This post won't be as long as the others because there's not a lot to say really. We were only in Mui Ne for two nights and Saigon for one as Nick's visa is running out and I need to get through Cambodia before I fly home.
Mui Ne is a really nice spot. It's a lot more relaxed than Nha Trang (we didn't get hassled once by hawkers, however bikes were ever-present as always) and it has one of the best beaches I've ever seen. Joe and I didn't find the others till the evening so we just sat on the beach and went sand-boarding on the closer 'red dunes'. Sand-boarding wasn't as great as it sounds. We were lead to the largest dune by a local kid and told how to do it so we gave him a quid/30000 dong for his trouble, which í a fair amount here for ten minutes work -I gave him 60p, Joe gave him 30.Unhappy with Joe's smaller cỏtribution he started swearing at us and crying and sulking in the hope that we'd give him more! The greedy little git deserved an oscar for his performance! Even the kids here are con-artists.
The major drawback to Mui Ne is the serious lack of nightlife. We headed out with Jake and Sam, two guys we'd met along the way, but between the two late bars there were about 15-20 people out, most of whom were couples so the night was nothing to write home about... even though I am in a way.
The next day we got scooters out and heading 30km inland to the larger 'white dunes' which were a lot more impressive. We were hoping to drive some quad-bikes but you could walk faster than the ones they were renting so we got some boards out and had another go at sand-boarding which was slightly better due to the higher dunes, but nothing special.
The best thing was undoubtedly the drive, despite having a bike that should be used for spare parts. The scenery was stunning, especially the stretch of motorway running parallel to the beach. We alighted at a random beach we found that had some really good waves and chilled out there until it started to get dark. All in all, a top-drawer day.
The next day we headed down to Saigon which is a huge, dirty, disorganized city but you can tell its the center of the Vietnamese economy. It's like an uglier Hanoi, which at least had an impressive lake in the middle of it. We headed out in the night to Apocalypse after an expensive but worth-it meal at Wayne's Texan BBQ, where we met the owner, who was a bit of a legend/alcoholic. Despite its shortcomings Saigon has better nightlife and food than anywhere else in Vietnam.
And thats it really. I'm feeling a bit ropey today but we're off to Cambodia tonight via a boat up the Mekong which should be pretty good fun as long as it doesn't rain the whole way.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Hoi An & Nha Trang
Right then, so apparently my blog has gone somewhat downhill! According to a few people its become more about how smashed I get rather than the 'culture'. Contrary to what my mum thinks backpacking is a massive piss-up! Every night is a night out pretty much unless your somewhere really dire. However, Tubing and Halong Bay were particularly big piss-ups because you are effectively drinking all day and night, which leaves little room for anything else. Aside from the Thai islands, the last couple of weeks have been the most lethal of the year. However, since leaving Hanoi I've been doing a lot more during the day and seeing more of Vietnam.
The next stop was Hoi-An, a really picturesque town with a UNESCO-listed centre. I arrived by plane with the Irish guys from the Halong Bay trip who found a cheap flight and all flew down to save time so I tagged along. On the first day we got some bikes out and headed to what were probably the most impressive temples I've seen in Asia so far (I haven't got down to Angkor Wat yet). They had been cut into the rock and built into caves on a mountain which overlooked the whole of Danang, which is unfortunately a bit of an eyesore but the view was nevertheless pretty incredible. The most impressive part must have been the 40 foot high cave with a house inside! The hundred of steps you had to climb to get there must pose a bit of an issure for potential buyers but its a pretty unique property!
Walking further on an old Vietnamese lady came and asked us if we wanted to go to 'heaven'... thats a big promise, don't tease I thought, and she lead us up to the top of the hill where you get a stunning 360 degree view of all of Danang, the hinterland and China Beach, an incredible long stretch of sand which was the landing point of the American forces at the beginning of the Vietnam war.
One great thing about Vietnam is that it is the home of the world cheapest beer, at 10p a glass... and it doesn't even taste bad. This was welcome relief after an attempted day of sightseeing the next day. In order to see the sights in Hoi-An you have to purchase a ticket which allows you in to five of about ten to twelve sights, which only costs about three quid. You get your ticket and a little map and off you go, the only problem is that the sights, according to my own experience don't actually exist! I walked around a five block radius trying to find any sight I could but only managed to find three, which were all unremarkable.
In the end I gave up and chilled out with a few beers (when they only cost 10p its easy to lose count) and caught up with some reading before checking out the market.
Vietnamese traders aren't a subtle lot... when the see a westerner they usually try to physically pull them in or bark 'You buy something!' Masters of the hard-sell. I stopped at a food place and got a weird pancake thing with some salad, an unshelled prawn and a crispy batter thing with a sweet sauce and gave it a try and it wasn't that bad.
Vietnamese food isn't anywhere as good as Malaysian or Thai but its unique. 'Claypots,' meat or fish cooked in a pot with spices and oil and served with rice like everything else in Asia. Also, fresh spring rolls are a quality little snack and healthy, and Pho, a noodle soup with random leaves and lime is a hit. There's a lot of baguettes in Laos and Vietnam as well, and they're really good too, at least the French did something right!
Lastly, Hoi-An is supposed to be the cheapest place in Asia to get tailored clothes made so I thought I'd better get something for interviews when I get home. I got two suits, four shirts, two pairs of jeans, a jackets and a pair of shoes for 180 quid! The shirts are quality, the suits are a good fit, pretty nice material and lining, the jeans are a good fit as well, the shoes are alright I suppose but the jacket makes me look like I'm heading to a drag convention, but all in all the clothes turned out pretty well.
Joe and Nick turned up the day before the Irish lads left and we got some bikes out and headed to Mae Son, which sounded really impressive the 'Lonely Planet'. The only thing impressive was the drive there and back! Supposedly the best remaining building of the ancient Cham empire, the place is pretty much piles of old bricks because the silly buggers didn't use anything to cement the bricks in place. The 'Lonely Planet' calls this a 'controversial building method'. In reality its just silly isn't it really, I mean no wonder the buggers aren't around today.
On the way back we stopped on a bridge to get a photo of the three of us on our bikes with the river behind. Normally this would be fine because there are no rules to driving in Vietnam, people drive on whatever side of the road the choose as long as they can fit in a gap. However, a bus, overtaking a lorry sped toward us on the two lane bridge we absolutely shat it, there was barely enough room for them let alone us. So we had to drag our scooters on to the cement under the railings before they became spare parts. We managed it just in time, with the lorry missing my handle bar by about two inches. That was without a doubt the closest we came to an accident driving in Vietnam!
We dropped the bikes off and got the night bus to Nha Trang, arriving at about 6 the next day and got a lush little room with cable for 4 dollars each a night - happy days! Nha Trang is the 'party spot' of Vietnam but its barely as lively as any normal Thai town. There are booze cruises but apparently they were dire according to a few people we met there so we didn't bother (I say didn't bother... we just didn't get around to booking it).
The first day we met few Irish lads the other two know from Laos and chilled out at the beach. A hawker was cooking fresh crab on the beach which was really good! Then we had our first of many carbon-copy night out in Nha Trang consisting of Why Not? bar- Sailing Club till closing- back to Why Not? bar... but were not talking about drinking in this blog anymore!
Vinpearl land is, according to the Lonely Planet 'Vietnam's answer to Disneyland'. What? Vinpearl is a glorified fun-fair without the waltzers. The theme park itself is shocking, with most of the already tame rides closed. However, the attached water park was good fun and a solid cure for a hangover, albeit slightly painful on the back, and an obvious adherent to the Vietnamese school of safety-standards.
By the next day the rain had come and we stayed indoors. The rain continued and got worse, keeping us in the hotel room for about four days which was bit frustrating, but that cable TV really saved the day, as did the miraculous delivery of two random pizzas we didn't order, which we promptly ate and then reordered for the next three days.
The rain hit the town pretty hard though, with one road under three foot of water and all the shops on it flooded. It also prevented us leaving the town for two days and stopped us going to Dalat because of road damage.
It wasn't all miserable though. Halloween was good fun, especially with a load of people from the Halong Bay trip and Simon and Kirsty all being there we had a pretty good crew. The outfits were quality too; Joe got a tailored orange waist coat with a pumpkin's face on it and matching shorts and bought me and Nick girl's one-peices and matching skirts which barely covered our groins so we were a pretty ridiculous sight, especially to the locals who had a limited concept of Halloween anyway!
We were supposed to leave for Mui Ne the day after but Joe was too hungover so stayed in bed and I forgot my suit, only realizing on the bus so had to get a cab back and head down with him the next day.
The next stop was Hoi-An, a really picturesque town with a UNESCO-listed centre. I arrived by plane with the Irish guys from the Halong Bay trip who found a cheap flight and all flew down to save time so I tagged along. On the first day we got some bikes out and headed to what were probably the most impressive temples I've seen in Asia so far (I haven't got down to Angkor Wat yet). They had been cut into the rock and built into caves on a mountain which overlooked the whole of Danang, which is unfortunately a bit of an eyesore but the view was nevertheless pretty incredible. The most impressive part must have been the 40 foot high cave with a house inside! The hundred of steps you had to climb to get there must pose a bit of an issure for potential buyers but its a pretty unique property!
