They must have heard I was coming, cuz they threw me a party!

My first night in Thailand just happened to coincide with their annual Loi Krathong festival. The tradition is to make or in my case, to purchase a boat made from banana leaves, flowers, incense, candles - add a lock of hair or some finger nail clippings (no idea why...) and then float it down the river. If it goes down stream it's supposed to bring good luck and renewed fortunes for the coming year, upstream is obviously bad luck! Along with the festival was a massive street fair with stalls selling anything from furniture to fried bugs.

I suppose I should back up a little bit... I took a bus from Melaka back to Penang in one long boring day. The intent was to spend an extra day in Penang and visit the Bat cave temple and a couple of other things I didn't have time to see the first time around. However, it was the start of school holidays and the hostel I'd booked was only available for one night - rather than breaking up the day and moving across the city, I just decided to head to Langkawi - an island north of Penang. The highlight of Langkawi  was a day tooling around the island on a scooter. There are a couple of geo parks, one has a gondola to the top of a mountain with beautiful views.  Unfortunately, the view for me was uni-directional, the other half was socked in. predictably, I got a bit wet on the way back to the hostel on the scooter.

After just 3 nights on Langkawi I was feeling a bit anxious to get to Thailand. It was clear that the trip to Krabi had a number of connections so I opted to buy a package for 110 ringgit (about 27usd).  The hostel manager took me in his vehicle to the ferry terminal, bought me a ferry ticket and handed me a brown stapled envelope with the name of a guy I was to ask for when the boat landed in Satun. I asked him if there was cash in the envelope and he said he didn't know what was in it - haha. When I got off the boat, there were the usual hucksters "where you go?" A sleazy looking guy (straight from a mexican boarder town I swear - gold tooth and all) came up and, after looking at my envelope, claimed he was "the guy" and I was to wait.  After negotiating with and gathering up several of my fellow travelers, we were all loaded into the back of an old pickup truck and the driver was given my envelope (re-stapled) and extensive instructions. A 10 minute ride to a bit of a bus station followed. The pickup truck driver talked to the guys at the bus place and they wrote me a ticket to Trang. I got a bit upset arguing that I'd paid to go to Krabi (Trang is about half way of a 4 hour journey). After a bit of back and forth in broken English they managed to impart that the driver of the van to Trang would buy my ticket to Krabi. Not really knowing what else to do, I trusted it. About 15 mins into the 2 hour ride to Trang, the van driver pulled up next to a bus at a stop light, they rolled down windows and chatted then pulled over to the side of the road and I was summarily moved from the nice new air conditioned van to perhaps the oldest running bus I've ever seen and was told he would take me to Krabi. Which he did. Once at the Krabi bus station, another pickup truck ride (which I've since learned are called Songthaew) got me within 2 blocks of my hostel. Someone had told me awhile back that stuff like this happens in SE Asia but this was the first time I'd seen it in action. Multiple connections involving boats, taxi's, vans, buses and who knows what and somehow it all just works.

It's late and I'm tired so adventures in Krabi will have to wait. I'll try to add to this tomorrow.

Nov 30, 2015

Railay is an area on the mainland that is only accessible by boat and thus feels like an island. Stark limestone cliffs make it a climbers paradise. Getting there involved walking down to the river, forking over 150 baht and waiting for 9 other people to have the same inclination. Then it's maybe a 20-30 minute ride on a banana boat to a uniquely beautiful place. I spent a few hours exploring the beaches and trudging through the jungle until the storm clouds started rolling in. By the time I'd made arrangements to return, all hell broke loose and in the time it took to get from the beach down the pier to the boat I was completely drenched and a bit worried about being on the water in a little boat in such a vicious storm. On the way back I just thought if I died out there, it would be at the end of a perfect day, my life was complete.

The following day I figured out how to get a songthaew to the Tiger Paw temple. I had seen the giant Buddha on the trip into town and wondered if there was a way to get up to it. There was, by way of 1260 steps. With the heat and humidity, I didn't see anyone who didn't struggle with the climb. But man what a view from the top! The land formations that made Railey so beautiful were just as stunning from a distance. So unique.

A 12 hour bus ride has landed me in Bangkok. I really wanted to take the train from Surat Thani (a 3 hour bus ride from Krabi) but not knowing if I could get anything other than an over night 3rd class seat and not really wanting to stay overnight in Surat Thani, I wimped out and just took the bus. Overnighters seem like a waste of a good opportunity to see the country. 

Going backwards

At this pace I'll be in New Zealand by Christmas! Just kidding of course... 

After so much effort to send off the power of attorney, I was hesitant to leave Kuala Lumpur until Erik actually receives it. Also didn't want to stay in KL. So, I backtracked a bit and am spending a few days in Malacca, or Melaka in Malaysian. It is an old trading port with a long history. It has been fought over by the Portuguese, Dutch and of course the English dating back to the early 1500s.

