I am not sure where that came from apart from all the ads for tours to the James Bond island where they filmed... somethingorother...
Well got up today with big plans for grand walking tour and... got to the museums to discover the public holiday we were told ran from Fri-Sun is in fact ongoing til the 19th and everything is #$%&*%# CLOSED... well stoked with that... today has been trying to sort out money situation after issues with my credit card... word of warning, all those "international assistance" numbers they give you do NOT work... I have been given numbers for "Thailand" that redirect to the US, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand... and you cannot access most "free" or "collect call" numbers from Thai phones... and the "replacement card in 48 hours" is in fact one to two WEEKS.. grrrrrrr... Anyway, will sort something, just have to make sure I have funds before I venture back out into less "developed" parts of the world.
Bangkok seems a reasonably good town, although infected with the same tourist infestations as the rest of Thailand, and there is very little "real" Thailand on display, if such a thing exists any more (which I am sorely doubting at this point). I literally can't walk from one end of my little street to the other without at least half a dozen offers of cheap suits, another half dozen for taxis, another half dozen for tuk tuks... watches... dvd's... tshirts... lighters... it's a pretty sad state of affairs and makes me miss Malaysia and Singapore already... however there are good things about it, some stuff is cheap although beware anyone who tells you that you can do Thailand on next to no money... they sting you for the things you can't do without, and the money just keeps on flowing outwards from your pocket. Anyway, not to get all bitter, I have some hopefully good things planned the next few days although may have to hang around a lot longer than anticipated if I want to see most of the best sights when they reopen... such is life... hope all is well where you are
onya
Monday, November 17, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
And then it was...
Sunday? I think?
Friday was exploring the southern half of Phuket via moped, which is good fun if you don't mind all the people intent on killing you... the day started on a rather dramatic note when I was standing out in front of my guesthouse getting ready for the scooter ride, when suddenly the electrical transformer on the power pole across the street exploded with an almighty BOOM, showering sparks everywhere... obviously in southern Thailand things unexpectedly exploding are not high on the list of stuff anyone wants to be around so it shook everyone up more than a little bit. Once people had stopped running and screaming and the old heart had slowed down a bit, it seemed to make sense to follow up one near-death experience with another, so it was out into the manic Patong traffic to run a couple of errands and find some more beaches. Phuket is indeed a pretty little island, obviously fairly swamped with tourists, travellers, backpackers and holiday makers, but there is still plenty of blue water and white sand. Some of the resorts looked pretty darn good too, for those with money...
Having run into some money-flow issues myself, I decided Friday that it would be prudent to head for Bangkok to try and sort the situation before funds dried up completely, so on Saturday morning I headed for the bus station over in Phuket town with gear in tow, which involved either an expensive taxi (well ok not REALLY expensive but everything's expensive when you have no money) or the cheaper option of the local bus (truck), which I took... this took somewhat longer than anticipated as he plied the streets of Patong at walking pace looking for customers. Once finally at the bus station I used a fairly large portion of my remaining Thai Baht for a ticket, and half an hour later we were heading north. The bus trip was once again the equivalent of some bizarre Thai torture as the obviously suicidal driver carved between lanes and overtook on blind corners while blasting his mix of "Top Fifty Most Annoying Thai Love Ballads" as loud as the speakers could handle... I fought the urge to doze off or throw myself out the doors to take in some nice scenery.
Seven hours later in darkness we rolled into the little town of Chumphon, and with no real idea of what I was doing or where I was going I wandered up the street with my gear in the rough direction I thought something might be in. I found a hotel and considered just getting a room and collapsing for the night, but I was conscious that if I stopped to sleep I would end up riding the day train to Bangkok, meaning I would end up arriving there in the dark with little money and no place to go. So I wandered some more until I found the train station, and sure enough there were night trains available. Rather than taking the next one, which would have seen me arrive in the capital city at 4am, I booked the 23:24 train to arrive in Bangkok around 8.30 in the morning. With now only about 300 Baht in my pocket (NZ$15) I bought a packet of chips and a drink to keep me going and with little else to do after wandering the food stalls looking at things I couldn't afford to eat, I went and sat around the train station for three hours.
