***disclaimer: I put all my photos on Dropbox and took them off my iPod too free up some space, but now I'm having troubles adding them to the blog. Words only will have to do for now***
The only drawback of having a lot of fun travelling and keeping busy is that it's tough to find time to make new blog posts!
Kristina and I spent 3 crazy, fast-paced weeks in Thailand, and Kristina's good friend Biz took 2 weeks off work to join us for most of it.
The first stop was Ao Nang beach, on the west coast of the country, not too far from Langkawi in Malaysia, where we were coming from. This place is known for its superb rock climbing, which we of course had to try. It was hard work but tons of fun and absolutely breathtaking.
Next, Kristina and I went over to an island for a few days called Ko Lanta, which happens to be where we spent Valentine's day together. We rented another scooter and spent the day circling the island, then had side-by-side massages on the beach, so romantic!
Then it was time to move on to Bangkok. We had heard lots of crazy stuff about it, like the insane traffic, the lady boys, the drug industry, the dirtiness, and general chaos. While we found most of that to be true, we also found big, colourful markets selling everything you can think of, tons of delicious and cheap food, beautiful boats travelling up and down the river and canals, friendly used book stores at every turn, and an upbeat and exciting atmosphere. After a full first day of shopping and exploring, Biz arrived in the evening.
The following night we hopped on an overnight bus up to Chiang Mai, a really neat city in northern Thailand. But the best parts of Chiang Mai are the jungly mountains that surround it. On our first day there we rented a few scooters and left town in search of a butterfly and orchid garden, tigers, and waterfalls, all of which we found.
The next day we set out on an organized 2-day trek that involved going to an elephant camp where we got to ride them and bathe them in a pond! Possibly the highlight of the trip so far. We also met some really great girls who were in our trek group, Katie and Gemma from England and Eva from Germany.
Biz, Kristina and I then made our way back down south to visit more islands. First stop was Koh Tao, a hippyish island that is one of the top spots for learning how to scuba dive... So that's what I did! Kristina already has her open water certification and Biz has also done a few fun dives, so I signed up for the 3 day course on my own while the girls explored the island for pretty beaches. The course involved a bit of theory and lots of skill-training in a pool, but then we got to do 4 actual dives in the sea. Each one lasted 30-50 min and to a depth of at most 16 metres. It was SO great, we saw tons of fish and coral and even a turtle!
Then we went to a larger island nearby called Koh Samui, which has beautiful beaches and a lively nightlife. One night we took a ferry over to another island really close by called Koh Phagnan for a Full Moon party. This is a monthly event that the island hosts, and is basically a huge rave with tons of loud dance music on the beach that lasts all night. It attracts thousands of people, mostly foreigners, and nearly everyone shows up in neon outfits. Definitely tops the list of wild parties I've been to! We got on a boat back to Koh Samui at about 4 am and spent the next few days lounging on the beach and getting cheap massages, manicures, and pedicures. IT'S A ROUGH LIFE.
We took an overnight bus back to Bangkok for one last day of embracing pandemonium before Biz had to fly back home, and Kristina and I made our way to Cambodia, which is where we are now!
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
Post 2.3 - Langkawi
After a crowded and sweaty few days in Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur, Kristina and I were in desperate need of some chilled out beach time, so we made our way to Langkawi, an island off the west coast that had been highly recommended by plenty of other travellers we had met.
We spent about 6 hours on a luxurious, air conditioned bus that twisted through the lush countryside full of tropical trees and small villages. During a stop about halfway through the journey, we got out in search of a snack and found a fruit stand. We bought some big slices of peeled fresh papaya and a small bag of something else. The woman didn't speak any English so we tried it out anyway (photo below). It was the texture of a slightly unripe pear and was absolutely delicious. We found out later that it was guava!
After the bus ride, we narrowly made it onto the last ferry of the day to the island. At first, Langkawi was not at all what we expected. It had resorts, malls, and American fast food joints. It was big, too, and took a 30 min taxi ride to get to the area where we were planning on staying.
But once we got there, we really warmed up to it and ended up having an unbelievable week. The two of us shared an inexpensive double room (with our own little bathroom, bonus!) at a great place called Rainbow Lodge, about a 5 minute walk from the the beach and the main strip of little restaurants, mini marts, and clothing/jewelry/souvenir stalls.
We spent most of our days on the beach, in the water, and wandering around the area. One day, we rented a scooter to explore the island. Kristina had driven them before and taught me how, which was a BLAST. Everywhere we've been so far drives on the left side of the road, which was probably the only tricky thing about learning how to drive it.
That day we found a beautiful waterfall, lots of monkeys, and climbed about 400 stairs up into the jungle to a place called Seven Wells, a little place with these natural, shallow terrace pools. We slid between them on the smooth rock connecting each. I've never seen anything quite like it!
