SE Asia 25

I arrived in Bangkok after the requisite sixteen hour flight a little weary but motivated to begin what I have dubbed my quarter life crisis. Who quits a finance job after two years to go off on a trip around South East Asia. I guess I do.

Anyways as I was saying I arrived at the departure terminal and was greeted with the warm heavy air that Bangkok is famous for. As soon as the thick air hit me I was surrounded by what I have researched to be the so called tuk tuk mafia screaming for my business. Along with a stifling heat and humidity Bangkok is infamously famous for the three wheeled menace, also known as a tuk tuk. These glorified mopeds buzz around the city through the small Soi's (aka small streets or alleys) spewing out a thick blue smoke and are generally used for short distance trips as the canopy in the back is open to the elements. The tuk tuk is called a tuk tuk because that's the sound the old school two stroke engine makes while revving. Try and visualize a rickshaw with an engine. Ugly yet interesting and you better believe I will be negotiating for a ride into the city.

So that's my little tuk tuk history lesson, but the real interesting part of the story begins as I previously mentioned in dealing with the people behind the wheel of these novelty transportation machines. The tuk tuk mafia. They are called the tuk tuk mafia because most of the drivers, if you can call them that, come from the North East of Thailand. At this point I have no idea why they come from that area but figured I would include that piece of info. Thank you Rough Guide to South East Asia. Nonetheless the mafia part appears to be in reference to their tenacity and relentless pursuit for a fare. Although I find the word mafia a little misleading as I can see them instead of sticking together each driver is constantly undercutting the other on price. Some brotherhood, but I digress. Time to negotiate and I'll do my best to recap the festivities.

"Sir, Sir, tuk tuk!" they yell as they motion giving their mopeds gas.

I wave and approach the mass, calmly declaring my intended destination and wait for the hopeful bidding war.

"Sukumvit, Soi 11, Sunshine Guesthouse" I say as confidently as possible.

The mafia nod in understanding, and there is a pause which shocked me.

"Four hundred baht, Farang!" they yell in unison.

Hmm maybe the brotherhood is stronger than I imagined. I counter with a low ball offer of two hundred baht. The trip I know should cost around three hundred baht in a regular taxi, but I want to get this trip started off in particularly stereotypical tourist fashion with a tuk tuk ride from the airport. I forgot to mention that while the tuk tuk is famous in Thailand the local people are vehemently against them and tourists are the main reason these polluters are still on the road. Spare me the moral lesson but this negotiation must continue. I manage to single out one member of the team.

"Sir, nooo two hundred baht, I lose money. Three hundred and fifity, final offer" he replies in broken English.

"Three hundred" I say firmly and I can see his body language relent somewhat.

We agree and I excitedly throw my eighty liter backpack with all of the things I'll need for this journey onto my lap and grab tightly onto the crash bar near the drivers head. The two stroke engine ignites and a burst of blue smoke belches out from the exhaust pipe. My trip has officially begun as I whizz off down the highway in this contraption. Tuk tuk trip in Thailand good start.

After missing, but thankfully being rebooked on a later flight out of KL to Jakarta, I was relieved to finally land in Indonesia. It's kind of funny that after overlanding every step of the way thus far, the one plane ride ended up taking up essentially the same amount of time. Just a quick note as to how impressed I was with the Air Asia staff for re booking our ticket on the next flight eventhough we bought one of those non-refundable economy tickets.

In any case I arrived at 9:30 and after obviously getting ripped off on the cab ride into town and fighting the infamous Jakarta traffic I found a spartan room to crash for the night. After chucking the bags I walked down the backpacker strip called Jalan Jaksa and found a street side restaurant to eat dinner. I was hungry as the last meal I had, which I admit was Mcdonalds in the airport was over eight hours ago.

Sitting down with Pat, I start to go over the menu, I notice something especially cheap on the menu but don't take much notice. Not being able to decide I go back over it and the cheap option was CAT and rice. Only fifty cents for a nice plate of cat and rice. As there was a stray cat resting next to my foot at the table I felt just a little too uncomfortable to try it and instead went with a safe chicken and rice. Pat on the other hand being a little more risky went for a fish dish. Both turned out to be decent with the fish tasting ok but smelling like it came out of a polluted river.

