Singapore

Singapore has to be one of the smallest countries we’ve visited. Afterall, it’s just one small island – about 42 by 24km in size. With a few mini islets off its coast. That’s all. But it’s one of the richest places in Asia per capita.

OK, it doesn’t have the spectacular location of Hong Kong, or the intriguingly vibrant districts of Tokyo, but it is well worth seeing at least briefly. If you can get over the slightly restrictive nature of the place. This is ‘Fine City’ – tie your shoe laces in the wrong part of town and risk a $500 billing. Ouch! Now I’m all in favour of stopping littering and smoking in public places, but you’re not allowed to cross the road anywhere within 50m of a pedestrian crossing, and then ONLY WHEN THE GREEN MAN IS LIT! It might be 04.00 in the morning. There may be no cars moving within a radius of a mile. But you have to wait for the green man or they WILL get you! Oh, and leave the chewing gum behind – it is completely illegal in Singapore. Really. I don’t know what they do if you’re caught in possession, but I’d rather not find out!

Saying that, I don’t mean to be too harsh. It’s a nice city. Clean, modern, and with lots of thoughtfully planted trees and green areas everywhere. They really do make an effort to keep the place nice. And if you like shopping malls, Singapore is heaven. I’ve never seen so many. In fact, in central Singapore it can be hard to find a shop that’s not in a mall. There are hundreds of them – all modern, gleaming, and packed with expensive designer shops. Not a place to visit on a budget, especially as there are more than a fair share of Haagen Das and Ben & Jerry’s Cafes.

Singapore island may be mostly built up, but in the middle is a really nicely preserved area of rainforest. It has a pathetically sweet ‘Park’ in a small section of the forest, where very friendly paths lead you between huts and view points that are barely 10 m apart. But the bonus here is the monkeys – they are really tame, and are happy to sit only a few meters away from you (even Mothers with young babies – we watched one as she breast-fed a tiny snip of a young one)! The rainforest outside the park area is a bit more like it. You can walk through trails up to the summit of the highest point on the island – an impressive 163m above sea level! OK, it felt quite high after traipsing up the slope in tropical conditions and rainforest humidity. We’re not that pathetic. Really!

Anyway, now we leave Asia, and move continent (and therefore blog page) to Oceania. We’re a bit sad to be leaving, but we’ve spent nearly half our year doing loops around the continent, so I suppose it’s time to move on. I hope Australia is nice! The posting will be on www.catch-up-with-the-sun-oceania.blogspot from now on (as this site is running out of storage space for photos). And on the main page of course for general things. Like comments on leaving Asia…

Singapore Photos

Singapore waterfront - on a very nice day! Not quite Hong Kong Harbour, but still nice. Below you can see Gary in the same area - by some Chinese lanterns for a local celebration. The other photo shows him scrambling across a very scary bridge in the tame rainforest park in the centre of Singapore island. Ever the brave adventurer!


You can find some remarkably tame monkeys in the park! These two were very nonchalant about our presence, as you can see from how close we got when taking the photo! The Mum was far more interested in ensuring her son didn't have fleas...
A strange thing we've noticed in Asia is the use of fish to clean dead skin off feet. it's a luxury Spa therapy apparently. But we've never come across it in a shop window before! Look at all the little fishes attacking these blokes feet! It was fascinating to watch - quite a crowd of passers by like us gathered to gape and take piccys.

Pulau Tioman

This really is remote! Pulau Tioman is a reasonably sized island 2 hours by ferry off the East coast of Malaysia. And there’s really not much here apart from a jungle mountain, pristine beaches, coral reefs, and a few huts! All of which are very beautiful of course. To give you an impression - we are staying in one of the most developed regions of the island, Air Batang, but this village consists of a sparse row of huts and small houses on the line between the edge of the beach and the start of the jungle. It’s beautiful, and to our eyes almost untouched by humans, but still, this is meant to be one of the most built-up parts of the island! The main road here is actually a concrete footpath that motorcycles can navigate up and down – there simply aren’t any cars.

