bangkok jazz
February 4, 2008
for once, it is amazing to be amidst the bangkok chaos, after the comparatively docile yangon! yesterday bangun pagi like at 5am because i had to be at the airport by 6.30am for my flight here. shared a cab dengan ada satu mat salleh lansi gila nak mampus who openly declared that dia tak suka asians. sia-sia je share a cab dengan dia ni semata-mata untuk save about 3,500 kyats that i cannot change back into USD. ingat nak use it up at the airport, but as modern as the yangon airport is, there is not a single kedai at the shop, wei! no overprices souvenirs, no duty free whatevers.
hello bangkok.
spent the day exhanging my books and cafe hopping at khao san street. bestnya, to see thousands and thousands of foreigners. sekarang rupanya musim western europeans. everything kat sini mahal leh, because peak season. so far a cry from the burmese days where streets, guesthouses and cafes are almost deserted. i miss it already :P
met up with an old friend for dinner. i have not seen nit for years and we automatically fell into one conversation topic after another. apa nak buat – debaters!
finally, and i do mean i FINALLY got to go to the blues bar and tia was performing with a madly talented guitarist who i swear has something else at the end of his palms but they sure ain’t fingers! he’s crazy and his music in incredible.
my last day on this trip and it’s raining this morning. from myanmar time (1.5 hours behind kl), i need to adjust to thailand time (1 hour behind kl) and i’m sure i’m going to have problems when i get home nanti. i realised that i look AWFUL! sunburnt from lake inle. scars from the stupid bicycle pedals in bagan. entah apa lagi.
will post more when i get home nanti ye. and pictures, ya ya. till then, sawadee kaa…!
talk to me, like lovers do
January 14, 2008
original post:
“yangon is hot. not just hot. scorching. maybe its the afternoon thing. people here insist that the morning and evening weather is more favourable. i suppose if you hear things over and over again, you tend to believe them. i’ll know by this time tomorrow, i supposed.
i will cerita about the drama bila aku balik nanti. about my long, long night between three airports, and then some. i don’t know how much i’ll be able to report while i’m here. internet is slow and expensive. the adventures have certainly began, i can say that.”
for once, i am glad that airasia delayed. i was not exactly looking forward to my night at suwarnabhumi airport. i opted for it purely out of convenience. so that i won’t need t spend the night in bangkok city – just a few hours at the airport.
and what a psychedelic airport it is! the industrial style finishing. the electric blue lighting. the zigzag escalators! sleeping was lain cerita la. dah la airport tu sejuk gila, there were also no benches with straight seats. semuanya were individual seatings and get this – metal. cold. hard. metal.
at 5am, i joined a line of groogy backpackers to check into the flight heading to yangon. tak lepak mana-mana pun at the airport – terus masuk the boarding lounge, where i found a convenient pillar to lean against and automatically fell asleep. nasib baik there was a hassle when the attendant called because i would have missed my flight!
i flew over mountains. ranges and ranges of them. and rivers that wind and intertwine each other.
hello myanmar.
it was a scorching hot afternoon in yangon. i think i mentioned it already. i opted to stay right in the center of town with probably the easiest landmark, the sule paya. everything revolves around it. this is where my first stereotype of myanmar was shattered. you see, i left kl with images of a country in chaos. riots. semua orang muka masam. marshal law. curfews. army people with guns at every junction. tapi what i found was a busy busy busy city with such helpful people. memang aku paranoid on this first day because in cities, ada thieves la, perverts la, gangster la. tapi no one kacau me.
no one i did not want to la. i got offered to change money on the streets. first day dah kena hassle by the black market but aku memang dah research about this and was actually expecting it. the rates are reputably better and i checked it out. kalau tukar kat bank dengan government, it’s 1,000 kyats a US dollar. kalau tukar kat the guesthouse, its 1,150 kyats to a dollar. kalau at the streets, it can go up to 1,300 kyats per dollar. i changed a hundred dollars and got a huge stack of money that won’t even fit in my wallet.
