A two hour ferry cruise and nine hour bus ride and we were in Bangkok. There, we had enough time to make it to the night bus to Chiang Mai, Thailand’s northern capital and second largest city ( but nowhere as big a Bangkok). The only bus that had any room left was the last one so we had a bit of time to kill, which we decided to spend at some beverage stall down the road from the station to have a few beers with stray dogs and locals. Realizing instantly that we were foreigners, some Thais around a crate on the curb waved us to come over for a beer (served in a glass full of ice). Offerings of cigarettes later and many cheers, we had engaged in a rudimentary conversation. None of them could really speak any English and much less us Thai, but through gestures we managed to exchange some pieces of information. They visibly appeared super stoked that they were spending a moment with us, but it took some time for Jesse and I to shed the suspicion that we had gathered during our stay in more touristic spots in Thailand, where usually when a local comes to you, it’s to get to your wallet. One man kept signing me to go to the stall to order something and at first I thoughts he wanted me to buy him a beer, but eventually, I realized that he wanted me to get myself a glass so he could pour me some of his own. Very nice of him and I also ended up buying him and his friends a beer. One of them even went so far as walking us to our gate at the station and making sure with the attendant that we would board the correct bus. Finally, there was the Thai hospitality mentioned so often in the Lonely Planet guide, but of which I had yet to witness any manifestation. Jesse and I became hopeful again for the next installment of the trip as both of us had gotten really disillusioned with the overly artificial atmosphere reigning king on the islands.
I’m a monk!
The morning after, we arrived in Chiang Mai and not too motivated towards browsing the massive hostel selection of the city, we settled for the first sensible one we came across. There, we took possession of our beds, dropped off our travelling apparatus and after an internet session headed out for a walk around town. Chiang Mai is famous for being a spiritual center as well so temples are abundant as are monks dressed in their Buddhist costumes. Thai temples are quite pretty and somewhat peculiar in their architectures, which is a striking departure from that which I had seen everywhere else Asia. But with any buildings of this type, its only a game of outdoing the neighboring temple so soon enough we became saturated, or “templed out” as they say. While strolling around, we had been handed a couple of flyers advertising Thai boxing fight so we decided that this shall be our Friday night-out but before, we had to find some durian, a quest which for the sake of being concise (and to leave more space for random stories), I have detailed in another post.
Thai boxing fight
After a light street food dinner, we were sitting in a large covered arena waiting for the contenders of the fight. The procession sort of dragged on but soon enough, people were taking jabs and kicks at each other with the crowd cheering around the ring. The first two fights were between men and both ended in knockouts while the following combats were to be between females in a tournament form. We stuck around for a couple of confrontations – which were spectacular not by the force of the hits but by the rate of them – and decided that we had seen enough for the night. A quick stop for an overly spicy snack and we were both in bed and fast asleep, in my case from having spent some odd days sleeping on a concrete floor and lastly in a bus.
Night market in Chiang Mai
I dedicated the next day to work and writing but for the evening, Jesse and I met up with Georgia, someone I had met back in Malaysia and who happened to be in town. We again went for a meal at the night food market, took a walk around the absolutely gigantic Saturday market, at which Georgia, her trip drawing to an end, loaded up with souvenirs. Surprisingly, they had a whole lot of nice things there but since I’m not nearly done with my travels, had to abstain from burdening myself up with more things. In the end, the market was so large that we had to tuk-tuk back in town and for a destination picked an Irish bar as I was craving a glass of whisky. After, we headed to Chiang Mai’s party block and chilled there for some time handing roses Georgia had purchased from a street vendor to random men for them to give away to ladies.
In retrospect, we must have been pretty inebriated. Later in front of a 7-Eleven we were planning to go to for snacks, we decided that the fried insect stall was a better food option and purchased for 30 baht a plate full of differently sized crickets, frogs and larvae. In a few minutes me and Jesse had gobbled the whole thing down under the perplexed look of Georgia, who could only muster enough courage to eat one or two grasshoppers. The kindly spirited individuals that we are, we offered some of our fare to every passing tourist, but understandably, fried insect are not a popular thing with foreigner so most would politely refuse our gesture. That being said, we spotted more than a few Thais coming up to the stall for a bag full of fried critters, so it’s not just a tourist thing. This episode would later be referred between the three of us as the “Smörgåsbord“, of which my favorite were the larvae/maggots.
The next day, Jesse and I had planned to leave on our motorcycle trip but that night, we certainly did not go to bed early.
