Around The World With 30 Litres On My Back

Hello!

I made it out of Thailand alive after my very crazy last night in Bangkok and then after 2 hours sleep, flew to Singapore. I only had one day there and as it was my birthday, decided to have a drink at Raffles to celebrate. The guys there were lovely and when they found out it was my birthday they gave me free food and drink!! The waiters were fab. Some Australian guy came and invited himself to have a drink with me at one point and all the waiters were giving him evils, like, whats he doing with our girl, it was quite funny. So my quick afternoon Singapore Sling turned into another party and I ended up staying until gone 11…with a flight to catch the following morning with check-in at 7 or something.

Borneo has been pretty hard to get around as an independent traveller. Its fine if you come in a tour and have the money to spare (one tour I looked at quoted me 1500 ringgits, over 200 quid. I did it alone for 500 ringgits, under 100 quid!!) but not for me. I met a lot of backpackers, actually its been the easiest place so far to group together with other people and see things, go out, stay together. I think we all know we are in the same boat. For a start, buses never come or you have to wait forever for one. There are no direct routes to interesting places. I even – dare I tell you all – thumbed a ride – but needs are a must. Additionally, for females, there is the constant harassment by the local men. Generally, Sabahians are nice people, but the guys really wear you down. On every corner you hear “hello, you are beautiful girl”. GRRRRR! Some girls I met said they were hissed at quite regularly too. Borneo is tough-going. Did I say that already? But rewarding…

Everyone knows about Mount Kinabalu and almost everyone I met climbed it and although I set out with the plan to do it, the 9km trek uphill in Thailand left me mentally exhausted. I dont think Kinabalu is even that long? Had I not climbed mountains there with the risk of being eaten by giant red ants and long-limbed spiders every time I slipped, as well as running out of water in the heat I would have done it. But I’ve had enough of big steep things.

Anyways, my main goal in Borneo and in fact my world trip was to see orang-utans! There is an orangutan sanctuary here, Sepilok, the largest in the world but you are not allowed to touch them cos they catch our diseases and stuff. I did go visit and it was cool anyway. One monkey wandered onto the walkway and I got up close but the ranger told her off when she started to grab peoples hands and she ran off. I had heard about a tame orang-utan called Jackie who lived in the jungle and came down to the Poring Hot Springs for food every day (thanks Ruth!!), so I set off to find her… She was taken care of by the people at Poring and then released into the wild, but still comes back. I arrived at Poring not happy as I got thrown off a bus (it was going the wrong way even though I was told it was going my way) and had to hail down someone to take me the rest of the way or risk getting eaten by the birds as I waited for a local bus that would never come. I got there and headed straight for the jungle. I was so desperate to see Jackie I didnt think about getting someone to come with me or a guide or something, so I wandered in. It got darker and more humid as I went in. I stood still at one point and leaves fell down around me and I heard lots of noises. I didnt really think about what I would do if leeches fell on me or a snake jumped out in front of me, which is pretty stupid. So I made my way out again! As I came back to the world, I saw a man and told him I was looking for Jackie. Turns out he feeds her! He told me to hang around in the afternoon and she would come out of the jungle herself.

So later on I sat patiently at the foot of the hill leading to the jungle. A couple of girls came by and said they were looking for Jackie too! They had read about her in Lonely Planet, so maybe it was not such a secret after all. And then two Japanese guys wandered by saying they had simply asked locals where they could see monkeys. So just 5 of us sat down for about 2 hours in the sun eating melted chocolate waiting for the monkey. It sounds stupid doesnt it?  A group of Macaque monkeys came by and just as they were taking our attention away, we saw a fuzzy ginger thing bounding down the hill!! It was her. She came all the way down, let herself in under a fence and headed straight for the rangers quarters. We followed her and she saw us and just looked at us. Then a ranger came out and gave her some milk and some rice. It was soooo cool. We touched her. Her hair was coarse and her hands felt human. Im so glad hardly anyone knows about her. You have to fight the crowds at Sepilok to get a good photo. It was worth waiting for Jackie. We played with her for nearly 2 hours before we started realising that getting back to town was becoming a priority.