Which leads to pretty impressive local wildlife. When we left our room the morning after arriving, the first thing we saw was a group of monkeys playing only 10m away. They didn’t like us and backed away a little (to say 20m), and then continued playing as if we weren’t there! The same morning we encountered our first significant reptile – a monitor lizard over a meter long. It looked just like one of the cast of dinosaurs in a 1970’s B movie! They can actually get to the size of alligators apparently – the largest one we’ve seen was a 2m monster. And we’ve walked under trees filled with sleeping fruit bats, seen wild goats, avoided inch-long ants and chased weird unidentifiable mammals – humans are definitely outnumbered here…

We’ve also seen a bit of the marine life. We wanted to continue diving, so we spent 2 days doing the PADI Advanced Open Water Course, which involves some underwater navigation, a deep dive (to about 30m), and three other dives of your choosing. We opted for a wreck dive, fish identification, and a night dive. And on these we saw lots of lovely fish, coral and urchins as usual, but also a few turtles! Best of all, we came across a huge, almost spherical jelly fish (over a meter diameter) which had a school of small fish constantly living in it and swimming around it. The whole effect was spectacular and very beautiful. But oddly enough I think we saw our most impressive marine animals off the jetty while waiting for a ferry – four turtles surfaced to take gulps of air, while little squid chased each other and tropical fish before hiding under the pier. But all these were swiftly outdone by a large octopus which came along and settled on a rock for a while, before scooting off head first, tentacles following!

Continuing with the activities, Gary had his first chance of the holiday to play a round of golf. He was a little bit out of practice at first, but he soon got back into it. I was designated ‘caddy’ – which involved driving the silly golf buggy around and agreeing enthusiastically with his choice of club from time to time. A taxing job! We actually spent a lot of the time watching monitor lizards basking in the sun and families of monkeys playing on the golf course. It was a really pretty place: beautifully manicured, and situated on the coast, just by the beach but ascending up rapidly to the rainforest levels. Our favourite bit was the 7th hole as you actually had to hit the ball across a small bay from the tee to get to the green. Gary cleared the sea successfully, but got trapped in the largest bunker we’d ever seen – the beach!

Anyway, our next stop will be Singapore (apart from a night’s stopover in the fishing town of Mersing on the way back from Pulau Tioman), which should offer a good contrast to this coral-jungle island.

Pulau Tioman Photos

Air Batang (or ABC as its known for short). This is a view south, from the headland path which leads towards the next cove, Penumbra Bay. You can clearly see some of the coral reef in the clear blue water!

The beach by Telek (the main village settlement on Pulau Tioman) looking up towards Air Batang to the North. This whole island has a very pretty coast-line.

The 7th hole! We're standing on the tee, taking the photo. You can see the green in the distance, just the other side of the massive beach-bunker. Gary cleared the sea well, but couldn't quite make it past the beach. It was funny to see him traipsing through the sand to retrieve his ball! You can also see a nice wet weather front closing in from the sea - we sheltered in the nice golf buggy (silly things).
Monkeys! There were plenty on the golf course (along with lizards), although not on the fairway of the 7th hole oddly enough. This mummy-babby pair were elsewhere though - they were part of a group that actually walked right over our heads on power cables in Air Batang before jumping into the surrounding trees. Below are some more island residents! These monitor lizards were babys compared with the 2m monsters we came accross - they're only 1-1.5m long. But they posed for photos much much more readily, letting me get within a meter, whereas the big ones just ran away :( Which is probably why the big ones are so big - caution...

A visitor to the ferry jetty just as we were leaving the island! For some reason the pier is a popular place for turtles to surface to take a breath of air, before descending into the depths again and swimming away. We saw four in only half an hour! I was lucky and caught this one just as he took his gulp - you can see his head out of the water if you look closely.
And to finish off this selection of photos, how about a spectacular sunset? This section of Air Batang bay was just by our hotel, and offered dramatic evening views from the terrace of a very nice pizza place called Sunset Corner. A few hours later and the clouds on the horizon became an impressive (but distant) thunderstorm.

Melaka

If you take a bus two for two hours south from Kuala Lumpur, you’ll find the costal town of Melaka. It’s a pretty little place – nominated as a world heritage site only one month ago – and therefore has big pseudo-Chinese gate advertising boards stuck up all over town to celebrate! Very traditional!

We only expected to stay here a night or two, but got off to a bit of a bad start. Our lovely Rough Guide placed the bus stop quite central to town on the map, but unfortunately for us it was wrong by more than 3km. So we trekked, rucksacks and all, from miles to the north of town before finally getting to our hotel. And as it seemed a nice place (and we fancied passing out for the afternoon) we thought we’d stay a night or two more.