At the border between Thailand and Malaysia, my two travelling companions had decided to catch a train so I figured it would be best for me to do the same. Trains, as oppposed to buses which always tend to resemble each other are a mean of transpiration with a bit more personality. We boarded the 14 o’clock to Bangkok and took out seats in a car that must have been build around the 60’s with ceiling fans, refurbished seats and … no windows, just openings. At least that took care of the ambient heat, but made the voyage very noisy and windy. Something that was easily bearable at the beginning of it, but which became unsupportable after 12 hours. Alas, around two in the morning, we alighted in Surat Thani, where we checked in the only hotel around the station.
A few hours of sleep later, Georgia (from Canada) parted way with us as she had to proceed to Bangkok while Greta (from Italy) and I stuck together as we were pretty much taking the same route from then on: Koh Phangan and then Koh Tao, two very popular islands in South Thailand. After an hour or so walking around and getting confusing directions to the ferry terminal, we finally figured out that it was an hour’s bus ride outside of town. There our choices were also sort of limited and only found a way to our island by transiting through Koh Samui, the bigger island on the south, full of resorts and things we both could not afford. Originally, I had intended to go directly to Koh Tao, the diving island, but Greta had convinced me to stop for a few days on Koh Phangan, the debauchery island, famous for hosting the full moon parties, where all the young travelers in the region converge for a drug fueled night of dancing on the beach. My schedule could afford this deviation.
Koh Phangan
Finally, after two full days of transportation we arrived at our intended destination. There we made the decision to share an hotel room as it made more logistical sense at the time, checked into one and left for dinner. Finding a restaurant provided to be quite a challenge as on top of being vegetarian, Greta was also Italian but eventually, she settled for a place that had a large selection of meat-less dishes and we both ordered a tofu pad thai. Later, a very stereotypical Italian by the name of Daniele that she had met at the airport in Malaysia turned up and we got together for drinks. There, Greta started complaining about stomach pains which progressively during the evening, got worse. Back in the hotel room, she rushed to the bathroom and emptied herself in such a jet of liquid that for a moment I thought she was actually taking a shower. While asleep and thanks to my ability to snooze through jackhammers, I had imagined her ailment had only been transient but felt disappointed to learn in the morning that she had barely gotten any rest and spent much of the night hugging the toilet. We had had the exact same meal, which had most likely been cooked simultaneously in the same pan and I felt normal. My ramblings about the complexities of the human digestive system did not really console her, we had came here to party off the moral righteousness of Malaysian and instead, she was to be bed ridden and weak who god knows how many days.
Steven’s tattoo
That morning, Daniele turned up with his new roommate, Steven a pretty cool Irishman. Villages in Koh Phangan are almost made entirely of restaurants, hotels, bars, tattoo shops and clinics, which sort of gives you a rough idea of the kind of activity people indulge in on that island. Steven, inebriated like a proper Irish person often is had asked the barmaid the night before to draw him a picture of “boy meets girls”, which he then promptly had tattooed on his shoulder at the next door parlor. Obviously very hangover the next day, he had forgotten about this little adventure but got his memory refreshed by the avalanche of derogatory comments about his drunken stupidity on his Facebook feed. What amazes me was his ability to take the whole situation with humor, which for a moment distracted Greta away from her stomach issues. He first came across to me a drunken foreigner idiot out for a bout of binge drinking in Thailand, but the more we discussed the more I discovered the intelligent side of him. He actually worked for the Game of Thrones TV series and anyone who watches the least bit of television has heard of this magnificently executed production. Steven had loads of crazy stories to tell about the filming and gave me some pretty cool insider details on how they manage to turn papier mâché structures into awesome castles.
At the Black Moon Party
That night was the night of the black moon party, the reason we had come to the island and luckily, Greta began feeling better and better as the day progressed. Since the full moon party can only happen once every 28 days or so, the locals organize a black moon party (no moon) and two half moon parties to make sure the influx of tourist to their island stays relatively constant. So that evening, after some pretty good pizza at an Italian joint chosen by none other than Daniele, we boarded a taxi and made our way to some undisclosed location in the jungle. I’m not going to do into lengths describing the event because 1) it sort of sucked and 2) it’s not my sort of thing, but it had a setup made of funky sculptures and large mushroomy dome covering the dance floor. Fluorescent body painting stands greatly outnumbered those where you could actually purchase (overpriced) liquor at and the music was of the psychedelic trance type which to the untrained hear sounded like the exact same beat looping over and over again. Obviously, half the people there must have been on shrooms (drugs). We left pretty early considering the event was to end at 10 in the morning but at least we got that box checked.
Not a bad place to have lunch!
Not much happened the following day but at night, we had planned to try the famous mushroom shakes, which ended up falling through as only Steven and I were up for it. This evening though, we were finally informed about the place to be for that sort of think on Koh Phangan, a bar only accessible by boat, open 24/7 and which tips off the police to stay away. Basically a drug supermarket, where weird things happen and from which people don’t really come back, but most likely because having spent all their money on psychedelics, can no longer afford the steep cost of a longboat back.