A Famosa was a fort built by the Portuguese in 1512. Most of it was destroyed by the British in the 1800's but the gate remains:

There's the skeleton of an old church on the hill behind this gate with several massive headstones of the people who are buried beneath it. I'm sure for Europeans stuff dating back to the 1500s is no big deal, but I think it's ever so cool.

The Church - you can see the tombstones inside to the left

Since Melaka is only 2 hours from KL, it seems to be a popular holiday spot for many Malaysians. There are what they call Trishaws all over the place - they are bicycle driven rickshaws decked out with extraordinary amounts of fluff in themes like Hello Kitty or Frozen. Some of them even have sound systems pounding out sappy love songs.

 More fort remains overlooking the river:

Like a bad penny (I keep turning up)

Amazingly I am back in my least favorite place - Kuala Lumpur round 3. The good news is, the land I had in South Park has sold! The title company wasn't happy with the power of attorney I'd executed for Erik before leaving the States so I had to find a US Embassy to notarize a new one. I wouldn't recommend it btw, at $50 usd per signature it's the most expensive notary ever. So I will find an overnight shipper today and leave this pit tomorrow, not sure just yet to where... maybe back to Penang?

Penang was lovely as expected. Carol (from Gili Air fame) met me for a couple of days there - we hired a scooter and had a great day touring the island and hiking in the national park. We parked the scooter and went for food, leaving the helmets with the bike as everyone else seems to do. When we returned, one helmet was missing. Luckily, a local took pity on us and got us a new one for "local" prices - 30 ringit or $7.50 usd. Could've been worse.
  

Cameron Highlands

Spent 4 nights in Tanah Rata - the main city in the Cameron Highlands area of Malaysia. CH is somewhere around 6 or 8k feet above sea level and is much cooler - it was a welcome relief from the heat and a beautiful area. There are some muddy trekking trails in the area so I spent a couple of days back in my element :)   Apparently the climate is good for growing tea, the area tea plantations were quite lovely and kind of surreal - they look like a funky carpet or something laying on the hillsides.

Beautiful Cameron Highlands

I'm currently in Penang (arrived late yesterday) and am finding it quite interesting and full of character. Much of today was chewed up by a long walk to the Thai embassy in round 2 of an attempt to obtain a 60 day visa, I have to go back tomorrow to pick it up - hopefully all is well.

Penang is known for it's food and I have found some delicious food here - but then it's been pretty amazing all along since leaving Australia. I'm staying in the Georgetown area which is a world heritage site and clearly has a lot of history (something I'm looking forward to learning about). There is a National Park here (Penang is an island) and lots of other interesting looking things to explore in the area so I think I'll be spending several days here before moving on to perhaps Langkawi? or another island in the area.

This meal looks like it would eat you back!

Indonesia = Rest Up!

Well quite far behind on the ole blog once again. The truth is, I've really not done much in Indonesia. It has mostly been a battle with illness and the accompanying exhaustion but I will attempt to summarize the highlights.

As mentioned in the last post, I hired a scooter in Ubud and had a great day just exploring around. The hostel that rented it to me required a 50,000 idr deposit for a towel but thought nothing of handing over the keys to a scooter to anyone willing to cough up 50,000 idr for the day. By the end of the day, I was kind of wishing I had just tried to rent a scooter in Kuta for 10 or 12 days and circumnavigated the island.

Bali is defined by their temples. They have a unique mix of Hindu and older island religion. As well as participating in the local temple, everyone has a temple in their house. They pray and make offerings multiple times a day. I found a one of the temples I'd set out for that day - nicknamed the water temple for it's beautiful water features.

There was a second temple I'd been told about that I never found due to getting sucked into a tourist vortex. I had turned down a narrow dirt road, following google maps to where the temple should be, when a guy came up on a scooter, stopped me and said I didn't want to go down there, that it was better to get to the temple I was looking for by the "main" road (I never figured out what that was). He then told me he was on his way to pick his kids up from school and he would show me to a coffee plantation that offered tours for free. So I agreed to follow him. He was on me like white on rice after that. After a 15 min scooter ride, we went in to a lame staged area where an old lady was roasting a few coffee beans over an open fire. I was then seated and presented with 8 or 10 cups of different coffee's and tea's. I asked my new found friend about picking up his kids and he gave me some vague mumble about his brother would do it., So I asked him what he got out of bringing me to the plantation and he told me he got a cut of whatever I spent there. It was clear to me then that I wasn't getting out of there without making a donation of some sort. Long story short, I gave them 50,000 idr for a cup of rat poo coffee (kopi luwak on wikipedia if you're curious about this specialty coffee - and no, I didn't care for it...) and bolted. Later that same night, I went to the fire dance (or Kecak - named for the percussion sounds the roughly 100 extras made throughout the hour long event) at the temple up the road from the hostel. A small village of about 700 put on a production involving over 100 people - I thoroughly enjoyed it.

