Archive for the 'Asia Trip 2007' Category
In Miri I had again found a guest house with a proprietor, this time a woman named Joanne, was extremely friendly and helpful in finding tours and things to do. I think people on the backpacker circuit in Borneo have realized that most things are in fact too expensive for your average backpacker to actually do without some solid pre-planning (which no backpacker worth their salt will do), and so have made a real effort to find trips that are similar to the lofty plans of 4 day jungle treks that people such as myself may come to the country with. I told Joanne how much time I had in Miri before I had to leave, as a few days prior I had made plans with Kirsten to meet in Manila on September 1, and she laid out what kinds of activities (day trips really) there were available to me.
For my first full day I got a ride out to Lumbir Hills National Park to hike to several waterfalls. What I was prepared for was some mild to slightly difficult hiking through the hills, nothing worse than I had done previously on the trip in Laos or Nepal, and that’s more or less how the terrain was. The first third or so is to the most accessible falls, surrounded by picnic tables and it even has bathroom facilities. Nearby are some stone steps up the hill into what is the more rustic part of the trail. I spent a good 4 hours walking along this, again stopping at a couple more remote falls, in secluded little glades, trickling into a pool below.
On the way out I was walking along otherwise dry ground when it suddenly felt like I had stepped in a pool of water and the back half of my left foot was soaked. I stopped and looked down at my sandal (kind of Teva-style) to see it covered in blood. I took it off and found the part I wasn’t prepared for: leeches. Taking off my other sandal I counted about a dozen of them between my two feet, they’d been hiding in the little crevasses of the sandal. Now you aren’t supposed to pick them off because their little tooth can get lodged in the skin and become infected, but when you see a bunch of little slimy things sucking the blood out of your feet, the natural instinct is “get these things off of me!”, and I managed to flick them all off. Of course now all the wounds were bleeding nonstop, as they use an anti-coagulant to keep the meal going, but I didn’t have anything with me to stop the bleeding and I was pretty near to the park headquarters, so I just put my sandals back on and kept going, one bloody step after another. I was able to stop the bleeding with a bunch of napkins at a small restaurant near the front office, and when I got back to the hostel I asked nicely if the following day’s activity could please have less leeches.
I was in luck, as that night two separate Dutch couples arrived and both wanted to do the Niah Caves tour the next day. I’d wanted to see the caves as well, but as at least three people are needed to go, as only one person I could have been out of luck. Much of the area surrounding Miri is dotted with massive limestone formations, similar to Vang Vieng or Yangshuo. There are a few caves open to visitors, though the Niah group is the closest and most accessible, particularly as a day trip. The next morning, a van arrived and picked us up.
A plank-walk has been constructed through the jungle right up to and through the caves, making the whole journey an admittedly easy one. Currently, however, a portion of the path is under renovation, as the rickety old wooden foundation is being replaced with sturdy concrete. In it’s current stage, they don’t recommend you walk on part of it, as while the concrete is fully in place, the slats you actually walk aren’t. The concrete runners were wide enough though, and we started to go this route, as it’s much shorter, but we didn’t get far when one of the Dutch guys suddenly stopped. He told us he has really bad vertigo, and although we were only about ten feet up, now that he could see the ground, he could barely walk and was really dizzy. To accommodate him, we turned around and started off through the “muddy path”, the detour that was in place during the construction.
An hour and a half of trudging through ankle-deep mud and getting cut up on low-hanging branches (thankfully, no leeches this time), and we finally reached the first cave. We stopped and had lunch and admired a few faded cave paintings that had been done thousands of years earlier by some of the first inhabitants of the area. After lunch we set back off, thankfully back on a plank-walk the rest of the way, and got to the large cave. The path went right through this cave and out the other side, and fortunately we had brought flashlights with us, as within about 20 feet of entering the cave, we were engulfed in darkness. We had a great time exploring the cave (albeit from the safety of a wooden path with a railing on one side), with the occasional bat or swiftlet flying overhead. Eventually we came to an open area with light coming in through some holes in the ceiling, and a number of bamboo poles hanging down. This is the area where the swiftlet nests are harvested so the Chinese can have their bird’s nest soup. Local men climb up hundreds of feet to the cave ceiling on narrow bamboo ladders, gathering the nests that are worth several hundred dollars an ounce. They obviously find the money worth it, as fatalities and injuries are quite common.
We followed the path out the other side of the cave and suddenly realized that we had come to the other end of the construction area. After walking through the mud, none of us really wanted to turn around and do it again, so slowly we crept along the construction area, with two people helping the vertigo stricken Dutch guy. Even at our painstakingly slow pace, we covered the entire construction in a matter of twenty minutes and were back to where we had split off onto the “muddy path”. We made some jokes about it to the Dutch guy, about how was it really worth it to walk all that way to avoid a few minutes of agony, and while he kind of laughed with us, I could tell he still wished we had taken the other path back.
That night was the celebration day of Malaysian National Independence (like 4th of July in the U.S.), and Miri was selected to be the location of the big party for all of Sarawak. A group of us, including everyone from the caves, decided to head out to the celebration at a nearby arena. A ten minute walk and we were there, and five minutes later we were all pretty underwhelmed and ready to leave. There was a concert going on that was about the same quality as a large scale karaoke, and a few thousand spectators standing around looking bored. As quickly as we’d arrived, we went back to the hostel.
I decided to not do anything in particular for my last day in Borneo. I’ve found in traveling taking a few days of activities followed by a day of rest before a few more active days keeps a good balance. I did go out for a bit that evening with a large group from the hostel, to a large night market that happens only on Fridays, to have some dinner. We had hoped to go out for drinks as well, but were again thwarted by the fact that almost all restaurants are Muslim, and serve no alcohol. We went back to the hostel and had a few drinks at the bar below, but I called it a night early, as the next morning I had a flight too KK and then the Philippines.
