The End.

There is something very captivating about Bangkok. The heavy air, scents, smells, river, rats, ditches, too many people for the traffic to cope with, cats, dogs, mosquitoes, monks in their orange robes and reserved seats, temples, freezing shopping malls, giggling schoolgirls on the monorail, food stalls on every corner, some of them with critters (being sold and buzzing around), street hasslers and scammers, Chinese amulet sellers, beggars with their deformed limbs and money cups, go-go girls and ping-pong shows, looky-looky!
And the mentality of the people; the simple mathematics of the karma. It's not that important to avoid actions inducing negative karma, it's more about keeping the total balance positive. And having fun while doing it. And the smiles. Any and every eye-contact brings a smile. Not responding would be rude, and it is a proven fact that even a forced smile will affect one's mood for the better. I hate to admit that this seems to be true.
Of course the smiles in Thailand have a much larger variety of meanings than what i'm used to. Smile can mean 'yes', 'no', 'yes-but-no', 'i have no idea what you are talking about', 'i feel we are soulmates', 'i'm gonna send my people to get you', 'i find you very funny looking', 'i'm gonna charge you about triple of the going rate', 'but the housekeeping says there were slippers in the room and now you must pay for them', but also 'i dont know you but i like you'.

Now all that is behind us, we're going back. A 10,5 hr flight should brought us to Helsinki in the early hours of the day, and in Helsinki the temperature is below the freezing point of water. Think of that for a moment. I sure did.
And i know that in a couple of days from now a bunch of serious people expecting me to act all serious with their projects. I think i'll just look into their eyes and smile.

Not that there aren't people in Asia, too, who mean serious business. Yesterday, after the Grande Finale de Krung Thep, we went to see a forensic medicine museum, showcasing shelves upon shelves of skulls, lungs, hearts, and even tongues, all with close-range gunshot wounds in them, all sitting in preserving fluids.
The hospital hosting the museum also had a parasitology exhibition, which was good information and more disturbing imagery. I had no idea there can be so much worms inside a man.
And I'm especially happy that we went to see it only on the last day, having spent 3 weeks eating & drinking anything and everything with no concerns whatsoever. Of course, as of today, I will be only consuming products that have had no contact to nature.

So that was it. On final note, I was right about the Bangkok nightlife, which we did the proper way, which is of course to grab a local and hop on a taxi some time after midnight, and go party where the locals go. Pictures of this are withheld to protect the oh-so-guilty ones.

All in all, only one regret.
I forgot to do the crab dance.

One final note:
Go.

Fauna of Krung Thep

Successful transition from Langkawi to Bangkok, flying via Kuala Lumpur. The switch-over in KL was a bit of a gamble, after landing we had just 10 minutes in which to get our luggage from domestic arrivals, and clear the security checks to check-in desk in intl. departures.
A bit too much flying for such a relatively short trip, but our time is running out and we didn't want another overnight train or bus with no sleep.
In Bangkok we checked in a riverside-ish midrange hotel with glorious breakfast buffet and quite spacious room. And a bathroom with no giant cockroaches, as was the case with the previous place.
Not that i blame them, the bathroom in Langkawi was also very nice.

Bangkok (Krung Thep = City of Angels, as the Thai call it) is a home to millions of Homo Sapiens but the waste and leftovers of these millions support who-knows how many more millions of rodents, reptiles, birds, mammals, even fish, not to mention the insects.
The dogs seem well-eaten, the cats a bit sceptical, rodents haven't stopped with us for long enough to judge them, but their number is huge.

In a park in the very city center, there are very large monitor lizards, watching the elderly women do their tai-chi. In the lake there are also fat fish, turtles, and i think i saw something very lobstery reach for bits of suspected food on the surface once or twice.. i myself wouldn't go do any early-morning excercise there by myself, one misjudged step on a slippery slope and zap - your're not on the top of the food chain any more but on your way to your next incarnation, aided by sharp beaks, twisting tentacles, little sucking mouths, large gripping claws, just to name a few.
This is our last night, and will do something serious about it. The government, i hear, is again enforcing the 1am curfew rather strictly, but i would think a farang with a baht will not go thirsty any hour in this city.
BTW. for those who didn't know, the full official name of the city we are in, is

กรุงเทพมหานคร อมรรัตนโกสินทร์ มหินทรายุธยามหาดิลก ภพนพรัตน์ ราชธานีบุรีรมย์ อุดมราชนิเวศน์ มหาสถาน อมรพิมาน อวตารสถิต สักกะทัตติยะ วิษณุกรรมประสิทธิ์

Can also be written in Roman letters as:

Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit

and it means:
The city of angels, the great city, the residence of the Emerald Buddha, the impregnable city (of Ayutthaya) of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukarn.

