Month: February 2013

I was right to be concerned about the weather in Bali. Even though it’s only 3 hours flying time from KL, in most of Indonesia this is wet season, whereas back on the SE Asian peninsula it’s dry at the moment. The flight came in through some terrible weather as we came into land, the plane was being bashed about like a toy and it was a struggle to stay in your seat, even with the belt on. The pilot did his best to avoid the lightening that was striking all around us and managed to put us down in one piece. In some countries it’s common for people to clap when you’ve landed, especially if you’ve been flying Aeroflot or whatever. I would never normally join in of course, being the prudish Brit that I am, but on this occasion I was clapping, cheering and calling for an encore.

The rain lasted just long enough to soak the luggage right through as they got it off the plane, then it stopped completely for 3 days until this lunchtime. This is the scene at one of the southern beaches where I stopped to have lunch. 10 minutes after this photo was taken a sudden squawl blew in, with a horizontal wind that came in so quickly that it literally blew the food off my plate and across the restaurant – the fried egg actually hit another traveller about 15 feet away, the half full glass bottle of Coke I had blew over, and that roof you can see that is actually on the restaurant next door, or rather I should say it used to be on the restaurant next door, blew off and large slabs of it hit our restaurant and ended up far down the beach. I couldn’t get any pics sadly as it was far too wet to get the camera out.

I’m in a so-called “home stay” in Kuta Beach at the moment, a lovely room with private balcony and a great pool just below. I’ve not been up to much apart from chilling. Although Kuta has a lot of issues, you can’t get around the corner without being offered a massage with happy ending about 10 times, and this is at 2pm and so forth, but still as long as you have found a quiet place to stay then it is a good place to hang out really, there is lots of good food around and things to do.

It’s difficult to say if this is petrol or Absolut vodka in these bottles, but probably either would run the bike. If all else fails you could try the magic mushrooms that are for sale across the road.

I’m staying just around the corner from the site of the 2002 bombings. The land will never be built on again as there is some law here about building on the site of such an atrocity. This photo is taken from within the site of the Sari Club, looking out across the road to the site of Paddy’s Bar. A suicide bomber detonated a backpack in Paddys initially which killed a number of people, anyone who survived naturally came out onto the street where a massive car bomb exploded just afterwards, killing many people as well as destroying both venues.

The site of Paddy’s has been converted into a memorial garden for the 202 people that died and is quite haunting to visit

I had a near miss with a dodgy “authorised money changer” yesterday. I’m still running down the pile of US dollars that I needed for Myanmar so decided to change one of the $100 bills I had. The exchange rate they were offering would’ve returned me 1,029,900 rupiah and the guy counted 10 x 50,000 notes into a pile of half a million, then another 10 into another pile. This aroused my suspicions straight away and rightly so, as he then picked up one pile and dropped it onto the other and then pushed it towards me whilst another guy was distracting me, trying to get 20,000 in change from me so that they could give me one more 50K note. I almost saw the sleight of hand as he did this, and when I tried to count the pile he would constantly try and grab all the money back so he could “check” it. I forced him off, and sure enough there was only about 750,000 in the pile. I threw the money in his face and grabbed my $100 back and walked off, then had a minor meltdown as I went back and compared the $100 note with the other two I still had, the serial numbers on those two were consecutive and this one was not, so I was now in dread that they had also switched the $100 note as well. It looked real though and I took it straight to a proper money changer who accepted it, so I don’t think they changed it. I learnt a valuable tip though – photograph the note you give them openly in front of them before they have the chance to touch it. There is no need to feel embarrassed that they will be offended that you mistrust them, if they are genuine, that is…

Having planned an early night last night, I met a young English lad in a bar who was waiting for a local girl he’d met yesterday in a nearby town who was supposed to be coming to Kuta to see him. Whilst we had a beer, he received a message from her blowing him out, “love you long time” and all that. So he dragged me into one of the bawdy big venues on Legian Street so he could get a replacement. These places are amazing, absolutely huge with about 10 bars on different levels, mostly playing loud, crap music. The prostitutes mix openly with the tourists whilst the overpriced beer and other substances take effect. Of course I was a good boy and went home early, around 3am or so…

Off to Ubud tomorrow to get a little culture.

