Blogging hiatus - September to November 2007

Ok, time to stop being (quite) so slack.  Had a bunch of people tell me to pull the finger out and get some more posts in here, so I’ll try to get back to updating it regularly.  Aside from general laziness the main reason I’ve stopped posting is because I haven’t been travelling about too much.  Really just settling into ‘living’ rather than ‘visiting’ here.  ‘Here’ being bouncing between Phuket and Penang (Malaysia). 

Phuket:

It was never even meant to be a stop on the tour at all as I figured it’d be too touristy for me.

Turns out I quite like it.  I’m staying in a quiet little alleyway about 100m walk to the beach and within walking distance to everything I could need.  I have a large room with in room wireless internet, king size bed, private balcony, daily maid service, fridge, kettle, large private bathroom, nice hosts etc, all for about $20 a day.  Motorcycle hire is $5 a day and a short (fun) ride is all it takes to find an empty beach if the hoards of tourists on the main beach here get under the skin too much.  Between excellent street magicians, outrageous prancing lady boys, bar girls who are almost impossible to beat at pool, guys with huge lizards or monkeys walking down the street, parasailing, jetski-ing, or watching us kick ass at cricket on cable tv (in all the bars and even my own room) there is always something to see and do.  And when I don’t feel like seeing or doing then the place I’m staying can be remarkably quiet.  There are annoyances here sure, but all told it’s an excellent spot to lose a couple months.

 

Penang:

This is a bit of a creeper of a town. 

At first it is just another grimy SE Asian city with open sewers, motorcycle petrol fumes and general chaos.  But after you spend a few days there it has a habit of growing on you.  And it isn’t just me, there are a lot of return/long term travellers in Penang and when you talk to them almost all have the same story:  “I was only supposed to come here for a couple days to get a new visa for Thailand but I just never got around to going”  This city does that to you, my couple days turned into a month before I knew it.  It is just a great place to chill, the old Chinese shop houses have a allure and charm all their own and getting lost in the twisting alleyways can be a pure delight.  The people there are absolutely the friendliest of anywhere I have ever been.  I’d regularly get folks on the street just wander up and strike up a good natured conversation.  At first I was quite wary as (coming from Thailand) I would wonder what there were going to try to sell me, but it isn’t like that.  In Penang “Hello, where are you from?” means just that, as opposed to what I’ve seen so far of Thailand where it means “Give me a sec to walk over to you, pretend to shake your hand so that I can grip tightly and pull you physically into my store”

Over the next couple of posts I’ll probably delve a little deeper into things I’ve been up to over here but for now I’ll just share a leaflet I got handed here the other day walking down the street.  It’s the first time I’ve seen one of my shots in print without expecting it, sure, I’ve seen my work in magazines before but I’ve bought the magazine knowing it.  Here I was just walking down the street and from a complete stranger handed one of my photos (of Celine too at that).  It was a very cool moment.

The original shot can be seen here.

Jungle Trek Days 2&3 - 14th & 15th September 2007

After the first day’s trekking I was ready for almost anything.  Well at least I was trying to prepare myself for almost anything, I won’t quite say I was definitely READY for it.  As it turned out though all was pretty cruisey after that first day.

Seems the first day was such a killer because we had to trek UP the mountain.  After that is was mostly some traversing about with a little up and down thrown in, but nothing like that first day.  Which is good because if it had of been I might have been even more incapacitated than I was on returning to Chang Mai, but more on that later.

Second day was some trekking about to another (much smaller) village, a couple waterfalls and that was about it really.  Piece of piss.  That night we stayed in a jungle camp next to a swift flowing creek just a short way from a nice big waterfall.  Match stick games and groan worthy attempts to play the guitar were off the menu that afternoon and night when first off all the hill tribe folks broke out the sling shots and later on the decks of cards appeared.  After a few dabbles in different card games we settled into round after round of the fore-mentioned asshole, many beers were consumed by all, the asshole hat grew and grew (don’t ask) and a good time was enjoyed by all.