Photos
Miri & Around, Malaysia
When I told a few other travelers I wanted to check out Brunei, the response I usually got was something along the lines of “don’t bother, there’s nothing to do there and it’s too expensive”. Something about it just intrigued me though, and I decided to do a stop for a night there, in one of the world’s smallest and richest countries. There was a boat service from KK that made a stop on an island that is effectively a border control station town, and then on to Brunei. From the port, a bus took me to Bandar Sari Begawan, the capital city.
Once I got to BSB (smartly, everyone abbreviates it), luck was really with me and I didn’t even know it. There’s only one hostel in the whole city, and then a bunch of “budget hotels”. The hostel is about $10US a night while the hotels start at around $40-50. I walked right over to the hostel, and found a bed right away, though the whole place seemed to be deserted beyond the man who met me when I first showed up and asked for a spot. I later found out that it had been under renovation for the previous six months, and reopened only two days prior, making me the first guest since the reopening! In addition, touts usually meet all incoming buses and steer backpackers towards one of the hotels, saying that the hostel is closed for renovations (even if it’s not), but somehow I didn’t get intercepted by any.
I dropped off my stuff and started walking around the city. It’s not very big, at least the downtown area, and I managed to get to a couple sights easily enough. First up was the floating village, built on a river passing through BSB. Now Brunei is a very rich country, huge oil reserves that the government has complete control over has ensured that. The sultan gets all of this money, but he makes sure his 350 thousand or so citizens are all taken care of, with no taxes and large subsidies available on houses and cars. Wandering among the floating village, along a somewhat rickety plank-walk that meanders through the precariously balanced buildings, it’s easy to assume that this area is somewhat akin to the slums seen in almost every other Asian country. Not so, in fact the sultan has offered to get all of these people proper homes, but they prefer to live the way they have traditionally, with everything, including schools, police and fire stations, hospitals, and mosques (Brunei is a strictly Muslim country) all perched on stilts above the river. Their relative wealth becomes obvious when you look at the parking lots along the edges of the village and see all the brand new cars.
My other stop for the day was at the “big mosque”, built by the 29th sultan (father of the current one) and one of the most easily recognizable landmarks within the city, because well, it’s huge. I had a walk around, snapped some photos, and then went inside to have a look around. Wearing shorts and a tee shirt I was obviously underdressed, so they provided me with a black full-lenght robe to wear over my clothes. I walked the allotted tourist path through the front part of the mosque, had a good look around, and then walked back out. My guidebook suggested checking out the mosque at night, to see it lit up, so I decided to go walk through a nearby mall for a while and have dinner, waiting for it to get dark, and then return. When I came back, I had to agree, it did look nice, bathed in green and gold light.
Before heading to bed I stopped by a local supermarket to pick up some food for breakfast and snacks for the road. My plan was to take the long progression of buses (you have to change 3 times!) to Miri beginning early in the morning. On my way out of the supermarket, a local man, Abdul, was walking out at the same time and asked me where I was from and what I thought of Brunei (I’d been getting similar questions all day, they don’t get many tourists here). We chatted for a bit and it turned out that he was something of a tour guide, working in Brunei and Sarawak, and he was heading into Miri the next day to pick up a couple of guys who wanted a tour of Brunei. He offered to give me a ride for the same price as all the buses would cost, and moreover it turned out the guys he was picking up were staying at the hostel I had booked online already, so he could take me right to it! As what would normally be around a six hour journey by buses would only take maybe two in his car, he said he wanted to leave around midday, which would give me a little more time in the city. We arranged a time and place to meet again the next day, and I went to bed wondering if I was really that lucky.
The next morning I took the extra time and walked to the nearby Royal Regalia Museum. Within the museum are all items pertaining to the coronation of the sultan (mostly the current one), including the formal attire of all participants in the ceremony, a chariot of sorts that carried the sultan himself, and hundreds of gifts received from local people, businesses, and foreign countries (nearly all but the U.S. are represented, not sure why we couldn’t be bothered considering how much oil Brunei has at the very least…).
After a couple hours or so at the museum I was sultaned out, and went back to the hostel to read and chill out for a bit before it was time to meet Abdul. I had a small lunch nearby, and gathered my things. He was there within a few minutes of me, and we were off. Since we had plenty of time he said he’d give me a little extra bit of a tour on the way to the border. Just outside of town we stopped at what is actually the laregest mosque in Brunei, built by the current sultan (each successive one seems to try and top the previous). I was able to walk around the outside a bit and snap some more photos, but the interior wasn’t open to tourists.
We then began to head out of town more, and along the way Abdul was constantly pointing things out and giving me little facts about the country. While the road was contained on both sides by patches of jungle, just on the other side of them were mansions built by the sultan for his family, including 3 wives and many children. Further up the road, we began to pass through a massive suburban housing development, all built for the employees of Shell (which has a contract to get all of Brunei’s oil). We also stopped briefly at a monument near the sea built in 1992 to commemorate the billionth barrel of oil being brought up. Abdul was quite proud of this, though I did notice the water washing up on the shore was jet black as the horizon line was dotted with oil rigs.
We reached the border soon after, and instead of having to get out, go through passport control and customs with my bag, and then get on another bus, we didn’t even need to leave the car. Less than an hour later, we were entering Miri, and Abdul brought me to the hostel and I got checked in. I had hoped to see him again when he picked up the guys he’d be taking into Brunei the next day, but unfortunately we missed each other. I’m still not sure how I got so lucky to not only get a ride but an impromptu tour as well, but as far as I’m concerned if anyone asks, Brunei is definitely worth a visit.