My third visit to KL and a very pleasant one, I must say. The previous two times I really didn’t think much of the city at all, the first time I stayed in the Golden Triangle somewhere and the next time down at Sentral, near the station, but this time I’ve stayed in Chinatown which is far more vibrant and welcoming, I must say.

This is a scene from one of the Chinatown streets, a web of stalls selling basically anything and everything from fake T-shirts to Rolex. Last night I was sitting in this street having dinner at about 11pm when the stalls were closing up. They go through this clearly well practised ritual of packing all the goods away into various lockable cabinets and trolleys that are later wheeled away to lock-ups somewhere. The parasols, plastic chairs, light bulbs and cabling are carefully removed and locked away until about 12 hours later when it all comes out again. 7 days a week? Probably, I’m not sure, quite an arduous lifestyle anyway, surely.

Both times I came here before, I had tried to go up the Petronas Twin Towers

but they eluded me so far, as you had to queue from 8.30 in the morning for a ticket for that day, and me and 8.30am, dressed and in a queue are not good bed fellows. These days though you can book in advance, so I went up last evening to do that only to find that today was already booked until mid-afternoon which would be too late for me to get to the airport, but a little bit of pleading with the ever-helpful Malay staff and I bagged a ticket for this morning. It’s an impressive visit alright, if memory serves me correctly these were the tallest buildings in the world for a brief time*, if a little expensive in Asian terms at 80 ringgit, but then how often do you get to go?

The view of the other tower from the one I was in, with the telecoms tower behind which I have previously climbed

Now I’m back in Chinatown having some, well, Chinese food for lunch before heading to the airport and Bali. My eyes rested briefly on the MacDonalds just down the road, but that would be sacrilege really (besides, I already went there for breakfast)

* This statement might be bollocks – take with a large pinch of salt

My last morning on Koh Tao started with me doing a good deed by scraping a tourist’s motorbike off the road that crashed just in front of me. Someone else scraped the tourist up. She looked alright really, but some local women were rubbing her belly in concern, thinking she was pregnant I suppose, when actually I think she was just a bit fat. I hope so anyway… The bike was not in such good shape and will cost her a few baht I should think.

A fairly slow ferry took me to Chumphon where I had 3 hours or so to kill whilst waiting for the train. I sumggly found a nice cool bar to whilst away the time whereas most of the tourists went like sheep to a karaoke restaurant nearby. These places are painful – the singers are all locals who sing local pop music at ear-splitting volumes. This often happens on long distance buses, too.

The night train was lovely and comfy, nice and cool and a big bed. Everyone seemed to be sleeping peacefully for most of the journey too. When I eventually woke up they put the beds away and I got chatting to the old Malay guy that had been sleeping below me. He said Malaysia was lucky to have been colonised by the British, an interesting point of view that it’d never really occurred to me that a local might hold!

From Butterworth a short ferry ride takes you to Georgetown on Penang. As I slightly expected, the place is a bit underwhelming for me. It is quite interesting to see all the old colonial buildings around the place, but beyond all that, it is pretty much high-rise. The food is certainly excellent, very varied and cheap, something Penang is known for. The same cannot be said of the beer.

This did give me a little amusement, a new definition for irony. Starting from the left, 1) bring your UK phone charger with you. 2) Forget to bring the universal adaptor for it, so purchase one. Use the aforementioned combination to charge your phone in Myanmar, and fry the charger as the supply is so screwed up there. 3) Buy a replacement charger, which of course has a local 2-prong connector. 4) Go to Malaysia where they use the UK style plug and have to purchase an adaptor to connect your new charger to a UK socket. I suppose in this respect it was not good that we colonised this place…

The boat service I was thinking of using to get to Medan has ceased 2 years ago, so having looked at flights and weighing up several options, I’ve decided to take a bus to Kuala Lumpur today and fly from there to Bali as the next main step. I’ll play it by ear when I’ve arrived, and see how the weather is, but all being well I’ll explore Bali and Lombok and may well need to backtrack over to Java to then get to Borneo.

