PACE

Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, England, Spain.

5 countries covered in 11 days.

With a stop-over in Kuwait.

MOVIN ON UP To Europe, out of SEA.

Hola me amigos. I just flew from Kuwait over Iraqi airspace. Kuwait airport sux, but they gave me a free buffet lunch cause my flight was delayed 4 hrs, which I straightforthly plundered in a must abundant manner.

Bus ride 7 pm to 5 am. Show up in Bangkok, drink some coffee, eat some food, get on a plane at 3 am to Kuwait. get to England about 5:30 am the following day. Easy.

Right now I’m in London, but more importantly is the following:

Sometimes I like to say ‘nosferatu’ for absolutly no reason. ‘Nosferatu,’ I’ll say, knowing the ancient word hath no power over me. Mocking its power of old – ‘Nosferatu, ohhh , yes, nooosferatu, you are under my shoe, you creton.’ Inevitably this draws stares from the people at the busstop, train, dance, or gala event. Of course, if they step, I merely say ‘Draw you sword, knave!’ and if they fail to produce a sword, I consider them sorely beaten – my generosity alone prevailing them their life -a life of tremendous dishonour, no less. Put on a hat, Jack! next paragraph.

Little Birdy, little birdy, sitting on a ledge
you build your home of twigs and branches
nestled in a hedge
When will you learn to clear your throat
before you sing your tune
and fly for winter ‘ere the frost
seals you to your tomb.

I contend heartily that I am of sound mind and body. I can without delay tell you that Amman is the capital of Jordan, and that The Tempest is usually considered Shakespeare’s last play, although Henry VIII was completed later. (it is thought ot have been in collaoration with Fletcher and Beaumont). That crazy Shakespeare! That crazy shaky, speary soul! Oh how I long to propel one of his shaky spears into some foul watery menace, forever casting it back to the shadowy depths from whence it came.

Right then, onto Southern Spain. Viva Espange. Cheerio and all that.

Just doing a bit of backpacking, and somehow I find myself at the Fullerton Hotel, a 5 Star hotel in the heart of Singapore. One of the top 3 hotels in the country. At an Investment meeting for British Expats put on by a British Investment Banking firm with ties to private Swiss banks.

Some drinks and conversation before the meeting. Fine wines and some beers, juice, water, everything. “Have you been with the firm long?”  hahaah -‘No, I’m new to the group.’ hahaha.

The meeting put on by a friend of a friend who wanted to show us what he did. Graham was the speaker talking about market trends and investments and such, and how there was some 24 billion dollar privatly run Swiss bank involved. I, of course, was there for the food.

After the talk there was a 5 star buffet of steak, fish, crab, lamb, all types of vegetables and salad, appetizers, and desserts and coffee. Met a few people and chatted them up a bit in the process of eating as much as I could.

A few days before I was invited to the #2 hotel in Singapore called Shangri-La. We went after dinner for some tea. haha. It was a really nice place, huge chandeliers and a piano player with a lady singing – the whole deal. This guy Shawn who was about my age took us there, him and his wife Wei Ling. He worked in some accounting firm or something, and owned a small business selling Japanese goldfish.

Singapore is the cleanest, most effecient place I’ve ever been. Everything is clean. You could probably eat off the floor in the malls. Sparkling clean. Imagine a continous Ipod commercial all day long. Just clean and white and easy.

Their light rail system is one of the best in the world. They call it the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and stops are everywhere. Trains are automated and come exactly every 6 minutes.

The streets and housing complexes feel as though they are all planned out with covered walkways all the way to train stops. It feels really safe even at night. Everywhere is lighted easy to get around.

The flip side of the coin is that Singapore is controlled pretty heavily. There are alot of rules and punishments. People just walk around pretty orderly. Even when there are streams of people coming down escalators, they are filed in straight lines and nobody is really making alot of noise.

There are automatic voices over the trains reminding people not to litter or eat on the train as well as annoucing the next stops….Big Brother if u will.