One thing that I thought was pretty cool in this camp was their plumbing setup.  They had a couple constantly running showers that were created by strategically placed bamboo pipes that fed from the river further upstream.  Here’s a lesson though: strategically placed they may be, firmly placed though is another story.  Jake decided to throw some clothes over the last section of the ‘pipes’ feeding one of the showers and managed to take the whole thing out.  A bunch of us then jumped to the rescue in trying to repair the section but after some failed attempts, worried looks and shoos away from the hill tribe ladies in residence we decided to leave it to the professionals.  I think if anything our attempts to fix it were only making matters worse.  In any case here’s a few shots of the setup (before Jake got to it):

 

 

 

 

The next day it was another late start (which was probably a good thing considering the amount of empty beer bottles in the trash that morning) and after a leisurely stroll and a very cool river crossing on a very long log we were at the last section of the journey.  The white water rafting.  Bags went into the truck that was waiting, we split up into two groups got about 5 mins of instruction and into the rafts we went.  For those that know about this sort of thing I was told it was level 4 rapids.  For those to whom that means nothing, well, it was fun.  There was some very cool sections where we got thrown about quite a bit & we all got totally drenched.  On the whole though I did think the fun sections could have been a little longer.  Still I wont complain as it was about 10000% more fun than the last “white water rafting” trip I went on a few years back in Aus, back then about the one white water I saw that day was when I took a piss that morning…

Anyways I don’t have any shots of the white water rafting or the bamboo rafting that followed, as the camera gear was off in the truck so I’ll leave you with a shot of that awesome river crossing on the long fallen over log.  Let me add that a slip here was a drop of several meters into a stream strewn with boulders - it wouldn’t have been pretty…

 

Hill tribe kids - 14th September 2007

Despite being the last up the hill and possibly the sorest of the bunch, I was also the first one up the next morning.  We were only due to leave at 11am but I got up with the roosters in the hopes of some nice sunrise pics (or close to sunrise).  There wasn’t much happening pictorially though - it was rather overcast.  Still I was up and so I took the opportunity to wander around the village a bit.  After a while I headed back to our hut and spied JB up and about.  We were still the only two up so we went for a wander to try to find the school that JB had discovered with one or two of the other guys the afternoon before.  A half hr of walking and JB’s direction sense being about as good as it usually is and we canned that idea.  Decided instead to pay a visit to the ‘corner store’ (yes they have actually have a coner store in this mountain village, when JB first mentioned it I honestly thought he was taking the piss) for a pre-breakfast munch.

There were a couple local kids there which attached themselves to us, the little girl in particular was particularly cute.  First pic here credit goes to JB, one of the few shots you’ll see on here with me in front of the lens rather than behind:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jungle trek first day - 13th September 2007

13th was the day we set out for our 3 day jungle trek.  10 of us crammed in the back of one of those ‘local busses’ that was really just a ute with a canopy on the back and a bench seat down either side.  When JB and I got in there were two others already there. First up was the Canadian (NOT American!) Josh who was here because his travelling partners (3 girls - lucky bastard) decided to do cooking courses and he wanted something with a bit more spice.  Then there was el presidente Jacob, I call him the President because the pommy bastard had an uncanny knack of winning at Arsehole (card game) and getting to wear the “President’s hat”.

The civilised lads among us were then outnumbered when two more poms got on, these two were Danny & Mark (the arsehole). So named because (obviously) he ended up wearing the ‘Arsehole’s hat’ almost as much as Jake got to be el presidente.  In fact these two hats we speak of were each their own hats, the two of them just won (or lost) so much that their hat’s just kind of morphed into titles and got passed around to the winner (or loser) as required.

A bit of a drive and in piled a couple Hebrew speaking lads by the names of Miki & Ivan.  Miki was a quiet sort of dude that didn’t have too much to say (in English at least), Ivan however was the Jay to his silent Bob - well ok, not to quite that extent but there was a bit of a yin yang thing happening there.

Lastly were the German duo Daniel & Petra (supergirl).  Daniel I think got a bit ripped off here as Petra gained the title supergirl after deciding to wear their one big backpack containing gear for both of them for a while.  Of course Daniel had it on the rest of the time but never really got any kudos for it.  Matter of fact I seem to recall us giving him some shit for letting Petra carry it up the steep parts while he took care of it on the easier sections.  This wasn’t warranted at all of course, but hey, you gotta give a bit of shit at times…

One more stop had us a little worried as we already numbered 10.  The space was tight and we didn’t really want any more people crammed in there with us.  It was all ok though as it was simply a stop to let an old gent with “tourist police” written on his shirt have a bit of a yarn to us.  Seems he wanted to let us know that everything was on record and he knew who we were, where we were going, what our itinerary was and when we were expected back.  He also went on to re-assure us that our guide (the rather unique Tong (or Tung, never was quite certain of the pronunciation) was certified as he’d done a cooking course.  Now personally I would have been a lot more re-assured to hear about other skills such as navigation, bush survival, first aide….but no, seems cooking was the important bit.  This was great material though for a series of jokes the entire three days all centering around how a cooking course seemed to be the only qualification needed to lead a trekking expedition.

