Perhentian Paradise

After having enough of a few days of rainy weather in Georgetown, I decided to try my luck on the eastern side of the Malaysian peninsula and took the bus over to The Perhentian Islands. I thought I would probably stay 3 or 4 days enjoying the beach before heading on to the jungle of the Taman Negara National Park.

I did enjoy lovely Long Beach for about 4 days, but then the rest of my plans were thwarted in a very good way as I decided to pass my Open Water diving certification, in the end staying over two more weeks on Perhentian Kecil, the small island of the Perhentians. I really loved it there, started making new friends and discovering scuba diving is probably the best highlight of my whole trip. I fell in love with diving straight away, only wondering why I hadn't tried it before (well, I do know about the two last years, my ears were slightly damaged after a small flight over the Andes so I couldn't really be under water. I realised they were all fine by now after some snorkeling, so I decided it was time for scuba).

I'm still not even certain what I like the most about diving; fish have never been a particular passion of mine, though of course I started learning to recognise the most obvious usual suspects after a few dives (angel fish, butterfly fish, barracudas, puffer fish, clown fish, anemone fish, trigger fish, parrot fish, etc).

I think I really the sensations of being underwater, discovering a whole new world where we're not naturally geared up to be wandering around as human beings, I enjoyed learning new things about diving safety procedures and equipment, I appreciate the calm silence interrupted by the weird quality of underwater sounds, I love the freedom of movement as well as learning to use my body in new ways (Such as using my lungs and breathing to manage buoyancy and which level I stay at under water, or sparing my arm and leg movements to save air). It is magical in many ways and I definitely want to keep diving in the future.

I ended up also passing my Advanced Open Water certification, in which I tried out different types of dives which was a lot of fun: a deep dive where we went down to 29m depth; a navigation dive practicing with the compass underwater; a search & recovery dive learning basic techniques to look for and recover lost objects under water; a wreck dive spotting and writing down points of hazard and interest on the wreck of a fairly large cargo ship; and finally a night dive which was weird, eerie and wonderful.

Eating Indian in Georgetown

After a whole day in sweltering sun begging bewildered Malaysian car drivers to take us just a couple of kilometres to the next junction (and them invariably wanting to drive us to a bus station), we finally covered the 150km or so from the jetty landing of Kuala Perlis to George Town in Penang.

Hitch hiking that day was a lot of fun, it was great to have many random conversations with Malaysian people about their country and culture. For some reason several of the people who picked us up were university professors, so very well spoken in English. I explained to them I was hitch hiking to find out more about Malaysian people and for the fun of the experience (that made no sense to them at all).

We checked in a cheap guesthouse which seemed to be an old travellers hangout, for some reason the average age seemed over 50. Apparently the younger backpacker crowds stayed on newly renovated fancy chic hostels further down the street.

I hadn't mentioned Jean-Roch doesn't drink so I thought it would be good for me to start my month no drinking while hanging out with him (and alcohol is pretty expensive in Malaysia, beer in particular).

I like Georgetown, it was a nice place to relax after the travel rush in Thailand, and there is Little India. We found ourselves our little Indian canteen and proceeded to eat there at least once or twice a day. Cheap and delicious, I was surprised how much I don't get bored of Indian food!

We met Andrea and Franzi again, two German girls on holidays we had met in Langkawi. We had a fantastic evening visiting a few 5 star hotels, crashing a Chinese wedding, and singing cheesy karaoke songs on the revolving top floor restaurant with nice views of the city.

The weather wasn't that great, I was glad to rest for a few days, walk around town, read and eat Indian food. Then it felt like time to move on. We did have one lovely morning before I left though and walked over to the Chinese Clan Jetties, which had great views of the bay and the city.

Duty free Langkawi

On the 9th May 2011, I spent the day travelling with a couple of buses from Ko Lanta South to Satun via Trang. I spent the night in Satun (which I wouldn't particularly recommend doing unless you have to, though the night market is pretty good) and caught the first ferry to the duty free island of Langkawi in Malaysia the following morning.

