There are many characteristics which Malaysia stand apart from other places I have visited. It's a place I felt I got under the skin of, at least in much as you can within five weeks travelling. Moving from place to place it is rare to make real friends, friends like you have at home, friends to last a lifetime. Given the transitory nature of life on the road, that you're always just 'passing through', its rare to find local people who will let you become a part of their lives. Its rare to find in populations with a high number of ex-pats and reasonable tourists figures, people who are so genuinely interested in and enthusiastic towards their foreign visitors. It is rare to witness a predominantly Islamic nation where the women play such an active and uninhibited role. For a westerner in Asia, its practically unheard of to be viewed as an equal or as just a guest rather than in terms of dollar signs and bank balances. All these things I have found in Malaysia.
That's not to say that Malaysia doesn't have it s problems , certainly it does. I would to want to portray Malaysia as a paradise on earth , just a s somewhere I really felt at home. I met many a traveller amazed at my having spent five weeks there , proclaiming "There's nothing to see in Malaysia". I guess for those wishing to tick off monuments and/or beaches and/or big cities there's not much, but if you measure it that way you are missing so much of what Malaysia is about. Its not about seeing or doing but simply being there, soaking it up and if like me, you're lucky enough to have the opportunity, bathing in the kindness and generosity of its people.
Things I will remember about Malaysia: the incredible freshness of the jungles after rain, that first sunset in KL, its vibrant chinatown, the food, the food, the FOOD and the usual beauty of oil palms. I know they are plantations and as such are only farmed trees but there is something striking about oil palms. Is it the sunlight reflects off the sap making the leaves glisten, giving the impression of something sumptuous yet wholesome like a salad drizzled with virgin olive oil ? Is it how they are so close together giving the hillside a covering of the lushest deep pile carpet? Or perhaps it's the way their verdant greenness stands out on the rolling horizon against the perfect powder blue sky?
And I'm told I didn't even see the most beautiful parts of the country...
Yet another surprising facet of life there is the incredible popularity of Indian Bollywood songs. That they strike a cord with the 14% of Indian descent Tamil speakers in the country is no wonder but the Malay Majority can't get enough of the stuff either!! Smoking is the only vice allowable under Islam (although for men only) and thus the majority of the adult male population make like troopers, mainly Indonesian clove cigarettes. As a lesson in regional tastes, go a few miles over the Thai border and offer someone a clove cigarette, watch how their face involuntarily grimaces at the mere smell. To show that cultural shock goes both ways it is worth mentioning that Malay people find our habit of filling a sinkful of water and washing all the dishes in the same water, more than a little unhygienic. And the very idea of wanting to capture and preserve your nasal emissions in a tissue is downright distasteful!
I strongly advise anyone going to Malaysia to pig out. The Chinese and Indian cuisine is cheap and wonderful and readily available. Also delicious of course is the Malay food but you may have to work to find it. I was lucky enough to be there during the fasting month when Malay food stalls pop up everywhere as the nation is obsessed by food. If you ever find one of the stalls, recognisable by women in veils selling stuff out of plastic lunchboxes, get one of everything I guarantee you it will all be fabulous. I'm not the first to notice or remark on the fact that Malay is a very poetic language. It has often been noted that their word for the sun translates as 'eye of the day'. Here's a few more of my favorites: their word for a man given to sentimentality is a 'hero bunga' or flower hero, the word for owl translates as 'ghost bird' and finally a playboy is known as a 'buaya darat'(sp?) or land crocodile.
A final word of warning: Jungle ants are not to be messed with. Seemingly a different breed to the household variety, these are hard bastards. They are much bigger and they bite, through clothes even and it bloody hurts. And I (unfortunately) can tell you that whopping great hordes of them live near wild banana trees.
It is the year 2543, traditional morality has no place in the world, everything is for sale even your daughter if she can make good money in the visitor areas. Religion is confined to the temple which young men join because they are expected to, for face, as much as for any spiritual quest.
Or at least so it goes in Thailand. The country runs on the Buddhist calendar which is some 500 years older than Christianity making the year 2000AD = 2543AB (After Buddha). And such is the legacy of more than two decades of catering to the basest elements of tourism. Such is the effect if you like of the dregs of the west on an erstwhile relatively cultured S.E.Asian nation. Thinking along these lines I fear the repercussions if India ever got hit by mass tourism - you can already "donate" your way into the inner sanctum of a Hindu temple, which would have been impossible 10 years ago. Its safe to say that southern Thailand has nothing I need to see again. Except possibly the fish, I liked the fish.
Sex sells and nowhere more so than Thailand, a poor nation which has reinvented itself as a kind of sexual theme park to get the much needed tourist dollars. Now more so than ever, having sold itself into IMF bondage in the wake of the Asian currency crisis. There is a lot of talk about the friendly Thais but I for one found Malaysians more genuinely friendly. Sure there are a lot of lovely Thai people but as a tourist you'd want top be a very astute people reader to determine who means what they are saying and who does not. The boys may tell you they really like you but if a white woman with more money comes on the scene, beware. The girls may tell you you're sexy buy they are calling you 'monkey man' behind your back believe me. (Asian guys aren't very hairy as a general rule). I must say having seen what goes on I'd be very reluctant to let any husband/partner/boyfriend of mine off there on his own. Whatever their original intention, men just seem to go nuts there and they needn't necessarily be paying for it either. The younger party types aren't much of an improvement, most of whom come on the lure of easily available and cheap drugs. I am more and more convinced that Thailand gets the lion's share of the regions tourism because it welcomes and caters for the tourists no one else would really want.
Another black spot on Thailand's report cards is the price. Home of the alleged bargain holiday is remarkably expensive. Well expensive is the wrong word to use in this context as I guess its still cheap by western standards but everything is overpriced for tourists. This is not in itself an unusual occurrence but in Thailand they really pull the piss. With a much healthier economy and a stronger currency, my beloved Malaysia was cheaper for practically everything bar drink (no pun intended) which endures a 300% tax from the mainly Muslim government. Thais are very money conscious and are not above using force to protect their business interests according to what I've been told.