Koh Tao
Already quite fed up with the climate on the party island, I was anxious to get to Koh Tao, the diving one. Rimas, a friend, was expecting me and Jesse, an American I had met while in Seoul and with which I had planned to do some motorcycling around Thailand was also arriving on that same day. I left the others behind and took the ferry where I met a girl who upon laying her eyes on my Utila t-shirt, told me she had also spent a month there and after a few minutes of conversation, we realized that we had been following each other’s footsteps in Central-America by a week’s interval. She had been at the same diving school as me and had met and befriended the people I knew there; small world, good memories. Once in Koh Tao, my two friends were staying at opposite ends but I immediately took a cab to Rimas’ side of the island, where within a couple of minutes of meeting him he kindly offered me his couch in a small apartment he was renting. With accommodation sorted out for the next few days I unpacked my things and set out to rent a scooter for me and Rimas to drive to Sairee beach, a town some kilometers north where Jesse was staying.
The traffic on this island is crazy and unsurprisingly, you see people bandaged up all over from falling and scraping and still you see most of them riding in flip-flops and without helmets. To be honest, I would have rather not rented a scooter, but the taxis there run a cartel and fix the prices. Going to Sairee beach from the southern tip of the island is 400 baht (14$) one way while a scooter for 24 hours is 150 baht. It’s easy to guess which is he more economical option. I met up with Jesse and two other guys he had met on the way there, an Italian and a Portuguese, we all had dinner and went to a beach bar for some fire shows. Around 2 in the morning, I hoped on my scooter and slowly drove back to Rimas’ apartment, knowing that in spite of having limited my alcohol intake, if I was in Canada I would probably be over the legal limit but this being Thailand and on Koh Tao in particular, the police turns a blind eye to drunk driving.
Koh Tao seen from one of its mountains
Rimas was diving with Buddah View so I figured I should give them a try. I took the morning easy and in the afternoon booked a UV night dive with them and proceeded to visit the island on my scooter. While it was for the most part driving on steep dirt roads, the island had a few mountains which offered some great panoramas. Later, my ride surrendered back to its owner, I prepared my equipment for the night dive and hoped on the pick-up truck which took me to the boat dock and boarded the diving vessel. This is also where I was told the dive was not UV, it was just a normal dive. A UV dive is done at night and is the underwater equivalent of being in a club full of UV lights. You where a special lens on top of you mask and carry an ultraviolet torch in lieu of a normal one and supposedly, it makes the wildlife and plants down there glow in very psychedelic ways.
There is a staggering number of dive shops on Koh Tao, more than 40 I think. Since most of them cannot afford to have direct access to a dock, their ships all moor at the island’s main pier and they transport their customers between there and their shop on trucks. Some have air compressors on board their ships, but most of time, the crew has load and unload all the tanks as well. Quite a pain in the butt compared to what I am used to. Anyway, we sent to site called Junkyard, which is flat sand patch with a bunch of metal structures, a truck and some other items like a gym set scattered around. Not that interesting, but that night, I set a personal record of 70 minutes under, probably owing to the fact that since there was nothing to get excited about, my air consumption remained low due to boredom. On the way back to the shop, I put my name up for the morning’s two dives and met up with Rimas for dinner and some drinks (lots in fact).
Mango Bay
Up bright and early, same routine of getting to the boat for diving. A ship it should be called actually, as it can take about 50 divers at once and even provides lodging for part of its crew, which while we were returning from the first dive, was chopping up squid and cooking rice. Neat I thought, what a nice snack but no, it was not for us. The first site we visited was named Green Rock and it was only me, Rimas, and the guide. It was fun, lots of swim throughs and little caverns to crawl around, but I came back up with several cuts and scrapes from trying to fit myself into small orifices. In case your wondering blood looks green underwater To my great disappointment, the location of the second dive got changed to Junkyard again, which was day or night, ended up being junk.
I rented a scooter again to visit Jesse and his friends and on my walk to the restaurant, stopped at a small dive shop named New Wave Diving to inquire about their pricing. Instantly, they welcomed me in a very friendly and professional way and right off the bat offered me a decent discount due to my experience. When I asked if they were going to the wreck, they replied that no but they would try to accommodate me by maybe selecting a nearby dive site and dropping me off there. Since I felt I had to give another opportunity for Koh Tao to surprise me, I told them there was a 90% chance I’d be there. Not much happened on that night as my friends were recovering from a Thai whisky hangover so I made home early. The following afternoon, as promised I showed up at the dive shop and just like the previous night, were very welcoming. Much better already, the previous company had became much to large to provide any sort of personalized service and contented itself on churning out divers like a factory, just living off a reputation of excellence in teaching but certainly not in customer service. Some do not really mind but in my case, since I’m almost always going along, I expect to be able to socialize a bit on the dive. Added bonus, I was alone with my guide, who was actually was only a dive master in training so in effect, I was the one taking him out.
