kristina in korea
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So we’re on Ko Phi Phi and yeah, we’ve about had it up to our eyeballs with creeps, cockroaches, and crazy eyes. We don’t really have an exit strategy in place, except we’d really prefer not to end up in the middle of a human trafficking ring, but that’s just a personal preference.
In lieu of keeping ourselves alive, we make our way – swim-trunks, flippy-floppies, and backpacks – to the main wharf of Ko Phi Phi.
This excerpt from the pages of my notebook that day:
“I just watched an older Thai woman clad in bright orange shorts sell premade ice-cream cones to the passengers on the top deck of the ferry. Using a 6-foot pole with a bucket on top, she exchanged ice cream for a few Baht. A device hand-crafted solely for this one, entirely absurd purpose, I was blown away by the ingenuity and considered stealing it for myself.”
I suppose I refrained, because I don’t think I have a six-foot pole hiding in the bottom of my backpack, but of course I could be wrong. Anyway, it was time to board the ferry. We hop on a small, and for all intensive purposes, sideways boat which boasts the marvelously absurd claim that it will somehow stay afloat and transport its passengers across an increasingly rough ocean to the coastal climbing town of Krabi. I don’t exactly believe it, but whatever, boat. Let’s do this thing.
Now I’m not sure if personal torture was something we’d decided we’d like to have along for the ride, but it most definitely came along, invited or not. (Unwelcome guest. Nobody likes you!) The nausea and the seasickness. Neither of which had anything to do, of course, with the buckets of vodka-soda we’d consumed the night before.
We should have also, probably, forseen the bus tragedy the moment we set eyes on the honking piece of rusty metal parading itself as a means of people-transport.
I’m actually surprised the threadbare wheels could even support the weight of the frame, let alone actual people. I guess the moral of the story is that they couldn’t…
So two hours of hellish bumpy driving on this liar of a piece of people-transport, and right smack in the middle of nowhere, one tire gives up. Just packs it in. Right there, perfectly conveniently, making the extremely obnoxious decision to be the biggest brat of all time.
The driver is off the bus and not a word is spoken to any of the eighteen sticky, sweaty passengers. For thirty long, stiflingly hot minutes. That’s a lot of slow seconds.
Eventually my bladder, which had grown rather insistent on being the centre of attention, expedited my exit from the bus.
And now just a reminder that we are, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere. Just a place to change a tire, with a dirt road, some palms, a pile of coconuts and some trash. This made me, and my centre-of-attention bladder, quite unhappy.
So what do I do? What can I do? I walk down the dusty path until I’m somewhat certain no one on the bus can see me. Into some green-stuff foliage.
And there I am. Mid bust-a-squat, and I’m taking some time to observe my surroundings. There are a lot of palms, a bit of grass, a bird somewhere in the trees above. I’m looking left and right, and doing my best to ensure I hover high enough to avoid pricking myself with the thorny green plant below.
I guess I wasn’t being as discrete as I’d thought. Perv.
Bladder relieved, and now we have a dusty, dry, boring situation. There is absolutely nothing to do back at the bus but wait. And sweat. And I don’t know about you, but waiting and sweating aren’t usually at the top of my list of fun things to do. The stupid tire isn’t fixing itself, and the bus is just too damn hot (milk was a bad choice).
“Let’s play a game.”
“Ok…”
“So there’s this coconunt…”
Fetching bits of trash – old plastic coke bottles, beer cans, empty aerosol cylinders, little glass bottles and a random rusty wheel – we invent and set-up the 8-pin Dirt Road Coconut Bowling Championships. Coconut bowling, I say! (I won.)
The rest of the bus ride was rather uneventful, and the hunk of metal debris behaved much better with a new wheel.
When we finally wobbled our way to the port on the east coast, we caught another ferry and sat back on the deck, watching as little silver-backed fish sprung out of the water and played in the spray of the wake.
The sun sank into the ocean, and the distant lights of Ko Samui lit up as we floated by. And aside from the tropical breeze and the memory of man-cow, we could very well have been on a BC Ferry off the coast of West Vancouver – the lights of Ko Samui reminded us of Horseshoe Bay.
But while the ferry was still oh, a good 40-feet away from the wharf at Thongsala (the port of arrival on Ko Phangan), we were accosted (accosted!) by competitively screaming, abrasively yelling, fast-talking questioning-crazies. “Taxi! Taxi! Where you go?!” Still 20-feet away, and “Miss! Excuse me! Miss! How many people? Taxi? Bungalow! You come! Miss! Excuse me! Miss!”
They must have learned their manners from man-cow, because it was all sorts of rude insanity. But when we somehow managed to make our escape through the pamphlets and the shouting and the dirty, grappling arms, we navigated ourselves into a tuk tuk taxi and fled across the island to the beach at Haad Tian. And it was well worth it.