Melaka has the distinct feel of a cross between Louang Phabang and Macau. It’s a small colonial town first developed by the Portuguese, but then taken over by the Dutch, and finally by the British. Before going to full Malaysian control again. So it has weirdly European buildings in places, ruined churches and forts, all surrounded bys distinctly Asian regions – there’s a particularly nice China Town for instance (which is where our hotel is). Altogether a quiet, sleepy place - nice for a few days rest and relaxation. Our hotel has been great too – it has a piano in the lobby which guests are allowed to use. This is the first time we’ve seen a useable piano in a hotel in all our travels, so Gary took full advantage and gave two brilliant performances – especially considering he a) didn’t have music and b) hasn’t played in over 6 months!

Anyway, now we’re moving on again, another early start (groan), across to the East Coast of Malaysia. We plan to spend the next week in Pulau Tioman, an island 2 hours by ferry away from the mainland. It hasn’t really got any roads, and so the only way to get from village to village is by walking or by boat. And as we’ll probably be staying in a wooden shack we may be out of contact for a while! But hopefully it will have some nice rainforest trails and diving to keep us entertained. We’ll post some more when we get back to civilisation!

Melaka Photos

This is the Dutch square at the centre of town. For some reason all the historic buildings here are painted this red colour, making it all very festive. There's also a miniature windmill behind the small Vicki (unfortunately just out of shot). The best thing about the square are the rickshaws though - these things would give Indian rickshaw drivers a stroke! They are all yellow, festooned with plastic flowers, and have their very own car radio-cassette players - complete with extra-loud sub-woofer under the passenger seats. You can hear them coming miles away and hide from the touts! Probably not the original intention...
Gary in the heart of China Town - very quaint buildings and very nice weather for once.

More of China Town - this time Vicki's by a very authentic temple with some really beautiful Dragons carved into the stone around the doors.

Kuala Lumpur

What are our first impressions of Malaysia so far? Well, all very nice, but it’s a bit damp! It’s like being home in Wales…

Kuala Lumpur is Malaysia’s capital of course. We arrived very glamorously with the fantastic Air Asia to the aptly named ‘Low Cost Carrier Terminal’ of Kuala Lumpur Airport – which is built a whole 20km away from all the other terminals to ensure that the quality passengers don’t catch anything nasty off us cheap-skates. But we’re definitely not proud! We jumped aboard a nice cheap SkyBus and headed into the budget part of the city (China town). You might gather from all of this that Kuala Lumpur (or KL as it’s universally called here) is a bit spenny. Not too bad, but definitely a step up after Thailand.

Kuala Lumpur is an odd capital. The centre is actually quite small and walkable, and is covered by a reasonable SkyTrain/metro system. It has lovely areas of greenery with jungle trees and exotic plants… I suppose the rain is the price you have to pay for a lush landscape! A good deal of the centre of town is given over to plush shopping malls, the most exclusive being that under the Petronas Towers (where Gary actually managed to buy his first pair of shorts today – yippee!).

It’s also got a very tall communications tower – the 4th highest in the world – which we managed to climb just before one of those tropical rainstorms that have been dogging our footsteps. We just managed to do a circuit of the platform with great views over the city before the front closed in, giving us a visibility of say 10 yards…

Anyway, we’ll be moving on to Melaka next (southwards), and then hopefully find some nice little tropical island to test out our new scuba diving skills!

Kuala Lumpur Pictures

Kuala Lumpur has several tall buildings! The Petronas Towers are impressive twin structures with a linking skybridge - a very small Gary on the bridge in front of them gives a good idea of the scale. Surrounding the towers is a nice park area with lakes to compliment the plush shopping malls nearby. Alternatively, the Menara tower is the 4th largest in the world, and the viewing platform gives an aerial perspective of the Petronas Towers... We saw a spectacularly gloomy view of it as a Thunder storm approached!

Phuket

If you head south from Bangkok, the shape of Thailand looks a little like the tail of a comma stretching out towards Malaysia. Phuket Island is a little north of the tip, just off the west side – the Andaman coast. It was this part of Thailand that suffered devastation at the hands of the Tsunami a few years back, but now most buildings have been reconstructed so well it’s hard to tell (apart from the occasional sign directing you to the ‘Tsunami Evacuation Point’!). Phuket is not quite the idyllic Thai Island that travel agents describe in their hard-sell – it’s too big for a start, and a bit over developed in places. But it still has beautiful stretches of palm-lined sand, crystal clear water, and – of course – loads of Go-Go bars and sweet Thai girls on the hunt for a sugar-daddy!

But Phuket does have some truly picture-perfect miniature islands off it’s coast – and they were the real reason we came here. Well, at least their coral reefs were. We thought that this trip around the world would be the perfect time to learn how to scuba dive – we actually have time for once! And of course over the next few months we’ll be visiting Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, Tahiti… I suppose Thailand is really the start of the beach section of this trip.

