We’ll be gone till September, gone till September

Wales

The Cameron Highlands remind me of Wales, or at least the Lake District. Think hill walking in the rain. The place is set up in the highlands (hense the name) and the teperature is a lot cooler than other parts of Malaysia, we put on a second layer!! It is a very beautiful area with forests covering the mountains all around this valley where the towns are set. There are strewbery farms, as well as many tea plantations. Something about the soil and the altitude make it good for tea, went around the plantations and it was interesting to here about tea, even if we both drink coffee. The strawberries were very nice.

Went treking around the area following the WELL MARKED paths, hint I’m being sarcastic. for an area which sees so much tourisim and it is on the increase, some hotels being built. It is popular with the locals on weekend trips. The signage of the paths is not the best, even with a very acurate map (sarcasim) we got lost more than once. We had a nice moment on a vertical hill climbing up tree roots without the aid of a saftey harness in a thunder storm getting very wet, were we couldn’t find the end of the path. Two Germans had past us going the other way and told us they couldn’t find it, so we thought we could of course find it, as we had our rain coats and British spirit. Got very wet and had to climb down the tree root staircase which was fat turning into a river. got very wet and our day sacks got soaked, not normaly a problem until u have a bunch of spare clothes in your day sack. It took 3 days for some of that stuff to dry, the worst thing in the world is damp gear. have since brought rain covers for day sacks, believe me you make that mistake once never again. our room was caked in damp stuff, from first aid kits, clothes, to money just lying on the floor while we prayed it would dry out.

Hint if you boots get soaked stuff them with newspaper and repeat the prosess a few hours later, over night they should be dry inside at least.

Enjoied the treking meet a few people while out trying to find a different path, took the 4 of us a while to figure out where to go at one stage. the path is split by construction work and u have to walk around an electricity pilion to find the other end of the path, still on path 9 you have to walk through the hydro electricity plant past the damn to reach the other end of the path.

We did enjoy the treking and the town is also nice serving up some nice food, apple pie and coffe at one of the cafes wnet down very well. All the walking was great esp. after visiting so many towns and beaches recentaly. Just wish it hadn’t rained so much.

miller

Arrived in Penang George town from Thailand. It was another long drive and a ferry at the end, Penang ia an island in the north west of the country.

Penang is a nice city, has an air of Britishness to it which makes you feel nice inside, even down to the British style Indian Resturant at the end of the main street. Why anyone would want to eat in a British Indian resturant in Malyasia I have no idea, Little India is a 10 minute walk away. It has a strange mix of cultures in Geroge town and the rest of Malaysia; Indians, Chinese, Malay, and Aborigines all live together, with a few westerners mixed in. To walk down a stret which runs stright through China town and into little India, with out so much as a bend in the road is something diferrent. We ate at an Indian the irst night, little India reminded us of India bar the fact it was MUCH cleaner. To walk down a street and me reminded of India and then Hong Kong on the same street made us smile, a great mix of cultures in such a small space.

Penang was alright unfortuantly it rain a lot while we were there, and we hit it after a period of much travelling. So we probabily didn’t get the best out of the area, we did go and see Hary Potter at the cinema instead of going up Penang Hil. Just couldn’t go and watch another sun set view from a big hill. Been there done that, in 5 other countries. Harry potter was good.

A word of warning for people traveling to Penang, don’t stay in the Swiss Hotel, Mozies. got biten to hell, there were more of them in our room than there where outside at night!! being a Chinese hotel the walls don’t reach the cealing, so the insects all get in no problems. it is the only place we could find with twin beds at the time. The Secret Garden in the Lonley Planet isn’t there anymore, it is know star dust, which is a nice resturant and bar showing films at night. The owner is a tre of knowledge on the local area.

left penang for the Cameron Highlands.

So we heard it has been cold back home in England, Below zero, Snow Even.

Well while that was happening at home we were on Phuket Island, South Thiland getting sun burned! !

Karon Beach was a tourist resort full of scandinavian’s, saw Hedman the ex Coventry ‘Keeper. The Family Guesthouse was very nice, the ‘Family’ was great, one night it thundered and a tropical storm came over. This is a few hours after we had been sun burned, the storm caused a blackout and lots of rain fell in a very short period of time. So while me and A are out playing pool by candel light, the “family’ is moving all our stuff from the ground floor room upstairs as they feared a flood. The roads did turn in to rivers, got back to find our room empty and the beds raised. They really thought it may flood, it didn’t but it was very thoughtful of them. just strange to return back to your room and have everything and i mean everything, (we were unpacked and stuff was every where, even the stuff in the bathroom had been moved) missing. We got everything back bar a lighter.