my first night in yangon was surreal. all shops closed – including the kedai makan – by 7pm and by 9pm, everything is dark and half the streetlights go off. i learnt that in this country, there is no 24 hours electricity and that almost every building is heavily dependent on diesel powered generator sets.
one for the road
April 21, 2007
this is probably the last one post you’ll read from me until i get back next week. i left vientiane as a wonderful and perfectly round, bright orange sun began to set and arrived in bangkok at the wee hours of the morning.
bangkok – the acclimatisation hub for backpackers.
i must admit that bangkok is not my favourite city in the world. too much of the big metropolitan rush. god knows i’m not too crazy about traffic. that kinda jazz. bangkok welcomed me with the tuktuk touts and taxi drivers. khao san road welcomed me with muka-muka orang yang baru bangun tidur.
i’ll be back in kl in the next three or four days. don’t know how yet as it is going to be a toss between the plane or the train one way or the other.
i am madly craving nasi kandar daun pisang. will tell travel stories. have i mentioned that already?
Protected: the road to indochina
February 21, 2007
flying solo
May 26, 2006
coconut ice cream. with chocolate sauce. i swear i’ve fallen completely in love this thing.
sekarang baru aku faham apa yang dimaksudkan bila rakan setugas cw menyatakan yang kadang2, lebih baik berkerja seorang diri, dari ada orang yang menyusahkan tagging along. dari menyusahkan, i mean sering salah faham my intentions. kalau saya kata macam ni, dia pegi fikirkan yang tak berkenaan dan yang entah apa2. dari mana dia mendapat idea yang tak berkaitan langsung ni?
tak pasal2 saya pulak yang rasa bersalah. yelah, dalam budaya dia, kalau ada yang tak puas hari, mereka cakap direct saja. dalam budaya kita pulak, kita cakap berlapik, kita cakap dengan kias2 bahasa, kita cuba sedaya-upaya untuk menjaga hati orang.
hari ini, memang aku nak meluangkan masa untuk do some writing. aku dah plan untuk duduk di salah satu kedai kopi di tepi jalan dan biarkan bandar chiangmai soak itself into me. kawan kita pulak nak jalan2. dah sembilan hari aku berjalan. biarlah hari kesepuluh ini aku reflect balik kepada apa yang telah aku experience. kakiku sudah letih berjalan. biarlah pula pancainderaku merayau seketika.
the great thapae gate… at least what’s left of it. the thapae gate is one of the entrances across the moat, leading to the old part of chiangmai.
dia salah faham. sikit lagi nak gaduh. ended up, kami bertapak di starbucks, seberang jalan dari thapae gate. dia nak aku ajar dia menulis. aku pula menghabiskan novelku. aku tahu ia membazir masa aku satu tengahari tapi biarlah… kawan punya pasal. memang menjadi the curse of kita punya budaya untuk mendepankan perasaan orang lain dari kita punya sendiri.
mmm… bugs…
on a lighter – or maybe heavier – note, chaingmai is under red alert for the storm. the rescue volunteers from all the northern territories are being briefed. i’m half thankful i did not head up to maehonson and pai, firstly because they’re all under red alerts too and do not have an airport, secondly because i can’t bear being in another thai bus in the rain.
the writers club in chiangmai.
i was at the writer’s club this evening. its really a very elegantly decorated wine bar. i met up with bob, oliver and his wife pia. they were simply delightful. good encouragement for the struggling young writer in the big bad publishing world.
call me a jakun, but i got excited to see a petronas in chiangmai=)
and the mesra shop is called ‘always’ here. hee hee.
its my last night in chiangmai. tomorrow, i’ll be flying back to kualalumpur. pray for good weather. god knows i’m terrified to get on a plane in the storm. need i be reminded that i’m flying airasia?
goodnight, malaysia.
sign up for a cooking class in chiangmai and what can you learn…?
how to cook penang curry and water buffalo!