No wonder people living in places with the name like "Raisio" are so much sadder a bunch than the smiling people of Thailand.

Langkawi, done.

In Langkawi, we're staying at Cenang beach, which was supposed to be the liveliest one.
I'd just say most developed one. And the place where one might want to go if one needs to get some parasailing or jet-skiing done. Snorkeling is not done here, waters are not clear enough, and i doubt if there would be much to see anyway, there seem to be no coral around.
Other than that, the beach itself is mostly good for reading, and watching toes. One's own or other's.
So that is what we did for two days.
There are good restaurants here, namely the one hi-class Thai-style place, name of which escapes me, and the 3-plastic-tables -pizzajoint who can make you thai food on a pizza, so you dont have to go for soups anymore if you want to have Tom Yam! And their service is so personal, that if you order out, the cook of your pizza himself hops on a scooter (not bothering to remove the apron) and delivers the goodies for you. Their other specialty is "special blue tea", which is served cold and sans sugar. It is an euphemism for Tiger beer, which they dont advertise because of the muslim community.

The best local grub is as easy to find here as anywhere. Just look or ask where the locals eat and join them. The food may come on a metal tray and it might not be exactly the thing you were asking for, but you'll walk away satisfied and having only spent the change in your pocket.
Anywho, today we decided to see also the rest of the island. Our weapon of choice was a whopping 175cc worth of Korean motorcycle engineering.

Looking for the good beaches, we came by a Langawized Englishman who was heading home with his car. He told us about The Best beach, which was his way. So we followed him and truly found a postcard-perfect beach, and practically deserted one, too!

Having soaked enough of mid-day blazing sun, we did the other sights of the island, too.
Best of which must be the cable car, running 710 meters up a mountain. Spectacular views.
One can but envy the eagles (of which here be many) who can go up there and see it all at will.
The nightlife here has left something to desire for. While the season hasn't really started yet, which translates to empty beaches and affordable rooms, I think the Richard-Clayderman-plays-Rod-Stewarts-most-pathetic-ones -kind of music that the restaurant next to our room is playing, is just too much to take.

And that is partly why we, tomorrow morning, will try to get to Bangkok.

Living on the edge

I took the plunge.
I have not come this far with great expense just to shy away from it.
I can return to the normal, safe, lifestyle when I get back (should I survive it, that is).
Sure, others have done it, and lived to tell, but some also look horrible and say never again.

My sunscreen now has a sun protection factor of 20 instead of 50.

Pulau Langkawi, Malaysia

Left Perhentian islands yesterday, and spent the day in an Islamic town called Kota Bharu. Then took an overnight bus to Kuala Perlis, and ferry to Langkawi. First one departed at 6am, so here we are, at 8 am, Langkawi, Malaysia.
Again we had no accomodation booked ahead, but caught a knowledgeable taxi driver from the ferry terminal and found an acceptable deal on a bit more upscale chalet.
The plan was to spend some days in Langkawi and then fly to Bangkok, but now it turns out there are no flights connecting those two places. What that means, for us, I don't know yet. And I'll only start caring about it after some serious beach time on Malaysias best beaches (and duty-free beer).
For those of you interested in money; yesterday we spent 35 Ringets to ferry from Perhentian Kecil to mainland, shared a 50 RM taxi to Kota Bharu with Victoria & Hannah, paid 8 RM for taxi to to bus corrext bus station (there are three of those in Kota Bharu, bear in mind next time you're around the place), bought bus tickets for 40 RM (the seats reclined almost to vertical, and had leg supports, but still sleeping wasn't easy), then paid 18 RM to ferry to Langkawi, and 24 RM to taxi to take us to Cenang beach, where we are now gonna get a few hours of sleep until go check out the place.
So the total for 3 taxis, 2 ferries, and one 8-hour cross-the-country bus is 122 RM per person, which is something shy of 30 €. This chalet costs 110 RM a night, which is ok, especially when we get to switch over to a beach-front one tomorrow.

Accomodation rearrangements

Yesterday, took a snorkeling trip. Left before 11 am and headed by boat to Turtle Bay, across on the other island. The bay lived up to its name. Gigantic sea turtles, two of them. They weren't bothered by us very much, but slided away if we go too close. Way cool.




The trip would've continued to Shark Point and other places, but there was some smoke coming up from our beach, and we decided to check out if it's anything serious. I thought it was someone burning garbage on the beach or some early lunch BBQ with bigger-than-usual catch. However, headed back to the beach and indeed there was something going on.