Kata and Kata yoi were nicer beaches and only a short walk from Karon, still a bit resorty for our liking. So we headed for Phi Phi Island, pronounced PEE PEE. where part of the beach film was shot. Very nice more backpacker friendly, although our room cost more than it did on Karon. Phi Phi was hit very hard by the tsunami last december and you can still see some of the damage an the rebuilding work is still going on. There are pictures at some hotels and restaurants showing before and after shots of the tsunami. Man it looked bad. We enjoyed our time on the island, taking the boat trip around the uninhabited islands and doing some great snorkelling and sea kayaking. Had a blast but unfortunately some bad weather came in so we moved back to the mainland. Who wants to snorkel when visibility is only 15 feet!! normal around 25. We do!! Snorkeling was great and we look forward to Oz and the Great Barrier Reef, plus the beaches.

Headed for Malaysia, missing the south bit with the terrorists. Got to George town penang. thats another story.

ok,

So we flew from Bangkok to Seim Reap!! My bank manager wants a word.

Siem reap is a nice litttle town, the beer is cheap happy hour lasts all night, there is enogh choice of different food that you can never get board. Haven’t even got to the temples yet.

Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Tah Prohm, Amazing. I could sit here and list off how great they where but you would get board, and i would get RSI. Just say the best time to go to any temple is at dawn, sod the sun rising there are less tourists around. Angkor is always full but went around some of the smaller temples and we were the only people there, even the hawkers aren’t active yet!! Tah Prohm being over grown is great between us we took “shit loads of pictures” to quote Amanda, of trees growing out of walls, roofs. some times knocking down a wall, at others holding them up. amazing, and glad we went when we did in the near future they will cut down the trees. this is because if they fall they will destroy a few 500 year + buildings that are already a bit battered. Can imagine how the french felt when they “discovered” this place back in the 1800s, so overgrown steping over tree roots, just great fun.

After 3 days we were a little templed off. After the big three some of the smaller ones, get a bit tiring. Plus we had beeen up since 4.30 am to see sunrise. by 3ish we couldn’t go around any more temples. 2 weeks later and we still can’t.

Enjoyed the whole time in Siem Reap was well worth a vist, the temples are bigger than u can imagine, the town has a laid back feel with some great french bakeries. love the french have been eating baguettes for weeks. best breakfast around.

Flew to Phucket and the beach. Back to Thailand.

Miller

Returned to Thailand via, Vientiane Lao Captital over the Friendship Bridge.

Got over night train to Pak Chong, and visited the Khao Yai National Park. Stayed in the Khai Yai hostal, Pooh the hostel manager, cook, guide, etc. was great, got an 8 bed dorm to overselves at is was empty. Nice to be able to cook your own food after 7 weeks eating out, made sausage sandwiches and didn’t burn the place down or give myself food poisoning.

The park is one of best in Thailand, we saw Wild elephants, crocs, gibbons, tons of birds, and fauna. was a great little trek with a top notch guide. saw 3-4 million bats leave a cave at dusk in a spiral formation, got boring after the first million bats. Was nice to go trekking again, seems along time since chang mai. headed for bangkok, so we could head to Cambodia and siem reap, with the Angkor temples. We expected to get the bus, a full 15 hours, 7 of them in a mini bus on bad camboian roads. thats 15 hours one way!! we flew, took 55 minutes and we got food. Was treking one day in Cmabodia the next. that was not expected.

written my Miller. (have stared listing the authors as two people on trip and we take turns writing)

Arrived in Laos after the marathon journey, never been so pleased to see dry land! Luang Prabang was a really nice little town, still has the french influence in the buildings and the food it sells – freshly baked french baguettes and nice cofee, was in heaven! The night market was also very good so we stayed for a few days, hired a bike and went cycling one of the days which was good, got one of the boat men to give us a lift over the river and attached our bikes onto the boat roof!

