Bangkok

Bangkok is a crazy city. Something like 15 million people live in this city which sprawls seemingly forever. There is a ten lane freeways running underneath an eight or six lane raised freeway (I'm not sure the actual amount of lanes because I never paid the toll to have a taxi drive on it. If one word could describe Bangkok it would be hectic. The traffic never seems to stop no matter what time of day it is and there are people everywhere.

If a second word could be used to describe Bangkok it would be shopping. Bangkokians, or is it Bangkokers?... People who live in Bangkok love to shop. There are shopping malls everywhere catering to all sizes of pocket books. The craziest one I saw was called the Siam Paragon. To give an example of how high end this mall is there is a floor which has car dealerships in it, not the ground floor and not a Ford dealership. There was a Lamborghini, Maserati and Porche dealership there among others! This is in a mall! Who goes to the mall to buy a Lamborghini?!

And for those people who don't like the malls for shopping there are the street markets. Bangkok has a huge night market and a MASSIVE weekend market called Chatuchak. Both are great for bargaining and buying knockoff brand named goods, with varying degrees of quality. The Chatuchak market was cool because it was so huge but it was literally not cool because it of the sweltering heat; I say that within the context of Thailand, and that is a weighty statement to be sure. Some places were so hot that the air felt thick to breathe, sweat just poured off me; attractive mental image I know.

I ended up not even seeing that many tourists sights in Bangkok though I am not sad about it really. I was happier to get acquainted with the public transportation system (which is great) and feel relatively comfortable getting from place to place.

There are always a lot of touristy things to do so sometimes it is nice to just not do them and pretend like you are just living as a person and not a tourist. That being said I did get to one touristy place called Kao San road. This is the popular place to go if you are a backpacker but really there is no reason to go to Kao San unless you really like looking at other backpackers. The street was like a white person Jamboree held in the middle of Bangkok. The only Thais around were there to relieve tourists of their money in exchange for goods and services. Goods in the form of T-shirts, jewelry and burned CDs, Services in the form of food preparation and use your imagination (if you don't have an imagination: Sex). It was worth it to see just for en evening but really no longer than that. I was happier rubbing elbows with rich Thais at Paragon.

On my last night in Bangkok I went to this restaurant called Cabbages and Condoms. It is a restaurant set up by a Thailand Minister of health, his name escapes me, to help increase and raise funds for AIDS awareness. It was a quirky restaurant with condoms all over the place. There were manikins dressed in clothing made of condoms and birth control pills, it was pretty funny, there was even a condom Santa Claus. The food was good and all the proceeds went to AIDS awareness. And if that wasn't enough of an incentive to eat there, men can get free vasectomies at the clinic next door!! I got mine done, so long runny nose... wait, what's a vasectomy?

Ko Lanta

Lo Lanta is a large island (technically two islands) a few hours drive south of Krabi town. It has its share of lovely white sand beaches and tourist resorts for both rich and poor, but the island is big enough that it never felt very crowded.

We stayed at a resort called top view which was located on top of a little mountain type thing... hill I suppose, that dropped steeply down into the sea. The views and sunsets were incredibly beautiful but the tradeoff was that it was a bit of a hike to the beach.

The beach itself was huge and had great white sand. If anything the beach was too big because it was so hot out that walking the length of it made you feel like passing out and walking from the water to the shade would burn your feet terribly unless you wore sandals... which I generally refused to do on principle, much to my feet's chagrin.This was a great place to rent a moto, though some of the roads left a little to be desire. We spent quite a few hours roaming around the island. Really Ko Lanta was just a great place to relax and unwind before heading into Bangkok, which I heard was like Hell except with more people trying to sell you things.

Tiger Cave - Krabi

(sorry about the blurriness of this picture)

I rented a scooter, or 'moto' as they call them here, to tour around Krabi town a little bit. The best local sight to see is the Tiger cave, which is sort of misleading as the main purpose generally is to climb up the 1274 steps to the shrine at the top of a limestone peak. At the bottom there is a small cave, the tiger cave, which is filled with gold Buddha statues.

The views from the top were quite spectacular as was the effort it must have taken to construct this huge Buddha statue at this site. I consider myself to be in fairly good shape but walked up those steps at a steady pace had me heaving like a dog lying in the midday sun. In the picture below I was trying to look happy and proud but could only seem to muster and expression of pain and confusion.

