Ko Pha Ngan

From beach to shining beach.

We were ready to fight for a seat on the bus if necessary. It was a long haul, up off the island then across the peninsula to Surat Thani. The bus clerk said four hours, but that reeked of BS. There was no way I was spending that indeterminate amount of time standing or sitting on a rail or stuffed in a luggage compartment or whatever. We got a seat thankfully, and it's a good thing too as the ride cut close too around seven hours. I'm not sure. I kept dozing off, occasionally waking to the sound of a young boy howling after being slapped upside the head by his grandmother.

We were deposited next to a tourism office in Surat Thani filled with other backpackers. Everyone appeared to be fixed in position, waiting for something. We knew what we wanted. At 11pm, a handful of boats left the Surat Thani night pier for the three main vacation islands on the east coast: Ko Samui, Ko Pha Ngan and Ko Tao. We wanted the boat to Ko Pha Ngan. "750 baht" we were told, but our healthy skepticism kicked in and opted to leave the other entranced travelers and walk to the pier ourselves. "Ticket same price at pier!" We'll see.

On the way to the pier, we grabbed dinner at a night market. It seems like every town has one of these, and they are always sinfully cheap. At the pier we saw the boats loading up. A man in front sold us our ticket: 400 baht. Traveling tip #1: NEVER arrange transportation through a tour company! With our tickets bought, there was nothing left to do but whittle away the next three hours buying snacks and finding cheap Internet.

The boat was interesting. It was a rickety wooden number, the inside lined with bunks. An overnight boat. I wondered how it would hold up against some serious waves and that scene from Amistad aboard the slave ship kept coming to mind. It was a seven hour ride. God help us if they overbooked this thing too.

Thankfully, it was underbooked and I had a good amount of space to spread out in. The lights went out as the boat left the harbour and almost immediately, I fell asleep. I awoke only once, during a particularly turbulent patch. In the long list of my waking up "where the hell am I" moments, this one ranked high. The room was moving and it was pitch black. I regained my bearings and went back to sleep.

The boat pulled into Thong Sala on Ko Pha Ngan just as the sun was coming up. Anyone who off-the-cuff travels knows that arriving at your destination is only half of the battle. Next came actually finding a place to deposit our heavy, heavy backpacks. Adam's sister told him of a wonderful place called Eden located on a beach called Hat Yuan. So off we went in search of Eden.

Ko Pha Ngan has always been a popular stop on the banana pancake trail. It has the distinction of being the premier party island due to it's notorious full moon parties. These parties can attract an upwards of 10,000 people, all getting completely screwed out of their gourds and dancing to psy-trance, a genre of music whose name alone is enough to make a sensible man's balls retract into his abdomen. Sex and drugs are rampant, and, for a time, the island seems to exist outside of the law. Of course, and island known for it's parties is not content having only one party a month, so numerous half-moon parties and black moon parties have taken root. Really, if the moon happens to exist that particular night, people will party. It is Ibiza East.

Thong Sala is the islands administrative capital and main port. The whole island is about 12km in diameter and very very mountainous, making even road travel difficult. The beach we were heading towards, Hat Yuan, required a trip to the other side of the island followed by a short boat ride. As we each rode on the backs of our own motorcycle taxis, the island's, uhm, "culture" became apparent. Signs advertising parties every 10 meters. Bars named "Purple Haze" and "Bar Rasta". An emphasis on red, yellow and green. Ugly, swirling font. An art gallery selling paintings of Bob Marley with a fat joint in his mouth. Tattoo parlours everywhere. An African drum store. So help me god, everything but unicycle rentals. I felt a bit worried. An entire island procured and emblematized by the epitome of Western laziness.

Our taxi bikes stopped on the beaches of Hat Rin, ground zero for the full-moon parties. It was 7am and the town exhuded a certain calm, but remnants of trash and various signage hinted at the debauchery which regularly transpired here. Tiny cramped stalls lined the beach, advertising booze buckets, each trying to outdo the other in sheer vulgarity. Not even clever vulgarity. Just the kind that would maybe tittilate a high school student. Apparently the denizens of Hat Rin have smoked their brains back into adolescence.

From the beach, we caught a boat a few fathoms up to Hat Yuan, where we would finally be able to rest after 24 hours in transit. by then, the sun was high in the sky and the beach was beautiful. We seemed worlds away from the vulgarity of Hat Rin, and much of what we saw seemed downright classy by comparison. Of course, there was a healthy handful of Che Guevara posters and billboards advertising "happy shakes", but just enough to stay within certain boundaries of tastefulness. Like the right amount of bacteria to curdle milk into yoghurt.

Eden was full unfortunately, so we set up elsewhere and I immediately set to work doing nothing. And so it went. For three days straight. Sure, Hat Yuan offered snorkeling and kayaking and all the other fun vacation stuff, but it also offered a quiet beach, a stunning view and a true feeling of time standing still. No one else on the beach could tell you if it was Monday or Saturday. The occasional boat would roar by, but otherwise it was all ocean. Not even a seagull. There's something about the sound of the ocean, especially for someone who rarely gets the opportunity to hear it. The soft swell, lulls like a siren's song, and with each wave it pulls away a layer of burden, bit by bit, until you succumb to it's grand reverie. For three days I listened to that ocean.

When Eden had a vacancy on day 2, we got on board. The pathway to Eden was a cleverly constructed boardwalk that wound up the rocks that lined the outer fringe of the bay. Around one bend that appeared to go nowhere, our lodging gradually revealed itself. It was perched high, overlooking the bay, yet it seemed to sit outside of view from everything else. Like a little secret that we had been let in on. The lodgings themselves were tiny A-frames seamlessly integrated into the hillside, like someone blew them there as seeds and they took root and sprouted up. We met the proprietor, Kang, and he made sure from the getgo that we all remained on a first name basis. No "sir"s, no "man"s, and think Christ no "mistar"s. After we settled, I resumed doing nothing, this time in the hammock thoughtfully provided with our A-frame.

At night, the nights of the bay glew faintly, almost naturally amongst the environment. From the balcony of Eden, they clung to the curvature of the bay like sugar on the rim of a glass. Just around the way, there was undoubtedly some kind of arrant depravity taking place in Hat Rin, but we seemed worlds away. I met another older gentleman from England who was traveling alone. His name was Phil, and he was also a teacher in Korea, however he was only on holiday. He had been teaching on and off again since he was my age, and spoke with an informed knowledge as to why it eventually became his calling. He had been a ratshit kid well into his twenties that was eventually dragged kicking and screaming into adulthood. It took him a long time to realize what he wanted to do with himself, but since he made his decision to teach abroad, he hasn't looked back. Very interesting perspective to say the least.

On day 3 I actually started getting a little restless. The aformentioned reverie eventually turned into ennui. Listlessness. I think I was getting a bug too. Fatigue. But I had to do something. Someone told me that there was a dirt road that led back to Hat Rin, so I set out trying to find it. I honestly didn't think it possible for a road to cut up the steep mountains that encased the bay, but after a little searching, lo and behold, there it was. I followed it. It kept climbing and climbing. Red dust and dirt garnished my legs from the shin down. It was horribly hot that day too, and I had exhausted my 2 litre bottle of water too early. High up, the sea and sky seemed to blur together, no visible horizon, like entire island was floating in a void. I was so very tired. The descent proved to be much easier, but the road didn't reach Hat Rin. It was a further 5km walk to get there along the steep coastline. By then I could officially say that I had been walking all day long. I made it to town, stumbling in like a wounded villager who had just survived an encounter with Grendel. Just then, Adam sped by on a motorbike and picked me up. He had been whizzing about the island all day and was just about to return the bike.

