Arriving at Heathrow at 6am after a heavy red wine night (the last for some time I would later realise as there is litle wine in Asia, red or white...o except Lukes make-shift wine and cheese evening in the back of our taxi to Colombo airport with a sweating Asda cheese board selection left over from xmas) I was thoroughly dreading the 24 hour flight (inc transit...in Singapore!!!) to Sri Lanka. However, having spoken to other travellers, it appears almost unanimous that Singapore Airlines are possibly the best carrier in Asia, if not the world. Movies, music, food and drink on demand, I honestly didnt want the flight to end!
Arriving in Sri Lanka, it was great to be greeted by lovely Luke and Emily and the next 7 days were absolute paradise in Sri Lanka which truly is 'a land like no other'. Staying with close friends of the Gillow clan, we were treated as family and enjoyed some of the tastiest curry I have ever tasted. Fresh fish galore, rice, fresh exotic fruits and veg all beautifully prepared.
We saw in the New Year with smiles and fireworks on the beach. Hard to believe that only 5 years ago the region was devastated by the Tsunami, the people are truly resilient and the coastal town of Hikkaduwa bustles with life and colour.
My first introduction to the world of the surf was cool too. The waves were great and watching some of the surfers you could really see their hypnotic power and understand how people dedicate thier lives to chasing the thrill. Although my attempts at surfing were pretty pathetic and I could not even manage to get balance lying down! I am hoping Timo will give the Bates name a better reputation on the waves while he is there now!
Unfortunately I lost my bank card and drivers license a mere 5 days into my trip, stolen sadly, which was to become a bit of a headache in terms of getting a new card and access to my bank account, but it only temporarily affected my enjoyment of Sri Lanka.
So after far too short a time in Lanka, we all head off to the airport to go our separate ways (Luke to Japan, Emily to Bangkok, Mark to Phuket and me to Singapore to get an onward flight to Bangkok to re-meet Emily).
In Bangkok, I have my first taste of Thailand and the teeming metropolis that is Bangkok. On this trip however, keen to get back to the beach, we only spend enough time to get an entertaining glimpse of Bangkoks famous sex industry (mainly in the form of fat old western men with bored looking Thai girs and many many lady boys working the streets) and a fantastic green curry.
After barely any sleep we catch a bus south to Trat and catch the ferry Koh Chang. Not having been to Thailand before, but having heard much, I guess it is the standard Thai Island drill. Fullmoon parties, buckets and sunburn. But pleasant enough and we enjoy some days on the beach, swimming, walking, laughing o yeah and drinking gin. While I nurse the last of many Bombay Saphire hangovers, Emily has by now finished reading 3 lonely planet books almost cover to cover, furnishing us kindly with the knowledge for onward travel to Cambodia.
Passing through Trat again and into Cambodia, this was my first taste of Asian border economy. We were there early enough for it to be not too stressful but even so it was pretty full on, bustling, shoving and people trying to make a quick dollar by any means possible (U.S dollar is king in Cambodia where the local currency is Riel and is absolutely tiny). But surviving that we were into Cambodia and together with Joan, Taryn and Dave from the states we head to the beach at Shinoukville, a coatal resort home to a new and quickly developing tourist trade; its known as 'the Costa del Cambodia'. Not really a very nice place in my humble opinion, and was keen to move on to somewhere with less bars competing for cheesey beats and less touts trying to sell me snorkelling tours. We did one however, and it was gorgeous.
Tourism in Cambodia is a relatively new phenomenon and the country has a very fresh history of a bloody past under the Khmer Rouge, war and colonial rule before that. The country is riddled with crime; from people trafficking to Happy Pizza (mmm) and the tourism here is prone to corruption, scamming and so on. You need to be alert in other words, we survived with only a few bus scams and losing some dollars to the tuk tuk/hotel mafia in Siam Reap. Apart from having to keep an eye on such things, the people we met were charming, helpful and beautiful.
On to Kampot, a beautiful old fishing town, which has hundreds of streets with old French Colonial style buildings, which are now quite run down and which give the town an eery kind of feel. I enjoyed our day and a bit greatly here, we hired bikes and had much fun beetling about and eating the tastiest crab I have ever tasted, flavoured with the peppercorns that Kampot is famous for.
Next we go to Phnom Pehn, the capital and are not quite ready for niether the hilariously dangerous journey nor the filth and size of the city that awaits. Sprawling markets with meat being sold in the blazing heat without any concept of refrigeration, fish, poultry the works. Elephants, chained and made to walk through the city's pollution without water and begging on a scale I had never witnessed. We visit the museum to the genocide under Pol Pots Khmer Rouge regime which is a very well maintained museum housed in the former torture prison. Its harrowing but provides a useful context for appreciating the country we are visiting.