Photos
Brunei Darussalam
We arrived in Kota Kinabalu in the early evening and were lucky enough to have a relatively short walk from the bus stop to our guest house. It was already late in the afternoon, so after getting settled in, we went out and had dinner at a nearby barbecue. Upon arriving back at the hostel we met a Canadian couple who’d been staying there for about a week, and they gave us a glowing recommendation of the proprietor, Vincent, and told us to put our plans in his hands if we weren’t sure what to do. It was definitely good advice.
Having no idea what to do exactly (my original plan of trying to find us a 3 or 4 day jungle trek became quickly unrealistic when prices for these types of things in Borneo are around $1000 US!!), we asked Vincent for an idea. He suggested we check out one of the nearby islands for the day, and as Juliana was really looking forward to at least one day of doing nothing at the beach, we accepted the offer. He drove us to the ferry pier and we caught a boat to the island, one of several off the coast near KK and sharing it with us were several hundred Korean and Japanese tourists. I did a bit of snorkeling, navigating through all the Japanese and Koreans floating by in their life jackets and snorkel gear, while Juliana enjoyed her time just laying around in the sand. We caught the last boat to the mainland and Vincent was waiting there to take us back to the hostel.
The next day he suggested we take a tour to see the Proscibis monkeys, leaving in the early afternoon. A couple hours on a minibus got us to the park, where a tour boat took us up and down a river, stopping every time we saw some monkeys in the trees. Unfortunately they were usually a ways off, so you couldn’t really see the big floppy noses that make them unique, but it was still a nice little jungle adventure. The boat took us back to the dock and we had a buffet dinner, returning again to the boat to go firefly watching after dark. We went the other direction this time, again stopping when we saw the fireflies in a tree, which looked almost like Christmas lights flickering in the branches.
Juliana only had one more full day of her trip left, so we wanted to do as much as possible. Again Vincent came through, inviting a Belgian couple that was also staying in the guest house with us to do three things: visit Mt. Kinabalu park, see the Rafelasia flower, and visit the nearby hotsprings. It was a long day so we got started fairly early.
Our first stop was Mt. Kinabalu, the tallest mountain in southeast Asia. Lot’s of people come to this area to climb it in a two day journey, but like a lot of places in Borneo the spots to sleep near the peak were all booked out well ahead of time, and while you could get on a waiting list, that just meant climbing to the top and hoping there was something available, or spending a cold night outside waiting for sunrise. In addition, the day we went was the day of the annual race up and down the mountain, where a bunch of crazy people run up and back again in 3 hours (again, this is a climb normal people do over two full days!). Arriving 11:00am, we were in time to see some of the last finishers of the race cross the line, having started at 7:00am. We did a little walk through the park at the base, trying to find a good view of the mountain but constantly being thwarted by the looming clouds. A quick lunch at a cafe in the park and we were off to see the flower.
One of the largest flowers in the world, the Rafelasia blooms for only about 5 days before dying, and only in a few parts of Asia, during late August. We happened to be in luck to come during a time when they were blooming, and this park had one that had opened about 3 days prior. While not nearly as large as the flowers can get, it was still impressive at about 3 feet across. They also had a couple local jungle cats and a little lemur in cages. The cats looked like cut little house cats with leopard spots, but at one point the cage roof got knocked open just slightly and I’ve never seen a cat move so fast as this one jumped and attached itself to the wire near the opening, trying to escape. Sad to have them caged up like that, but a good reminder that these aren’t cute and cuddly pets.
The final stop was the hot springs, where there was swimming available and a “jungle canopy walk”. We hadn’t brought our swim things, so we decided to just see the canopy. There was a small butterfly house we walked through first, though it had begun to rain slightly and not many of them were out. The line for the canopy walk was long and slow moving, up a narrow stairway to a ledge where a small rope bridge connected with several others through the canopy. Unfortunately, it was raining hard and most of the bridges were under repair, so the wait wasn’t exactly worth it in my opinion. I also couldn’t help but thinking how funny it was to be waiting in line for an attraction that was basically the same thing as the bridges I had to traverse to get across various gorges in Nepal while trekking, but now for novelty value instead.
Early the next morning, the arranged car came and picked Juliana up for a ride to the airport, and I found myself a lone traveler again. I took the day to try and catch up on blogging (didn’t get as far as I would have liked, maybe you noticed…) and for general relaxation. The morning after I was going to take a boat to Brunei for an overnight stop on my way to Miri in the other Bornean state of Sarawak.
Photos
Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
Our trip over to Semporna began at about 3 am, and after a taxi, a bus ride, a flight, and two more buses, we finally arrived and checked into the hotel/dive shop we’d be using.
Juliana was here to do her PADI Advanced course, while I was just here to dive. We’d come to Semporna to dive a nearby island, Sipadan, known as one of the worlds top sites. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize how tightly controlled of a park the site is, and as each dive shop is only allotted 10 spots a day for taking guests, nearly all of the shops in town were booked out at least a month in advance. They put us on a waiting list and told us to hope for the best, and as a last resort would help us check with some of the lesser known dive shops in town to find one that could take us.
We set of early the next morning for our first dive trip, to a nearby island of Mabul. The bottom composition around the island is loose and silty, and known to be the habitat of a large number of unusual creatures. In addition, an abandoned oil rig was moved there and much of the contents were dumped into the ocean below to create something of an artificial reef where there would normally be none.
Juliana went off with an instructor to do her dives for the day while I and the rest of the divers went down with our leader around the site. We did 3 dives over the course of the day, and saw loads of animals I’d never seen before, including frogfish, scorpionfish, crocodile fish, and a huge moray eel at least a foot and a half in diameter gaping ominously out of some coral. We also found a rare stargazer, a fish that buries itself in the mud and sends up a mild electrical charge to stun fish that swim over it to eat, that several of the divemasters back at the shop were jealous to hear we’d seen; some had been diving there for years and never seen one!