An hour or two of bumping along in the back of the ute and a quick stop to a local market for some last minute essentials and we were at the start of the trek.  This was the elephant ride stage and we were herded up large bamboo structures with little platforms on to get on to the elephants.  This was pretty cool and JB & I seemed to luck out with one of the faster beasts of the pack.  We were about last in the line of elephants heading out but our guy seemed intent on getting up the front of the pack - he must have been a tuk tuk driver in a previous life.

 

 

Then, after maybe 45min to an hour on the back of the beast we hopped off for a quick stumble through the jungle to the river crossing area.  This was a pretty cool cage/flying fox setup that we loaded into two at a time and just simply whizzed across the top of the river on:

Then the pain began.

My problem was that I’d assumed that these jungle treks were geared to the average overweight lazy western tourist type.  So me being fairly comfortable that my level of fitness is higher than average decided to load up on camera gear, lots of camera gear, heavy camera gear.

That night around the fire I asked Tong if he ever had people that simply couldn’t make it up the mountain.  He replied with:

*giggle* “Yes yes yes, sometimes they big and fat” *puffs out cheeks and curves hands out to show girth* “And we start warm up trek and they stop and say “cannot do - want money back” but I no give” *more giggling* “They say “but travel agent said I can do” and I say “Well you should know, jungle trek not like the shopping!!” “

Bloody oath it’s not like the shopping…

Anyways after a VERY painful couple of hrs we got to where we were going to stay for the night - one of the hill tribe villages.  The night was passed by our rather intoxicated host giggling about fat tourists, playing match stick games and lamenting that out of the 10 of us not a one could play the guitar. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A day in Bagkok - 10th September 2007

The morning of the 10th saw us turn up (thank buddah) in Bangkok.  We arrived admist screams of “taxi, taxi” with the drivers vying hard to urge us into their respective vechicles.  Knowing (from my trusty lonely planet) that there was budget accommodation somewhat close by we waved them away (no easy feat) and started to set off down the street.  Up ran a brittish girl who asked where we were going as the taxi driver had just told her the nearest accomidation was 5km away.  I told her there’d be some closer and so she called over her boyfriend and they decided to walk with us.  Sure enough about 3mins walking and an impromptu turn down a side street and we were at Khao San Rd - backpacker central.  Walking down the road we spied taxis pull up dropping off folks from our bus.  I chuckled to myself over the couple of mins of circles they probably just got driven on.

This was the day I was swapping Celine for Johnny Boy so after finding a decent guest house and checking in, it was a matter of hunting down some coffee and then waiting for Jb to rock up.  Coffee was sorted by a vendor who set up directly outside of the guest house and JB arrived a little later than expected but safe and sound.  The first few hrs were spent breaking our fasts and wandering along Khao San rd trying to avoid the damn annoying tuk tuk drivers who wanted to take us on ‘cheap tours’.  Which were really just a drive around to a temple or two followed by trips to places where they were hoping we’d be talked into buying shit so that they could get their kickbacks.  Which I must admit we did end up doing - simply because JB has limited time in Thailand and we wanted to get the trip to and from Chang Mai, jungle trecking, white water rafting, elephant rides etc organised.  

We ended up walking away from the travel agent with a overnight air con sleeper cabin train trip up to Chang Mai (no more busses for me if I can help it), a couple nights accommodation in a guest house with private bathroom (including pick up from train station), 3 day jungle trek, extra day golden triangle tour, elephant ride, white water rafting, bamboo rafting and all meals on trek for all inclusive about $200 Australian.  Which is more than we could have paid if we organised everything ourselves but really - it’s not a bad price.  And there is something to be said for having everything arranged for you.

In the afternoon it was time to bid farewell to Celine and do a touch of exploring - which didn’t turn out all that well after some ridiculous traffic and unexpected rain.  Though I’ll always have a chuckle when I think back on JB and I sprinting through the teeming rain to get to a large awning for some shelter only finding that after getting under it we are still getting wet.  A glance up revealing it was only the framework of an awning - the roof was missing.  It doesn’t seem that funny in retellilng it but Jb and I were laughing our asses off as we ran down the street searching out some more reliable shelter…

A couple Bangkok temples:

 

 

 

 

Walking the dog Bangkok style: