Nov.15-25 Julie & Andrew's Wild Borneo Adventure

Kota Kinabalu, or "KK" to the locals is coastal town that was essentially obliterated during WWII so it is fairly new and we found some decent accommodation. I actually quite liked the City Park Lodge: our room didn’t have any windows, but the common room had free internet and it’s central location was handy.

KK is home to Asia’s largest market – the KK night market. I can’t say for sure if it is the largest, but it’s pretty huge. During the day you can buy everything from cheap Philippine pearls to fresh seafood. At night, you come for the food. Most of the area is covered by tarps strung up between the tables and booths of the vendors. For an average North American male like myself, you gotta watch your head else you’ll be caught by the guy-wires. The stalls stretch as far as you can see through the maze of tables, tents and strings of lights, and combined with the countless bbq’s bellowing smoke it makes for quite the atmosphere. With the smoke choking you and the hawkers yelling out “dua ringgit! dua ringgit!” and visually so much for you to take in, it can be a bit overwhelming, but also really exciting.

Each bbq vendor has a long table setup for eating at, upon which you’ll find a plastic cup upside down in a plastic bowl marking each place setting, and a stack of drinks available and various sauces and seasonings. The cup is for drinking (either the water in jugs or the drinks on the table, ask for ice) while the bowl is for washing your hands (use a lime to get rid of the fishy smell). Another small plate is provided for making your sauce using the red chilli sauce as a base: add in some soy sauce, salt, sugar and lime juice as you see fit.  I’m not so good at making sauces but on our second time there the Malay fellows next to me were quite impressed when I sat down and started eating with my fingers.

It took some time but we found a great deal on a rental car and  decided to make our own adventure (again). We took off down south to Kuala Penyu but missed the train to go see the scenic Padas Gorge and white-water rafting.

Along the way Julie saw a sign and we followed it to the end of the road (literally, it was flooded). So we hopped on a boat for a tour down the Klias River. It provided a great opportunity to see long-tailed macaques, proboscis monkeys, kingfishers and when the sun went down the fireflies lit up the Ligura trees like a Christmas tree. Pretty neat. The fireflies also seemed to like the tangled mop of hair on my head too. Back at the town,the guide's family then cooked us up some fantastic Malay food. There were two other couples on the tour with us, but since they came from KK, we took our time eating before venturing off into the darkness.

Now it’s dark and we didn't know where we were or where to stay. Once again, Julie spotted a sign for seaside lodges so we figured that was our best bet. And then the road got worse and worse as it got darker. Driving the little Toyota Vios down this potholed road probably broke some clause in our rental contract and finally I declared it's time to turn back. Good thing because the arrow on the last sign we saw was actually pointing the OTHER way after a local escorted us to it. Once again we're in the middle of nowhere along a crappy road and suddenly there's a fancy resort and the people working there are totally unfazed by our arrival. Tempurung Seaside Lodge is really nice and we really want to recommend it to everyone  but the rooms need mosquito nets and Julie got scared from things scurrying in the walls. Otherwise it's a beautiful resort and a great beach and we were blown away that we found it.

Sabah Adventure Day 2: Crocker Mountain range

Just a commute day today through the mountains on our way to Kinabalu Park for our mountain climb. Took the "scenic route" which turned out to be a bit difficult. We stopped at the Kipandi Butterfly park (mostly to use it as a picnic spot but we did learn about the butterflies and other strange insects of this country) on the way into the Crockers. Great road during the day and nice sights right up until dusk when half the road would disappear or the tarmac was simply gone leaving potholes and ruts. This would become a recurring theme: good road during the day and then horrible road when dusk fell and we were trying to find a place to stay. We joked that if the road was bad enough we'd find what we were looking for since karma would say we deserved it.

We did manage to make it to the Kinabalu National Park today and upon getting there we learned that our room [at Hill Lodge] we had booked was leaking. No worries, because as a result of being late all the other comparable lodging was assigned, leaving us with an upgrade into a really nice chalet [the Peak Lodge].  We even had a guy come out and fire up the fireplace for us! Which was nice because up here in the mountains the temp dipped down to 19.5degC.  We awoke to fantastic views of the mountain, and Julie’s first glimpse at what we were about to climb.

