see about taking some day tours around and out to the River Kwai and see some tigers and other things.
I flew up here with Air Asia, the region's low cost carrier, and it was a good flight. I then got a taxi to Charlie House guesthouse where I'm staying, and so far it seems like the taxi driver who got me here from the airport is the only one in Bangkok who knows where the place is!
Yesterday I wandered around the Grand Palace, which was absolutely beautiful, everywhere you looked was a photo opportunity, although you couldn't take photos of the Emerald Buddha. From there I headed to Khao San Road, that legendary backpacker ghetto... which didn't look too much like a ghetto to me, but there was only about 2 places along the road that I would've stayed at! I had a nice pad thai for lunch and then walked over to the canal and got a boat down it and back up. Back at Khao San Road I had to get back to my hotel... and that was a bit of a nightmare really... Suffice to say I arrived back about an hour later than I should have and had seen more of Bangkok than I had originally intended...!
Today I headed out to the subway to try and find my own way round a bit more, and ended up at Khao San again. I ran into a dude from TAT (the tourist people out here) and it seems that the new government is really putting a big push on tourism out here in light of recent events. I ended up at their offices and before I knew it I was booked on the train up to Chiang Mai next Monday, then going trekking, elephant riding and bamboo rafting around the hill tribes for 3 days/2 nights... omg how scared am i at this... and then heading up into Laos at Hui Xuay (sp?), making my way down the Mekong to Vientiane the capital and flying back to Bangkok in time to start my tour into Cambodia and Vietnam. I also booked a learn to dive course on Ko Tao for an open date in March. This I'm really looking forward to... and gives me a clearer picture of what I'm doing on the way down to Singapore... not sure I'm gonna make it to the Perhentians, which I'm a bit disappointed about, but we'll see. (I think this is gonna be the bust part!)
This evening I got the sky train and MRT back to the hotel now that I knew my way, and stopped off at the night bazaar along the way... and went on this big ferris wheel and got some pretty cool views of Bangkok at night.
Tomorrow I'm moving digs to somewhere a bit cheaper and preparing for the trip up to Chiang Mai. You might say I'm bricking it, having to live without my kitchen sink for a few days...yikes! But I guess there's really no point in coming out this way if you're not gonna leave said sink behind for a while and the trekking is a "must-do". So I"m gonna do it.
For the next couple days I'm gonna see about taking some day tours around and out to the River Kwai and see some tigers and other things.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
More Malaysia
I stayed in Pangkor for a couple more days. On Tuesday I took a boat trip around the nearby islands, with an American couple I'd met at Taman Negara, plus a couple others. The water was pretty clear and there were loads of fish. We knew there was another beach on the other side of the island so decided to snorkel round to it (we knew it was a really small island). On the way, there was a monkey sitting on the rock. We stopped about 30 feet away, while another dude went right up to the rock, about 2 feet away to take pictures... and that monkey went right down to him and was hissing away. The dude was lucky the monkey didn't feel like swimming cos he was ready to bite a piece out of him. We just swam on round to the bay, keeping a decent distance!
On Thursday I headed back to the mainland and took a bus up to Butterworth to catch the ferry to Penang (cost under 2GBP). Penang was unbelieveably hot, the worst I've experienced so far. It's the kind of heat that makes you not want to leave the hotel building cos you're just gonna wilt. I did manage to make a trip on a non-a/c bus round the island to a butterfly farm, which was really neat, about 2,000 butterflies in this enclosure that you walk through, plus scorpions in a tank and other creepy crawlies...
There was other stuff I'd've liked to have done in Penang, but it just wasn't gonna happen. So yesterday I took the ferry upto Langkawi which is where I am now. It's a wee bit cooler than Penang - manageable - just! I went to a seafood restaurant (figuring I'm gonna be eating a lot of fish when I get into Cambodia and Vietnam, and thinking I should get used to it while the consequenes are manageable) and had some sting ray. Afterwards we went to the bar attached to the hostel (run by an english dude who is currently irate cos an irish couple came here a few days ago and wrote up on the booking website that if you're not english you're not welcome here... I think he sent quite a few emails back to them for it!) and watched the football on ESPN. Just as the Spurs-Fulham game came on, they changed the channel to the Newcastle match as a couple Geordies were in the bar... I had to bribe everyone with shots to get to watch about 15 mins of it at the end! So today I was hungover and I don't think the sting ray agreed with me particularly either :-(. It's really beautiful here but things are spaced out a bit and the beach has no shade so I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with the rest of my time here. I've booked a flight up to Bangkok on Tuesday evening so I've got a wee bit of time to play with for now.
