About travelling and going home…

I’m currently in the Cameron Highlands, a nice hilly area in the middle of Malaysia with lots of tea plantations, strawberry farms (though they cost as much here as they do in Germany!), butterly farms and loads of jungle and ancient rainforest… I’m staying in a nice lodge in Tanah Rata with chillout area, TV room and Jungle Bar, a good place to hang out and meet loads of people from all over the world. I tried to do some hiking yesterday, but had to stop because my leg started aching really badly… Oh well now, I can’t change that I guess so I spent my day today in and around the little village, eating yummy Indian roti (bread) and having a proper English cream tea (thanks to the British colonization habit…), and sitting in a park full of flowers reading a book. It’s really been the first day in ages that I do nothing but to chill out, and I think it does me good! It’s just been so extremely busy the last weeks, I’m starting to feel a bit tired (well, that shouldn’t surprise me really, after 4 1/2 months of travelling, but it still does…). I’m starting to be all emotionally wound up again – on the one hand wanting to continue to travel forever, on the other hand wishing to be home this instance. It’s this period of  transition that screws me up every single time, when I feel like something’s coming to an end but I can’t yet hold on to whatever comes next… I wonder, will it ever get better?! In any case, I guess I’ll just have to live through it. And come tomorrow everything will look different again, as I’ll be going to Kuala Lumpur for 2 days, and I can well imagine that this city will keep me from thinking about these kind of things too much… As far as my further plans are concerned, I’m planning to head out to the Tioman Islands after KL (a couple more days relaxing at the beach) before making my way to Singapore in about a week. From there I’ll be flying out to Bejing, China on the 25th, and then land in Frankfurt early on the 29th. Wow, I still have lots of exciting destinations left for the last two weeks…!

Yup, that’s it for the moment I guess… I hope you’re all good, speak soon!

A Thai kiss for goodbye and the first day in Malaysia

I finally made it to Malaysia yesterday, one day later than I had actually planned to. The reason for the delay was not a very nice one, but something that is commonly called the „Thai kiss“ – a burn on the leg by a motorbike exhaust… It happened shortly before I was scheduled to hop on the night ferry, so I decided that it would make more sense to pay a visit to a doctor instead and delay my trip for a day. Luckily that was no problem and even despite the pain I had another great and relaxing day on Koh Tao! However, I had to leave at some point and I managed to get the night ferry on Tuesday which took me (and a bunch of other people sleeping and snoring all around me) in 8 hours to Suratthani (mainland Thailand). From there I took several minibuses and finally landed in Georgetown, Malaysia in the evening… The whole trip went by without any problems, there was just one woman in a travel agency that really made me angry. She kept telling me (at 5 am) that, as I was one day late for my visa, would have to take an 8-hour taxi-ride to some office, costing me 6500 Bhat (more than a 120 Euros) in order to pay for my overstay. I was a tiny bit confused as I had heard from several other people that I could simply pay the fine for the overstay at the border without much hassle, but as soon as I mentioned this she just said: „Well, try it if you want, it’s not my story, you’ll have big problems at the border!“. I really didn’t know what to think, especially at 5 in the morning after a night with little sleep, and started t0 discuss this with her, with the result that she threw me out of her office!!! I couldn’t believe it! In the end it turned out that it was no problem at all to pay the fine at the border, and that – after talking to another traveller – this travel agency tries really hard to rip off anybody… So if any of you reading this are planning to come to Thailand, be warned that there is a travel agency somewhere in Suratthani that tells you loads of stupid stuff in order to get some money out of you!

Anyhow, the important thing is that I finally reached the place I wanted to get to: Georgetown, Malaysia. It’s a nice city on an island with a history of British settlement. It has quite a nice atmosphere, and there is a „Little India“ and a „Chinatown“. Both of these cultures heavily influence the local food which you can enjoy from the small food stalls on the streets – it’s very tasty indeed, yummy! The Malaysians speak very good English, which makes communication with the locals a lot easier than in Thailand, and they are – all in all – a pretty nice bunch of people, very helpful and smiling at you all the time… However, I’ve also noticed that there is a lot more harassment than in Thailand, many men stare at me again or start whistling when I walk by, one even touched me in order to make me stop and talk to me. But all in all I guess it’s not as bad as it was in India, or maybe I simply know better now how to handle it… However, it’s not bad enough to make me want to flee the country, I rather have to admit that I still enjoy travelling enough that I started thinking about delaying my flight again… I just don’t know, I kind of look forward to go home, but then I don’t really have a time limit and could easily just go on travelling for a couple more weeks. Geeze, there are just too many options and things to see and discover, hehe… A friend send me this link earlier, it’s a damn good article (unfortunately in German) about the way that the travel bug is able to destroy lives, very true I think!

Well, I’ll hopefully be able to decide within the next couple of days, I’ll let you know then… Speak soon!

Discovering the world underneath the surface…

Heya guys!

