Monthly Archive for November, 2008

Singapore and beyond.

Published on Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 in Singapore. 0 Comments

Well, I’m back in Adelaide.

Koh Tao to Singapore: 3pm ferry to Koh Samui. Cheap room at a relatively deserted Best Western hotel. Hot shower, shave, sleep. Awake at 4am, hotel shuttle bus to airport. Check in, wait, fly. Several hours transit in Bangkok. Delayed flight. Arrive at my hostel in Singapore late Wednesday afternoon.

Ah, Singapore. Strangely familiar yet so completely foreign. I ate a cheap vegetarian curry from some place nearby and it’s surprisingly good for something devoid of animal flesh. After dinner I wandered around Serangoon Road and side streets between Little India and Farrer park MRT stations. It was a seething sea of humanity – throngs of people wandering, shopping, eating, selling, buying. It’s fascinating, pungent, and delicious.

Later, I relaxed at the garden bar near the hostel with a book and a few cheeky beers and read a book for a while… a good end to a busy day.

Thursday morning is golf time – the first round of the 2008 Singapore Open. The weather didn’t look very nice. I made my way to the tournament on Sentosa Island and arrive just in time to be in a position to follow Adam Scott around. There was a 3 hour rain delay after six holes. Scott wasn’t playing well, and thinking that I was jinxing him I checked out some other groups. Phil Mickelson was busily signing autographs, and I commented on his recent appearance on Entourage. He grinned, shook my hand, and said thanks. I wish him well. He finishes 9th. Adam Scott doesn’t make the cut.

On Thursday night I met up with Matt and Marissa, whom I had met at Akinabalu Hostel in Kota Kinabalu. We met on Clarke Quay at Brewerkz, and discovered that as well as lots of delicious beer they also did some pretty good food. Their stories are pretty entertaining and they’re living the dream – lots more travel is planned. It was good to see them again. Following a beer rendezvous, they headed to some night club, and I went to back to the hotel, to bed.

The weather on Friday was no good at all so rather than see the golf (which was mostly rained out anyway) I spent the morning around the hostel, where I met three English girls. We talked for a while and they went out, but I had planned to do boring stuff – like all the laundry I had left over from Koh Tao. Laundry took a while, and when it was done I wandered to Orchard Road and had a brief investigation of a few enormous shopping malls. Eventually, I made my way to Chinatown to start another walking tour through Chinatown and the seedy underbelly of Singapore’s past. Emma, one of the English girls to whom I had mentioned the walk, was there too.

After a very interesting tour we headed back to the hostel to find the other two girls, but they weren’t about so we went to the Price of Wales for a few beers and some curry and some live music. It turns out that this girl was house sitting in Singapore, got bored, and checked in to a hostel to meet people. What a life! We made plans to recruit a group of people to visit the Night Safari the following night.

The recruitment didn’t go all that well and the four of us made our way to the Night Safari on Saturday night, learning along the way that public transport in Singapore is really very easy and more versatile than I knew from my experience with only the MRT. The proximity card ticket thing for the MRT works on busses, and there’s a bus from one MRT station right to the Night Safari. We found our way there easily enough.

To be honest, the Night Safari was a little lame. It’s clearly designed for kids, but we had a good time anyway. The setting was great and gives a real sense of being in the jungle… despite the scripted, practised, repeated hundreds of times each night speech from the person who tells us what we should be seeing. The little tram things are quite cool, though… and the banana split from the ice cream shop is enormous. All in all, a good night.

Sunday brought a big decision. I hadn’t intended to head home so early, but I was still suffering from the cold and feeling quite average. The political situation in Thailand was becoming more and more unstable and there were signs of more nastiness to come. Additionally, Tropical Storm Maysak had ruined parts of Vietnam and had made life unpleasant with lots of rain and misery to be found. I wanted to go to Laos, but to get there meant transiting through Thailand (risky) or Vietnam (flooded). Frustrated with paying money to be sick away from home, I went to the Singapore Airlines office to change my ticket and return to Australia earlier.

I locked in a return to Adelaide on Wednesday, November 19 – coincidentally my sister’s birthday. She was due to arrive in Adelaide only a few hours after me. The flight was overnight, so I was scheduled to depart Singapore on Tuesday night.