By then, the sun was beginning to set and bodies were amassing on the beach. Stalls were already starting to sell their booze buckets, and it looked like some people were already drunk. The beach itself was beautiful, albeit strewn with cigarette butts. Exhaustion had become frustration with a tiny dose of heat stroke thrown in. I knew I had to get back to Hat Yuan before any psy-trance elevated my mood to full on indignation. We boarded the boat.

I decided that that night would be my last in Ko Pha Ngan. there was still so much more to do, and time was standing a little too still for my taste. Adam wanted to stay however. He had already booked a dive for the next day. So we agreed that we would part ways, making no discerned plan to meet up later. I figured that we'd at least be able to meet in Bangkok. Until then I would go it alone and see if my sanity would hold. Traveling is all about trying new things right?

So at 9am, with Adam already departed for his SCUBA trip, I woke and dutifully packed for my next destination, Ko Tao. Another beach. After bidding Kang farewell, I wrested myself from the island, leaving Adam and the rest behind to further revel in it's capsule.

The path to Eden.

Boardwalk.

Kang, our hotelier.

The higher reaches of Ko Pha Ngan.

Adam's majestic motorbike.

Phuket

Phuket is, in many ways, the Acapulco of Southeast Asia. You would have never heard of it had it not been such a huge tourist hotspot. The whole island is practically lined with beaches and those beaches are lined with beach resorts. Lots of tourists going in which means lots of money. I wanted to check it out mainly to see what all the fuss was about. Plus, it seemed fundamentally wrong to go through Thailand without seeing the pulsing core of the Andaman Coast.

By land you can only enter Phuket from the top. We wrapped around the Gulf of Phuket and landed in Phuket Town in the center of the island; a trip that took a modest 4 hours. However, it should be noted that for 3 hours of the ride, neither Adam nor I had a seat. Adam stood then sat on a hand rest. I sat on the stairs. The floor was hot and had an uncomfortable lined pattern etched into it. By the end of the trip I probably had grill marks on my ass. I already missed Malaysian buses.

It was sinfully hot in Phuket Town. Summer of Sam hot. We walked a good 20 minutes before arriving at our hotel. Thankfully it welcomed us in with a host of amenities and a few bonuses thrown in. It's always sweet, as a backpacker, when you pay for a dorm bed and the entire room ends up being completely empty. Pants. Off.

The entire first day, I unapologetically did nothing but revel in the pleasantries of the Phuket Backpacker's Hostel. Internet, Wifi, Skype, air-conditioned commons area, a huge DVD library. We met a Dutch guy named Bartjan whose face was frozen in a state of perpetual excitiement. His shirt had a picture of himself making the exact same face along with a link to his blog. That evening we went out to the night market in search of food, and managed to pick up a few more traveler along the way, one of which was Yasuhiro from back in Krabi. Nothing else noteworthy happened that night other than the fact that I tried every flavor of Fanta and got a stomachache.

Phuket Town kind of sucks. Well, there are no attractions there, but that's great because it's allowed it to become an oasis of cheap in the middle of an island that does everything but shake the fillings from your teeth to try and get your money.

Day 2 on the island. Time to see these world famous beaches. Adam set out before I did and we made haphazard plans to meet up "where the bus drops you off at the beach". So basically we never ended up meeting. We went to two entirely different beaches actually. Adam explored the shores of Kata while I went to the long, luxury hotel-lined sands of Karon. It sounded like he got the better deal. My beach was by no means lousy, it's just that after the spendour that was Raylay and the Perhentians, the long expanse of yellow sand that was Karon felt a little mundane. It was quite empty though, an unexpected surprise for Phuket, and I enjoyed a swim and a nap completely unbothered by touts and gleaming white flesh (other than my own). Actually, come to think of it, I remember spotting some guy sunbathing with his ass hanging out. Otherwise, a decent time.

To get out to the beach, I had to hop on a bus that cost a modest 30 baht. "Transportation figured out" I thought. Unfortunately, these buses stopped at 5, and when I ran for one and narrowly missed it, I had no idea that it was the last one of the day. As it rolled off, the tourists riding in the back watched me falter with blank expressions on their faces. Much like I don't like them, it seems they don't like me. We all don't like each other really. No one wants to share the paradise pie.

No one told me it was the last bus of course. I didn't figure that out until after I had waited a good 40 minutes. "That was definitely the last bus" I deduced. So it appeared that taking a taxi was the only other option. I let out a sigh of defeat and accosted the grinning men in the taxi stand. They knew they didn't need to hassle anyone for business anymore. The tables had turned. They sat and eagerly awaited me. "700 baht" said one, confidently. That's over 20 times the price of the bus. $21. I tried to haggle him down, but he knew that I was sewered and just smiled at me. It was these precise conditions that compelled me to hitchhike for the first time in my life. This taxi driver with a smug, shit-eating grin on his face, confident he fleeced another dippy tourist. I refused to be that dippy tourist. "Boy that's expensive" I said, "I guess I'll have to hitchhike". And off I went. The last thing he said to me was "600 baht!". Jackass.

So I walked to the edge of town and sheepishly stuck my thumb out. The problem with hitchhiking in Phuket is you keep getting those damn taxi drivers slowing down and expecting a fare from you. And they never say a price or even ask for money until AFTER the ride when they can charge whatever the hell they want. I would gesture them onwards. The first car that picked me up drove me only halfway. The man seemed terrified of me. My second ride dutifully took me back to town, as if he were fishing for some good karma later on down the road. The whole process took about an hour at the coat of free. My turn to wear the shit-eating grin.

That night Adam and I explored Phuket's sordid nightlife. It was loud, flashy and expensive. Some very disreputable people prowled the streets. Ruddy old white men, and I'll give you one guess as to what their companions looked like. It was a circus. Thankfully a handful of songthaews were ready to take us home at a moment's notice. I'll never forget the sight of Adam, completely exhausted, managing to fall asleep as the bus zipped around mountain corners, hurling him left and right.

So ended our Phuket experience. A solid B minus all in all. As a backpacker, I'm blessed with the freedom to hop on a bus and float wherever, without having to worry about bookings, itineraries or the real world. Perhaps if all I knew of Thailand came from the flashy brochures in a travel bureau in a suburban mall, I would be happy escaping to the far-flung island of "Foo-ket". But I'm young and unhindered, and it's best to continue on and see the rest of the world, and leave places like Phuket to those whose workaday lives impel them to appreciate it more.

No photos due to broken camera.

Krabi

We decided to visit Krabi based on the suggestions of other travelers. Before then, it was nothing more than a funny name on a map. Existing along the eastern rim of the Gulf of Phuket, Krabi inhabits what I have dubbed the Phuket-o-sphere. The entire Andaman coast of Thailand is home to some of the best beaches and islands in the whole continent, with the island of Phuket serving as a convenient jump-off point. Every day, hundreds of tourists pour into Phuket's airport, bleached and besandaled. A select few make it out to the surrounding environs. These few, along with a handful of backpackers, make up the general foreigner contingent in Krabi.

Krabi is both a town and a province, but rarely is any specific distinction required. When one speaks of Krabi, you usually envision a coastline of white sand beaches flanked by dramatic limestone cliffs, all within a short hop of the eponymous town. Accommodation was pricier along the beach (funny how that happens), so we opted to station ourselves in town.