Oh, was it ever. 🙂
Filed under: Backpacking, Holiday, Outdoors, Thailand, Travel | Tagged: hellish bus ride, ko phi phi, man cow, pervert cow, sinking raft | 3 Comments »
~ Howard Thurman
An hour and a half by ferry from Phuket Town is a small island widely known to tourists everywhere. It was all but obliterated in the tsunami of 2004, but has recovered remarkably. There are no cars here – just bikes – and lots of them (I would know; I nearly lost limbs to them on at least 36 seperate occassions). 
The cobblestone alleyways wind around shallow shops and the thick scent of Indian dishes spill out of the checked-tablecloth restaurants on either side, plastered with signs in English advertising Western food, spicy curries, and Pad Thai for 70 Baht.
The foreigner outside the pub invites you in with an Australian accent and a 2-for-1 Redbull-and-Vodka Bucket special. Over the deep thrum of island beats, English can be heard everywhere, while the unmistakable stripes of 7-Eleven entice you to even cheaper bottles of Singha under the fluorescent lights.
The nightlife here is one reminiscent of Thailand’s famous full-moon parties, but on a much smaller scale. The bright lights and disco balls of beach-side bars illuminate the otherwise turquoise ocean waters, and party-goers dance the night away on white sand and and a stage under the starry sky. Firedancers enter the bars and throw their burning sticks around much too nonchalantly, and far too close for comfort, thank you very much.
And what do you call these hats? They came out of the woodwork with the fire and the crazy man with the gun.
Daybreak, and a Thai leathersmith from a neigbouring island opens shop in a small alleyway outfit. Perusing his goods, we make an offer on a pair of Obnoxious Orange Sunglasses. His first customer of the day, he must make a sale or risk succumbing to the Thai superstition that the rest of the day will turn him no profit. After bartering to the last Baht, he agrees to sell the sunglasses to me for a horribly cheap price. I walk away feeling like I ripped HIM off. I turn back and bring him more Baht. I’m quite happy to spend $3 on these Bright Orange Awful Things, thank you very much, and no, I’m not asking your opinion.
The Leathersmith smiles a big thank you and continues work on one of his many purses, which he creates from scratch… Long story short, Melis and I both bought purses from him, and Joanne bought her boyfriend a couple shirts and a pair of Less Obnoxious But Matching Blue Sunglasses. I guess making the Obnoxious Orange sale paid off for him, after all. 😉
A trip to Ko Phi Phi would not be complete without a Long Boat excursion to Maya Bay, the famous beach from, well, The Beach. So, well, we went. Sitting on the bow of the boat, bouncing around and catching air as the waves hit us from all sides. Jo and I had a great time, but I think Melissa probably wanted to die.
Anyway, Maya Bay and Phi Phi Leh were beautiful. Turquoise waters, burgeoning cliffs and giant limestone stalactites overhanging the white sand. The island is uninhabited, so the jungle is thick, the air is clean, and there were probably monkeys hiding in the shrubbery. There was also an overwhelming amount of garbage in the bay – stop throwing your crap in the water, peoples!
We also did some of the most apalling “snorkeling” of our lives here. It involved jumping off the longboat with a mask, swiming for a bit, and then being the unsuspecting target of Bread Toss from the local longboat drivers…. the result of which was an entire wall of fish amassing around us, a wall so thick that any movement was, come hell or high water (or both!), conclusively impossible without touching four-billion slimy green and yellow gaping-mouth-things with every single part of our exposed flesh. The fish went mental, jumping out of the water and squirming in such a dense mass that we couldn’t even see the ocean for the fish in it. It was terrifying. Terrifying! And we wanted to die.
Speaking of wanting to die, two French men from France (I know, unbelievable right?) invited Melis and I over for a game of pool one night, despite the fact that we were clearly seated and conversing with two other guys. Whatever, pool is more fun than other guys anyway, so we got up to play. Now I don’t know about you, but I’m no French Language Aficionado. Melissa, on the contrary, is. Being Language Dumb seemed to work for me, and I played pool, oblivious to whatever conversation was happening, while Melissa chatted with the Frenchies. Half an hour and zero balls sunk later, and Melissa pulls me aside, “I have a weird feeling about these guys.”
because over the course of sinking zero balls, I’d somehow communicated to one of the French guys – let’s call him Creepo of Four Years (because he’s lived on Ko Phi Phi for 4 years, who does that, anyway not for me to judge) – exactly (not just remotely, EXACTLY) where we were staying on the island. It was just casual conversation – I never really thought it was a problem – the problem inherently is the Just Plain Dumb part – anyway, we left. And what had creeped Melissa out was the other guy, let’s call him Creepo With the Bad Shirt (because it really was a bad shirt), had started talking to Melis about his work, and how his job enables him 8 months of time off every year, with a beachside home, and tons of travel options, blah blah blah, and when she asked him what kind of work he did, he dodged the question and said “I’m in The Market.” Proding a little further; he wouldn’t give her a response (but rest assured it was something illegal)- “it’s my own thing.” And then, suggestively, “it’s a good deal.” Melis was quiet, and then he said “I’m always doing research. Always looking for female sellers.” Anyway, it was odd. And we spent the rest of the night freaking out about worst-case scenarios, like what if we’re playing pool and then all of a sudden, we’re in a van…. haha. I won’t admit it, but we might have woken up several times in the middle of the night gasping for air and grabbing for each others’ arms in the darkness.
