The road north
Out of that sweaty melting pot of bangkok in search of some culture, at least that was the plan.... First stop Ayunthaya, one of the origional capitals of Thailand. Turned up at Bangkok train station early one morning and purchased my first ever 3rd class train ticket - unfortunately this did not mean a seat on the roof. The ticket lady, incredulous that a foreigner would travel in 3rd class, explained that 'you may not even get a seat' - clearly she knows nothing about British transportation.... The journey was brief, in theorectical time at least, about an hour and a half north of Bangkok. Experienced time was stretched however through the application of pain from a seat clearly designed by a chiroprachtor.Ayunthaya has an impressive number of venerable and crumbling wats (temples) in various styles reflecting the changes of influence through the years. This is also true of its buddha statues who pulls off an incredible posture shift from lying to sitting to walking over the almost instantaneous space of 3 centuries, makes Linford look slow...Sukuthai was 6 hours bus ride north, and an even older capital. Again sporting many a temple. Have probably seen more religous buildings in the space of those 3 days than the rest of my life combined.After our historical/cultural studies it was definately time to get get muddy and sweaty again. No, not mud wrestling but a trek into the hills surrounding the northern city of Chang Mai to see the local hill tribes. The hill tribes of Thailand (of which there are several) have lived in Thailand for hundreds of years but are not racially Thai, as the Thais stuck to the rivers and valleys of the country. Although the government is trying to modernise their lives they are still suprisingly unaffected by the modern Thailand. Mostly they still survive through subsistance farming, their villages and surrounding rainforest supplying all that they need to live. Our guide had grown up in one of the villages and still spent half of his time there with his family so was able to give a real insite into their lives. The trek itself was not of the heroic nature of our Malaysian adventures having been organised with sensible people in mind, but still had the timeless themes of dripping sweat, mud, biting insects and bathing in waterfalls. The thing is, when you wash your clothes in rivers the water may LOOK clean, but somehow when your T-shirt dries you can suddenly mould it into solid sculptures.The final day of the trek included and elephant ride and a ride down the river on bamboo raft..... Oh i couldn't wait to get on that elephant, always saw myself as a bit of a hanibal, unfortunately couldn't quite make it to northern italy in an hour. Elephant riding is definately a participation sport. Don't spend too long lining up the perfect photo, cos you'll be rolling off the back. Seated on your wobbly vehicle, bereft of aircon (except the muddy water which your steed intermitantly distributes over itself and yourself through its trunk) you can tackle 45 degree inclines with ease, just watch those low flying branches. Saying goodbye to nellie, next stop was to tackle a river on bamboo raft. Hardly whitewater stuff i felt the need to improve our journey and that of our other companions/guides with a few sea shanties. My rendition of 'what shall we do with the drunken sailor' brought cries of 'encore' from other rafts but unfortueatly was unable to persuade anyone to join me in a round of 'row row your boat'..... kill joys..... Back in Chang Mai the 'bohemian' northern city of thailand. Went to see some Thai boxing, a fairly brutal spectical. The fights are accompanied by the crazed sounds of a 3 piece band, drums and guy on snake charmer style pipe. The boxers almost move in time to their increasingly frantic melodies. The locals pressed up against one side of ring shout and wave arms as the fight gets more intense, offering new odds and urging on their bet.I'll be passing the next few days in more sedate fashion, stocking up on books in preperation for Laos and doing a 3 day thai cooking course. Tis all for now......