This afternoon, we started with a dive at Green Rock, of which I did not see much for my rental mask was fogging all the time. Normally I carry my own. Masks are sort of like underwear, they are adapted to your morphology and being in close proximity with eyes, nose and mouth, can actually transmit diseases and infections if not properly cleaned between users. Stupid me though, I had lost mine on Koh Phangan. For the second dive, my guide kindly offered me his own and we were dropped of at the wreck while the rest of the group kept going to a nearby site. The HTMS Sattakut, an almost 50 meters long ship sunken to make an artificial reef lied almost 30 meters down below. Again the visibility was not that great, especially where the ship contacted the sea floor and we could only stay down so long as my guide had been diving in the morning and would hit his no-decompression limit way before I did but it remains that I really enjoyed my time under. Large fishes, and lots of cool stuff to see down there. After 25 minutes or so, we rose to a shallower depth and started finning westward to another dive site, which would get us closer to the boat. The site, a pinnacle, provided a scenic ascension to the surface from its bottom at 20 meters or so to its top at 5.
Satisfied with my afternoon, I gave farewell to the staff and went purchasing tickets to Bangkok with Jesse. Got back to Rimas’ apartment, dropped my stuff, desalinized, changed, met him for dinner and came back into town for my last night on Koh Tao. We remained for some hours at Jesse’s hostel where they had a party going but later went to a beach bar, where I was supposed to meet Greta. Being the Italian that she is, she was more than an hour late. While looking for her, I ran into a group of Danish guys I had met in the Pehrentians so that was a bit of a coincidence. The night out ended late and I drove my scooter carefully to my end of the island for one last night on the concrete floor. Rimas did not have a mattress, so all I had to rest on was my sleeping back and a couch that soon provided to be too short to sleep on. Early the next day I took my leave from my host, but not before thoroughly thanking him for his hospitality. Since both of us are into the same activity I guess, the chances of seeing each other again are pretty high, especially that he might end up working in Mexico, which thanks to cheap discounted flights is basically next-door to Canada.
Rimas, acting like a Canadian
Soon I was aboard the high-speed ferry and Koh Tao was retreating in the distance. Certainly happy I had visited the island, I was nonetheless relieved to leave it. Me and Rimas had discussed this at length some evenings ago and both agreed that we each vastly preferred Utila in Honduras. Understandably, before coming there we had projected our previous experience onto Koh Tao as this is what we had to compare it with. Regrettably, we had raised our expectations too much as for the both of us this island did not deliver (or it did in too great quantities): too much partying, too much people, too much traffic, too big, too many dive shops, too touristic, in short, too much everything. Too bad, since we had both been considering the place for work in the near future. Enough complaining.
Dammit, this was way too much writing for such a short period of time, but I’m in a bus towards Pai at the moment and don’t have much else to do.
On first impression, due to its similar cultural constitution, Malaysia appears to be a poorer and larger version of Singapore, but on close inspection, it is not. A very large amount of the population is Muslim, which gives everything a slightly different allure. Women walk around wearing the hijab, at certain hours cities fill-up with the imam’s calls for prayers and alcohol can sometimes be difficult to find. Not that Islamic countries around Asia are a rarity, but Malaysia was the first one I got to experience and I must admit that albeit it sort of lacks many positive aspects that I have found during my visits to other countries where this religion prevails, namely architecture, art and vibe, the cohabitation with more conventional Asian cultures is interesting.
Kuala Lumpur
Dressed for the mosque
Abbreviated as KL by its inhabitants and the Singaporeans, its your typical bustling Asian metropolis but this time with a Muslim twist to it. My bus from Singapore arrived much earlier than I expected and dropped me along with two younger Germans in the middle of the city and a long ways from where I had booked a bed. Early in the morning, the Imam’s first calls filled up the air, waking in the process all the workers from the countryside, who not able to afford a room in the city, have to sleep on cardboard boxes in parks and alleyways. After a couple of kilometers’ walk we made it to the hostel but not able to check in for a long time still, I collapsed on a couch on the lounge and completed my night there.