Believe it or not, we survived til morning. And the following evening, we were approached on the street by the server from the restaurant where we’d met Creepo of Four Years and Creepo With the Bad Shirt. She had this odd look in her eyes, “I have to tell you something.” We waited for her to tell us. We waited longer. And then, “I can’t tell you.” What? Is this whole island crazy? And then, “I need to tell you.” Back and forth like this for 3 minutes, and then she took her strange eyes elsewhere, and we never found out what she needed to tell us. Odd though, right?
We contemplated catching a ferry far, far away (maybe Madagascar) the next morning, just to get away from the insanity of the island (and the now Resident Cockroach living under a glass cup in our bathroom), but instead decided to venture to another part of the island, away from Creepos One and Two, Crazy Eyes, and Resident Cockroach. Melis brought her guitar, Joanne and I our books, and we ventured out to find the fabled Long Beach. Thirty minutes and a scenic hike along the shore and through the jungle later,
and we find ourselves at the Beach that is Long. Gorgeous views of Phi Phi Leh, long stretches of white sand, and flower-adorned long boats everywhere. Best of all, no Creepos, Crazies, or Cockroaches. And lots of yummy pineapples on a stick. 🙂
We stayed until the sun went down, and reluctantly walked back into Crazy Town along the shoreline (the tide was out by now). If we go back to Ko Phi Phi, this is where we will stay, without shadow of a doubt. It is where you should stay, too, unless human trafficing is your thing. 😉 Creepy!
Phi Phi was an experience, to say the least. We left the following day with backpacks full of dirty laundry (we’re now 16 days in and haven’t done a load yet… shhh), and, erm… interesting memories. And we DID end up in a van…
A minivan. 😉
Filed under: Backpacking, Culture, Holiday, Outdoors, Thailand, Travel | Tagged: beautiful beaches, crazy nightlife, creepos, firedance, ko phi phi, long beach, phi phi leh, snorkeling | 5 Comments »
Pulau Perhentian. In the turquoise waters of Malaysia’s northeastern coast, these tiny islands are postcard paradise. Awash with pillow white sand and dotted with swaying palms, Malaysia’s hidden gem shines bright in the tropical sun.
Now remember. It wasn’t exactly a breeze to get here. No. It was not.
Take a gander here if you need a reminder, but otherwise suffice it to know that we are exhausted, and quite comically delirious after our 5am wake-up call on the overnight bus from Johor Bahtu. We’re hungry. We don’t exactly look hot. I, for one, haven’t brushed my teeth in two days. We’re still wearing the same clothes we were wearing with the animals at the Singapore Zoo. And we’re probably very, very smelly.
And now imagine this:
Yes, we’re stinky. And yes we have extraordinarily awful breath. But we’re here. And that, my friend, is a very wonderful thing.
We walked around to find a place to stay with our new Chinese friends by the incredibly awesome names of Wee Wee, Kit, and Jelly (I told you they were awesome 😉 ). Eventually the 6 of us settled on the Lemongrass bungalows by the beach.
I spent a couple of extremely relaxing (some might say lazy) mornings in our hammock on the front porch, doing absolutely nothing… the sun peeking through the leafy palm at our doorstep, looking out on the grassy lawn where we played a bit of kick-around soccer with the locals. Our bungalow had a mosquito net – and call me ridiculous, but – I’ve always wanted to sleep under one of those! We also walked to Coral Bay on the other side of the island – it took us 15 minutes to cross at the narrowest part of the island, and when we got there it was pretty much exactly like our side of the island, only way-less awesome. 😉 We bought postcards, Andy broke a chair, and we moved on.
As the sun set, little wooden tables, a foot off the sand and surrounded by palm-woven mats, emerged on the beach, interspersed with fire lamps as island music blew across the darkening sand. As the moon rose (you’ll have to ask Melissa about this, she swears on her life she saw the most incredible “Moon Rise” that night, whatever that is – for the record I don’t believe her), the fire dancers came out. So we took a seat at one of the minature tables, ordered a few Tiger lagers, watched the dancers and shot the breeze with some incredible strangers who were soon to become great friends.
One of these new friends, Daniel from Salzburg, has been living and working on this island as a dive instructor for over a year. His family back home thinks he has been possessed by demons – the only “reasonable explanation” for why he has found new life on this remote island of peninsular Malaysia. Hearing these stories made me appreciate how lucky I am to have family and friends who think what I’m doing is wonderful – and not the work of some satanic forces. 😉
On our last night on the island, after a late dinner at a small beachside restaurant, we clambered down from a treetop hut onto a sand trail, and running down the path pushing a wheelbarrow, this smiling Malaysian man looks at us and asks, “Taxi?”, innately serious and without breaking his stride. It was so perfectly out of context that we all broke into spontaneous laughter.