Later on we ventured to a very secluded Four Seasons resort on the other side of the island in search of a quiet, jellyfish-free beach. We hung out there for a bit but then thought it would be a great idea to go find a swimming pool in the resort. We found a gorgeous one and, thinking it would be harmless to go for a dip, so we did. BUT, while we were in there, the bartender brought a few glasses of water to the table near where we had left our sandy flip flops and grubby little backpacks. We wanted to look convincing when we got out, so we had a sip of the water and dried off with their towels. Then the bartender came over with a plate of fruit for us and asked us for our room number. Uh oh. Kristina, being sly, said 'oh, actually we're staying with a family friend, I'm not sure what the number is but we can go get it if you like!' He said no, that's alright for now but to just have it for next time. We sat there for a few more minutes so we didn't look suspicious, then high-tailed it out of there as fast as we could.
On the weekend, Kristina's friend Blake, who is working in Malaysia, came to join us for a few days. He hadn't had much time off lately and doesn't do a lot of socializing with his co-workers, so it ended up being quite an... indulgent celebratory weekend, to say the very least. On the Saturday morning we went on a little island hopping tour, which was really fun, absolutely stunning and well worth the roughly $8 that it cost.
It also happened to be Chinese New Year that weekend, so at the beach that evening there was a little celebration with these paper lanterns that you could get, then light them and release them into the night sky from the beach.
After 8 nights, it was time to move on. We are now in Thailand, more on that next post!
We spent about 6 hours on a luxurious, air conditioned bus that twisted through the lush countryside full of tropical trees and small villages. During a stop about halfway through the journey, we got out in search of a snack and found a fruit stand. We bought some big slices of peeled fresh papaya and a small bag of something else. The woman didn't speak any English so we tried it out anyway (photo below). It was the texture of a slightly unripe pear and was absolutely delicious. We found out later that it was guava!
After the bus ride, we narrowly made it onto the last ferry of the day to the island. At first, Langkawi was not at all what we expected. It had resorts, malls, and American fast food joints. It was big, too, and took a 30 min taxi ride to get to the area where we were planning on staying.
But once we got there, we really warmed up to it and ended up having an unbelievable week. The two of us shared an inexpensive double room (with our own little bathroom, bonus!) at a great place called Rainbow Lodge, about a 5 minute walk from the the beach and the main strip of little restaurants, mini marts, and clothing/jewelry/souvenir stalls.
We spent most of our days on the beach, in the water, and wandering around the area. One day, we rented a scooter to explore the island. Kristina had driven them before and taught me how, which was a BLAST. Everywhere we've been so far drives on the left side of the road, which was probably the only tricky thing about learning how to drive it.
That day we found a beautiful waterfall, lots of monkeys, and climbed about 400 stairs up into the jungle to a place called Seven Wells, a little place with these natural, shallow terrace pools. We slid between them on the smooth rock connecting each. I've never seen anything quite like it!
Later on we ventured to a very secluded Four Seasons resort on the other side of the island in search of a quiet, jellyfish-free beach. We hung out there for a bit but then thought it would be a great idea to go find a swimming pool in the resort. We found a gorgeous one and, thinking it would be harmless to go for a dip, so we did. BUT, while we were in there, the bartender brought a few glasses of water to the table near where we had left our sandy flip flops and grubby little backpacks. We wanted to look convincing when we got out, so we had a sip of the water and dried off with their towels. Then the bartender came over with a plate of fruit for us and asked us for our room number. Uh oh. Kristina, being sly, said 'oh, actually we're staying with a family friend, I'm not sure what the number is but we can go get it if you like!' He said no, that's alright for now but to just have it for next time. We sat there for a few more minutes so we didn't look suspicious, then high-tailed it out of there as fast as we could.
On the weekend, Kristina's friend Blake, who is working in Malaysia, came to join us for a few days. He hadn't had much time off lately and doesn't do a lot of socializing with his co-workers, so it ended up being quite an... indulgent celebratory weekend, to say the very least. On the Saturday morning we went on a little island hopping tour, which was really fun, absolutely stunning and well worth the roughly $8 that it cost.
It also happened to be Chinese New Year that weekend, so at the beach that evening there was a little celebration with these paper lanterns that you could get, then light them and release them into the night sky from the beach.
After 8 nights, it was time to move on. We are now in Thailand, more on that next post!
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Post #2.2 - Singapore and Kuala Lumpur
After a hellish 32 hours of 5 airports, 4 planes, 4 countries, and 2 continents, I made it to Singapore in the middle of the night in relatively high spirits despite the lack of sleep.
I made my way into town and to the hostel where Kristina had booked me a room. Kristina and her friend Marki, who had arrived from Indonesia the day before, came and met me at the hostel later in the morning and we spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon exploring Chinatown, Little India, and the flashy shopping district called Orchard Road.