Compared to other recent trips the train ride was bliss, I staggered through the narrow carriage with all my stuff, probably waking the other occipants, and crashed onto my bunk, happily a bottom berth this time and therefore wider and easier to get in and out of. I was asleep in minutes and woke only a couple of times before we were almost in Bangkok. I was rather disappointed to have to do the trip in the dark and miss the scenery but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Bangkok train station was rather manic even at 8.30 in the morning, but critically the foreign exchange office I was questing for was not yet open. I wandered around in a daze for some time until I finally woke up properly, and after searching fruitlessly for a bus in the right direction I checked the exchange office again and was finally able to change some $USD for Baht. I bit the bullet and got a taxi into town and thankfully found a guesthouse with a decent room, only there was another two hour wait for it to become available... I sit here now on Sunday afternoon having just had my first shower and meal since Friday, and feeling somewhat more human than I have in a couple of days. The sights and sounds of Bangkok await, I just have to resist the urge to go nap...
Friday was exploring the southern half of Phuket via moped, which is good fun if you don't mind all the people intent on killing you... the day started on a rather dramatic note when I was standing out in front of my guesthouse getting ready for the scooter ride, when suddenly the electrical transformer on the power pole across the street exploded with an almighty BOOM, showering sparks everywhere... obviously in southern Thailand things unexpectedly exploding are not high on the list of stuff anyone wants to be around so it shook everyone up more than a little bit. Once people had stopped running and screaming and the old heart had slowed down a bit, it seemed to make sense to follow up one near-death experience with another, so it was out into the manic Patong traffic to run a couple of errands and find some more beaches. Phuket is indeed a pretty little island, obviously fairly swamped with tourists, travellers, backpackers and holiday makers, but there is still plenty of blue water and white sand. Some of the resorts looked pretty darn good too, for those with money...
Having run into some money-flow issues myself, I decided Friday that it would be prudent to head for Bangkok to try and sort the situation before funds dried up completely, so on Saturday morning I headed for the bus station over in Phuket town with gear in tow, which involved either an expensive taxi (well ok not REALLY expensive but everything's expensive when you have no money) or the cheaper option of the local bus (truck), which I took... this took somewhat longer than anticipated as he plied the streets of Patong at walking pace looking for customers. Once finally at the bus station I used a fairly large portion of my remaining Thai Baht for a ticket, and half an hour later we were heading north. The bus trip was once again the equivalent of some bizarre Thai torture as the obviously suicidal driver carved between lanes and overtook on blind corners while blasting his mix of "Top Fifty Most Annoying Thai Love Ballads" as loud as the speakers could handle... I fought the urge to doze off or throw myself out the doors to take in some nice scenery.
Seven hours later in darkness we rolled into the little town of Chumphon, and with no real idea of what I was doing or where I was going I wandered up the street with my gear in the rough direction I thought something might be in. I found a hotel and considered just getting a room and collapsing for the night, but I was conscious that if I stopped to sleep I would end up riding the day train to Bangkok, meaning I would end up arriving there in the dark with little money and no place to go. So I wandered some more until I found the train station, and sure enough there were night trains available. Rather than taking the next one, which would have seen me arrive in the capital city at 4am, I booked the 23:24 train to arrive in Bangkok around 8.30 in the morning. With now only about 300 Baht in my pocket (NZ$15) I bought a packet of chips and a drink to keep me going and with little else to do after wandering the food stalls looking at things I couldn't afford to eat, I went and sat around the train station for three hours.
Compared to other recent trips the train ride was bliss, I staggered through the narrow carriage with all my stuff, probably waking the other occipants, and crashed onto my bunk, happily a bottom berth this time and therefore wider and easier to get in and out of. I was asleep in minutes and woke only a couple of times before we were almost in Bangkok. I was rather disappointed to have to do the trip in the dark and miss the scenery but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Bangkok train station was rather manic even at 8.30 in the morning, but critically the foreign exchange office I was questing for was not yet open. I wandered around in a daze for some time until I finally woke up properly, and after searching fruitlessly for a bus in the right direction I checked the exchange office again and was finally able to change some $USD for Baht. I bit the bullet and got a taxi into town and thankfully found a guesthouse with a decent room, only there was another two hour wait for it to become available... I sit here now on Sunday afternoon having just had my first shower and meal since Friday, and feeling somewhat more human than I have in a couple of days. The sights and sounds of Bangkok await, I just have to resist the urge to go nap...