they say that the monsoon season has just arrived in laos and thailand, which explains the terrible weather i’ve been experiencing. i caught a glance of a local newspaper this afternoon which reported floods at parts of the country. there was a call for rescue volunteers. i tell you, if i’d just arrived here and had two weeks to spare, i’d head right over.
unfortunately, this is my second last night in thailand. i was just telling some girls from american and germany this evening that while their holiday had just begun, i have to go back to work on monday. that sounds so dorky.
roti pisang drenched with chocolate sauce.
oh, and if you ever get to chiangmai, you absolutely MUST try the roti here. they sell it by the roadside near the night bazaar. have the chocolate-banana one. it is absolutely to die for.
invitation to chat with the wat chendiluang monks about – among other things – your love life.
inthakin festival – festival of the city pillar – at wat chendi luang.
young girls, all decked in their best cultural costumes getting ready for the inthakin festival chariot procession.
today, i caught the imthakin festival or the festival of the city pillar. it was held at wat chendi luang and will go on for the rest of the month. i’ve yet to find out what it is about – because so few people here speak english – but there was a procession this afternoon, where a buddha statue was brought on a chariot around chiangmai old and new town, and back to the wat through the thapae gate.
more ladies in cultural costumes getting ready for the march…
the thing is, it rained. iy rained bad. really bad. and the procession was flanked by dancers and drummers in cultural costumes on the front and students in uniform from at leat four different schools, cadets and scouts, old people carrying offerings and things at the back of the chariot. and it rained on them. and they kept on walking. there must have been over a thousand people in the march itself and they walked in the storm the whole way.
… when it just suddenly begain to rain. hard. it was just pouring, but the procession of over a thousand people marched on anyway.
i just followed on the side, ducking from one row of shops to another. the procession reminded me of thaipussam’s chariot procession.
i finally got to go to the chiangmai night bazaar. it is SO like petaling street. the one at luangprabang was at least crafty and romantic. yang ni sebijik macam chinatown. lots of fake watches and imitation t-shirts.
signboard just outside the guesthouse i stayed at near the night bazaar. oh no, i’m not suggesting anything at all…=)
i’m hoping to get some me-time tomorrow to really soak in the essence of what chiangmai has to offer. david will leave for bangkok tomorrow and i’ll be meeting up with oliver at the local writer’s club.
i have spent 18 hours in a bus. eighteen. fucking. hours. but that’s just the icing on my last 48 hours.
May 23, 2006
rainy morning in vangvieng. word on the street that monsoon season is just starting in these parts of southeast asia. i tell people that it is due in about three months more in malaysia. promote negara sendiri wei…!
our story begins on a nice and stormy morning in vangvieng. vangvieng, as i was saying, comprised mostly of two roads, both were under heavy development, resulting in red dugout earth everywhere.
so you can imagine walking on the roads of vangvieng. there wasn’t exactly a walkway, because it was filled with hills after hills of pebbles or more red earth.
my. jeans. are. ruined!
an extra row of seats in the bus from vangvieng to ventiane. i am so grateful that we got to the bus early!
we got on a bus to veintiane at 10am because we wanted to save a measly 5000kip for a 9am bus. the bus was penuh giler dengan manusia. mostly other travellers. how full was the bus? there was a row of plastic chairs in the corridor of the bus to create an extra row of seats. that full.
vientiane was a large city. i agree with the longly planet on this one. it is a hard city to love. lots of cars. not so high rise but dirty buildings. yelling tuktuk drivers.
oh my god, the tuktuk drivers. we walked right past one and ignored this guy who was offering us a ride, and then he clapped his hands behind us and started screaming for us to ride with him. i yelled back some not so polite things in malay. i had an incredibly bad morning so far. it shut that guy up, but just then, another tuktuk driver drove right up to us with an exorbitant offer to go to friendship bridge. 80,000kip he says. 50,000kip or nothing, david said. the driver relented. we hop on the tuktuk and midway, it started to rain.