The steps to the Batu caves
Originally, I had booked three night at this hostel, but not entirely convinced KL was worth staying so long in, I preemptively cancelled my last night, which turned out to be a smart move. An afternoon spent walling in the city’s central park, a visit to the national mosque, where I had to endure an Islam conversion speech that would make anyone with the slightest bit of knowledge of logic and basic human psychology cringe and that was it for my first day. On the second day, I went to Batu caves, an Hindu complex on the outskirts of town, visited some caverns and upon heading back to KL, made a detour through the Petronas Towers and the modern downtown area which unsurprisingly was just a very large shopping mall. Funny story, while walking in the Chinatown, I ran into a fellow traveler I had met more than two months ago in Beijing, quite an unlikely coincidence but contrary to what my wannabe Islam teacher would have wanted me to believe, not a miracle.
Inside the Batu caves
Kuala Lumpur is dirty, messy, noisy and badly polluted (the amount of thrash floating around after a rain storm was staggering) so I quickly got fed up with it’s dense urban environments, but one of its definitely positive aspect was again, the food, which is good, varied an cheap and the only moment of which I did not enjoy so much was the time I seriously choked on a piece of bread in the middle of a restaurant. Regardless, I began considering my options pretty soon into my stay in the city and soon found the destination that would give me the contrast in my travels I needed so much: the Perenthians. Two islands several kilometers off the eastern coast of peninsular Malaysia, with cabins set in nature, hiking, beaches and diving. With this new destination in mind, I began searching for accommodation there but soon had to give up as the options were either too expensive or unreachable. Disappointed, I turned off my computer and was soon engaged in a conversation with other travelers about the things travelers usually first speak about: their travels, where they have been, where they are going, and things in between. There, I learned that the Perenthians shut-down entirely during the monsoon season and might at the moment only be partially open and also that most had really good things to say about Penang, an island on the west coast and the location of Georgetown, and old British colonial hub now a UNESCO world heritage site and a foodie’s paradise. With this fresh new travel intelligence in mind, I figured that I could go to Penang for some days, which would get me closer to the Perenthians, would give me more time to contact hostels there and should I not be able to reach the islands at all, would at least get me nearer Thailand.
Penang (Georgetown)
A six hour bus ride, which was made longer by incessant stops to let the Muslim passengers carry on their praying duties, and I found myself in Georgetown. Not as pretty as I thought but given the amount of night markets and restaurants, the food scene looked promising.
A food stall at the night market in Georgetown
Upon entering my dorm to set my backpack down before heading for dinner, I ran into Mike (his real name is Mikaj) from Vancouver, one of my roommates. Within one minute, I had established that he wanted to go to the Perenthians, that he had med two girls that came back from the islands saying that they were indeed partly open and that he had spent the last two weeks in Penang because he liked the food and got too lazy to move anywhere. Both coming to the realization that each other was exactly what we needed, me the information that he had and him a kick in the ass, we quickly came to an agreement that in two days we shall leave for those much sought-after islands, but keep on looking for places to stay there.
Two weeks in Georgetown though, there must be loads to do here, so I asked Mike what his recommendations were but sadly he had none in particular, he just felt that the vibe was great, and that he had discovered a luxurious hotel into which he could sneak in to enjoy the pool and jacuzzi without the staff having second-thoughts about him being a customer. I told him lounging around water surfaces was not my thing, but we still got a laugh out of this case of inverted racism. Penang is very touristic and outside of Georgetown, it’s resort after resort, but it was touted as having a great national park so I decided I should check it out and then afterwards take a walk around town. The park was somewhat of a deception, but the city tour provided an explanation as to why Mike had qualified the place as “chilled-out”. No hustle-bustle, lots of street life, sidewalks (an all to often absent concept in Asia), excellent food, a good crowd of backpackers and a city that is big but not unmanageable by foot. Back at the hostel but exhausted from a long day of walking around in the Malaysian heat, I sat down for a beer with Mike and Adam (from Sweden) which turned into two beers, which turned into three beers, which turned into a night of drinking and talking about diving between me and Adam as Mike had stuffed himself with too much Indian food and retired much earlier than us. As I am writing these lines more than two weeks later, I have had the chance to spend numerous evenings having many of those Asian beers and the curious fact about them is that if you stay away from the cheap brands, you will not get a hangover no matter the amount that you drink. You will certainly wake up dehydrated and tired, but no headache, no nausea. Perhaps these brews have been engineered specifically not to give tourists bad morning afters? So that they can have many and still be able to go out and spend money around the next day? I am digressing.
Colonial Georgetown
Fearing that I would be out of reach of an internet connection in the Perenthians, I spend my last day in Georgetown doing some work and that night, Mike and I hopped in a night bus to Kuala Besut, the coastal town from which the ferry boats depart. Obviously, Mike and I were unsuccessful at securing any affordable bed on the island, but we reminded ourselves that just showing up somewhere hoping for a place to stay always ends up working out in some way or another.