I even saw a sign on the wall of the MRT station that read “NO Leaning”. haha.

You can tell people are under the thumb a bit just by how they act in public. I don’t even think you’re allowed chewing gun, and if you fight, you get 18 months in prison, so people are pretty careful. You also get fined for crossing the street if you’re not within 50 meters of the traffic light.

I saw a bunch of people about to cross the road, but the ‘red’ light was on, not the little green man. There were absolutely no cars coming at all, and yet nobody crossed the street. Once couple looked around nervously as they put their toes out to the road and then after a few quick glances around, crossed the street. It was pretty funny.

Overall Singapore is a great place. Alot more expensive than the other SEA countries, but still cool.

Mt. Kinabalu is the highest mountain in South East Asia. At 4100 meters, its half the size of Mt. Everest. In actuality, you trek up about 9000 meters to get to the summit (and 9000 meters back down).

I came to Sabah, on the Borneo side of Malaysia to climb the mountain, when I tried to call it was busy and I was hearing rumors that the park was all booked up. I asked Lucy, the lady who rus the hostel I’m staying at how to make arrangements. She gave me a number to call and I was able to sign up to go the next day.

I had no idea how cold the summit was, and was only going to take a long sleeve shirt and a fleece pullover. That would have been disasterous. Lucy hooked me up with a proper hat and some gloves as well as another fleece pullover. I would have been really, really cold at the top without the gear. Oh, and a rain poncho, that came in handy on the way back down.

So, we get to the mountain around 9:00 am and I am with a group of 4 Germans, all my age. They were pretty cool. Mark: ex skate punk, Christian: just finished an internship in Kuala Lumpur, Michael: quite but real nice, and Olga ( or something like that, couldn’t make out the pronunciation) who was also a decent guy.

From the bottom, it was a 5 hour trek uphill. We passed a waterfall on the way and some pretty sweet scenery. This was straight uphill, like 70 degree vertical inclines. Picture if you took a handful of rocks and spilled them out of you hand onto a hill – this is basically what we were hiking up. On some occasions there were ‘stairs’.

As you go up you really feel the altitude kick in and start sucking wind. You have to stop alot and get your breath both from the fact that you are increasing altitude, and also that you’re hiking up piles of rocks at a 70 degree vert.

After about 5 hard hours we get to the camp area, called Laban Rata. We all rip into some food and pass out at about 6 pm in dorm style beds. I only slept for about an hour at which point I woke up and couldnt fall back asleep. Probably because it was like 8 pm. Also I was having some weird problem breathing, I think because of the altitude. And something like a headache, also probably the altitude.

So we get up and meet at 2 am. Still half asleep, no food, we’re thrown into the darkness and start trekking uphill again, but this time its nothing like the lower half. This is no joke. We’re scaling up sheer rock faces for kilometers at a time. Just sheer rock extending up and up. There were ropes bolted into the rocks that you used for balance and to pull yourself along. Of course the altitude is worse so you feel totally exhausted and your heart is pounding in your chest.

I kept saying how easy it was and telling people that each step got easier and easier. Think positive I say. No use grumbling. Some french speaking Swiss chick lost it near the summit and broke down and started crying. She was pretty cold, it was dark, and she was out of breath continuously, so I can understand. Near the summit people started losing hope. I heard alot of ‘why are we doing this’ and things like that. Hahaha. I think its cause the uphill battle seems neverending. Its about 3 or 4 Km straight up the sheer rock to the summit. Its dark, its about 4 in the morning, and its freezing cold.

When you get to the top of the summit, the view is absolutly amazing. You’re so high up and the mountains surrounding look so vast. It reminded me of that part in Lord of the Rings when they are passing through the mountains. The wind was ripping through though and people were huddled into the rock crevices. We took a few pictures with the German guys and some more of the surrounding landscape then headed back down to Laban Rata.

— Me, Michael, and Christain at the summit looking half asleep and exhausted —

My bungalow was right at the back next to the forest/jungle, which is, as I found out later, inhabited by monkeys.