I spent a couple of nights back on the safe haven of Tao. I stayed in a different set of bungalows for a change, just on the other side of the head where I normally stay, in another fine cabin with a view over Shark Bay

The resort sits isolated just above the bay

There’s some steps just below the bungalows which help you get into the water, so I went in twice looking for sharks, but they were being shy on this occasion. In an effort to avoid eggs for breakfast, I’ve gone for the old faithful tomato soup, 3in1 coffee and fresh coconut combination breakfast today

Aside from that it’s been a quiet couple of days. I dragged myself up to the High Bar last night for a late drink and got talking to a few people, including one Swedish guy trying, and failing, to find a place to stay by phoning around everywhere. He gave up and went to sleep on the beach in the end. The bar is High by name and high by nature, it’s up the steepest and twistiest track ever, a hell of a challenge to keep the front wheel of the bike on the floor on the way up, and as for going back down…. Earlier I took a spin up to Sairee, the small town towards the north of the island, this is the main backpacker hangout and I don’t go up there very often really. When I first came here in 2004, there was no electricity and a night out consisted of drinking in candlelight on the beach whilst a man played guitar. Now, Sairee has bars pumping out music, a couple of girlie bars, lots of international restaurants and there was even a ladyboy show.

Today then is the marathon journey to Penang in Malaysia. I’ll take a boat at 14.30 and spend 2 or 3 hours in the town of Chumphon before getting a train at about 22.30. It reaches the border around 8am I think, and then takes a further 6 hours to Butterworth, which seems way too long as it’s not that far from the border really. I expect we all have to get off the train for a couple of hours or something to clear immigration.

I love simple beach hut living. 300 baht a night gets you one of these

The walls are made of reeds with an entire ecosystem living in them, and the toilet cistern is made from a converted flowerpot

The mattress is lovely and comfy, and the door has a lock, but really I don’t know why, as if you don’t want to push your fist through the wall, you can simply reach in through a window – there is no glass in them

Koh Phangan is much bigger than Ko Tao so I decided to stay somewhat centrally in Ao Baan Tai, a little to the south of the main port and town, Thongsala. Haad Rin, the sight of the infamous “full moon” parties, is easily reached in 15 minutes or so by motorbike. It’s a nice beach alright, a little later this evening I might have a spin down there to see what happens in the evenings, despite the fact it’s not full moon for another week or so yet.

Today I’ve been up the west of the island to the north, also easily reached by bike, to do some snorkeling off Koh Ma, a small island reached by sandbar, followed by some more at Haad Khom

It’s a nice island actually and fun to spend some time, certainly a hell of a lot better than Koh Samui which is just over the water from here. Samui has an airport so tends to attract the suitcase brigade somewhat, bringing with it inflated prices and cheese. That said, there is some here too. Just along from where I am staying are a string of girlie bars, and there’s this “English” pub which is hilarious, it’s obviously been custom built to look as much as possible like a typical country pub you’d find in the south east of England, complete with a turfed beer garden

Tomorrow I’ll be off back to Tao for a couple more nights, so all that’s left to do here really is try and find some dinner that will top last night’s rather fine potato gratin from a French restaurant. It’s amazing how you crave things such as potato when you’re out here. Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat, dreaming about Frosties…

I had a minor miracle that helped me get to Thailand in one piece. I’d foolishly booked a flight out of Bangkok to Surat Thani that left 55 minutes after the one from Mandalay was due in. I’d temporarily forgotten that I needed to land, immigrate, collect my baggage, clear customs, make my way from international arrivals and find domestic departures and check-in again before the desks close, 45 minutes before departure. 10 minutes for all this would seem tight.

I have to commend Air Asia, who ran both flights, they are a Malaysian budget airline that also serves other SE Asian countries quite widely. Their fares are rock-bottom, for example the one to Surat Thani was 40 quid, with all the extras in such as a charge for a checked in bag and a charge for credit card. Service, however, is not compromised at all, compared to a certain Irish based budget airline I could think of. Nothing is too much trouble – the miracle is that the Mandalay flight got in 30 minutes early, the aircrew moved me to the front of the plane so I could run off, the ground staff alerted central control with my booking reference and kept a check-in desk open and set aside just for my use, and all of this was my own stupid fault of course. There was even a later flight to Surat Thani they could’ve made me use, no reason for them to have any sympathy at all.