I must say I loved Bangkok, it's a great little city. Granted I didn't much past the Khao San tourist Ghetto but what little I saw of the city was excellent. I kept running into new arrivals from Europe who were killed telling me how noisy, polluted and smelly the place was. I noticed none of this but put that down to having been desensitised by India. Oh and don't believe all you see on TV, Khao San is not nearly as exciting as watching "The Beach" might have you believe. One of the things I really wish I'd gotten a photo of was the food stalls consisting entirely of insects, usually roasted and still having antlers, tentacles, legs and everything attached. One of the most memorable sights of my times in Thailand was that of a well dressed woman in a newly opened , quite fancy (and overpriced) bar in Bangkok tucking in to a cricket!
All of what I've said notwithstanding and in my usual generosity of spirit I am not willing to write off Thailand completely. By all accounts the north is a very different story, and even the south had a certain freak watching charm of its own.
Looking back over the last chapter I'm amazed I managed to write so coherently. I've not been in that bad a state for ages...
I finally did escape Phuket, after quickly posting chapter 12 I went to the station and got a local bus to Phang Nga (yip I did actally get there this time!). The chief highlight of the trip was this buddist monk on the bus who could speak a little english and kept showing me these flashcards with the sayings of Buddah in english and thai written on them. "The flesh is of nothing and long is the road for those who do not achieve realisation" etc etc, all very interesting but I was kinda glad he left the bus after a while. Fairly handily got myself set up in a place that was an absolute bargin after Phuket and got booked on a half day Phang Nga bay tour for the following day. I had a walk around town that evening looking for life but there wasn't any so I retreated to a net cafe for a while. The next I took my boat trip of the bay which was nice enough but I was glad I didn't pay the hideous prices they were asking to arrange it from Phuket. I met this couple from Western Oz who gave me a relative to look up when I got there - I just might do that tommorow! So after a brief visit to Phang Nga and the infamous tourist trap James Bond Island - where they filmed 'The Man with the Golden Gun' a million years ago - I headed to Surat Thani with the intention of getting a boat to Ko Tao. On arrival there it seemed it was easier to get to Ko PhaNang and some German guy had told me there was a Full Moon party happening there, so I got the ticket there instead. On the bus I got talking to this yankee guy who'd been travelling since 5am that morning to get to the party but who'd just found out it had already taken place the previous night. While on the extremely choppy speed boat ferry I got chatting to Declan, who was half Irish, half Bangladeshi and from Yorkshire. He drove a tram in Blackpool in the summer and spent his winters in Thailand and manged to persude me and the 3 yanks to get off at Ko Samui instead.
Ko Samui was kinda like Phuket but smaller and cheaper and seemingly with a bigger drugs scene. It had the same million bars with 3 people, except Bauhaus which was the only place for late night dancing in Lamai Beach. On the second night there I had a Malaysian Ladyboy trying to befriend me at the disco!!
Also I had a chace reunion with Chris from Kathmandu (see photo paddys.gif) who willed me his cheap bungalow as he was leaving the next day. It had no fan though, so got quite hot during the day - a bit of a bummer if you'd been up all night! I spent a day or two doing nothing much except eating and chilling out, which you could actaully do as the set of bungalows Chris told me about were old style hippy hangouts and had long stay travellers instead of the other places which were populated by two week winter sun seekers. After a few days the yanks left and I met up with Trevor and Mark who made life on Samui that little more interesting. Trevor is a Canadian who thinks he's australian, indeed he probably is more Ozzie these days, and has been travelling around for many a year. He was familiar with Fathers Guest house and knew of my mate there. Mark from Rhode Island, claimed to be some sort of arty type but I saw nerd books in his room :-)
Both had been to Samui lots of times and had a rather jaundiced view of the goings-on here. In fact they had dubbed it "Fantasy Island" as they reckoned people lost their brains a bit here.
I saw a little of what they ment and sometimes it seemed like the island got all the dregs of western society. (With the statement like that there's a valid question about what I was doing there!) People go to Samui for cheap sex or hard drugs and for people like me, Mark and Trevor who weren't into either there wasn't a whole lot to do except hangout together and amuse ourselves by observing the goings on of those who were - so thats what we did. They introduced me to drinking outside the minimart which was the only place in town that had beer at non western prices. We were in good company there, among the alcholics and others in various stages of off-their-headedness, it was a side to Thailand you'll never read about in the guides esp when coupled with some of the stories they told. Western guys with Thai women as appendages are nothing special in thialand but apparently many western women pay for the thai guys to be with them here. Then there had been a western guy who left the bunglows in a body bag, syringe still in arm. And the authorities are trying to promote Samui as a family holiday spot??
In the midst of all this drinking moonshine from plastic bags and late nights in front of the minimart I managed to fit in a day trip snorkling to Ko Tao and that was really cool. The visibilty was as perfect as PhiPhi (it had been windy and rainy) but the corals were more colourful and there was more different types of fish. It occured to me that coral fish are kinda dumb, they almost swim into your hand and are then suprised to see you trying to catch them. With the way the move, their stupidity, their numbers and of course the stripes they resemble nothing so much as underwater zebra. I got to see all the best bits in the snorkling as I had attracted the attention of Shaon, one of the Thai guys working the boat, who came snorkling with me. It was funny actaully, after half an hour swimming he went to shore and I'm not kidding I haven't seen anyone shiver like that since I was a kid at the seaside. He was uncontrolably shaking and throughly freezing. I told him he should try 24 yrs of the north alantic and that I'd had baths colder than this. It didn't help though and when we went back snorkling the poor creature nearly karked it altogether. He was still cold when we had coffee back on Samui after we made the 90 mins journey back!
He invited me out that night, but 3 hrs swimming was all the activity my unhealthy body could deal with in one day. However after half freezing him to death I thought it only polite to accept his offer for the next night. When he eventually arrived, (late cause a tourist had broken their back on the boat, due to the rough seas and the speed!) we took in all of Cheweng, the main beach and Samui's answer to Pattong in Phuket. Did the main bars, went to the notorious Green Mango which had the best looking ladyboys I've seen so far - only recognisable from their height. The next was my last in Samui and I decided I should see all the sights and employed Trevor to be my chaffeur for the day - hey, he was cheap !! We saw the little waterfalls and the north beaches and the metropolis of NaThon where I got a bargin basement ticket for the night train to Bangkok. Despite all my negative comments thusfar I think I kinda liked Samui and certainly I didn't feel my time there at all...