Phi Phi Island - (Pronounced pee pee. You know, like urine)

I met a nice English fellow named Jim who told me I should go with him to Phi phi. I hadn't initially planned on going to phi phi as it is supposedly really touristy and expensive, but I figured if I had someone to split costs with it might be fun for an evening.

Phi phi is a very beautiful island which has lost much of its beauty because it is so crowded with tourists. Of course, I do feel that this makes sense; people like to go to beautiful places, plain and simple.

I swam a little bit, sat around a little bit and drank a lot. Well it seemed like a lot but it really wasn't that much, just this huge bucket of rum, coke and redbull plus several beers... well I guess it was enough.

I left the next morning feeling happy to be moving on, but as I stood on the big boat and looked down at the water all I wanted to do was jump in. Usually the water around jetties is a disgusting oily mess, but at Phi phi it was clear and tourqoise. It was so alluring I wanted to jump right off the boat there and then but decency and fear of being mutilated by boat propellers stopped me. Dam you instinct of self preservation!

(note: This is around where they filmed that movie 'the Beach')

Krabi - Thailand

It was a full day of travel to reach Krabi in Thailand, from the Pehrentian islands. I had a series of travel companions so it was at least not that boring.

Krabi town itself was not really that great but I decided I would do no traveling the day after coming into Thailand so I spent the day roaming around aimlessly, but in the process met a group of mostly Brits who had chartered a boat for the following day and needed extra people. They assured me that I could be dropped off on Tonsai beach, which was where I was headed anyway, so I signed up.

The first Island we went to was called Chicken Island as it has a spire of rock that looks sort of like a chicken; also the island boasts a 24 hour KFC (note: that last statement is a lie). There is a popular island around the area called James Bond island as one of the movies was filmed there in part. I'll have to re-watch whichever one it is when I return home, I only hope it stars Roger Moore, greatest actor to ever portray 007. We did some swimming and saw a few more islands before I got dropped off on Tonsai Beach.

Tonsai Beach is exceedingly beautiful, surrounded by towering limestone cliffs on all sides. It is not an island but is only accessible from boat. It is a rather strange place and can best be described as a bohemian/hippie rock climbing retreat. I was happy to hear all the Jack Johnson and Bob Marley playing all the time, and they offered many interesting shakes to offer including the Magic Shake and the Peace Shake; they had 'secret' ingredients.

The rock climbing scene in Tonsai is unbelievable. There are probably thousands of bolted routes of all skill levels within walking distance of the beach. I did a a few days of climbing but it was sometimes a struggle to find climbing partners. I would consider going back there for a week or two on a strictly rock climbing vacation with some of my regular climbing buddies. It was really quite amazing and the views were spectacular.

The two last pictures are taken from the same place. It may not look it but I am incredibly high off the ground in a kind of hanging cave formed by a stalactite. That was one of the most fun climbs I have ever done, a can be seen from my expression.

The Pehrentian Islands

The Pehrentian islands are often considered as some of the most beautiful islands in the world. But I honestly feel that there are so many beautiful islands in the world a statement like that can never hold true.

I spent two days on the small island and then left. The island was very nice, there was no question, but it was still the end of the monsoon season in this region and the weather was not being so cooperative. But I still enjoyed my time there.

The first day I went snorkeling with a nice group of people and we saw turtles and sharks and, best of all, we stopped at this lighthouse thing we were allowed to climp up and jump off. It was pretty high and really fun. Only me and the other Candian guy would do it. We were proud of each other and thought we represented well. For shame Holland, England and New Zealand... For shame!

That night I bumped into some people who I had met on my trek in Taman Nagara. We drank a bunch of Vodka and had to get some Malay kids to lead me home at about two in the morning, I don't know what they were still doing up.

I had booked some scuba diving for the next day and when I woke I felt like I was not too hung over. I think I was in fact still drunk. Not being one to back out of a commitment I went scuba diving anyway. I should really have skipped it because the visibility was terrible and the site they took me to was really not all that great. Only had a sandy bottom and a few fish, nothing that really jumped out at me... Also there was the fact that I was beginning to feel hung over at that point and thought I would be sick underwater. Luckily I made it through the dive and then promptly puked when we reached the surface.

(Note: the one picture I have posted here does a pretty sorry job of showing what this place is like. It really was quite beautiful.)

Chitering

Chitering is a small surf town about four hours from Kuala Lumpur on the South China Sea side of Peninsular Malaysia. The weather was not great. In fact it was raining so hard when i arrived that the cab had to take a huge detour because the roads were flooded over. They were having a late monsoon season in the area.