The transfer to downtown Surat Thani, where the night boat leaves from, was smooth and I had several hours to kill in the most boring town on the planet. In hindsight, I would’ve been better spending those hours in Bangkok airport eating KFC rather than hang around that dump. I found a guesthouse willing to let me use a room for a few hours for just 100 baht so I could lie down, as I was beginning to feel rather ill by now. Here’s the nightboat

And a shot inside just after dawn when we were close to the island. I’ve taken this boat before, but it was a different boat that time, this one is actually spacious in comparison!

This is my third time on Koh Tao, one of my favourite spots in Thailand, and I got a hut in my usual bungalow operation

I’m writing this post from my balcony, and I’m rather distracted as there are a pair of naked, Western breasts staring up at me from one of those loungers. It always astonishes that people do that here, it is I believe illegal, and disrespectful to the locals. Nevertheless, keep up the good work! And no, I’m not uploading a photo…

Top tip for travelling – if you bought a stash of doughnuts to get you through the nightboat trip and have some left over, don’t leave them on your bed when there is an ants’ nest underneath your cabin, otherwise this happens (not sure they’ll be visible in this little pic)

This was after the food and most of my clothing had been removed, including pants which literally did have ants in them, and there are thousands of them all over the bed and hut. Nothing that a Thai bloke with the world’s largest canister of bug spray couldn’t sort out.

And that’s about all I have to report, as I’ve been sick as a parrot since leaving Mandalay, clearly something was dodgy with the last meal I had up there and I’ve pretty much been wiped out. I’ve been unable to eat or drink much, and consequently have no energy and little desire to venture too far from a toilet. As today was Day 5 of this, I finally checked into a clinic here who’ve been pouring various substances into me and I’m happy to say I’m feeling much better already. So don’t panic, Mum.

Shortly I hope to have a little snorkel in Shark Bay which is very close by, pictured here from the viewpoint I struggled up to yesterday

Astonishingly, it’s famous for having large numbers of sharks in it. Tomorrow I plan to transfer over to Koh Phangnan next door to here for perhaps 3 nights, and I’ve booked a night train to Butterworth in Malaysia on the 19th, a bit later than planned, but that was the first one with a berth available. Then I plan to spend a night or to in Penang, after which I was going to choose between a ferry to Sumatra in Indonesia, or fly over to Borneo, in the general direction of the Philippines and China. The way that time is panning out, I think I’ll have to leave Indonesia for another time and go straight to Borneo.

We arrived in good time to Mandalay, and managed to bag the spare bed in the guesthouse that another traveller on my bus had reserved and I happened to share a cab downtown with, so that saved a headache. The city isn’t as bad as I’d been led to believe, I prefer it over Yangon actually, with the one exception that there is almost literally nowhere to go out and eat, very strange for a pretty big city.

I had enough time that day to hire a bike and cycle out to Amarapura, home of the longest teak bridge at about 1.2Km long and some 200 years old. I wish I’d had one of those head-mounted cameras to record the journey out of Mandalay on the city streets. The best way to describe it is that it’s rather like being in the middle of a video game, with things coming at you from all directions, some of which you can aim for as they will earn you points (generally, humans and animals) and some that should be avoided as they will make you lose a life (all other vehicles). Aiming for other bikes is laying the gauntlet down and that is where the fun really begins. Despite it all, you actually feel fairly safe on these roads. At home, people would simply drive into you, whereas out here, somehow room for everybody seems to appear at the last second, and there is no concept of road rage at all which is very refreshing.

The bridge:

Fisherman work on the shores below the bridge. The long shadows are being cast be the legs of the bridge in the setting sun

For the delight of tourists, I’m sure, just outside some restaurants at the end of the bridge, a monkey balances on a beer bottle whilst holding an umbrella

After an early night, as I was still feeling a bit rough thanks to Idaho Dave, next morning I got up for the 9am boat to Mingun, an hour’s river ride away and home of yet more temples, that were badly damaged by earthquake

From the boat, you can either take the 5 minute walk to get to them, or if you’re American or Scottish you can go by eco-friendly taxi

Lunch for me today was a typical Burmese dish, this one being a mutton curry. Just over a quid gets you all this, it’s almost a challenge to work out which dish is the actual curry. The thing that looks a bit like a bowl of soup is actually a bowl of soup, and that comes with unlimited refills.