The next day we were off to another island, Sibuan, to do three more dives while Juliana finished her course. This island wasn’t quite as unique as Mabul as far as sites go, but the small reef surrounding the island was still beautiful and the water was some of the clearest I’d ever seen. We did manage to spot a couple turtles, another frogfish, some exotic looking crabs and lobsters, and my favorite for the day was the juvenile harlequin sweetlips. While the adult variety looks like just another tropical fish, the tiny young ones are brightly colored and wiggle back and forth in the water like they’re dancing.
That evening I managed to find a dive shop that would take us to Sipadan, and got myself signed up, but they required Juliana to come in and arrange for her own spot. I told her this, but she decided to wait a couple hours before going to the shop, and in that time the boat had filled up for the day. I hated to be selfish, but we were there and I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity. Besides, she said she was tired from all the diving and somebody had to arrange for our bus to Kota Kinabalu the following day.
After three days I finally got to see the actual site of Sipadan, and it lived up to and exceeded it’s reputation. Located much further off of the eastern Borneo coast than the other islands around Semporna, the dives around Sipadan are all at various spots along an underground wall that surrounds the island, where the bottom depth plunges from a couple dozen meters to well over 600. Along the wall are thousands or even millions of brightly colored tropical fish, too many to even keep track of. The site is more famously known for the large number of reef sharks and turtles that congregate along the wall, and I lost count of how many I saw of both. In particular, some of the turtles were huge, one I think must have been larger than a kitchen table.
All too soon my three dives at Sipadan were over and the boat made it’s way back. I’d love to come and dive the island again, though next time make reservations and come in another season; allegedly, there are times when you can see schools of around 50 hammerhead sharks swimming along the wall. Upon arriving back in Semporna, I found Juliana had gotten us bus tickets up to Kota Kinabalu and even managed to get them at a cheaper price than normal, with the help of a guy staying in the same guest house as us. The following morning, we were off.
Semporna, Sipadan, and around, Malaysia
Getting into Malaysia wasn’t too complicated. From Singapore we took a fairly short bus trip just across the border to the city of Johor Baru, and from there another bus which brought us the rest of the way to Kuala Lumpur. The whole process took maybe 5 hours, and which was a good introduction for Juliana to life on the road.
The arrival in KL was a bit disorienting as, instead of stopping at a station, the bus pulled up to the side of the road and dropped everyone off. Fortunately, after checking a few street signs and consulting the guidebook map, I found we were very near the hostel I had booked, so we decided to hoof it. We got checked in to what I would say was one of the nicer hostels I’ve been to, and then went out to find some dinner in the area. We had some local specialties from an outdoor restaurant nearby, satay and “chicken fish”. It really did taste like chicken!
The next day we got up bright and early to get in line to take the elevator up to the sky bridge between the Petronas Towers, now the second tallest buildings in the world (surpassed by Taipei 101 in 2004). Real early. We had to be there by around 7:00 am to get in line for when the doors open at 8:00, as they only let a certain number of people in every day, and turn just as many away. We only had the one morning to go and try, so I wanted to make sure we got in, and we did, after standing in line for about 2 hours.
The elevator ride up to the sky bridge was amazingly fast, taking us to the 41st floor in a matter of seconds. Once there, we were given just a few minutes to walk across the bridge and take in the view of Kuala Lumpur. We snapped a few photos, and then were ushered back into the elevator and taken down just as quick. The whole process was very regimented and on the clock, and it seems like they could just keep the bridge open a little longer each day and not have to rush everyone through, but I guess that’s the way they want to do things.
After our tower visit we made a stop in at a local aquarium located nearby. It was a great new experience seeing fish that I now recognized and could name, after having seen them in the ocean. It made me anxious to go and do some more diving, which was our next stop. Early the next morning (3:00 am) we had to wake up and catch the long bus ride to the airport and catch a 7:00 am flight to Tawau, located on Borneo in the state of Sabah, and make our way to Semporna by bus, the jumping off point for world class diving and Sipadan.
I got a new camera in Singapore and can take photos again!
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
I arrived in Singapore fairly late in the evening, and made my way to the other terminal to wait for Juliana. She came in on one of the last flights of the night and looked like she was tired but excited to have finally arrived. We grabbed a taxi and headed into town to the hostel I had booked for us.
The next day the first thing I wanted to take care of was finding a new camera. We went to a tech mall near the hostel and started browsing around. Eventually I found a decent enough camera for about as cheap as any of them would come, and it even took the same memory cards I already had, which few did. So long as it took decent photos and lasted until the end of the trip, I’d be happy. I also grabbed some cheap new headphones, as the ones on my Ipod were becoming barely audible.
After shopping we walked around the city some more, and grabbed some food. We made a stop into the Singapore Art Museum, browsing the exhibition of modern Asian art. The museum didn’t particularly move me in the way of say the ones in Shanghai or Hong Kong, but there were a few nice pieces.
Following the museum we made our way back to the hostel to just hang out and plan the rest of the trip, especially how to make our way into Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur the next day.
Getting to Koh Phi Phi was a relatively painless but long journey involving several buses, two boats, and an overnight stop. Krabi Town, where I made my stopover, is a sleepy little place used mostly by tourists as a stopover for a number of beach areas and islands in the immediate vicinity. I didn’t get a chance to do much more than eat, sleep, and have a shower. Early the next morning I got on a bus which took me to the ferry to Koh Phi Phi, the island I’d heard so many good things about.