Pulau Perenthian Kecil
The buses in Malaysia are actually quite roomy. With only three seats on the width, there is ample space for the elbows and shoulders. Still, in spite of a sleeping pill, I could never quite get proper rest and spent the majority of the night waking up to change position only to realize that sitting was the only option.
View of coral bay at Pulau Perhentian Kecil
I arrived very early at the ferry dock and after a bit of waiting, was on a small craft hopping waves towards Pulau Perenthian Kecil (“small stopping point island” in Malaysian). The ride was certainly bumpy, and indeed some other passengers appeared not to have a particularly enjoyable cruise, but it was nothing compared to what I had experienced in the past. Once on the island itself, me and Mike set out to explore the area to see what our lodging options were and as expected, there were not that many: some cabins and a resort. We reserved a chalet at the one that seemed to be the most sensible choice regarding location and price, but had to settle for a double bed which we would have to share. At 40 ringgit (6.6 $CDN) a night between the two of us, no big deal.
Contrast
While scouting beds, I had also stopped by the three dive shops that were there as well and booked an afternoon dive with one of them so a quick nap and a short lunch later, I was in the water with the local marine population. The visibility was not great, not more than 10 meters, but the diversity of wildlife compensated and I got to see during that dive more species of fish and invertebrates through all my time in Honduras. Satisfied with the experience and the price (30$ for a dive), I booked another dive for the following morning, which was set to happen on Sugar wreck, a cargo ship that capsized twelve years ago during a storm and is now resting on its side in 20 meters of water at about 30 minutes by boat from the island, weather permitting of course. The season having just started, the seas could still be a bit rough and visibility poor, but that morning, mother nature decided to cooperate and made the dive possible. At a 100 meters long, Sugar wreck was to be the largest ship I would have ever dived on so I got pretty excited.
Once under, I was sort of disappointed that I could only see down to a couple of meters but soon had my attention diverted by the sheer size of the boat, all the junk that was lying around it and how nature had reclaimed the ship. The site of the sinking, originally a flat sandy plain, was now teeming with corals, anemones, bamboo sharks, carpets of sea urchins, barracudas and cuttlefishes. Even lion fishes, one of which visibly annoyed by this early morning intrusion, decided to get between me and the rest of the group, delaying my passage to the point where I almost lost them and challenging my buoyancy skills by forcing me to hover between walls of urchins, pieces of rusty metal sticking out and the roof of the cargo hold. How much more impressive must this dive have been in better conditions, but definitely satisfied, I would dive two other times around the island, but with another shop, not that the first one was inadequate, but I like spreading my business around. Although I would not be going back to Sugar wreck, I was the only customer on one dive, which really afforded me the time to properly look at things. I also did not get a chance to visit the other wreck, which apparently was guarded by a titan trigger fish with a very bad temper.
East beach
Mike occupied his time between napping and lounging on the beach so occasionally, I would join him for a game of frisbee or volleyball. The west side of the island, not yet open and essentially deserted, provided us with a lot of room to throw things at each other. Night time activities, as is to be expected in such a place, pretty much revolved around drinking and making friends at one of the few beach side restaurants or at the bonfire which some locals would make every night. Nothing unusual there, but what set this island experience apart was that the community was very small so you could make acquaintances one night and see them the next day. Soon enough, Mike and I had made buddies with a large portion of the foreigners, composed overwhelmingly of Scandinavians (and Finnish + Estonian), which made our efforts at building hype towards the Sweden-Canada Olympic hockey final that much more easy.
Normally, I would not care much about a hockey game, but the fact that I was in Malaysia on an island surrounded by sand, palm trees, tropical water and Swedish people made the whole event too extraneous/exciting to pass. So the night of the game, our cabin neighbors, a Swedish couple, had arranged with a local convenience store owner who happened to have a satellite TV to show the game. He probably had never head of the sport, but knew very well that so many customers at once would mean good business for him. Both them and Mike and I spread the word around that we should all meet there so at the rendez-vous time, the little shack was overflowing with Scandinavians and three of us Canadians, as we had only been able to find one other fellow country-woman. Naturally, we had a bet going with some supporters of the opposite team and naturally, we came out winners. Two beers per goal of difference, so six beers (Canada won 3-0), which we happily took over to the bonfire on the other side of the beach. The night ended with an infructuous quest for nesting turtles on the west-side beach and a swim, which I quietly sat out on the beach, because one person leaving the party without the others knowing could cause a major panic; someone had to play the lifeguard.