After Ubud, I took a shuttle north to Lovina. I was sick much of the 5 days in Lovina and spent a lot of time lazing around. I did hire a scooter there and took it into the mountains to a waterfall one day. I screwed up and left the keys in the scooter while I hiked up to the waterfall. There was a 10,000 entrance fee to go to the waterfall that I'm sure only applied to those with a tourist face. When I got back, a creepy guy had my keys and tried to extort an additional 10,000 from me to get them back. I held my ground and he eventually relented. It could've been much worse and I was hyper vigilant with the keys after that.     

After Lovina came the Gili Islands a series of 3 small islands off the coast of Lombok (the large island east of Bali). Gili Trawangan (or Gili T) is the most built up and has a reputation as a party place, Gili Meno is quiet and sparsely populated and Gili Air (meaning water in Indonesian) is somewhere in between the two. An all day trek landed me on Gili Air where I spent 4 fun days with instant hostel friends Carol, Steven and a few others. The highlight of the time there was an all day snorkeling trip around the islands which was fantastic - loads of sea turtles and colorful reef fish. Steven had found a hostel on Gili Meno that sometimes offered free accommodation for volunteer work and I decided to go along and spend my last few days on the sleepy little island. The hostel already had it's limit of 4 volunteers and Steven and I paid 80,000 idr to sleep on the sunrise platform - by the water, under the stars (there were hammocks we could move to underneath if it rained). The night was damp and cold but a great experience. The next day I decided to find proper accommodation and moved to a nice private hut that had air conditioning! The wifi was a lie, but for about $12 usd a night with a lovely tomato and cheese omelet breakfast included, the air conditioned room was a much welcomed luxury and I didn't have it in me to complain.  5 nights there and I felt more rested than I have in several weeks. As it turned out, it was lucky the first hostel had no volunteer spots available, Indonesian Immigration showed up later on the day I left and hauled away the 4 volunteers that were there. A tourist visa plainly states that no work is to be done here - volunteer or paid. It couldn't have been a pleasant way to leave the country. Though I had my doubts I would've opted for the work, over paying 6 bucks to do nothing ;) Steven would've been caught up in it had there been a spot available.

The day long journey back to Bali happened yesterday. One more night in Kuta and an early morning flight back to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow.  

Whew! Ubud!

Arrived in Ubud today, it is the first place since leaving Singapore that I feel glad to be.

Spent 4 nights in Kuta (where the airport is in Bali) which was 4 nights too many. I've never said no so many times in a short time in my life. As soon as you get past customs at the airport people start haranguing you with "taxi" or "transport". I wanted to simply get some money from an atm and wait for sunrise to take the 3km walk to the hostel. I must have been accosted 30 times before I could find a quiet place in the airport away from the "helpful" locals. Then the walk from the airport was a nightmare of help - it left me feeling beat up and very negative. One guy (a rent a cop from a hotel) demanded to see my passport - then while I was fumbling to find it, he ran and got his buddy to come try to sell me transport! The very worst though was the next morning when one of the hostel staff came into my dorm at 8:00 to see if I wanted to rent the scooter I'd inquired about the evening before! It was like a nightmare come to life - you are in hell, there is no sanctuary. Every day in Kuta was pretty much a constant barrage of  people wanting a piece of me. I finally learned to just tune them out, it was just too exhausting otherwise.

I went to the shuttle bus stall on Friday to book transport to Ubud and ended up taking a sunset tour kind of spur of the moment to the Tanah Lot temple. It was by far the most touristy thing I've done yet (with the possible exception of diving the GBR). I would've liked to learn some history about it but it was pretty much just a commercialized operation. We weren't even allowed up to the temple proper. But it was a lovely place and for about $12 usd, was an evening well spent.

The hostel I'm in is a bit outside of Ubud proper, surrounded by rice fields and coconut trees. It's not exactly quiet and tranquil but it's a welcome relief from the busy cities I've been in for the past couple of weeks. They rent out scooters for about $4/day so I will get one tomorrow and start exploring the area.

View from my bed

They paved paradise and put up a casino

Last post about Kuala Lumpur (since I'm in Bali now...).  Took a day trip to Genting Highlands, it is Malaysia's version of Las Vegas and apparently the only place in Malaysia where gambling is legal. The highlight of the day was the gondola ride over one of the last remaining bits of jungle left in the country. It was really quite lovely. The preservation of this jungle area made the whole resort complex worth it, without it, perhaps the whole area would've been divided up and developed.

It was quite hazy, as it was pretty much every day in Singapore and Malaysia. Someone said it was from fires in Indonesia - they harvest crops then burn the field and let it lay dormant for 2 years before planting again. I met a lovely young woman on the bus back to KL, she was studying to be a Dr and had taken the day trip with one of her teachers. They offered to show me around KL the following day but unfortunately the scratchy throat that I'd attributed to the smoke in the air turned out to be a cold. I'd been pretty exhausted since leaving Singapore so I suppose it's not surprising the crud finally caught up to me. Still dealing with it nearly a week later :(

There was a woman about my age who had just finished the Camino de Santiago earlier this year. After hearing her tales, I'm seriously looking forward to that journey come spring! Lots more travel between now and then however.

Chicken feet!