Nov.12 Malaysia

Technorati Tags: Malaysia,Georgetown,Penang

Our intro to Malaysia was a bit hurried as we were already overdue on our Thai visas and were forced to flee the country prior to really being ready to move on. My first impression of Malaysia was that there is bit more money here, but the culture was different and with the stronger Muslim presence made me feel uncomfortable in my normal beach/summer wear. We arrived in Georgetown, Penang after nearly 12 hours in a mini-bus and were not too impressed with the ride as were told it was a one-bus-all-the-way deal. Instead we got dropped off at some little office in some little city and told that there’d be another bus to take us the rest of the way. But it provided a chance for lunch and we made it across the border after paying our overstay fee of 1000 baht/day. Georgetown is an old city with some nice old temples/mosques/churches etc. but not too much to do really and the accommodation options were generally run-down & generally dirty.. We spent a day to plan our next moves and decided to fly to Sabah where we could experience some of the wild nature that Borneo has to offer, thereby skipping mainland Malaysia and the popular Taman Negara (a grand National Park filled with wild jungle).  Andrew had a friend in Kuala Lumpur who was not available for a visit which also persuaded us to head to Borneo. We did spend some time touring the place, taking a “funicular” to the top of Penang Hill for a great view of the city.The East Indian fellow at the hotel desk was quite excited to see Westerners “after seeing us in the movies” and was eager to show us the town. We ended up getting carted around to the sites and it improved our view of the town. We tried some Penang cuisine (Andrew liked the char koay teow) and then flew away early the next morning.

-Julie

Oct.31-Nov 6 Week in Paradise

We finally made it to the west coast of Thailand, the coast that has made Thailand famous for vacationers seeking the perfect white sandy beaches & crystal clear waters. The Andaman Sea and many islands & coastal stretches here more than deliver. Now this is what I was looking for and why Thailand was at the top of my list of countries to visit in our world tour. So here is a run down of our week in paradise, feel free to feel jealous, but remember you are all living vicariously through us, so also find satisfaction in the great time we've had on your behalf!
Day one (Halloween): OK, so we couldn't care less that it was Halloween because we had just arrived to Phuket Island and we needed the day to explore. We rented motor bikes and toured the top beaches on the island (to decide which one we would move to the next day) and to learn about the many activities within reach of Phuket. We settled on Karon beach and found a nice room with a balcony overlooking the beach & the Andaman Sea. For 800 baht a night (less than $30) I'm not sure that we'll be able to leave! We spent our last night in Phuket town in our hostel room watching The Beach on our in room TV/DVD (not too much roughing it going on here!). If you haven't seen it (which we hadn't) it provides a fairly real view into the backpacker world in Thailand and features some of the most beautiful beaches. The "Beach" in the story was filmed on an island less than 2 hours east of Phuket, we hope to visit it.

Day two: I re-entered the underwater world with a refresher dive course (it has been nearly 10 years since I was certified) and got Andrew's feet wet. The warm crystal clear waters and spectacular sea life that make Thailand's west coast one of the top 10 dive spots in the world was enough to convince us that we would be doing some more diving here. To celebrate our terrific day we wandered up the beach to a spectacular restaurant where we dined on fresh seafood while the waves crashed on the rocks below. Tasty and affordable too, my crab meal was only 150 bat (about $5).

Day 3: We decided to slow the pace a bit and eased into the day with a continental brunch on our balcony. We made it down to the beach by 1:00 p.m. where I rented a boogie board & took on some serious swells. After catching a couple of big waves that carried me half way up the beach, nearly to the feet of the sunbathing vacationers looking on, I gained the surfer mentality, obsessed with catching the perfect wave. After a couple of good tosses, I took a break to enjoy a pomello fruit (local to Thailand, similar to a grapefruit but less messy & tastier-, maybe I'll import some seeds to North America). Andrew & I played some paddle ball as the tide came in around our ankles, signaling time to move on to the evening destination: a health resort in the south of the island where Sundays offer fresh fruit shakes and bevvies in the beach-front lounge with a live jazz band in one corner and trickling fountain in the other. This was one beach front locale where we opted not to sit beach front. In addition to the excellent live jazz we enjoyed the beverages (my new fav is gin & tonic which I drink only for the malaria-preventing benefits ;) and because wine is hard to find & very $$) and some terrific international cuisine. We were excited to see tortilla chips & salsa on the menu and some of the best baby back ribs I've ever tasted (I didn't say we were there for the health bit!). All this complete with potatoes (you can appreciate how happy Andrew was) and fresh garden salad with real homemade dressing (I think you understand what foods are hard to come by out here now). A perfect Sunday evening, save for the absence of the family from the hood of course (we missed you all!).

Day 4: Wow, is it only day four!? We woke early to travel northwest to a string of islands called the Similans in a national park only open 6 months of the year in order to protect the sea life & reefs. We spent the day jetting from one island to the next & snorkeling the crystal clear waters. We decided on snorkeling as Andrew won't have his certificate done until Thursday (day 6) and we couldn't pass up a visit to this national treasure. The sea life, beautiful beaches & interesting rock formations on some of the islands can be seen in our pictures.