Next stop after that was Vien Viang. This place was even better!! The bars/restaurants had reclining chairs – think Ikea’s slouching sofas on a wooden raised platform with tables in the middle!! All of them had a ‘special’ page had written at the back of their menu’s, this consisted of food and drink containing magic mushrooms – happy, very happy and ecstatic pizzas, magic milkshakes, and opium tea to name a few! The main event in this place though was the tubing, this involved sitting on an inflatable tube and floating down the river, sounds wierd but was very relaxing. On the way down you float past bars serving the Beer Lao of course – all the way down the river you have people shouting ‘Beer Lao, Beer Lao’ and if you wave to them they will pull you over using a long wooden stick and give you a beer!! We stopped at one of the bars, I managed to get out of my tube and onto the side just in time to see Miller float past, couldn’t believe he missed a Beer Lao stop! Luckily he managed to get over to the bank a bit further down and climb up the bank!! At the end though both of us managed to float past the end stop and had to chuck ourselves into the river and swim over to the bank, amused the people sat on the bank watching us!

The time had come for Miller to remove his stiches, he managed to do it ok after several attempts but had to lie down afterwards!! Luckily there wasn’t much of a mark left, think he may have been a little dissapointed!

Next stop after Vien Viang was Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Not such a great place, one to avoid in the future. We left as soon as we could and got ourselves to the Freindship bridge to cross back over to Thailand. Sadly we have had to cut out Vietnam, not enough time to fit it all in. Will be a future trip back I think. Overall Laos was a nice surprise, would recommend it to anyone thinking of going, the Beer Laos is definately one to try!!

written by Amanda

Amanda on Vien Viang a few months later: ” Loas was beautiful, I just remember staying in a shitty guesthouse with a smelly bathroom, you (Miller) taking out your stiches, tubing being a bit cold, a mini cash crsis, and we crashed the kayak pn the first corner”. Yeah we enjoyed Loas.

Finally landed in Bangkok after our slight detor on the flight. Our hotel that we booked a few months ago with STA Travel before we left turned out to be a five star luxury place, we must have had a serious discount. Still haven’t got the hang of this back packing yet! That night we saw the real Bangkok when we went out for a drink in a bar, bit of an eye opener! Lots of beer girls, middle aged western men with young thai girls on their arms, and of course the lady boys who were mostly stood on street corners. Found a great bar with live rock music, the lead guitarist was Thai, had huge hair, giant platforms, and flared trousers, different!

The next day we found the backpacker area – Khao San Road, definately more like it. Lots of cheap and cheerful guesthouses, ended up staying at one called Wally’s, basically a double bed in a very small room with fan, only good thing was it cost a pound each per night!! We went round the grand palace and saw the famous reclining buddha, it was huge!! Definately worth seeing.

Chiang Mai was the next stop on our trip, really nice place. Stayed at a great guesthouse called Libra – would recommend it to anyone. We went on a treck for two nights and three days, it took us up into the mountains, unfortunately the night before Miller was up most of the night with food poisoning. God knows how he managed a three hour treck the next day but he did! The first night we stayed in a giant bamboo hut with fellow treckers in the middle of a hill tribe village, was different! The ‘beds’ – several long pieces of bamboo on either side of the hut were very hard to sleep on though, was a long night! On the second day we went trecking for another few hours, saw some fantastic views from up in the hills and visited a waterfall, disaster struck when Miller slipped on the rocks at one of them, fell on his shoulder and cut his head open! He had to be escorted out of the jungle asap by our guide and a German guy we bumped in to who lived there with his wife and trained elephants – very surreal! Miller had his first motorbike ride to the nearest clinic where he was stiched up and sent back for tea to the second hill tribe village we were staying at. Was very pleased to be told by one of the australian ladies we were walking with that it will make a great girl pulling story in the future!!

After Chiang Mai we ended up on the slow boat to Laos. My god what a journey!! We firstly travlled by mini bus for five hours to a town called Chiang Khong, the guesthouse we stayed at was a complete dive, but we found a great restaurant down the road called the Bamboo guesthouse which served very good mexican food (yes in Thailand! we thought it was strange too!) and over looked the river. The guy who ran it recommended the Tee Pee bar down the road, turned out you could drink there as late as you wanted and they encouraged people to play there guitars. A couple we met – Lynda and Joel took there guitars down there and jammed, they were brilliant. Lynda is part of a famous band in Korea – Second Moon and is a great performer. So it turned into a surpisingly good night, another couple in the bar had flown all the way from Germany just to visit the bar after they were recommended it by a friend. So if you are ever stuck in Chiang Khong destined for the slow boat to Laos, make sure you look these two places up!!
On the second day we were stuck on the damn boat – which consisted of a load of wooden benches (and very uncomfortable ones at that) for seven hours on the first day, stopped over at a small town which turned all of it’s electricity off at 10pm so we had to go about by torch and candle light, and then sat on the boat again the next day for another six hours!! The river passed some lovely scenery, but not that nice! Things were helped along a bit by the Beer Lao served though. This has to be one of the nicest lagers we have both tried and it’s so cheap!!! It costs the same as two bottles of water, fantastic!!

written by Amanda

Arrived in Hong Kong via Bangkok and business class, we arrived at the YMCA about 6 hours later than expected.