Europe is missing a trick here as well, anyone who introduces anti-aging beer is surely going to cash in quickly?

Later I bumped into Debs again and went for beers with her and a strange English Jehovah’s witness. A heavy night involving plenty of Mandalay Rum, a half bottle of which will set you back 60p. At the end of the evening, I was almost beginning to believe, I think

So, if I get up in time for a 7.30 taxi, it’s time to leave Burma behind. It’s certainly been an interesting experience here and worth doing, I almost feel a bit guilty that I didn’t go delving deeper into the unknown as such, but mostly due to the relative hassle and expense of travelling here I’m cutting it slightly short and going to relax on a Thai island for a few days. Besides, I need to go somewhere that I might some food that will settle my stomach a bit!!

As a man once wrote, I’m on my way to Mandalay. I’ve been forewarned that it’s one big old stinking dump, some travellers say it’s best avoided altogether in fact. Anyway, I’m flying back from there to Bangkok on Saturday, as they’ve very recently begun international operations from that airport. Previously, the only way for foreigners to enter and leave Myanmar was via Yangon airport, as all the land borders are closed to aliens. I decided against going any further “off piste” on the Burma circuit, bus travel is pretty slow and expensive to most destinations and often will set you down in the middle of the night.

I’ll spend two nights in Mandalay, working on the assumption that I can actually find a place to stay there. As I understand it, Chinese New Year is imminent and there is talk that the northern part of the country will be even busier than normal. Fingers crossed… Currently I’m at this service station en route.

The road itself has been partly well paved, then a combination of very bumpy paving and dirt. Often the road ends completely, and the bus drives down onto dry riverbeds as there are no bridges, which must make travel pretty interesting in wet season I should think. In one case, over a very wide dry river, the bus actually goes on the working rail bridge that crosses it, with the bus literally driving along the rails. There did seem to be a man at each end, controlling when vehicles are allowed on, the idea presumably being to ensure that the train isn’t coming.

The bus is very civilised, by far the best I’ve used to far in Myanmar, but they have an obvious solution for when there are not enough spare seats.

Tomorrow perhaps I will take a morning boat for a day trip to Mingun, and this afternoon, if I arrive early enough as I have been promised I should, make a cycle trip out to the longest teak bridge in the world at Amarapura.

Leaving the Golden Rock behind, I bused it to Bagan, the land of 4,000 temples in the north of the country. One leg of the “bus” journey turned out to be a 60 minute ride on the back of a motorbike, from Bago to a remote motorway intersection somewhere north of Yangon. There I waited for almost an hour whilst my driver flagged down all passing buses in the pitch black, trying to find one that went to Bagan (most would go to Mandalay). This was splendid really, we drove up the off-ramp of the motorway on the bike in the wrong direction, before parking up and hanging around on the hard shoulder.

He got a suitable bus eventually, which was due in to Bagan at 6.30am, but actually arrived at 3am, God knows how as he wasn’t going that fast really. I get turfed off the bus in the market place of Nyaung U, I was the only traveller on this bus, wondering what to do next when I noticed a little restaurant that was open and full of a few locals. They also had two large flat screen TVs, one showing footie and one cricket, with the commentary in English. I got some excellent food for under 50p and decided to sit it out until morning, despite the fact that it was a little chilly, temperatures in Bagan actually drop as low as 16C at night. I made a new friend, sat on my pack

you can see him again here in the centre of the picture.

He is currently on my lap, giving me a little warmth.

Time has passed, and a tout came by at 5am and I decided to jump in his car and check out his guesthouse, especially since the power failed about 4am and the town is in absolute pitch darkness. It did me for the rest of the night before I moved to an excellent place nearby the next day. Nyaung U is a settlement within Bagan where the backpackers hang out, it’s noticeably more touristy than the rest of the country, with plenty of tourist-oriented restaurants and travel agencies and stuff. The place had a wonderful vibe all round, really. From my breakfast table I have a view of this temple, seen in the rising sun here

I hired a bike and went scooting around all the temples, which are quite literally littered all over the landscape. I never did find out why there are so many, it is almost as if each local family had their own, and there was a “my temple’s bigger than yours…” game going on.