So, we checked into a hotel in Patong Beach as it has the biggest concentration of dive shops on the island (and incidentally the highest concentration of Go-Go bars…), and signed up with West Coast Divers for the PADI Open Water Course. This is the standard introductory course for scuba diving – after finishing and passing you become a ‘certified diver’ and can go on dive trips to a depth of 18m. Easy peasy? Erm, well, sort of.

The theory part certainly wasn’t too bad - you just had to read a 200 page manual, watch a video and answer a few questions, before finishing off with a very friendly MCQ exam. After all the exams we’ve done over the last few years… no problem. Then you had to swim 200m and tread water for 10 minutes. That was fine too – although my wonderful tendency to sink like lead made the treading water a tad tiring! Next we were introduced to our scuba gear. Air tanks, regulators, BCDs, weight belts, depth gauges, fins, masks… hooking it all up was bad enough, but after putting it on you feel as cumbersome and ungainly as an astronaut. And the stuff is as heavy as anything – really disconcerting as you’re about to try and swim in it!

Fortunately the equipment is designed to be ‘neutrally buoyant’ with you in it: neither sinks or floats (unless you inflate the buoyancy control device of course, at which point you can pop out of the water like a cork if you’re not careful). And actually swimming underwater with it is relatively easy – once you’ve started. I had a bit of a nightmare trying to start since my ears really didn’t like adjusting to the pressure changes as you descend through the water. It took me ages to get my ears ‘equalising’ properly by swallowing, blowing my nose, jaw wiggling – and sucking loads of Thai sweeties! It was worth it in the end though, as after our training in a practice swimming pool we graduated to spend the last two days diving off the shore of Ratcha Ya and Ratcha Noi – two tiny untouched islands off the south coast of Phuket.

So now we’re both certified (certifiable?!) divers and have seen lots of pretty fishes, coral, and the odd cuttle fish and sting ray. On to Malaysia!

Phuket Photos

Patong Beach, Phuket Island. It may not be quite the picture perfect Thai island, but it's not bad! Perhaps less busy than could be expected as it's low season. This is supposed to mean lots of rain, but since we've been here there's been none at all for a change. Just absurdly low hotel rates! And below you can see sunset over Patong Beach. As I said, not bad at all.



Some of our first scuber-diving endeavours... You can see a nice friendly moray eel which I spotted trying to hide in a cave in the coral. And just to prove we did do it there's a nice shot of us hovering (elegantly?) above the reef! It is really pretty down there - very silent and still... a totally different world.

Bangkok... Again?

This is starting to feel like a recurring dream. Our trip has certainly shown us that there are a few places you end up returning to again and again when travelling around in Asia... first Hong Kong, now Bangkok. And I suspect Singapore will be the same! OK, no problem – we like Bangkok, and Hong Kong is one of our favourite cities anywhere, but still, at this point our trip around the world feels like going around a big round-a-bout. But perhaps to some extent that’s Amit and Karyn’s fault for getting married in London. It’s a shame we couldn’t convince you two that a nice romantic wedding on the beach of a remote Thai Island was a good idea…

Anyway, this is just a brief stop in Bangkok before travelling down south towards the Thai islands on our way to Malaysia. I suppose this is the first part of our trip around the world that is on the traditional route – most people leave out China and Japan. And for the first time this year we might actually get to swim around in the sea, and hopefully learn to scuba dive before hitting the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Return to Bangkok

I think it would be fair to say that Bangkok has had a bit of a facelift over the last few years. We were last here in 2005, and stayed (as cheapskate students) on Thanon Khao San in Banghalamphu. Now we’ve returned to Bangkok by ourselves we’ve come back to this notorious backpacker haven (as cheapskate unemployed wasters). But we were surprised –it’s gone a bit more upmarket: they’ve actually paved the street and got rid of the potholes! This place has a lot of life - the street has a permanent market selling typically hippy-backpacker things: sarongs, tie-dye, sliver piercings, hair braiding, and of course plenty of tuk tuk touts! Perhaps the most interesting touts come out in the evening to invite innocent bystanders to ping pong tournaments...

Actually it’s not just Banghalamphu that has gone upmarket in Bangkok. The down town areas have changed completely as well. In the space of three years luxury shopping complexes have sprung up complete with all the idiotically expensive designer brands you would expect to see in Tokyo or New York. This place really does seem to be trying to reinvent itself, and with some success.