Serious, yes. This is the picture of the chalets as we found them. Ours is the second from right.
So all we could do was to grab a bucket and get in line passing water from the sea to the huts, trying to constrain the fire. And we succeeded in that, the main building (restaurant; other of the two places selling beer on this beach [conservative islamic region, remember?]).

The fire had started in chalet 11, we were staying in 9. But still the staff had managed to pull almost all of our gear from the hut, save for some items of clothing and electronic gadgets, couple of books, and my cellphone. So don't bother calling me, this time the ignorance of your calls and messages is not intentional.

So we had to find another place to stay in, which wasn't as straightforward as one might think, since nearly all the places had already shut down for the monsoon season.
Later that night we did a survivor / fire rescue workers party at the best restaurant of the beach. The restaurant was open for the last night, and they only had one beer left. I drank it and took some decisive action. After going combing down all the beach, I managed to purchase 2 cases of beer from the burned-down restaurant (guess who was the hero of the moment!) and I'm proud to tell you, none was left this morning.

The survivors here, at the end of the evening, some already missing: Victoria (sweet and utterly charming lass from UK), Simon (great bloke, see his around-the-world adventures on Hallidays Adventures), Hannah (beautiful and fun redhead with a stunning smile from UK), Philip (a good man, originating from Texas), Tea and me.




Today, we wanted to continue the snorkeling trip that was cut short yesterday. And I'm very happy that we did. Saw amazing-coloured bays, loads of various-shaped and coloured fish, the giant turtles again, and then the sharks. We were joined on this trip by Victoria and two guys, from UK and Sweden. If any of you should ever be in need of pictures of black-tip sharks on coral reef, just let me know, I'm sure one of my 300-or so pics will suite your needs just perfect.

Tomorrow we are leaving this exceptional island (with a promise to the burned-down place's owner to return some day) and try to get to Langkawi, an island on the other side of Malaysia. Since my cellphone thingy is no more (they're just so last season!), the location map probably wont be updated anymore.

So that is our last two days. How was yours, my hearties?

Pulau Perhentian Kecil, Malaysia

This is it. We found it. It took a while, 2 major cities, hop to a Vietnamese island, and a 1000 km train trip thru jungle, followed by a good hour's worth of sitting in a "taxi" and finally a 30-minute speed boat trip.

The Jungle Railway is a less-used train route thru some of the oldest rainforest in the world. Would be really interesting to see it some day. But we boarded the train in Singapore, and shortly thereafter (7pm) the tropical darkness fell upon us, after which it took approx. 12 hrs before there was enough light to see anything outside the train again.

But to the point; we have arrived to our destination. We didnt know it until we arrived, but now we're there.
The remote island with with sand, lush forest and no bars by Sedu.
We arrived in the nick of time, the dozen-or-so places on the island are closing down for the monsoon season. This means several things; there really is heavy rain coming our way, again. Maybe half of the places have already closed, opening again in March-April or so. And the seas will get rough, which will make the boats here more infrequent.
But it also means that there are not many people on the island anymore, and the prices on rooms are low. We paid something in the order of 40€ for the first 3 nights. After those we'll see about the weather again. Also the general feeling amongst the habitants is be extremely relaxed, but I don't know it that is due to the general mentality or ending of the season.

But currently the weather is overcast, temperature 30+ and no winds to speak of. The waters are clear and the restaurant-huts on the beach are firing up their barbecues.

This region is basically conservative muslim country, which means drinking is not really couraged but on the beach there are also signs on the contrary...

Also had chance to test the souvenir from Singapore; marine case for the camera. Quite dear, but worth the money. Went snorkeling off the beach and saw the usual parrot fish, jellyfish etc but also a sea turtle!

Sights of Singapore

Decided to stay in Singapore one more day, to see at least something of the city.
Shopping malls are aplenty and huge, and I honestly didn't know there is a consumer need for a mall that deals exclusively action figures. You know, Star Wars and Transformers etc. But now I know and there is.
Also went to the entertainment-hell of an island of Sentosa, to visit Underwater World, an aquarium. Hand-fed rays there, which was an experience. And served also as a sign of gratitude for what some relative of these fresh-water rays did to that Steve Irwin -character.

Moved out of the Carlton for more budget lodging, and now we're staying near Little India. The room is a small, windowless ashtray (wonder what the smoking-rooms are like, this is a non-smoker!), but price is cheap under Singaporean standards, and all we really need now is a bed and a shower. And being served by 3 different servants on the way from hotel elevator to hotel door (as is the way in Carlton), is not something i'm comfortable with anyway.