Sunday night brought another meeting with my mate Tim. We went to Maxwell Food Centre, home to the famed Tian Tian chicken rice. Tian Tian was closed, but Tim prefers another chicken rice stall and it was open. We feasted on chicken rice  and other assorted delicacies, and washed it all down with a couple of long necks of Tiger. Total cost was $cheap. The food is something I could definitely get used to in Singapore… I love it, especially the hawker/food centres.

Monday was spent wandering around again and finding a gift for my sister’s birthday. Antiques are expensive! I eventually settled for a still stupidly expensive Buddha head – four faces showing different expressions. I was probably ripped off. On Tuesday I had to leave the hostel early so I left my bag there and tried to keep inside air conditioning – so I saw the new Bond film at a nearby cinema, looked around some shopping malls and bought some new ear buds, and eventually made my way to the airport.

Changi airport is pretty sweet, especially the Terminal 3 departures area. There’s a brewery… in the airport! I had a pint of airport brewed beer (OK, it probably wasn’t actually brewed there) and a burger, and took advantage of the free wifi and a place to plug my laptop in to charge.

Leaving Singapore wasn’t as easy as entering: the plane I was due to leave on was broken. Flights were departing to all over the world, but we were stuck in Singapore for two hours until a replacement plane arrived.

After a long and uncomfortable overnight flight, I arrived home… and promptly managed to somehow delete most of the photographs I took during my second visit to Singapore!

Koh Tao.

Published on Thursday, November 20th, 2008 in Koh Tao and Thailand. 0 Comments

So… the slow-ish boat to Koh Tao took several hours and stopped once, on Koh Phangan. More than half the people left the boat. I was glad I wasn’t going with them. Braving the intermittent showers, a large group of people hung out outside on the top deck of the boat and swapped stories. I’d lucked in to two fairly cool people, and we were soon fast friends.  One of the people who had joined us was a Thai girl who worked for a dive resort on Koh Tao as, effectively, a tout. Her name was Om (I think!) and despite trying to get us to dive at the resort she worked for, she was very cool. She spoke excellent English and had a lot of good stories. The two guys I was with had lots of questions about everything in Thailand and she was only too happy to talk with us about everything from religion to lady-boys.

Needless to say, the two hours between Koh Phangan and Koh Tao passed quickly. We decided to go with Om to the dive resort she worked for, because a) she was cool, b) it had a shiny new ute with rain protection to take us there, c) it was raining, and d) we knew the place by name and it had a good reputation.

Because I only had a short time on Koh Tao before heading to Singapore to watch the Singapore Open golf tournament, I was thrown right in the deep end: I was to start my open water course that evening. My group was a little large but that wasn’t a problem, and everyone was fairly cool. Most of them were Irish – there was only one other guy in the group of 9 and he was an English guy married to an Irish girl! The dive instructor was a former English primary school teacher who went to Thailand for three weeks, decided she liked it, and has been there for two years working as a dive instructor. We had a trainee dive master with us – also English and a radio DJ, who also went to Thailand for a few weeks one year ago.

The next four days passed in a blur of cheap beer, delicious food, rain, diving, rain, diving, rain, rain, rain, diving, and has the distinction of being one of the most memorably fun times I’ve ever had in my life. There’s something about sitting six meters from the water on a beach with cheap cold beer watching people twirl fire sticks, whilst with a group of twenty people with various colour skin, various accents, and various spoken languages, that makes for an incredibly enjoyable time. Sure, it’s not a particularly authentic travel experience when one realises that there’s nothing on Koh Tao that isn’t for tourists or for the people who support the tourist industry – that is, there’s no real Koh Tao. It’s a place for people to dive.

During the dive course I started to feel worse and worse, and I was actually glad when it was over. My whole body ached and I guess the cold came back to bite me. However, I am now qualified to dive! The course was completely awesome and I really can’t wait to get back…

The day after an enormous night out, including dinner at a fairly decent restaurant, to celebrate certification, I was due to leave Koh Tao for Koh Samui. The night was one of the wettest they had had for some time, and in the morning several long tail boats along the beach had flooded to such an extent that they had sunk. Whilst waiting for my ferry I watched locals trying to un-sink the boats, with varying degrees of success.