Langkawi is a pretty large island (it means 'strong eagle' in Malay, the eagle is the island symbol) on the Adaman Sea, pretty developed, though with several protected areas of nature as well.

I stayed at the Gecko Guesthouse on Pantai Cenang, probably one of the cheapest options for backpackers and was glad to like the atmosphere immediately as well as the other people staying there.

The beach seemed nice enough, though again pretty developed: resorts, paragliding, water scooters, banana boats, etc.

Unfortunately the weather started turning bad just after I arrived, skies clouding over around noon and raining soon afterwards. I tried cycling to the cable car one day with Crystal, a girl I met at the guesthouse, we almost got there but it was really overcast, couldn't see the top of the hill anymore and it started raining heavily so we gave up and hitched a ride back to Cenang beach.

On the plus side, we had a good party the night before. It was Bobby's birthday, one of the staff from the guesthouse, so we partied at the guesthouse first, then at the Babylon Beach bar, and ended at the only bar club sort of place, The Sumba. A fun night.

I then met Jean-Roch, a cool French traveler who usually hitch-hikes everywhere. He was heading to Georgetown, Penang in the morning. Given the weather was bad and he sold me the fun of hitch hiking, I joined him for the ride.

South Thailand

I spent most of a lovely day in the train heading South to Surat Thani, watching the world go by out of the window. I had thought the train line would get extremely close to the shore according to the map and I was glad to see I was right, rewarded with views of the Gulf of Thailand rolling a couple of hundred yards away at some point during the journey.

I moved on straight to Krabi afterwards, nice little town. Enough travellers to meet people around a meal at the night market, but not so crowded with tourists. I spent the following day at Ralay Beach, and booked to go on a sea kayaking tour the day after - both were really lovely, and the sea kayaking was good exercise as well. Not really that much to add, it was all pretty fast, no particular encounters, more nice people travelling and sharing opinions about where they've been and where to go next...

After Krabi, I decided to head to Ko Lanta on the recommendations of several people I met along the way as well as my brother Morgan and my friend Susie. I stayed on Long Beach for the first night and had a nice sunset with views of Ko Phi Phi in the distance. Aside from that Ko Lanta was extremely quiet, too much so for me traveling on my own. I did meet a few people after I moved to Khlong Khong beach the following day and had a nice day motorcycling around the island, but then it was time to start making my way to the Malaysian border.

Briefly in Bangkok

I haven't seen The Hangover II yet, though I'll wager that my 2 days in Bangkok were pretty different: a couple of beers at most, no ping-pong shows, no seedy bars or brothels, no Sikh fortune tellers, walked down Khao San Rd just once.

I spent most of the day travelling from Ayutthaya (80km away, don't ask) and was going to meet Rene, a guy from Cameroon I could couchsurf with, a contact I got via Brian in Khon Kaen.

Very nice guy, he lived fairly close to Sukhumvit and told me of a couple of crazy stories in which he literally picked crying tourists off the street after a party night where they'd lost everything, being drugged and robbed around the trendy bars and clubs of the area.

So we went to the cinema instead, saw Thor. Pretty good in a bad and cheesy way, or something like that. The weirdest part was to stand up during the 2 min film to the glory of the king of Thailand before the movie.

Being far from the main tourist sights, I decided to move closer the following morning. Took the river bus, found a cheap hostel a couple of streets away from Khao San, walked around ChinaTown, Little India, to the train station to buy my onward ticket and walked back, visited Wat Pho and the big (really big!) laying Buddha statue before it closed for the day. I found a nice little quiet bar playing live jazz for the evening which was perfect.

I visited the Grand Palace the following morning, really loved the murals in the temple, that's really what I spent most time looking at. The Palace itself looks nice, though I'm pretty sure it served as inspiration for Disneyland - I think the entrance of Disneyland Paris looks extremely similar.

I then walked over to the Vinmanmek mansion, I think that was my favourite sight, gorgeous all wooden mansion. No photos allowed as well, so I really paid attention and wanted to remember as much as I could.

Then on the way back to the hostel, I was pulling my iPod Touch out of my pocket to check the time, someone bumped into me at the same time. The iPod fell to the ground in slo mo. Screen shattered.

