Singapore: Lion City

Wasn't planning on going so far south, but having already come as far as Kuala Lumpur, I thought I would make sure Rebecca got back to Singapore safely, plus it was only another few hours and would be a chance to see Gavin again.

Singapore, means "Lion city", while I do like lions, I wasn't so keen on Singapore last time, it feels as if it is misplaced in this world, as though it doesn't fit into the SE Asia environment. It's clean, tidy, efficient, polite, expensive and full of rules and laws that people obey. That's just not South East Asia, but maybe there are some postives to it???

This time around I did get to see a bit more of the local culture, a walk up to 'Little India' an area full of ethnic Indians with market stalls and cafes galore was a hot, humid, but interesting days outing. An evening visit to Singapore zoo, which they claim was the first 'night safari' in the world, gave a chance to catch a glimpse of some wild animals in the dark, though you could not see everything clearly, some were visible and appeared to be real and not just models! Among the cast were Elephants, giraffes, a tapir, a fishing cat (it just hangs around the edge of water and when hungry flashes out a paw and nabs a passing fish, cool), Malayan Flying Fox (the largest bat in the world), civets, leopards, hippos, lions, sloth bears, malayan tigers (sponsered by tiger balm ;-)) and a few others I'm sure. You can walk the trails or take a tram like vehicle along the main loop, or do both if you have time.

I spent one morning and lunchtime around the Chinatown area, - I must have been missing China again - it's a big market area, with as you might expect lots of Chinese food, Chinese art and handicrafts and Chinese people who speak yet another strange dialect of Chinese, Hokkien, that I also could not understand. One evening while wandering with Gavin we also stumbled across a Chinese dance performance in the street which was a lively one to catch.

Left: Rebecca and me on the Singapore night safari.

Right: Singapore's government building.

Good news on the football front! Thanks to South Africa's satellite channel Super Sports, I was able to see Wales' match against the Czech Republic live on TV all the way away in Singapore, a reasonablr performance from a young team, really needed to win it, but I settled for a 0-0 against one of the top 5 in the world.

Finally, one afternoon we all spent at the bach on Sentosa island that is just a bridge away from Singapore island, it has some nice sandy beaches, lined with bars and cafes, people playing football, volleyball on the sand and out at sea you can gaze at the oil tankers in the port, hmmmmm, not quite the seaside view you normally expect..

Left: Watching Wales v Czech Republic live in Singapore!

Right: Sentosa island beach.

After a few days at Gavin's luxury appartment, I took a bus back up to KL. Despite the fact that it's the same bus companies that run the route in both directions obviously, it costs around twice as much as the other direction! Hmmm, that's Singapore for you. Bye bye and off I went back up North.

Kuala Lumpur

Left Georgetwon for Kuala Lumpur (KL to locals) on a colourfully decorated and furnished bus, the roads are lined with various species of palm trees, banana trees and other greenery making a quite picteresque journey. Once in KL we spent most of the time around the Chinatown area, the old centre which is dominated by the Jalan Petaling street market, a busy trading centre selling all kinds of clothes, foods, bags, jewellery and plenty, plenty more. We also visited the Menara KL, which in my opinion is better than the Petronas Towers, as although not as tall, it is higher because it is built on a hill and you can therfore look down on the Petronas towers and the rest of the city. It also helps you can go to almost the top of the tower which is not an option open to the public in the 'twin tower' Petronas.


Left: Kuala Lumpur including Petronas Towers from the KL Tower.
Centre: Enjoying a refreshing coconut.
Right: Rebecca and some 'worm' noodles.

Best things about KL are the markets and the food, there is a great ethnic mix of people which creates the grate choice of foods. We ate most evenings in the street cafes at the market, indulging in various, Indian, Malay and Chinese delights, supplementing the diet with plenty of fruit from the markets, bread or salads from a nice little bakery nearby and a few beers at an old favourite, 'The Reggae Bar' which I discovered on my first visit here, it's changed a little but still a good place for an evening out. One evening we ate at "Roland's Seafood restaurant", suppose you should try these places. Here and at other places around the market area, there were plenty of rats around, you could see and hear them scuttling across the awnings over the restaurant and shop fronts or along narrow ledges on the buildings, you saw some running along the side of the road, under stalls and scaffolding. We had a rat spotting competition on the short walk home one evening, Rebecca won 5-3, and it was barely 400m back to the hotel.

One day we took a trip through the suburbs of KL and to the Batu Caves, some Hindu temples of which the most important is built inside some caves in the side of a hill a few kilometeres outside the city. This temple is once a year host to an important Hindu festival, Thaipusam, to which Hindu people from all over make the pilgramage to watch or paticipate in masochistic rituals that involve piercing their bodies with all kinds of large and evil looking weapons, arrows or hooks etc. while in a trance and then climbing up and down the 272 steps that lead up from the ground to the main cave temple in the hillside above. Some newspaper cuttings at the site showed reports of foreigners who had also joined in the rituals, hooks piercing their backs with ropes attached with which they would pull heavily laden carts. Ouchhhh. You won't catch me doing that.



