On the Road

When travelling through Thailand, Laos and now Cambodia, we've established a love/hate relationship with public transportation. Travelling in various levels of comfort - from open-air bouncing on your seat tuk-tuks, 2 days packed on a boat on the Mekong River to sharing a local bus with enough material on the roof to build a whole house (and make it move by itself) and enough rice bags on the floor to feed a whole village - is definitely the authentic way to see Asia. All you can do is just do what the locals do: squat pee in the bushes by lack of countryside toilets, "enjoy" local ballads blaring out of the speakers at 6 in the morning (thank God for ipods!), and accept that full never means full, 3 hour breaks in the middle of the night are totally fine, it is either too hot or way too cold, nobody speaks English, and you won't ever arrive at your destination within 2 hours of the said time.
But what you get to see in return is priceless! Glued onto the window, everything you won't get to see in a tourist destination comes gliding by. Village life that has only just got to the electricity and TV era and where the women wash themselves, their clothes and food in the local well or river, children biking to school in their uniforms or playing the most fun games with whatever they can find and always stopping to wave and smile, old ladies hanging at the porch and chewing leafs and the men working in the fields and rivers. We've seen houses made from no more than bamboo, straw and wood to two story stone palaces with huge satellites, millions of motorbikes, dogs, cows and roadside shops selling everything from gasoline in whiskey bottles to coffins. And not to mention the most enhancing scenery!

Northern Thailand

                         

Since the last time I wrote one month ago we've travelled to the north of Thailand and through the floods of Bangkok to get there. The centre was at the time spared from most of the drama and we got to wander the infamous Koh San Road at 6AM. Even at that hour is was an interesting sight: orange-clad monks going around for their alms, next to drunk English boys nursing their last beer and garbage men cleaning up last night's mess. We didn't feel like we were missing out by not staying. Instead, we went north to the town of Kanchanaburi. Next to the river Kwai, with lots of green and rolling hills on the horizon, we finally made it out of the mass-tourist destinations and into Thailand! At the night market, I was actually being started at! The highlight of our stay was a full day tour that took us to the areas sights including the best natural waterpark you can imagine: 7 levels of waterfalls - one more amazing than the other - rolling down the hill in which you can swim, climb under and slide off! But even better was the ride we got to make on an elephant! Instead of sitting on the bench, we actually got to sit on the neck of the elephant and to feel its muscles move under you and have its ears flap against your legs is so amazing! After the ride, we undressed and went into the river to bath with another elephant! Or more, to be bathed by the elephant as it totally soaked us with water spraying from its trunk! So much fun and truly unforgettable!

Due to the floods in the middle of Thailand, we had to travel via Bangkok to get further north. And instead of improving - as we'd hoped - the situation had only worsened and we had to drive through flooded streets and deal with hour long traffic jams getting in and out of the city. It was heartbreaking to see the kilometres of streets, buildings and houses under water and people paddling on little rubberboats with nowhere else to go... But the Thai are strong people and even in situations like these they smile and invent ways to make the best of it - like using all the higher-up roads as parking lots and building bicycles with double frames to stay high and dry.
So at last we made it to Thailand's most colourful and charming city, Chang Mai! Full with monks, beautiful Wats (temple complexes), small back streets, cute cafes, tasteful restaurants and lots of green. During the days we explored the small streets and numerous Wats with lots of colourful paintings, Buddhas, wishing bowls, praying incense, and friendly monks. And during the evenings there were various markets with heaps of local crafts and food to be strolled on! One day we made a motorbike trip up the windy roads to visit the most serene and beautiful temple on top of the hill and further onto a small village in the middle of the jungle where they grow coffee and bananas. We finally had a case of good timing when our stay coincided with the Yeepang Festival celebrating the light and the letting go of your troubles. The streets and Wats were full with colourful lanterns and candles and the rivers overflowing with Kratons - flower decorated 'boats' with lit candles. But best of all where the lit up papers lanterns filling the skies above Chang Mai! It was a very magical experience to light some of those up ourselves :).