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Mister you want buy cheap suit..?
So it has been an interesting old couple of days... after an afternoon of drinking coffee and hanging around airconditioned malls trying not to sweat every last drop of moisture out of my body, the loooooong wait for the train was finally over at 8pm and the thronging masses flocked aboard. I of course was somewhat icky and smelly so I climbed into my top bunk and put to use my skills from a previous career as a circus contortionist to get changed behind my little curtain without falling out naked onto the old Muslim lady in the bunk below. Since my packs and all are rather bulky, and I am also a cynical and untrusting kind of person, I elected to have them on the bed with me rather than leave them in the aisle for people to fall over, meaning that lying on my bunk on my side I could just squeeze my legs down one side of my pack to almost stretch out my full length. So not much sleep was had, especially when you throw in the noise of the train and stops every five minutes and people coming and going.
Since I had no joy finding a book to read in KL I was forced to amuse myself by sitting/standing in the little area at the end of the carriage where the carriages join, where the smokers are forced to congregate next to the decidely unappealing toilet facilities. Despite all the signs commanding otherwise, in Malaysia they have no objection to you opening the side doors of the train and hanging out sitting on the stairs etc while you thunder through the night with posts and trees and bridges whooshing by inches away (I doubt they would have had much objection to us falling to our deaths either really). Within about 20 minutes of leaving KL I had met an English guy, and Estonian girl and an old chap who was probably once Scottish but had been living in Thailand for 20 years or so, and we chatted for a good few hours before people wandered off to attempt sleeping.
Each second class sleeping carriage like ours had about 40 bunk beds, 20 or so down each side... I pity the poor folk sleeping next to the automatic doors at the end which generally didn't do anything automatically and saw constant passenger traffic most of the night. Sometime in the early hours of the morning, with much noise and drama as is always the way with trains, they unhooked our car from the back and hooked it up to a new train, so that when everyone woke the next morning we appeared to be going in the other direction and half the passengers thought they had slept through their stop and we were going south again... but no, all was under control. I woke with the dawn after fleeting moments of sleep and got up and started hanging out the doors taking photos.
Since I had no joy finding a book to read in KL I was forced to amuse myself by sitting/standing in the little area at the end of the carriage where the carriages join, where the smokers are forced to congregate next to the decidely unappealing toilet facilities. Despite all the signs commanding otherwise, in Malaysia they have no objection to you opening the side doors of the train and hanging out sitting on the stairs etc while you thunder through the night with posts and trees and bridges whooshing by inches away (I doubt they would have had much objection to us falling to our deaths either really). Within about 20 minutes of leaving KL I had met an English guy, and Estonian girl and an old chap who was probably once Scottish but had been living in Thailand for 20 years or so, and we chatted for a good few hours before people wandered off to attempt sleeping.
Each second class sleeping carriage like ours had about 40 bunk beds, 20 or so down each side... I pity the poor folk sleeping next to the automatic doors at the end which generally didn't do anything automatically and saw constant passenger traffic most of the night. Sometime in the early hours of the morning, with much noise and drama as is always the way with trains, they unhooked our car from the back and hooked it up to a new train, so that when everyone woke the next morning we appeared to be going in the other direction and half the passengers thought they had slept through their stop and we were going south again... but no, all was under control. I woke with the dawn after fleeting moments of sleep and got up and started hanging out the doors taking photos.
We crossed into Thailand mid-morning with little drama, although the train did leave us sitting at a small station in the middle of nowhere for about 45 minutes while it went for "servicing"which I think was just a scam between the local cafeteria staff and the train crew. Sometime after 11am our 14 hour ride ended in the (more than a little unappealing) southern Thailand town of Hat Yai, a place visiting foreigners are not generally encouraged to hang around in (don't know if it made NZ news but a bombing in south Thailand injured 60 last week, attacks have been ongoing for some time). I was planning on getting a bus to Koh Samui but I was the only one heading in that direction, with the half a dozen other foreigners heading for Phuket... Derek was also travelling by himself with little in the way of plans and since our missions appeared pretty closely aligned I decided that Phuket may be a better bet for a few days of chilling out...