Into Thailand
Thailand.... well its not Malaysia.... ok so not particularly informative I grant you but important. Leaving Penang at silly o'clock ( 8.30) we jumped into a mini bus heading north. Though i was sad to leave Malaysia and penang particularly was really looking forward to cracking into a new country.... Our first destination was a city in southern thailand but upon arrival it all looked rather uninspiring, so baring in mind our lack of time (only a month in thailand) and that it was only 11.30 am, made an executive (ie with no real consideration) decision to press on. Having heard good things about the beaches around Krabi, a couple of hours north on the west coast, jumped aboad another mini bus and sat.... in a jam... for about an hour, with an increasingly obnoxious bunch of aussies moaning about pretty much everything - no room for bags/feet/legs/air (ok so they had a point there). 4 hours later we make it to krabi town, a jumping off point to the beaches on a secluded peninsular several miles away. The area is characterised by its dramatic lime stone out crops that jut monolith like into the sky line. A mecca for rock climbers we were looking forward to pitting our skills (and lack thereof) against hard stone.... ok, starting to sound like the plot of a jerry bruchheimer movie... so yeah, ran down to quey to pick up a long tail boat to the beach, there being no road access. The boatmen, in usual asian style, were running a cartel outfit, ie accross the board pricing for farang (white people) of 70 baht, no matter who you ask. The aussie, also heading in out direction, signed up members to the 'i frankly haven't got a clue what i'm doing' school of haggling said '30' then wouldn't budge until it came clear to them what we and the boat guys knew, it was getting dark and frankly we didn't have an option but get there asap. So paying our 70 (one pound) off we chugged. The engines on the longtail boats look like reclaimed car engines, sitting ontop of the boats tiller with a log shaft pertruding backwards out of it into the water, (getting the feeling this is a 'thousand words and still no one will get the picture' situation) lets just say, they haven't got outboards.As we drew near to the beach, it became pretty obvious that this area is probably the most stunning i've seen since NZ at least. Long beaches, blue sea and shear cliffs dripping with out crops and stalagtites rising vertically hundreds of meters. For those of you who haven't got found to finding paradise, i think i may have gone and done it for you.The beach we stayed at was almost deserted, as it is low season. We signed up for a day of rock climbing tuition which i was really looking foward too..... First up, a 25 meter cliff... after showing us how to use the ropes to stop the guy on the cliff falling to his death, the intructer says, 'up you go then'. Well, not quite like that obviously as he was thai, but words to that effect. Johannes was went first, blitzing up the cliff... i thought, well damn it, gonna have to try and beat that time. A mistake.... by the 10m mark severe muscle pain... in the last couple of meters, fingers and tendons under wrists very unhappy. Hands shaking, i just managed to hold on to reach the top, but the damage was done. By the lunch time (a couple of climbs later) could barely grip my sandwich and had to abort the afternoon. Seriously good fun and challenging though, our last climb of 30m i fell a couple of times to be caught and left dangling 75 ft above the ground. View from top was fantastic though. In all spent 3 full days in the area, did some looking around the near by islands as well and just relaxing....on Tuesday we where going to head east to Ko Pan Nang, the back packer beach island extrordinaire, however, just before going to bus station changed our minds as have spent far to long on beaches. Instead jumped on an overnight bus t bangkok, in search of adventures of a more cultured nature....Bangkok, yes its smelly, dirty, busy, full of hawkers, con men, and everyone wants your money, by fair means or foul. To be fair though, i rather like it. The city feels so alive, a neverending hive of actvity. Plus you are never more than 5 meters from fantastic (and fantastically cheap) food. The Khao San road is exactly like you imagined it, full of back packers and people selling every variety of tat under the sun. The streets buzz witht he noise of the infamous 'tuk tuk' - a motorised rik shaw with a 2 stroke engine which makes a 'tuk tuk' noise. Everywhere you go, the drivers ask 'where you go?' always seeming to assume you want to be somewhere else.Today i have to give a special mention to the queen. No not ours, but the local queen, whose birthday it is. This coincides with the locals mothers day and is a national holiday. This evening large parade was held and firework display. After taking in the national museum, or some of it, and seeing the parade, feeling very culured. Ok am aware starting to talk rubbish, so going to go now. Its late, and been a long day. Tommorow shall be finding out 'whats a wat?' before heading north on saturday....