One day, I was sitting in my bed reading a book when I heard some steps right outside, so I think – ‘Andrew must be coming back’ – when I look up , I see a monkey walk in the door. This isn’t any cute little thing either. Its a large male monkey staring at me. So, I sit up to scare it away and it just looks at me and growls! bearing its teeth! I’m thinking ‘holy shit, I’m going to get attacked by a monkey.” It stops its growling and runs up to the table in the room and steals a bag of mangos. I’m still in shock from the fact that a monkey just ambushed me, but I’m still thinking ‘hey, I walked all the way to town for those mangos.’ So, I grab a broom and go to retrieve, but the damn monkey had already tore into both mangos and was calmly eating them right there at the bottom of my stairs, as if to spite me. The two females came out, 1 with a small baby clutching to her, so I threw them a banana, which the bastard male tried to steal. The picture below is the female with the baby peeking in the room.

So, that was my first run-in with the monkeys. The second time might have been worse. I was making a b-line to the bungalow at top speed, for a stage-3 emergency had suddenly set upon me and I had dire need to drop a dirty, dirty, deuce. So, I am almost at my place, looking upon the steps, when I see the monkey under the stairs. In my haste I think nothing of it and proceed.

The monkey does his little sideways aggressive monkey shuffle and bars my way. I’m thinking ‘theres no way this monkey is going to block me out of my own house, and certainly not at this particular junction in time…’ So, I proceed.

As soon as I take a step forward, he extends one arm to the ground in front of him and crouches all the way down, cat-like, in some sort of monkey attack pose. Again, I’m thinking ‘Holy shit! I’m going to get attacked by a monkey.’

So, I retreat and gathered a few bottles, which I then used as projectiles to scare the foul beast away.

Anyway, on another note, I ended up staying on Ko Phi Phi for about 12-14 days, something like that, with a grand total for accomodation being $75 U.S. dollars. Don’t listen to guidebooks. If you want to go somewhere, just go, you’ll find something. ‘No Cheap accomodation on Phi Phi’ is all we heard before we arrived. The only thing from the guidebooks that is true about Ko Phi Phi is one statement in the Lonely Planet that says ‘Ko Phi Phi is so beautiful, it’ll make you cry.’

On yet another note, there are now signs for tsunami evacuation routes on the island. Some of these point you absolutly nowhere, and I saw some being used to advertise bar specials… If the water suddenly gets sucked out to the sea, head for the hills, thats about all I know.

In Phi Phi we stayed at what was called Phi Phi Hill Resort. We had a bugalow way up on the cliff, over looking the ocean. The restaurant was high, overlooking the water and two great islands. The sun set between them every night. This was on Long Beach, about a 35 minute walk along the way back to the village. The path along the coast was huge bounders broken up by small stretches of beach as you headed back into town. After navigating the rocks a few a few times you got to learn the terrain & this made it alot quicker, plus we could do it by night and save a few dollars that we would have been given to taxi boat drivers to take us into town.

The town itself (locals referred to it as ‘the village’) was fairly small in relation to anything else. There were only 3 main pathways, which were lined with dive shops, bars, pharmacies, restuarants, eateries, tattoo shops (thai bamboo tattooing, they use the bamboo pole to tattoo you), clothing stores, and travel shops. There were no cars or motorbikes on the island at all, so the air was really clean and the only noise was from the boats or music from the bars.

You must keep in mind that this is the same island that got hammered by the tsunami to a huge loss of life. People here are rebuilding their lives, and many of the locals say, with little help from the government.

We met a handful of people living on the island who survived the tsunami. All of those who survived lost people close to them. We me a girl who climbed a tree when the wave came and lived. While she was up on the tree her leg was impaled by a branch, probably propelled by the wind or tumult of water. 5 minutes into talking to her she showed us photos of her leg when she was in the hospital. There was basically a hole straight through her thigh about 3 inches wide.