On the boat who should I run into again but Marcelo and Johnny, as well as a Dutch guy they had met, Yves. They’d just made a similar journey to mine from Koh Tao, but instead of a nice hotel bed for the night had been crammed into an overnight ferry on the other side of the peninsula. When we arrived on Phi Phi, we found a guest house with 4 single open rooms for us all, at much cheaper than I think any of us were expecting, and settled in. In other words, we went straight to the beach.
I spent just shy of a week on Koh Phi Phi, and did hardly anything. The whole time is a bit of a blur looking back on it, not because I was drunk the whole time or anything (though there were a few late nights), but more because, with the exception of two days, pretty much all I did was lay on the beach and swim in the crystal clear water. There are no cars and only a couple motorbikes on the whole island, and the relaxed atmosphere of the small town that exists solely to cater to tourists was the perfect vacation from my travels.
Koh Phi Phi consists really of two islands, Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Leh. The big island, Phi Phi Don, is where all the accommodation is and most of the easily accessible beaches, while Phi Phi Leh is mostly a collection of huge limestone rocks with a few pristine beaches tucked into various spots, including the one made famous by the move The Beach, Maya Bay. I spent the second day doing a couple dives off of Phi Phi Leh, which were absolutely beautiful and probably the best spots I’ve seen yet. I had hoped to do another day of diving at a wreck somewhat west of the island, but they needed at least five interested divers to take a boat out, and even when they asked at all the shops around the island to try and combine a trip, the most we could get together on any day was three. It just wasn’t meant to be.
After diving, the next few days saw me falling into a small routine of checking if there was a boat going to the wreck, eating, laying on the beach, and enjoying the local nightlife scene. The bars were pretty fun because there are only about 4-5 on the island, and the crowd of young people follow a fairly set pattern visiting them. The place to start is the Reggae Bar, where drunk westerners get free drinks for jumping into a boxing ring and beating each other up. While I didn’t participate, it was fun to see how poorly people fought after a couple buckets of booze. Next up was the Apache Bar, a huge dance club with several levels going up the bar like huge steps. One night they had a Ladyboy Cabaret show there, hilarious and disturbing at the same time. Finally around 2 am all the bars on the island shut except one, the Hippy Bar, where everyone meets at the end of the night to party on the beach until the sun comes up. Needless to say after nights like those, sleeping on the beach was about all I (and everyone else) could manage the next day.
Marcelo left two days before I did to make his way home via Bangkok, and the following day Johnny and Yves headed off to another island, Koh Lanta. Since I was alone for my final day I decided to take it easy the night before and do a longboat tour of the island. We went around to several beaches and did some snorkeling and more laying around in the sun, including a stop at Maya Bay, made famous in the move “The Beach”. We finally called it a day when a sudden massive downpour made laying on the sand not the most inviting prospect.
The next day I took a boat back to Krabi, where I would catch a flight to Singapore and meet up with Juliana to see Malaysia together for a couple weeks.
From Chiang Mai I was determined to get to Koh Tao in as little time as possible. I even hoped I could avoid a night in Bangkok, but that wasn’t in the cards. The bus journey was longer than expected and didn’t end at the centralized bus station I thought it would, so by the time I got into town it was well into the evening. I got a bed for the night at the same guest house I had stayed in and enjoyed my first time through. The next day I caught an afternoon bus down to Chumphon, and then an overnight ferry to Koh Tao.
The overnight boat was a new experience in travel, basically a cargo ship with a reed mat laid out on the top deck and a long, rubber pillow for everyone to share. A flimsy tarp was our only protection from the elements. Needless to say, sleeping on this boat (which left at about 11:00pm) was restless at best.
Arriving at about 5:00 am, Koh Tao was still asleep. Fortunately there were a couple taxis waiting at the docks and one took me to the dive resort at which I had booked accommodation and a dive course. Wanting to have all the options of diving in Southeast Asia available to me, I had come to Koh Tao to do my Advance Open Water certification which would allow me the full range of depths at recreational dive sites. However, no one was around except for a little old Thai man cleaning in the beach-front restaurant and about 30 dogs sleeping on every chair and table. He beckoned me to a free couch, and made a motion like I should get some sleep. I was happy to comply.
Around 7:30 I was awakened by the sounds of activity around me, as the various workers had begun their day and were preparing the restaurant and facilities for the day. They must have been used to people arriving as I did, because they seemed unsurprised to see me and were quick to smile when I caught their eyes. Eventually the reception opened and they put me in a course starting that day. I wasn’t sure about diving after my lack of sleep, but they explained that the Full Moon Party on Koh Pha Ngan had just happened, and there would be a massive influx of people the next day. If I started a class today there would be three of us. Tomorrow there could be a dozen or more. I opted for today.
I settled in my room, changed my clothes, had some breakfast, and met up with my dive group. My instructor was a friendly Australian guy who’d been diving and living on Koh Tao for a long time, and my fellow students were an Israeli guy about my age and a 17 year old Dutch kid who’d just finished his Open Water the previous day. Our morning was a relaxed introduction to the new types of dives we’d be doing that day, a deep dive and a computer-assisted multi-level dive. Both dives would be taking place at what is said to be the best spot on Koh Tao, Chumphon Pinnacle, which is known for the many shark sightings. I’d never seen a real shark in the wild before, so I was very excited.
We took the boat out to the spot, got ready, and got in the water. Our first dive was the deep dive, where you go down to 30 meters/100 feet to experience the depth for the first time. No sooner had we touched down on the sand at 30 meters when a 6 foot-long reef shark came swimming along withing about 5 feet of us to see what we were doing. Reef sharks are known as some of the most docile towards humans, and attacks are rare if ever, but it was still quite a thrill. After a few minutes at the bottom we had a swim around the site, and saw quite a few more sharks as well as many other fish, eels, and colorful corals.