That was Bangkok.

I left early to get my train to Surat Thani the following morning.

Rushing through Thailand

After 6 weeks spent in Laos, taking my time, enjoying the relaxed Lao way of life as well as having a fantastic time with my baby niece, my brother and his wife, it was high time to move on to Thailand, just like it's high time to post on this blog. I left on Wednesday 27th April 2011.

I thought I would get a 30 day visa at the border, but it turned out to be only 15 days so I was already changing travel plans having barely left Vientiane. I cut out a few places I thought I would visit and essentially decided to rush it down South to the Malaysian border.

I stopped in Khon Kaen and met Brian there, a couchsurfing host who showed me around town. It's a nice relaxed university city with no tourists whatsoever, and for me a gentle re-introduction to modern Asian cities (7/11, fast food joints, road traffic, etc) after 6 weeks in Laos.

A train the following morning took me to Ayutthaya, the ancient capital of Siam that had been sacked by the Burmese.

I met several interesting people there, including two funky French truck drivers there who were completely in love with Thailand, it was their 4th time in the country and they told me lots about the history of the country and about Thai culture. They also told me about diving in the Similan Islands.

I also met a Dutch surreal artist on his way back from painting a mural in a bar; he has like 9 cats and loves them so much he created cat towers for them he then also sold as useful art, I guess. I saw him again randomly in Bangkok a few days later. I have to find the links to his portfolio website.

There was also super-connector Josh, a cool Ozzie guy who made a point of introducing himself to and then inviting every person in the bar in order to make one big table of happy travellers.

And to finish, the reason we were all there was for Mr Noi, blues rock singer and guitar player extraordinaire. An awesome voice.

Sure, I also cycled around some of the main ruins around Ayutthaya, which was nice but certainly not as interesting as the people I met there.

Laos - Simply beautiful

Out of sheer laziness, I'm titling this blog post using the line from the Lao Tourism Board, I've been seeing it used on quite a few posters. I also agree with the statement / copy line, so after all why not?

I've been in Laos for close to a month now, including two weeks in Vientiane with my brother Morgan. I had planned to update the blog with a post ideas I've jotted down along the way while I have an internet access in Vientiane but have been too busy playing with my baby niece, cycling around and reading for that (plus the connection is pretty slow).

I've been having an amazing time out here so far, the country is gorgeous, it has been hot, mostly very sunny and people are generally pretty nice. It's the time of year when the Lao have a lot of parties and weddings prior to Pimai, the Lao New Year so I've also been invited to a few random parties in villages and on Don Det, one of the 4,000 Islands where I stayed for a week.

From Savannakhet I headed over to Pakse and Champasak, a lovely small town on the Mekong. It's quite touristy in a low key fashion and the main thing to go visit are the pre-Angkorian ruins of Vat Phou, which I went cycling to with some Spanish people who arrived at the same time as I did.

Tomorrow we are heading North of Laos, to Luang Prabang and then hopefully by boat to Niong Khiaw and Muang Ngoi.

The Mekong viewed from the guesthouse terrace in Champasak

The ruins of Vat Phou

I was invited for my first shot of Lao Lao (the local rice alcohol) by this fine gentleman. Language barriers made for limited conversation, we coped by drinking shots, sharing cigarettes, smiling, laughing and basic sign language

Beautiful views of the 4,000 Islands from my hammock

My little niece Anahi eating some yogurt - and using it as a hair conditioner at the same time ;)

Slow down, it's Laos

I'm very glad of my choice to move on to Laos, I arrived in Savannakhet on Sunday evening after a fairly long bus ride from Hue in Vietnam. As soon as we passed the Vietnamese border, the sky started clearing, the temperature rising, and the roads cleared as well - there are just much fewer people in Laos.

I loved it straight away. I got to a nice guesthouse recommended in the guide, joined by Tatsuro, a cool Japanese guy at the beginning of a 2 year round the world trip. The guesthouse is pretty close to the Mekong so we just had time to drop our bags and go enjoy the sunset with a BeerLao with the locals at one the food & drink stalls set up there in the evenings. Funny to think I had just crossed the whole width of both Vietnam and Laos in a day to find myself right across the river from Thailand.