in a tuktuk at ventiane. it rained. our poor tuktuk driver got completely drenched. kesian giler wei… dah la we all tawar kow-kow for the ride… we did tip him in the end tho…
rain poured into the tuktuk in every direction. depan. belakang. tepi. the driver unravelled these sheets of plastics which only minimised the rain gushing into the tuktuk. he himself got terribly drenched. i felt bad when we arrived at a bridge, so we gave him the remained of whatever kip we had left as a tip.
crossing friendship bridge which borders laos and thailand. friendship bridge is the second bridge ever built across the mekong river. the first one links laos to china.
we crossed the border on a 10B shuttle over friendship bridge, linking thailand and laos, the second to have ever been build over the mekong river, the first linking laos to china. it was still raining.
arriving in nongkhai. sa wa dee kaa…!
we arrive in nongkhai. took a tuktuk over to udonthani. bought an 8pm bus to chiangmai. it was somewhere around 6pm at the time. we went for lunch.
i think it is universal to say that the best place to eat is where there are lots of locals eating. in the case of yesterday evening, the place where plenty of locals were eating also had owners who smiled a lot, but did not speak english. at. all. we ordered food by pointing to what other people were eating.
we had about one hour to spare after that. kawan kita ni nak pegi jalan2 tengok the town. aku pulak not so sure because town ni bukan nya besar, tapi kalau nak tengok semua tempat yang ada pada papan tanda pelancungan yang ada kat sini, memang tak sempat. dia nak pegi jugak. dia pun pegi lah suba menawar harga dengan pembawa tuktuk. dia tunjuk tempat this and that and pembawa tuktuk pun bagi lah harga. masalahnya bukan saja pada masa, tapi juga dengan cara dia menawar harge dengan orang warganegara sini. saya mendapat impression yang dia fikir semua orang nak mengambil kesempatan because dia orang kulit putih.
night falls on udonthani. i am at the back of a tuktuk.
anyway to cut a long story short, kami mendapat tuktuk dari luar because orang kat station bas tak nak bawak kami. aku rasa mereka pun rasa terhina sikit dengan cara orang asing ni. udonthani adalah pekan yang kecil. banyak kenderaan. banyak lampu. tapi masih pekan yang kecil yang menjadi medan transit bagi pelancung2 yang nak ke bangkok atau chiangmai.
our bus was supposed to reach chiangmai at 7am. it reached here a little after 2pm. it rained like crazy in the night. the bus leaked. can you believe it? it fucking leaked. i had water dripping all over me. all. night. long. the rain was so heavy, the roads flooded. the bus tried to go through the flood but could not, so had to turn back and stop at one of the terminals along the way and wait it out. as a result of the bus trying to brave the flood anyway, all over backpacks which the disallowed us to bring onto the bus and was stowed on the cargo compartment was drenched. my poor lonely planet guide is all tattered. my clothes all wet. my paper lantern that i bought from luangprabang rosak.
i forgot to mentioned that we travelled from udonthani to chiangmai with a lao monk. cool, eh? he’s from the north but has been studying at a monestry in vientiane for years now and now wants to pursue buddhism in chiangmai now.
good morning, chiangmai. good to see you again.
i am in chiangmai tonight. i’ve got three more days and two more nights left to my trip. i fear that i might not have time to go to maehonson and pai – eight hours away via bus – to see the hill tribes. there is an event starting here tomorrow though, some sort of festival at wat chendi luang, so i guess i’ll go and see that that’s about. i’m also thinking of going to go climb a mountain a coupla hours from here – thailand’s highest peak – but i can’t remember the name of the mountain. 2,000 over meters je… something like halfway up the kinabalu – boleh buat day trip=)
tuktuk in chiangmai
of course, there were rumours that we should have taken the ticket the day before but we thought that well… there’d be some in the morning.
we were wrong.
by the time morning came, the direct buses are fully booked.
time for plan B.
chiangmai bus station. kinda reminds me of puduraya, except that it is airier and not too many touts about.
