Enough Travelling for Now. Up next: Shanghai!

That's it, we're off to Shangahi. I have spent the evening before our departure, here in Bangkok, madly getting these blogs ready since the Chinese government in their infinite wisdom (paranoia) has blocked Blogspot blogs (such as this one), which will prevent me from updating it for a while.

There are ways around these things, but it will take me a time to learn them, so it may be awhile until I can update this blog, and get my planned Shanghai blog going, which will hopefully eventually be found at:

www.shanghaishakedown.blogspot.com.


Tim.

A few (almost) missed moments from Malaysia and Thailand (Aug. 31 to Oct. 17, 2005)

On a trip as lengthy as this one has been, there are inevitably a lot of great moments that kind of get forgotten amongst all the many larger events that occurred. The sort that I have largely neglected in writing the various blogs I have published. So here, is a little collection of pictures and short comments and stories, from a few spots along the way, many of which I never was able to mention until now...

1. Melaka, Melaysia.

Melaka is a city notable primarily for its colonial history - the Dutch were there, the British were there, the Japanese were there, and so on. It is not such a picturesque place, but it did have an interesting Chinatown, as well as Little India where we experienced something new for both of us - dinner served on a banana tree leaf.


Dinner on a banana tree leaf...

2. Raising a Family - Batu Caves, just outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The Big City - especially Kuala Lumpur - is really not the best place to be raising kids. I suggest doing like the locals do if you find yourself in this situation while living in such a place. Find a big cave just outside of town, a keep an eye on them, but they will be able to do as they please in a way that probably wouldn't be possible in the middle of the city...


Monkeys at the Batu Caves - just outside Kuala Lumpur.

3. Pangkor Island, Malaysia.

The Islamic culture is very strong and visible all over Malaysia. When I looked over our hotel balcony, down to the restaurant below, and saw this scene - two young couples certainly much younger than Elisabeth and myself, I couldn't help wondering, was this an arranged dinner?


An arranged dinner?

4. Georgetown, Penang Island, Malaysia.

Unfortuntately, Georgetown, though a place with a fair amount of character and a colonial past still quite visable in certain areas, what not a place the produced any stories I felt like writing up at the time. Nonetheless, the view from the nearby hill, about 1000 metres above sea level (and 5 degrees cooler than the very hot and humid weather down on the city streets) proved a very pleasant little afternoon excursion.


One of those great views that you really had to witness in person to appreciate.

5. Cameron Highlands, Malaysia.

I wrote a fairly extensive blog about our stay in the Cameron Highlands, one little detail I left out was the fantastically unique accomodation we had - a lively guesthouse very popular with backpackers - which included rooms in bunker style huts originally built to house British soldiers in the lead up to World War II.



Not only that, each morning just outside, farm workers were picking and boxing cabbage to send to market, an unexpectedly compelling sight.



6. The ferry to Koh Samui, Thailand.

There were two things the struck me about this one. Firstly, as we arrived, I was surprised at how natural the port was - I was expecting one of those typically industrial port areas, heavily polluted and largely devoid of much character. This one was really just palm trees.


Welcome to Koh Samui - palm trees and palm trees. No hint of the thousands of package tourists hidden behind the trees.

Secondly, one always wonders a bit about safety standards in developing countries like Thailand and Malaysia - on boats, at petrol stations...


Who's counting years anyway?


...is that can rusty?

7. Koh Toa, Thailand - Second to none food standards.

Here's a helpful reminder I would recommend any restaurant owner or manager should consider putting up in their restaurant to remind the staff. Make it visible for customers too, they will surely appreciate knowing you care.


Yes!...and of course, dirty food, bad taste.


8. Writing all this stuff! (Koh Samui, Thailand, in the case of this photo).

I really enjoy having a laptop with me during this trip, even though more than one person advised against it. Not only was it easy to sit out and write some of this stuff, it also allowed me to make new friends along the way.


Me, my computer, and my new friend.

Bangkok, Thailand (Oct. 14-17)

Bangkok, at long last.

There is a point during a trip such as this, that the idea of arriving at a final destination simply becomes unfathomable. Much like the idea that at some point there was a beginning. But after a loooong bus ride, where suddenly a little over an hour into a 4 hour journey, the air conditioning cut out, leaving only hot air blowing from the ventilators - though the karaoke video still played endlessly and annoyingly.


I really wonder if anyone can actually stand the karaoke crap they insist on playing on so many long-distance buses...



From that point the bus became a slowly heating oven, albeit one that honked at every car that it passed. Crazy driver.

But here we are, and it feels good. We are certainly in the traveller part of town, the surroundings plainly reveal, but it is authentic in its way all the same.





One of the first things we did was take a bus boat along the highly polluted canal, which gave us a good feel for the city and its size - as well as revealing just why the canal was so disgusting. No wonder there are plastic sheets that are pulled up each time the boat moves away from a stop - nobody wants to be touched by that water.






I wish I had time to say more, and show more, but I just don't!

A Day at the Beach - Hua Hin, Thailand (Oct. 12-13)

The beach at Hua Hin, Thailand.

Our last stop before getting to Bangkok was one we initially hadn't planned, but it turned out to fit perfectly in every way. It would have been too much of a shock to go from the tranquil beauty of Koh Tao, straight to the polluted hustle and bustle of Bangkok, but Hua Hin, a pleasant little beach town exactly midway between the two proved to be just what the doctor ordered.

I was expecting one of those unpleasant tourist beach towns, with a grubby beach and poor tourist quality food, but it turned out quite the opposite was the case. Grat sea food and a fantastic white-sand beach. In fact, we realised that this was the first mainland beach that we had been to on the entire trip - since all the other beaches we visited were on one island or another.

We found a fantastic little room on one of the peers built over the sea - so we were pleasantly serenaded by waves all night long.


yup, that was our hotel room on the water.

The next day, it was only the next day when we first discovered the beach was far beyond our expectations - with such fine sand and lounge chairs you could cheaply rent for the day, it was inevitably a pleasant beach to spend the day.



a relaxing last day on the beach.

As this was out last beach stop after 7 weeks of many of them, I savoured every moment of it, as did Elisabeth.

Of course the beach venders, similar to on Koh Samui, were annoyingly persistent trying to sell countless items we had no interest in, but ultimately this kind of thing is all part of the experience anyway.


beach vendors.

hawker food and souvenirs by the water.

A week on Koh Tao, Thailand (Oct. 7-12).

After passing a night in the main city in a beach hut with rather odd tiles on the walls, we opted to make our way to a more remote part of the island.


Strange tiles for beach hut?

Annoyingly, a pesky little ear infection prevented me from taking the diving course that I had planned to take, though there is always a silver lining on the clouds, and in this case it was the fact that it is unlikely we would have made it to the place that proved to be arguably the most beautiful spot on the entire trip (save for perhaps the Perhentian Islands. We flagged down one of these truly unique Thai boat taxis to get there - each boat equipped with a propellor on a long pole directly attached to a large and rusty diesel engine.



The utterly unique Thai boat engine.

...and away he went

Tanote Bay is the place to stay on Koh Tao, there is simply no question.


The view from our front porch - now this is paradise!

Home became a newly constructed (and dirt cheap) beach hut, ahem, rather close to the water.




"Honey, I'm home! What's for dinner?"

perhaps some fish for dinner, these guys were catching at night...


like these.


he seemed to enjoy watching us eat dinner.

Moving upscale (and falling off of motorbikes), Koh Phangnan, Thailand (Oct. 1-7)

The view from our balcony at Salad Beach Resort, Koh Phangnan...

So on to Koh Phangnan and Koh Tao.

Since I’m supposed to be starting a phd in construction in a little less than a year (let’s see...), I may as well take the chance to offer a couple of unfocused comments directed to the construction end of things, among a few other (non-construction) comments.

As we have truly hit the off-season here - the lull from the end of August when tourists and travellors largely disappear, to mid-December when the start reappearing once again in droves, we have had a chance to see these 3 Thai islands presenting themselves at their most uninhibited, shall we say.

A lot of places through open for business, have given up any pretense of having any purpose beyond finishing all desired construction in time for the next high season in December. Mess, at these places, is everywhere.

In fact, nearly every bungalow operation on Koh Phangnan and Koh Tao seem to be carrying out some new construction, or re-construction, or de-construction to varying degrees. These means plenty of activity is visible, which doesn’t really change the pace of life terribly dramatically - it’s pretty relaxed, not surprisingly.




A little construction to help the off-season pass

There is little doubt that there is a sort of mini-boom going on at these islands. Actuallly, I would call it an all out boom in the case of Koh Samui, and pretty close to it on Koh Phangnan. Koh Tao is a little more subdued that the other two, but it is the smallest.


Probably the only thing holding back Koh Phangnan from being at a similar level of development to Koh Samui is a surprisingly under-developed set of roads - and thankfully the lack of an international airport.


The rather bumpy road on Koh Tao.

Large parts of Koh Phangnan and Koh Tao remain connected solely by VERY bumpy and muddy roads which are basically unnavigatable in anything less than a 4-wheel drive truck. And even a small part of the island remains accessable only by water.

We, of course, choose one of tghe most remote parts of the Koh Phangnan island to have a little low-speed motorcycle incident which sent Elisabeth off the back of the bike eventually lying on the ground with a sprained arm. A little 4 wheel drive taxi ride to the island hospital eventually confirmed that diagnosis. The driver of the motorcycle, your truly, was fortunatley uninjured, save for a couple of minor scatches.


Thank goodness for the friendly Koh Phangnan hospital...

One particularly good think about being on Koh Phangnan during the off-season is a degree of luxury, luxury that would already be dirt cheap by European/North American standards, becomes even cheaper as luxury places try to attract a few more travellors during the off-seasona than they would otherwise. In fact, the prices become nearly ridiculous. This meant Elisabeth did have some fairly pleasant surroundings to recurerate from her little injury.



Recovering in style and comfort...

Surrounding the place we stayed was a fantastic looking resoret of similar high quality to ours that seemed to be undergoing a radical face-lift, and on the other side was a more modest bungalow operation was nonetheless finding the time to nearly double in size during the down time.

Our chosen locale, Salad Bay Resort, was taking advantage of the off-season not to do any construction, but rather to suck in loads of travellors. The strategy seemed to be succeeding as business was booming while the surrounding operations along the bay (6-7 of them), were all but deserted.

But evidently many were nonetheless predicting big things once peak season returned, judging by all the construction.


watching the fish dry...