Day 5: Andrew spent the day in class for his dive certificate while I spent the day doing what any girl would free of men- I went shopping and to the spa! If you have never tried Thai message, you are missing an experience!

Day 6: Another day out on (and in) the beautiful waters of the Andaman sea. We completed 3 more dives today so Andrew is now a certified open water diver. The dives were amazing: first dive to a sunken ferry where big schools of fish swam around us, second dive onto a colourful reef and the third dive along the rock face of an island jutting out of the sea. So many fish to look at! 3 dives in a day is a lot and made us quite tired. We look forward to doing some more diving in Malaysia after receiving some advice from our instructor Johann.

Day 7: La Gohn (Goodbye) Phuket, I will miss you! Today we will travel north & to Krabi, a beachside town on the mainland. Our time in Thailand is nearly up.

Oct.29 Siamese history in Sukhothai

We took the bus from CM to Sukhothai to start the move back south. (No boat trip down the Mekong River into Laos this time.) We weren't on the bus pad for 2 minutes before a very motherly lady asked us to come stay at her guesthouse. Fortunately for her Sukhothai GH is in our book and we missed getting off the bus at the old city. Lonely Planet did not do a good job describing how Sukhothai is split into "Old" which is a small town built up around the historic park and "New" which is the city 12km away. SGH had mostly older couples staying (parents and uncles/aunts take note!) in the nice bungalows with verandas and a pretty garden. We took the plain (read cheap) room, went to the market, bought a DVD and watched a movie in the common area since there wasn't much to do in this small town.

The next day we rented some scooters and headed up the road to the old city. Images of the ruins are splashed across many advertisements of Thailand, even in restaurants back in Winnipeg and I was keen to see them in person. The historical park is a sprawling site and it's a good thing Julie figured we should rent the motorbikes. Strangely the visitor centre is poorly maintained and few of the sites had much information about them. But they did have 3D drawings of what they suppose the ruin looked like when first built – quite frankly ancient civilizations had a lot of time/money on their hands!

A guidebook said that the park is lit up at night creating a neat effect. We hung around till dark, had supper at small restaurant and drove back in to the park only to find it completely dark. Dammit. So we headed home.

If anyone’s ever rode a bike at dusk then they know how bugs get in your face. We never did find cheap sunglasses to ride the bikes so tonight we used the plastic sleeve that our cutlery came in at the restaurant. Julie’s head’s a bit smaller than mine so the plastic wrapped around perfectly to cover her eyes. Dorky, perhaps. Effective, yes!

Oct.21-27: Chiang Mai, northern Thailand

It's sort of surprising that we've spent a week (well, more than) here in Chiang Mai since we didn't expect to, but we've been busy! Picking up a handful of brochures the first day, we at first thought we'd for sure have to spend a week here just to do everything that interested us: trekking, cooking classes, mountain biking, yoga, whitewater rafting, etc... Julie spotted the horse riding brochure so our first activity was learning how to control the temperamental little horses. Mine tried bucking me off, Julie's wouldn't go anywhere but home and our guide's horse succeeded in tossing him over the front. But we plodded around safely and had fun.
The picture show is available here.

In the evening we took a quick Thai cooking class where we learned to make curry (from scratch) and spicy Thai soups. We also got a tour through the market (to buy our ingredients) and learned what a lot of things were that we'd been eating for the past week. I suppose if we can find the ingredients back home we'll try to remember how to make it and possibly whip up some tom khaw gai for you.



Pretty much every hotel, guesthouse, restaurant and regular travel agent will sell you a tour or arrange any ticket for you. The standard stuff that they all pitch are trekking tours into the hills to go elephant riding, rafting and a hill tribe. I was not interested at all in this "default tour" as I called it, but after heavy rains everyday Julie got her wish as I figured mountain biking wouldn't be too good in the mud. We got a deal on the tour (900ß vs. 12-1400) and really it wasn't a bad way to spend a day. The orchid/butterfly farm was neat [sorry mom, I was hoping to get you a pretty orchid brooch but figured it wouldn't survive my backpack]. My first white-water rafting experience was quite fun although our bamboo raft was barely buoyant. And the elephant ride through the jungle was entertaining too. But the hill tribe "village" was a total joke and confirmed my fears of feeling like a tool. We pull up to this little strip mall of huts with scarves in them and our guide calls out to the ladies to come out from their homes in back. A handful of "long-necked" women came out and did their thing on their looms. Our guide showed us the brass rings that they place around their neck and shins and said "take a picture! Buy something!". Our group wasn't impressed and it was a short stop. Julie bought a book on hill tribes and I was wondering why long-necks were not mentioned in it. That's because they're not really in Thailand, sort of imported by tour operators as a gimmick, although we think some of our tour fee went to the people to send back home. [More info available @ http://www.letsgo.com/travel/thailand/posts]

We heard from others that if you took a 2d/1n trekking trip then you actually went out into the jungle and found real villages where real people really lived and it was more interesting. But it was time to move on; we are running close to our visa allowance time & still need to hit Thailand’s most famous beaches.