The five nights in Bangkok went just as quickly and ended in me doing the last update after 0 hours sleep and far too much Sang Som (devilish Thai Whiskey). After a lovely train journey I arrived fresh and ready to go depite the fact the cabbie didn't seem to know where the place Trevor recommended. So I found myself wandering the streets of Bangkok at 7:30am, with all the hostels there full due to the fact that check out time was noon. I almost went to the airport and tried to get straight on a plane I was that annoyed. Then I saw Rachel in the same predicament. She'd been to Bangkok before and after brekkie she found a place we could check into and we shared a room until I left. Rach was great, she knew all the good spots and was better at picking up strangers than me even. There was many a night drinking and chatting till dawn in "Buddy Beer" bar on Khao San road. In fact Rachael fell asleep there one night!
The next morning I went to retrieve her, since she hadn't returned I reckoned Buddy Beer was the most likely place she'd be. Rach was fine, asleep on a few chair and looking like she wasn't to be moved. However I got the shock of my life when I ran into a guy I knew from college back in Galway. I guess of anywhere I've been Khao San Rd was the most likely place I'd run into someone from Galway. He'd been away since Sept 98 the lucky bastard and had just come from a friends wedding in the Philliphines. His name was Irial Conroy for any of you who remember the rich engineer lad from Gort.
My last night in Bangkok was one to remember, if only I could!! Somehow me and Rach managed to not meet any of the Buddy Beer crew and went to the Reggae Bar because they'll let you BYO if you're not too obvious. Thats where things get fuzzy, the Sang Som is very cheap from the offie and the next thing I remember was the police raiding the joint asking from everyones id or passport. Mine was back in the room as was Rach's but they didn't seem too bothered. Apparently they were raiding known dodgy joints in Khao San cause a UN delegation was coming to Bangkok. What they thought a UN delegation might be doing in the Reggae Bar I don't know. It was all over pretty fast. Next thing I know, Rach had gone to sleep and I hook up with a German girl and we go looking for nightclubs in the Red light district. I am sad to report that there is no life in Bangkok at 5:30am. We came back to Buddy Beer dejected and in serch of brekkie.
IT was almost worth staying up to see the saffron robed local monks collecting their pound of flesh as it were, getting offerings of food from all many the eaterys in Khao San. There was a lot of bowing and wai-wais from the waitress who serve them. It was getting time for me to go and pack. Unfortunatly Rach had locked the room from the inside. Fortunatly the night porter believed it was my room and got a skeleton key. Later I got the bus to the airport but not before running into a german chick I met in Samui and a crazed begger.
Thus endeth my Asian adventures...and quite a fitting one at that!
That morning in Krabi I borded a minibus bound for Phang Nga. I wanted to go there to do a boat tour of the bay which was supposed to be quite nice. It looked like a simple mission, get bus, get on bus, get off bus, full stop. Due to a few factors it wasn't quite that simple. I was asleep most of the time due to several Changs (will I ever learn?) and going to bed at 5am, and the bus driver helpfully didn't read my ticket. It was much to my amusement that I woke up at Phuket International airport. I didn't mind at all, there's something vaguely uninteresting about getting on transport and ending up where you intended to go orginally. It was much more satisfying to arrive at somewhere completely different. The driver warmed to the fact that I didn't go off the head at him and decided he'd look after me and take me somewhere cheap(er).
I stayed at Kata Beach on Phuket Island just south of the infamous Pattong. On the first night I roamed around looking for life and got the feeling that I might actually be in hell. The next night when I checked out the "strip" in Pattong I knew I was in hell! The atmosphere was zero and for a place supposedly in high season (with prices to go with it) there was a remarkable lack of life. There were about a million bars each with 3 people in 'em. The word overkill doesn't seem to have much meaning here. And every second person looked like their name might be Klaus. And every guy had a little thai woman in tow for the duration. I mean I was aware of the sex industry here but I never expected to be so in-your-face obvious. And if I never have to see another wrinkly german butt in my life it will be too soon!
The first night I had to stay there and I was too lazy to move the second day. On the third day I decided that since a bit of inshallah had brought me to Phuket I should really take a look around. I didn't get to far as I met some local jet-ski dudes and ended up talking to them all day. I even ended up falling off a boat. Granted it was on wheels and being towed by a tractor through the streets of Kata at the time but it was pretty cool anyway. The lads invited me to hop on while they brought it home. It was an act of lunacy to join them, but they are the only ones worth doing these days. I met some Dublin gurriers in the bar that night who were on their first trip outside Ireland and going mad for the women. I got invited by the traveller among them to come upstairs to chat and share a tinny after everyone had left the bar. I needed to use the bog in the room and had to pass-by one of the other lads starkers in bed with some Thai chick. Later we sat outside the room chatting and trying to ignore the fornication going on inside. This was sleeze with a capital 'S' and I decided to get the hell outta town the next day.
Its about this time Phuket started becoming a bit of a Bermuda Triangle. With tremendous effort I'd packed up and left Kata Beach, but while on the songtheuw (local bus cum converted pick-up truck) that I realised I'd left my money belt back in the beach bunglow safe! Kata is a good hour from Phuket Town where I was going to catch a bus to anywhere I could. I quickly realised that by the time I got my stuff and returned to Phuket town I'd be going nowhere that day, so I checked into a hotel in Phuket Town. I wasn't out yet but at least I was near the station for a speedy getaway. That didn't work out either. I was begining to wonder why sensible came to Thailand at all. Sure the beaches were nice and it was less expensive than the euro resorts but it was all so cheap and nasty. I met some Candian girls that night and they talked a lot about the beauty of the Phi-Phi Islands. When I walked to their hotel there was this guy selling very reasonably priced day trips to Phi-Phi from Phuket and it seemed like fate so I booked myself in.