I like Savannakhet, there isn't really much to do but I guess that's just what I wanted after being on the move all the time since I left Kunming. Yesterday was full sun and over 35 degrees - perfect to just walk around in the sun and have a nap in the afternoon, followed by beer & sunset time.

I rented a motorbike today to go out for a wander in the countryside, saw the closeby Budddhist stupa of That Ing Hang which apparently is an important pilgrimage site in February when thousands of people visit. I also went to a few villages out on dirt tracks, as well as a couple of lakes, there to irrigate the rice paddies in the dry season such as now. Lovely weather, a few clouds showed up so it was hot buy I didn't get burned in the sun.

Considering I can't drive (don't have my license) and hadn't been on a scooter in about 15 years this was pretty adventurous for me and glad I did it. That said, going on a loop biking for several days on dirt tracks feels slightly out of reach just now - I'll probably need some more practice. Next time I think I might just go back to normal cycling, it's easier to enjoy the scenery like that as well.

I rounded the day off with a traditional Lao massage. Lots of stretching and pressure points - good stuff. I'm now back at the iLounge Cafe for a drink and dinner. Good company, cold drinks, good Thai & Lao food and free wifi!

Tomorrow I'll be moving South to Pakse, then on to Champasak to see the Pre-Angkorian ruins of Wat Phou. After that I'll be heading to Si Phan Don, or 4,000 Islands, where the Mekong stretches out to a width of about 14km before Cambodia.

Not sure I'll get a lot of Internet access down there, most places don't have electricity apparently. A few days on a hammock watching the Mekong flow by sounds great though!

Good bye Vietnam

I have spent just about 10 days in Vietnam, travelled from the very far North where I arrived in Lao Cai to where I am now in Hue, about half way through the country. I've certainly had good times but unfortunately no sun, since I arrived I've been in or under a huge grey mass of clouds and haze, which I find makes the whole experience less enjoyable. Altogether I'm not enjoying the country that much, I have been changing my plans almost every day since I got here, chasing sunnier / warmer climes as well as trying to escape from very busy and ultra touristy areas, with all the fairly aggressive touts and scammers that come with them.

I have probably covered 1,000 km in Vietnam so far and the only grace weather-wise was a clearing of clouds for some sun and blue skies a couple of hours this morning. Anyways, I decided to give up on Vietnam and move on to Laos tomorrow morning. I am taking a bus early in the morning for Savannakhet.

I have some nice photos, met some cool people to chat with as well as spend a day or evening with, so it was all good but I also won't be missing Vietnam very much, nor am I in a massive hurry to come back. I guess it's a spoiled traveler's issue, but I much prefer China - I'd recommend going to Szechuan or Yunnan over Vietnam any day.

I certainly don't want to just sound sour, so here are a few highlights of my time here, with a few photos.

Now you see what I mean when I said Sa Pa was in the clouds and had bad visibility.

I wasn't sure I liked Hanoi much at first though As I met a few people who lived there on the 2nd day, I started to warm up to the busy atmosphere. I think it would be a great city to live in, and it was certainly nice to walk around for a couple of days. I'd say the city has a lot of charm, though not necessarily many beautiful sights for a tourist. I didn't find the food amazing either, good but not great. Maybe I didn't go to the right places, but you may know I can also be a condescending snob about that (well that and probably some other things come to think of it ;).

I decided to give Halong Bay a miss. They closed the site to most tourists the day before for fog reasons and most of the people I talked to who had just come back from it said it was not worth it given the bad weather. It was also a considerable expense for my budget, I decided to keep that money for some other attraction another day.

Busy traffic in the Old Quarter of Hanoi

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum

I played around with reflections in the photos

I met some cool people to have dinner  and drinks with, including Ralph, World Traveller - his business card says so.