The town itself is quite quaint. Cheerful townsfolk hustle and bustle about, and a healthy dose of bars and restaurants cater to the backpacker community. Songthaews ply the streets offering fast and convenient transportation to the surrounding areas. We caught one early in the afternoon to Ao Nang, a nearby beach. Our fellow passengers were North Americans; cocky, confident and more enamored by their own presence than that of those whom they were talking to.

The beach was well-developed. Taking a page from the European book of beach building, a long esplanade ran the length of the shoreline, dividing the sand from the shops and restaurants. Surf shops, Irish pubs and tattoo parlours mingled with Starbucks, McDonald's and Subway. The crowd, a mixture of the young and thin and the old and bulbous. A dynamic young Thai accosted an ungainly white man wearing a banana hammock, vying for some of his disproportionately large wealth. We weren't planning on staying. Instead we caught a boat to the isolated peninsula of Raylay.

The limestone cliffs jut out of the Krabi landscape, at times forming impassable barriers. In this instance, a rather large formation separated the peninsula of Raylay from the rest of the mainland, thus the need for a boat. We sailed along cliffsides until they eventually broke from the coast revealing a stretch of beach sheltered amongst their looming crags. This beach was also quite developed, but much less frenetic, so it made an excellent choice.

Adam set off in search of a place to rock climb, while I plopped myself down on the beach in an attempt to give my ghostly carcass some colour. Time went by. Boats came and went, collecting and distributing tourists. Tiny sand crabs flitted in and out of holes. I took a swim. After about an hour of this, I got a little restless. Living a year in a stimulating environment like Seoul can whittle away one's attention span, so I sought out a new activity to pursue.

Kayaking seemed to call to me, so I jacketed up and set put to see some more of the rugged coastline. After about 5 minutes of paddling against the current, it became clear how physically demanding kayaking could be. My supple girl arms began to throb, but I pressed onwards. I was rewarded with two towering islands rising from the sea; a narrow corridor of shallow water separating them, as if a guillotine had sliced it, specifically for me to pass through. I floated in between for a bit, then it was time to head back.

I walked the neck of the peninsula over to the other coast and bumped into Adam who was preparing for his last climb of the day. The sheer cliff overlooked an emerging tidal flat, so I seized a few shots. The seas were getting rough and the boats were making their last runs, so we headed back. In the songthaew, we met a Japanese vacationer named Yasuhiro who accompanied us to dinner at the night market. He was classic Japanese. Very polite, a little awkward, no eye contact. I called it in early later that evening.

The next day was a very special day. It was the last day of Songkran, Thai new year, and to celebrate, the whole town filled up buckets and water pistols and took to the streets dousing literally everyone they saw. It didn't matter if they were drunken backpackers or Thai businessmen in tweed jackets, they all participated and they all got soaked. I was lucky to squeeze in breakfast before the first deluge. People would set up huge barrels of water by the road and pummel oncoming traffic. Flatbed trucks filled with young Thais brandishing water guns prowled the streets doing drive-bys. The real hardcore kids used ice water, talcum powder and even paint. It was pandemonium. Loud music blared from every caravan and soak station. I joined in on the fun. Adam was already well embedded. A few things got broken in the fray. My sunglasses, and worst of all, my camera. There was so much damn water everywhere.

Growing tired of the corner we stationed ourselves at, I decided to rent a motorbike and roam the streets observing the festivities. It got even wilder as I drove along. Narrow streets became a gauntlet of water, talcum powder and paint. Driving behind a truck full of kids was just asking for a soaking.

After my (not so) dry run of the town, I swung back and picked up Adam so we could administer our own drive-bys. We got decimated. At one point, a girl poured red paint all over my sunglasses. I made a point to stop at the next soak station a few meters ahead so they could wash it off, but it was even worse there. A dude poured ice-cold water directly on my forehead eliciting the most punishing brain freeze I've ever had. Realizing that we were just getting our asses handed to us, I opted to return the bike. By then it was about 5 and the constant bedlam around us was starting to grow tiresome. We retreated to the inner sanctum of a bar until the sun went down and people started clearing the streets. Soon it became safe to don dry clothes again.

That night, over drinks, someone spoke of this local club that was always packed and completely free to get into. My desire to know more eventually led to us hopping into a car full of strangers bound for the fabled "Room 69". The driver was a Thai girl named Wee Wee. Things were starting to look sketchy. Thankfully the place was a pretty on-the-level establishment and yes, it was packed and completely free. Up front, a Thai DJ played a mix of Thai and English popular songs and the crowd ate it up. He pranced about the stage like a rock star. As I made my way through the swell of people, it became immediately apparent that we were the only foreigners there. I guess Lonely Planet hasn't picked up on it yet. A few girls shot me smiles and a few guys shot me scowls. Adam left early while I got roped into a table of dudes who poured me free drinks for the remainder of the night. I suspected that they were using me to pick up girls. Like, come on guys, I can't even use me to pick up girls. Needless to say it didn't work, and their generosity went to waste.

The house lights came on and I staggered out into the streets, realizing that I had no idea where the hell I was. Looking like the saddest sight in the world. I ambled in the direction I suspected the town was until one of the bar staff passing by offered me a life back into town. "Back into town? I thought. Jesus that would have been one hell of an amble home. He dropped me off at the main town intersection and wished me good morrow. It still took a white before I got my bearings and found my way back to the hotel. It was 5am. Of all the places for me to pull the first all-nighter of the trip: Krabi Town.

The next morning my mouth was so damn dry that I would have welcomed the jackass with the ice water if he happened to bound into the hotel room at that moment. It was time to eat and leave. Thankfully we were only going to Phuket, a mere four hour drive away. Krabi surprised me in the end. It was from a mere suggestion that we decided to stop there, and I left soaking wet, sore and hungover with a broken camera. Still had an amazing time. Hey all potential backpackers: go to Krabi.

Limestone cliffs overlooking Raylay Beach.

Adam's final ascent of the day.

Adam at the height of his climb (if you can spot him).

Why riding a motorcycle is a bad idea during Songkran.

These guys are loving it.

This may or may not have been how my camera got broken.

Good work Adam.

Butterworth/Hat Yai - a day in motion

Some altruistic local politician decided to make the ferry off of Penang free. The same politician may have also been responsible for making the bus station, train station and pier all close together; something that surprisingly few cities think to do. It was shaping up to be an easy day on the roads. Read on however.

The ferry arrived on the mainland in a town called Butterworth aka Buttwerf aka Butt Whiff. It was a pretty shabby place, but like I said, all major transit stations were conveniently lumped together so I wasn't about to complain. It was unfortunate however, that we had to wait two hours in Butt Whiff for the next bus out. Not much to do except buy snacks and enjoy an air conditioned ATM.

Our next bus pulled in and out, giving us just enough time to hop on. All but two seats were full. It was a double-decker bus and my seat happened to be on top at the very front, providing me with a windshield and a great panorama of the journey.

These frequent bus rides punctuate the journey and offer temporary moments of solace, depending on the comfort level. An excellent opportunity to sleep, listen to music, read, write. I would alternate between these choices, different combinations to maybe make the trip sail by faster. So much time spent in transit. When I was back in Canada, I remember a five hour ride to Toronto seemed daunting. Here, our long rides have attained the rote bearabity of a commute. I might visit Toronto more when I get home.