The Island itself was an almost cliche picture perfect beach paradise. We pulled up to see the cave where they harvest birds nests and the water was breathtakingly clear - I saw my first Coral fish in the flesh and it was indeed wonderful. The snorkelling that day was spectacular, everything I'd dreamed it would be and more. Corals and fish of all types everywhere and if you stayed kinda still they would come right up to you. It was like being inside one of those fishy videos. AMAZING! Sure there was two tourist boats hauled up in the one place and noise and people swimming everywhere but there was plenty of reef for everyone and when you have your head underwater all you can hear is the sound of your own breathing, all you can see is the magical undersea world that you are now part of. If hell is a Thai resort, heaven most surely be found, at least in part, snorkelling the Andamans.
Someone on the boat threw a piece of bread beside me causing the coral fish to swarm. It was quite scary to see them all when I looked down but the feeling of hundreds of little fins flipping over my upper body is not one I will easily forget. So this was why people came to Thailand, I was begining to understand. Its worth a mention that on the day tour I ran into a load of Malaysian types on a business trip. I so impressed them with my Malay that they insisted I came with them to dinner after going to a tourist trap Thai traditional dance place - all on the house!! The hospitality of the malaysian people was asounding me even in another country. I quite liked the tourist dance place and got to see a little of the classical 'menora' dancing. The disco-ing elephants were a bit much though. After we all went for a great meal of various things like whole fish and squids (seriously I liked it). After the Karoke one of them (Nazzie) bought me a t-shirt and they even insisted I stay with them in their flash hotel. The sight of me the next morning in my psychedelic sarong and dorky tourist t-shirt at breakfast in this hotel with the rest in their business suits must have been right weird!
Well my flight is being called, so i guess the Ko Samui and Bangkok cronicles will have to wait.
That first morning in Penang we were walking around trying to find somewhere for breakfast - it was after all lunchtime. Given that Gerard had spent part of his youth in Penang I was under the mistaken impression that he might have a clue. "Where are we going to eat?" says I, he replied that anywhere with a beer sign was usually good. When we got to a place he ordered a brownish coloured drink and when I asked him what he was drinking he said "Anything beer coloured has got to be fine". Yep, this was going to be an interesting few weeks, provided of course my liver pulled through! We eventually got to eating that morning and he ordered some kind of noodly soupy thing for the two of us. "Whats this?" says I. "Its Kauy Teow Th'ng" he said adding that Th'ng was a Hokkien word for soup. "What does Kuay Teow mean then?" I ask intelligently. "Umm...Noodles". Yip this was definitly noodle soup alright.
I should give a brief background here. I met Gerard the first time I arrived in the Cameron Highlands. He's the mananger cum chief ass kicker in the guest house where I stayed. I've a sneaking suspicion this guy should have been born Irish...well whatever it was, we got on like a house on fire and went out many a night both times I was in the Highlands. I'm sure I haven't met anyone remotely like him since I left home. Hyperactive man of action, style and flair with a liberal sprinkling of lovable rogue, G is the kind of person things just seem to work out for - which might have the potential to be annoying in someone else. He is really gas to travel with, he seems to charm people wherever he goes. I'll say no more as I know he reads these pages and I wouldn't want to give him a big head...Anyway he had been talking about heading to Thailand with a few mates cause he needed a holiday and I'd been talking about possibly meeting up with them somewhere. Imagine my surprise when, on the morning of the 2nd he says "Penang - are you ready? There's only 3 seats left on the bus". It was 11 o'clock and the only reason I was up was that my horrid dorm mate Mike had told me it was 1 o'clock an hour earlier. My stuff was all over the place and the bus was at 2:30 and there was the matter of my jacket which had been abandoned in someones car on New Yrs night. I managed to get my act together just about on time, the jacket turned up eventually and before I knew it I was on a slow boat to China. Well a slow bus to Penang which is 90% Chinese Malaysian, but allow me some poetic licence here people! Seven hours later we arrived in Penang, not a moment too soon for the increasingly fidgty Gerard(the bus was not driving half fast enough for him). We waited to see if any his mates showed up but they didn't and we made a break for the border on our own.
About 5 days later, after some drinking session or other I was in bed freezing (G insisted on having the Air Con at 16C to keep the beer cool), when Gerard wakes me at 6 o'clock and says "C'Mon lets try to get to Thailand this morning". We'd been talking about it for days and even asked about minibuses the previous night and been told that all the buses to Krabi were full for the next 3 days. Bleary eyed I packed up and we were wandering around the streets by about 8 o'clock in the morning, noticing that all the ticket agents were still in bed. We try this one hotel and guess what? They have two tickets available to Krabi for 8:30am and off we went. Much to the chagrin of some german types on the bus, G got the driver to make a detour into Malaysian duty free where we stocked up. We arrived around 5pm and followed this old english backpacker to a nice but slightly pricey set of bungalows. We hauled up there longer than I'd expected, a week, doing all sorts of nothing...laughing at other tourists, eating, sleeping, drinking, getting well in with the locals and even some sightseeing.
On my first night in Thailand I discovered Chang beer and was well pleased with it. On my second morning I was not well pleased with it. Cheap and very drinkable, it gives a rotten hangover and screws up your stomach for half a day. A canadian woman just told me that she heard that they put formaldahyd in it - that would explain a lot. Then there was the hiring a motorbike the day after we set upon the duty free gin stupidity. G seemed fine but I was a wreck all day and worse, the first thing we did was to climb 1,272 steps up a frigging temple to see a Buddha foot. I almost died a few times enroute, most notably around step 700 but got there in the end and was feeling ok. I bought some water at the top (thank god for enterprising thai spirit) and talked to this Irish wan from Cork and her Scottish boyfriend. In the middle of the conversation I suddenly had to throw up. I tried to do this casually but G said the couple were a bit akward looking and reckoned the monk didn't know what to think of it all. Oh well you live and learn...
We spent much time at James' (Anwar) net cafe seeing as it was the cheapest in town and got quite friendly with the owner. He and Gerard were swopping business cards and flyers by the end it of. A few days later we decide to get active again and after a flying start about 3pm we got ourselves a longtail boat trip with Asnan, the mental boat man. I must at this time point out that everyone here addresses G in Thai as they think he looks like a Thai guy. In Malaysia everyone thinks he's Malay (ergo Muslim) and often will refuse to serve him drink. My spin on is that he has some sort of generic South East Asian look that no one can quite place. When Asnan asked where he was from he replied Zamunda, borrowing the fictious african nation from Eddie Murphy's movie "Coming to America". I almost died. How were we going to carry that off? He ran with it well and then Asnan asked if he was Muslim, and presumably in an effort to get a discount he replied "Of course", which is no answer for a good Catholic to be giving. He carried that one off too, until the next day at the pier when all the boyos were giving him Muslim greetings and one was even singing Islamic Hymns to him. It was at that stage I decided we needed to leave town before we got sprung.