Walking further on an old Vietnamese lady came and asked us if we wanted to go to 'heaven'... thats a big promise, don't tease I thought, and she lead us up to the top of the hill where you get a stunning 360 degree view of all of Danang, the hinterland and China Beach, an incredible long stretch of sand which was the landing point of the American forces at the beginning of the Vietnam war.
One great thing about Vietnam is that it is the home of the world cheapest beer, at 10p a glass... and it doesn't even taste bad. This was welcome relief after an attempted day of sightseeing the next day. In order to see the sights in Hoi-An you have to purchase a ticket which allows you in to five of about ten to twelve sights, which only costs about three quid. You get your ticket and a little map and off you go, the only problem is that the sights, according to my own experience don't actually exist! I walked around a five block radius trying to find any sight I could but only managed to find three, which were all unremarkable.
In the end I gave up and chilled out with a few beers (when they only cost 10p its easy to lose count) and caught up with some reading before checking out the market.
Vietnamese traders aren't a subtle lot... when the see a westerner they usually try to physically pull them in or bark 'You buy something!' Masters of the hard-sell. I stopped at a food place and got a weird pancake thing with some salad, an unshelled prawn and a crispy batter thing with a sweet sauce and gave it a try and it wasn't that bad.
Vietnamese food isn't anywhere as good as Malaysian or Thai but its unique. 'Claypots,' meat or fish cooked in a pot with spices and oil and served with rice like everything else in Asia. Also, fresh spring rolls are a quality little snack and healthy, and Pho, a noodle soup with random leaves and lime is a hit. There's a lot of baguettes in Laos and Vietnam as well, and they're really good too, at least the French did something right!
Lastly, Hoi-An is supposed to be the cheapest place in Asia to get tailored clothes made so I thought I'd better get something for interviews when I get home. I got two suits, four shirts, two pairs of jeans, a jackets and a pair of shoes for 180 quid! The shirts are quality, the suits are a good fit, pretty nice material and lining, the jeans are a good fit as well, the shoes are alright I suppose but the jacket makes me look like I'm heading to a drag convention, but all in all the clothes turned out pretty well.
Joe and Nick turned up the day before the Irish lads left and we got some bikes out and headed to Mae Son, which sounded really impressive the 'Lonely Planet'. The only thing impressive was the drive there and back! Supposedly the best remaining building of the ancient Cham empire, the place is pretty much piles of old bricks because the silly buggers didn't use anything to cement the bricks in place. The 'Lonely Planet' calls this a 'controversial building method'. In reality its just silly isn't it really, I mean no wonder the buggers aren't around today.
On the way back we stopped on a bridge to get a photo of the three of us on our bikes with the river behind. Normally this would be fine because there are no rules to driving in Vietnam, people drive on whatever side of the road the choose as long as they can fit in a gap. However, a bus, overtaking a lorry sped toward us on the two lane bridge we absolutely shat it, there was barely enough room for them let alone us. So we had to drag our scooters on to the cement under the railings before they became spare parts. We managed it just in time, with the lorry missing my handle bar by about two inches. That was without a doubt the closest we came to an accident driving in Vietnam!
We dropped the bikes off and got the night bus to Nha Trang, arriving at about 6 the next day and got a lush little room with cable for 4 dollars each a night - happy days! Nha Trang is the 'party spot' of Vietnam but its barely as lively as any normal Thai town. There are booze cruises but apparently they were dire according to a few people we met there so we didn't bother (I say didn't bother... we just didn't get around to booking it).
The first day we met few Irish lads the other two know from Laos and chilled out at the beach. A hawker was cooking fresh crab on the beach which was really good! Then we had our first of many carbon-copy night out in Nha Trang consisting of Why Not? bar- Sailing Club till closing- back to Why Not? bar... but were not talking about drinking in this blog anymore!
Vinpearl land is, according to the Lonely Planet 'Vietnam's answer to Disneyland'. What? Vinpearl is a glorified fun-fair without the waltzers. The theme park itself is shocking, with most of the already tame rides closed. However, the attached water park was good fun and a solid cure for a hangover, albeit slightly painful on the back, and an obvious adherent to the Vietnamese school of safety-standards.
By the next day the rain had come and we stayed indoors. The rain continued and got worse, keeping us in the hotel room for about four days which was bit frustrating, but that cable TV really saved the day, as did the miraculous delivery of two random pizzas we didn't order, which we promptly ate and then reordered for the next three days.
The rain hit the town pretty hard though, with one road under three foot of water and all the shops on it flooded. It also prevented us leaving the town for two days and stopped us going to Dalat because of road damage.
It wasn't all miserable though. Halloween was good fun, especially with a load of people from the Halong Bay trip and Simon and Kirsty all being there we had a pretty good crew. The outfits were quality too; Joe got a tailored orange waist coat with a pumpkin's face on it and matching shorts and bought me and Nick girl's one-peices and matching skirts which barely covered our groins so we were a pretty ridiculous sight, especially to the locals who had a limited concept of Halloween anyway!
We were supposed to leave for Mui Ne the day after but Joe was too hungover so stayed in bed and I forgot my suit, only realizing on the bus so had to get a cab back and head down with him the next day.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Hanoi and Halong Bay
After flying (flashpacker style) from Vientiene in Laos of Hanoi in Vietnam I got to Hanoi backpacker's hostel and ran into opne of the Irish boys from the slow boat who said that the Irish lot were all upstairs, so I headed up and ran into not only them but Simon and Kirsty too, and they were all heading off to Halong the next day so I had to run downstairs and book on the 'party hard' tour of Halong Bay, so the couple of days of rest and taking it easy that I'd been hoping for were well out the window!
So, up at half 6 the next morning to get packed for a 3 day booze cruise, after a week long bender, and the remnants of a fever, I wasn't feeling too great.
But after we got on the boat, went kayaking to a beach and had a few beers it was quality! Halong Bay is a huge area of Limestone karst rising out of the water, so the tour was cool ...plus the food was amazing and the boat was sweet! Me and the Irish lads ended up with a couple of massive rooms on the top deck with our own balcony which hosted the gold ticket after-party, which again consisted of Bongo's, 'We all dream of a team of Gary Breens', Oasis, Boyzone, and one hearfelt rendition of the Welsh national anthem.
It was an eclectic mix.
Day two for me consisted of staring at the floor feeling ill with a killer headache after lots to drink and little sleep. When we got to 'Castaway Island' for our second night I hit the sack and woke up just in time for a nail-bitingly close game of volleyball (21-19) and the begining of more drinking games. We'd been playing 'ring of fire' the night before, and on the second night we played 'slaps,' a game me, Evan and Tory had brought with us from working in Bucket Bar, and Big-Titty-Cowgirl -the best game ever!
Day three and we got back onto the boat, had lunch and felt very sorry for ourselves for the rest of the day. Until the evening, when we all got drunk again. Hard life, all this 'culture'.
The next day I thought I needed to do something at leat a bit cultural and went sightseeing around Hanoi, which is a pretty cool city when you get used to all the noise and scooters everywhere. The traffic here is ridiculous. It's a case of 'if there's space, go'. Crossing the road is interesting, you pretty much have to walk really slowly and the traffic just moves around you!
The city has a massive lake with two islands with old buildings on them which was impressive, as was the Ho Chi Minh Complex to the west of the city, which included a massive mausoleum to hold his embalmed corpse for all the tourists to see!
The military is everywhere in Vietnam, definitely tell its communist from that if nothing else. On the way from the city to the Ho Chi Minh Complex I walked around the huge walled military area which is surrounded by soldiers holding AK47's who stare at you as if to say 'One false move and...', so it's not the frindliest place at times.
Also, scams are everywhere. Walking around Hanoi I was asked to leave my bag outside before going into a museum-fat chance, to donate to the red cross by a woman who jumed off the back of a scooter when she saw me and got hustled out of 100,000 (3 quid) by a scooter driver. Westerners here are just walking dollar signs which can get a bit annoying at times, but apparently they're friendlier in the south -plus, I suppose agent-orange did little to help foster good white-Vietnamese relations.
Anyway, I just to Hoi-An yeaterday with the Irish boys and a scottish lad so it should be good fun here, everyone else is getting in over the next two days.
x
So, up at half 6 the next morning to get packed for a 3 day booze cruise, after a week long bender, and the remnants of a fever, I wasn't feeling too great.
But after we got on the boat, went kayaking to a beach and had a few beers it was quality! Halong Bay is a huge area of Limestone karst rising out of the water, so the tour was cool ...plus the food was amazing and the boat was sweet! Me and the Irish lads ended up with a couple of massive rooms on the top deck with our own balcony which hosted the gold ticket after-party, which again consisted of Bongo's, 'We all dream of a team of Gary Breens', Oasis, Boyzone, and one hearfelt rendition of the Welsh national anthem.
It was an eclectic mix.
Day two for me consisted of staring at the floor feeling ill with a killer headache after lots to drink and little sleep. When we got to 'Castaway Island' for our second night I hit the sack and woke up just in time for a nail-bitingly close game of volleyball (21-19) and the begining of more drinking games. We'd been playing 'ring of fire' the night before, and on the second night we played 'slaps,' a game me, Evan and Tory had brought with us from working in Bucket Bar, and Big-Titty-Cowgirl -the best game ever!