I also went to Turtle Island and watched baby turtles being hatched and then we helped them go back to the sea, they’re sooo cute. And visited the little islands surrounded by coral reef. Very pretty. Have wandered into a couple of other jungles..I’m just glad that I’ve been on my anti-malarials although they did make me ill for a bit, and all my jabs have been done. You see some funky little insects. Spiders have not been toooo bad. I escaped the leeches too hehehe!

My hostel was great, the people I met were great. I hung out with 2 Swedish girls when I got here and they moved on and then I met some Aussies and a French guy on a long-distance bus so we stayed together, that was cool. I just wish I had more time here, it’s great.

Australia next, cant believe Im going there! Thanks for the emails, will try to reply in the next century….

Farrah xxx

Hello!

Hope that you’re all well, thanks for the emails, keep em coming!

Im now in northern Thailand having seen all the sights in Bangkok, including Patpong (thoroughly depressing) and a Thai Boxing match – wicked! I went with a girl from my hostel and we were the only women there!!I also saw Andy and Frank again which was cool. In fact I have met loads of Australians and have a heap of places to stay down under but haven’t really met any English people…

I made my way up to Chiang Mai on the night train which was full of farang. I didnt see any Thai faces which was a huge difference from my previous night train experience. Once at Chiang Mai however, I met the Thai couple who had travelled down to Surat Thani with me! Chiang Mai seems to have lots of boys wandering around aimlessly, talking about going to Laos, but never actually going… There’s heaps to do; I wandered into Laos via the Golden Triangle, went trekking in the mountains of Doi Ithanon (the pain has put me off my original goal of climbing Mount Kinabalu in Borneo…) and stayed with a hilltribe too in a bamboo hut. That was cool. They had no electricity and no showers; we had to wash in the river with the elephants (I can see your face now Mia, eeewwwwww!!). I went with a group of people and at night we sat around a huge camp fire swigging cognac (not me of course though, no!). It was so cold, I thought I was back home. I also went elephant riding (they are cool) and white water bamboo rafting (Andrew and David you would be so proud of me after our exploits on the River Wye). I also took a Thai cooking class, I so can cook a good Green Curry, mum and dad I’ll show you when I get back. I’ve been eating nothing but Thai food here, and heaps of fruit (Eliot, you’d love it). I was considering going to Burma but I really am running out of time, and Pai, where I am now is soooooo cool, I dont want to leave!!

Pai is a town about 4 hours bus ride north of Chiang Mai. Its just really chilled and you wont believe how laid back it is til you get here. I travelled up with 2 Americans from my hostel but have now hooked up with a crazy Argentinian (practising my Spanish!) who is also travelling alone and heads to Laos at the end of the week. Going to enjoy it here but not too much because I have an early flight out of Bangkok to Singapore on Friday, which is also my birthday – 27!!!!! – would be nice to hear from some of you then.

Thats it for now folks.
Farrah xxxx

Hey all

Hope you’re all good and thanks for the emails!

Am now on Koh Samui in Thailand where people are friendly and the sun shines all day long!

I left Hong Kong last Friday having thoroughly explored the place by bus, tube and tram. I even started nosing around the outlying islands, one of which, Lamma Island was pretty cool for trekking about. In all, Hong Kong was pretty cool and it was great that I had someone to take me out (Cheers Lady T) as its a real nightlife place, otherwise as a backpacker on her own, I would have got really bored, it would be like going out in London alone 🙁 I probably only spotted 2 other travellers and they were a couple. And oh yeah people who were asking, Cantonese is the main language there but everyone speaks English anyway.