Anther guy, Choy, owned a business that was worth a couple million baht. He got 20,000 baht (U.S. $5,000) in compensation. After the tsunami he started writing songs about the island and the feelings that were inside him after the tragedy. He said we was tossed around the streets by the water ‘like he was in a washing machine.’ Miraculously he came out with only a few cuts, although his girlfriend was lost, along with many friends. He’d been through all this and still remained positive. “All I can do is look forward to the future”, he said.

He had recieved much kindness from strangers. His instruments, including a djembe drum were destroyed – a Swiss guy ordered the skin for the drum from Africa and remade the djembe for him as well as giving him a Swiss army knife – An Austrian man brought down a portable studio on computer, took him into the jungle on op of the mountain here, and there they recorded and album of all Choy’s songs. The album is on DVD and also plays footage of Phi Phi Island. Its called ‘Andaman – A Lesson of Loss.’ [Ko Phi Phi is in the Andaman Sea] We were blessed to meet Choy for breakfast at a cafe in town. He played and sang a few of his songs for us using my guitar.

There is evidence of the Tsuname still, but really you dont even notice it, being overwhelmed by the natural beauty of the island.

Every day I would walk out of the bungalow in the morning and walk down the path towards the restaurant, stop and stare out at the water shimmering with bright sunlight with the 2 minor islands in the background. From the edge of the hill was a beautiful view of the water changing from crystal clear to a light blue-green to a darker blue.

The blue-green area had amazing coral, great for snorkling. You could rent a mask and fins at our bungalow and step right out into the water to snorkel. Huge coral formations froma few feet down to the deeper water, which looked to be about 30 ft. down. Some of the coral formations were really giant, 6 feet hight maybe and just as long around, bunches of these on the sea floor and schools of yellow & black fish were swimming around you. Some of the fish were neon colored vibrant green, blue, and purple.

If you swim out a couple minutes you come to a rock formation known as Shark Point. Alot of the dive shops took tour groups out there to swim with the sharks. We met a guy, Christopher, from Switzerland who told us about it and we were lucky enough to live right there so we just rented snorkels and swam out with him. Christopher happened to be a Dive Master who worked in one of the dive shops, so he took us out at the right time of day and told us how to behave around the sharks.

We were to swim together in a group, slowly and not make any sharp movements with our hands. This way we dont scare off the sharks and its a bit safer to be in a group. They’re never had an attack, but sharks are sharks. One guy was out snorkling by himself and he was circled by about 15 sharks. He got scared and wam in. We didn’t see 15, but I did see 2, one of which was pretty big, maybe a 5 footer.

The food on the island was pretty amazing. Fresh fruit all day. Papayas, pinenapples, coconuts, mangos, bananas, all so fresh. We ate alot of fruit and fresh fish. They brought in fresh fish every night and had them on display, usually snapper or tuna. You could check them out and pick the one you wanted and how to cook it – steamed with different sauces – the Thai spicy sauce was good, or fried, Chinese style or Thai style , or a few other ways.

We’d usually meet people during the day since Andrew was constantly chatting people up on the beach, so , at night we usually had a group of people with us for dinner. During the day we’d hang out on the beach, drink some coconut shakes, sit under this huge beach tree for shade, or go for a swim, or sit in the sun. The water was crystal clear all the way down and really warm with white powdery sand and shells. If you picked up a handful of sand and ddrapped it in the water, it would just kind of disperse to the bottom, wouldn’t even make the water cloudy. I think the sand is the reason the water was so clear.

People on the beach were really easy to talk to, probably they were enjoying the place as much as I was. Theres no stress. No one walking around bothering you or trying to sell you stuff. Everyone is just friendly and laid back. If you wanted to talk up and talk to someone you could just walk up and say ‘wow, this is beautiful, isn’t it?’, knowing they are pretty much on the exact same page you are.

First time in an Islamic country. Interesting. During the day you hear the call to prayer over loudspeakers. Last night I heard some strange noises, like people wailing into the night…

The atmostphere is very different here than to Thailand. You can feel it in the air in some places. Luckily we are grouped up with some really nice local people and they are taking great care of us.