It was mid-afternoon when we reached the Thai border. It was a zoo of course. A truck exhaust filled zoo. Monkeys swung around the rafters above us as we waited in line at customs. Literally a zoo at that point. The lady stamped our passports. 14 days in Thailand, not nearly enough time. Looks like we'll be dipping into Burma for a visa run after all.

The second we got into Thailand it was like someone pulled the bug out of Malaysia's ass. More colours, more chaos, more playful advertisements. In a nutshell, more swirl. We cruised through the little border town, onward to Hat Yai, our next transfer point.

When we arrived, it became apparent that we walked into something special. Streets were closed off, food carts were rolled out and revellers were singing, dancing and spraying each other with water. It was the first day of Songkran, Thai New Year, and people were celebrating. We felt compelled to stay, but had to press onwards.

The touts tried a new technique on us: tell the disembarking tourist that the bus to their next destination is leaving RIGHT NOW, forcing them to hurry and not take time to consider the price or other options. Didn't work. After Indonesia, our scam radars became finely callibrated. We hopped in a songthaew to the bus station and as we drove off, a young girl blasted us with water. Yep, definitely more swirl.

Turns out we had another long wait ahead of us at the bus station. I seized the opportunity to change my ringgets into baht. I knew that the exchange rate was 10.06. Always know the exchange rate because they try to fleece you if you don't.

Anyways, the bus station offered 9 which was total crap, so I looked elsewhere. Another place I found offered the same, but the lady seemed to have arbitrarily concocted that number. Sensing a chip in her armor, I grabbed a calculator and went about showing her how much money I was losing with her daft exchange rate. She offered 9.2. I countered 9.5. We settled on 9.4 and a free Coke. More swirl.

The sun had gone down back at the station and we bided our time by observing some of the ridiculous buses that passed by. They were all nothing compared to the one we would eventually ride. It rolled up like the belle of the ball, calling everyone's attention to it's arrival. It was two stories tall, adorned with embellishments and wacky fonts and lit with alternating green and hot pink lights. On the inside of the bus. It looked like Willy Wonka's mobile sex disco. "Jesus, is that our bus?" I thought. Yes it was. More. Swirl.

At 2am our bus creaked into Krabi, our final destination. We were pretty damn sick and tired of traveling at that point. We slogged through the dimly lit streets while the garish monstrosity that was our bus drove off in the distance. We landed a hotel room after finally finding a front desk that was being tended. After that it was lights out. Thailand had just begun and it would prove to be a country that would require plenty of rest beforehand.

Outside of the bus to Krabi.

Inside.

Malaysia roundup

So Malaysia is done. We never got to see anything on Borneo, but we did scour the peninsular part quite thoroughly.

The highs:

- Excellent bus transportation. In Indonesia, the buses drove me the closest I've been to sheer madness. We had to pay a bit more, but considering the massive chunk of our trip that's spent in transit, this was definitely an acceptable concession.
- Perhentian Islands. Everything about them. The weather, the beach, the scuba, the restaurants, all gorgeous. It was unfathomable that such a perfect slice of paradise could be as uncrowded as it was.
- Scuba diving. Like I said, something I never thought I'd do, but so thankful I did.
- The weather in the Cameron Highlands. A welcome change from the crock pot that was KL.
- All the amazing Indian food. Seriously some of the best I've had in my life, and so cheap.

The lows:

- The price of beer. Same price as back in Canada at times. Kind of made it hard to drink when you knew it made up close to 50% of your daily budget.
- Social repression. Not many people seem to know how to cut loose and have fun. Islam kind of has a lot of people in a chokehold and it would have been nice to see more than just Chinese dudes out on the town at night.
- KL Tower. What a tourist trap! 9 ringgets to play Playstation for 5 minutes in the guise of an "F1 Simulator". BS!
- Bees in Taman Negara. Probably the most intimately I've known bees in my life.
- Red Dragon Backpacker's Hostel in Kuala Lumpur. No idea why it was so big and popular. Boiling hot room with no window, expensive and they put carpet in the shower.
- Durians. The vilest fruit borne from the earth.
- How everything was closed. Petronas Towers, half of the canopy walkway, the National Mosque, and a handful of other things I can't remember.

The meh:

- Georgetown. It was alright, but a lot of the attractions were painfully boring. The best thing to do there honestly was to eat.
- Taman Negara canopy walkway. It was what I expected, but if I had come there just for that, I surely would have been disappointed.

I'm already a good distance into Thailand as you read this, so hopefully I can play catchup in the next few days or so. Malaysia, done! Five more countries to go!

Georgetown

Back to the buses. This time we were searing a path from coast to coast on our way to the island of Penang. It's capital, Georgetown, carries a historical significance. When the British established the East India Trading Company, they made Georgetown its HQ. Strategically located in the Strait of Malacca, a major trade route to the east, it made perfect sense. The entire island flourished and attracted merchants and industrialists from all over the world; China, India, Ceylon, Siam. Today the city is not quite the bustling commercial hub it once was, but it still contains the colonial remnants of its heyday. So it was decided that Georgetown would be our next destination.

First, we had to get there. Getting off of the fast boat from the Perhentians, we were flanked by touts and taxi drivers. I'm not sure what the sleepy port town of Kuala Besut was like before the Perhentians became an attraction, but now, it seems to have morphed into a tourist ghetto, with alleys of dodgy travel companies and aggressive touts. It's funny how after a little tourist money goes floating through, the entire makeup of the town gets altered to accommodate it. And by accomodate, I mean badger, annoy and provide a generally negative experience for.

One tout managed to hold our attention with the promise of a cheaper fare than what most others were asking. He was a salt of the earth chap, with teeth long given up on. He would drive us to the bus terminal in Kota Bharu for a rather hefty fee which would be offset by the alleged cheap price of the bus ticket there. We agreed and boarded his boxy 25-year old Toyota Corola. Hardly a pleasure cruise. A plastic film was stapled to the interior and springs jabbed us in the back. We were both tired, hungry, cranky. He would ask us questions. The springs poked us in the back, compelling us to answer. He would occasionally punctuate his questions with morsels of wisdom, followed by his very characteristic laugh. Apparently Thai durians and Malaysian durians are different. In Thailand, if a durian falls off of a tree, they cut them all down. In Malaysia, they eat only what has fallen from the tree. He insisted that the durian we had in Kuala Lumpur was a Thai durian and that we should try a real Malaysian one. I don't know. Anyone who's read about my durian experience won't be surprised to hear that they will absolutely not get a second chance with me.

So he dropped us off at Kota Bharu and sure enough, the bus ticket was much cheaper (38 ringgets vs the 90 ringgets being offered in tout alley). We handed him his fee (35 ringgets each) and he was off to go do god knows what. Sniff the money and cackle maybe.

Great bus ride. Buses took a huge leap forward since we got out of Indonesia. The Krui Putra is a thing of legend now, like a magic beast of a bus, so unbelievably and inhumanely uncomfortable that we will recant to our grand kids the fateful day we came across it. The worst bus in the world. Malaysian buses are a dream. Air con, legroom, reclining seats and rarely overcrowded. I dozed off as we weaved through Malaysia's mountainous interior.

I woke up at the destination. That never happens. It didn't take long for us to orientate ourselves and find a place. Again, in Chinatown. Our hostel owner was mentioned by name in the Lonely Planet because of his innate kindness, and boy were they right.