Having enough energy we decided to head out for a beer at this bar called Top Gun. While it was alright, live band who were good, the place was crawling with old Euro men and flooded with young Indonesian women, who lets just say were feeling quite friendly. We stayed for a beer or two, watched and joked around for a bit but left shortly as it wasn't the scene for us. After trying a couple more bars in the area which had much of the same we called it an early night.

The first actual day in Jakarta was spent seeing the few sights, such as the National Freedom monument, history museum among other things. Its a pretty hectic city with not that much to see so the main goal was to book a ticket out as soon as possible. I had heard the train was decent so after the monuments headed down to the station to book on overnighter. Unfortunately so was everyone in the city as it turns out it was Haj and a long weekend for Muslims, with their primary destination being Yogajakarta. I only found this out of course after waiting in a line for about 45 minutes in a sweltering train station. Not to be deterred we walked back to the guesthouse to find alternate transport.

After searching travel agent after travel agent, with each conversation going "why no take train?" and me responding its full, "ahh Haj yes yes long weekend many people go to Jogja haha" I finally found a mini bus leaving the following evening that we booked and would take twelve hours.

The following day we board the mini bus at 4pm and are hoping to get into Jogja (as the locals call it) by six in the morning. I have learned that South East Asian time is at least two hours slower than everyone else's. We have yet to leave Jakarta yet and its already 7:30pm so I know I'm in for a long day / night. In any case the supposed twelve hour mini bus ends up taking, and I'm not joking twenty hours! Yes twenty. I was in a dilapidated knees pressed against my chest, bone jarring bumps and little to no suspension bus for twenty hours, and you know what? I didn't get agitated or mad once. I think this Buddhist culture may be wearing off on me but wow, I was relieved once I finally arrived. It got to the point where I almost thought I would miss the bus, kind of like a prisoner who can't function in the outside world. In any case I was here and ready to see what this city which is supposedly the most cultural in Java had to offer.

I arrived in KL pretty much right where I wanted to be. Near China town and all of the budget accommodation. After hearing a bunch of negative things about the city I was anxious to check it out for myself. Up to this point it seems like if you've seen a big Asian city you've seen them all, and the only sight I really wanted to see were the Petronas towers. Therefore expectations were decidedly low. In any case I thankfully had a recomendation from a friend on a good cheap guesthouse so that hassle was avoided thankfully.

After checking in and dropping off the bags I headed out to china town. Hectic as usual with the requisite chants of "watches sir, watches, maybe for girlfiend" or "wallet, T-shirt bracelet sir, hello...hello". This litterally happened non stop but I am quite used to it so no big deal. After getting some especially good street food, Pat and I decided to start walking around aimlessly.

I was immediately impressed with how clean most things compared to say Bangkok and how orderly city life appeared to be. After seeing the twin towers on the horizon, we decided to march onward in search of the famed monument. After about a half hour walk we finally arrived to see the towers, and a more impressive modern monument I have yet to see. They were especially cool at night as they were completely lit up and looked more like symetrical space ships ready to take off rather than buildings. I took a bunch of cool photos and then headed inside to the supposedly trendiest mall in the city. I would have to agree as the first four stores I saw were, Gucci, Channel, Ferragamo and some other crazy british designer store maybe Tod's or something. The other thing I noticed was the enromous Chrismas tree in the middle of the atrium of the mall. Thought that was kind of funny considering the predominantly Mulsim country. In any case, walked around a bit, had a dunkin donut and headed out the other side. It was cool as they had a small park right outside with a cool fountain. On a smaller scale to the one outside the Bellagio if you know what that is. Had some cool patterns and chilled there for a bit and took the clean subway back to our guesthouse area. On the walk back from the subway stopped in for a beer at a Beetles bar called penny lane which was quite nice as well.