Laos

                           

From the busy festival town we drove up north and crossed the Mekong river into a quiet border town in Laos, to jump on the slowboat for a 2 day river trip. Due to all the bad stories we had heard about the comfort levels, we were happily surprised when we got a comfy seat for the whole ride. Yay for low season! There were some other less fortunate people who came late and had to share the the front with an ever increasing group of local people and their luggage. The boat was indeed very slow and we had plenty of time to observe local life at the Mekong before being absorbed into the town life of Luang Prahbang. By far the most pretty town in whole South East Asia with its gorgeous colonial French buildings with wooden shutters, painted walls and exotic gardens. The French have left a long time ago but their culture is still very much alive in the wine bars, boulangeries, language and cultural centres. Tom has already decided he wants to go back one day and be inspired by it all to write and sip coffee and eat croissants in the Parisian-style cafes with Lao prices and temperatures. I think I'll join! Only the amazing $1 vegetarian all-you-can-stuff-on-your-plate buffet on the market is enough reason for me to come back! After one of our days wandering around town, we heard chanting coming out of one of the Wats and we got invited by a monk to come inside and listen. So there we were, sitting on the floor and being hypnotized by the voices of a group of novice monks. Such an amazing place!

From Luang Prahbang we took one of those very authentic, very bumpy and very cozy (squeezed in between locals and tourists) rides up north to the small river village of Nong Kiew. In our idyllic bungalow above the river we slowed our pace and started falling in love with rural Laos, which only got increased by a hike trough the fields during the grain harvest. All the local people we passed were so friendly and greeted us with a welcome "sawadee!". So it was quite a shock when we arrived in the party town of Vang Vieng and were instead greeted by drunk neon-wearing tourists who come there to tube down the river and let loose. But we survived the madness and actually had quite a lot of fun! To avoid all the douchebagery, we went tubing in the morning and happened to be on the same tuk tuk as the French couple we met in Malaysia. So we ended up going down the river with a bunch of Frenchies and we got to enjoy the free shots, loud music, rope swings, slides and beer and the most beautiful limestone cliffs surrounding the river all by ourselves! The very next morning we took off to kayak down the river towards the capital Vientiane, with a bunch of white water rapids and a BBQ on the rocks. The kayaking was lots more fun than the city itself, which was kind of an unorganised collection of monuments and restaurants. But we did get the see the very informative centre for people with missing limps - mainly caused by the millions of unexplored bombs that are still lying around Laos countryside. It is so terrible that after all those years still so many people suffer from this and those that caused it all do not seem to be of much help to clean up their mess...
After a day of walking around we decided we wanted to go back to the countryside and took the bus to remote Kong Lo. The main reason was to see the 7,5 metre long carved out river that goes all through a hill, forming an amazing cave with pitch black 'rooms' and stalagmites and stalactites dangling from the ceiling! So far, we always ended up staying in tourist zones simply because that is where the guesthouses are. So when we (and 3 others) ended up sharing food, Lao Lao (very strong local rice liquor) and laughs with the owners and friends on the floor of our guesthouse, it was a very simple yet very fulfilling experience. Small things like that made our stay in Laos more memorable than that in the other countries we've visited so far. And I very much hope that the increasing influx of tourists into the country will not spoil that in the future!

While hobbling in old-age busses down even more old-age roads, we briefly visited some more rarely visited towns on the way to our last destination in the far south of Laos, the 4000 islands. Located in the middle of the muddy Mekong, the islands are not really tropical but very pretty nonetheless. The perfect antidote to the craziness of Lao bus travelling is reading in the hammock on the riverside balcony, biking through farmer villages and admiring rocky waterfalls. The slow pace gives you enough time to catch the children frolicking in the river, the buffaloes enjoying their mud baths, the men drinking their beers and the women gossiping.
I think/hope we're now ready for chaos that is Cambodia!

From beach to beach to beached-out

                         

We are halfway exploring the amazing country of Thailand! Leaving Malaysia, we made our way up on the west side through a smooth border crossing (with some laughs when an American guy from our bus was requested to change his tank-top for something more formal) and onto another boat to whisk us off to the small island of Koh Lipe. The biggest change from Malaysia to Thailand was - and still is - the language and script. While in Indonesia and Malaysia (who share the same Bahasa - language) we were starting to get the hang of basic conversation with locals, we could only grasp at what on earth they were trying to say to us in Thai. Let alone make those same words come out of our mouths! Up to now, all we've accomplished are the basic hello and thank you. But any word other than English is always better than none! The people are a lot more welcoming than their southern neighbours anyway and it didn't take long for us to start understanding why Thailand is so loved among tourists. The only thing that was harder to get used to was Koh Lipe itself, as it was in the midst of pre-season construction. Now it is still the 'green season', meaning cheap prices and less people but also more rain. And on Koh Lipe it also means barges docking at our beach and bulldozers - yes bulldozers! - driving on and off to get their goods until late in the evening. Not so much fun if the main reason of your visit is to live the relaxed island life. The vibe of the island is pretty good though and the laid-back village street with all its cozy restaurants and bars must be a great place in the high season - we were just two weeks too early. We managed to find this more or less on walks to different and more secluded beaches on the island but everywhere we went, we were accompanied by some sort of hammering and sawing noises in the background. So for one day we visited the national park of a neighbouring island so we could finally enjoy the joys of having the whole beach to ourselves. When walking through the island's jungle in search of a waterfall we were joined by a dog - we called her Blackie - who started to fight with the forest monkeys in order to protect us! In the end we were the ones most scared by the screaming monkeys and not the dog but it was an hilarious sight!