The streets of Georgetown seem to sigh. Their faded paint in pastel hues, their window shutters, always shut, their open gutters and narrow walkways. They all stand at a uniform height, long given up on trying to outdo one another. A Chinese medicine shop here, a key cutter there. No way to tell if any of them were closed for the day or closed for good. Appearance would suggest the latter, but you can never be too sure in this town. Near our hotel, the old red light district. Opium dens and brothels converted into backpacker hostels. Some left derelict. The street is now officially named "Love Lane", complete with a proper city signpost, after decades of being informally referred to as so.

The residents of the city seem vibrant. Thanks to a melting pot of cultures, Georgetown has a wealth of worldly cuisines to sample, all steeped in authenticity. A fellow traveler, when asked what there was to do in Georgetown, simply replied "eat". We abided.

Now, I am convinced that the Malaysian government is trying to sabotage any attempt at having a good time. Heavy taxes are already implemented on alcohol making beer the only thing in the country that's the same price as back home. When all of the ATMs shut down on a Friday night, I became convinced that fun was destined not to be had, and both Adam and I retreated to our hostel, defeated. The next day would be one of substance, so no sense wasting it on a hangover.

Adam is an early riser and I am anything but. When he came back from his city walk, I was still in a towel shaving off the last patch of my Perhentian beard. I planned a walk that would take me to all of the major sights the city had to offer, conveniently ending at a Malay hawker center for late lunch. I saw Hainan Temple, Kapitan Keling Mosque, Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion, Penang Museum, Kuan Yin Teng and Fort Cornwallis. I won't get into each one specifically, but they each varied in quality, from decent to intolerably boring. For late lunch, it was char keow tuey, flat noodles with shrimp and vegetables in soya sauce. To drink, carrot juice with condensed milk. I would come to learn the importance condensed milk played in Penang's hawker food culture. Dinner was had back in Chinatown, after fighting the locals for service at a particularly busy food cart.

That evening we felt it necessary to explore Georgetown's nightlife, if for anything, to make up for the failure the night before. Lo and behold, the ATMs were down again, but thankfully Adam had the foresight to get money during the day.

Before heading out, we took turns drinking from a flask of Canadian Club I was given by a local barowner in Seoul as a goodbye gift. In a testament to how low-key the trip has been thus far, the thing was still full. After a few passes, it was time to go.

Now, Lonely Planet has been pretty good at recommending hostels, but they tend to be way off when it comes to bars. If any place is mentioned as being a "favorite of the locals", you can be sure that by the time you've read that, it's already become a swamp of tourists and ladyboys. Our first selection was one such den of iniquity. We paid 35 ringgit to get in too, so we dutifully finished our weak gin and sodas and left to find another spot.

Eschewing "Slippery Sinoritas", we checked out a place that looked busy from the outside. It too was pricey. The music was a sludgy mash of popular hip hop tracks, the bass incessantly gut-rocking. Fun if you're hammered I suppose. We weren't. The scene before us sobered us up pretty quickly, which was good because full faculties were required to artfully dodge the pile of vomit in the bathroom entrance. In the end it wasn't worth it. I never really got into club culture back in Canada. In Korea, the people I was with were generally the only thing that made it bearable. In Tokyo I was actually able to find clubs that played the kind of music I liked. Here it was just more of the same old same old. I'm not sure what compels me to keep going back to these places. It certainly wasn't the fact that this particular club was 90% dudes.

I knew that the next morning would be rough. We had over 500km to cover, not to mention a border crossing. We woke up late regardless and enjoyed an Indian breakfast. Adam ordered ABC, a local desert that resembles a glowing lump of something you'd mine from another planet. It was shaved ice with colourful flavoring topped with, of course, condensed milk. I thought it was gross. I think Adam did too, but he dutifully finished it. We packed up afterwards and sauntered to the pier, bidding Georgetown and ultimately Malaysia, a polite goodbye.

Hainan Temple. Didn't research the meaning of this one terribly much.

Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion

Random pastel building side.

A shop in Little India.

Kapitan Keling Mosque, the first mosque in Georgetown.

Kapitan Keling Mosque prayer floor. Took a bit of fancy talking to get this pic.

Perhentian Islands, Part 2

SCUBA lessons started modestly early. Somehow I still managed to be late. Having already watched the daffy videos, we were immediately able to head out into the water. Our instructor, named Joe (Joe Fo Sho), adequately estimated each of our individual sizes and provided us with the gear. Wet suits, masks, snorkels, fins, tanks, regulators and BCDs (buoyancy control devices). Suiting up was surprisingly easy, and I can assure you, the wetsuits looked damn sexy.

The first dive had us doing a lot more than I expected. Most of the time was gobbled up by practicing mandatory procedures. Clearing water out of your mask, taking the regulator out of your mouth, manually inflating your BCD, switching to an emergency oxygen supply etc etc etc... Actually breathing underwater was remarkably easy. Going underwater, your body's immediate reaction is "NOOOOOO!!", but once you breathe that first confident breath, you immediately relax. The second-stage regulator in your mouth clicks open and closed with a confident pulse, and it only gets easier from there. Joe seemed quite confident with all four of our performances so he took us on a little leisure swim. We went deeper, to about 8 meters, and the pressure became apparent.

I was always baffled as to why SCUBA diving required such extensive certification. I naively thought it was as easy as breathing through a hose as you swam, like a natural extension to snorkeling. Without a doubt, you require certification to deal with the pressure. Go down too fast and your eardrums squeal in a desperate attempt to equalize, making sure you feel ample amounts of pain. Rise too fast after being down for a while and get a bloodstream full of nitrogen and a trip to the depressurization chamber. Ascend while holding your breath and your lungs explode. I'm always amazed at how dumb some people can be, and with these kinds of consequences, it's no wonder certification is required before they slap an oxygen tank on the back of any jackass who wants one.

My ears were squealing as we made our descent, but nothing too bad. We saw a stingray, a lionfish and tons of other little fish darting all around us. So much more vibrant and colourful and intense than the lakes in Ontario. Growing up nowhere near an ocean allowed this to be one of the few experiences I had not yet grown jaded of. And the clarity. A boat roared overhead like a zipper across the sky and we could see each ripple left in its wake. Clusters of clownfish swam in and out of sea anemone. Sprawling reefs laid before us, complete accessible, if not a little overwhelming. Before we knew it, time was up and we had to head back to shore. The day was only half done.

The second dive, I later found out, didn't even qualify as a dive. If there were any swimming pools on the island, surely we would have done it there instead. We practiced procedures the whole time, including one which had us swimming without a mask for some distance. A little disappointing compared to the first dive, but Joe assured us that by getting it all out of the way early, we could spend the next three dives just enjoying ourselves. At the end of the day I was ready to sleep on any surface that would have me.

Day 2! After a long night of dreaming that I was an astronaut suspended in space, I made ample preparations for the two dives I was about to take. This included drinking ample amounts of water. Last time, my throat felt like an arid chute and there is absolutely nothing you can do about that underwater, so I took precautions. Again, I was the last person to arrive, but I was on time. First order of business: more videos. At one point in the video, a large group of divers gave each other simultaneous high-fives and it ended in a catastrophic fail. When it came time to dive, Joe took us around the peninsula into the next bay where we could frolic through the coral. We did the classic back flip off the boat method of entry and immediately began our descent. My ears were not having it this time.