Have realised finally that three months is nowhere near long enough to do everything I wanted to do here in South East Asia! I think I should be able to get to Laos for about a week or so, then I start my tour on the 11th Feb and finish on the 9th March, then have to get back down to Singapore within about 3-4 weeks - and I was planning on going back down Vietnam on the Reunification Express, then hanging out on a few Thai islands and learning to dive, plus pull in to the islands on the east coast of Malaysia on the way... We'll see I guess huh?
Enjoy the cold weather back home... I envy you!
Sx
On Thursday I headed back to the mainland and took a bus up to Butterworth to catch the ferry to Penang (cost under 2GBP). Penang was unbelieveably hot, the worst I've experienced so far. It's the kind of heat that makes you not want to leave the hotel building cos you're just gonna wilt. I did manage to make a trip on a non-a/c bus round the island to a butterfly farm, which was really neat, about 2,000 butterflies in this enclosure that you walk through, plus scorpions in a tank and other creepy crawlies...
There was other stuff I'd've liked to have done in Penang, but it just wasn't gonna happen. So yesterday I took the ferry upto Langkawi which is where I am now. It's a wee bit cooler than Penang - manageable - just! I went to a seafood restaurant (figuring I'm gonna be eating a lot of fish when I get into Cambodia and Vietnam, and thinking I should get used to it while the consequenes are manageable) and had some sting ray. Afterwards we went to the bar attached to the hostel (run by an english dude who is currently irate cos an irish couple came here a few days ago and wrote up on the booking website that if you're not english you're not welcome here... I think he sent quite a few emails back to them for it!) and watched the football on ESPN. Just as the Spurs-Fulham game came on, they changed the channel to the Newcastle match as a couple Geordies were in the bar... I had to bribe everyone with shots to get to watch about 15 mins of it at the end! So today I was hungover and I don't think the sting ray agreed with me particularly either :-(. It's really beautiful here but things are spaced out a bit and the beach has no shade so I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with the rest of my time here. I've booked a flight up to Bangkok on Tuesday evening so I've got a wee bit of time to play with for now.
Have realised finally that three months is nowhere near long enough to do everything I wanted to do here in South East Asia! I think I should be able to get to Laos for about a week or so, then I start my tour on the 11th Feb and finish on the 9th March, then have to get back down to Singapore within about 3-4 weeks - and I was planning on going back down Vietnam on the Reunification Express, then hanging out on a few Thai islands and learning to dive, plus pull in to the islands on the east coast of Malaysia on the way... We'll see I guess huh?
Enjoy the cold weather back home... I envy you!
Sx
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Malaysia week one and a bit
For some strange reason I haven't been able to log into the blog for the last week.
I finished up my time in Singapore just mooching around... I spent a day on Sentosa Island - went luging (v tame although the ski lift was a wee bit high!), watched a pink dolphin show, saw some sharks in the Underwater World - and went to the Bukit Timah nature reserve - scaled a 163m high mountain for fun.
Last Saturday I got on the bus up to Kuala Lumpur. That was quite an experience - they've got it down to a fine art. You get driven up to the causeway linking Singapore to Malaysia, at which point you go into the Departures bit, then straight back on the bus, over the causeway and into the Malaysi Arrivals terminal - where I swear they had more passport people available for three coachloads of people than any airport would have for three plane loads! Then it was straight through customs, back on the bus and up to KL, smooth as silk. I arrived in KL at about 3.30 in the afternoon and got a taxi to the place I had booked - "the Haven" - which was really nice and clean, although the walls were a bit thin! It was actually only a 5 minute walk away from the bus station but it was at the start of a really long road and I hadn't known beforehand just how far up it would be.
I spent Sunday chilling out mainly, then on Monday I took a tour around the city on the new hop on hop off bus which had only just started about a week before and they were still ironing out teething problems - like knowing when to cue the recorded commentary... But it was really good to give me a better idea of the layout of the city and where areas were. I stopped off at the Petronas Twin Towers - highest twin towers in the world now, around 88 floors. Unfortunately the bridge between the two towers was closed on Monday so I had to go back on Tuesday to get my ticket. I got there at around 10.45am and the earliest I could get on the bridge would be 3.15pm. They only let about 20 people on it at a time for 10 minutes. The bridge is around 45 floors, or 170m up from street level, and you get a pretty good view of the city. Unfortunately the PC I'm at wont let me hook up my camera so I can't show photos at this stage.