Day three and we got back onto the boat, had lunch and felt very sorry for ourselves for the rest of the day. Until the evening, when we all got drunk again. Hard life, all this 'culture'.
The next day I thought I needed to do something at leat a bit cultural and went sightseeing around Hanoi, which is a pretty cool city when you get used to all the noise and scooters everywhere. The traffic here is ridiculous. It's a case of 'if there's space, go'. Crossing the road is interesting, you pretty much have to walk really slowly and the traffic just moves around you!
The city has a massive lake with two islands with old buildings on them which was impressive, as was the Ho Chi Minh Complex to the west of the city, which included a massive mausoleum to hold his embalmed corpse for all the tourists to see!
The military is everywhere in Vietnam, definitely tell its communist from that if nothing else. On the way from the city to the Ho Chi Minh Complex I walked around the huge walled military area which is surrounded by soldiers holding AK47's who stare at you as if to say 'One false move and...', so it's not the frindliest place at times.
Also, scams are everywhere. Walking around Hanoi I was asked to leave my bag outside before going into a museum-fat chance, to donate to the red cross by a woman who jumed off the back of a scooter when she saw me and got hustled out of 100,000 (3 quid) by a scooter driver. Westerners here are just walking dollar signs which can get a bit annoying at times, but apparently they're friendlier in the south -plus, I suppose agent-orange did little to help foster good white-Vietnamese relations.
Anyway, I just to Hoi-An yeaterday with the Irish boys and a scottish lad so it should be good fun here, everyone else is getting in over the next two days.
x
Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng
It's been a while since my last blog and for good reason! The last couple of weeks have been some of the messiest of the year!
I got the slow boat from the Thai Border to Luang Prabang, an old colonial town in the center of northern Laos. It was a quality trip, despite being pretty uncomfortable. The scenery on the way is amazing... but copious amounts of lager later we stopped looking. There ended up being a massive group of us at the back behind the engine room, and from somewhere we managed to get some bongo's and a harmonica on the go too, so we soon drowned the engine out with some quality renditions of 'We all dream of a team of Gary Breens' and 'Five German bombers' alongside your standard Wonderwall's and a touch of Boyzone and Five.
After having a fight with some soot we found on the bottom of a wok we got to the overnight stop, where a Laos bloke went a bit nuts at us thinking we were blacking ourselves up! We got to a hotel, dropped off our bags, wiped the soot off and headed to the bar and got progressively more steaming.
Day 2 was a lot more civilized, and we sat on the boat reading and playing chirades, I-spy, and the incredibly specific game- probably the best game for passing the time ever invented.
We got to Luang Prabang, and the high brow tone continued while we were there, as we read, watched films and did some sightseeing, only dinking on the second night, in a bar with a beach volleyball court!
The 6-hour journey from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng was pretty stunning too as most of the roads in Laos are higher up in the hills and mountains, so for most of the journey youre lookign over vast expanses of land dotted by tiny villages with barely the most basic amenities -we were driving through villages where the communal hose/shower was outside so the people were showering by the road.
And then we arrived... tubing!
The messiest place I've ever been.
Vang Vieng was supposed to be a beautiful spot on Nam Song river... before a load of backpackers showed up and turned it into a hole where drink is cheap/free and you can rent out a tube to float down the river in during the day and get steaming before going out at night and getting even more steaming!
I did a day of this and started working for Bucket Bar with a couple of boys I met in PhiPhi -Chan and Dave. The deal was this: I get free food and free drink all day, in return I hand out free shots and get people playing drinking games... did I say job? Is that really the right word for it?
Anyway after a week of that I had managed to run myself down and get a fever that left me hugging my pillow in feotal position shivering even thoguh it was about 30 degrees, after a couple of days of that it was time to move on but I would be back in an instant. I met so many sound people in that place.
I'm sure I should have more to say about Vang Vieng but for some reason I can't remember too much of it.
I got the slow boat from the Thai Border to Luang Prabang, an old colonial town in the center of northern Laos. It was a quality trip, despite being pretty uncomfortable. The scenery on the way is amazing... but copious amounts of lager later we stopped looking. There ended up being a massive group of us at the back behind the engine room, and from somewhere we managed to get some bongo's and a harmonica on the go too, so we soon drowned the engine out with some quality renditions of 'We all dream of a team of Gary Breens' and 'Five German bombers' alongside your standard Wonderwall's and a touch of Boyzone and Five.
After having a fight with some soot we found on the bottom of a wok we got to the overnight stop, where a Laos bloke went a bit nuts at us thinking we were blacking ourselves up! We got to a hotel, dropped off our bags, wiped the soot off and headed to the bar and got progressively more steaming.
Day 2 was a lot more civilized, and we sat on the boat reading and playing chirades, I-spy, and the incredibly specific game- probably the best game for passing the time ever invented.
We got to Luang Prabang, and the high brow tone continued while we were there, as we read, watched films and did some sightseeing, only dinking on the second night, in a bar with a beach volleyball court!
The 6-hour journey from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng was pretty stunning too as most of the roads in Laos are higher up in the hills and mountains, so for most of the journey youre lookign over vast expanses of land dotted by tiny villages with barely the most basic amenities -we were driving through villages where the communal hose/shower was outside so the people were showering by the road.
And then we arrived... tubing!
The messiest place I've ever been.
Vang Vieng was supposed to be a beautiful spot on Nam Song river... before a load of backpackers showed up and turned it into a hole where drink is cheap/free and you can rent out a tube to float down the river in during the day and get steaming before going out at night and getting even more steaming!
I did a day of this and started working for Bucket Bar with a couple of boys I met in PhiPhi -Chan and Dave. The deal was this: I get free food and free drink all day, in return I hand out free shots and get people playing drinking games... did I say job? Is that really the right word for it?
Anyway after a week of that I had managed to run myself down and get a fever that left me hugging my pillow in feotal position shivering even thoguh it was about 30 degrees, after a couple of days of that it was time to move on but I would be back in an instant. I met so many sound people in that place.
I'm sure I should have more to say about Vang Vieng but for some reason I can't remember too much of it.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Chiang Mai & Pai
After Bangkok I headed up to Chang Mai for a spot of trekking. The bus was 12 hours so had a Xanax and woke up in Chang Mai having had a wonderful nights sleep with everyone else looking shattered... good old liberal Thai pharmacies!
One of the boys I met at the last Full Moon recommended Julie's Guesthouse so stayed there for the first night but didn't book a trek with them because the sour Thai bloke running it wouldn't knock the price down at all and wanted you to book a trek with them in order to stay there! Headed up and down the street and eventually met the legend that is Ginny! After a half hour chat which involved her getting the family photos out AND knocking the price down by 300 baht we had a deal. I told a few others from the bus ride and we all booked with her. So Simon (UK), Danielle, Katy (Canada) and myself all headed off the next day.
There was a definite language barrier within the group and we all ended up in little cliques. There was us four, 3 germans and a swiss guy, and a French couple who barely spoke to eachother let alone the rest of us!
First stop was the elephant riding. If anyone can say they had fun while a 13 year old fucker (think Mao/Stalin in the younger days) with a metal hook smashes a chained up elephant (who doesnt want to do anything the boy says) on the head, they're sick! I can honestly say that I've tried it and it's not for me. It's a good job the elephant covered me in mud to disguise me crapping myself while it headed toward a twelve foot drop! I sat at the back for most of the time hoping for both our sakes that the animal would just do what the little fucker wanted it to, for both our sakes!
After the elephant riding we had lunch and headed up into the hills to stay at the tribe village. The walk was a killer, and the trainers Ginny gave me left some nasty blisters so I chucked them and wore flip flops for the rest of it which aren't the easiest things to hike in.
The village was kept seperate from where we all stayed which is probably for the best, but we didn;t get to talk to the villagers too much aside from the offering us massages... the scenery was amazing though.
The rest of the group other than us four were only on a 2day trek so they left early in the morning and we didn't see them again. We headed off to a few waterfalls for the day, and to kill the time whilst we walked through the Jungle me and Simon gave the girls a bit of stick for being Canadian...which they hated -especially the whole clubbing baby seals joke which followed on from their enjoyment of the elephant riding.
We had a swim in a couple of the waterfalls and then hiked to the 'jungle camp' - a hut by the river.
On the last day we headed off for white water rafting, which was pretty tame compared to New Zealand, but that was probably for the best considering the Thai guys safety talk consisted of 'I hope you can swin'.
The next day I headed off to Pai after a few people had said it was pretty cool. It's a bit too quiet for me though, I just want to get to Laos and go tubing now. Had a good few weeks off the pish and doing cultural things, seen enough temples now thanks, but its my last chance not to feel hungover so I rented a bike out and headed to waterfall. Big mistake! It turned out to be a lot further away than I thought, and completely up-hill. You could see the look on the Thai's faces as they turned around to watch me struggling up the hill, it said: 'what is that sweaty white boy doing?' Might get a scooter out this afternoon to kill the time before I get the bus to Huay Xai to catch the slow boat to LAOS!