We also shared what was mine and Jo’s first “Thai bucket”… of monkey juice. Needless to say, we were far from bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed the next morning. 😉
When we finally left the island, it was by boat that we arrived in Kuala Besut – a small port town on the east coast of Malaysia. It was here that we met some of the most memorable locals of our journey thus far: It was after 8pm and we were walking down the side of the dark road in search of some snacks for our upcoming overnight bus. These two little Malaysian girls came out onto their doorstep and waved at us as we passed their home. We stopped to say hello and they told us they were 7 years old (fairly decent level of English, if you ask me!). Their mother? older sister? was perched on the curb under an umbrella, cooking something on a tiny stove outside what must have been their front door. It was raining, and she beckoned for us to come over. She then offered us some of what she was cooking – it was incredible! Squid, seasoned to absolute perfection.
And then the boy, a little, round-faced and smiley thing, asked, “May I please have your facebook address?” How cute, right? You can’t make this stuff up.
And as we left, the girls stood there, on their tip-toes, extending their little arms to their lips and blowing us big kisses, “Mmmwah!”
I still smile every time I think of this wonderful happy family.
It’s the little things, isn’t it? 🙂
Filed under: Adventure Travel, Backpacking, Holiday, Malaysia, Outdoors, Travel | Tagged: bungalows, cheap accomodation, fire dancers, off the beaten path, pulau perhentian, relaxation, snorkeling, southeast asia, white sand | 2 Comments »
The Perhentians: Malaysia’s postcard islands. We’d heard about them from our Malaysian friend who we’d met in Seoul and crossed paths with in Singapore… she’s awesome. She said if we were looking for relaxing on an island whilst in Malaysia, the Perhentians were it.
So we decide to take a night bus up the coast (the Perhentians are on the northeast part of Malaysia, way up near the border with Thailand). To get there, we have to cross the Singapore/Malaysia border. Our bus is at 9pm and we have all day to get there. No problem, right?
We pack our bags and leave our Beary Good Hostel. We head for the Singapore Zoo, because we hear that this zoo is one of the best in the world (most of the animals get free roam, and a couple of times we were walking the pathways and had monkeys jumping around the trees over our heads, rather nonchalantly). I, myself, had a few heart palpitations… that Balinese ape from Indonesia has made me rather skeptical of monkeys of late.
Anyway. We finish at the zoo, and we sort of sluggishly decide to start making our way to Malaysia. So we leave and board a bus for the Malaysian border (Bus 950 from Woodlands on the Singapore MRT – yes, the abbreviation for this is S-M-R-T, and no, it doesn’t get much more awesome than that). We’re given these tissue-paper thin Blue Tickets that I’m pretty certain I immediately throw away because nothing that insubstantial can be worth anything substantial, right? By the time we get to Woodlands, it’s about 6:30pm. We’re already worried we’re running a little tight on time.
We get off 950 at the border. Upstairs to customs. Wait in line, passport stamp, we depart Singapore successfully. Back downstairs to find a bus, the place is a zoo, we stand in the Yellow Bus line bound for Johor Bahtu for awhile because it looks like it’s the line that most people have chosen to stand in, and to be honest we have no idea whatsoever where we’re supposed to be, so we may as well wait somewhere and at least look like we know what we’re doing.
Melis leaves her bag and goes to ask someone, comes back 15 minutes later and tells us we’re in the wrong line and we better find those flimsy blue tissue-paper-thin tickets we were given on the Singapore side of the border, because we’ll need those Blue Tickets again to board the 950 bus, which apparently we have to do one more time. We leave the Yellow Bus line that we’ve now spent almost ½ hour waiting in, and when the 950 bus comes, Jo and I have to pay again, because obviously we threw away those stupid tickets, while Blue Ticket Bus Queen walks on for free… smart bitch.
On the 950 for 10 minutes as it brings us to the Malaysian side of the border. We go upstairs again and get in line for immigration (there are 2 sides to this border crossing, and it’s cutting into our time rather unpleasantly, thank you very much). This line is moving slower than the Singapore one did, and when we finally get to the front, the immigration officer asks us, “where is white paper?” And points back to where we came from.
Out of line again. Off to fill out our white papers. Running now. Sweating almost.
Complete the papers. Back in line. Stamped successfully. Downstairs to find a bus that will take us to Laikan, which is where we’re supposed to catch another bus to Kota Bahtu (which will take us to the Perhentians, or at least we hope). It’s an overnight bus and we’re seriously running out of time now.
Ask a nice lady we pass while running down the escalator what bus we’re supposed to take. She directs us to Bus 170. We need to pay the bus driver in Malaysian Ringgit, AWESOME, all we have are Singaporean Dollars.