On Wednesday I took a trip outside KL, up to Taman Negara - Malaysia's premier national park. I stayed in a wee village called Kuala Tahan. This is a three and a half hour bus ride and a three hour boat ride from KL. The boat trip was pretty cool, the boats were sampans which meant I was sitting at the water level, and felt a bit precarious at times. The village itself is a bit primitive. For a kitchen sink girl like me, not having hot water was, while not unexpected, a bit of a pain - it wasn't quite warm enough to be able to wash my hair in the cold water!
On the Wednesday evening I went out on a 4wd jungle safari. The truck was a toyota with two benches on the back, but Billy, one of the guides, invited me to sit up on top of the cab with him. It was a bit daunting, but was definitely the way to go. Unfortunately, as it is a rainforest, it had been raining and the ground was pretty muddy. So muddy that the truck got stuck. They spent about half an hour trying to get it out, but it had slid backwards and sideways into a ditch and was at what felt, from the top of the cab, rather precarious! So I got down pretty quickly! It was clear that we weren't gonna get the truck out after half an hour of pushing so we took a wee vote and decided that the guides were gonna walk up to the road for help, and I decided to go with them - I would have gone mad sat in the truck waiting. As it turned out, the road was only about a 10 minute walk away and we flagged down a bike straight away and the other guide went back to the village with him for help. Billy also called his cousin. Billy and I sat and waited on a bench by the road, and watched for barn owls. About 20 mins later the cousin arrived and went down to try to help get the truck unstuck. About an hour after that, the other guide arrived with another 4wd truck and Billy and I climbed in and went back to the others. Turns out they had just got the truck unstuck. So we headed back to the village, stopping along the way for water as the engine was in danger of overheating, and arrived back at about 1.30am rather than the 11pm we had been told! By the way, I was well prepared for this scenario... I had decent shoes, water, a torch, a penknife and an umbrella and a cell phone. I will always carry the kitchen sink with me!
The next day, Thursday, I went for a walk into the jungle and walked along the canopy walkway, which is the longest tree top walkway in the world at around 500m. This was pretty cool, but really high up - it was even freaking me out!
For the afternoon, I just chilled out as I didn't want to tempt fate and have anything else go wrong... such as getting stuck upstream or having a boat go kaput on me!
On Friday, we got the boat back down the river, this time only taking 2 hours, and then the bus back to KL.
Saturday, I went back to the Twin Towers as I had to take something back to M&S there. I also went to Times Square (where there are around 10 floors of shops - ridiculous! and no good shoes!) and went to the indoor theme park there. It cost about 3.50GBP to get in, and some of the rides were a bit scary! Check out http://www.timessquarekl.com/themepark.html. The roller coaster wasn't in action, but I did go on the Spinning Orbit and the Space Attack - the latter really scary as you come out of your seat when you're upside down - you're left praying that the overhead securing thingy doesn't come unstuck cos that's all that's holding you there!
Today, Sunday, I took a bus up to Lumut, about halfway up the west coast of Malaysia, to get a ferry to Pulau Pangkor where I am now. I'm staying at a place called the Seagull Beach Resort which isn't on the beach, and I wouldn't call a resort, but I have my own room with a bathroom and air con for about 5.75GBP a night. It's still ridiculously humid here, sweat just drips off you. Tomorrow I'm thinking of going on a snorkelling trip to a couple of nearby islands, otherwise I'll just spend my time here on the beach as I need to get my legs tanned. The beach here is really lovely so it's no hardship.
I'm not sure how long I'm gonna stay here, it depends on whether I decided to go to Langkawi or not. I need to get up to Bangkok in about 10 days max and I can fly from either Penang (where I'm headed next) or Langkawi for about 15GBP one way!
Will keep you posted. Hope everyone's having fun wherever you are, and are enjoying the winter.
Sx
I finished up my time in Singapore just mooching around... I spent a day on Sentosa Island - went luging (v tame although the ski lift was a wee bit high!), watched a pink dolphin show, saw some sharks in the Underwater World - and went to the Bukit Timah nature reserve - scaled a 163m high mountain for fun.
Last Saturday I got on the bus up to Kuala Lumpur. That was quite an experience - they've got it down to a fine art. You get driven up to the causeway linking Singapore to Malaysia, at which point you go into the Departures bit, then straight back on the bus, over the causeway and into the Malaysi Arrivals terminal - where I swear they had more passport people available for three coachloads of people than any airport would have for three plane loads! Then it was straight through customs, back on the bus and up to KL, smooth as silk. I arrived in KL at about 3.30 in the afternoon and got a taxi to the place I had booked - "the Haven" - which was really nice and clean, although the walls were a bit thin! It was actually only a 5 minute walk away from the bus station but it was at the start of a really long road and I hadn't known beforehand just how far up it would be.
I spent Sunday chilling out mainly, then on Monday I took a tour around the city on the new hop on hop off bus which had only just started about a week before and they were still ironing out teething problems - like knowing when to cue the recorded commentary... But it was really good to give me a better idea of the layout of the city and where areas were. I stopped off at the Petronas Twin Towers - highest twin towers in the world now, around 88 floors. Unfortunately the bridge between the two towers was closed on Monday so I had to go back on Tuesday to get my ticket. I got there at around 10.45am and the earliest I could get on the bridge would be 3.15pm. They only let about 20 people on it at a time for 10 minutes. The bridge is around 45 floors, or 170m up from street level, and you get a pretty good view of the city. Unfortunately the PC I'm at wont let me hook up my camera so I can't show photos at this stage.
On Wednesday I took a trip outside KL, up to Taman Negara - Malaysia's premier national park. I stayed in a wee village called Kuala Tahan. This is a three and a half hour bus ride and a three hour boat ride from KL. The boat trip was pretty cool, the boats were sampans which meant I was sitting at the water level, and felt a bit precarious at times. The village itself is a bit primitive. For a kitchen sink girl like me, not having hot water was, while not unexpected, a bit of a pain - it wasn't quite warm enough to be able to wash my hair in the cold water!
On the Wednesday evening I went out on a 4wd jungle safari. The truck was a toyota with two benches on the back, but Billy, one of the guides, invited me to sit up on top of the cab with him. It was a bit daunting, but was definitely the way to go. Unfortunately, as it is a rainforest, it had been raining and the ground was pretty muddy. So muddy that the truck got stuck. They spent about half an hour trying to get it out, but it had slid backwards and sideways into a ditch and was at what felt, from the top of the cab, rather precarious! So I got down pretty quickly! It was clear that we weren't gonna get the truck out after half an hour of pushing so we took a wee vote and decided that the guides were gonna walk up to the road for help, and I decided to go with them - I would have gone mad sat in the truck waiting. As it turned out, the road was only about a 10 minute walk away and we flagged down a bike straight away and the other guide went back to the village with him for help. Billy also called his cousin. Billy and I sat and waited on a bench by the road, and watched for barn owls. About 20 mins later the cousin arrived and went down to try to help get the truck unstuck. About an hour after that, the other guide arrived with another 4wd truck and Billy and I climbed in and went back to the others. Turns out they had just got the truck unstuck. So we headed back to the village, stopping along the way for water as the engine was in danger of overheating, and arrived back at about 1.30am rather than the 11pm we had been told! By the way, I was well prepared for this scenario... I had decent shoes, water, a torch, a penknife and an umbrella and a cell phone. I will always carry the kitchen sink with me!
The next day, Thursday, I went for a walk into the jungle and walked along the canopy walkway, which is the longest tree top walkway in the world at around 500m. This was pretty cool, but really high up - it was even freaking me out!
For the afternoon, I just chilled out as I didn't want to tempt fate and have anything else go wrong... such as getting stuck upstream or having a boat go kaput on me!
On Friday, we got the boat back down the river, this time only taking 2 hours, and then the bus back to KL.
Saturday, I went back to the Twin Towers as I had to take something back to M&S there. I also went to Times Square (where there are around 10 floors of shops - ridiculous! and no good shoes!) and went to the indoor theme park there. It cost about 3.50GBP to get in, and some of the rides were a bit scary! Check out http://www.timessquarekl.com/themepark.html. The roller coaster wasn't in action, but I did go on the Spinning Orbit and the Space Attack - the latter really scary as you come out of your seat when you're upside down - you're left praying that the overhead securing thingy doesn't come unstuck cos that's all that's holding you there!
Today, Sunday, I took a bus up to Lumut, about halfway up the west coast of Malaysia, to get a ferry to Pulau Pangkor where I am now. I'm staying at a place called the Seagull Beach Resort which isn't on the beach, and I wouldn't call a resort, but I have my own room with a bathroom and air con for about 5.75GBP a night. It's still ridiculously humid here, sweat just drips off you. Tomorrow I'm thinking of going on a snorkelling trip to a couple of nearby islands, otherwise I'll just spend my time here on the beach as I need to get my legs tanned. The beach here is really lovely so it's no hardship.
I'm not sure how long I'm gonna stay here, it depends on whether I decided to go to Langkawi or not. I need to get up to Bangkok in about 10 days max and I can fly from either Penang (where I'm headed next) or Langkawi for about 15GBP one way!
Will keep you posted. Hope everyone's having fun wherever you are, and are enjoying the winter.
Sx