I arrived on Koh Samui late, stayed in another dodgy hotel, and awoke at about 4am to head to the airport. I was due in Singapore that night, via Bangkok.

Singapore, Again.

Published on Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 in Singapore. 0 Comments

Singapore has to be the most painless country in the world to visit. It’s easier for me, as an Australian, to get in to Singapore than it is for me to get home. Once again, I went from plane to street-side in under fifteen minutes – at a different terminal to last time, but still an international flight. The efficiency is astounding.

I’m back in Singapore for the Singapore Open, but the weather looks pretty dodgy and I’m not entirely sure how much golf there will actually be. We’re expecting lots and lots and lots of rain…

I’m staying at the same place as last time. It’s a good place – I’ve met three English girls in the five hours I’ve been here and we’re going to investigate food somewhere nearby tonight, and then there are thoughts of the Night Safari tomorrow or Friday.

Expect a larger entry detailing the Koh Tao adventures in the next few days!

Chiang Mai to Koh Samui.

Published on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 in Koh Tao and Thailand. 0 Comments

To reach Koh Samui, I spent about 12 hours in transit: Air Asia from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, Bangkok Airways from Bangkok to Koh Samui, and a bus from the airport at Koh Samui to some crazy hotel in Lamai.

Flying from Bangkok to Koh Samui is an interesting experience. Bangkok Airways rate themselves as “Asia’s boutique airline” and they certainly are. Every ticket holder gets access to the Bangkok Airways lounge, with free wireless, food, drink, magazines, and so on. It’s like the Qantas Club, but for everyone. The short flight to Koh Samui shows off coastline and ocean, before several small islands appear. Then an enormous island appears, and the plane lands: welcome to Koh Samui. Bangkok Airways built the airport themselves, and it’s an intriguing place: open sides, luxurious, and compact.

I jumped aboard a minibus taking people to various hotels and decided to stay at some place that looked interesting. The driveway was enormous… lined with shops, and very new and modern. The hotel was interesting… I was fairly sure I was the only person staying there. It was very new and decked out in colonial style four star goodness, but was absolutely deserted.

After a wander to the beach area I quickly decided that I hated Koh Samui. It was full of stupid white tourists, overpriced crap for the stupid white tourists to buy, and underpriced Thai women for stupid white tourists to enjoy. The streets were lined with girlie bars and sports bars and massage places and cheap and nasty looking food places and 711’s and all sorts of other junk. It rained a lot. It wasn’t nice. I went to bed early, only to be women up throughout the night by lots of strange noises in the hotel… and then the power went out. Turns out there was so much rain that several rooms were flooded.

Koh Samui just pissed me off. I had to get out, but to where? I had a vague plan of meeting up with the English guy from the rafting trip on Koh Phangan for a full moon party, but I couldn’t get in touch with him. I figured I’d go there anyway.

The following morning the hotel driver took me to a boat dock on the other side of the island, where I waited for a ferry. While I was waiting I started talking to two guys who were travelling together – A Belgian guy who had been living in Australia, and an American guy who had been all over the place. They convinced me to go to Koh Tao to go diving with them… so I did.

A quick talk to the ferry ticket sales guy, and I had my ticket changed to Koh Tao. I knew nothing of the place, and I’m not a huge fan of the ocean.

Pai to Mae Hong Son: A rafting adventure.

Published on Monday, November 10th, 2008 in North and Thailand. 0 Comments

The rafting adventure from Pai to Mae Hong Son was amazing. We had a group of six people: an older French couple, a 30 year old English guy, myself, and two “river captains” to guide us. The night prior to departing involved non stop rain and some fairly epic lightning displays. The rain resulted in the river flowing high and fast, and made for a whole lot of fun. The weather during the trip was great… no rain, lots of sun, and it was nice and warm without being hot.

The route took us along the Middle Pai River, in to the depths of the jungle. The scenery was spectacular… similar to northern Australia in some ways, but very Thai at the same time. The rapids were enjoyable: the most difficult we saw were class 4, which was fun but not all that challenging. We stopped for lunch, and at one point we had to disembark the raft and walk through a mining camp. The guys there were used to stupid white people wandering about, and were full of questions. While we chatted to the miners, the guides navigated the raft to beyond the river ford and to a safe launching spot. There was a lot of debris in the river – thousands of tree limbs and other bits and pieces, but happily there was little man made stuff.