Day two involved a little shopping at the market. More exploring of the huge malls and the efficient public transit system. Ended up seeing a movie, which sucked called Twilight, which I doubt will be released in the states. Basically a teen high school movie about a vampire family. Pretty lame ha, but whatever. Later that day went up to the KL Tower which is basically the same as the CN tower only a little smaller. Had some good views and took some cool pictures. This group of about 6 or 7 asians asked to take about a million pictures which I thought was funny and they ended up following us down the elevator and for about five minutes afterwards. All good though.

While nothing of insane interest happened while in KL I was plesantly suprised which my experience and I didn't even sample any of the famed nightlife for once.

After checking into the aptly named Tourist Guesthouse after another patented twelve hour travel days I set out to explore this island city. Penang while an island is the second largest economic center in Malaysia. Therefore the the quiet beaches of Koh Lanta are quite far from my mind.

Malaysia is an interesting mix of people as opposed to the predominantly one culture countries I've been to up to this point. I arrived in Chinatown, the guesthouse had Indian owners and I sat and had a chat with a Malaysian outside a Starbucks of all places after seeing the new James Bond movie at a huge cineplex. I noticed that there was definitely more sophisticated infrastructure and sanitary facilities thankfully and was an overall refreshing change from the rustic accomodations I'd been used to.

The first night I went out to the bar area, shot some pool, watched soccer and had my first pint of guiness while in Asia. Quiet night for sure. I had a nice seat on an outdoor patio and people watched for a bit. In any case I headed back early.

The first Day I had heard there were decent beaches in the area so I boarded a bus outside the hostel and headed out to the tip of the island. About a half hour trip took me to the beach. To be honest it was a little grimy, but was interesting as it was filled with locals. Malaysia being a Muslim country it wasn't exactly like the beach I've been used to as everybody was swimming fully clothed, with only some older men being shirtless. After hanging out there for a an hour or two I left to hit up a mall in order to get a new battery for my camera.

Happy to be in AC comfort, the mall was right out of Canada or the US really, with all the same stores. After searching a couple of stores I finally found the right battery and for about fifty bucks my camera now works. Stil being only around four o'clock I ventured up to the movie theater. It turns out the new Bond movie was playing in fifteen minutes. Seeing that it was now raining outside, of course, I bought a ticket and relaxed. The theater was nice, and they had these seats for two people which I thought were cool. I was clearly solo but appreciated the extra leg room. The movie was great, tons of action and was the first one I'd seen in a while. That night met up with some people from the bus, had a couple of drinks and went to bed.

My final day I spent walking around the city. It has some really interesting colonial architecture, as it has been occupied by pretty much every single European country at some point. Other than that I really enjoyed my time in Penang, and now its off to the capital city of Kuala Lumpur.

A short hour long ferry brought me to the quiet island of koh lanta. It seems there is always one nearby after a couple of nights of partying and tourists. Not a bad situation to be in clearly. As a bonus we didn't have to deal with transport from the pier to the beach or finding a guesthouse as we were meeting up with two friends who had already been there a week.

After settling in it was off to the beach. While not nearly as stunning as koh phi phi,it was long relatively white sand and a much quieter pace. So quiet in fact I actually saw some people on family vacations, kids in tow.

Being so quiet there wasn't that much to do other than eat a whole lot of good food. I ended up going to this one restaurant, Mr. Wee's for most meals, and while not cheap he had amazing pizza and believe it or not incredible fruit plate with yogurt for breakfast. Yes I know I just said I had a fruit plate for breakfast and I enjoyed it. Crazy to believe isn't it.

Anyways after a couple of days of the same we heard that there was going to be a concert on the island. Now since my arrival in Thailand and all over Asia really there has been one Thai song that is literally on repeat at nearly every restaurant or bar. Thankfully its good so I don't mind but it turns out the artist was going to be playing a small concert on the island in two nights. His name is Job 2 Do and does mostly reggae type music. I was obviously excited and couldn't believe our luck. It was only six dollars for a ticket and there were going to be at most 500 people there. It was basically a private show with the biggest artist in Thailand on the beach. Not bad.

In any case it was concert night and after a quick meal at Mr. Wee's it was off to the show. A good couple of drinks later, and a lot of singing along the night came to a close.

I left one day later and am now in Penang, Malaysia.