Left: Jalan Petaling market.
Right: My seafood restaurant in KL!

Coming Up Soon...

As you might see I haven't updated anything for ages, busy and lazy I guess... Just added a couple of updates today, will try get the rest on soon.

But coming up are:

Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur.

Singapore: Lion City.

Malaysia: Cameron Highlands, Tea, tea and more tea.

Thailand: Bangkok, well it's just Bangkok isn't it.

Thailand: Ancient Ayutthaya.

Thailand: Phitsanulok, Thailands most beautiful Buddha.

Thailand: Sukothai, more ancient temples.

Thailand to Laos: Khon Kaen, Mukdahan and into Laos, the land of elephants.

Phuket to Penang

Rebecca and I left Phuket and headed towards Malaysia, she needed to return to Singapore for her flight home, so we decided to travel back in that direction bit by bit. Briefly stopping in Hat Yai in Southern Thailand, (we got a minibus within five minutes), we carried on to our intended next stop, Georgetown on Penang Island, Malaysia. It's a great place, real mix of old buildings in colonial style, Chinese style and I guess Malaysian style. The people are a mix of Malay, Chinese and Indian as is the food on offer at the hawkers market which is where we went for dinner. Great choice of foods available, noodles, curries, barbecues, sushi, fish and chips even. We went for 'stick food', various shapes of fish, meats and tofu on sticks, with noodles, great. There's a lively nightlife in Georgetown too, plenty of bars and pubs, live music and DJs playing 1970s rock classics such as Deep Purple and Rainbow!



Left: A betel nut palm or 'pinang' after which the island was named.
Centre: Georgetown bay at night from the hotel window.
Right: Colonial Georgetown architecture.


Penang Island is named after the local Malay name (Pulau Pinang) for the Areca catechu palm tree or betel nut palm which is common on the island.

Next day, we lunched at a Chinese market stall I've been missing Chinese soup noodles believe it or not, so I insisted on going there, saw a few temples and found an antique shop selling some pieces of stone, with the Welsh flag on it, I had to look twice as I couldn't quite believe it, but sure enough they were exact replicas of the Welsh flag, I had to pop in the shop and ask where they got them from and to my surprise they came from Pakistan !! Good to know the Welsh flag is a popular piece of art in Pakistan.



Left: Welsh flag found in Georgetown, Malaysia.
Centre: Chinese wish decorations at a temple.
Right: More Chinese temple decorations.

Reunion in Phuket

Met up with Gavin and Rebecca in Phuket (pronounced Poo-khet), on the evening of the 22nd May as planned. I was a little surprised to be there on time, as 27 hours earlier I was still in Chiang Rai, and that's about 27 hours away ! I'd stayed in Chiang Rai a little longer than anticipated and only left there the previous evening around 18:00.. I intended to spend the day at least, maybe a night, in Bangkok but despite it not yet being quite 6am when I arrived, I decided to head across town to the Southern bus station, found there was a morning bus to Phuket, leaving in about 30 minutes and decided to continue the journey right away. A top up of water and snacks from a 7Eleven and only another 14 or so hours on a bus to go and I'd be there.

So despite the bus breaking down on the way (they managed to fix it within an hour), there I was in Phuket a couple of hours before Gavin and Rebecca arrived, relaxing in the hostel lounge with a beer and Snatch on DVD when they walked in. It was great to see familiar faces again after a year away. We had four days in Phuket:

Day 1: Thai breakfast in a local muslim cafe, sangthaaew (a kind of truck/taxi) to Kata Noi, found a nice places to stay, lovely room, nice terrace, nice staff, to the beach and lunch by the seaside, chicken and mango spicy salad for me. Picked up some lovely fresh pineapple and papaya to go with the beer and watched the goings on at the seaside. . Out again in the evening, dinner, foot massage and searched for a bar that was showing the UEFA Champions League Final. Avoiding the falling coconuts and ladies offering sex on the beach, we found a bar still open by following the noise of chatter and TV and after watching the match got home around 4am..

Day 2: We hired motorbikes, drove up the coastline as far as Patong, the crowded, overdeveloped, backside of Phuket island. It looked ugly on the outside so we headed off in a new direction. Visited Wat (temple) Chalong, went to the Southern most part of the island, where fishing seemed the main trade, small stalls lined the harbour front selling fresh fish and various crustaceans.. The quiet, tree-lined seafront at Rawai with beautiful views of the water and nearby islands was aglow as the late afternoon sun drifted towards the horizon. The drive back was green and hilly and fortunately we didn't bump into any elephants on the road, always a risk here. The evening we had dinner and a few drinks by the seaside and Rebecca experienced hallucinations of monkeys on the beach, maybe it was the heat.