One of the many things I learned about myself in Korea is that my septum is deviated right at the bridge of my nose. This means that one nostril cavity is smaller while the other is bigger. As you can imagine, my small left nostril had trouble equalizing my left ear, so I descended at a tragically slow pace. In order to equalize, you have to plug your nose and mouth and breathe out sharply. The stupid video made it look so easy. I did this close to thirty times before my ears started squealing. The sound was insane! I'll try to describe it as succinctly as possible. Think a very high squeal, gradually descending in pitch, but punctuated with brief silences. It honestly sounded like someone was playing Atari in my eardrum. Missile Command.

Finally my ears equalized and I joined the others at the bottom. We swam around and then over a huge reef. The visibility was a little bit lower than the day before, but the scenery was no less stunning. It can get a little hard keeping track of your position underwater sometimes. Occasionally I would rise a little and have no idea that Adam was directly above me. Other times it seemed like a full rotation was more than 360 degrees. All the clumsiness got a little bit better as the swim progressed. We saw a cuttlefish scoot across the sand.

Our second dive of the day took us to Palau Becil, the big island. I had a hamburger for lunch (first hamburger of the whole trip I should point out) and it was sitting like a cannonball in my stomach as I swam about. We covered coughing and swallowing water and even belching while diving, but not vomiting. I didn't want to vomit. I didn't, don't worry. We came across some very large triggerfish, some which were potentially aggressive, so we turned back.

On land we talked to the owner of the dive shop. He started his business back in 1993. At that time, he was the only dive shop on the island. They didn't even have generators, just torches, and you had to pay a fisherman to drive you over. Originally he was a plastic salesman from Kuala Lumpur. He was on a business trip in Jakarta when the riots broke out, so both him and a coworker were fatefully given some free time to do whatever until things settled down. In that time, they cultivated a passion for diving. In his 20s and feeling the pressure to start making a life for himself, he took time off and pursued his hobby while he could until he felt it was time to return to business and real life. That time never came for him, and he opened a dive shop on the Perhentian Islands to support himself. Business picked up and the islands started getting discovered by the tourist circuit. Now he's top recommendation in Lonely Planet and business couldn't be better. Stories like his always seem to comfort me when I feel like I'm failing at being an adult. This guy never intended to become one, but somehow things worked out.

Things get interesting here at night. The restaurants stretch right out to the shoreline, making long, narrow strips of tables and chairs, each place with their own distinct colour to know which customer is within their jurisdiction. Dive shacks magically transform into bars and dig sand pits, placing candles inside so patrons can sit around and enjoy a drink on the beach. Coolers magically roll out of hiding and sell beer, vodka and whiskey. It's a far cry from the gong show that was Kuta on Bali, but it does retain a jubilant atmosphere. Unfortunately. most of the time Adam and I were too tired to really partake in any of the festivities and ended up going to bed early. I keep telling myself that I am going to party hard at least once on this trip. It's gonna have to wait until SCUBA lessons are over though.

Last day of the course started out like any other. The four of us showed up and Joe had us do a bit of bookwork. We did our "final exam" of sorts and everyone did decently. I got 96% despite not even learning the final unit until that morning. I've always had a way of hacking it like that. Adam scored 100% and a free T-shirt (which he promptly lost). Afterwards, we wasted no time getting suited up and in the water. The last dive was the sweetest.

So that's it. I am now SCUBA certified, something I thought I would never do in my life. Four years ago I was so sheltered and cloistered in my parents' house that the thought of even being abroad was unthinkable, let alone wild, off-the-cuff touring. Things have been both remarkable and remarkably easy so far, and throwing a SCUBA certification in there on a whim was no exception. I expect to dive the hell out of Thailand.

In the evening, we met with some dive friends and celebrated our accomplishments over bottles of the local fire water. The cabana bar played reggae covers of selections from Dark Side of the Moon. We swapped stories and email addresses. The ocean heaved only a few meters away. The sky was clear and the stars were more striking than anywhere else I'd been thus far, like jeweled shrapnel embedded in the firmament. We had spent four days and four nights on the Perhentian Islands, longer than we had spent anywhere else on this trip, and honestly it was worth every damn minute.

The 8am beach was quiet, save for the few tourists who were waiting for the ferry off the island. Every morning there was a new row of departures. We were among them this time. We hopped on the boat as the others alighted. Tourists flow in and out. The island breathes them. They are necessary for its survival. We left exhausted and sun-kissed, ultimately satisfied. A vacation within a vacation. Now it's time to move on.

The beautiful and painful descent.

Adam Harrison: SCUBA dude.

Me.

Class photo.

Perhentian Islands, Part 1

We were in Kota Bharu and I had a suspicion that a very large bug was in our room. At first I thought it was the fan making that odd sound, like someone momentarily releasing the wheels of a wind up car in two short bursts at a time. I thought it was the fan until the sound started migrating around to different corners of the room, at one point sounding directly behind my head. "It must be the wings of a very large bug" I thought. I've seen how big the bugs in Malaysia can get, and the thought of a huge gobstopper of a bug landing on my chest at any second deferred my sleep significantly.

But the morning came and the fabled bug didn't. Adam woke me up, as he always does, and promptly set off in search of his favorite meal of the day. Groggy, I threw my backpack together and set out for the lobby in hopes to get on the net (a necessary daily ritual for me it seems). I Skyped my family and told them a few stories that had yet to make it up on the blog. They shared a few of their own. Apparently, my mom hid an Easter egg with money inside and a squirrel picked it up and ran off with it. Thank goodness we don't have monkeys back in Canada is all I could think. They would probably be dragging my dad's barbecue down the street.

Our bus departed with nary a hitch, packed and bound for Kuala Besut, where we would catch a fast boat to the Perhentian Islands. Since I eschewed breakfast for Skype, I ate some of Adam's dried lima beans while we waited for a boat. The boat came and a handful of us hopped on. We knew it would be a bumpy ride when we were given life jackets. In a land where no one wears seat belts and they entrust any jackass with a motorcycle, it was worrisome that in this instance, they chose to enforce a mandatory safety precaution. And the boat was rough. It skipped over the surface like a pebble, sending cascades of water up on each side. The poor saps in the front spent about 30% of the time in the air, and every once and a while we would hit a huge bump that would send splashes of water back into the boat and onto us. Complimentary drink. Everyone was actually enjoying it a lot, and the driver even treated us to a few "donuts" before dropping us off on Long Beach, the main beach on the small island.

The Perhentian Islands deserve the heaps of praise bestowed upon them by the guide books. A few kilometers off the eastern shore of peninsular Malaysia, they rise up and form shapes that seem to compliment one another perfectly. There are two, you see. Palau Becil (big island) and Palau Kecil (small island). As I mentioned, we were on the small island, and the strip of beach we landed on rimmed a small bay, sharply contrasted by the lush, green hills. All around it, the coveted turquoise waters produced by the perfect combination of endlessly shallow water and white sand. Developments were abundant, but not invasive. If it wasn't so damned hot, I would have been paradise.

On the ride up, we met an Englishman named Edward (good name for an Englishman) who showed an interest in getting his open water diving certification with us. He was the kind of person we couldn't possibly see being a bother to hang around, so we all agreed to get certified together.

Even before we fund a hostel, we checked into a local dive shop to inquire about prices and protocol. The man working the desk was very friendly and very helpful. The course would take four days, include four dives and require us to read a pretty hefty textbook. With equipment rental, an instructor and everything else, it would cost us 950 ringgets ($290), a friggin' steal if you compared it to the prices back home. We agreed and paid the man. After we dropped our gear off at the cheapest hut we could find, we did what seemed to be the most logical thing to do at the time; we dove into the water to see if it felt as perfect as it looked. It did.