Inside the fishing village
Mike had drank himself out of commission for the next two days, but I thankfully had managed my alcohol intake pretty well and only felt tired for the impossibility to sleep in the morning heat but otherwise fine. Well enough to go diving again during the day, hike to the fisherman’s village on the southern tip of the island and certainly sufficiently in shape to make it to the bonfire that night again. The following day was built around the same structure of diving, beach and bonfire, but that would as far as the routine went, I had to leave the next morning.
Coral bay at sunset
I had expected the Perenthians to be more “rural” than they actually were. For instance, before leaving I had told those who might need to get a hold of me that I would be disconnected for the next couple of days but to my surprise, the Internet had made it there and in fact, there were a lot of modern luxury that had reached those islands so much so that it was possible to indulge in a full-fledged resort experience. Still, the island (in its pre-high season state) provided to be an ideal compromise between size and amenities. For those that wanted a true “cabin on the beach” experience, all it took was a short taxi-boat ride to another more remote beach. And if you felt more social, the small crowds gathering at the handful of restaurants for the evening barbecues were a good way of making some interesting encounters. It suffices to say that my time on the Perenthians has been the highlight of Malaysia for me.
Moving North
Malaysia is split in two between the actual continent and the island of Borneo. Obviously, it was not practical for me to the latter as well, so sadly, there is a whole part of that country that I missed. I might come back to it if ever I do go to Indonesia, but while I’m immensely glad of having passed through Malaysia, I found that it generally lacked in charm and that at the end of the day, there was not a whole lot of things to do or places to go that seemed appealing to me.
Anyhow, I left the Perenthian Islands on the first ferry with two ladies that were both going up to Thailand, very relieved to be tagging along to someone that knows the way since that time, it was a pretty complicated journey and I had not done my homework. As for Mike, he replaced me with a Norwegian “friend” he had made himself earlier during his journey and that happened to be arriving on the very same ferry that was about to take me back on the continent. Let’s say that I fully understand why he did not seem terribly unhappy to see me go.
I’m sort of thrilled to go to Thailand, partly for the hype that has been building up during my whole trip but also for the fact that my time constraints are far looser here that they have been so far. I’m only suppose to meet a friend visiting me from Canada in Vietnam mid march and in Thailand itself, I should meet-up with two different travelling buddies, Rimas, my old diving instructor whom I saw in Hawaii and Jesse, an American I befriended while in Seoul.
Singapore is simply fascinating. It’s like few other countries in the world, first because it is the largest city-state there is, but also because there four distinct cultures, Indians, Chinese, Malaysians and Westerners all seem to cohabit in relative peacefulness and mix themselves to form the social fabric of this peculiar nation. Earlier in my travels, when I was in Seoul, I met these two Singaporean girls, and not that we spent a lot of time hanging out back there, but I found their depiction of their homeland very interesting and told them I may come one day.
And after two months, that day finally came. When it became time for me to leave Hawaii and come back to the Asian continent, I figured I had some days to spare before I had to be in Thailand and the tickets to everywhere in South-East Asia were really expensive. Except for Singapore. For those reasons, I decided to take the long way up to Thailand and visit this little island of ultra-modernity.
Hindu template in Singapore’s Chinatown
The city
Singapore could be a foretaste of what the big western cities will be like a couple of decades from now, where the rising price of gas will have put a halt to urban sprawling and where the cost of real estate will have made densification and public transportation the way to go and car-centric designs obsolete.
The Singapore skyline
The city is clean, well urbanized, parks, sporting facilities are abundant and the transportation network is cheap and efficient. Not one piece of trash on the ground, not one cigarette butt, not one act of vandalism, not one advertisement taped to a telephone pole. However, there is this lingering feeling of mistrust in the air, this coldness in spite of the searing hot weather. In many regards, Singapore is an example to follow and in many others, not. The state appears to be really repressive, fines are hefty; any misconduct and civil disobedience I bet is dealt with in a swift and brutal manner. In fact, upon entering the country, in bright big red letters on the customs form is written: Drug trafficking is punishable by death in Singapore. You get the idea.
Still, if me make abstraction of the barely tolerable temperature, aimless wandering in downtown Singapore is pure pleasure, a feast for the eyes, with great architecture everywhere, a bunch of colorful Indian shops selling their wares or a Chinese kitchen catering to its daily load of customers, the city is as I said, fascinating. On one street I was randomly walking on, I came across a mosque, an Hindu and Buddhist temples and I would not be surprised if there was a christian church nearby. Thanks to my Singaporean acquaintances, I also got to see what the city is like outside of its core and away from the shopping centers. While everything remains very much the same, the architecture takes a very communist turn. Understandably, there is not a whole lot of space in the country so the lower classes, those that cannot afford the exorbitant cost of property ownership, are stacked in large concrete apartment blocks. From what I understood, if you do not have a family it’s not really possible for you to buy a house until you are 35 years old and once you do, you can only sell it after five years. As for rentals, I imagine the waiting lines are very long. Consequently, both of my 29 year old friends were still living with their parents.
Singapore’s colonial past and cosmopolitanism certainly has made it stand out among other Asian cities, in the end however, there is only a couple of days’ worth of sightseeing to be done there. Unless you have a very deep wallet and a taste for shopping, the cost of activities is sort of prohibitive as is the nightlife; it starts to feel very artificial pretty fast. No other traveler lingers either. Some are just arriving from elsewhere, some are returning home to their respective country, but no one remains there for a long time.
The Lavender hawker center
The food
When I questioned my Singaporean friends about one aspect of their country/city they really liked, they were unanimous: the food. As you might have predicted, so many cultures cohabiting leads to a wide variety of cuisines and fusions, certainly, but in Singapore, it’s also the format into which it is delivered, its accessibility and let’s not forget, the price. It appears that the inhabitants there don’t cook very much for themselves. All over the city you can find large food courts, or hawker centers, set up very much like those found in shopping centers except that they do not consist of your very popular fast-food chain, but of many small specialty kitchens. One serving Korean food, the other Chinese noodles, one dedicated to turtle soup, Indian fare, halal dishes, freshly pressed juices, etc. and in the middle, a larger stall catering to your need in beverages. The diversity is staggering, the one near my hostel must have housed at least 30 kitchens and for a good couple months I could have gone there without having the same meal twice. At a handful of dollars for every dish, no wonder it’s Singapore’s highlight.
My time there
Hanging out
Not so careful reading between the lines will give you a good idea of how my time in Singapore was spent: walking around and eating. Well, eating does not normally count as an activity since you’ll most likely be doing it three times on any given day, but in Singapore, my daily routine got structured around it, walking to the spots where the best restaurants were and always looking forward to the next meal. I did obviously hung out with my friends. We went out one night for Malay food, then translated to a nearby bar for a couple beers and subsequently headed for someone’s apartment (her parent’s actually) for some more drinks and discussions. There, the plan became to climb a hill for a view of the city and possibly a sunrise, but exhausted at 3 am, I took to taking a nap on the floor. At 5, they woke me up to go to this park but once there, no chance, it had been abandoned for some years so whatever viewpoint there might have been, either we could not find or had been overgrown with vegetation.
The Marina Bay Sands
I made it back to my hostel at 9 and went to bed without bothering to brush my teeth or anything. Still, I managed to make the day a rather productive one by visiting the Singapore modern art museum and touring the Marina Bay Sands and Garden’s by the Bay, both very impressive in their own regard. At that moment, I already sort of had enough of the city and needed to move on so I booked a bus ticket to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for the next evening. The next day, more wandering in the city and at the end of the afternoon I met my friends one more time at a small live-music type of event at a park in the city for a beer. Coming back in time for one more last-meal at my local food court, I boarded my bus for Malaysia and in no time I had left Singapore but not without marveling one last time at its impressive skyline and gigantic shipping port.
The Pacific ocean is wide, wider than a look a world map would suggest. My travelling time to Singapore from Honolulu was to be 23 hours first through a 11 hour flight to Manilla and then a 3 hours and a half flight to Singapore with a good 8 hours of layover in between. Since spending the better part of my day killing time in the Manilla airport international terminal did no sound very appealing, I decided to pass the customs and go walk around the Filipino capital for a couple of hours.
A local market in Manila
I had to negotiate my taxi ride pretty hard with several threats of opening the door and getting out but eventually I managed to reach the city. My apologies for being an asshole tourist mr cab driver, but the fact that I’m leaving from the airport does not justify multiplying your fare by 8. The make a short list short, all I had time to visit was the Rizal park, the Intramuros (old town), a UNESCO world heritage church and the Chinatown. Add to that a few intrusions into the local life at markets, street food stalls and churches and that was it for my excursion into Manila. Much to the disappointment of all these very feminine looking men that seem to have a keen interest in me, that was all I could cram into the couple of hours I had away from the airport.
Jeepneys, Manila’s most popular way to get around
Manila, being situated in a developing nation and having had a long history of Spanish colonial rule, had much in common with state capitals of Central-America I found. It smells, its dirty, its hot, save a couple of nice older buildings, its full of ugly, circulation is a huge mess, manifestation of abject poverty are abundant (the amount of street children…) and I bet it can be visited in a day or two. But on another level, its exhilarating to be in and its an overwhelming feast for the senses. It’s definitely a departure from Honolulu and a nice foretaste to what is coming my way in South-East Asia. I’m travelling again.