We turned on the T.V. and saw the news that Delhi had been bombed, having only left Delhi that morning we were stunned. Seeing where the bombs went of scared us, around the New Delhi Train station area. We arrived at the station on friday morning from Varranasi, and stayed friday night in that area. We walked around the market that was bombed the night before the bombings on Saturday. Plus as our flight was over booked for a short while we had the prospect of spending another night in Delhi, we just hope that the people we meat there where ok.

Got to our hotel in HK and expected a small hostel type place, it being the YMCA. It turns out that the YMCA runs many different types of hotel and the one we turned up in was on Kawloon Harbor next to the Plaza, unfortunatley this wasn’t our YMCA….. our’s was a 15 minute walk up Kawloon Island. It was still a 4-5 start hotel, very nice. Our twin room had a living room with T.V. and coach, and the bedroom had a T.V. plus ensuite. Very nice unfortunatley we didn’t book all of the nights that we where going to stay in HK from home, so the next day we moved to a lower rent place and stayed in a double bed as it was much cheaper than a twin room.

HK was amazing such a contrast to India. A mondern city with skyscrapers for as far as the eye can see, a nightline of neonlights advertising everything and anything, eletronic shops outnumbering the people. It was relaxing among the choas of the city to walk down streets full of traffic, noise and people, yet with pavements and sign posts made it like a walk in the park. Compared to India and Delhi there is no comparison.

After our time in India we felt we deserved a treat and some food other than Indian, so we headed for the “Local” Irish pub. We ordered an Irish breaskfast for me late in the evning and Amanda had steak and ale pie, the best bit was the Pints of Guiness. Ok so the round pf two drinks cost us 9 pounds but believe me it was well worth it. Believe me we didn’t have another beer in HK. We walked the streets which in them selves are an etraction, the number of neon lights on buildings and hanging over the streets was like blackpool lights at christams. Covered Temple Market with its range of electrical goods.

Visted The Big Budda, worlds largest outdoor brass budda. it is situated on an island of Hong kong that I forget the name of. Hong Kong island itself is a mass of sky scrapers slowley retreating up away from the habour into the hills. We visited Hong Kong Peak and went up the peak tram, 400 meters almost virticaly. So windy at the top you have to shout to the person next to you, amazing views of Hong Kong.

Saturday 29th October

We arrive on time for our flight direct from Delhi to Hong Kong at 07:00, but there is a problem. Some one has over booked the flight, Amanda and Miller are going nowhere very quickly. To say upset is an under statement, angry, bored, dishearted, we don’t like India and it looks like we are staying another night as the next flight is tomorrow. All Credit to the Cathay Pasific Staff as they got us on a flight to Bangkok then on to Hong Kong. {art of the comensation of arriving 6 hours late was a business class upgrade on the flight from Bangkok to HK, and boy did we enjoy that. Champange to strat the flight a 3 course meal, using stainless steel cuttlery not plastic, free booze in the lounge before and on the flight. MASSIVE chairs that recline ALL THE WAY back, personnal TV in arm chair, cabin crew know your name, heaven an the food was GOOOOOOOD.

Camels

We went on a camel safari in the middle of the desert, while staying in a 5 star mud hut. An experiance we will never forget, camles bounce when they run and you often feel you will fall off. It is the way they stand up thats the interesting point, they start my getting to their knees, front legs first so you are leaning forward then onto their back knees so you lean backwards then on to their feet, all the time holding on for dear life. Going down sand dunes is hairy as the camel leans forward trying to feet a foothold on the loose sand while going down hill. It is a tourist falling off camels back waiting to happen.

A very enjoyable experiance, have the bruises to prove it.

Our mud hut was nice with ensuite in the middle of desert. Just no doors, holes in wall for windows, and the western toilet no flush. No shower or sink in the ensuite. All in all a nice mud hut, great view from the bd to toilet and out the front door.