Some things do not change though. One of the most startling things about tourists in Thailand is that women are hugely outnumbered. And that a lot of the men are old (65+) and particularly ugly - and usually have really red sunburn all over their bald patches by the time you see them! As you might guess, they are often seen in the company of a sweet young Thai girl with whom they have, of course, quickly struck up a beautiful platonic relationship. Well, lots of the Thai girls we’ve met seem to want ‘English men’, so if it makes them happy…? but you can’t help but wince at the contrast in these couples.

Anyway, enough of Thailand for the moment. Now we’re having a brief holiday from our holiday, and returning to the UK for a week. My friend Amit has very inconsiderately decided to get married, so we’re having to go all the way home for it. Git. So we may see some of you a little sooner than March 2009!

Return to Bangkok Photos

Bangkok may be a huge, sprawling city, but it's evenings can be quite beautiful if you perch on a roof-top. Just forget that pretty colours mean pollution... we've seen lots of nice sunsets this year, haven't we?...!
The Thanon Khao San - probably the truest home of backpacking world wide. With one lonely Vicki trying not to be noticed by the tuk-tuk and 'Nice Suit?' touts while standing in the middle for a photo. Not an easy task!
But this place really comes alive in the evening, especially on the weekend. then it's difficult to move for the crowds, and the entire street feels like the inside of a night-club - thumping music, beer girls, cocktails, and of course the obligatory touts.

Vientiane

Is Vientiane Asia’s sleepiest Capital City? Well, I never thought I’d be able to say I’d visited a Capital smaller than my home town Neath, but I have now! For those of you who’ve never seen Neath, to give you an idea Vientane is probably about the same size as Newbury or Epping – much smaller than Cambridge!

But Vientiane is much quieter than all of these towns. This place makes the dreamy Louang Phabang look like a hive of activity. It’s a low rise, leafy, incredibly quiet town on the banks of the Mekong River. A pleasant enough place for whiling away a few days – especially as the French colonial past means that there are several excellent bakeries and you can get a great espresso! There’s the usual quota of nice Wats and Chedis too. These seem to be more delicately decorated than those we’ve seen so far in Thailand (although still heavy on the gold paint), but they are generally fairly modest structures. This is apparently because many the temples were destroyed in Siam-Lao Wars, and only enthusiastic restoration has returned any to something of their former glory.

One slight drawback to coming here in July is that it is in the midst of the rainy season. And here the rainy season is a little more than a shower or two a day – you get truly psychotic weather. One moment it’s a nice warm morning, with friendly white fluffy clouds in the sky. A few minutes later a 10 second gust of wind seems to bring in huge grey storm clouds that instantly drop a small lake of water on you! This is intense rainfall - you can’t see more than 20 meters because of the density of raindrops, and the streets become small rivers and ponds in no time, leaving you trying desperately to keep your flip-flops on as you dash for shelter wading through water up to your ankles! But this doesn’t last long. Within a quarter of an hour the clouds will have swept away, and a startlingly hot sun will dazzle you from a brilliant blue sky, making you quickly don sunglasses and suntan lotion to avoid becoming a sun-scorched frazzle. But don’t worry – the lotion will be washed off thoroughly in half an hour when the whole process gets repeated and you are left drenched and dripping again!

Vientiane Photos

Gary on the banks of the Mekong river. That's Thailand in the background, with some ominous clouds looming (that probably soaked us later). It's a very quiet capital - you wouldn't believe from the reeds that this is actually the riverside walk at the centre of town!

Of course Laos was once a French colony, and this inspired some fantastic baguettes, and some less fantastic town planning. This is the Patouxi: Laos' answer to the Arc de Triomphe. Complete with pictures from the Ramayana and spiky Lao adornments. It's at the end of a road that doesn't quite match the Champs-Elysees...

They do like gold paint out here! This is the Golden Stupa of Pra That Louang - one of Vientiane's most celebrated Buddhist complexes (and a symbol of Laos we've been told). And everything possible is covered with Gold. Not very French.

Louang Phabang

This town is an odd place. Completely different from anywhere else on our travels so far. It’s absolutely beautiful – a very quiet small town perched on an outcrop of land at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers. Louang Phabang is literally in the middle of nowhere, completely surrounded by mountains covered in lush tropical forests, with little fluffy white clouds rolling picturesquely between the peaks. But despite this remoteness the town is literally teeming with westerners! Millions of them! We were surprised by the numbers of tourists in Chiang Mai, but this is something else again. Perhaps it’s the density: a relatively small number of visitors crammed into a tiny town. But the result is just weird – in this distinctly oriental backwater you are far more likely to meet a westerner walking down the street than a local.