During Marki's Master diver scuba course in Indonesia, she met a girl named Hannah who is from England, but has been working in Singapore for nearly a year. We were extremely lucky to be invited to stay with her at her gorgeous apartment (with a huge outdoor pool!) while we visited the city. Her apartment complex is right next to a large nature reserve that had lots of monkeys living in it, who weren't at all shy!
The 3 of us (Kristina, Marki and I) spent the next few days zigzagging across the huge city via its extensive public transit system. We tried some weird food, drank a lot of freshly squeezed tropical juice, visited a few fancy hotels, walked around the botanical gardens, shopped, and even did a half-day trip to a small jungle island off of Singapore called Pulau Ubin, where we rented some bicycles. Here we saw plenty of mangrove trees, colourful flowers, huge iguanas, and some wild boars.
We also stumbled upon a really weird little park called the Tiger Balm Garden. It was full of all these strange, gaudy sculptures that (we think) depicted scenes from Asian myths and religious stories.
After 3 full days and nights of touring, we regretfully left Hannah's hospitality, knowing that it would be the most luxurious experience of the whole trip. Marki made her way to the airport to return to Indonesia, and Kristina and I hopped on a city bus that took us across a bridge out of Singapore. When we got into Malaysia, we found a coach bus that took us to the capital, Kuala Lumpur. The trip was 5 and a half hours and cost us 30 ringgit each, which is just under $10 Canadian.
We stayed in the big city for only 2 days, but found that it was plenty of time to get the general idea. We saw the enormous Petronas Towers, explored the Chinatown market (this may become a theme...), did a bit of shopping and went to the Batu Caves.
The Batu Caves are on the outskirts of town and are one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India, dedicated to Lord Murugan. It is the focal point of Hindu festival of Thaipusam in Malaysia, which happens to be going on right now, so it was very busy and exciting.
To reach the mouth of the main cave, you have to climb about 300 stairs. We were soaked through from our own sweat by the time we reached the top, but on the plus side there was this giant gold statue to admire on the way up. There were some small shrines inside the cave, and also some mean monkeys living in one part that will steal from visitors who are careless with their belongings.
On our 2nd and final evening, the hostel we were staying at hosted a barbecue for its guests on the rooftop terrace. The food was delicious: grilled chicken, noodles with veggies, salad, fresh watermelon, and some fries. We played a few silly games and got to chat with some great people who gave us some tips and ideas for the rest of our trip.
We are now finishing up a full day of travels and are on our way to the Malaysian island of Pulau Langkawi for some much needed beach time!
I made my way into town and to the hostel where Kristina had booked me a room. Kristina and her friend Marki, who had arrived from Indonesia the day before, came and met me at the hostel later in the morning and we spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon exploring Chinatown, Little India, and the flashy shopping district called Orchard Road.
During Marki's Master diver scuba course in Indonesia, she met a girl named Hannah who is from England, but has been working in Singapore for nearly a year. We were extremely lucky to be invited to stay with her at her gorgeous apartment (with a huge outdoor pool!) while we visited the city. Her apartment complex is right next to a large nature reserve that had lots of monkeys living in it, who weren't at all shy!
The 3 of us (Kristina, Marki and I) spent the next few days zigzagging across the huge city via its extensive public transit system. We tried some weird food, drank a lot of freshly squeezed tropical juice, visited a few fancy hotels, walked around the botanical gardens, shopped, and even did a half-day trip to a small jungle island off of Singapore called Pulau Ubin, where we rented some bicycles. Here we saw plenty of mangrove trees, colourful flowers, huge iguanas, and some wild boars.
We also stumbled upon a really weird little park called the Tiger Balm Garden. It was full of all these strange, gaudy sculptures that (we think) depicted scenes from Asian myths and religious stories.
After 3 full days and nights of touring, we regretfully left Hannah's hospitality, knowing that it would be the most luxurious experience of the whole trip. Marki made her way to the airport to return to Indonesia, and Kristina and I hopped on a city bus that took us across a bridge out of Singapore. When we got into Malaysia, we found a coach bus that took us to the capital, Kuala Lumpur. The trip was 5 and a half hours and cost us 30 ringgit each, which is just under $10 Canadian.
We stayed in the big city for only 2 days, but found that it was plenty of time to get the general idea. We saw the enormous Petronas Towers, explored the Chinatown market (this may become a theme...), did a bit of shopping and went to the Batu Caves.
The Batu Caves are on the outskirts of town and are one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India, dedicated to Lord Murugan. It is the focal point of Hindu festival of Thaipusam in Malaysia, which happens to be going on right now, so it was very busy and exciting.
To reach the mouth of the main cave, you have to climb about 300 stairs. We were soaked through from our own sweat by the time we reached the top, but on the plus side there was this giant gold statue to admire on the way up. There were some small shrines inside the cave, and also some mean monkeys living in one part that will steal from visitors who are careless with their belongings.