We really enjoy Phnom Pehn but are now faced with the agonising issue of where to go next. We are running out of time as Emily will be leaving on the 23rd of Jan. We feel we have to go to the temples at Angkor Wat as we are in Cambodia and its quite an essential box to be ticked...but we also have visas for Vietnam and dont want to to waste them or miss the opportunity to have some authentic vietnamese pho for breakfast at least once. I am convinced we do not have time to do both as going to Angkor Wat will require us to come back down through Phnom Pehn to get to Saigon, which I feel is excessive travel. Emily's determination is admirable and in the end well worth it. We decide to indeed go to the temples.
We stay just a day in Siam Reap and pay 20 dollars to see the Angkor Wat temples for a day. The whole city of temples, built in the 12th century, is truly impressive and we are glad we made the mission, but both agree more than one day and we would have been 'templed out'. Some people do it for a week. I personally enjoyed the crazy trees that eat the stone work of the temples the most; like nature reclaiming man's attempt to dominate etc etc. Tomb Raider was also filmed here.
On to Vietnam for the last leg of Emily's stint in Asia and my time with a companion before onward tarvel to Indonesia alone. Again taken with the bustle of a huge metropolis, we love Ho Chi Minh (Saigon). We eat beef noodle soup (Pho) almost continuously for 4 days. Apart from that we enjoy the markets, meet some fun people and watch while the Vietnamese manically prepare for Tet which is their New Year that corresponds with the Chinese New Year elsewhere. Celebrations promise to be immense, and although slightly dissapointed that I have already booked my flight back to Bangkok for just before the festival itself, I realise that its probably for the best as everything shuts down for 4 or 5 days over Tet, and travelling to Singapore would have been tricky. I decide that enjoying the Chinese New Year festivities in Bangkok will be party enough.
So, back to Bangkok and bye bye Emily. We end the 3 weeks together is style on the Koh San Road. By getting wasted of course. Luckily we manage to get back to the hotel safely and Emily makes her flight, albeit with a stinking hangover. So, alone now, I check into the nicest hostel in central Bangkok (cozybangkok place...cannot recommend it enough), from where I discover the ginourmous city by foot, boat and skytrain over the next 4 days before 3 days of train travel to Singapore to collect my much stressed about new bank card. Chinese New Year in China Town was mindblowing....in a sea of red for 2 nights, eating eating (not nearly enough drinking much to the dismay of Europeans, apparently Asian's have a different genetic make-up making them less able to take thier drink...gutted) and dragon fights galore. Even the princess made a royal visit, a big thing in Thailand where the royal family are mortal-gods.
Down to Hat Yai on the overnight train, very comforatble sleeper and only 10 pounds for 16 hours (imagine that on British Rail or DB?). Then straight through to Kualar Lumpar on another overnight train, similarly priced and even more comforatble. Not stopping in Kualar Lumpar long due to the pressing concern of getting to Singapore for the bank by friday, I take an 8 hour train to Singapore. Here my ipod was stolen and I lose the soundtrack of my life as all cds now lost or broken. Only part of it is backed up on my comp back home and therefore gone gone gone. I guess I will finally have to stop listening to Jagged Little Pill ; )
So, not too impressed with Malaysian hospitality, I arrive in Singapore tired, pissed off and tuneless. O well. Singapore turns out to be a lot less sterile than expected and actually has a lot more character than the ban on chewing gum and homosexuality would lead you to believe. Meet some lovely people in a tiny hostel in China Town, where there are also still celebrations for the new year in progress. Singapore is however very expensive, limiting the fun to be had on a shoestring budget, mainly drinking. Food however is still cheap and I keep my chewing gum deprived mouth busy with oooodles of noodles. yum. The next day I wake with dread at the thought of arriving at the HSBC branch mum has sent my new card to and them telling me it hasnt arrived and me having to postpone my flight to Bali. But no, its there and I am so overjoyed I treat myself and new friend Anenken to a steak lunch at the waterfront.
On to Indonesia, and following Emily's departure, and the pressing need to get to Singapore now having been dealt with...I am for the first time without any real plan. I bought a photocopy of the Indonesia Lonely Planet in Vietnam for 8 dollars and had thumbed through some of the pages, but I was 95% unprepared. I didnt even realise until I got on the plane that I would have to pay 25 $ for a visa on arrival!
Before I left Europe I honestly thought a month would be a decent amount of time to explore at least 4 or 5 of the over 17,000 island that make up the worlds largest Archipelago. I am flying to Oz on Monday and I haven't even left Bali. Indonesia is massive. Massive. Its the longest country in the world and it is also the 7th most corrupt nation on the planet (according to someone ;). Travel alone in most of the other (mainly Muslim) islands is not recommended for women, and this coupled with it being rainy season (the ferrys and small airlines that connect the islands are generally hand-me-downs from Greece or China and therfore, old, rusting and generally not very safe, especially in bad weather) leads me to focus my time here on just the one island. . Bali.