I suppose this is because Louang Phabang is considered one of Lao’s most important historical sites. It has the old imperial palace and numerous Wats – but in all honesty these are sweet, modest buildings for the most part, and the we found the real attraction to be the town itself and the surrounding countryside. Louang Phabang has no big buildings – no huge hotels, 24 hour stores, carparks etc – not even a McDonalds or Starbucks!!! Instead you have lovely quaint Oriental-French colonial houses clustered in quiet palm-tree lined streets. It was deemed a protected site by UNESCO in the 1990’s, so modern monstrosities literally can’t be built (legally anyway). As a result, despite the influx of visitors, it remains a quaint, untouched, pretty place. But with lots of nice hotels and stylish shops selling local textiles and handicrafts. A kind of boutique tropical-mountain lost paradise. With millions of westerners everywhere!

To be fair to the visitors here, most are pretty untouristy-tourists. Not the type to follow the flag around with tour guides, bum-bags, giant cameras, and chequered shirts, constantly shouting ‘Wow!’ or ‘Gee!’ at the tops of their voices. The people here are generally the quieter, independent traveller (although a few groups – mostly from the USA – do exist).There are a fair number of families too, although the kids generally look a but bored wandering around Wats with Mum and Dad.

One lovely legacy from the French connection in Laos’s history is that they do bake wonderful bread here. You’ve no idea how good it is to have a fresh crispy baguette after a few months in Asia! The drawback is paying for it. The currency here in Laos is a nightmare. The official currency is the Kip, which is one of these incredibly volatile, silly currencies – to give you an idea £1 is about 17,000 kip. So paying for our bus tickets to the Capital city Vientiane cost over a quarter of a million Kip! As a result the hotels, shops, and even tuk tuk drivers are happy for you to pay in American Dollars or Thai Baht – but prices are stated in kip. So for the last few days we’ve been busy converting between 4 different currencies just to work out how much a can of coke costs! Ah well. I suppose a bit of mental arithmetic is probably good for us in our year out. It wouldn’t be on for us to have a holiday or anything now, would it?

Louang Phabang Pictures

Louang Phabang. In the middle of nowhere isn't it? This beautiful view over the Nam Khan river fascinated us - fluffy clouds would roll by between the mountains making it quite ominous at times. And the little island village in the background with wooden huts is incredible!

It rained quite a bit here as usual. The small streets were all like this - lined with jungle plants.

The Mekong river just before sunset from a lovely hill in the middle of Louang Phabang. The hill was capped with a golden Chedi of course, and had an impressive collection of Wats and Golden Buddhas.

Chiang Mai

After a few months in China and Japan it was really strange to see loads of Westerners in Bangkok. OK, this was no big deal. But we were really REALLY surprised at the number of Westerners in Chiang Mai. It's incredible. You can walk down a street in the middle of town and expect to see more westerners than Thai people. Really weird! And a bit of a culture shock after our relative solitude in Eastern Asia!


Chiang Mai is fun none the less, and deserves it's place on most tourist's itinerary in Thailand. It is a relatively sleepy town surrounded by mountains, a painfully slow 12 hour train ride north of Bangkok. Unfortunately we've lost the Chinese and Japanese Shinkansen... The main area of the town is surrounded by a (almost totally ruined) city wall, and an impressively geometrical moat full of really aggressive fish. Everywhere is leafy, green, quiet and laid back - if you forgive the noise made by tuk tuks and sawngthaews (4x4 trucks converted into minibuses) as they roar past.


And it's really cheap. Our plush guest house was only 10 pounds a night, and we'd eat out for about a tenner every evening too. We even picked up a lovely wall hanging for around six quid (after careful tactical haggling). This place is even cheaper than India and China - which is saying something. But then again it is the 'low season' - i.e. the 'rainy season'. Hot and humid, and you're guaranteed to get soaked at least once each afternoon! Actually, it's not too hot compared to Delhi (we can take anything after that oven), and if you do get soaked at least you dry quickly. Usually!


Chiang Mai is probably most well known for its temples. This small town actually has almost as many as Bangkok, which is saying something. On every corner you have a golden Wat, or a wooden Wat, or sometimes even Wats with huge stone centrepieces. We visited the most famous today - Wat Phra That, with it's famous Golden plated Chedi (big pagoda-tower thing). It's situated in a fantastic position on top of a mountain overlooking Chiang Mai - great views (of a weather front which shortly rained on us as it happens), but as it's so far from town you have to brave a very twisty hair-pin-bend-filled ride on a dreaded sawngthaew to get there.


