Monday, August 31, 2009

'Nam






Due to my extreme laziness, combined with a rather hectic and busy travelling itinerary, I have completely foresaken my blog over the last month or so. But I have come this far, so I might as well keep on truckin. Vietnam was one of my favorites for sure. As I flew into Saigon a.k.a. Ho Chi Minh City, I noticed 1,000's of scooters plowing along through the streets, with no apparent order whatsoever. And that's basically what it is. I think there might be rules and traffic lights and stuff, but nobody really takes them seriously. I saw this firsthand right away as I elected to go with the cheaper and much more dangerous option of taking a motorcycle taxi into town instead of a proper cab. After some hard negotiating, we were on our way, weaving in and out of the mess of scooters. I'm pretty sure we came close to violent collisions with other bikes or pedestrians numerous times, but the driver seemed oblivious or uncaring of this. My hotel was pretty decadent, complete with a full buffet breakfast and the coldest AC imaginable for a cool $15/night. This was one of the more expensive rooms I've had on my trip so far, but I figured I deserved it because....no wait, I didn't deserve it at all. But anyways, it was great! From there I did a couple tours. The first was the Mekong Delta, which was pretty cool, but nothing too incredible. The second was the Cu Chi Tunnels, which were much more fascinating. The tunnels were built during the war by the Viet Cong to escape the American air bombings. After being told that the tunnels had been doubled in size since the war to accomodate fat western tourists, I was shocked to see just how small they still were. I crawled through 100 metres of them, and there was one point where I had to lay completely horizontally and drag myself through using my elbows. This was not good at all for my claustrophobia, and it was a massive mental effort to not lose it completely down there. There is no way that a tour like this would fly in North America, that's for sure. I emerged from the tunnel sweating buckets, and ecstatic to see the light of day again. I can't believe the VC's actually lived down there! To make things more spicy, the tunnels and surrounding areas were littered with booby traps like collapsing floors that fell on to razor sharp bamboo spikes. Other than that, a great place to live, I'm told.

After Saigon, Mark (a buddy I met on the Mekong Delta tour) and I signed up for a bus pass that would take us all the way North up to Hanoi, stopping along the way at Na Trangh and Hoi An. Little did we know, these were overnight buses which must have been manufactured in the deepest realms of hell. They were the smallest, most uncomfortable beds I have ever seen. But even if they were queen sized pillow topped beds, they would have been no match for the insanely bumpy roads. Combine that with a driver who has an alarming penchant for honking (I guess he forgot his passengers were on the sleeper bus), and it means you are getting no sleep. Despite this, Na Trangh and Hoi An were beautiful places, and I wish we would have had more time to spend there. Luckily, I'll be going back there with my Dad next month!

Hanoi was decent but nothing spectacular. I did manage to find an Air Force Museum there, which had some really cool planes helicopters on display. They even had a mig that you could get into. And for $5, you could suit up in a VC pilot uniform, complete with helmet and gloves. I had to do it!

What makes North Vietnam so spectacular are the areas outside of Hanoi, like Sapa and Halong Bay. Halong Bay has some of the craziest looking cliffs/mountains I have ever seen, standing almost vertically out of the ocean. I did a 2 day, one night package where I got to sleep on the boat. I befriended some travellers from England, and at night we got involved in some heated card games, complete with a healthy supply of booze. This went on late into the night on the deck of the boat, under a star-filled sky. Nice.

In Sapa I did some hiking through some beautiful hills with rice paddies. I did a village homestay, where you stay overnight with a family from the village. Although it sounds like a very cultural experience, I'd be lying if I said it was. It was basically a barn with 20 or so mattresses spread across the floor on the second level. There was a family there, but we really had no interaction with them. It was still a blast though. We had some great local food, and they even had karaoke there. As it turns out, our guide was a little too fond of the drink. He got absolutely smashed and hogged the karaoke for most of the night. Quite a spectacle. It was pretty funny though.

Overall, I loved Vietnam, and especially the friendliness of its people. Can't wait to go back!

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Bali & Lombok






After Thailand, I was off to beautiful Bali, Indonesia. I loved it before I even set foot on the island. Flying into Denpasar Airport, which is really in Kuta, the planes make their final approach low and slow over the ocean, and finally over Kuta Beach and onto the runway. Getting out of the airport was the usual unpleasant experience of ducking and dodging the numerous touts and scamsters trying to extract every last Indonesian Rupiah out of you in exchange for a very short ride into town. I managed to haggle one down to a reasonable level, and got into Kuta. As usual, I hadn't done a proper job researching the accomodation situation ahead of time, and spent 2 hours in the heat lugging around my backpack, which seemed to be gaining weight at a rather alarming rate. I ended up eventually lucking out and finding a sweet room with a queen sized bed, and huge balcony for only $8US/night.