The overnight camp was again in the middle of the jungle and had been established by the French owner of the rafting company some fifteen years previously. A crew of 4 Thai dudes lived there on a rotational basis. They were to cook, clean, and maintain the place. One enterprising young guy had taken to selling warm beer to visitors: 100 baht per can. I think our bill came to about 2500 baht that night, including many beers bought for the Thai guys. There was no electricity and everything there had to be floated in by river, as there was no road access anywhere nearby. After a delicious meal we played lots of card games and told stories, played guitar (how that survived the raft trip I don’t know) and eventually went to bed: a bamboo sleeping platform for each person, with several layers of mosquito nets and some sleeping bags for mattresses. I used my silk inner as a sleeping bag and slept quite happily in the middle of the jungle.

The following day we rafted through some milder rapids for four hours, saw a bunch of fishermen on their bamboo rafts, and ended up in Mae Hong Son. The French guys and I decided to stay at the same bungalows, and spent the evening wandering about the night market eating delicious food and drinking cold beer. Mae Hong Son is a very interesting place. It’s near the Burmese border, and there are a lot of shifty looking white guys with lots of dark clothing and equipment wandering about and doing strange things at night with motorbikes and cars. Make of that what you will. However, the town is very beautiful and is well worth spending a couple of days in.

Two days later we left on a Thai Airways flight to Chiang Mai. The flight was spectacular – we had an evening view of some fairly impressive mountains, jungle, and farmland. It’s well worth doing, event hough it costs significantly more than the 10 hour mountainous bus ride!

In Chiang Mai the French guys and I split up: I was headed for some hostel the Lonely Planet guide had suggested was good, but in reality it was pretty average. It was the type of place that had a sign stating their hourly rates… but other than that it was OK. A little dirty, a little noisy, but well located. The atmosphere was miserable and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

The following morning, I left for Koh Samui.

A very quick update: Ko Samui, Ko Tao.

Published on Saturday, November 8th, 2008 in Thailand. 1 Comment

After a truely bizzare and somewhat distubing night on Ko Samui (details to come later – I don’t have much time right now) I had decided to go to Ko Pha-ngan, but at the last minute decied to visit Ko Tao instead. It wasn’t too difficult – the same boat went to both destinations.

Anyway, I’m not on Ko Tao, and I’ve started an SSI open water diving course. It’s a nice place, but it’s raining a lot. I guess that’s why it’s the low season.

However, wireless is intermittent and I have a class (??!) to go to soon – the first dive is later today – so don’t expect any major updates or photos until I get to Singapore on November 12.

Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Pai.

Published on Sunday, November 2nd, 2008 in Bangkok and Thailand. 0 Comments

Finally. I’ve acquired wireless (although the provider doesn’t know it) and have some time to write.

Bangkok was crazy. The hostel was great, and the people were nice, but I guess any city with a lot of tourists in South East Asia suffers from the trying-to-sell-shit-to-everyone syndrome. At least they’re nice about it in Bangkok. They smile, even though they might not take no for an answer.

Bangkok is big, dirty, modern, ancient, clean, big, intriguing, friendly, and spectacular. It also appears to be home half of all worldwide tourists at any one time. Traffic is more chaotic than anywhere else I’ve been so far. Giving way is at best a nice thought, and at worst a deadly reliance – particularly for the millions of motorbikes.

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A French guy, and English guy, and myself met one evening over a few beers and decided to investigate the area. Close to the once infamous and now somewhat gentrified Patpong district, we braved the crowds of tourists and the crowded street markets, and the only thing that told us we were in the red light district was the number of guys offering us cheap girls. No, thanks. Cheap girls are the last kind of girl I want. I even went so far as to invent a girlfriend – it’s amazing how a “no, no… my girlfriend” and a finger running across the throat shuts them up, or makes them laugh… but it’s also disturbing how often it only encourages them.