So all of us in the newly formed Phuket group were quickly hijacked by a band of bus-touts offering "best deals" on coach-bus rides to the island (and then ripping us all off). To our surprise and horror we learned it was in fact a 7-8 hour trip, for some reason I, and the others, had thought it a lot closer. We were all crammed into the back of a covered ute which whizzed around the back streets until it found the bus, and then we all got on board and made ourselves as comfortable as possible with the barely-working aircon. The bus made the train seem like luxury, and despite the driver overtaking every other vehicle on the road the hours went painfully slowly, and we were all going pretty much mental by the time we rolled into Phuket township in the dark.
We arrived in time for a monsoon deluge and since Derek and I had joined on with a couple of Dutch guys and a young Swedish bloke to combine our resources in finding accomodation, the only vehicle that could carry us and all our gear was another partially-covered (and very leaky) old ute. Again we sped off into the night, the rain soaking us as the ute struggled over the hill to Patong Bay, cars and scooters behind tooting and passing on the left and right. We ended up wandering the streets as the rain continued to bucket down until we finally found a guesthouse with enough rooms at a reasonable price, and we dropped our sodden bags and showered (which was very badly needed after 24 hours of travel) and went for what was only my third meal in 48 hours. After a few beers in the local pubs I headed off for much needed sleep.
Today on the other hand was the total opposite, some time on the beach and a casual wander around Patong, which is a nice place to relax although I wouldn't exactly bring the family here.. not that that stops some people. Not exactly sure now where the next stop on my travels will be, will have to get thinking about that...
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Ok, I take it back...
... everyone likes you Lobbie... it's all right... and your knowledge of monkeys is second to none. You would have loved those little buggers... they were all like "hey, I'm a monkey, I do what I want, I'm out of control!!.."
So here I am sitting on my ass again waiting... I rocked out to the train station to find to my complete lack of surprise that the trains do not leave at the times I read on the net... so time to kill in KL. And since I am hauling gear and have seen the sights I wanted to see, I went searching and finally found the elusive iPod charger, it took an arab guy in the very back corner of the top floor of the biggest mall to sell me one, it would seem the rest of the country is these days gripped by a fear of the almighty Apple Mac legal machinery... I left my iPod with him on charge as it is dead as dead, so with a bit of luck I might get an our or two of tunes to keep me company on the looong haul north... if I can find my way back to his stall. I have been looking all over this crazy place for a book shop but Bukit Bintang mall is like a maze, and bookshops don't seem to be high on the priority list here. Eighty five cell phone stalls sure, but no books.
Iced espresso is my friend, it's like crack in a glass...
Must get supplies for the train ride, peace out
So here I am sitting on my ass again waiting... I rocked out to the train station to find to my complete lack of surprise that the trains do not leave at the times I read on the net... so time to kill in KL. And since I am hauling gear and have seen the sights I wanted to see, I went searching and finally found the elusive iPod charger, it took an arab guy in the very back corner of the top floor of the biggest mall to sell me one, it would seem the rest of the country is these days gripped by a fear of the almighty Apple Mac legal machinery... I left my iPod with him on charge as it is dead as dead, so with a bit of luck I might get an our or two of tunes to keep me company on the looong haul north... if I can find my way back to his stall. I have been looking all over this crazy place for a book shop but Bukit Bintang mall is like a maze, and bookshops don't seem to be high on the priority list here. Eighty five cell phone stalls sure, but no books.
Iced espresso is my friend, it's like crack in a glass...
Must get supplies for the train ride, peace out
A day of no rain...
Who woulda thunk it. Today I spent much time cursing the Malaysian public transport system. I got up nice and early before the other residents and got on the road, wandering down to where the directions said the Number 11 bus stopped... I was unlucky from the start because just before I got there I saw not one but two Number 11 buses pulling away, so I though "excellent, there's the spot, now to wait 15 minutes til the next one..."... So 40 minutes or more later, I decided this clearly wasn't right... I ended up wandering the streets for probably an hour until I finally found a Number 11 bus stopped in traffic in a back street and banged on the door... of course turned out they don't stop anywhere near where they supposedly did...