Our next destination was the limestone paradise of Krabi! To be more precise, the long stretch of scarcely developed beach surrounded by the most amazing limestone cliffs of Ton Sai - still attached to the mainland but only accessible by boat and therefore with the accompanying beach-bum vibe. Unmistakably the most chilled out place I've ever been too! It is crazy how little you can do in one day: have cheap breakfast at one of the outdoor food stalls/restaurants on a sandy path, move over to the Thai cushions at the beach bar for a fruit shake and some reading, walk over the rocks to the adjoining and even more amazing beaches of Railey and Phra Nang, eat, swim, scramble back over the rocks, enjoy a cold shower, eat some great local dishes and make your way to one of the three reggae bars and share the company of some Changs (our favourite Thai beer) and the guitar play and chatter of fellow travellers from all over the world (who are mainly there to climb). We did get out of our routine to explore the cliffs and surrounding islands from the water on a kayak (or well... a pretty crappy sit on top piece of plastic) and found a whole bunch of hidden caves and the most crazy rock formations dangling above the ocean! And you should have seen the surprised look on other tourists faces when we docked on the islands normally only visited by speedboat!

From Railey beach (next to Ton Sai) we got herded onto a packed boat, onto the pier in to a mass of people all being demanded to pay 20Bhat for island cleaning fees (Thailand clean?), through hundreds of touts trying to sell us expensive resort packages and into a tourism office from where you could take our pick out of other pricey accommodations... welcome to Koh Phi Phi Don. After we got into our place that was nice but definitely not worth the money, we explored the streets and beach filled with everything to entertain "the tourist". The island itself is pretty but that gets overshadowed by the tons of people (think of trashy English, All-Inclusive Americans and obnoxious speedo and cowboyhat wearing Russians - and a few lost backpackers like us) and the high prices you have to pay to enjoy its true beauty. We saw a glimpse of it on our island-hop and snorkel tour that visited a bunch of the two island's (Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Ley) highlights. Despite the clouds and crowds, we enjoyed the beautiful white sand beaches, hidden coves and the wet and bumpy ride on the longtail boat. But our (and everyone else's) main draw to Phi Phi is the world famous Maya Bay, which we finally got to see on our last stop! The bay was pretty amazing but unfortunately not as breathtaking as we had hoped for... The main reason was that the otherwise turquoise water was all the way out and the sun failed to make an appearance only until the last minute to shine a little bit of light on the otherwise lush limestone cliffs... :(. Nevertheless, it was cool to hang on the beach that they used for the movie 'The Beach' and imagine living on a deserted island surrounded by cliffs - although in our case we were joined by a little larger group of fellow 'islanders'. To make up for our slight disappointment, we joined the crazy fire show, limbo and party on the beach, dancing barefoot in the sand with a bucket of cheap booze in our hand, and made the trip to Phi Phi a bit more worthwhile!

In need to get back in touch with the island-vibe that we lost in busy Phi Phi, we quickly took off to neighbouring Koh Lanta. Only 45min by boat but worlds away! Imagine the longest stretches of sand with barely no others to share them with than the owners of the very chilled out and well designed beach bars. Where we spent quite a few hours gazing into the ocean, playing card games and eating a variation of the now very familiar fried rice and noodle dishes. Since the island is pretty big, we rented a motorbike to cruise around and explore the many beaches, the old heritage town and jungle interior and to see a bit more of the Thai island life. And encountering crossing dogs, monkeys and at one point even elephants! Now we're really enjoying Thailand! Or at least as much as you can on a tourist-orientated island!

Tropic thunder

                                       

Hot and sweaty, filled with the sounds of traffic and yelling locals, the ever present smell of food, open sewers and motorbike fumes. All mixed with a blend of Colonialism, Chinese authenticity, blaring Bollywood soundtracks and 'keeping up with the Jones' modernisation. That pretty much sums up the cities of Malaysia that we've visited in the last two weeks. We arrived from idylic and travel friendly Bali into the hectic hotpot of Kuala Kumpur and got pretty overwhelmed by it all. The city is of opposites: on one side you feel like you've landed in 1950's China with barbers shaving people on the streets, hawkers cooking noodles on every street corner and cockroaches running over the pavements at night. But then you have the modern Western world on the other side with the famous Petronas Towers (the highest in the world until 2004), metrolines, highways and icecold shopping mall after icecold shopping mall with all the European, American and every other brand you can possibly imagine. Filled with the head-scarved Malaysian girls with in one hand a Blackberry and in the other a Starbucks cup. Almost like a reversed culture shock!