It’s 8:15pm. We have 45 minutes to get all the way to Laikan, find the bus we want, buy a ticket, and board. And to do each of these things, we’re going to need Malaysian Ringgit.
I drop my backpack and leave it with the girls, then book it as fast as I can towards somewhere, anywhere, away from here that might have an ATM.
I’m told there are NO ATM’s anywhere nearby. Only money changers, who are still far away, but I don’t have a choice and I’m running again, all the way back to where we came from, back to the passport stamping area and down to “City Centre”, past tons of slow-walking Muslims who I’m sure are judging me because I’m wearing a tank top, showing my shoulders and probably far too much cleavage than is appropriate, considering I’m running and sweating and at the best of times it’s hard to keep those things under control. Really wishing I was wearing a normal t-shirt about now, but there’s no time for wishful thinking. We need to catch this bus.
Here I am, Totally Inappropriate, and I get lost. I have no idea where I’m going, but I’ve been sprinting now for 10 minutes and where I am is starting to look less and less like an immigration control and more and more like a Muslim city. Then I end up in a huge mall, escalators everywhere, bright lights, people staring.
“The bank machine? Level B2.” Where the fuck is level B2?
Booking it down the escalators because I have to choose a direction and ‘down’ seems appropriate. Top speed, elbowing people out of my way as I run blindly down the escalators, literally blind for the sweat in my eyes.
At the bottom level, ask another random stranger “where the hell is the bank machine!?” and he tells Totally Inappropriate to go straight, all the way to the end, past the elevators and down a small corridor, out on the other side and you’ll find a Maybank, he starts to spell it for me but I don’t have time, I hear him yelling after me, “yellow colour!”.
Through the hallway of elevators and down a narrow passage I never would have seen, I find Maybank.
What a huge relief.
I get to the machine, throw my card in…
And realize I have no idea how much a Malaysian Ringgit is.
Do I take out 5 Ringgit, or 50,000 Ringgit?
I ask the guy next to me and he’s a Quiet Talker and I don’t understand a thing he’s trying to say, I’m about to punch him in the face.
I settle on 1,000 Ringgit. Hit enter. And a massive wad of cash is dispensed into my shaking fingers. I try and stuff my huge stack of money into my wallet but it barely fits, and there are a ton of Malaysians staring at me and my money and now I’m not only Totally Inappropriate, I’m also Totally Rich and Totally Freaked Out.
So I turn on my heel and sprint out of the bank. Now it’s a race against time as I try to navigate my way back… running as fast as I can, back up through the mall, up to the top floor by accident, back down, past the cab drivers, back to the immigration building that looks like a casino, and all of a sudden, a lineup with a baggage scanner and a sign:
“Welcome to Singapore”
Awesome! Ahh!
I try to bypass. I’m yelled at. I’m definitely panting at this point, and I can’t see at all now for the sweat in my eyes. Not sure what words manage to escape my mouth, but it probably sounded something like this:
“I.. with the.. needed money.. bank machine.. bus! (tap my invisible watch) – no time! already here.. ahh!”
I suppose I was able to communicate some level of panic because they saw my passport briefly and let me go –
Back up the escalators on the immigration side, another official-looking lady is trying to stop me, in retrospect she was probably trying to help me but I DON’T HAVE TIME, doesn’t she understand I’m out of time?!
She lets me go, back to Bus 170, the girls are waiting, there’s a nice Malaysian man standing with them – when I tell them where I went he can’t believe it – shakes his head a bit, there are no bank machines anywhere nearby, haha.
Apparently we’d missed 3 buses while I ran.
It’s 8:40pm.
Nice Saviour of a Man says he can drive us to Laikan!
And we’re off, dodging cars and bikes over 8 lane highways and busy overpasses, walking on the shoulder of the road as vehicles rip by, inches from our feet.. Saviour says “wait here, I’ll get the car and meet you – I can run faster. You rest.”
And he’s off, and he shows up in his little car and we pile in, he’s driving fast and we’re there! 8:55pm and we’re at Laikan! He parks and we run, some officials are trying to yell at us as we run to where the tickets are, but Saviour Man redirects us and tells the men to be quiet, says to us “not that way, this way safer”.
And we’re running to the Transsnational Bus Ticket window and a million men are trying to sell us tickets, and Saviour Man tells them in Bahasa Malay to shut up, we’re not interested! They leave us alone.
At the ticket window, Saviour gets our tickets for us (the lady doesn’t speak any English, it’s a miracle we have Saviour there to help).. he pays an extra few Ringgit out of his own pocket in order to give the lady exact change..
The ticket printer “is broken”, it’s 9pm now.. we have no choice but to wait.. Saviour heads with Melis and Jo to the bathroom – it’s Jo’s first squatter toilet experience and she’s got her giant backpack on and she’s on her rag, doesn’t know what to do, can’t balance, we’re in a hurry, ha!
Meanwhile I’m standing with the bags, am approached while waiting by guys trying to sell me tickets, Saviour shows up and tells them to get lost.