Don't expect any updates any time soon ;-)
One of the boys I met at the last Full Moon recommended Julie's Guesthouse so stayed there for the first night but didn't book a trek with them because the sour Thai bloke running it wouldn't knock the price down at all and wanted you to book a trek with them in order to stay there! Headed up and down the street and eventually met the legend that is Ginny! After a half hour chat which involved her getting the family photos out AND knocking the price down by 300 baht we had a deal. I told a few others from the bus ride and we all booked with her. So Simon (UK), Danielle, Katy (Canada) and myself all headed off the next day.
There was a definite language barrier within the group and we all ended up in little cliques. There was us four, 3 germans and a swiss guy, and a French couple who barely spoke to eachother let alone the rest of us!
First stop was the elephant riding. If anyone can say they had fun while a 13 year old fucker (think Mao/Stalin in the younger days) with a metal hook smashes a chained up elephant (who doesnt want to do anything the boy says) on the head, they're sick! I can honestly say that I've tried it and it's not for me. It's a good job the elephant covered me in mud to disguise me crapping myself while it headed toward a twelve foot drop! I sat at the back for most of the time hoping for both our sakes that the animal would just do what the little fucker wanted it to, for both our sakes!
After the elephant riding we had lunch and headed up into the hills to stay at the tribe village. The walk was a killer, and the trainers Ginny gave me left some nasty blisters so I chucked them and wore flip flops for the rest of it which aren't the easiest things to hike in.
The village was kept seperate from where we all stayed which is probably for the best, but we didn;t get to talk to the villagers too much aside from the offering us massages... the scenery was amazing though.
The rest of the group other than us four were only on a 2day trek so they left early in the morning and we didn't see them again. We headed off to a few waterfalls for the day, and to kill the time whilst we walked through the Jungle me and Simon gave the girls a bit of stick for being Canadian...which they hated -especially the whole clubbing baby seals joke which followed on from their enjoyment of the elephant riding.
We had a swim in a couple of the waterfalls and then hiked to the 'jungle camp' - a hut by the river.
On the last day we headed off for white water rafting, which was pretty tame compared to New Zealand, but that was probably for the best considering the Thai guys safety talk consisted of 'I hope you can swin'.
The next day I headed off to Pai after a few people had said it was pretty cool. It's a bit too quiet for me though, I just want to get to Laos and go tubing now. Had a good few weeks off the pish and doing cultural things, seen enough temples now thanks, but its my last chance not to feel hungover so I rented a bike out and headed to waterfall. Big mistake! It turned out to be a lot further away than I thought, and completely up-hill. You could see the look on the Thai's faces as they turned around to watch me struggling up the hill, it said: 'what is that sweaty white boy doing?' Might get a scooter out this afternoon to kill the time before I get the bus to Huay Xai to catch the slow boat to LAOS!
Don't expect any updates any time soon ;-)
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Bangkok, Ayutthaya and Kanchanaburi
After the Full Moon Kirsty, Simon and I set off for a huge bus journey up to bangkok which could have been done in half the time were it not for some uneccessary moving us around from different places within the same town. Anyway, one Xanax and I woke up in Bangkok after a ten hour kip... magic!
Bangkok is a dive. A smutty, dirty, complicated and disorganised dive. After one day there we decided to drop our passports off at the Vietnam embassy and get out of the city.
We got a train from bangkok to Ayutthaya, the old capital of Thailand. The town is built on an island in the confluence of three rives which is pretty impressive in itself, and formed a natural form of defence. However, after it was sacked a number of times by the Burmese the capiutal was moved to Bangkok. It still however houses some magnificent temples and Thai culture is more pronounced than in any other place I have visited yet.
Unfortunately, I wasn't too into the temples as I had some serious glands growing under my chin and a fever so went to the doctor who has given me some tablets and feeling better already. Saw most of the temples though and got a good feel for the town.
Day two and we headed to Kanchanaburi, the site of the River Kwai POW-built bridge. Our first stop was the JEATH museum which depicts a typical POW bunk and displays various atrifacts, pictures and newspaper clippings. My dissertation taught me that the two World Wars like most wars were a result of misplaced faith in the nation and religion -the two most important apparatus we look to for guidance.
The bridge itself, aside from the lights the Thai's have added for the tourists, is nothing but a typical, functional railway bridge. However it stands as a monument to the lengths people will go to when their faith is misplaced and they are misguided.
There is evidence that people themselves are not all bad, such as the statue of one Japanese officer who later worked to repatriate the bodies of those who perished working on the Bridge, the Australian Ernest Dunlop who performed basic surgery to save the lives of fellow prisoners, and the local Thai man who smuggled him basic drugs such as penicillin.
Following the museum we went by longboat to a local temple situated by a small cave system. After a few photos and risking life and limb on the wet, barely-secured, 30 foot high, ladder we travvelled on to one of the war cemetaries via a village of houseboats!
The war cemtary was really sobering. Some graves had really touching messages from parents, siblings and offspring, whilst some didn't, and some didn't even have names. I've never been to a war cemetary before and it's the closest I've come to the consequences of war which I'd only read about.
All in all, it's great to be doing some proper travelling again and actually seeing interesting things rather just getting pissed again and again, however much fun it is. Unfortunately, I've got to head back to Bangkok to pick up my passport and then it's off to Chang Mai for some trekking, hopefully with a few wreckheads I met in Phangan... so best of both worlds really!
x
Bangkok is a dive. A smutty, dirty, complicated and disorganised dive. After one day there we decided to drop our passports off at the Vietnam embassy and get out of the city.
We got a train from bangkok to Ayutthaya, the old capital of Thailand. The town is built on an island in the confluence of three rives which is pretty impressive in itself, and formed a natural form of defence. However, after it was sacked a number of times by the Burmese the capiutal was moved to Bangkok. It still however houses some magnificent temples and Thai culture is more pronounced than in any other place I have visited yet.
Unfortunately, I wasn't too into the temples as I had some serious glands growing under my chin and a fever so went to the doctor who has given me some tablets and feeling better already. Saw most of the temples though and got a good feel for the town.
Day two and we headed to Kanchanaburi, the site of the River Kwai POW-built bridge. Our first stop was the JEATH museum which depicts a typical POW bunk and displays various atrifacts, pictures and newspaper clippings. My dissertation taught me that the two World Wars like most wars were a result of misplaced faith in the nation and religion -the two most important apparatus we look to for guidance.
The bridge itself, aside from the lights the Thai's have added for the tourists, is nothing but a typical, functional railway bridge. However it stands as a monument to the lengths people will go to when their faith is misplaced and they are misguided.
There is evidence that people themselves are not all bad, such as the statue of one Japanese officer who later worked to repatriate the bodies of those who perished working on the Bridge, the Australian Ernest Dunlop who performed basic surgery to save the lives of fellow prisoners, and the local Thai man who smuggled him basic drugs such as penicillin.
Following the museum we went by longboat to a local temple situated by a small cave system. After a few photos and risking life and limb on the wet, barely-secured, 30 foot high, ladder we travvelled on to one of the war cemetaries via a village of houseboats!
The war cemtary was really sobering. Some graves had really touching messages from parents, siblings and offspring, whilst some didn't, and some didn't even have names. I've never been to a war cemetary before and it's the closest I've come to the consequences of war which I'd only read about.
All in all, it's great to be doing some proper travelling again and actually seeing interesting things rather just getting pissed again and again, however much fun it is. Unfortunately, I've got to head back to Bangkok to pick up my passport and then it's off to Chang Mai for some trekking, hopefully with a few wreckheads I met in Phangan... so best of both worlds really!
x
Koh Phangan Take II
Already written a post for the last full moon so I'll keep this one brief. Same as before but me even more sound people from all over. Tempted to brave a huge journey down from Laos for the next one. Absolutely love it!
I will however draw your attention to one Daily Mail article published back in the UK, which has done me few favours in letting my mother know exactly how the Thai islands are but with typical British-tabloid sensationalism!
I will however draw your attention to one Daily Mail article published back in the UK, which has done me few favours in letting my mother know exactly how the Thai islands are but with typical British-tabloid sensationalism!
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Koh Phi Phi
So, after the full moon party being so good I decided to stick around on the islands in the south for a month and wait for the next one. This left me with about 2 weeks in Phi Phi. (PP)
PP is a tiny little island where the whole settlement is situated on a sandbank between two stunning limestone karsts. The action centers around the beach at night where eeveryone hits the beach for free shots and buckets. You can, if your organised enough, get three free buckets in one night, but you really wouldn't want to: the alcohol they usee is actually called 'white spirit' and you can definitely feel the effects of it after a couple of days! After a while I called it quits on the free buckets and shots (started coughing up blood and feeling sick at the smell of them...nice) and went back to the samsong whisky.
I ended up PRing for a bar called Banana Bar in order to save some cash and get involved at the same time. The deal was you get all you can drink in 4 hours, a free Mexican dinner and cash if you stick at it for long enough. It was pretty good for a while. The guys working there were all cool and sound as hell, and we had a good go at the Israeli's who, lets just say, weren't the friendliest people on the island to the PR's.