So as you can imagine, we left Kuala Lumpur quickly to see more of the real deal. And we found it in UNESCO World Heritage town Melaka. The old heart of the town has an amazing mix of Dutch, English, Portuguese and Chinese heritage houses filled with guesthouses, restaurants and shops. It is so funny to see a Stadhuys (Dutch city hall) and Heeren Straat in the middle of Malaysia! We found a very pretty loft-style guesthouse with free internet, bikes and icecoffee with soy milk (very rare) so we decided to relax and hang out in Melaka for a few days. Basically strolling the nice streets, biking around, reading and trying out lots of local food specialties. The best one - in my opinion - was satay fondue in which you could dip your own selected veggies, tofu, seafood and meat sticks.

But after bearing that sticky heat, followed by some rainfall, we really needed something more to cool us down than just some lousy fans. So we took the nightbus (which definitely cooled us down, or lets say almost froze us) to the North-East coast of Malaysia. From there we took a speedboat to the tropical island Pulau Perhentian. No roads, just two islands with lots of deserted beaches and a few paths in between them. And beaches even more tropical than those of the Gili Islands: the sand more yellow, the water more blue, more palmtrees and less people! But due to heavy monsoons, poor thinking, and bad constructing, also a lot more run down than the Gili's. After making the mistake to sleep in a cheap bungalow for the first night, 'surprising' us with cockroaches and spiders at night, we moved to a much nicer beach with much nicer accommodation. For only 10RM ($3) more, we could sleep through the night! The days were mostly spent near the water and every once and a while we braved to get in the heat to walk to a different beach. It's funny how the heat slows you down like that! Every one of those slow and relaxing days was followed by a heavy cloud of accumulated heat that may or may not have turned into a huge tropical storm. Most nights it did. And always at the point when we just finished our dinner at one of the three beachside restaurants and were about to return back to our beach bungalow. Resulting in us running through the pouring rain, dodging anchors on the beach and almost being blown away and struck by thunder! 'Just' a preview of the monsoons that are about to hit the island in two weeks. But when morning comes around, all is nice and quiet and sunny again. For now...
On our last day we decided to get a little more active and join a snorkeling trip with the very energetic local guide Jeffery and four Frenchies. The only people visiting Perhentian seemed to be Dutchies and Frenchies. Actually during this whole trip we've been surrounded by Dutch people. It's so weird since I've barely seen or heard so many in over a year! Anyway... the snorkeling trip was a lot of fun and we saw lots of different beaches and fish, coral, a huge sea turtle and even a shark! But - again - not as nice as the Gili's. I think it will take a while until something will be better than Bali... eventhough the locals there kept on bugging us to buy things, their interest and their hospitality are things we do miss in Malaysia. The people here are a lot more distant and less friendly. And the nature of Bali still beats the rain forests of Malaysia. By a lot!

On our last evening we met up with two of the Frenchies for dinner and tried some of the notorious local Monkey Juice. Which turned out to be nothing more than homemade watered-down rum, but nevertheless tasted very good with fresh pineapple juice! It was good to hang out with some other people for a bit more than some small talk. We do get to meet people and talk to locals, but it is still harder to connect when you are travelling as a couple. But I'm not complaining! Travelling with Tom is great and we have a lot of fun exploring new places together! It's also good to have a male companion since you do hear stories about girls being harassed when they are alone. I also immediately notice the difference when I'm alone, when all of a sudden the politeness drops and is being replaced with 'hello miss!', 'how are you?', 'where are you from' and 'where are you going?'! It is funny but I'm very happy that I do not have to deal with that all the time!

After Perhentian we moved back to the West, to another heritage town on Pulau Penang: Georgetown. A bigger and much busier version of Melaka. The first impression was rather disappointing, but that changed around as soon as we started exploring the many many streets and areas - and local dishes! We discovered some awesome heritage buildings and houses with crumbling paint on the walls and pretty wooden shutters and doors. My camera has been very busy in the last few days! We also got to prepare for our next destination Thailand! Since there are many floods around Bangkok, we got a bit anxious but after some research and local reports we think we will be able to dodge the worst of it. Up first is the island Koh Lipeh and we'll see how the trip unfolds from there!