Kota Bahru to Penang
Can this be true? back so soon? well yes. One last message from malaysia before i enter the land of the Thais. Kota Bahru is a major city in north eastern malaysia. Being the most Muslim state in the country the city itself is fairly sober in nature. Night life consisting mainly of stalls selling dress making materials and religious texts. In this enviroment it only seemed fittin to seek more experiences of a cultural nature. To this end your correspondant visited the Malaysian cultural centre in town.The event hosted by a rather camp multi lingual guy consisted of demonstration of drumming on 110 kg drums, shadow boxing martial arts and traditional malay games. Naturally when the show became interactive i couldn't help myself but keep the British end up by participating fully. Although my drum banging resulted largely in painful palms, the show case display of shadow boxing i produced (shadowing one of the locals) pracitcally brought the house down. See me in action below....Leaving Kota Bahru we headed east across the country to the Island of Penang off of the east coast. A major jumping off point into thailand penang was the first british colony in SE asia and like its successors melaca and singapore it is a mixture of malay, indian and chinese culures. The town itself has a great vibe to it. Incredibly relaxing compared to the east coast. Hawker stalls line streets full of shopfront homes serving no end of needs. The food here is reason enough to come, the tandoori chicken i had last night was possibly the best ever, and i've tried alot! Today, after dim sum breakfast and perusing the paper for a couple of hours, i took in one of the local buddist temples - the largest in malaysia. A caccophany of shape and colour, the temple sits on a hill side over looking Georgetown (the capital of the island). errr thats about all for now.
Sweating in the jungle, chilling on the beach
End of radio silence.... after a couple of weeks in fairly internet free zones i'm back in the big city..... First of all, let me say hello to our new readers from Germany, who (for the benefit of the ignorant brits - no thanks to me...) are tuning in to see the journey of my erstwhile (and long suffering) travelling companion Johannes. Have recieved several complaints (via johannes) that he isn't getting enough of a mention (well none in fact). Have decided to rectify this with, not only mention but a topless photo for all the ladies back at home to coo over (ahem...). Johannes and I (notice correct english grammer here, none of this 'me and johannes' stuff here - important now i'm practically a full time english teacher...) seperated in darwin and met up again in KL just prior to going to the highlands. OK, think we've got that all cleared up....So on with the story.... Got back into KL from highlands in the middle of a tropical monsoon. Thunder like bombs going off around us. Taxi drivers sensing their opportunity sprang from every doorway offering ride using their special 'monsoon' pricing structure, where the cost of a ride rises exponentially with the rate of cm/rain/sec. Laughing these off we waded back to our hostel, desperate not to break our backs slippering on the ice rink like tiles underfoot.From KL it should have been a straight bus ride to the jetty at Jerantut where the boat to the naman negara national park leaves from. Nothing in simple in this world however. Firstly we ended up at the wrong bus station. Then there were no tickets for the bus we wanted so were forced to use a variety of local buses to wind our way to jerantut. Yes yes, i hear all the hard core travellers saying, 'but local buses are so great, so much more character!'. Very true my friends, however when you are 6'2" spending 3 hours on a seat hard enough to cut diamonds with about enough leg room to squeeze your little tow between the seat and the one in front you may reconsider... Anyways, amerged at jerantut with 20 mins to get to jetty (20km away). Running up to a taxi driver frantic negotiations occured, so much so the poor man confused himself - TAXI DRIVER - boat quey? 30 ringgit. NIGEL [laughing derisively] - thats far too much, i'll give you 20TAXI DRIVER - okok, 18 ringgitNIGEL [confused] - eerrrrr okJOHANNES [enjoying mention] - wow, dig the haggling (paraphrased, lost in translation...)Leaping from the taxi, rushed to the boat office, packs back bouncing, flip flops flapping. Boats unsuprisingly were in no real hurry. A seamingly self styled sultan (all this alliteration really isn't intensional) sat behing the desk. Twiddling his ludicrously coiffered and dyed hair between fingers teaming with domed rings he signed our documents. This signiture cannot be compared to. An elaborate pattern of sweeps and tails, quite seriously taking over a minute from start to finish.ANYway, moving on... The boat ride into the taman negara is a 3 hour ride in long canoe (1.5 m wide 12m long ish) The taman negara is an ancient rain forest that has remained intact in its current state for the last 130 million years. Unsuprisingly it is considered one of malaysia's top attractions containing all kinds of wildlife including tigers, elephants etc.You would think by this time i couldn't go on about this one journey anymore, well sorry.... The boat ride was one of the most amazing experiences i've had. travelling up the river, each bank covered in towering forest, occationally broken my a native village or two, it feels like travelling back in time. In fact i was relating my feelings on the subject to Johannes on the boat, stating that "Travelling by open boat is so much better than by coach, you really feel part of the environment". Two seconds later the bow wave from a passing vessel sweeps over the right side of the canoe soaking me and my bag to the bone. Johannes took several minutes to recover from his laughing fit.About an hour into our journey, the nigel engine jinx raised its ugly head. Seeking to break one engine in every country i visit, it struck at the out board of the canoe. Miles from anywhere, the motor cut. We look round at the driver 'you can fix it right?' Driver replies 'anyone got a mobile?' Great... someone did, but no reception.... i was secretly pleased at the prospect of this adventure, stuck in the jungle, we'd have to make bivies of something - just like some 'boys own' adventure! How exciting! Unfortunely a boat coming back the other way saved us. We loaded our bags and selves onto the other craft and continued on our way. The unfortunate boat man was left to paddle back down stream with a plank...So at last i've actually reached somewhere. Our time in the rain forest was spent hiking, and hiking and sweating. On our first day we explored the canopy by way of .5 km suspended walkway, trying to avoid the 2cm long killer ants that infested the hand rails. Ants are a bit of a theme here, little ants, normal ants, massive killer ants, they are everywhere. To the ants, the forest is like some kind of huge metropolis. Using the tree roots that reach out across the forest floor they create highways and intersections. 8 lanes wide with traffic backed up for miles, the ants stream along these roots (or should i say routes) like cars in a city viewed from the top of a skyscraper.The forest also has a number of caves, filled with bats - but unfortunately no raiders of the lost ark style boulder traps (tried and failed to contain my disapointment). Expecting so be able to walk through said caves i strode in with bag camera etc etc. About 2 meters later had a nasty shock. Firstly, the undeniable stink of bat feces, secondly the several hundred pairs of eyes staring at me and thirdly the realisation that i would be forced to crawl through the cave, hands and knees in the feces, face in the furry faces - nice.Johannes had the crazy notion that several days hiking in the jungle would be nice, perhaps coupled with a night in a hide with no facilities etc etc.... Donning our packs and 6 litres of water each - this is sweaty work, we set off. The trek to the hide was 11 km through rough forest. Under trees, over trees, caught in barbed vines through rivers and side stepping leaches. Leaches are everywhere, the little blood suckers jump onto your feet and creep up your boots. Once they start to suck, there is no stopping the bleeding for hours as they fill the wound with anti-coagulant. The forest is so humid, the sweat streams from every pore. By the halfway point i was able to wring (i'm estimating now, lets be clear) half a mugful from my tea shirt... A wask in a dirty forest stream was like a huge bubble bath for luxury. Didn't see any animals in hide due to 8 other intrepid travellers who had the same idea as us and the combined noise..... After leaving the taman negara we journeyed up the east coast, visiting kuala terengganu and then onto the perhentian islands, which lie off of the north east corner of Malaysia.The islands are a marine reserve and a centre for diving. Between lying on the beach etc I did 3 dives around the island seeing such wonders as blue spotted rays, black tip sharks, giant moray eels, giant baracuddas and yes folks, one or two nemos....(read several million). Today we left the islands heading north and have just reached Kota Bahru.Thats all for now. Sorry for rushing the ending but was starting to bore even myself!!!