A few of the other guys working at Banana Bar were well into their tattoos and I ended up back at the tattoo parlour as couple of nights with them. Now, if there's one word of advice I can give anyone going to Thailand its don't mess with the Thais! Respect is a massive thing to them and if you disrespect them or their family or friends they get angry pretty quickly! Maya, a sound as hell Thai woman owned the Tattoo parlour and worked there with her four brothers and after a few visits and chatting to them in the evening we got to know them and she started calling us our brothers. She also told us that there was a lot of Thai mafia in PP (which would explain the fight I heard about between 30 Thais on my second night and the gun that was pulled out in the process).
So when Chan, one of the guys from BB, told a drunk Israeli guy to sit down when he was stumbling round the tattoo shop whilst his best mate John was getting tattooed, and the Israeli guy got loud, Maya shot up, gathered a few Thai blokes, and before you can say "maybe its time to go now", one of the Thais was offering to kill the Israeli guy, whilst another was offering Chan a gun!
Fairly quickly, the Israeli left - 'Go on now, tail between your legs, off you trot'
And a wise decision it was too.
Since we'd been travelling in Oz endless people had told us to go to the Rock in PP. It's a shithole, but a legend of a shithole! It's essentially a cramped, filthy, mosquito ridden dorm with barely enough fans but you can write on the walls so its quality! It's also really social which is what you look for when you travel by yourself. True enough, in the 2 weeks I was there there was no end of sound people, so many in fact I'm not going to name everyone but we had some epic nights out and I've got some epic stories not suitable for publication, and now I'm heading back to Phangan knowing so many people I reckon it should be even better than the first one. At least when I inevitably get lost again on the FMP itself I should run into someone in under three hours, thus beating my previous record!
I left PP a couple of days ago now and have been staying in Ao Nang near Krabi. Nothing has happened. Nothing at all. It's been amazing! Just sitting on a beach reading a book. Seriously needed some R+R after PP.
Leaving for Phangan today so tomorrow night should back on the buckets again... loves it!
X
PP is a tiny little island where the whole settlement is situated on a sandbank between two stunning limestone karsts. The action centers around the beach at night where eeveryone hits the beach for free shots and buckets. You can, if your organised enough, get three free buckets in one night, but you really wouldn't want to: the alcohol they usee is actually called 'white spirit' and you can definitely feel the effects of it after a couple of days! After a while I called it quits on the free buckets and shots (started coughing up blood and feeling sick at the smell of them...nice) and went back to the samsong whisky.
I ended up PRing for a bar called Banana Bar in order to save some cash and get involved at the same time. The deal was you get all you can drink in 4 hours, a free Mexican dinner and cash if you stick at it for long enough. It was pretty good for a while. The guys working there were all cool and sound as hell, and we had a good go at the Israeli's who, lets just say, weren't the friendliest people on the island to the PR's.
A few of the other guys working at Banana Bar were well into their tattoos and I ended up back at the tattoo parlour as couple of nights with them. Now, if there's one word of advice I can give anyone going to Thailand its don't mess with the Thais! Respect is a massive thing to them and if you disrespect them or their family or friends they get angry pretty quickly! Maya, a sound as hell Thai woman owned the Tattoo parlour and worked there with her four brothers and after a few visits and chatting to them in the evening we got to know them and she started calling us our brothers. She also told us that there was a lot of Thai mafia in PP (which would explain the fight I heard about between 30 Thais on my second night and the gun that was pulled out in the process).
So when Chan, one of the guys from BB, told a drunk Israeli guy to sit down when he was stumbling round the tattoo shop whilst his best mate John was getting tattooed, and the Israeli guy got loud, Maya shot up, gathered a few Thai blokes, and before you can say "maybe its time to go now", one of the Thais was offering to kill the Israeli guy, whilst another was offering Chan a gun!
Fairly quickly, the Israeli left - 'Go on now, tail between your legs, off you trot'
And a wise decision it was too.
Since we'd been travelling in Oz endless people had told us to go to the Rock in PP. It's a shithole, but a legend of a shithole! It's essentially a cramped, filthy, mosquito ridden dorm with barely enough fans but you can write on the walls so its quality! It's also really social which is what you look for when you travel by yourself. True enough, in the 2 weeks I was there there was no end of sound people, so many in fact I'm not going to name everyone but we had some epic nights out and I've got some epic stories not suitable for publication, and now I'm heading back to Phangan knowing so many people I reckon it should be even better than the first one. At least when I inevitably get lost again on the FMP itself I should run into someone in under three hours, thus beating my previous record!
I left PP a couple of days ago now and have been staying in Ao Nang near Krabi. Nothing has happened. Nothing at all. It's been amazing! Just sitting on a beach reading a book. Seriously needed some R+R after PP.
Leaving for Phangan today so tomorrow night should back on the buckets again... loves it!
X
Monday, September 6, 2010
Koh Tao, Koh Samui and Phuket
After a wicked week in Koh Phangan we had a few days chilling out in Koh Tao. The island is mostly focused on diving schools for people training for PADI licenses but a lack of money meant that we didn't go for the courses, even though diving in Australia was good fun! For a cheaper alternative we rented out a scooter and some snorkels for the first full day there and went to a few dive spots around the island, even one rather ominously called 'Shark Bay'. I'm not gonna try and act hard because when it comes to the 'S' word I'm a girl, although less so now than when we first started travelling. Un/fortunately, 'Shark Bay' had, despite our best efforts to find them, no sharks. It did have some huge shoals of fish and massive coral gardens though, which was nice...
Anyway, after a busy day snorkelling around the island we were just about to get back on the bike and go home when we got stuck in our first proper experience of Thailand's rainy season, a ridiculous downpour that left us wetter than the snorkelling. We got some pretty funny looks from the locals when we decided to brave it and drive home in the rain, no doubt muttering in Thai some equivalent of 'bloody tourists!'
The following day Andy decided to go diving, whilst I chilled on the beach, making the most of his i-pod before he left. He came back with a quality story about his dive instructor getting attacked by some trigger fish. Trigger fish are apparently these big territorial fuckers who hide behind rocks and attack anything entering their space. The instructor managed to get bitten in the head and needed a fair few stitches afterwards. Andy was pretty chuffed though, he got 50% off!
Alas, all good things come to an end. After nine and a half months together, Andy had to go home due to lack of money. We had a few ridiculous arguments which are only natural when you're with someone 24/7 but I had a quality trip with the boy and hopefully he can say the same. Goodbye's were said, and I left for Koh Samui in the morning and he went to Bangkok later on that afternoon.
It's really different travelling by yourself. After such a long time with a mate you end up chatting absolute shite for the majority of the day to fill the space. Now I seem to be chatting absolute shite to myself! Travelling with someone means you always have someone else to do stuff with, but it also means that sometimes you want to do different things. When your by yourself you can do whatever you want, and you end up chatting to so many people you might not have otherwise.
Koh Samui was my first stop after Koh Tao, I stayed at Moonlight Guesthouse, which run by a guy called Ritchie. Ritchie is an animal! The only other person in the dorm was a girl called Flora, who may be going though some kind of personality crisis! (public school, finance graduate with shares/ wannabe hippie - think hair braids and mediation)
A few casual beers in the hostel soon got messy and Ritchie, Flora and myself decided it would be a fantastic idea to all get on Ritchie's scooter and drive from Chaweng to Lamai for a night out! Lamai did not however turn out to be what I naively expected, so it was a good job I was steaming! I'd heard Koh Samui was seedy and did not cater for backpackers but I didn't expect it to be so bad - we were the only people under 35 in a bar full of Thai girls and old men.
I found a book in the bookshop the next day that summed it up pretty well: 'Dating in Thailand: A guide to finding a Thai girlfriend'. A lot of these blokes are just pretty lonely and come to Thailand to find a partner because they can't back home. Others however, like Ritchie, just like Thai girls... I'm sure you can imagine where his night went! (He told us a funny story the next day from a previous night in Lamai involving a lady-boy) Ritchie is a deviant, but a character nonetheless! Oh and in case you're wondering no I didn't, I got a cab back with Flora, and no I didn't either!
I'm now in Phuket which is much the same as Samui but I'm staying outside of the main tourist area (I intended to sit on a beach for a few days but it's rained non stop) and its pretty boring here. The people staying here are all sound though! Did some sight seeing yesterday with a couple of Canadian girls and went for a few beers with a big group of Irish in the evening so it's still good fun post-Drew, even if the weather's worse than home!
x
Anyway, after a busy day snorkelling around the island we were just about to get back on the bike and go home when we got stuck in our first proper experience of Thailand's rainy season, a ridiculous downpour that left us wetter than the snorkelling. We got some pretty funny looks from the locals when we decided to brave it and drive home in the rain, no doubt muttering in Thai some equivalent of 'bloody tourists!'
The following day Andy decided to go diving, whilst I chilled on the beach, making the most of his i-pod before he left. He came back with a quality story about his dive instructor getting attacked by some trigger fish. Trigger fish are apparently these big territorial fuckers who hide behind rocks and attack anything entering their space. The instructor managed to get bitten in the head and needed a fair few stitches afterwards. Andy was pretty chuffed though, he got 50% off!
Alas, all good things come to an end. After nine and a half months together, Andy had to go home due to lack of money. We had a few ridiculous arguments which are only natural when you're with someone 24/7 but I had a quality trip with the boy and hopefully he can say the same. Goodbye's were said, and I left for Koh Samui in the morning and he went to Bangkok later on that afternoon.
It's really different travelling by yourself. After such a long time with a mate you end up chatting absolute shite for the majority of the day to fill the space. Now I seem to be chatting absolute shite to myself! Travelling with someone means you always have someone else to do stuff with, but it also means that sometimes you want to do different things. When your by yourself you can do whatever you want, and you end up chatting to so many people you might not have otherwise.
Koh Samui was my first stop after Koh Tao, I stayed at Moonlight Guesthouse, which run by a guy called Ritchie. Ritchie is an animal! The only other person in the dorm was a girl called Flora, who may be going though some kind of personality crisis! (public school, finance graduate with shares/ wannabe hippie - think hair braids and mediation)
A few casual beers in the hostel soon got messy and Ritchie, Flora and myself decided it would be a fantastic idea to all get on Ritchie's scooter and drive from Chaweng to Lamai for a night out! Lamai did not however turn out to be what I naively expected, so it was a good job I was steaming! I'd heard Koh Samui was seedy and did not cater for backpackers but I didn't expect it to be so bad - we were the only people under 35 in a bar full of Thai girls and old men.
I found a book in the bookshop the next day that summed it up pretty well: 'Dating in Thailand: A guide to finding a Thai girlfriend'. A lot of these blokes are just pretty lonely and come to Thailand to find a partner because they can't back home. Others however, like Ritchie, just like Thai girls... I'm sure you can imagine where his night went! (He told us a funny story the next day from a previous night in Lamai involving a lady-boy) Ritchie is a deviant, but a character nonetheless! Oh and in case you're wondering no I didn't, I got a cab back with Flora, and no I didn't either!
I'm now in Phuket which is much the same as Samui but I'm staying outside of the main tourist area (I intended to sit on a beach for a few days but it's rained non stop) and its pretty boring here. The people staying here are all sound though! Did some sight seeing yesterday with a couple of Canadian girls and went for a few beers with a big group of Irish in the evening so it's still good fun post-Drew, even if the weather's worse than home!
x
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Koh Phangan
Malaysia was nice and all, but being a Muslim country its not the best night out for a backpacker so after about 2 1/2 weeks in Singapore and Malaysia I was gagging for a party...Koh Phangan was welcome relief!
So after I got off the ferry after an eleven hour journey from Penang which, except for the tedious border checks I mostly slept through, and met Andy at the hostel. Now, Andy hasn't had the best of luck with illnesses over the course of the trip, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if he's had one in every country we've visited so far! It's usually been toncillitis with the exception of his gammy infected toe in Australia, but this time he had a stomach bug so things weren't looking good for the full moon I had been looking forward to so very much.
Things turned out okay in the end though... over the course of the next few days a load of really cool people moved into the dorm including a few boys from guess where... Finchley!!! Wheeeey! Never seen them around but they were just starting uni so they're a few years my junior. There were also two more English girls who turned out to be a good laugh, a texan guy who was slightly odd but added a bit of variety, a trio of French Canadians who didn't speak the best English but were nice enough, a guy who slept in the bunk on top of me who slept and said absolutely nothing at all (why are you in Haad Rin?) and an Irish girl who had burst her ear drum diving so had to go home.
I felt a bit bad for the Irish girl missing the full moon and that, I mean, you don't really think about how you can easily get injured here and your whole trips fucked up. However, its a good job we got chatting to her because it soon makes you think twice about jumping through the burning hoops and skipping rope on the beach at the pre-parties and full moon itself!
Basically, give a couple of Thai guys a rope/ring covered in petrol and suspend above an eager circle of intoxicated holidaymakers having too much of a good time and you get a recipe for disaster -Good fun to watch mind! Its amazing seeing how many people have burns all over their body when you walk around Haad-Rin during the build-up parties and after the full moon. I was not tempted in any way after seeing some of the injuries. We saw one guy -a typical Brit-abroad type- try to skip the skipping rope but the twat failed to time himself right and got a burning rope to the face! Now these ropes are covered in burning hot oil so if that gets in your eyes my guess is that you are blind! Anyway he gets up and swaggers over to his mates, arms in the air and laughing as you would to save face. We felt a bit bad for him when we saw him later, crying as a nurse puts cream on his face!
Also heard a quality story about a bloke who someone knew who decided to get a tattoo when he was pissed. You see a lot of people getting them (Haad-Rin's a bit like LA in that every other shop is a tattoo parlour), and some of them look alright, but this bloke apparently asked for 'Let the good times roll' and got instead 'let the good timns roll'...ha, gutted!
I didn't have the best luck in Haad-Rin either. I managed to get caught by a Thai security guard doing something I shouldn't have been and got sat down and rewarded with a few solid slaps around the face which at the time didn't hurt so much, but the next day I could barely chew. All good now mind, and after watching the Muay Thai there I'll take a few slaps to avoid a beating!
Two really cool places In Haad-Rin aside from the beach are Coral Bungalows and Magic Mountain. Magic mountain is a bar which serves a certain fungus...'nuff said. Coral Bungalow has pool parties which are cool to go to before the beach. Its a good place to get chatting to people but the water in the pool is somewhat dubious and there's a few stories beginning 'A friend of a friend got Chlamidya in his/her eye here'... That's one illness Andy was very lucky to avoid!
The Full Moon party itself is HUGE! They say its between 12000 and 20000 UV-painted people and it could easily be true. I managed to lose everyone (Andy managed to come out for a fair bit of the night even though he was ill) and soon gave up trying to find them. It's nice how the vibe here is the same as it is at trance raves back home (i'm sure thats for different reasons mind :-)... everyone's up for chatting to eachother. I just got chatting to an Aussie bloke and got pissed with him for a couple of hours until I ran into the others again.
There are two main bars for the preparties and a few others spring up for the party itself. There's a main one which plays commercial remixes -some good, some bad (hard-house Justin Beiber?), and there's enother one called Zoom which plays wicked psytrance and gets a really mental crowd!
There's a funky mix of people as well. You get you're backpackers on trips of varying lengths but in generally the same mindset, a sprinkling of hippies and people who have dabbled with far too many drugs in their time, and then you get quite few people who are just there for a couple of weeks to get pissed. I mean fair do's were all here for that, but it would be a shame for Koh Phangan to become another Magaluf.
Think thats a good point to stop at.
X
So after I got off the ferry after an eleven hour journey from Penang which, except for the tedious border checks I mostly slept through, and met Andy at the hostel. Now, Andy hasn't had the best of luck with illnesses over the course of the trip, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if he's had one in every country we've visited so far! It's usually been toncillitis with the exception of his gammy infected toe in Australia, but this time he had a stomach bug so things weren't looking good for the full moon I had been looking forward to so very much.
Things turned out okay in the end though... over the course of the next few days a load of really cool people moved into the dorm including a few boys from guess where... Finchley!!! Wheeeey! Never seen them around but they were just starting uni so they're a few years my junior. There were also two more English girls who turned out to be a good laugh, a texan guy who was slightly odd but added a bit of variety, a trio of French Canadians who didn't speak the best English but were nice enough, a guy who slept in the bunk on top of me who slept and said absolutely nothing at all (why are you in Haad Rin?) and an Irish girl who had burst her ear drum diving so had to go home.
I felt a bit bad for the Irish girl missing the full moon and that, I mean, you don't really think about how you can easily get injured here and your whole trips fucked up. However, its a good job we got chatting to her because it soon makes you think twice about jumping through the burning hoops and skipping rope on the beach at the pre-parties and full moon itself!
Basically, give a couple of Thai guys a rope/ring covered in petrol and suspend above an eager circle of intoxicated holidaymakers having too much of a good time and you get a recipe for disaster -Good fun to watch mind! Its amazing seeing how many people have burns all over their body when you walk around Haad-Rin during the build-up parties and after the full moon. I was not tempted in any way after seeing some of the injuries. We saw one guy -a typical Brit-abroad type- try to skip the skipping rope but the twat failed to time himself right and got a burning rope to the face! Now these ropes are covered in burning hot oil so if that gets in your eyes my guess is that you are blind! Anyway he gets up and swaggers over to his mates, arms in the air and laughing as you would to save face. We felt a bit bad for him when we saw him later, crying as a nurse puts cream on his face!
Also heard a quality story about a bloke who someone knew who decided to get a tattoo when he was pissed. You see a lot of people getting them (Haad-Rin's a bit like LA in that every other shop is a tattoo parlour), and some of them look alright, but this bloke apparently asked for 'Let the good times roll' and got instead 'let the good timns roll'...ha, gutted!
I didn't have the best luck in Haad-Rin either. I managed to get caught by a Thai security guard doing something I shouldn't have been and got sat down and rewarded with a few solid slaps around the face which at the time didn't hurt so much, but the next day I could barely chew. All good now mind, and after watching the Muay Thai there I'll take a few slaps to avoid a beating!
Two really cool places In Haad-Rin aside from the beach are Coral Bungalows and Magic Mountain. Magic mountain is a bar which serves a certain fungus...'nuff said. Coral Bungalow has pool parties which are cool to go to before the beach. Its a good place to get chatting to people but the water in the pool is somewhat dubious and there's a few stories beginning 'A friend of a friend got Chlamidya in his/her eye here'... That's one illness Andy was very lucky to avoid!