The next dive was similar, though this time we used a dive computer to calculate exactly how long we could stay at each depth, and vary between three different ones. Again we saw a lot of sharks and beautiful fish, and I could see why it was considered the best site around. Much better than the spots I’d been in Vietnam, though to be fair I was busy doing skills and tests underwater when I was there.
After a day of diving and so little sleep, I could barely keep my eyes open by the end of the day. I had a quick dinner with my course mates, and went to bed very early. We had another full day ahead of us, and had to be in the classroom again in the early morning.
Our next class was even easier and shorter, and we went over the dives for the day. The first would be underwater navigation, followed by fish identification, and finally a night dive. A short boat trip later and we were in the water ready to do the first dive, underwater navigation.
I was partnered up with the Israeli guy, and we had to take turns navigating a square with a compass while the other counted kick cycles to determine the distance on each side. The second half of the dive had us following a map of the dive site we had drawn on our slate, and using a compass and recognition of the ocean floor, we were to make our way around the site and return to the boat when our air was at a certain level. Now I still don’t know how we did it, as the two of us spent half the time we were down there arguing about which direction to go, but right when our air got to the safety limit we ended up next to the boat. Of course we pretended like it was on purpose.
Next up was the fish identification dive. Given a slate with pictures of all the different fish in the area and a list of fish to find, we set off to check off as many as possible. Again we were on our own and had to navigate the site as well, a different one than our previous dive. We managed to check off all but one of our list (stupid eels…), and again navigate our way back to the boat. This time I felt like it was only about half luck and half skill, so we were doing better.
The boat then took us back to shore for a bit to rest before the night dive later. We had dinner and discussed what the plan was. Diving at night isn’t nearly as hard as it sounds like it might be, mostly because as a rule you don’t dive at night in a site you’ve never been to before, and usually you go with a guide who knows the site quite well. Also, the flashlight you use is blindingly bright, and as the water is usually even clearer at night, visibility is actually quite good.
We swam around observing how things were different at night, watching the fish sleeping amongst the corals. We managed to find a barracuda as well, and followed the advice our instructor had given before we got in the water: set off in pursuit, shining our lights just in front of it. Every time the light hit another fish, the barracuda shot forward and engulfed it. Unfortunately, it eventually swam away from us and we were left again with the peaceful reef. Finally we emerged from the dark depths, all of us now certified as Advanced divers. I had a couple celebratory beers with the Israeli guy and his girlfriend, and then went to bed again exhausted. It’s amazing how much diving takes out of you, especially 3 dives in one day.
I had hoped to get in a couple fun dives the next day, but the massive influx of Koh Pha Ngan partiers had filled up all the boats, so I was left with the option of sun bathing on the beach, which I do have to say wasn’t entirely a bad thing. About halfway through the day I heard someone calling my name and looked up to see Marcelo, the Portuguese guy from the Gibbon Experience, walking up to me with a huge English guy named Johnny. They’d met up at the Full Moon Party and had come to Koh Tao to continue to party and enjoy the islands. We caught up for a bit, and then they took off, as Johnny had come to Thailand to train in Thai boxing, and there was supposedly a good gym on the island. We said we’d try and meet up later, as the area we were in isn’t that big, but it wasn’t in the cards.
The next day I set off on a boat for Koh Pha Ngan to see what all the fuss was about. Upon arriving in Haad Rinn, the beach of the famous Full Moon Party, I felt like I’d entered a ghost town. The small village had obviously been designed to accommodate thousands of party-goers, and with only a few hundred left, there was a lot of open space. Still, there were small parties on the beach every night, and during the day laying out on the north part of Sunrise Beach in some of the finest, whitest sand I’d yet seen was a great way to spend a couple days.
On my last day I did a longtail boat trip to some of the other beaches on the island, though bad weather and strong winds prevented us from going all the way around as was the original plan. Even worse, my supposedly “waterproof” camera from Olympus, that had until now been doing great in shallow water, decided to fail under only a foot or two of water while snorkeling. I’m going to have to buy a new camera somewhere now, but I’ll probably wait until Singapore in a little over a week.
I’d been more or less alone apart from some people I’d briefly meet on the beach or at a bar until the last night, when randomly I ran into a bunch of the people I’d been partying with in northern Laos, including Amelia, Ben & Nic, and Shane. We had one more night of fun together, at a bar where everyone was pretending like it was the full moon again and painting each other up with blacklight paint and dancing to loud techno music. I didn’t stay out too late that night, as the next morning I had a long combination boat and buses journey to the islands on the other side of the peninsula, specifically Koh Phi Phi.
Photos (before the camera broke)
Thai Islands, Southern Thailand
The mini-bus from Chiang Kong to Chiang Mai was a bit cramped, but it was a short journey, and I ended up sharing it again with the Canadian girl from the Gibbon Experience Kelly. She’d made friends with a couple Japanese guys in Houayxai the night before who came with us as well, and the group of us passed the time fairly quickly.
We arrived in Chiang Mai and unfortunately I lost track of the group of them, as I had booked a hostel on the other side of town from where they were staying. It’s not a massive city, and there’s a main center part where most people hang out, so I had hopped I’d run into them again, but alas I did not.
The hostel I stayed in, however, was superb and the guy running it came and picked me up in his car near where the bus had dropped me off. He told me he was taking a group of people to a local Thai barbecue that night and I was welcome to come along, and was happy to offer advice about my plans for the next few days. We got to the hostel and I was amazed: it was literally a little gated community of houses that looked like American suburbia. One of the houses had been turned into a hostel called “Spicy Thai Backpackers”. The inside was and inviting home, one room full of dorm beds, and upstairs the private bedrooms and a small girl’s dorm.