On the first day I met Debs, a British nurse, one of the few Brits I’ve met so far actually on this trip. Bizarrely, she was born in Truro, which is my home town in Cornwall. A few beers with her, followed by some wobbly cycling home and then dinner and more beer saw a late start the next morning, but there was still time to check some more temples before meeting Idaho Dave, who turned out to be good for another skinful the following night. Sometimes beers are delivered with cigarettes. They’re not complimentary though.

A working vehicle passes by in Old Bagan. Why bother with a bonnet, wings or doors and the like, when all that is really needed is an engine and some wheels?

A large marketplace is right outside the Ananda Pahto, one of the larger and best preserved of Bagan’s temples. This stall appears to be the Burmese version of screwfix

There’s only so many temples one can take in a sitting, so I will be heading off to Mandalay, which will be my last major stop in Myanmar

It feels like it’s been a while – the infrastructure here is very temperamental, power failures typically occur a few times each day, and the internet connections are up and down like yo-yos. Anyway, from a rather pleasant lunchtime garden halfway between Old Bagan and Nyuang U I’m having a go at writing as I eat fruit, for the second time today (which is some achievement, as anyone who knows me well enough will know) So, on arrival to Yangon I arrived at my guesthouse to find I actually did have a reservation, which astounded me. A class establishment with a room with a door and bed and everything. No windows or bathroom or anything of course, but who needs such luxuries? In fairness, having no window was probably an advantage as it’s a hell of big old noisy city. The view from the hall was this, of the Sule Paya.

You used to have to change money on the black market only, by changing pristine US dollar bills (no folds, pen marks or other defects, or they won’t be accepted) with a man on the street or a taxi driver or someone. These days though, there are a handful of official money changers, including at the airport, and in Yangon, a very recent addition, within the last few weeks, are a couple of ATMs which will take Mastercard and Visa. Here’s what $100 looks like when changed into kyat, tastefully contrasting my bed sheet:

That evening I hiked up to the Shwedagon Paya, and enormous temple frequented by hundreds of locals coming to pray.

On the way back, I crossed over the railway track, it has a really crumbling infrastructure and people play chicken with the train

I made a bolt for it to Mt Kyaiktiyo the next morning, an event in itself. The owner of the guesthouse recommended to get a local bus to the bus station, which is probably about 20 Km away, a snip at 200 kyat when a taxi would cost about 8000. When I eventually correctly interpreted the Myanmar digit symbols that represent 43 for the route I wanted, I was given VIP treatment by entering the bus through a special door and getting to sit with the driver. The traffic drives on the right, but almost all vehicles are right-hand drive.

The bus dropped me near, but not at, the bus station, for some inexplicable reason. Slightly perplexed, I chartered a tramp that I found lying on the street, to lead me the 20 minute walk to the bus station for the price of a coffee. Bless his heart, he took me to entirely the wrong part of this massive bus station, which is more like a village really, with people there fixing buses, hundreds of shops and cafes, taxis and people everywhere all over the dusty streets. Anyway I eventually found a bus that would take me, although not all the way as it turned out, they loaded me onto the back of a motorbike to cover the last 20Km or so.

Kinpun, the base camp as such of the mountain, is not at all what I expected, I thought it would be a little traveller’s outpost, but in fact it was quite a busy village, and very dirty and noisy, with terrible restaurants. You ride on top of a small truck to ascend the mountain with about 50 other people, a pretty frightening trip up and down steep and twisty turns. They’d be fairly screwed here if they ever got snow and ice, that’s for sure. At the top of the mountain is a whole village and community as well, again unexpected, and you hike for a while to reach the actual Golden Rock, a pagoda perched on this precariously balanced rock which has been painted gold to represent the head of Buddha. After a certain amount of misinformation, I was led to believe that the golden rock itself was closed and covered up for refurbishment, much to the bemusement of myself and this crazy Polish guy I was with. It appeared to be here

But I later found out this was a different spot, the real McCoy was around the corner, so to speak, so I never saw it in the flesh in the end. The clue was that you could actually see it from the town and my guesthouse. Always these things are obvious with hindsight…

Part 1 of Burma complete, I am finding that trying to write more and more is playing havoc with the piece-of-string internet connection.