The Full Moon party itself is HUGE! They say its between 12000 and 20000 UV-painted people and it could easily be true. I managed to lose everyone (Andy managed to come out for a fair bit of the night even though he was ill) and soon gave up trying to find them. It's nice how the vibe here is the same as it is at trance raves back home (i'm sure thats for different reasons mind :-)... everyone's up for chatting to eachother. I just got chatting to an Aussie bloke and got pissed with him for a couple of hours until I ran into the others again.
There are two main bars for the preparties and a few others spring up for the party itself. There's a main one which plays commercial remixes -some good, some bad (hard-house Justin Beiber?), and there's enother one called Zoom which plays wicked psytrance and gets a really mental crowd!
There's a funky mix of people as well. You get you're backpackers on trips of varying lengths but in generally the same mindset, a sprinkling of hippies and people who have dabbled with far too many drugs in their time, and then you get quite few people who are just there for a couple of weeks to get pissed. I mean fair do's were all here for that, but it would be a shame for Koh Phangan to become another Magaluf.
Think thats a good point to stop at.
X
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Penang
So, the night before I left KL for Penang I managed to meet a right group of characters! One of whom was a French guy who had just finished studying a Journalism masters in Delhi, and two other guys studying for a doctorate in Philosophy and Theology. Well, we managed to have some very interesting debates on the world. Some were welcome, others weren't. But its only in an environment such as backpacking that you get to meet such an interesting bunch.
The journey from KL to Georgetown was similarly interesting. Got chatting to the Malaysian woman sat next to me, and then to a mother and daughter sat across the aisle, who were very nice, unlike the git behind me who decided to stick his feet pretty much at eye level if I were to turn my head to the right, which meant the trip wasn't the most fragrant I've ever experienced! Couple this with the Malay kid who only knew one English word: 'Sister,' and decided to call me it and giggle for the best part of the 5 hour journey. So, feet in my face and ripped by a 4 year old girl... quality!
The taxi driver from the Penang bus station to Georgetown was similarly colourful, despite knowing little English. Thick framed black glasses and an electric blue jump suit made him look like an Asian Paulie from the Soprano's. The Malaysian Mafioso's car however wasn't what you'd expect from a crime family and had a huge crack down the middle of the windscreen, no rear view mirror and one wing mirror, so that was an interesting drive.
There are three main ethnicities here, dominated by the Chinese who own the majority of the businesses, then the Indians who usually work for the Chinese, and then the Malays who you usually see chilling out somewhere. All three groups in general are a pretty sound bunch.I was wandering around the evening I got here and asked a bloke how to get to Love Lane -the street where the majority of the hostels are- and whereas any Londoner would, at best, point you in the direction, the old boy went out of his way to walk me there. I felt pretty bad about dragging him 10 minutes out of his way but it seemed like he was pretty happy to come along for a walk and a chat.
Similiarly, we were waiting at a bus stop today and got chatting to a Malay girl who was training to be a nurse. She asked for our map and gave us directions to the best places to get Malay food from in Georgetown, asking us loads of questions about our respective countries. I find it hard to see any resentment of the west in the local people who are pretty devout Moslems (I've heard the call to prayer at 5 in the morning far too many times now).
It's also Ramadan here and I've got to give it to these lot for managing to get through a whole day without eating or drinking anything. It's seriously hot and humid and I don't see how someone can go a whole day here without drinking water. The trainee nurse was telling us that she saw a lot of people coming in with dehydration. Got to say, not a big seller for Islam there!
There's a good bunch of people in the dorm room here - a few from the UK and an Italian, and we had a good chat about careers and stuff back home, generally agreeing that its still a shite state of affairs. None of us really want to go back, especially with the job market as it is. I'm personally stuck in two minds: stay out in Thailand and teach English, or go home and apply for an MA. One of the girls is an English graduate and she's been trying to get a job in Journalism for a year with no luck so going home isn't not the most appetizing dish on the table for me right now!
Me and the Italian lad had a look around a few temples today. They're pretty amazing out here, better than anything I saw in Bali. The Chinese temple with the enormous statue outside was very impressive. I will put some pictures up of it when I get to Thailand. We also went to a much-hyped snake temple which turned out to be shite! Trapsed around the industrial arse-end of nowhere to find a tiny little temple which contained what must have been plastic snakes. I mean they looked pretty real ( I wasn't going to go poking them or anything) but we looked at the ten of them for a good while and they were not up for performing... so that was a bit of a let down.
And finally the food. The grub out here has been much hyped by the majority of the people I've met, and I've tried my fair share of food I wouldn't usually go for in the last couple of days. I'm not a fussy eater at all but a lot of the food out here is pretty different to what you'd expect back home. For example, Fish-head curry is an Indian delicacy out here, whilst the Chinese and Malays love to cook with fish sauce and sour flavorings which I'm not hugely keen on so I thought I'd give a few things a a go so here's the run down:
Murtabak- A square Indian food that's somewhere between an omlette and a naan bread thats made by filling some pastry with chicken onions and spices and covering it with beaten egg and turning. Really good!
Tom Yum- A sour Chinese Soup with some meat, veg and God-knows-what-else in it but it tastes pretty nice.
And Laksa- Every Malaysian I've spoken too raves about this sour Fishy broth. I've tried it and I'll tell you straight it tastes pretty much how I've explained it. Tried it... Not for me!
And that's pretty much it. Bit of a long one today, but I won't be writing another one until at least after the Full Moon Party. Hope to have a few stories for that one!
The journey from KL to Georgetown was similarly interesting. Got chatting to the Malaysian woman sat next to me, and then to a mother and daughter sat across the aisle, who were very nice, unlike the git behind me who decided to stick his feet pretty much at eye level if I were to turn my head to the right, which meant the trip wasn't the most fragrant I've ever experienced! Couple this with the Malay kid who only knew one English word: 'Sister,' and decided to call me it and giggle for the best part of the 5 hour journey. So, feet in my face and ripped by a 4 year old girl... quality!
The taxi driver from the Penang bus station to Georgetown was similarly colourful, despite knowing little English. Thick framed black glasses and an electric blue jump suit made him look like an Asian Paulie from the Soprano's. The Malaysian Mafioso's car however wasn't what you'd expect from a crime family and had a huge crack down the middle of the windscreen, no rear view mirror and one wing mirror, so that was an interesting drive.
There are three main ethnicities here, dominated by the Chinese who own the majority of the businesses, then the Indians who usually work for the Chinese, and then the Malays who you usually see chilling out somewhere. All three groups in general are a pretty sound bunch.I was wandering around the evening I got here and asked a bloke how to get to Love Lane -the street where the majority of the hostels are- and whereas any Londoner would, at best, point you in the direction, the old boy went out of his way to walk me there. I felt pretty bad about dragging him 10 minutes out of his way but it seemed like he was pretty happy to come along for a walk and a chat.
Similiarly, we were waiting at a bus stop today and got chatting to a Malay girl who was training to be a nurse. She asked for our map and gave us directions to the best places to get Malay food from in Georgetown, asking us loads of questions about our respective countries. I find it hard to see any resentment of the west in the local people who are pretty devout Moslems (I've heard the call to prayer at 5 in the morning far too many times now).
It's also Ramadan here and I've got to give it to these lot for managing to get through a whole day without eating or drinking anything. It's seriously hot and humid and I don't see how someone can go a whole day here without drinking water. The trainee nurse was telling us that she saw a lot of people coming in with dehydration. Got to say, not a big seller for Islam there!
There's a good bunch of people in the dorm room here - a few from the UK and an Italian, and we had a good chat about careers and stuff back home, generally agreeing that its still a shite state of affairs. None of us really want to go back, especially with the job market as it is. I'm personally stuck in two minds: stay out in Thailand and teach English, or go home and apply for an MA. One of the girls is an English graduate and she's been trying to get a job in Journalism for a year with no luck so going home isn't not the most appetizing dish on the table for me right now!
Me and the Italian lad had a look around a few temples today. They're pretty amazing out here, better than anything I saw in Bali. The Chinese temple with the enormous statue outside was very impressive. I will put some pictures up of it when I get to Thailand. We also went to a much-hyped snake temple which turned out to be shite! Trapsed around the industrial arse-end of nowhere to find a tiny little temple which contained what must have been plastic snakes. I mean they looked pretty real ( I wasn't going to go poking them or anything) but we looked at the ten of them for a good while and they were not up for performing... so that was a bit of a let down.
And finally the food. The grub out here has been much hyped by the majority of the people I've met, and I've tried my fair share of food I wouldn't usually go for in the last couple of days. I'm not a fussy eater at all but a lot of the food out here is pretty different to what you'd expect back home. For example, Fish-head curry is an Indian delicacy out here, whilst the Chinese and Malays love to cook with fish sauce and sour flavorings which I'm not hugely keen on so I thought I'd give a few things a a go so here's the run down:
Murtabak- A square Indian food that's somewhere between an omlette and a naan bread thats made by filling some pastry with chicken onions and spices and covering it with beaten egg and turning. Really good!
Tom Yum- A sour Chinese Soup with some meat, veg and God-knows-what-else in it but it tastes pretty nice.