Bali is a holiday island, no doubt. After Indonesian independence from the Japanese and then finally ridding themselves of the Dutch in 1949, Bali was developed as a tourist resort because of its beautiful and varied landscape but also because the population are majority Hindu and it was therfore believed that they would be more hospitible to tourists. Despite having some very developed, holiday brochure style resorts (more than a fewof which I am sure I translated texts for at GIATA), it retains a lot of its native character, charm and traditions as well as striking natural beauty. The bomb attacks on Bali in 2002 and 2005 had a devastating effect; a lot of the island people abandonend rice farming and other agrricuture to build hotels and work the thriving tourist industry instead...after the bombs hit, the hotels saw occupancy drop from 80% to 20% thus leaving a lot of the people desparate. The situiation has improved somewhat but in some areas there remains a visable impact with ghost town resorts, where hotels stand rotting and unoccupied. Quite sad.
I left Kuta, the main tourist resort, after one night and headed for Padangbai in the east as I intended to catch the ferry to Lombok and the famous Gili islands. But here I meet a group of dutch guys (as a former dutch colony there are many Dutch on the island, much to my joy. I like the Dutch ; ) and ended up spending a few days aquainting myself with the local brew, Arak (rice or palm 'wine' but 40% proof, lethal). Tom, also dutch, staying in the same homestay as me, was on his way round the island by car and I hitched a ride, thus never making it to Lombok. We travelled together further up the east and north coasts of the island to Amed and Lovina where the weather limited the activities in the region (diving and snorkelling mainly) but where we still managed to do some of the other non-beach based things that Bali offers; waterfalls (especially impressive with big rains), hot springs, lakes and rice paddy walks.
Down to Ubud on a hot and tiresome journey on roads designed for mopeds mainly, but finally arriving in the charming town that offers a lot of arts and crafts-type tourism. Tom heads on after a few days but I stay to rest for a while. Here I meet Andre, a french former air-ballonist who works in Indonesia building wells and helping local communities in Alor and Sumba islands further to the west. More Arak at the very hospitible guesthouse run by lovely Wayan and then with Andre back up north to visit a friend of his in the mountains in a village where they are currently all preparing for a cremation ceremony. The whole village is busy prepraing for the Hindu ceremony and it is an amazing thing to witness. Where we stay the whole village stay up all night, firstly slaughtering the pig and then preparing every last inch of the meat for traditional offerings. The next day we are invited to attend part of the ceremony and the complexity of what is involved is mindboggling and a bit full on. I wont forget it in a hurry.
After returning to Ubud and a farewell Arak session, I travel on to Sanur in the south where I was hoping to hook up with the Americans from Cambodia but alas, due to bad weather they have already moved on to try and get to Lombok. With less than a week left I decide not to follow them as have found a GORGEOUS homestay for 3 pounds a night, where there is a kitchen I can use and cheap Internet so can prepare for Australia. There is also an English school run by the manager and he has let me do a few lessons for a couple of nights rent. So thats the first 6 pounds I have made back on the grand I paid for CELTA training hehehe.
Anyway, I am glad to have somewhere to rest and save pennies as am quite aware of the increase in price of everything when reentering Western life on tuesday when I land in Sydney!!! Am very very excited. Have decided to try couchsurfing on the recommendation of other travellers and friends and have managed to arrange for a couch with a guy called 'FattyFatFat' so I guess that is me throwing myself head first into the sewer that is the Australian sense of humour. Bring it on!
So, thats the outline so far. Miss everybody loads but be assured I am having a great time and feel very very lucky at this opportunity to see at least part of the world. Much love to all and I want to hear as much news from you all as you have time to give me. I will write of my exploits in Oz once I arrive and settle in New Zealand (beginning april) in the hope of actually getting a job ; )
xxxxx
Books:
The Luminous Life of Nelly Aphrodite - Beatrice Collins
Had to buy it at the airport when read the first line: 'Berlin, a word that chimes in your chest like a bell. Berlin, a place so bright it pulls down the stars and wears them around its neck.' So yes a winner, strange reading of war torn, freezing Europe on the beach, but loved every minute
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
So, for those who have not read this book. DO IT. amazing.
Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash
Wouldn't normally find me reading about the history of Dutch trade vessels in the 1600s, but this has been turned into an amazing, true, horror story. Exactly like it says on the tin 'utterly compelling'.
The Spice Garden - Micheal Vatikiotis
Well writtten, touching story of recent Indonesian history.
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