Finally the printer works, we have our tickets, and now we’re sprinting to our bus, it’s well after 9pm. The bus is still there! Bus driver looks at our tickets and shakes his head, we have no idea what he’s saying because he’s speaking Malay.. Saviour to the rescue – “you have to get off bus before destination stop – you must alight at Jertes after 10 hours”. Hugs for Saviour and he won’t accept money – we wanted to show our appreciation! – more hugs for Saviour – on the bus, wave goodbye.
We made it.
We fucking made it.
Welcome to Malaysia.
Filed under: Adventure Travel, Backpacking, Chance Event, Holiday, Singapore, Travel | Tagged: bus travel, immigration, race against time, southeast asia | 2 Comments »
“The open road is a beckoning, a strangeness, a place where a man can lose himself.” – William Least Heat Moon
Over the course of September 25th 2010, three girls arrived in succession at the Singapore Changi airport. From different airlines, from different parts of the world, with nothing but backpacks on their shoulders, the three friends met in this tiny corner of the globe… Singapore was never on our radar. But we are so happy we came here.
Hawker stalls selling everything from super sweet coffee to pig leg soup and chicken feet stew, Singapore is sensory overload. The Hindu temples of Little India, the beautiful women swathed in saris and, just down the street, Chinese buddhists are paying respects at the magnificent Buddhist temple. The mid-autumn lantern festival lights up the twisting alleys of Chinatown, while the friendly shop merchants allow you to peruse their goods without pressuring you to buy anything…
Sentosa Island, where the beaches have been created by man, who trucked the white sand from other areas and created a landscape unfamiliar to this port city, but beautiful in its creation. The waves on one of these fake beaches, simulated by a machine, allow beginner surfers to practice their skills. In the distance, freighters on the horizon.
We put on our best backpacking clothes. It’s the Formula-1 weekend (coincidentally enough), and the city is abuzz. On our way to find the casino (which looks like a giant ship in the sky, how rad is that), we wander into the Ritz Carleton to use the washroom. On the way out, we decide to walk through the (very posh) bar. Confident but for the flip flops on our feet, we barely make it 5 feet before we are approached.
“What would you think of a man wearing red pants?” And then we are chatting with a group of ladies and gents from all over the globe. Before we know it, we were asked if we wanted a drink. Erm, of course we do.
“Champagne? It’s Dom.” As in Dom Perignon. As in $3,000 a bottle. As in, I’ve never held a glass of liquid worth more than my first year’s tuition before. As in I don’t know how to react to this. As in, “can we not drink this, and instead use the money to pay for our backpacking trip?” Haha. Anyway, we drank it. And then they brought out the Moet. And then we were talking to Rene Arnoux, F-1 Legend and veteran of over 12 seasons. And then they asked if we were staying in the hotel. Haaahaha… right. In the Ritz! On a shoestring budget!
I’m an unemployed traveling hobo.
And we are staying in a 12 bed dorm room at A Beary Good Hostel (it’s teddy-bear themed). Not the Ritz, but close. 😉
We decided not to tell them the details of where we were staying. Best let them keep believing we’re worthy of the Dom. 😉
Needless to say, we never found the casino. But the next night, our good friend Chew Chan (a Malaysian girl working in Singapore who we met in Korea) took us to her humble abode. Six 50-storey buildings connected by a sky walkway, she took us for a stroll over the skyline of Singapore at night.
And anyone who says only cheap champagne gives you hangovers never drank the amount of Dom Perignon and Moet that we consumed on Saturday night. 😉
Filed under: Adventure Travel, Backpacking, Food & Drink, Holiday, Life List, Outdoors, Singapore, Travel | Tagged: hawker stalls, little india, singapore | 4 Comments »
– Paul Theroux
One of the greatest fortunes of our generation is the incredible ability we have to do anything, to go anywhere on this planet and to see for ourselves the world around us. We have an incomparable luxury to travel, one that our parents and grandparents never had the pleasure of knowing. The world is quite literally at our fingertips. It doesn’t take three weeks and months of preparation to cross the Atlantic anymore. It takes hours. With a passion for adventure and a little taste for the unknown, any of us can hop on a plane for the other side of the world. It doesn’t even require a whole lot of planning, indeed, some of the best adventures I’ve had have been the ones that just sort of happened, without any regard for plan or itinerary. Taking off to The Unknown requires little more than an internet connection and a valid passport. The stuff that gets in the way is the stuff we can control – our jobs, our families & friends, our schedules. In fact, sometimes the sheer ease of hopping a plane is so, well, easy, that it’s often overlooked. You and I could be, for the sake of argument, in Iceland tonight and Zambia tomorrow. The hardest part of leaving is making the decision to leave. After that, it’s easy. Forging for yourself months of travels or a new life 16 time-zones away is so miraculously effortless that preparation is often all but trivial. You just have to be ready to roll with the punches.