The training video wasn't going to be anything but brutal. I went in expecting that, and for that reason, I was not let down. Stiff narration, failed attempts at humour and special effects straight out of Lawnmower Man. The only acceptable response to a video like that is a healthy dose of cynical remarks. It was Adam, Edward, a girl we met on the jungle train named Melanie and I in the course. We all sat, eyes half crooked, as we watched this ghastly video. Edward seemed to have lost patience with the video halfway through. It was actually quite informative, yet horribly hammy and basically said the exact same thing as the books. The guy who put on the DVD and pressing play turned out to be our instructor. He was a red-headed English chap, no older than 25, and kind of reminded me of Bo Burnham, for those of you up on your Youtube. So yeah, the video sucked and Adam made no attempt to say otherwise when asked about it afterwards.

It was quite weird having to watch an educational video and getting homework while on holidays on an island. It had been a month free of anything resembling work, and well over a year since I did anything resembling homework. After about thirty minutes of it, my brain fired back into that old familiar find-an-excuse-to-do-something-else mode. Not an easy urge to shake here. The sound of waves came from everywhere at once, beckoning me away from my big blue tome. I probably, theoretically could do whatever the hell I wanted to.

Adam and I passed a volleyball game in full swing and got invited to play. We dropped our books in the sand and joined in. I played two games valiantly, but lost both times. Nobody cared. Everyone was happy, even me despite all of the stupid homework I had to go home and finish.

As you can see, the weather sucked.

Beaches in the afternoon.

Beaches in the evening.

SCUBA tanks ready to go.

The only car on the island.

"None of that in my class please Mr. Harrison."

Baywatch: Perhentians.

The Jungle Train/Kota Bharu

I didn't get sick on the bus out of Taman Negara. In fact, I was determined to get to the Perhentian Islands that day and not let anything stop me or slow me down. We arrived back in Jerantut and flew around town trying to find the fastest, easiest or cheapest was to get to our destination. Bad news came fast, in that there was no way to make it to the island that day, and we would have to spend a night in Kota Bharu. Also, unless we hustled to the train station within 15 minutes, we would be spending the night right there in Jerantut, only several kilometers out side of the damn national park we just left! So before you could say "waste of a day" we hurried to the station and bought a ticket.

It actually ended up being somewhat of a blessing because the train we would be taking was the much touted "jungle railway" through Malaysia. Lonely Planet and Seat 61 both had high praise for it, so out of sheer circumstance, we managed to check it out.

There was only one platform and our train was due. So naturally, when one rolled in, we enthusiastically hopped on board without thinking twice. You can probably already see where this is going. If you guessed "Singapore", you're right. It wasn't until another trail rolled in, parallel to ours, that we suspected we might have been a little quick to hop on board. Smelling something amiss, I showed my ticket stub to a fellow passenger. Yep. Wrong train. I told Adam and several other travelers who had made the same mistake as us. We all hopped off the train, onto the tracks and up onto the next train. I saved all of our asses. My smug sense of self-satisfaction was further complimented by excellent seats, air conditioning and the best damn legroom a Harlem Globetrotter could ask for.

The jungle railway was quite nice. Adam and I talked about people we went to elementary school with. Rivers and tree canopies and the occasional Karst landscape flew by the window. At one point the air conditioning failed leaving us in a hermetically sealed sauna. Then it came back with a vengeance, staying cold until the end of our trip. When I exited the train at our destination, my glasses fogged up from the humidity, so I followed a silhouette that walked with Adam's gait. We split a cab with a Belgian couple to a backpacker hostel in Kota Bharu. And the journey definitely outweighed the destination.

So Kota Bharu is by no means a tourist attraction. In fact, it has the misfortune of being the gateway to a much more interesting attraction, the Perhentian Islands. It is a coastal town on the northwest tip of peninsular Malaysia and is known for being a pretty conservatively Muslim place. The owner of the hostel we were staying in recommended we check out the night market. We had an evening to kill, so we figured "what the hell". With our Belgian travel partners, we walked the unlit streets of what definitely felt like a town living in the shadows of a much more substantial attraction. Other backpackers milled about, no doubt in the same situation as us. there were taxis, convenience stores, young boys on motorbikes. In fact, this is probably just what any Malaysian city looks like when you get off of the tourist trail. Or make an unplanned stop on it, as it happened.

The night market was underwhelming. The expectations of a hustling bazaar with cramped stalls, lively patrons and exotic wares were quickly squashed when it became clear that we were in the middle of what was essentially a parking lot for food carts. Sure, tables liberally peppered the rim of said parking lot, and some of the carts installed TVs for their patrons to watch, but underwhelming it certainly was.

The four of us circled different carts. like discerning shoppers, really just looking for something that would be a: delicious, b: not a hassle to order and c: not a hassle to eat. I struck out on all fronts when it became clear that the rice and chicken with mush I fought to order had to be eaten with my hands. My public transit taking, stray animal petting hands. My companions had better luck. So did the litter of cats circling our table begging for handouts. I ate as much as I felt comfortable eating (after finding a spoon mind you) before we decided to head back. My innate pessimism was counterbalanced by a nearby tourist who was REALLY EXCITED about the selection of bootlegged DVDs some tout was trying to pawn off on him. That and the GREAT PRICE of only 10 ringets!

On my way back, I split from the group to seek out a notebook. Yeah, I finally succumbed to the urge to buy a pen and a notebook. until this point, I had been storing every memory of this trip in a backlog of other memories I've collected over the past year since I've been out of Canada. When it came time to regurgitate my experiences onto the Internet for my friends and family to read, I would always sit listlessly in front of the computer, exhausted from a day of swimming or trekking or whatever the hell I was attempting to remember I did in the first place. With a notebook, I feel I can more accurately encapsulate an experience as it happens and relegate my brain to the rote task of copying it onto a screen after it has spent the day trying to find an Internet connection. That, and the tangibility of a notebook holds a certain allure.

I made the decision to buy the notebook while riding the jungle train. It was long 7 hours of foliage passing by the window. Certainly I've spent much more time in transit before, and certainly my brain has wandered and poked holes of insight into what has transpired in the last month (it had been exactly a month at that point). But more and more I felt the urge to write until it began to feel like a handicap, not having a pen and paper. I've almost exhausted my itunes library, so it was time to start something new. Let's hope it doesn't fall by the wayside now.

So it was 10 and the streets sounded of shutters closing. Not one to be defeated, I stepped into a 7-11. I had hoped to get something nice, but this cheap little pad was the best thing they had. Again, not one to be defeated (so strong was my resolve to begin writing) I approached the girl at the cash with the intent of finding a better place to buy notepads. Now, I'm not sure if I was being presumptuous, but I immediately began speaking pidgin Malaysian/English to her in an attempt to convey my message. She responded in perfect English, "yes, try the stationary store, just that way." OK. the girl at the 7-eleven in Kota Bharu, Malaysia spoke better English than the kids I taught in Korea whose parents give half of their salaries so they can learn close to NOTHING. How does this happen? In fact, this encounter was not terribly uncommon in Malaysia. In Korea, you learn a little English and your friends, your family and your potential employers think you are Johnny Jetset making the world move below you. But in Malaysia, you work at 7-eleven selling notebooks to tourists. Anyways, the stationary store was closed so I had to settle for some ratshit number. Oh well.