So off we went, and 45 minutes later we were at the Batu Caves, an awesome limestone cliff structure with... well, a big hole in it... Discovered some time ago by some Brit, they would have been truly awesome back in the day, before they were turned into a half-assed gaylord theme park... I mean, Hindu place of sacred worship... 270-something nasty stairs in the searing heat nearly killed me (taken two at a time of course, cause that's how we roll... I showed them...). At the top the scenery was pretty cool, made more amusing when a flock (gaggle? herd? Lobbie?) of monkeys ninja-ed in like little cave aliens, swarming over the walls all silent and evil, and started fighting over banana skins and hiffing half-coconuts from great heights at groups of sightseers. Hil-ar-i-ous. Although I did have a run in with the boss monkey a couple of times for trying to take photos too close... buggers have big teeth, I had to fend him with my camera once.
Sometimes it is good to see that some things are the same regardless of culture... A group of Hindu faithful walked somberly into the main temple chamber/cave (where they have built an actual temple) and removed their shoes and said their prayers and shuffled under the temple canopy to be blessed... and they sat in a circle as the rites were carried out, and bowed their heads, legs crossed, all heavy with the gravity of the meaning of this sacred pilgrimage, possibly the only time they would make it to this place in their lives... and they offered up bananas and other foods as the music rang out and holy men carried out their duties... and half way through their brief time of purity and oneness, one of the monkeys ran in and grabbed one of their bananas, and when one of them got in the way as he made his break, he leaped on him and growled... and the poor guy screamed like a little girl and shooed him away with much flapping of hands... and as the monkey sped off before the holy men could cane him, they entire group erupted in hysterical laughter, with tradition pointing and exaggerated mimickry, and even when they all sat down to resume their ceremony, every minute or two they would break down in fits of giggles and mocking... I have never seen an Indian blush but I am pretty sure I came close today. Priceless.
Ryno travel tip #338... Remember to eat BOTH sides of your stingray... it's a flatfish... there is meat on both sides... mmm stingray... who would have thought the little buggers were so tasty. Steve Irwin... pussy...
So off we went, and 45 minutes later we were at the Batu Caves, an awesome limestone cliff structure with... well, a big hole in it... Discovered some time ago by some Brit, they would have been truly awesome back in the day, before they were turned into a half-assed gaylord theme park... I mean, Hindu place of sacred worship... 270-something nasty stairs in the searing heat nearly killed me (taken two at a time of course, cause that's how we roll... I showed them...). At the top the scenery was pretty cool, made more amusing when a flock (gaggle? herd? Lobbie?) of monkeys ninja-ed in like little cave aliens, swarming over the walls all silent and evil, and started fighting over banana skins and hiffing half-coconuts from great heights at groups of sightseers. Hil-ar-i-ous. Although I did have a run in with the boss monkey a couple of times for trying to take photos too close... buggers have big teeth, I had to fend him with my camera once.
Sometimes it is good to see that some things are the same regardless of culture... A group of Hindu faithful walked somberly into the main temple chamber/cave (where they have built an actual temple) and removed their shoes and said their prayers and shuffled under the temple canopy to be blessed... and they sat in a circle as the rites were carried out, and bowed their heads, legs crossed, all heavy with the gravity of the meaning of this sacred pilgrimage, possibly the only time they would make it to this place in their lives... and they offered up bananas and other foods as the music rang out and holy men carried out their duties... and half way through their brief time of purity and oneness, one of the monkeys ran in and grabbed one of their bananas, and when one of them got in the way as he made his break, he leaped on him and growled... and the poor guy screamed like a little girl and shooed him away with much flapping of hands... and as the monkey sped off before the holy men could cane him, they entire group erupted in hysterical laughter, with tradition pointing and exaggerated mimickry, and even when they all sat down to resume their ceremony, every minute or two they would break down in fits of giggles and mocking... I have never seen an Indian blush but I am pretty sure I came close today. Priceless.
Ryno travel tip #338... Remember to eat BOTH sides of your stingray... it's a flatfish... there is meat on both sides... mmm stingray... who would have thought the little buggers were so tasty. Steve Irwin... pussy...
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