So I don’t know about you, but I find Siberia fascinating. Maybe it’s those funny fur hats. Or perhaps it’s because their lands thwarted Hitler’s blitzkrieg. It could be because I don’t know many people who have been there, so my knowledge is based on out-dated history books (and crazy history teachers – “The Kulaks were sent to the Gulags” – thanks, Mr. Torres). It might be the cryptic Cyrillic alphabet with all those funny-looking backwards letters. Or maybe it’s the fact that the application process makes me want to tear my hair out. Whatever the reason, I’ve decided to go. : )
I figured the best way to see the country would be overland, by rail. So the plan is to start in Beijing and spend some time in Mongolia before moving north into Siberia and west, eventually, to Moscow and St Petersburg. Then comes Latvia, and after that, London. And after London comes The Unknown, again (which is, in many ways, my favourite part :)). Anyway, I have a bit of time before my scheduled departure from Beijing, so I’m just going to relax and move about on Southeast Asia’s beaches for awhile.
Here is a basic route map of where I kind of expect to be over the next few months. Only two dates are set in stone, and that is a) my flight to Singapore, and b) my departure from China for Mongolia. What happens in between is all part of the adventure. 🙂
Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, China, Mongolia, Russia, Latvia, London and The Unknown. At least, that’s the plan. We’ll see how it actually unfolds in the next few months. 😉
Filed under: Adventure Travel, Holiday, Life List, Travel | Tagged: china, globetrotting, latvia, london, mongolia, opportunities, railway, russia, train travel, transsiberian, wanderlust, young generation | 1 Comment »
– Mary Anne Radmacher Hershey
The weather’s getting warmer. The sun is shining longer every day. Spring in Seoul is a welcome sight, and what better way to celebrate than by taking a weekend camping trip?
Last Saturday, a few friends and I decided to kickstart the camping season by taking a trip to Muuido Island, just south of Yongyu Island off the Northwest Coast of South Korea. Muuido, in Korean, means “the dress of a dancer”. It has actually served as a filming location for the drama “Stairway to Heaven,” and the movie “Silmido” (and if you’ve heard of either of those, you’re way ahead of me). It’s not far from where I live, and it’s a perfect weekend getaway from Seoul. To be honest, I really just wanted to see the ocean (which I haven’t seen since I spent Christmas in Indonesia!). Yes, it’s April, and yes, it’s still a little chilly, but why not get away when there are fewer crowds? My friends were in agreement, and so, all arriving from different parts of the Gyeonggi province, the five of us made our way to the International Departures area of the Incheon International Airport.
From the airport, we caught Bus 306 from outside the International Departures terminal on the 3rd floor. It cost ₩1,000 (you can use your T-money card) and we took it to the Geojampo stop. From here, it was a 10 minute walk to the Jamjinnaru Ferry Terminal.
Ferries run every half hour. And this was literally the shortest ferry ride I have ever taken in my entire life (maybe 3 minutes?, from departure to arrival, no joke). From Jamjinnaru, you can actually see the Muuido docking point, and could probably swim across in under 10 minutes. The roundtrip ferry ticket costs a whopping ₩3,000 (about 3 bucks). (Ferry Hours: 07:00-20:00).
When we arrived on Muuido, there was a bus waiting on the shore. We spent another ₩1,000 (doesn’t accept T-money) and about 15 minutes on the bus as it took us across the island. We got off at the second stop (Hanagae Beach).
Apparently, in the summer, this is quite a busy stop. In April, however… not so much. ^^ There were a few families milling about on the beach, a heated soccer game of ajumas vs ajishis, and that’s really about it. The sun came out just as we arrived, and we spent ₩30,000 on a beach hut for the night (₩10,000 of which is a key deposit that you get back). So for about $4 each, the 5 of us secured a private room on the beach. AND it has heated floors. ; )
Luke found a couple Korean policemen (he would), who were altogether too excited to take group photos with us. Note the cameraman’s “thumbs-up” as he takes this shot.
Greg the Kiwi brought Vegemite with him (of course he did). He made me a little cracker spread and gave me a cube of cheese. The verdict? Surprisingly delightful. ; )
We happened across a Korean boy-band making a video on the beach for one of their new songs. It was the most entertaining thing to watch.
And when we went for a bit of a walk, we ran into a very friendly hiking group… this woman was thrilled to meet us (from what I could understand through the language barrier, her son goes to school in Canada). And yes, she’s wearing a facemask. And yes, this is the cleanest air I’ve breathed since I arrived in Korea 7 months ago.
As the sun went down, the beach started emptying out. Until the five of us were the only people left.