Oct.24-25 Adventure in samWAENG!

If you want it done right, do it yourself - so we rented a car and set off to create our own tour.

There are road maps created by a motorbike group giving suitable day trips from Chiang Mai and surrounding areas. We found one for the Mae Sa loop around Doi Suthep (Sutep Mtn) that appeared to provide a good taste of the countryside. In our little Toyota Vios (compact sedan) we set out and stopped at a Tesco (sort of like SuperStore/Walmart) for some supplies since they are the only place that we can find cheese and crackers.

The hills north-west of CM are very scenic: luscious green with the tops of the hills shrouded in mist and small villages and rice fields scattered in the valleys. Stopped and bought a pomelo from a roadside stand (10ß! vs 50 at Tesco and this lady even peeled it and cut if for us. Oh, a pomelo is large fruit, size somewhere between 5-pin bowling ball and a volleyball that tastes like a mild grapefruit and we're becoming big fans of them) and Julie munched on that while I enjoyed all the hairpin turns up and down the hills.

We got to the halfway point of the small town of Samoeng and were pointed in the direction of Samoeng Guesthouse. It's a quaint little place in a traditional Thai style teak wooden house up on stilts. Very nice woodwork that would probably cost a fortune back home. There was a map on the wall pointing to some hot springs just up the road, so we figured we'd go there in the morning.

We had a good map and it showed the hot springs on it and also showed that there were some dirt roads to travel to get there, but we didn't rent the 4x4. So when the pavement suddenly ran out and the road turned to wet clay I had my doubts of continuing. But Julie can sniff out a hotspring! We asked some kids (Ai and Bia- ha ha his name is 'beer' in Vietnamese) for directions and got some strange looks driving the little car down the back roads. And then it got worse: it had rained and the road disappeared into mud and water. "We've gone this far!" Julie says so we stop the car and continue on foot. I see some buildings up ahead and oh look! the road's washed out with a board laid across for motorbikes. We get to the buildings and it looks like it would have been a nice resort back in the day, but the pool's empty and bridge is collapsed. [Tony G, I've got your next investment opportunity!] Other than being inaccessible the place is in perfect condition & open so we use the toilet. Some more buildings are visible a little way up the river so we walk up and sunuva- PongKwao Hot Springs!

The gate's closed (no wonder since the road is washed out) but we squeeze through and go in. We walk around a building and lo'n'behold there are people! A lady sees us, comes over with 2 folded towels and says "hot springs?". I'm still flabbergasted by it. The 4 people working there seemed indifferent to us walking up and continued playing cards while we swam and had Mr.Noodles. The hot water was surprisingly nice given the air temperature and I hadn't felt that good walking out of there in a long time. The place had 2 large pools along with a handful of personal pools each in it's own hut.

We walked back to our car only to discover a flat tire. I position the car on a level spot on the small road to change the tire only to discover that there's no jack. Honestly! And then a pickup truck comes around the bend, squeezes past us on the narrow road and stops to help. Fortunately it was carrying 6 guys who lifted the car onto a bottle jack that they had. Quickly changed the tire and go lower the car - no, wait, the jack's jammed. So we lift the car up off of the jack and set it down. We smile and bow our gratitude and head back to Chiang Mai. This is what I call choose your own adventure!

Oct.17 Party in chaWAENG!

Cabaret show and discos on Samui's party beach

We waited until our last night on Samui to hit the party town of Chaweng for a lady-boy cabaret show & some partying at the many open air discos. We had our bungalow host as our guide to show us the best spots to hit and to point out with skill which were the Thai lady-boys (i.e. guys dressed like ladies trying to get with tourist men) and which were indeed ladies. Either way, the sex trade is alive & in your face here.
The Cabaret show was extravagant with lady boys dressed in impressive costumes (picture sequins here) dancing and lip-syncing to all the popular show tunes you can imagine. We didn't take the front row seats which were occupied by the real drunk tourists who were right into it, stuffing bills into the performers' costumes which somehow amazingly hid whatever there was to hide very well. Now the most unfortunate part was that we didn't bring our camera out for the evening, so your imagination will need to fill in the blanks ;) [well, you can sort of see the show in this photo]
Following the show, the party in the streets between clubs complete with drinking red bull & vodka out of beach buckets, resembled a cross between Mexican resort town nightlife & the full moon party we experienced earlier in the week. This night was definitely an experience we will remember. Good thing we're heading north to the cool & peaceful mountains of Chiang Mai.
-Julie and Andrew