I went to Ninh Binh instead, with Tam Coc close by and many karstic rock formations considered to be an inland Halong Bay (actually these sort of rocks cover most of the country a I saw during my train ride later on). I spent a nice day cycling around with a Danish chef who showed up - which was good because I think I might've gotten bored by myself and he is a cool guy. I was going to go to Cuc Phuong National Park but the weather still wasn't great so I headed south on the train the following day.

Nice views of the rock formations, though limited by weather.

The long train ride was one of the highlights of Vietnam for me, I enjoyed just watching rice paddies, banana trees, rock formations and occasional trees go by while listening to music and reading for 8 hours.

It doesn't look amazing but it was a bit difficult to take good photos on the train. And it didn't actually look that great either. I enjoyed the train ride nonetheless and had an awesome book to read. 

After a short and random stop in Dong Hoi for a night, I decided on a whim to stop earlier than planned on the train, in Hue rather than Danang and Hoi An as I originally planned. I might have wasted about $5 changing train tickets and destinations, so not a huge deal.

Still cloudy weather yesterday in Hue, I spent a nice afternoon with some English people walking around the Perfume river and the remains of the old imperial palace. Had nice food for lunch, local sort of roll'em yourself spring rolls with a good peanut sauce.

In the old Imperial palace of Hue.

I'm catching up on some writing today, here and i wrote two letters, so that's four letters in Vietnam - still enjoying writing them very much. I think that'll be it for now, folks!

10 days on the road

As I wrote it in a letter to someone yesterday (I'm enjoying this letter writing by the way, 6 sent so far ;), I've only really been on the road for 10 days (not counting Hong Kong) and it already feels like a month at least. I'm not even necessarily doing that much; it's a lot of new experiences, thoughts and conversations in a short amount of time - presumably as the environment is so different I'm looking at everything differently as well. In any case, whatever you want to call it, it's certainly one of things I enjoy most about traveling. If you haven't done that in a while, I recommend you book a ticket for some strange and new destination, try it out. I"m always surprised at how much changing the context / environment can open my mind to new thoughts, ideas and observations. It's not providing any particular answers to the meaning of life - as far as I can gather it's still 42 - but it's a pleasure nonetheless.

I'm having a really good time and extremely happy with the choices I've made for this year to come and explore the region around here. Given I can't easily access Facebook to upload photos, I'll sum up the trip so far with a few choice pics here.

I took a train from Hong Kong to Guangzhou on Thursday 24th Feb, hoping to catch another one directly to Kunming. I hwaited a few hours there. When people told me the station at Guangzhou is very busy they weren't kidding.

After a 26h train ride (on a hard seat, they only had those tickets left) I arrived in Kunming and spent a lovely few days there. I just walked around town, and also visited Qiongzhu Si, the Bamboo Temple.

I met some great people in Kunming and had some excellent food. Here, we are in a Dai restaurant, they are a minority people from Xishuangbanna, in Southern Yunnan - delicious spicy food. Next to me on the pic is Mike, a cool Canadian dude who has been cycling from home all the way to China across Europe and central Asia.

After a few days, it was time to head over  to Vietnam as I only managed to get a 10 day visa for China this time, I stopped first in Tonghai and visited the lovely mountain park of Xiu Shan, so many gorgeous flowering bonsai, all blooming.

I don't know why, but I can't seem to add any more photos to this blog post. Anyways, after Tonghai, I stopped in Jianshui the following day which has a large part of the old town left and I visited the Zhu Clan['s house and gardens, a nice place to while away the afternoon and write a letter. Then I took another bus to Vietnam and ended in Sa Pa on Thursday evening. I've been in a cloud pretty much since then. It's supposed to be amazing views of the valley all sculpted in rice paddy terraces, but unfortunately there is nothing to see right now. I met some nice people anyways and walked around a village in the mist yesterday. I'm cutting my stay here slightly short and heading down to Hanoi this evening given it's just cold and damp all the time. Maybe some other time.

I'm splitting the way I share my travels in a few different ways and enjoying it, of course on this blog, then you may have heard some of my audio snippets via Facebook or Twitter thanks to Audioboo, and as I said above, I've started writing letters as well.