I decided to take a surf lesson as there is nothing else to do in Chitering. The problem with surfers running a business is that they are surfers and therefore more interested in surfing than running a business. I made arrangements with an Australian guy named Along, to get a lesson at 10:30 in the morning the next day but when i showed up he was no where to be found and the shop was only occupied by a young Malay boy. I told him I had arranged a surf lesson and after staring blankly for a few moments he told me to come back at two o'clock. I said it had already been arranged for ten thirty with Along and the boy said, "Oh Along! oh, he surfing. Come back twelve o'clock." I shrugged and came back at twelve. Along was there and all surfed out so he sent me off with a long board and two 14 year old Malay boys as my instructors.

We walked to the beach and one of the boys set the board on the sand and said, "You do like me." Then he lied down on the board and pretended to paddle before standing up on the board. "Ok?" he said, "You paddle, you stand." I nodded and we walked into the surf. They held the board for me and when a wave came they yelled, "GO, GO, GO, GO!" That was essentially the extent of my surf lesson, but it was fun and I got up rode a few waves. It was pretty fun, but somewhat frustrating at the same time.

The next morning I rented a board and went out for a few hours as I had time to burn before I caught the bus. It was fun and I caught a few more waves. When I rented the board I tried to pay for it right away but the Malay boy at the desk told me to pay later. When came back the boy was playing guitar and told me to come back and pay later. I went to my room and packed up my stuff as it was about time to take off. I stopped by the surf shop and told the boy I had to pay for the board rental. He looked taken aback. I said, "I was just here. I rented a board." he looked around the room as if the walls would help clarify the nonsense I was saying. Then I touched a surf board and said, "I rented, I pay." He said, "You want rent?" I explained again that I had already rented a board that morning. He squinted before the memory came back to him and he grudgingly took my money.

Rock Climbing - Kuala Lupur

I had been looking forward to doing some rock climbing for a while as there is some great limestone climbing in Malaysia. I was happy to find out that there was a ton of climbing basically right in Kuala Lumpur at this place called Batu Caves.

The Batu Caves are home to the world's largest Hindu shrine outside of India and it was quite an impressive sight. Coming up to the main cave we were greeted with a massive statue of some Hindu god, I was too lazy to ask which one, but this was truly a massive statue. Just past that is 273 steps up to the cave itself. It was fun walking up as there were monkeys all doing funny stuff like stealing people's food. But it was annoying as well as there was this automated recording advertising a thirty minute guided cave tour and it never stopped. It just repeated: "Thirty - minute - guided - cave - tour," over and over again. That thirty minute guided cave tour recording is permanently etched into my brain. Once we were leaving they couldn't have paid me to take a thirty minute guided cave tour. All day after that if I ever let my mind be still for an instant I would hear, "thirty - minute - guided - cave - tour," echoing in my mind. But aside from that the shrine was quite interesting to see. Coming out of the cave at the top of the stairs there is a fantastic view of the Kuala Lumpur skyline.

After seeing Batu Caves we walked and asked around for the rock climbing, which was apparently right near the cave. We ended up taking a cab to the other side of the limestone mountain and were dropped off at some random place near where the cliffs looked good. We got some directions from some nice men who were burning garbage and soon found some climbing.

There were tons of routes and at the end of the day we found the main site, which had many local climbers all over it. The highlight there was watching this tiny girl lead climbing this huge wall in bare feet with her hijab on, she couldn't have been more than 11 years old. It was a great site so we returned the following day.

I had one close call where a large rock fell down while Nick was climbing above me. He shouted out and I had time to jump out of the way as the rock flew past and smashed onto this metal platform I was standing on before tumbling down another fifty feet to the ground below. The rock was a lot bigger than this when it first fell, but even its size shown above would have left me with quite a scar, and by scar I mean dead. It was actually and exciting experience as no one was hurt. Nick hung onto the cliff and i got out of the way :)

Taman Nagara - Land of a thousand aphrodisiacs

Taman Nagara literally mean National Park. Quite an original and descriptive name for the huge expanse of untouched jungle in the middle of peninsular Malaysia.