no agents, we’re going for it on our own. we took a bus up to chinagrai which costs 160B. the trip took 3 hours and 15 minutes. from here, we took another bus to chiangkhong for 52B. oh and by the way, when i changed my bhat in kl, i got 10B for rm1.
bus to chiangkhong. the little fans on the roof of the bus is totally useless, since the windows and the doors of the bus don’t close anyway and cool wind rushes right in.
yuki, our japanese friend went back to bangkok today. my american friend, david, and i are joined by another backpacker, ito, from israel.
the northern thai-lao border. i love the way the signage reads ‘gateway to indo-china.’ i feel further from home than i really am.
boat across the border. i’m in the mekong river from thailand. that’s laos in front of me.
we arrived at the thai-laos border at about 5pm. we crossed the border with a state sanctioned rasuah of 5B. on this side of the border, we paid 20B at the immigration chekpoint. kenapa? aku pun tak tau. according to the signage, it is for some children’s home or some operating cost or something.
silver lining is, taking two buses to get to chiangkhong is cheaper than the direct bus from chiangmai.
i’m staying at huayxai. this place takes bhat, kip and us dollars. ringgit tak main. according to my calculations, rm1 is roughly 2100kip. i hear that they like the us dollar in luangprabang, so i’ll change most of my currency if i need it. the evening’s transaction in bhat came back in kip for me, so i do have some on me, just in case.
nutpop restaurant in huayxai. beerlao is said to be the best beer in the region. i have quite a number of testimonies vouching for it. a pity that i am not a beer person.
huayxai is almost completely devoid of life after 9pm. no pubs or clubs here. a few guesthouses. a few shops selling the signature alcohol, beerlao, which (i am told) is pretty good stuff.
if one was to use huayxai solely as a landing base to laos, there are several directions you could go. there is nature park near here, i hear, featuring gibbons. a couple with a scottish accent here was asking us about a homestay around here also.
at our table, the debate this evening was whether to take the slowboat or the speed boat to luangprabang. the slowboat costs less but we’d take two days to get there. there’s also word on the street that they overcrowd the boats and we’d have to spend the night, at our own expense, at pekbang. it’ll cost more on the speedboat but it’ll reach there in six hours. also, i’ll have to wear a life vest… and a helmet.
sounds macam best, kan?=)
i’ve taken a speedboat ticket. to my envy, i only got 10 days yo gallavant, unlike other travellers who got months and months.
my boat leaves tomorrow morning, down the mekong river at 8am.
david (from america) and yuki (from japan). we’re having dinner at this place we found quite by accident in one of the back alleys of chiangmai.
the climate here is something like genting’s. warm and overcast in the daytime. windy at night. terrible weather for photogaphy, if you ask me. the cab driver told me that semalam hujan lebat giler here, until the airport was flooded up to his ankles. there is a one hour time difference between here and kuala lumpur.
thai pepsi. i was so scared of the water in the region, i swear i had a higher blood sugar count than ever on this trip=)
i visited a string of wats this afternoon. all my overseas trips seem to be to temples and wats, kan? i went to see the chendi luang. that’s the only name i remember off the top of my head right about now. oh, and i also way the monument of the three kings today.
i did not go to the night market yet. maybe in the next coupla days. i was going to see a muay thai tonight but it costs 400B for eight rounds. mahal la, and kat sini mana boleh tengok just one or two rounds. the flyers i got was a clear invitation to gamble here. i hear that part of the fun lies in the betting and cheering. an englishman and a canadian guy are going against thai opponents tonight. if i’m still loaded with bhat by next monday, i’ll think about going to one of these.
the keyboards pun are a bit stiff. so kalau ada typo paham-paham jelah.
*ps. aku terpaksa mix bahasa melayu and english. cybercafe ni ramai orang, nanti diorang tengok and baca. aku segan, tapi tak sangka orang chiangmai ni net savvy jugak rupanye=)