The following day we managed to navigate our way to a canal boat pier using the Sky Train, and enjoyed a uniquely Bangkok experience. Disembarking, a very friendly Thai guy who wasn’t trying to sell us anything at all (yeah, right) asked if we needed directions. Sure. We knew what was happening – he would draw on a map, say some stuff, call over a tuk-tuk driver, "negotiate" a price, and ask for nothing in return. Sure enough, we soon found ourselves on a thirty baht for four hour type deal. It’s really not that bad. We went to some temples, and also went to a tailor (no pressure to buy anything, just look at stuff) and a gem shop (again no pressure to buy, just look at overpriced pieces of glass and aluminium masquerading as gemstones and silver) and the idiotic white guys buying stuff.

Eventually we ended up at a temple near the royal palace. The tuk-tuk driver said he’d wait "over there" for an hour for us. Sure. See you then. As soon as we entered the grounds of the temple, we knew something was up. There was security everywhere, Thai people hanging out waiting for something, and lots of people in uniform. We wandered around, and eventually the two others left (they couldn’t find the tuk tuk driver) but I decided to hang around to see what was going on. Not five minutes after the other guys had left, the nearby roads were closed and a marching band and a bunch of parading soldiers showed up. Intriged (and stuck – I wasn’t allowed ot, and there were no taxi’s around on the closed roads anyway), I hung around and eventually, after a brief rain shower, a prince and princess appeared. The did their thing in the temple, and left – shortly before the rain started again.

Two hours later, the rain stopped and myself and all the other Thai guys emerged from shelter. The tuk-tuk driver had disappeared. The scammer… became the scammed.

The following day we split up. I was heading to Chiang Mai, a large northern city. It’s nice. It’s a huge change from Bangkok.  It’s relaxed and clean and pleasant in the old city, there was no rain, and it was slightly cooler. The place I stayed in was a bit average. Nice rooms, good food – but despite being full of people, not very social. I ended up doing an ATV tour by myself (which was actually pretty cool, just the guide and I) and we rode through forest and jungle and mountains to villages, lookouts, and waterfalls. It was nice.

After a few days in Chiang Mai I’d had enough, and left for a place called Pai. It’s part of the old hippie trail. Tehran, Kabul, Goa, Pai. It’s still a bit of a hippie hangout. It’s a small town, tucked away four hours in to the mountains from Chiang Mai along what would have to be one of the greatest driving roads I’ve ever seen. If you can deal with the occasional bumps, slow traffic, and livestock… it’s 120km of spectacular scenery with switch backs, sharp corners, long straights, and few interruptions. It’s not much fun being stuck in a (nice) minivan, though.

There’s a lot of stuff to do in Pai. It’s possible to rent a bike or motorbike, to trek, raft, cook, drink, eat, visit temples, and do any number of other hippie activities. I rented a bike but immediately was monsooned upon, so my bike rental adventure was short lived. I got a nice view at the end of the ride but discovered I’d left my camera battery in the charger. Whoops.

Being a slightly alternative town, there’s a big focus on healthy living. Most restaurants are so called organic, and there’s more fruit juice and shake shops than in all of Australia. There’s Italian food, Indian, French, Thai, Chinese, Burmese, bugers, street stalls, restaurants, bakeries, markets, and loads of bars with live music. There’s hippie clothing shops, tour offices, normal clothing shops, big hotels, small riverside bungalows, and the usual guest houses. It’s full of Thai people, white guys, Japanese, old, young, short term and long term. A lot of people seem to have been here forever. It’s a nice place, and very laid back. With better transportation I think I’d spend a little longer here, but after seeing the number of people bandaged and in splits, I decided against renting a motorbike.

I did, however, decide to undertake a two day white water rafting journey to Mae Hong Son. I leave tomorrow morning, and arrive on Tuesday in the afternoon. From there I’ll fly to Chiang Mai, and then from Chiang Mai to some island down south – probably to dive, perhaps to party. On the 12th I fly from Koh Samui (not where I’m staying) to Bangkok, and from Bangkok to Singapore.

After Singapore, I’ll spend a few weeks in Laos before heading back home early. I should be home before Christmas and in time for my cousin’s wedding. I’ll basically be home a month earlier than expected, but that’s fine by me. I can’t get rid of this cold, and I feel as though I’m just spending money to be sick in exotic places.