The original plan was to hike up Gunan Tahan, the highest mountain on peninsular Malaysia and apparently one of the top ten treks in the world. We spent a day getting to the western park entrance at Sungai Relau via a series of buses, taxis and finally some guy who we paid a few ringgit to drive us the last 10 km in his car. We arrived at the park headquarters excited and ready to get trekking to our first campsite. Then the park officials told us the park was closed from the western entrance and that no one could be admitted. The reason for this was that a university group from from Kuala Lumpur had hiked the mountain and were on their way back when a girl in their party got lost in the jungle. That had been 16 days ago from the day we arrived and they still had not found her! Nearly two hundred park rangers, guides and military were scouring the western side of the park looking for her. We were disappointed that we had to change our plans but much more sympathetic for the girl out in the jungle, who, I assumed, was dead...

We arranged a ride to the southern entrance of the park at Kuala Tahan for later in the evening and entertained ourselves by doing a few kilometers of trekking near the park entrance and swimming in the river.

The ride over was fun as our driver was a local guide who told us many stories about some of the things he'd seen in the jungle including tigers, king cobras, elephants and the rare Sumatran rhino. This got us pretty excited for doing a few day excursion.

We arrived at Kuala Tahan at about midnight and were lucky to run into a local guide who was running a three day trek leaving the following morning. We signed up right away and then crashed for the night.

The next morning after a quick breakfast and a long political discussion with a Malay man who was incredibly well informed about the state of the world financial markets, we set off up river in a small wooden boat. The ride was quite scenic and relaxing.

(Here I am swinging on a vine)
After about an hour and a half in the boat the trek began. We started slowly and our guide, whose name was Man, stopped often to inform us of the various medicinal uses of the flora that grew in the jungle. Essentially if you were to suffer from erectile dysfunction or lack of sufficient libido, EVERY SINGLE PLANT in the jungle would make you horny and perform better in the sac. Or at least it seemed to be the case from what Man said. We later learned that Man, or so he said, had slept with over three thousand women, most of them Thai prostitutes, though to his credit he said he never paid for any of them... I'm still not sure how to interpret that. So we came to the conclusion that Man was just a sexaholic and he was always horny and just assumed all the jungle plants he ate made him that way.

The first night we slept in a huge cave, it was truly massive, the photos do not clearly capture the size of it. It was quite a nice experience though the my sleep was less than great because of the uncomfortable surface we were sleeping on.

We spent the evening at the cave eating some pretty good curry that Man made and then went on a night time wildlife walk where we saw a large scorpion and not much else.

The next day we did some more trekking and stopped for a few hours at a nice stream that we could swim in while Man made us lunch. It was a nice afternoon and a well needed dip into some clean water.

We spent that night in an animal blind near a salt lick. Apparently animals like to go to salt licks near blinds, but just not while we were around. Mostly we spent the evening talking about everything from relativity theory to homosexuality. Man had little to say about relativity theory but when the talk turned to homosexuality he explained that although he was not gay, men had raped him while he was in prison as a young man, but, he laughed, "I get revenge on them. Later I fuck their assholes, hahahah." I failed to see the humour in the situation but it was probably a case of 'you had to be there.' Then a serious look crossed Man's face and he said, "No, I not gay. But sometimes I see macho men and I want to screw their assholes." We all nodded somberly and I hoped beyond hope that a Sumatran rhino would stumble out of bush and break the awkwardness.

The next day we had a short hike back to the river where we waited for the boat to come and pick us up. It had rained the night before and the trail had been full of leaches. Everyone of us had at least twenty leaches on our legs over the course of the half hour hike. At the river I was desperate for a swim and saw that there was a swinging rope just next to the dock. I asked Man if it was very deep and he assured me that it was. Happily I swung off the rope trying to get as much height as I could before I landed on a rock in the waist deep water. Lucky the only thing that was hurt was my pride... and my back.

On the boat ride we learned that the girl who was lost in the jungle was found! I think we were all relieved to hear it. I really thought she had died alone and scared in the jungle and that thought had made me pretty sad, so learning she made it out safe put me in a good mood.

We got off the boat early and did a canopy walk on these dangling walkways before walking a few kilometers back to Kuala Tahan. There was a boat heading down stream so we caught that for a nice three hour boat ride to the town of Jerantut where we expected to catch a bus. We ended up taking a cab as we got a fairly good rate from a nice Malay man who had questionable eyesight and an even more questionable vehicle. It got a flat tire about a half hour into our drive.

All in all, our time in Taman Nagara was a rich and rewarding experience which taught me that going on a jungle trek is not all about seeing rare animals and strange plant life; it is also about being uncomfortable and getting full of leaches.