Left: Water Lillies at Wat Chalong.
Centre: Fishing boats at Rawai village on Phuket.
Right: Boat and karst hills at an island stop.

Day 3: Happy birthday to Gavin today! After a champagne breakfast, we left Kata and went to stay at Chalong Bay, a quiet harbour with a different choice of cafes and restaurants to eat and drink at. In the evening we decided to check out Patong's nightlife, so as it was Gavin's birthday, today seemed the day to do it. It was busy, packed with tourist bars, tourist restaurants, tourist souvenir shops, tourist hotels and all things touristy from A-Z. It's an OK place to drink, eat and in some cases shop and after the eating and shopping we continued the drinking while watching some live music on an open stage, before eventually heading home. Fine for a night out, but glad we didn't stay there.

Day 4: Day trip by boat around Phang Nga bay, whose many limestone (karst) hills rise sharply out of the emerald water, creating dramatic views. One of these islands is now famous for it's part in the James Bond film 'Man with the Golden Gun' and seems to have forgotten its real name, Tapu Island, the large rock next to Khao Phing Kan, is simply known as 'James Bond Island' these days. Hmmmm. Using inflatable sea kayaks we were guided through small tunnels, caves and into large interior lagoons in the centre of the hills, amazing scenery with sheer cliffs rising all around, mangrove trees growing in the low waters and above, a crystal, blue sky. Fish and chips for dinner, last night in a local cafe over a game of scrabble and as Gavin was leaving the next morning, we let him win.


Left: Tapu ("James Bond") Island.
Centre: DJ Barnee hanging around on the boat trip.
Right: Fish for dinner.

The next morning Gavin flew back to Singapore for work commitments, it was a fine few days in Phuket and as always with Rebecca around, every moment was a joy ;). Something of note there was the emergence of tsunami alert signs, showing an escape path, apparently procedures are now in place for evacuation in case it should ever happen again here. There are still signs of what happened although generally most of Kata and what little I saw of Patong seems to have been rebuilt again and things are back to normal again, however it still seems there is a lack of visitors, there are plenty there, but far fewer than there would have been this time of year before December 2004. I have spoken to many people arond Thailand about the relative lack of tourists that appear to be visiting, there are obvious signs such as many cafes or bars for sale, guesthoses almost empty where before they were full. There are many various responses as to why; the tsunami, the terrorist bombs in the south, these have scared people away, there is the recent military coup, the government's new restrictions on foreigners of 90 days in the contry every six months, there is also the increasing tourism trade going to Laos, the huge number of travel agents all over Thailand promoting Laos helps this, as well as similar trips to Cambodia, maybe the emergence of China has also take many away to this new exciting option, one old timer even suggested it was because the Thais are becoming rude, arrogant, *****, well, some are certainly annoying and they aren't as friendly as maybe the Lao, but I can't totally agree with that one though. Most people I met around Thailand, especially in Central and Northern parts have been as warm and friendly as ever and I look forward to going back.

Chiang Saen & Chiang Rai

Arrived unexpectedly in the evening in Chiang Saen, I thought it took two days to get there, it certainly used to and people I asked in Jinghong said it took two days still, or at least one day, one night and some of the next day, but it wasn't the case in the end. So I got there in the evening and there were no busses going to Chiang Rai at that time, so it resolved my question mark over whether to stop in Chiang Saen or not. Asked around and was guided to a guesthouse, surprisingly run by some guy from the US, who seemed a bit spaced out. At a guess, considering the area and its history of opium cultivation, that may have been part of the reason.

Chiang Saen is a charming, quiet, little place, on the banks of the Mekong, with a few boats heading up and down occassionally, few people, little traffic, though there were a few coaches full of foreigners passing through on their way to the tourist crazy 'Golden Triangle' and a 7/11 shop selling things I haven't seen for ages, such as deodorant (yes, impossible to find in China!), Lays Sour Cream & Onion crisps (yummy) and Cadbury's chocolate (Mmmmm).


Left: Motorbike converted to a mobile shop with sun umbrella.
Right: One of Thailand's colourful local busses.

Went the next morning to Chiang Rai, which I missed out on my last time in Thailand, it's a calmer version of Chiang Mai, maybe not as much to see culturally, not as many tourist agents and not as many courses in Thai language, Thai massage, Thai cooking or mediatation but it's very laid back. After getting caught in a monsoon which lasted around an hour, causing some roads to be completely flooded for a while so that you had to splash your way across roads barefoot, I found the Tepee bar and waited for the weather to clear. The Tepee bar is apparently the oldest bar in Chiang Rai and run by a great Thai guy with a very interesting story of life in Thailand, but I won't divulge his secrets.


Left: Chiang Rai Temple.
Right: Owner of Chiang Rai's oldest bar.