Plans or otherwise we interrupted when G heard about problems with the Guest House and realised he'd have to go back to sort them out. The next day he headed back to Penang and I headed for Phang Nga. His mission to kick all the relevent asses and get back on holidays if he possibly can. My mission is to try to amuse myself in southern Thailand in his absense - this is not proving easy. Time is running out, only 3 weeks or so till Oz and I'm not in the most interesting of places. I'm certain I'm not a beachy person and that appears to be all there is down here...
Aoife, Phuket, South Thailand, Monday 17th Jan 21:00 Bangkok Std Time
Ps: A special thanks to Jay for lending me one of the most interesting travel partners of the tour so far!
It was 3 o'clock, the hottest time of day but seeing as I had nothing else to do for the rest of it I decided to go for a walk. I realised I'd been here a full two weeks and I had yet to leave the grounds of the sanctuary. As I walked along the road out of the sanctuary and past the Orang Asli village I enjoyed the pleasent warmness of the day, feeling the heat radiating from the road and the humidity from the folliage all around. I continued up the main road with no particular destination, there wasn't anywhere to get to from where I was...A visitor in a van stopped to ask if they take my picture...I wandered up a side road saw a bird rustle out of the bushes and kept walking up the hill. In a flash I heard a noise and the saw a movement in front. Not 10 yards in front of me a wild boar had thundered across the road as fast as his massive frame would allow him. It was a timely reminder: this was no walk in the park,it was the jungle and I had better not push my luck.
So I turned back and headed for home and as I walked that deserted road it occured to me that this was what life was all about. I thought about how content I was at that very moment and I thought about all the various people round the world who would never take a lazy Sunday afternoon stroll in a Malaysian jungle; people washing floors, changing babies, sitting in an office in a job they don't want, people who could and should be as happy as I was then. And the beauty of it was they didn't need to run half way round the world to feel like this. I saw that to try measure life out with checks and balances is the least likely way possible of finding its value. That its not about what you are doing or what you should be doing or if whats others are doing is better. It was a simple and blindingly obvious truth that the meaning of life was to cease trying to fill up your days and instead to let the days fill you. This is what we should be striving for and the days when it happens are the ones we need to keep in our minds and hearts when it's not happening. And I will record for myself as much as anyone else, Dec 26th 99, the day after christmas was one of those days...
Since then I've been thinking of all the people I've met since I left; the people who've given me company, support, who've looked after me along the way. There is an awful lot of bad around the place but there's at least as much good (if not more) to be seen if you leave yourself open to it. And then there's been all the people at home who have helped and connected with me from afar. I've noticed that my reports have gotton much longer since the african ones. This is because you have been the constant companions I didn't have otherwise. As well as everything else writing these chapters has helped me feel connected to home in a way I never thought possible and have comforted me when I was lonely. And among all the other things I have seen and done in this amazing year I keep you all with me. It has been a fantastic year, full of everything, joy, pain, exhaustion, elation, lonliness and fun and I mean that every bit much as for the first 6 months spent at home as the second half of the year on the road.
Christmas I barely noticed living as I was at the time in an all Muslim village. After all the hype New Year was fairly low key but pleasent. After moving so much it was good to get back to the Highlands anf have a few people around who knew my name. A certain group of local party people (you know who you are) kept me fed watered and entertained. I must just note for the record that New Yrs was not quite the drinking fest for me as it seems to have been for practically everyone else. Always a head of my time I spent most of New Yrs Eve sick as a dog after a close encounter with a bottle of local vodka before dinner, followed by beer, followed by more vodka, followed by more beer...(repeat ad nauseum till 4 in the morning). I just about mananged to be able to toast the New Year by midnight!!
I left on the second, kidnapping my favorite drinking buddy to take with me (more about that in the next chapter) and came here to Penang a chilled out if climatically sweaty little town. Since then I've been looking around a bit, socialising a little bit but mostly just stuffing my face at the many delcious chinese food stalls around the town. I even splashed out for what I think is my first air conditioned hotel room since the trip began!
Cheers to you 1999! Its been one hell of a year...
The only good cockroach is a dead cockroach! I can say that with complete authority having shared a house with a few of them for two weeks in the jungles of Pahang, Malaysia. Roaches, the odd geko and about 3 million ants. Gekos are quite cute in their own way, even though there were lots of 'em the ants pretty much kept to themselves (unless I dropped fruit juice on the floor). But the cockroaches...the way they look, the way they slime about with their antler things, hell just by the way the walk you know they're up to no good! When I moved in I was advised by the previous occupant, Jana a Canadian, to look around esp. after rain storms. She'd found a scorpion in the house one morning. So far my most exotic visitor has only been a lizard. I was crouched elegantly over the squat bog when I saw a creature at the door about to crawl in. From that angle it looked like a snake and was I ever glad when I saw feet and even glader that it scarpered when I made noise. I'm convinced something big is living in my kitchen cupboards but I'm outta here in a while and its more than my jobsworth to investigate.
So where am I? I'm in Kuala Gandah an elephant sanctuary attached to the Dept of Wildlife.
How did I get here? Sometimes they take volunteers and my mate from KL organises same.
Why? You'd be surprised how attractive a prospect some hard work is after 5 months on the road, so I signed up for two weeks.
It takes about 3 hrs to drive here from KL, the nearest town which might be on a resonable sized map is Temerloh 40kms away, the nearest village (and shops) is over 15kms away. to get here involves driving through a few miles of dirt track - watch your transmission if you havn't a 4x4. In short this place must be the definition of remote. There are about 25 families living here, all attached to the sanctuary. On Tuesday mornings and Friday evenings we have a bus to take us to the market and at least every other day someone drives the van into the village (Lanchang).
A typical days activity looks like this (I normally do some subset of the following, technically I'm still on holiday you know!) 5am Wake up due to Islamic singing thing going on, go back to sleep 7am Wake up and sit in bed for half hour before getting dressed and going to muck out the elephants. Yes folks, you heard correctly, first thing most mornings and usually before brekkie, I am shovelling elephant shit! 9am (ish)Go to Jungles to cut down wild banana trees (chief elephant chow) with the lads. Detergent companies take note: anyone who events cleaner which removes banana oil stains will be an overnight billionaire. Not even bleach will get your whites white again. 10:30am Return to Kuala Gandah sometimes after having gone to Lanchang. 11am - 2pm Brunch, nap, shower, do yoga, watch TV. Any or all of the above. 2pm Start planning todays english lesson with Jana. 3pm - 4/5pm Help Jana with some english lessons cum playgroup for the kids/teens/staff/elephants/who ever happens to be there. Evenings Flake out, drink Milo, talk to people, watch more TV, learn some Malay, read, write, spell, sit, jump, run etc...
For added excitement theres sometimes an evening road trip to Lanchang in the communal van. I must say I do like it here, Jana's been here 3 months and just got her visa extended to stay longer. She's picked up a lot of Malay and has been an invaluable guide to the many cultural pitfalls persuant to leading the village life. Staying still and getting under the skin of a place presents its own particular set of challenges which will usually pass travellers by. There's not chance of wussing out for a western meal or outings to the pub talking shite with other travellers. You have to really pay attention to foreign customs and habits. For instance they're a hygenic lot around here and showering 3 times a day is the norm. Considering that for most of this trip I was doing well to get 3 showers a fortnight, this was a bit of a shock at first but I'm kinda getting used to the clean thing.
And then there's the problem of food. Firstly its the holy fasting month, Hari Raya or Ramadhan so I'm the only person in a 10 mile radius who's eating during the day - Jana hs decided to join in the 'puasa' or fasting. So I have to eat in secret and naturally everyone here is obsessed with food. I often get asked to describe in vivid detail what I had for lunch and that kind of thing.
Some of you will be relieved to hear that I've failed in my attempted suicide by starvation-due-to-subjecting-myself-to-my-own-cooking. Last friday marked a significant event in that I had to cook for myself for the first time in at least half a year (I'm not counting the african part as I had help and instructions and according to popular mythology I did nothing there anyway). This enormously stressful affair was brought about due to the lack of dinner invites and the fact that I had to use up the fresh noodles I bought at the market on Tuesday. Ingredients to hand: Some onions, carrots, mange tout, potatoes, noodles and a packet of spice mix. Ok so I spent 2hrs watching the TV hoping the dinner would cook itself somehow. When that didn't work it was time to bite the bullet. Damn it I'm 24 yrs old and have travelled half way round the world on my own, how hard can it be? I steeled my nerves and began chopping without any idea what I was going to eat. Right then, utensils: Pots-negative, pans-negative, knifes-negative, rice cooker-(what?)check, wok-check. Oh God! I have to deal with a wok! HELP! Ok onions are frying, put in the carrots and mange tout. Now What?
Right about now I was hoping that Perth had lots of good cheap take-aways...
Packet spice thing - what do I do with this? The instructions are all in Malay and its too late for dictionaries. Picture shows emptying packet into hot water. Please, please let this be vaguely edible, just vaguely, I'm really hungry. Onions burning!! I think I'll chuck the spice water into the wok. Ahh good that seems to have calmed things down a bit - use reprieve to get the noodles from the fridge. In with the noodles and fingers crossed. Hmm that looks a bit like food now, it might even be edible. Gawd that was stressful....
I took a photo to record this momentus event. I seem to have survived but am expecting severe diaorhea any day now.
Jana's been adopted by one of the families here and I got invited to her place for dinner a few times. The mother's an excellent cook. She cooked for Jackie Chan while he was shooting his movie "Who am I?" in the jungles all around Kuala Gandah. On being serves an ice tea type drink and seeing its less than inviting murky colour, Jackie quipped "What is this? Lake Water?". Speaking of drinks that ice tea stuff wasn't bad but even more interesting is Sarsi, a kind of soft drink. It looks like coke, Jana thinks it tastes like flat root beer but to me it tastes for all the world like that pink stuff the dentist gives you to gargle with when he's finished with your teeth. Rose syrup is big here too and quite lovely if you get the right stuff (as opposed to the cheapo cr*p I got). I've also gotton quite attached to Kaya a highly delicious type of coconut jam.
This weeks new fruit: Tempoi. Dusty orange in colour and about the same size and shape as a Mangosteen. The inside reveals creamy white segments, again like the Mangosteen but having a much subtler favour and much creamier texture.
This weeks trip out sight: While watching Malaysian TV I came across a live action hero series(a la Xena warrior princess). The strange thing was that eveyone had Irish accents and the story seemed to be one of the tales from Irish Mythology. Sure enough the series was called "The Mystic Knights of Tir na nOg". Where does this stuff come from? Who's been giving the Fianna the Hercules treatment? Has this reached home? And more importantly whats this stuff doing in Malaysian TV?
I spend xams here but am anxiously awaiting for the few days after when I leave here to rendevous with a drinking date. I have some crazy dudes in the hills to catch up with.
Happy Christmas and God Bless us everyone!
Aoife, Mentakab, Pahang, Malaysia, Wednesday 21st Dec 22:45 TST
I'm just about to come down from the hills with some tall tales for the telling. I've othing to really tell from my time in KL, much to my shame I spent most of it sleeping and watching more videos/cable TV then could possibly have been healthy. That said I'd had a fairly eventful week in Malaysia. It started out last week accommpanying my host and a journo friend of his while they received a cheque for an elephant charity from the Finnish Society of Malaysia. On the drive to the presentation we drove past some burning squats on the outskirts of KL. That was pretty cool.
I'm getting into the fruit here in a big way. Apples and oranges are quite expensive here but who'd want them when there are so many exotics on offer. Rambutans make a welcome return to my diet after an all too brief introduction this summer on Zanzibar.
Their name means "hairy" (for obvious reasons when you see them) and its all too easy to get through a kilo of these lychee like little beasts. Jackfruits or Nangkas as they are called here, are around too. I did try them in Zanzibar too but I can't remember what they were like. Lang Sat were a first for me.
They look like very small new potatoes, about the size of a large grape, ad their taste I wil rather clumsily describe as vaguely gooseberry like. Starfruits you can get in Ireland these days but they are much bigger and about 10 times less expensive here. Particularly nice if made into a juice. Prize for the most delicious fruit I've ever had goes to Mangus or Mangosteens. These dark purple fruits don't look like much from the outside but the brillant white segments inside have gotta rank as one of the worlds great eating experience.
Well from the sublime to the ridiculous, the last fruit which must be mentioned is the Durian. This takes the prize for the worlds most bizare gastronomic expereince, certainly the weirdest thing I've ever ingested. Eating a durian could generously be described as interesting. Its not often you'll see foreigners eating them but everyone here seems to have a natural taste. The smell of them is hardly inviting, best described as like an Indian sewer but with fruity overtones. Durians are large, usually about 2 kilos+ and have a vicious spiky outer shell - vendors have to wear gloves to handle them and cleavers to open them. Inside the segments of flesh range in colour from pale green to the muted orange of the best quality ones. The texture is something else too, like a very gooey dough mixture or perhaps even putty. Its also extremely rich and heavy so apart from the taste I can't see how anyone could eat more than a few pieces. So what does it taste like? Well thats the best bit, it tates rather like garlic! Smells like a sewer, has the consistency of putty, tastes like garlic and people here love it. All very odd but by far the most disturbing aspect of this fruit is that the Thai authorities as part of an AIDS awareness campaign recently gave out 100,000 durian favored condoms. Personally I can't think of a more effective conduisment to celibacy!
The saturday after I arrived I went out into the wilds with a few others to visit an elephant orphanage. They take orphaned elephants, care for them and then use them to capture and relocate wild elephants which cause trouble for the plantations. But these are no commoner elphants, they and some of their keepers are hollywood stars who just a while ago appeared in "Anna and the King". We got to feed the elephants apples and even got into the river to wash one of the bigger ones and we all frolicked around like kids.
That evening I went with Kerri, another Candian woman who lived in the house I was staying in, to crash an ex-pat christmas party. I had to break out the glads rags, lucky I got some good stuff in Nepal. However I overlooked one small detail and found myself in a swish pad beside the KL Twin Towers before I noticed that I had an elastic band in my hair! There was cheese and wine a plenty and all in all it was a bit like a party back home. Most people present were Canuks, I also ran into a Swedish guy who on hearing I was once a mathematician asked me to look at a work related problem. Soon we were mulling over formulas written on paper towels in the kitchen. A sight Kerri found hilarious. Anyways after the wine and maths we headed to Spirals Nightclub(not the one in Tralee!). This was a very cool place with soul music, well dressed folks, expensive liquor and all mon cons as befitting a club in a city which simply oozes sophisication. A good night was had by all.
On my never ending quest to get culturally aware, the next day I managed to nab an invite to Kerri's workmate's family's Cukup Rambut. Its a muslim cermony which translates as the Cutting of Hair. As far as I can gather it seemed to be a kind of Islamic equivalent of a christening, in so far as its a baby welcoming ceremony. Our guide for the day was Lisa, who worked with Kerri, and it was her cousin's child who was getting his hair cut. To begin with there was about an hour of singing/ chanting prayers by a group of women who were hired to lead to the prayers. Apparently only women pray at this ceremony and only men do the praying at funerals. After this there was some more singing and playing of drums and ululating. Then the baby got his hair cut and the family hands out gifts to all the guests. Finally we all got to stuff our faces. I spent alot of the day admiring Lisa's aunt's Kashmeri carpet. Interesting to note that Lisa'a brother was visiting from NZ where he has lived since he was about 10 due to overseas education. He seemed to have less of a clue and looked more at a loss at the ceremony than either Kerri, me or his kiwi mate.
After loafing for a day I headed to the hills to spend a few days here in the Cameron Highlands. At an altitude of 1,500m the weather is a bit Irish. It wouldn't be so bad espically after all the sweating in KL, except for all the rain. Getting here was a bit of a production. The Pudaraya bus station in KL is quite confusing - not a patch on the Madras choas mind you. When I got there, the next bus was full so I decided to get as far as Tapah and change there to get to Tanah Rata. I got a very nice air con bus to Tapah, after that it was 2hrs winding up a road which had been closed due to mudslides only the day before and was still being cleared, on a local bus, no air con, no windows, packed to the brim. I got quite nostalgic for India, but hey at least I had a seat!
Since then I've been living it up here and having a fine time in the one pub in town with the delightful company of everyone's favorite hostel manager Gerard and the rest of the gang from Fathers Guest House. One night I tried to get to bed early I ended up bopping to bollywood classics with a load of Indian Malaysians till 2am. I even got to see the workings of the local hospital, it being the only place I could get Anti Malarials having carefully left this weeks dose in KL. I just wish I hadn't run all over town first before being resigned to having to register there. However it was all suprisingly effient and (more suprisingly) free of charge.
I went on the local tour of the tea plantations, amongst other sights with Mr Ravi, the chief highlight of which was getting attacked by hornets when we disturbed their nest poking around a coffee plant. The stings are bloody sore I can tell you! But we got a free trip to the plantation medical center, not normally on the tour route. By evening the stings had calmed down and I was lots better off the one poor girl who had a seriously painful reaction.
Well I didn't get to do the jungle walks which are the main tourist attraction here so I guess I'll have to come back. Actually this doesn't seem like a bad place to do the Millenium thing...they even have fry ups on tap in the hostel, just the thing of the hangover of the centuary!
Aoife, Tanah Rata, Pahang, Malaysia Friday 10th Dec 20:10 TST
Hi-di-hi folks! I wanted to do an update from Kathmandu cause it would have been a cool place to have on my list but for some reason geocities doesn't like the cyber cafes or vice versa. So here I am in Kuala Lumpur and boy have I ever landed on my feet. Great place to stay, hot showers, delicious food...but first...