A group of us set off for the barbecue in the hostel’s Sangthaw, our host Pong in the driver’s seat. We arrived to a massive concrete-floored tent, full of plastic picnic tables and chairs, and in the middle, a buffet of uncooked meats and vegetables. Our table had about 20 people, and we were given 4 grills to cook on, essentially the same steamboat setup I’d seen before in Cambodia and Laos. We all went over to the food and loaded up our plates with unknown meats and vegetables we thought we recognized, and brought them back to the table. It was a great way to meet a bunch of people, and we all had plenty to eat (though not all of it tasting like what we thought it would).
When we got back, Pong said he was going to a bar later to meet some friends, and if anyone wanted to come with they were welcome. I joined a smaller group from dinner and we all piled into his car, and drove to the center of town where all the bars were. The bar we arrived in was packed full of people and had 2 stages with Thai bands covering all sorts of western pop songs. I got a table with the other people from the hostel and we ordered up rounds of beers, laughing at the slightly distorted renditions of a random mix of music. Eventually the night came to a close and we all headed back to the hostel, not too late.
I woke the next morning and had an email from Kirsten and Eilidh, they had arrived in Chiang Mai the same day as me and we arranged a time to meet up that afternoon. I spent the morning walking around the city, doing a little shopping to replace some clothes that had become dirty and worn out (the Gibbon Experience put an end to a few shirts that were looking ragged already). After some successful shopping I met up with the girls and we continued the walk around the city, recounting what we’d been up to since I’d last seen them in Cambodia.
Eventually we made our way back towards the side of town where I was staying, and had some dinner at a local shopping mall, at an outdoor food market. A bit more wandering around, and we decided to go out and get some drinks. I dropped my purchases off at the hostel, and we went to a bar near by and ordered some beers. And then some more. We left one bar and started walking back towards the center of town, and found another. It had started to rain as we were getting there, and we managed to get inside and avoid the hardest part of the downpour. The rain stopped and we got to another bar, and before we knew it it was fairly late and the bars were all closing.
Not ready to get to bed just yet, I had heard about an all night club we could go to called Spicy (no relation to the hostel). We flagged down a tuk-tuk and got a ride there. We danced and drank some more and had a great night. Several hours later we finally were finished for the night, and parted ways back to our hostels as the sun started to rise. I walked through the door into the hostel at around 6:30 am, and crashed out on the bed.
Now my plan had been to take a bus up to Pai the next day and maybe go trekking or ride a motorbike around the countryside. However, because of the previous night I didn’t wake up until well after noon, and as I had to check out and catch a bus well before this to get to Pai, my plans were going to have to change. Anxious to get down to the islands and the beach, I decided to skip Pai and catch a bus the next day to Bangkok and make my way south.
After a slow “morning” I met up with the girls again for dinner and group moaning about how we were feeling as a result of the previous nights festivities. We were sure that none of us was ready for another night out and decided to consider our options. We opted for a movie, the new Harry Potter in fact, which made me a little homesick, as that’s exactly the kind of thing I’d do at home after a night like that. We even had a dinner of western junk food beforehand, just like home as well. The movie was alright, though nowhere near as good as the book (like usual). Following that, we went for a foot massage to finish the night of slothfulness and recuperation.
I bid the girls farewell, possibly for the last time to Eilidh, though Kirsten said she wanted to try and meet up with me in the Philippines for a couples weeks, so hopefully that will work out. The next morning I boarded a bus for the long trip back to Bangkok, where I hopefully won’t have to spend too much time.
No photos from Chiang Mai unfortunately, I seemed to always forget my camera when we were out.
There are long, uncomfortable journeys, and then there was the first boat ride I took from Luang Prabang to Pakbeng, on my way to Houayxai. I made the mistake of going out a little too long and late the night before, and was already starting the trip tired and somewhat hungover. But my biggest mistake was not bringing food. Every other long trip I have been on has either offered food for sale or stopped somewhere along the way, but not this one. I wasn’t the only one unpleasantly surprised by this.
The choice of seats was between a hard, wooden bench, and a small car seat backseat that had been removed and placed in the back. I chose one of the car seats, as at least they were padded. Being so tired I did manage to drift in and out of a restless sleep along the way. I did meet a Canadian girl (Kelly) who was doing the same days at the Gibbon Experience as me, and funnily enough she was feeling about the same level of misery as well, and because of that we didn’t talk much that day. When we arrived in Pakbeng, we went and found a guest house and had a much appreciated dinner together, but were both so exhausted that we went to bed almost immediately after.
The next day brought another long boat trip, taking us the rest of the way to Houayxai and again about 9 hours. The night’s sleep helped immensely, as well as the many snacks and large lunch I packed this time. When buying food in the morning, I had about 5000 kip in change left over (US $0.50) and wanted to buy a snack with it. I stopped at a little food stand, and tried to buy chips, some crackers, and a candy bar, but all were too much. About to leave, I noticed the stack of bananas and asked how many I could get for 5000. The woman handed me about 2 dozen. I had to laugh.
We finally arrived, got a hotel room for the night, and found the office for the Gibbon Experience to check in. This was the 3 day tour I had come to Houayxai specifically for, after hearing so many great things from other travelers going all the way back to the well-traveled British girl I had met in Korea. We’d be staying in tree-houses inside the Bokeo Nature Preserve for 2 nights, using ziplines high over the canopy to get between the houses. They went over the basics of what we’d need to bring and what to expect, and asked us to kindly pay our money. Once that was taken care of, we went back to the room and got to bed, as we had an early start the next morning.