So on to Thailand. My flight was supposed to stop off at Phuket and Id been pondering over whether it was a good idea to get off there or not, but Thai Airways made that decision for me by cancelling all stops to Phuket outright. I got to Bangkok not having booked anywhere to stay but thought to hell with it and boarded a bus to the Sukhumvit Road. Most backpackers head for the Khao San Road (its where Leo heads to in “The Beach”) but all the lone female travellers I know reckon Suk Road is nicer and safer. The other backpackers who were also waiting for a bus all got on the one to Khao San so I stood there on my lonesome not really knowing what was going to happen next… Luckily, a guy who got on my bus from Australia was heading my way and he helped me find a place once we got there. I ended up in a hostel called Suk 11. Very cool. Its like a massive wooden hut and there are travellers there from all over. I got a bed in a dorm and I was really quite tired with the heat and lack of sleep from partying in Hong Kong so I decided to take my first day in Thailand easy and do nothing.

However, catching up on sleep was not to be. An Australian girl called Jayne walked into the dorm an hour later. She’d been out shopping and had come back to dump her stuff. We got talking and she offered to show me the sights! So we got on the Sky train (very clean and efficient) and then she took me on a river boat all the way up to where Khao San Road is. I have to say, my reaction was like bloody hell! Just that strip of neon lights, hair braiding stalls and people, my god, so many people, made the rest of Bangkok that Id seen seem sane (Think “The Beach” again!). Anyways we did some shopping, I bought Jayne a beer as a thank you and we had dinner – Pad Thai for 15 baht (20p!!!). There was a down side to my first day too though. The streets were lined with posters displaying photos and names of people still missing from the tsunami. There were also posters with names of the confirmed dead. All very sad.

We got a tuk tuk back to the hostel. CRAZY! They are like motobike taxis. They go really fast and weave in and out of traffic. And you feel all the bumps in the road on them too. But anyone going to Bangkok, do it anyway!!

The next day, Jayne left for England as she has a job for 2 months. Thailand was her stopover from Oz. I left the hostel too, bound for the south, to get ready for the monthly Full Moon party which was to take place on Monday on Koh Pha Ngan. You have to get a night train down to the coast and then a ferry across. I spent all day Saturday looking for a place to stay on the internet. No luck. But I was sure there would be somewhere, even if it was under a coconut tree on the beach. And I was also sure that I would not be alone in this endeavour. About 10, 000 people head down to the island for this party so there had to be somewhere!

The night train was cool. A Thai couple sat across from me kept asking me loads of questions and were fascinated to hear I was travelling alone. And a Thai man who I met in the station while waiting for the train kept grabbing my arms cos he was so fascinated by how different I looked to Thai women – at least thats the excuse he gave me, the perv! In fact, conversations with Thai’s I have met along the way have gone something like this;
Are you travelling alone? Yes.
Oh. Are you married? Yes (I think this is a safe answer)
Do you have children? No.
WHY NOT?????

I did manage to sleep and the couple woke me up just before we got to Surat Thani, which is where you have to go to catch the ferry across. About 4 coachloads of people arrived at the pier to get on the ferry. By this time I had decided to stay on Koh Samui, the island before Koh Pha Ngan as I thought the chances of finding accomodation would be higher. I looked around for other lone travellers but all I saw were Australians getting drunk for the first time (beer at 6am, yuk) and quiet Scandinavian boys….

The sail to Koh Samui took almost 3 hours. Koh Pha Ngan is a further 50 minute sail away. I got out at Samui and walked along the pier not having a clue what I was doing or where I was going. I spotted two guys I had seen in Surat Thani negotiating a fare with a taxi driver. They seemed nice enough and really without thinking went up to them and asked if they had somewhere to stay. They said yes. So I said, oh would it be OK if I jumped in your cab and tried to get a room where you are? (do or die, do or die). They had no objection so off we went. They were Australians from Perth, Frank and Andy. They even offered to let me sleep in their room if there was nowhere else but we got to the place (VERY NICE, bungalows right on the beach)and there was a room. It was a lot more than I wanted to pay but affordable. In fact, rooms on Koh Samui are double the price of their Bangkok equivalents. I didnt really have much choice but it was in a great location and the guys were nice too. We spent the rest of Sunday hanging out in town.