We made a campfire, we made makeshift s’mores out of choco-pies and roasted them on sticks over the fire. Melissa brought her guitar and we spent hours under the clear, starry sky. When the fire started to burn down, we took the flashlight and hunted in the forest for more wood (we saw wild-pig tracks, too. Not a word of a lie, and yes it was terrifying. But the perfect accessory to some perfectly frightening campfire stories). ^.^
Perfect weekend. : )
Filed under: Adventure Travel, Camping, Holiday, Korea, Outdoors, Travel | Tagged: beach huts, island, recreation, s'mores | 13 Comments »
Korea celebrated the Lunar New Year last weekend and we all got Monday off of work. We’d been getting lots of snow, even in the city, so it was a perfect time to take off and play on the slopes for a few days. Our mountain of choice? Phoenix Park, one of a few ski hills in the Pyeongchang region, about 180km east of Seoul.
The bus took about 3 hours, and when we arrived at the hill, it was snowing! Fresh powder, and near empty slopes. We strapped on our boards and had an amazing afternoon playing in the powder. But I won’t lie to you. We were bored of the runs after about 45 minutes. The double-black diamond is comparable to a groomed blue run on Whistler, and the green runs are, for all intensive purposes, flat. And full of skiiers and snowboarders sprawled on their faces and infants doing the pizza and crashing into petrified adults who are also doing the pizza. Every run is fenced in, which makes riding in the trees a near impossibility. They boast 7 lifts. There are 12 trails. There are 7 lifts to service 12 trails, and yes, it is exactly as ridiculous as it sounds.
the Matching Couple Phenomenon is everywhere in Korea
But I can’t complain. Our hostel was right at the base of the mountain, literally ski-in-ski-out, with an awesome view of the half-pipe and terrain park. So after we’d gotten bored of the trails, we spent most of the remainder of the trip bouncing around the terrain park and flinging ourselves off jumps that were far too big for us.
Yes, this is a six person chair-lift.
Most ski resorts in Korea have night riding that is open late, and by late I mean well into the morning. On Saturday night, after one-too-many games of King’s Cup, a few of us decided it was high-time to go riding again, and hit the slopes from 2am until about 4am. We rode on fresh snow to the sound of deejays playing tunes under a crystal clear starry sky. Life is rough.
Although you can’t compare it to the mountains back home (it’s no Whistler), we definitely had a great time. There’s even a waterpark 5 minutes from the hostel with a wavepool (and yes, you’re expected to rent a life-jacket!), hottubs infused with things like pine and raspberries (they look like bowls of jello), two pitch-black waterslides, and an indoor-outdoor swiming loop with a current! There’s another 3-day weekend coming up, and before the snow melts, we might just have to do it again. 🙂
Filed under: Adventure Travel, Holiday, Korea, Outdoors, Sport, Travel | Tagged: jello, lunar new year, skiing, snow, snowboarding | Leave a comment »
Having only so few vacation days as an English teacher in Korea, I wanted to take full advantage of my Christmas holiday. This year I decided to spend Christmas in Indonesia. So on the morning of Thursday, December 24th, I made my way from South Korea to Bali, by way of Taiwan. 
I had the most ridiculous layover in the Taipei airport, and for the sake of your sanity, I won’t elaborate. Suffice it to know I had duty-free liquor and the Taiwan National Museum of history to entertain me. And this sign. For seven hours.
After a lonely Christmas Eve dinner consisting of terribly tasteless Taiwanese noodles and an equally disgusting can of Taiwan Beer, surrounded by happy families and smooching couples, I was beyond ready to leave the country at 8pm. I had a window seat, and I may or may not have spent a good amount of our flight time glued to the window searching for reindeer. And though I didn’t catch any Rudolph sightings, we did fly over a few thunderous tropical storms. I’ve never seen electric storms from the air, before. I’ll be happy if I never see them again.
The hot, humid, sticky air hit me like a sledgehammer when I walked off that plane. The giant red signs warning “Death Penalty to Drug Traffickers” had me panicking for no good reason at all, and I welcomed my first Bali Hai beer like it was my Christmas Day saviour. Yes, it was a convenience-store beer, but it was cheaper than water and I was already dehydrated from standing outside for 30 seconds (note to self: if you’re traveling to the tropics from a snowy-climate, for the love of God bring a change of clothes. My thick hoodie and long pants weren’t quite cutting it). By the end of the trip we’d started to measure distance in terms of liters of sweat lost.
The first thing I noticed about Bali (after the humidity, of course), was how the illuminated sign on the roof of my taxi boldly declared “taksi”. 
Which actually sounds about right, if you ask me. I soon learned that Bahasa Indonesia (the local language) is a form of pigeon English that often makes more phonetic sense than the English I’ve become accustomed to. And while we’re on the topic of taksis, if you ever find yourself hopping into one in Bali, don’t bother looking for the seatbelt. They don’t exist.
“Excuse me, is there a seatbelt back here?”
“Seatbelt? What you need seatbelt for? It’s nighttime!”
Of course. I should have known. 😉
In point form – some other observations:
After throwing 2009 a great big goodbye party from the beach, I welcomed in the New Year with my feet in the sand. Life is rough. 😉 
Filed under: Culture, Holiday, Indonesia, Religion, Travel | 2 Comments »
vagablonding 