I spent the last few days on a small island called Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand -  a truly nice place to hang out! I rented a small bungalow right at the beach and fell asleep listening to the sounds of the ocean, nice, aye? I rather spontaneously decided to do a diving course, and I’m glad I did! It’s such an incredible experience to dive down into this peaceful world and discover life down there! It’s so peaceful and calm, and you really just feel weightless and free! It’s fun to observe the fish and all the other living organisms (we even saw a whale shark the other day!!!) – you would never believe how rich the world is underneath the surface! If you ever get the chance to do some diving – go for it!

Well, besides diving I spent a lot of time just chilling or wandering along the beaches and in the bars. It’s fairly easy to get to know people here, I’ve been here a week now and I can’t walk through the village without having to stop every couple of meters and have a quick chat with somebody I met the night before… It’s almost like a home away from home… I’m a bit sad to have to leave tonight, but my visa expires so I’ll take a night boat and several busses busses tonight and head down to Georgetown, Malaysia and then spend two weeks discovering that country before starting to make my way home… Time is flying, geeeeeze, I can’t believe it’s already mid-May!

Oh well, I’ll better use the remaining few hours on this island in order to chill at the beach and have a couple of fruit shakes instead of hanging on the internet, so I keep it short today… Hope you’re all good, I look forward to see you all soon!

1 month in Thailand: it’s all been about food and massages

Hello out there!

I know it’s been a while since my last entry, but I assure you that this has been due to our absolutely stuffed travel schedule… We’ve been cruising all over the country and spent hours and hours in several busses and trains, seeing a variety of landscapes, cities, people, wats etc etc. We hardly ever stayed anywhere for longer than two nights, so it really isn’t much of a surprise that I didn’t manage to spent very much time in internet cafes…

After making our way up from the south to the north we spent a few days in Chiang Mai, which is a rather big, but farely relaxed city with loads of cafes and bars. We relaxed for a day or two (it was too hot to really do anything), spent a lot of time shopping at the night market and the Sunday walking street, and participated in a one-day cooking class on an organic farm outside of the city. We cooked a few different dishes like curry, soup and mango with sticky rice, which we unfortunately weren’t able to eat completely – it was very tasty but simply too much… But it was nice to be able to cook again, even if somebody tells me what to do, haha.

After that we made our way to Pai, a little but fairly touristy town northeast of Chiang Mai. From there we took a bus and a motorbike taxi to a village in the mountains where we stayed with a local Lisu-family for two days (Lisu is one of the hilltribes that immigrated from Tibet to Thailand and Burma some time ago…). We had actually planned to do a one-day hiking trip with our host Suzanna, but then we went to a Lisu-wedding in a close-by village instead. It was quite a nice experience, although the atmosphere has not been very festive; it felt more like that the wedding was a just welcomed excuse for a gathering of all villagers and the slaughter of a pig (which of course was the women’s job)…

After that we returned to Pai again, where we spent two days trying to learn the art of Thai foot massage from a local woman. It was quite hard work, but I think we managed alright in the end… Although I have to admit that I still find it a bit strange to massage the feet of some unknown person (as we had to do as part of the course)… Oh well, I’m sure there will be enough well-known persons back home that wouldn’t mind a go, am I right?

Anyhow, from Pai we travelled further north to a somewhat strange city named Chiang Rai… It’s not a terribly interesting place to visit, but as it is quite close to the Myanmar/ Laos borders and as I had to do a visa run (go out of the country and come back in again in order to get a new stamp in my passport so I’m allowed to stay in Thailand a bit longer), we made our way up there. While I spent a day hopping over to Myanmar for a few minutes, my friend Lia visited all the wats (temples) around. The next day we went on a guided trekking tour including a boat and an elephant ride and some trekking through hilltribe villages. It’s been an excellent and very informative day, despite the heat and the fact that I pretty much suffered from a heat stroke at some point… But it’s been worth it, haha!

The night after the trekking we spent in a bus back to Bangkok, where I still am at the moment… Lia and I used our last days together in the capital to explore it’s wats and the royal Grand Palace, and to do a little trip to a floating market. And then, last night, I had to say good-bye yet again as Lia had to catch her flight back home… It was quite sad, our one month together went over so quickly, it’s really hard to grasp! But it was an awesome time!!!

So, here I am now, all alone in the big city of Bangkok. For those of you who are wondering what I’ll do next, here’s the answer: I’ll head down south to the beaches again tonight and then I“ll gradually make my way through Malaysia to Singapore from where I’ll catch a flight back home – however, not without stopping en route in Peking, China for three days. I’ll be touching German ground again on May 29th! 

The next few weeks should be as exciting as the past ones, with so many places to visit! But I gradually do start to look forward to come back home, and give all the impressions I’ve gathered in these past months the chance to settle a bit…

So, I guess I’d better go and fetch a Pad Thai from on of the street stalls before I go on the night bus to the south, so I won’t get hungry in the middle of the night. I’ve uploaded new pics, make sure to have a look!

Speak soon!