And Laksa- Every Malaysian I've spoken too raves about this sour Fishy broth. I've tried it and I'll tell you straight it tastes pretty much how I've explained it. Tried it... Not for me!
And that's pretty much it. Bit of a long one today, but I won't be writing another one until at least after the Full Moon Party. Hope to have a few stories for that one!
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Kuala Lumpur, Malacca and back to Kuala Lumpur again
Hello again,
Yes, it's been a long time since my last post, about 5 minutes. But I need a bit of substance here or what are people going to read? Basic rule of economics my friends 'Build it and they will come' (hopefully).
Well Andy and myself got into KL about 6 nights ago and had a hefty first couple of days walking around the city. It's without doubt a city on the move in every sense! The modern skyscrapers that rise sporadically out of the skyline and the gargantuan shopping malls on every corner are a testament to the rapid economic development that the country hopes will make it a first world country by 2020.
However, such development leaves traffic congested with the exception of the scooters which nimbly filter through. It's also a very polluted city. The wellbeing of the environment is evidently not as important as prosperity here. One only has to buy something to see that everything comes served on a plastic bag, even a can of Coke! Its also unfortunate that Malaysia's logging of its rainforest has also left large swathes of deforested land which can be seen from motorways connecting the cities. Compared to Bali however, where everything was simply dumped beside the road Malaysians seem like eco-warriors! One can only hope that these countries can grow to support the infrastructure needed to take care of their rubbish and keep the landscape beautiful.
Anyway, I decided to go to Malacca whilst the Thai embassy sort out my visa, leaving Andy until we meet up again in Koh Phangan. Malacca is a beautiful town on the west coast of peninsular Malaysia, which due to its geographical position was a major trading town in south-east Asia, and was thus prized by the colonial powers. It was controlled firstly the Portuguese, then the Dutch and then finally the English, with each culture leaving their mark on the town largely in it architecture and food. Add to this blend a large Chinese community and a few Indonesians and you're left with some of the best cheap food I've come across while I've been away.
Whilst Malacca is only a couple of hours away from KL by bus it seems a million miles away in terms of pace of life. I was there for three days and paced through two novels. It's welcome relief after the hustle and bustle of KL! The hostel I stayed in, Jalan-Jalan guesthouse was great. Its owner Sam was a really friendly local guy and the people there were all social too which is one of the best things you can find in a hostel. On the first night (before I became a recluse and just read for two days) I met a couple of girls from Manchester and went out for dinner and a few beers with them resulting in us watching what was probably the worst live music ever performed within a licensed establishment. Bless the poor local girl on the stage but I'm sure some of the patrons thought she was a comedy act!
I'm back in KL now, ready to pick up my visa for Thailand and head to Penang. I went to a huge shopping mall earlier which must have had at least eight floors. Inside it had not one but two cinemas and ...wait for it ...a bloody theme park complete with a rollercoaster going through it! Aside from this though the mall was full to the brim with fakes and stuff one would expect to find at a Saturday market! Even its name 'Times Square' is a rip-off of the superior shopping mecca. I ended up watching The Expendables in one of the cinemas, where I'm sure the person who set the air-conditioning had confused it with his refrigerator back home.
Thats pretty much it for now. Like I say I'm off to Penang tomorrow or the day after so I should have another update for you all in a few days .
Thanks for reading.
Yes, it's been a long time since my last post, about 5 minutes. But I need a bit of substance here or what are people going to read? Basic rule of economics my friends 'Build it and they will come' (hopefully).
Well Andy and myself got into KL about 6 nights ago and had a hefty first couple of days walking around the city. It's without doubt a city on the move in every sense! The modern skyscrapers that rise sporadically out of the skyline and the gargantuan shopping malls on every corner are a testament to the rapid economic development that the country hopes will make it a first world country by 2020.
However, such development leaves traffic congested with the exception of the scooters which nimbly filter through. It's also a very polluted city. The wellbeing of the environment is evidently not as important as prosperity here. One only has to buy something to see that everything comes served on a plastic bag, even a can of Coke! Its also unfortunate that Malaysia's logging of its rainforest has also left large swathes of deforested land which can be seen from motorways connecting the cities. Compared to Bali however, where everything was simply dumped beside the road Malaysians seem like eco-warriors! One can only hope that these countries can grow to support the infrastructure needed to take care of their rubbish and keep the landscape beautiful.
Anyway, I decided to go to Malacca whilst the Thai embassy sort out my visa, leaving Andy until we meet up again in Koh Phangan. Malacca is a beautiful town on the west coast of peninsular Malaysia, which due to its geographical position was a major trading town in south-east Asia, and was thus prized by the colonial powers. It was controlled firstly the Portuguese, then the Dutch and then finally the English, with each culture leaving their mark on the town largely in it architecture and food. Add to this blend a large Chinese community and a few Indonesians and you're left with some of the best cheap food I've come across while I've been away.
Whilst Malacca is only a couple of hours away from KL by bus it seems a million miles away in terms of pace of life. I was there for three days and paced through two novels. It's welcome relief after the hustle and bustle of KL! The hostel I stayed in, Jalan-Jalan guesthouse was great. Its owner Sam was a really friendly local guy and the people there were all social too which is one of the best things you can find in a hostel. On the first night (before I became a recluse and just read for two days) I met a couple of girls from Manchester and went out for dinner and a few beers with them resulting in us watching what was probably the worst live music ever performed within a licensed establishment. Bless the poor local girl on the stage but I'm sure some of the patrons thought she was a comedy act!
I'm back in KL now, ready to pick up my visa for Thailand and head to Penang. I went to a huge shopping mall earlier which must have had at least eight floors. Inside it had not one but two cinemas and ...wait for it ...a bloody theme park complete with a rollercoaster going through it! Aside from this though the mall was full to the brim with fakes and stuff one would expect to find at a Saturday market! Even its name 'Times Square' is a rip-off of the superior shopping mecca. I ended up watching The Expendables in one of the cinemas, where I'm sure the person who set the air-conditioning had confused it with his refrigerator back home.
Thats pretty much it for now. Like I say I'm off to Penang tomorrow or the day after so I should have another update for you all in a few days .
Thanks for reading.
Introduction
Hello, and welcome to my new blog!
I say new...its actually my first ever. I tried to keep a diary when Andy and I started travelling but packed it in when I realised that it had no audience. I wasn't every going to read it again, I'm just not that sentimental! My enthusiasm waned at some point in Australia when everything became half-arsed bullet points, generally giving the destination a score out of ten. For example:
Surfer's Paradise overall - 6/10
Hostel - 7/10
Town - 3/10
Beach - 5/10
Nightlife - 7/10
What I could have said is
The original was never going to be a bestseller. I accepted that it wasn't meant to be. This is my second attempt, an attempt intended to have an audience. I would love it if anyone reading can ask me questions as well as this is intended to be interactive and your involvement will in turn make me feel like this blog has a purpose and is not just another person rambling on endlessly into the void of cyberspace!
A quick bit about me before I begin for those who have stumbled upon this randomly. And yes, that is me wrestling Jaws above if you're wondering. My full name is Daniel King but I much prefer Dan. I'm from the outer reaches of suburban London from a place called Barnet, most famous for a historical battle and a second division football team. Typical suburbia!
I was travelling with my mate Andy, one of my housemates from Reading Uni. However a lack of funds has sent him packing and left me with a lot more spare time on my hands, hence the new blog. I studied English at uni and have as yet written very little of any quality, which is appalling considering I like every other English graduate, would like to write a novel one day!
So here goes....
I say new...its actually my first ever. I tried to keep a diary when Andy and I started travelling but packed it in when I realised that it had no audience. I wasn't every going to read it again, I'm just not that sentimental! My enthusiasm waned at some point in Australia when everything became half-arsed bullet points, generally giving the destination a score out of ten. For example:
Surfer's Paradise overall - 6/10
Hostel - 7/10
Town - 3/10
Beach - 5/10
Nightlife - 7/10
What I could have said is
'Surfer's is an example of what is wrong with cheap party destinations. It is a town populated by intoxicated holidaymakers all trying their luck, if not with the opposite sex then in the casino. It's Australia's answer to a typical holiday in Tenerife. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that in my view, I've been to Tenerife and had a great time! However, such destinations as these lack a soul. They are shallow places where people come for a week or two to drink themselves silly and do the things they are too shy to do when back home sober. Any tea-totallers are warned away...You will leave very unhappy!'
The original was never going to be a bestseller. I accepted that it wasn't meant to be. This is my second attempt, an attempt intended to have an audience. I would love it if anyone reading can ask me questions as well as this is intended to be interactive and your involvement will in turn make me feel like this blog has a purpose and is not just another person rambling on endlessly into the void of cyberspace!
A quick bit about me before I begin for those who have stumbled upon this randomly. And yes, that is me wrestling Jaws above if you're wondering. My full name is Daniel King but I much prefer Dan. I'm from the outer reaches of suburban London from a place called Barnet, most famous for a historical battle and a second division football team. Typical suburbia!
I was travelling with my mate Andy, one of my housemates from Reading Uni. However a lack of funds has sent him packing and left me with a lot more spare time on my hands, hence the new blog. I studied English at uni and have as yet written very little of any quality, which is appalling considering I like every other English graduate, would like to write a novel one day!
So here goes....
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