Anyway, in order to get back into the middle of nowhere (away from all this western influence), we've decided to leave Thailand temporarily tomorrow and fly to Laos. Most people haven't heard of Laos - it's a little country nestling between Thailand and Vietnam, north of Cambodia. Scarily for us it's airline 'Lao Air' has one of the worst safety records in the world, although after extensive online research this appears to be for internal flights only. Their international aircraft are meant to be much safer. As safe as any other regional airway. We hope this is right! Oh well, we'll tell you in a few days time with any luck...

Chiang Mai Pictures

At last! After many attempts we've finally found an internet connection in Laos that is just about fast enough to let us upload Piccys. So here is Gary in Chiang Mai by the lovely tree-lined moat.

Our favourite Wat in Chiang Mai - complete with impressively ruined Chedi. To give an idea of size, note the small Vicki at the base. It must have been REALLY impressive before it crumbled!Below you can see a few more pictures of us by Wats - Gary at a particularly Golden Chedi, and Vick at the base of the steps up the mountain to the same Chedi. We particularly like the serpentine statues lining the sides of the steps - many headed 'Nagas' (like the Hydra of Greek mythology I suppose).

Gary with some more serpents - this time with beaks...?!

A night time photo of a float paraded around during the festival of lights (it past our internet cafe just as we finished writing the Chiang mai blog entry above). There were loads of floats like this one - very festive, bright, colourful - and lots of Thai ladyboys!

Bangkok

Strangely, the first thing that struck us about Thailand was the huge number of Westerners around. They’re everywhere! Not just in the hotels and around major sights, but just wandering around town like we do. It’s absolutely bizarre after months in China and Japan where you get used to being the only European for a 10 mile radius. If you do happen to meet another ‘gaijin’ in the depths of Toyako Onsen or Luoyang you say hello out of sheer astonishment!

But no, here in Thailand foreigners or ‘farang’ are very common. And as a result, Thais speak excellent English. Or at least it seems superb to us after our Chinese experiences! Just as well as Thai is another nightmare tonal language, so we can have a bit of a rest from the mime / draw / struggle technique.

We arrived in Bangkok about a week ago, and have spent a very restful few days wandering around various parts of town. Our hotel had a very relaxing swimming pool on the roof, and an even more relaxing Irish Bar directly below it, where you could get bargain soothing margaritas in the day-long happy hour! This is in a way just as well, as Bangkok is huge, and a bit of a struggle to get around if you want to avoid tuktuks and taxis. Since we trust the drivers about as far as we could throw them that leaves only the metro, skytrain, and lovely boat rides down the river. And walking of course. All nice options, but given the heat (and the daily downpours you get in the rainy season) it’s good to go somewhere calm afterwards.

One other option to de-stress is a Thai massage. Erm, unfortunately we stayed very near to one of the red-light districts, so we were never sure if the cries from shop fronts of ‘massagee?’ meant a nice foot rub, or a more comprehensive service! We’ll have a go at out next stop Chiang Mai instead where apparently there are safe shoulder rubs on offer everywhere.

While in Bangkok we had a quick wander around several Wats (temples or monasteries), and the Grand Palace. The buildings here are very different from those in China. OK, they all have an oriental slant, but in Thailand they are seriously into gold leaf decoration, and very edge must be as pointy as possible. The Wats in the Palace were particularly sharp – everywhere you look there were building edges, mounds, statues all topped with at least one spike directed to the sky. Basically a parachutist’s nightmare! The dominant religion here is Buddhism, and so you get your fair share of Buddhist images and statues too. We saw a particularly impressive golden reclining one in Wat Pho about 46m long! It had absolutely huge ears and toes.

Anyway, our next stop is Chiang Mai, before hopefully popping across the boarder into Laos. Gary’s parents had to leave us to start their long journey home yesterday – interrupted of course by a luxurious stay in Bombay where they’re booked into a Taj - the poshest 5 star hotel in town (well, it is their wedding anniversary!). In contrast we’re off to a £10 a night jobby up North! We’ll be returning to Bangkok several times in the next month or two, so we’ll probably end up posting more pictures of pointy Wats soon. You never know, we may even brave a ‘massagee’. Just maybe.