The next day, we jettied out to the Perhentian Islands, the real attraction. I made sure to withdraw enough cash for four days there because I heard that there were no ATMs anywhere. I was also told that the entire island runs on generators, but that sounded like a dubious claim. We bought return boat tickets, so we hadn't seen the last of Kota Bharu. Hopefully the last we see of it will be out a window as we sail through to our next destination.

Image stolen from Wikipedia.

Taman Negara, all of it.

The Cameron Highlands were fun, but like always, it was time to move on. The bus to our next destination waited outside of our hostel for us to file into. Along the way we met a group of older folks from Maine. One gentleman was quite a bit older than the others and he regaled us with stories of his time working on Yokota Air Base in Tokyo during the Cuban missile crisis and JFK's assassination. They were off to the Perhentian Islands while we were destined for Taman Negara, so our cadres separated off into their own cardinal directions.

Taman Negara is a pretty important attraction in Malaysia, and one we did not have any intention of passing up. It is one of the oldest jungles in the world and is home to a baffling number of different species of wildlife. The Cameron Highlands seemed to whet Adam's appetite for trekking, so it was shaping up to be a pretty formidable experience.

Kuala Tahan is the main town inside the park, and it caters to all of the tourist needs. It hangs on both sides of a river, built up on steep cliffs, almost as if the river eroded the ground and uncovered a town in the process. Restaurants crowd the riverbank on one side while the other houses the entrance to the national park proper. On one side of the river, the side with all of the restaurants and hotels, they are not allowed to sell alcohol. To solve this problem, a small sand embankment a few meters offshore had several tables and chairs set up next to a cooler full of beer. A clever loophole to placate the tourists.

We arrived in the park late, like we do for most of our destinations. I'm not sure if it was something I ate or the winding jungle railway, but the first thing I wanted to do was ralph then sleep. So I did and passively left all of the planning to Adam. The next morning my stomach decided to cooperate and we set out early for a lengthy, if somewhat superficial, walk through the jungle. We paid a ferryman one ringet for passage across the river and set off down a trail. The trail was lined with information placards and was well marked, at times rewarding us with man-made stairs, walkways and bridges. The main attraction was a 500 meter canopy walkway, the longest in the world apparently. Women sold water along the way, and a man charged an entry fee complete with a paper ticket stub.

The trail then took us to the highest peak in the park. Upon our descent, we crossed paths with one of the longest millipedes I had ever seen. Adam took a video of me playing with it, and then, while reviewing the video, accidentally stepped on it. The night before he was forced to put a giant beetle out of its misery because its wings were broken. "Two of the biggest bugs I have seen on this trip so far," he said, "and I killed them both." The trail wound further down to a swimming spot along the river. Adam dove right in while I sat and swatted flies.

After the hike, I was mired with exhaustion. In one of the many coincidences on the road, we bumped into Allie, a girl we had met on Gili Trawangan. She had taken her own magic path over the last couple of weeks and ended up at the exact same hostel as us in Taman Negara. Backpackers are like a large community, maybe a couple thousand strong, all stretched out along a very well-defined line. Sometimes the line intersects with itself and you bump into someone you know, just like you bump into a former coworker at the grocery store. She was doing well, and even managed to pick up a few friends along the way. We would no doubt run into more people in the future. In fact, as I write this, we already have.

At dinner, I had what was probably the longest one-on-one conversation I had had with anyone besides Adam since the trip started. He was a 40-year old musician from Australia, but his name escapes me. His hairline was well receded, but his face was beaming with interest and intent. He had spent his entire adult life making ends meet through his music. He had no wife or kids, only bands he would join and tour with to put food on his table. He was a happy man, but he had grown tired of his anything-but-mundane life in Australia and decided to tour Southeast Asia for inspiration. He seemed in awe of my also somewhat transient life and we swapped anecdotes. He particularly enjoyed the exploits of my band back in Ottawa. I bumped into him again two days later. He had written two songs and was on his way into the jungle to record the sound of the cicadas at dusk. Something tells me that one day I will be married with kids and gainfully employed while this man will still be off recording cicadas in the jungle, still eking out a living while pursuing his passions, and still as happy as the day I met him.

The next day would be a test of what I was made of. Adam organized a stay in an animal hide 12km into the jungle. I was on the fence as to whether or not I should join him, but every damn time I don't, SOMETHING cool happens to him, so I hopped on board. Early in the morning we set off down the trail, walking briskly to make good distance while the heat was still bearable. The information placards eventually stopped. Then the stairs. Then the bridges. In fact, the entire trail damn near ended a few times until we backtracked and found a fork we missed. Water breaks became more and more frequent. About five hours in, I was ready to give up, but Adam assured me that the end was in sight. We crossed a river and eventually came across our hide, standing stoically amongst the foliage, completely empty. I let out a sigh of relief. The heat of the midday sun was at its zenith and I don't think there was a single part of my body that wasn't drenched in sweat.

I stormed into the hide like I owned it. There were twelve empty bunks and numerous remnants of previous tenants. Unfortunately, some of those remnants (read: garbage) attracted a swath of bees. Still feeling like I owned the hide, I felt it was my duty to drive out these invaders. I began swatting bees to the ground and stomping them. Sounds pretty hardass, but in reality, it was probably the saddest, most ungraceful sight Adam had ever seen. At one point, one of my girlish swipes knocked my own glasses from my face. Soon after, I stepped barefoot on the stinger of a felled bee, its posthumous revenge exacted. As I did this, more and more bees kept coming. What started as a few buzzes here and there escalated into a full synchronized drone of upwards of about a hundred bees. We had to get the hell out of there. We each grabbed our clothes we had hung to dry, covered in bees by that point, and made our way back to the river. On our way we passed two people headed for the hide. I was half-dressed and clutching my clothes. "The hide is full of bees!" I yelled.

After a lunch by the river, followed by a swim, we headed back to the hive, er... hide to scope out the scene. There were a lot less bees. One of the men who'd arrived was a Malaysian guide and I suspect he played a role in driving them out. The other man was a German nature enthusiast, hoping to catch a glimpse of some animals overnight. Another man arrived as I napped. A Frenchman. He too came for the chance of seeing some animals.

Four of us stared agog out of the window of the hide while the Malaysian man cooked dinner for the German. He managed to cook up a kingly feast. Well, kingly compared to the canned beans and tuna Adam and I had brought. Afterwards, he dutifully washed up and retreated to his bunk. The four of us continued to watch. Nothing. As night fell, we each gradually trickled back to our bunks. I was first. By then, I couldn't see anything anyways. I could only sit and listen to the chaotic sounds of the jungle at night. They could have been power tools or car alarms or Tripods from War of the Worlds, but they were creatures making these insane sounds. Between them and the rock hard bunks, I thought I'd never sleep, but I did eventually.

It was 7am and the bees were coming back. Adam and I packed ands got the hell out, bidding goodbye to our companions. I had definitely gained my trail legs because the walk back was not NEARLY as bad as the walk there. Overnight a strong wind must have blown a rather large and leafy tree onto the trail so at one point, we had to spacewalk over its felled carcass. When we got back to Kuala Tahan, it was pure indulgence. Milkshakes and fatty food and relaxation and Internet. We saw no animals during our time in the hide (aside from a lifetime's worth of bees), but our spirits were jubilant. We crossed the wooden plank over to the sand embankment and had a beer; our first since arriving in Taman Negara.

The next morning we packed up to leave. We had spent four night there in total and I could hear my calf muscles let out a sigh of relief as our bus pulled out.

Some big trees they had.

Jungle canopy walk.

The beehive we slept in.

Animal voyeurism.