Monday we set sail for Koh Pha Ngan and the Full Moon Party. The party pretty much takes place along the length of Haad Rin beach (http://fullmoonparty-thailand.com/). We had lunch and wandered around, watched the sunset and got ready… I had the most amazing time! There’s all kinds of music and I met loads of fab people like the blonde Arab from Morocco, the queen from Bangkok who pinched my behind everytime he saw me, and the Irish boy who I danced with on the sand to Groove Armada. I could go on but this email is getting too long already! I also kept getting mistaken for being Israeli! One guy called Leo just did not believe I wasnt and insisted on carrying on a conversation in Hebrew! (Note to Rachel: very cute but forgot to get you his number hehehe!). We stayed up dancing for the whole thing and at 5.30am we climbed up a hill at the end of the beach to watch the sun rise.

Round about 7.30am we decided it was time to go home. As we arrived at the pier in Samui, I noticed loads of Thai people gathered on the beach. Andy thought they were there to welcome us back from the party, but the reason was far more sinister. Thais who’d got the boat back with us were rushing to get off to talk to the crowd. It turns out a speedboat that left the party to come back to Samui at 5am had crashed, killing 8 people, 3 Thai and 5 Swedes (or Danes, not clear on that yet). They may have been people we met that night. It put a bit of a downer on an otherwise excellent night. Later that day I sat on the beach outside my bungalow and watched police boats search for the missing bodies.

Today, the boys left Samui for Krabi on the western side of Thailand, but I couldnt go to that side without wanting to visit Phuket and Phi Phi, so I have stayed put, alone again. Tomorrow Im going to the Marine Park, the setting for “The Beach” and then will think about heading back to Bangkok.

I love Thailand so far. Its so cheap and the people are great. They smile all the time 🙂 Oh yeah I have a number out here which is +66 5806 0349.

Phew that was long. Let me know how you all are.

Lots of love
Farrah xxx

I am here! I made it!

Hi guys, Im in Hong Kong! I arrived yesterday evening. I am staying with an old school friend, Tavneet, in a very nice part of town called Mid-Levels if anyone knows it.

Had a really cool time getting here on the Virgin party plane. Ma and Pa dropped me off at Heathrow and then I bought myself Life of Pi to read on the flight which lovely Dermot was supposed to lend me but I forgot to take it with me, but I found myself sitting in between a crazy Chinese student and a crazy Irish bloke who managed to get a conversation going between three rows of people and two aisles, I kid you not. That as well as the amazing range of movies made sure that I slept not a lot and am now suitably jet lagged!

Tav came to pick me up and then we headed to her place which is in a massive, massive apartment complex covered in fairy lights halfway up Victoria Peak. I was well impressed, I even had someone open my car door for me. A guy from Clapham called Tim came out here to live just 4 days ago, to work for Goldman Sachs, and he lives in the same place so we all went out for dinner in Soho, which was a little bit like Soho back home. We went to a Szechuan restaurant and we had their walnut chicken with Szechuan chillies. I started eating it and after a couple of mouthfuls felt my tongue go all tingly and then numb, a sensation I had not felt before (!) I started to panic a bit cos I thought I might be allergic to something and I couldnt even feel if my throat was clamming up or not because everything went numb. I could see the headlines: ‘Traveller dies from allergy to Szechuan chillies on first night in Hong Kong’,  at which point I downed my coke and went to check out my tongue in the bathroom mirror to see if it had quadrupled in size or not…. It was then that I saw the baby terrapins. They had a bowl of turtles in the bathroom, next to the toilet! Talk about entertainment… Anyways tongue calmed down, finished dinner and headed for D’Aguilar street which has lots of bars on it.

I woke up at 5am this morning and couldnt get back to sleep so I went for a walk and ended up climbing up Victoria Peak which was a hugely steep climb. The view was rubbish thanks to the smoggy air quality here so might try it again before I leave.

Anyways, am in a cafe waiting for Tav to come and see me for lunch, so will email again soon!

Farrah xxx