The next day, it was time to try my hand at surfing on Kuta Beach. I've always wanted to try surfing, but living in Winnipeg, the opportunities to try have been a little hard to come by. We started out in the morning by getting dryland lessons, which involved our instructors showing us the basics on how to handle the board in the water, and the most important part - going from lying flat against the board to getting up and standing, doing your best to look ultra cool along the way. After this, we took to the waters. I was surprised when I successfully stood up on the very first wave that I challenged. I figured I must be a natural, and so it was to my dismay when I was embarassingly tossed aside by the next mini-wave that I took on. After some more waves and trial and error, I was getting up on every one and having a blast. I was taking on bigger and bigger waves, and even learning to steer. Very cool. My instructor said I did well, and even went on to say how much better a surfer I was than my brother Chris. I wasn't sure how he even knew Chris, but I didn't ask questions.

The next day I took a motorbike taxi down to the Southern coast of Bali, which is blessed with huge cliffs, where the ocean is crashing hard down below against their base. It was here that I took a 30 minute introduction to paragliding, with a local guy named Ketut. Ketut was all business, and within 20 minutes time - barely giving me enough time to take down my can of coke for courage - I was gearing up and waiting for just the right gust to get airborne. We didn't have to wait long, and soon we were in the air, floating over the ocean, just beyond the edge of the cliff. It took a few seconds for my senses to adapt to this new feeling of floating in the sky, without the noise of a motor to add some realism to it. But soon I was smiling and enjoying the experience thoroughly. It occurred to me that paragliding is not so much a thrill sport as much as it is an experience of serenity. The equipment is fairly minimal, and the wind is your fuel source, creating lift on the basic wing stretched out above you. I loved the experience, but I have to admit the slimpicity of the sport freaked me out a little. The simplicity also meant vulnerability to me, and I think I prefer the roar of a 4 stroke engine cooking up fuel in front of me, and having the familiar controls of an aircraft in my hands to make the plane do what I want it to in an instant. Maybe I'm just a control freak. But either way, it was a cool and unforgettable experience.

My nights in Kuta were spent drinking beer in various bars in Poppies Lane I and II, with random people I'd met either on tours or at my hotel. Kuta is basically to Australians what Cancun is to Canadians and Americans. So it was because of this that I enjoyed it for what it was, but after 3 days of seeing people sloppy drunk everywhere, and struggling to sleep at 3am while the music thumped on relentlessly, I was ready to move on and see a more genuine Bali.

I went up North to a town called Ubud. Ubud is the cultural heart of Bali, and it was much more tame than Kuta. I also enjoyed my stay there because I found a hotel where my room was absolutely amazing. The room was a good size, with a comfy bed. But the best part was the marble-floored private patio I had all to myself, along with an enormous balcony overlooking a river surrounded in jungle. Oh yeah, and they even hand delivered banana pancakes, a fruit bowl, and a thermos of Balinese coffee to my patio morning. All this for a cool $10/night. Not too bad at all! This place would have easily gone for $150/night in Canada, probably more. Ubud was basically a place to just chill out for me, and it served this role perfectly. The one highlight activity I did was taking a stroll through the Monkey Forest Sanctuary, where there are hundreds of monkeys everywhere, looking and behaving strangely similar to humans. I could have sworn one of them was my brother Corey.

While I was in Ubud, I was busy planning my next move. I was looking around on Couchsurfing.com when I came across an ad from a guy who owned a restaurant and guesthouses on the west coast of Bali (Sako Beach). The deal was that if people were willing to come and help his staff learn better English, that in return, they could stay at his hotel for free. I jumped at the opportunity, and within a couple of days I was being picked up by Arnan, the owner of the place. Arnan was originally from Java, and had moved to Sako Beach to manage the business, as his parents also owned other restaurants and hotels throughout Java and Bali. Unfortunately, I ended up not spending a lot of time teaching his staff English, but this was only because they were so busy almost all the time, and also because Arnan and I were busy hanging out. We had a lot in common, and we spent a lot of time having lengthy conversations over dinner or beers, about business and life in general. His restaurant had nightly entertainment, and one night I was convinced by the keyboardist to join him on stage to sing some songs for the guests. After some hesitation, I figured why the hell not, and was soon up there belting out various songs - pretty funny experience.

We were soon joined by another couchsurfer, Yongkie, also from Java, who was spending his long weekend in Bali. The 3 of us had an awesome time, cruising around the area in Arnan's truck, stopping for coffees and food along the way. I also managed to drag myself out of bed at 8am every morning for a vigorous jog along the beach. After Yongkie left, Arnan and I went to meet up with his sister and family, in Dreamland, which is an amazing beach resort area just south of Kuta (did I mention Bali is a very small island?) It was his sister's birthday, and we had some drinks and appetizers with them, followed up with some swimming in the pool overlooking the beach and sunset. At the end of the night, I said bye to Arnan, as I was off to Lombok the next day. Hanging out with Arnan was easily the highlight of my time in Bali.

I flew to and from the island of Lombok via airplane, on different airlines, but both of them were similar in that they used what must have been hand-me-downs from the bigger airlines. These birds had faded paint on the outside, and interiors that hadn't been updated in decades. So I wasn't really all that surprised when I found out that these airlines were on the "blacklist" of many aviation safety bodies. Just another adventure. The highlight of Lombok was the Gili Islands. Gili Trawangan is a tiny little island that has exploded with tourism, which is probably the reason it took 2 hours to find a place to stay, which was pretty pricey. Luckily, I had met another solo traveler - Emma from New Zealand - on the boat ride over, and we shared a place. My time on the Gilis was pretty chilled, but I loved it. Lots of beach time, and lounging around in seaside cafes and restaurants, sipping on ice cold beers.

Next stop - Malaysia!

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Malaysia






I flew into Kuala Lumpur on July 25th. Luckily, this time I had done some planning earlier in the day, and had a hostel booked in advance. My first impression of Malaysia was how much more modern it was compared to all the other places I'd been in Asia, with the exception of Japan. The airport was spotless, and not one single person approached me trying to give me rides into town. I bought a bus ticket for 8 Ringets (about $3 Cdn) for the 1 hour ride into KL centre. After I got off the bus I took a quick subway ride to the stop nearest to my hostel, and was there in no time. Apparently I got extremely lucky, because the hostel that I chose completely randomly, turned out to be absolutely amazing, and had opened only 3 weeks before. Everything was brand new, from the soft beds, to the ice cold AC. The staff was super friendly too. Once I had checked in; and put my bags up in the room, I was asking the front desk about where a guy could get a good meal in the area, and two of them volunteered to come with me to show me a good place. I had some great chinese food and conversation with them, and at the end they even paid for my food! So far, I was loving KL. The next day was spent roaving around China Town with another traveler. At night, while roaming around trying to find the Petronas Towers (they can be quite elusive, despite being the tallest towers in the world), I came across a TGI Fridays, and was in heaven. After gorging myself on boneless buffalo wings, fish and chips, and some beer, I got some directions from the waiter and was off to the towers. My brothers Chris and Corey had been there just over a year ago, and I remembered their pictures of the towers, and couldn't believe how cool they looked. When I saw them in person, they were just as cool. In fact, some guy I ran in to said they were cooler looking than when Chris and Corey were there. Weird, but again, it was easier to not ask questions.

The next day, I was flying to the Perhentian Islands. Now, if you'd asked me about the Perhentian Islands 2 months ago, I would have wondered what the hell you were talking about - maybe even smacked you upside the head. But after traveling around for a month and a half, I'd met 3 separate groups of travelers who raved about these Perhentian Islands, and how it was the highlight of their trip. So I decided I must go see them. And it's true, they are spectacular. Beautiful white sand gives way to the clearest water I've ever seen. And the best part was that even though it had become more touristy over the years, it's still unspoiled for the most part, with just basic accommodation and a few restaurants on the beach to choose from. This was the definition of a true tropical paradise. I was planning on spending maybe 3 days there, but ended up settling in for a week. I signed up for the Advanced Scuba Diving course at the place I was staying. The visibility definitely could have been better, but overall, the diving and the lessons were really fun. The first one we did was underwater navigation, where you have to swim a square pattern following a set heading, count15 kicks, and then turn 90 degrees afterwards to start the next leg. After 4 of these legs, the idea is that if you've followed the headings properly, and done proper 90 degree turns, you should end up within 6 metres from your point of departure. It was a little sketchy on the 3rd and 4th legs, because you have no landmarks to tell you whether you are going in the right direction, but I was relieved when I returned exactly to the departure point. Compasses are cool! The best dive though was easily the night dive. We set out at around 8pm, and while we were on the boat on the way out to the dive site, you could see a weather system moving in, complete with thunder and lightning. To all of our surprise, the instructor decided to carry on, and we backrolled into the black water. Scuba diving at night is so much different than during the day. It must be similar to to being in space, as you just float around in complete darkness, without any sounds at all. You also see all kinds of weird things on the ocean bed you've never seen before. When we surfaced, it was an absolute torrential downpour, with lightning lighting up the sky every few seconds. I felt like I was in some kind of action movie and maybe we were some heroic types tasked with some super cool mission. To makes things even more spicy, the boat which dropped us off was nowhere to be seen! So there we were floating around in the middle of the ocean, rain pounding down on us, and lightning crashing around us against the otherwise black night. It seemed like a worse version of the story depicted in the movie "Open Water". But at the same time, I was loving it. I don't know why, but I found the whole ordeal to be just another adventure. And I felt so alive. I remember thinking that if I hadn't taken on this whole trip, at that exact moment where I was now going through this ordeal, I would have instead been adding and subtracting numbers on my adding machine, sitting in my office at work, staring at my computer all day (we're 12 hours ahead of Winnipeg time here). Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate my job that much, it just made me realize how lucky I was to be able to have such an adventure, and put things in perspective a little. Of course, it wouldn't have been quite as cool if we were left out there for good, never to be seen again. But there is definitely something to be said for living on the edge a little. After about 10 minutes, the boat spotted our torches, and we were saved.

OK that story went on a little longer than anticipated, so I'll leave it at that for the Perhentians. The last item of note however was that I met a couple more travel companions to accompany me on my next destination - Borneo. They were Chris, a fellow Canuck, and Jasmin, from Switzerland. Together, we made quite the team. We took the boat back to the mainland together in the morning, and then booked our first class train tickets (we are a big deal) for later that night. We were so organized. So we rewarded ourselves by spending the majority of our day in McDonald's, eating copious amounts of ice cream cones and Big Macs, and making full use of the free wifi access. Maybe it was all the grease and sugar affecting us, but we somehow lost track of time, and before we knew it, we were rushing around trying to find a taxi to take us to the train station, where our train was leaving in 30 mins. Our relief of finding a taxi driver was quickly replaced with angst as he told us about the traffic jam that awaited us. What we didn't realize was that we had chanced upon the Malaysian equivalent of Michael Schumacher. This guy could drive! For example, why wait in the lineup of cars, when you could simply exit the line and speed down the oncoming traffic lanes, and then desperately plunge back into the lineup when the only other alternative was a head-on collision? He seemed to take our desperate situation as a personal challenge, and at times I could swear he was more worked up than us. Our train left at 6:45pm, and we pulled up at 6:46pm, just as the train whistle was blowing to indicate its immediate departure. Our driver aggressively launched the taxi right up to the front entrance, as onlookers dashed for cover. We got out and started running and yelling like lunatics to indicate our intentions. One of the staff picked up his walkie talkie, and communicated the situation. We jumped onto the nearest car, and within 5 seconds, the train was off. After the adrenaline wore off, we all had a good laugh about it - lesson learned, hopefully.

After spending another day in KL, we were on a flight to Kota Kinabalu, in Malaysian Borneo. After a quick sleep, we were on yet another flight to Tawau, in the Southeast, in order to do some scuba diving while based in Semporna. We ended up diving at a place called Scuba Junkie. Sipidan is famous dive site in the area, but unfortunately we hadn't realized that everyone and their dog would also be there looking to dive Sipidan, and it was booked up Through September. So we ended up doing our diving at Mabul instead. We did 3 dives around the area, and saw lots of turtles, lion fish, moray eels, loads of colourful fish, and even did a wreck dive. It was a good time. And we finished the day off by staying in a chalet on Mabul Island, which was really a charming little island.

After that, I parted ways with Chris and Jasmin. They were going to continue scuba diving the next day, and I just felt that at that point, I was a little scuba dived out. So I caught the bus back up to Kota Kinabalu, where I was booked on a jungle river tour and a white water rafting trip. The jungle river tour highlight was the Proboscis Monkey. They are endemic to the area and are the funniest thing I have ever seen. Picture a monkey with a great big pot belly, and a nose like Pinocchio. White water rafting the next day was pure adrenaline at times, and at other times, pure relaxation as we hopped out of the boat and just floated down the river in the more mild rapids.

Next stop: Vietnam