On our 2nd and final evening, the hostel we were staying at hosted a barbecue for its guests on the rooftop terrace. The food was delicious: grilled chicken, noodles with veggies, salad, fresh watermelon, and some fries. We played a few silly games and got to chat with some great people who gave us some tips and ideas for the rest of our trip.
We are now finishing up a full day of travels and are on our way to the Malaysian island of Pulau Langkawi for some much needed beach time!
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Post #2.1 - Southeast Asia, pre-departure
After I had wrapped up my last blog post from my Eastern European expedition last August, I didn't expect to be back on-the-go so soon. But opportunity knocked in the form of Kristina Gasser and I was in no mood to turn it down. It's kind of a funny story how it all started, but I'll save it for my next post, since I have about 29 hours of travel time coming up tomorrow.
The short of it is that I will be arriving in Singapore on January 29th at 1:30 am, ready to begin a 2 month tour of Southeast Asia! I'm beyond excited. The countries we plan on visiting include Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, probably Vietnam, and maybe Indonesia (just me, Kristina has been in Indonesia since January 2nd).
I'm doing this all from an iPod so I may be limited with layout design and photo insertion but this is my trial post, since some of my friends and fam have been asking if I'd continue the blog. I'm also unsure of the prevalence of wifi in some of these countries so I can't be sure of how frequently I'll be posting, but I will do my best.
Keeping my fingers crossed for a window seat and a series of uneventful flights!
The short of it is that I will be arriving in Singapore on January 29th at 1:30 am, ready to begin a 2 month tour of Southeast Asia! I'm beyond excited. The countries we plan on visiting include Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, probably Vietnam, and maybe Indonesia (just me, Kristina has been in Indonesia since January 2nd).
I'm doing this all from an iPod so I may be limited with layout design and photo insertion but this is my trial post, since some of my friends and fam have been asking if I'd continue the blog. I'm also unsure of the prevalence of wifi in some of these countries so I can't be sure of how frequently I'll be posting, but I will do my best.
Keeping my fingers crossed for a window seat and a series of uneventful flights!
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Post #18 - Turkey
After spending two unbelievable weeks in Greece and
REALLY not wanting to leave, I made my way to my final destination, Turkey. The
overnight trip to Istanbul was surprisingly luxurious: a double-decker bus with
individual TVs, complimentary snacks and drinks, and A/C pumping the whole way
(brrrrrrr!).
Istanbul easily makes the cut for my top 3 cities
of the whole trip. There is a ton of incredible food to try (I may need to
rethink my priorities) and an unending amount of things to do and see. But luckily
for me, I met Evren from Istanbul while I was in Croatia, and he offered to
show me around Istanbul when I got there! He works during the day but was able
to meet me for a few evenings and we had a great time zigzagging across the
enormous city to see as much as possible, like:
This incredible view
This tower
which we climbed, and saw…
and
And
alllll of the desserts! These are basically different versions of baklava,
which is layers of phyllo pastry filled with chopped nuts and honey:
During
the days, I had absolutely no shortage of things to do and see. My first stop
was the Grand Bazaar, which happens to be the world’s largest covered bazaar
with over 3000 shops:
And
of course the very famous Blue Mosque, which is actually called the Sultan
Ahmed Mosque:
And
the Basilica Cistern, which is the largest of hundreds of ancient underground
cisterns that lie beneath the city. (If you’re like me and don’t actually know
what cisterns are, they are man-made, waterproof receptacles for holding
liquids. They are often built to catch and store rainwater. They range in
capacity from a few litres to thousands of cubic metres. Thank you, Wikipedia.)
I
also visited this super cool park called Miniaturk. It has over 100 of these
miniature models (1/25th of the original size) of buildings,
mosques, palaces, natural phenomena, etc from all over Turkey. I think I took a
picture of literally every model in the whole park. I really don’t know why.
After
5 days in Istanbul, I moved on to the coast to a town called Selcuk, which was
another overnight bus ride away. The
main nearby attraction was Ephesus, an ancient Greek city, and later a major
Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor. Words can't express how impressive this place is. Again, I had a tough time
narrowing down the photos so here are some of my favourites:
Another
day I took a day trip to a natural park a few hours away called Pamukkale with
a couple of awesome Australian girls that I met at the hostel, Georgie and Skye.
This place has to be one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. Pamukkale
means "cotton castle" in Turkish, and is a natural site of hot
springs and travertines, which are terraces of carbonate minerals left by the
flowing water. From some angles it looks like a big white mountain with a giant
staircase of shallow blue pools coming down the side. I don’t think my
description makes much sense so here are some photos:
Also
I stayed at a really great hostel in Selcuk. I can't think of a better way to end the trip.
And
now, 93 days and 14 countries later, I’m home sweet home! I miss travelling
already but it’s really great to
be back J
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