Dum Dum airport in Calcutta is lovely place, due to some misunderstanding with the Salvo gatekeeper however, I ended up there about 2 hrs before I needed to be. Not exactly fun at 6 in the morning when I could have been getting more kip but I did get to see Calcutta waking up. I began to wonder why Bombay with all its industry and money has such a grimy, badly served and serviced flea-pit for its international airport. Dum Dum even has a very quite and comfortable departure lounge featuring reclining leatheresque seats, its just a pity I hung around customs for an hour cause I didn't know it was there. Another feature of the airport is the manual baggage security check whereby you personally have to go out onto the tarmac and pick out your bag(s) from the crowd!
While I was on the flight I was struck by the sheer quiteness in the cabin, silence had been in short supply during my time in India. Before I knew it there was the Himalayas spread out in front of me when I looked out the window like some giant postcard. God, air travel is so civilsed, no 40hr journeys on grubby trains and arriving at destination tired and grimy. Contining my "fun with airports" series, I was in the queue for those without visas when I suddenly realised that I'd carefully left all my passport photos in my big pack which was safely in baggage claim positioned well after immigration. I was visualising long delays or perhaps liberal baksheesh but luckily an out-of-date EYC card I'd been keeping in my wallet saved the day. I cut the horrid photo out and it sufficed. (No laughing Mr Wade!)
Full marks to the Nepalese aurthorities on the choice of location for the International airport.Its positioned above the city and offers great views of the foothills and the himalayas themselves (as long as its not too hazy) as soon as you exit. The interior is cool too with lots of nice carvings. I waded through the sea of touts and got myself into a pre-paid taxi which helpfully dropped me about 10mins walk from the hotel I'd asked for, thats when I found which way to go. In the end I didn't find the place I was after and decided to splash out on US$5 a night for a hotel with clean rooms, bedsheets, hot showers, carpets and a nice manager. I'd just left the hotel after getting settled and emailing when I ran into Jay my travelling companion from Rajastan. Kathmandu Thamel district is a veritable tourist Mecca with lots of pubs, restaurants, bakeries and wonder of wonders western style supermarkets!! I didn't even find these in the biggest cities in India.
I did manage to see Durbar Sq and the Monkey temple but otherwise I just tried to keep warm and let loose in the pubs and clubs, espically Paddy Foleys Irish pub - the nepalese guiness is of course horrible, even the Kenyan stuff was better.
On a small side note people, espically the youth in Nepal are just that little bit cooler than their Indian counterparts. Long hair, western designer rip-offs and a chilled out attitude are the order of the day (unless you're a young male of tibetan desent trying to pick up western tourists in one of the nightclubs). Kathmandu for a town that has been besiged by the likes of me for many years now is still surprisingly welcoming to tourists and the nepalese are great smilers. I just knew it would warrent its own visit.
With the in-flight entertainment on the flight SQ413 to Singapore broken myself, Jay and Jan(other Aussie that Jay had met) set about entertaining ourselves. In particular Jan and I got a little giggly much to Jay embarressment and I'm sure we came dangerously close to the kind of noisy type people you hate having to sit next to on any journey. Fast Forward to Changi airport Singapore where I bid farewell to Jay and Jan who were headed to Melbourne and set about trying to find Marlinda a young Singaporean that I was going to stay with. I'd never met or even seen a picture of this girl and she only knew I'd be wearing a blue salwaar. El Bandito a net pal of mine,whom I was going to visit in KL, had arranged for me to stay with her and her family. It was much to my surprise that I got greeted at the airport by a chorus of "Welcome to Singapore" by 3 seventeen year old citizens. Twas nice to feel wanted ;-)
Is there such a thing as reverse culture shock?
Well thats the closest thing I can come up with to describe what it felt like on arrival into Singapore to be suddenly catapulted back into modern civilisation. They should have had a sign for people like me at the airport "WELCOME TO S.E.ASIA - THE LAND OF AIR CONDITIONING, NO SPITTING, URINATING, LITTERING OR OTHER ANTISOCIAL INDIAN PASSTIMES PLEASE". Walking through the streets and malls of Singapore was just plain odd. I felt like the country cousin in my outsize salwaar among the young trendies of the city. I got the shock of my life when I saw a christmas tree, hopefully the only reminder of the season of freinds and family that I'll get whilst here. However the biggest surprise was to come in the form of air conditioned public city buses. I've been raking my brains and I can't think of any city in europe that has air con buses. I got to Marlinda's house and her mother cooked up a lovely malaysian dish or two for my delicatation. I was a little more excited than I should have been to see an episode of ER on the telly - sad or what?
I had a bus ticket to KL for the next day thus ending my brief visit to Singapore. I do have an invite from Marlinda to come back and do tourist stuff which I may take her up on soon. Two border posts and 5 hours later I arrived in Kuala Lumpur a city that for all the world looks like it was built yesterday. Everything is shiny and new and clean and modern so the culture shock continued. I was met at the bus by the Bandit Leader(aka Razali) who took me in his (air-con) new car to his flash pad where I vegged out and watch a lot of satalite TV. I even found myself watching a Hindi movie from the 70's - is it possible that I miss India already?
I'm tired of typing now but I will say that Kuala Lumpur is serious civilisation and that what I've seen of Malaysia so far makes Ireland look like a developing nation!
Aoife, Bandit Leaders House, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Saturday 4th December, 19:30 Singapore Std Time
Addendum : Kathmandu's Buffalo Burgers and Chariots of Beer.
That first day in Kathmandu when I bumped into Jay he took me to his favorite snack joint to refuel. I was tucking into the nicest burger I'd had in ages when Jay asked me if the meat was very lean. I hadn't thought about it but the meat had none of the fatty stuff you usually see in beef burgers. "Its probably buffalo then" saud Jay and went on to say that much of the 'beef' in Nepal wasn't the genuine article due to the large Hindu population. I must say it was quite tasty and indisguishable from the normal 'beef' except for being a bit chewier.
Also worth a mention are the rickshaw races cum demolition derbys which take place in the streets of Kathmandu late at night. Ingredients: Several tourists in various states of intoxication, several bored and cold rickshaw drivers, several rickty cycle rickshaws. In a reversal of the normal procedure the tourists cycle the drivers around and you all have a race to see who can get around the block first without breaking their heads or their rickshaws. Usual fee is about 10 rupees, more if you crash the rickshaw. Quite the funniest thing I've seen in a while.