In the middle of the night, it started to rain. Hard. When we got up around 6:30, it was still raining hard. This was a bad sign, as there is a river to cross in order to get to the starting point, and though the Land Cruiser that was to take us in was fully equipped to drive through the river with a snorkel intake and massive tires, if the river gets too high even that can’t get through and instead of a 1-2 hour walk we end up with around an 8 hour one. And that’s exactly what happened. In addition, the river still has to be crossed, and though the path we were on comes to a point where it is significantly lower, there’s no bridge.
We began already somewhat wet from the rain, which had finally lightened up a bit. After a half an hour, we reached the river and wadded through the waist-deep water, now thoroughly soaked, including inside our shoes, with 8 or so hours of hiking ahead. The trek was long and mostly uphill, the ground a sticky, clay-based mud that clumped onto shoes and added several pounds of weight to each step. We kept up a steady pace the whole time, and eventually 7 or so hours later, reached a village at the start of the thicker jungle. This was the spot at which the truck would have dropped us off, had it made it through. We waded across another stream, and now the real trek began.
While before we’d been on what was effectively a mud road, now we were on a narrow jungle trail, winding its way uphill. The mud was usually ankle-deep, and the parts going downhill were slippery enough to cause more than a few spills. An hour and a half later, we finally arrived at the the base house. We were each given a harness and shown the basics of how to use it, and then we divided up into two groups, one for each of the treehouses we’d be sleeping in. Treehouse 1, the closer and larger option, held 6, and into this went the 3 couples in the group, one American, one Scottish, and one Dutch. Treehouse 3 took the 4 singles, a Portuguese guy (Marcelo), British woman (Tanya), and Kelly, as well as myself. We didn’t realize when we decided to take this option how much further it was to Treehouse 3.
We walked a bit further up and took our first ride on a zipline to Treehouse 1. It was short and not very high up, and a good introduction to the grounds. We left the couples to get settled in, and immediately caught another zipline to continue on. We hiked a bit up a hill and then clipped onto the “long zip”. We got up to the platform and I saw what he meant: I couldn’t even see where it ended. Clipping onto this metal wire hundreds of feet above the ground and coasting out like that was scary and amazing and fantastic at the same time. It took nearly an entire minute to cover the length of the wire, and as I went I had a fantastic view of the surrounding jungle lit by dwindling twilight.
Unfortunately after this zip we had to walk about another 45 minutes to get to Treehouse 3, which by this point in the day wasn’t something any of us were looking forward to. When we finally arrived, the luxury of our accommodation was a pleasant surprise. Our treehouse had two very soft mattresses with thick mosquito nets, running, drinkable water, a shower (cold of course) and plenty of food for the night. We all had quick, refreshing showers and settled down to eat a hearty meal of meats and various vegetables prepared in Lao style. In the shower I found a nice big bloody spot on my leg where a leech had gorged itself, but I was too tired and hungry to care. Finishing dinner saw us all ready for a long sleep, and I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow.
The next morning we woke to the unfortunate realization that it had been raining quite hard all night, and our early morning breakfast delivery was unable to be made. The guide who had stayed with us took off to go back to Treehouse 1 and get us food, and told us to wait. After almost 2 hours passed without word, we were all starving and not sure what to do. I decided to go look for the guide, and got harnessed up and set off to find him. As soon as my feet touched down on the platform at the end of the zip away from our house, a I heard a “Hello!”, and looked to my right just in time to see our guide zip off towards the house with a pack full of food on his back. Needless to say, I quickly followed him.
After breakfast, Marcelo and I set off to explore the grounds. While set up as an eco-tourism project to encourage awareness of the endangered gibbons that live in the area, what everyone comes away from the Gibbon Experience talking about are the ziplines. We spent most of the day just trekking around and doing the various zips over and over, making videos and taking pictures. Each line only goes one way, so all the lines we had done the day before had return lines we had not yet done. The return line for the long zip was particularly cool, as it was a good 30 feet higher than the one we had done, and a bit longer as well.
Eventually our day of playing in the trees like a bunch of kids came to a close, and we all gathered at Treehouse 1 for dinner. The food was once again excellent, some of the best I had in Laos funnily enough. After dinner we set off on the zips and long trek back to Treehouse 3, and settled in for the night. Again, 2 leeches decided that my feet were an excellent feeding spot. No one else seemed to get any either, though I did manage to avoid getting the blisters and scores of mosquito bites that most others were suffering from, so I’ll call it even.
The next morning we awoke, gathered our things, and set off back to Treehouse 1 for our final breakfast. Our time in the trees seemed to have passed too quickly, and I would really like to go back one day, though maybe in a dryer time of year! Following breakfast we set off for the potentially long hike back to the car, not knowing if it had crossed the river and would be waiting for us or not. None of us were looking forward to another 8 hour hike, albeit mostly downhill this time. Fortunately, about 2 hours into the hike, the car came rumbling around a bend full of new guests, greeted by our shouts of joy. It passed by, dropped them off, and returned, covering the distance we had done in 2 hours in about 15 minutes. We piled in and set off, and in another 45 minutes were driving through the river (which came up to the windows on the Land Cruiser, that was pretty rad) and onto the paved road, on our way back.
We arrived back in Houayxai tired and filthy, but everyone was still reveling in how much fun we’d had. Marcelo and I were both heading to Thailand on the next leg of our journey, and decided to cross the river into Chiang Kong, as Houayxai sits right on the Thai border. Facilities in Thailand are a bit more modern and comfortable than Laos, and we were happy to stay dirty a bit longer to get across. We bid the others farewell, caught a small ferry across the river, and were in Chiang Kong in a clean little bungalow guest house before I knew it.
The next morning Marcelo caught a bus all the way down to Bangkok on his way to the Full Moon Party in Koh Pha Ngan, while I was off to Chiang Mai.
Photos
The Gibbon Experience, Laos