Bangkok Pictures

Bangkok Grand Palace, with Gary and his Mum and Dad. Lots of gold paint on the buildings you might notice. I liked the trees too - they were cut like the lolly-pop trees kids draw! If you look below there are a few more pictures of the Palace, with yet more gold paint. Lots of gold. And lots of pointy spikes everywhere too!

As well as the gold paint and mirrors, the palace was lavishly painted. We were particularly intrigued by this detailed mural of the Ramayana - it seemed to be more of an extract from the Karma Sutra!

Return to Hong Kong and Macau

Hong Kong seems to be the most sociable venue on our trip so far. Last time we came here about 2 months ago we met up briefly with TJ. This time, Gary’s parents came out from the UK to join us for a short holiday. We convinced them to travel around with us for a bit – from Hong Kong to Macau, and then flying on to Bangkok before they returned to London (with a short stop over in Bombay for a few nights). In other words, their own mini world tour! One of Gary’s dad’s first encounters in Hong Kong was from a shifty bloke who offered a “Punjabi Luxmi” – clearly Gary’s mum wasn’t sufficiently visible since, as it took some time for Gary’s dad to realise, the shifty guy was offering a Punjabi virgin!

As you might have gathered from our previous entries, we love Hong Kong. The vibrant life this city has is amazing. But we were a bit worried that retuning here at this time of year was a tad risky as it’s meant to be the rainy season: very hot, very humid, and very, very wet. But I think Gary’s parents worked some sort of miracle, giving us the best weather we’ve had on this trip so far. Beautiful sunny days, cool breezes, brilliant blue skies with little fluffy white clouds – gorgeous. The only time we thought we’d get rained on was when we took the tram to the top of Victoria Peak for a walk around the mountain. Then the clouds rolled in from the sea in a really ominous way all around us, but still managed to leave us with lovely glimpses of the city below. Very odd views! Even then if only spotted with drizzle for a minute or so before clearing up again to give us the most beautiful night-time panorama across of Hong Kong we’ve seen yet.

One drawback of Hong Kong is that it is expensive to fly out of the place. Luckily the neighbouring gambling haven of Macau is presently taking advantage of this, offering cheap flights to other places in Asia. I managed to wangle flights to Thailand for less than £50 each, so we popped across on the ferry to see the bright lights and glitzy fountains – and yes, the giant golden pineapple casino the ‘Grand Lisboa’ is as hideously fascinating as ever. Oh, and the silly fountain outside the ‘Wynn’ Casino seems to have a bigger repertoire of cheesy songs with choreographed water / light / fire shows than we thought. Our favourite this time was a rendition of an 80’s hit which came complete with fireball eruptions during every chorus: ‘I need a Hero!’ WHOOMPH!!!

This time we managed to stumble upon a dancing festival in the middle of town, near the façade of a famous Portuguese Church that burnt down in the last century. Pure skill in our timing as always! We saw a Chinese Dragon Dance, and then watched as troops of girls from different countries marched past in fancy national dress, posing for photos. The best was the group from the USA. They went Hawaiian style – i.e. dressed in only streamer skirts and bikini tops made of coconuts! The UK girls were much more boringly outfitted in black trousers and T-Shirts with ‘London’ written across the front. Very dull.

Our luck with the weather held out beautifully. It was gorgeous the day we walked around Macau, fine when we got to the airport the next morning, a bit cloudy when we boarded the plane… and THEN the rainy season hit with a vengeance! Our plane was stuck on the runway for about half an hour in a torrential downpour with winds so strong you could see and feel the wings shaking. The very competent pilot managed to take off quickly in a break in the weather, but it was a pretty shaky, turbulent flight. We seemed to escape Macau in the nick of time!

Anyway, on to Thailand. We’ll let you know how we get on in Bangkok. Perhaps we’ll have more offers of ‘massagee?’ from some Thai Luxmi! You never know your luck!

Return to Hong Kong and Macau Pictures

Hong Kong harbour with Gary, his Mum and Dad. They brought fantastic weather with them to Asia - beautiful bright days considering it was the rainy season.
The weather did turn slightly ominous when we climbed to Victoria Peak. Cloud rolled in around the island in a very spooky way as you can see here. Luckily we got to shelter before we got soaked!
Sunset from Victoria Peak. Nice view!
The Symphony of Lights (a choreographed music / light display) across Hong Kong Harbour. Lots of lasers and lights on a very clear night.
In Macau, with our usual skill, we managed to arrive at the main sights in the centre of town in the middle of a dance festival! We were treated to a fluorescent orange dragon dancing to drum beats, and then loads of international parties who shimmied outside the church. Very festive.