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
Sunday, August 29, 2010
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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