Little India is an area of Singapore where the hard-working men who build this city live in. They're all Indian. And seemingly Sunday night is their only night off, and then they put on their best shirts and gather in street corners in amazing masses to shake hands with one another and compare mobile phones.

Next destination is also decided on, we're heading to North-East coast of Malaysia with a train. Off that coast there are a couple of islands (Pulau Perinthian) that should be good for snorkeling and relaxing. And popular with the younger backpacker crowd, so things should be lively at nights as well.
The trip from here to the coast will be made by train, leaving tomorrow evening, and lasting some 13 hrs. This train route is called the Jungle Line, and it passes thru some of the oldest rain forest in the world.

Suddenly, Singapore

Took the morning flight out of Con Son Island to Saigon (as if there were any other flights) and grabbed the first flight from there to Singapore.
Idea was to stay in some budget backpacker place, but by instead ended up in Carlton hotel, a joint well summarized by the word "grand".

We were looking very out of place in the lobby, with our fresh-out-of-jungle clothes and appearance, whereas the rest of the clientele was of the upper management type from India and Europe, getting ready for an evening of fine dining.
So now we find ourselves 18 well air-conditioned floors above the heat of the tidy and well-organized streets of Singapore.

Singapore is the shopping capitol of South East Asia. Taxation on goods is low (5% Government Tax), except for alcohol, which costs dearly. Fortunately yours truly is a member of a very exclusive MC Club Murskeat Lokit, members of which have spent many years and loads of money to be trained in the fine art of finding the best dos-por-uno -deals in a new city.
But the sneakers with the motif of Edouard Munch's famous "Scream" were a bargain.

It's good to be back in a city. The island served it's purpose of relaxing, but tonight we'll go see nightlife, come hell or high water.

Con Son Island or Happiness is a Waste Basket

This island has a gruesome past; from the 19th century, it has been a place where the powers that be, have put their political prisoners. The first 9 decades it was the French, and in the 50's, the South Vietnamese government took over and saw to it that the habits of torture and killings continued. A while later, the US started bringing the Viet Cong and other suspects here. They suffered horrible things and were liberated when the Saigon regime surrendered in 1975.
Where the liberators (now Socialist Republic of Vietnam) holds its political prisoners, I do not know. Probably someplace where less tourism is planned by the government.

It is now our 3rd day here. First one was sunny and hot. On second day, a powerful thunderstorm swept the island, just as we had rented a motorbike. Same today, but with the exception of no pauses to the rain. Still, we toured the island, got soaking wet, went to see the national park, got more wet, and saw a thunderous waterfall (at which point we were already saturated, so didnt get any more wet).
The island has tourists, but not that many of them. So the locals treat us as people, not as source of income. Everyone waves hellos and views us with curiosity.

This is also our last day here. We're flying back to Ho Chi Minh tomorrow morning, and have no further plans as of yet. So now we need to decide whether we continue by plane to Singapore or Kuala Lumpur or by bus or riverboat to Cambodia.

Anyhow, I know we're close to happiness now. Now if I could just understand this message presented by our waste bin...

Going there

Needed a relaxing vacation, far away from various things, and so we booked a three-week trip to South-East Asia.
First stop after Finland was Guanzhou, China. Stopped there for a better part of the day, and found out that there is not really much to do on Canton airport, except to be mildly interested about the whereabouts of the man who greeted us after passport check, and claimed to be there to help us transfer to our connecting flight. Then he took our passports and tickets and vanished.
Several hours after that, we were able to get someone get hold of him, and to our surprise, there had been serious stamping activity during those hours, and our documents were in order.
Next thing was a flight to Ho Chi Minh City, previously known as Saigon.

Now downtown Saigon is not THE place to relax, at least not in the hotel class we traveled in.
There are about 4 million motorbikes in Saigon. The traffic is right-hand side, unless there is room on the left-hand side. And on the right hand side there may also be some other motorbikers, not quite realizing your need to be somewhere very soon, so it is better to take the left hand side. Unless there is an opening on the right hand side. But if you see it, you're already late in trying to claim it. You must feel it. And take it by surprise. But whatever you do, remember to honk the horn. That way others know you exist. And the more you honk, the more you exist. And no-one wants to be a non-existant nobody.

In Vietnam, the people around you are very nice, and food is good.
But that is also the case when I'm alone.
That is why relaxing part of the trip is now trying to start on Con Dao Islands, 40 minutes by plane from Saigon.
Used for decades as an prisoner island for all the wars, now trying to establish itself as eco-touristic tropical paradise destination.

So far, looks promising.