Getting to Cambodia was our first real taste of being on our own... And it sure showed, 4 headless chickens in south east Asia!
There are a couple of ways of crossing the border from Thailand to Cambodia, one of the most popular is to use the Poipet border crossing.
Poipet itself is a very weird place, it's literally a small stretch of road which has a several casinos. Gambling is illegal in both Thailand and Cambodia, but as Poipet is inbetween the two it is deemed legal to gamble here. You get lots of Cambodians and Thais that come into the area to gamble, but it's not like las Vegas where there are shiny lights and attractions on the road, Poipet is a dirt road, with huge potholes. Either side of the road are casinos with the worst taste in decor you can imagine.
As I've read in some guides, the best thing about poipet is leaving it!
Trying to leave it was in itself difficult! We crossed into poipet early evening and being clever thought of having a spot of dinner before we moved across into Cambodia.
It was even harder to organise transport to Siem Reap from Poipet as it was a public holiday and the taxi driver was charging us $50US!! But as we attempted to cross into Cambodia, the border had shut and we were refused entry, so we had to take shelter in Poipet for the evening before setting off first thing in the morning.
Possibly a huge blessing in disguise!
Friday, 30 September 2011
Thursday, 29 September 2011
22 hours on a train....
We left Penang for Bangkok Sunday morning, embarking on an epic 22 hour sleeper train. Having family in Malaysia has made the first 3 weeks seem a holiday, relatives and friends transporting me around, taking me to eat local foods at local cost rate making sure that I wasn't going to get ripped off, but getting on this train made me realise, this is IT... I'm on my own, with the rest of the guys of course... but we were going into unchartered waters!
The train was initially delayed for 50mins, but after finally boarding the train I was extremely scpetical, the train wasn't clean and had a few cockroaches running around, albeit small ones, I guess this was the reality check and I had to just get on with it!
Just before reaching Hat Yai, the border for Malaysia and Thailand, a waitress walked through the train with her old, tacky, plastic laminated menu asking people what they would like for dinner. RESULT!!...Just before getting on at Penang, I'd stocked up on snacks, fruit and some bakery items at the local Tescos, but to get hot food on the train was a result!! To top this, after passing through Hat Yai and having dinner, the train inspector came round setting out every ones beds, I was pleasantly surprised at the new clean sheets that were provided, and for sure I slept for a good 10hours!...
Friday, 23 September 2011
Penang Laksa
One of the most exciting things for me about travelling is local foods. Since arriving in Malaysia all I have been doing most of the time is eating, Malaysia's population has a mix of Malay, Chinese and Indian people and it really reflects in their local foods. Curries, noodles, rice, rotis, all have their twists of different cultures. One word.. Amazing!!
Penang is most famous two main foods, it's Penang laksa and the char kwai teo. Laksa is basically noodles in assam flavoured fish soup with chopped chillis, cucumber, pineapple, onions and mint. All mixed together gives a wonderful, tangy and spicy flavour. Laksa is one of my favourites back home, so I was determined to try the stuff that was so rated. A famous Laksa was recommended to us 20mins away from town centre.
Like most good foods in South East Asia, it was a street vendor that was serving this so called amazing Laksa. Having ordered our Laksa for 3.50RM, the soup was runny, clear with hardly any taste, took a lot of chilli sauce to give it the kick I wanted. It was pretty disappointing, but I guess you can never compare it to dad's home made cooking!
Penang is most famous two main foods, it's Penang laksa and the char kwai teo. Laksa is basically noodles in assam flavoured fish soup with chopped chillis, cucumber, pineapple, onions and mint. All mixed together gives a wonderful, tangy and spicy flavour. Laksa is one of my favourites back home, so I was determined to try the stuff that was so rated. A famous Laksa was recommended to us 20mins away from town centre.
Like most good foods in South East Asia, it was a street vendor that was serving this so called amazing Laksa. Having ordered our Laksa for 3.50RM, the soup was runny, clear with hardly any taste, took a lot of chilli sauce to give it the kick I wanted. It was pretty disappointing, but I guess you can never compare it to dad's home made cooking!
Friday, 16 September 2011
Tawau Hills Park
As we were in tawau for a week my cousin and aunts had plans for us to go and see a couple of parts of Tawau.
Morning breakfast at my aunts was followed by a short drive to Tawau Hills Park which is home to the largest tropical tree in the world, unfortunately we didn't go and see that but instead hiked a 90 min journey through the forest to the natural hot springs.
The hike was very humid but cooler than normal due to the high coverage of trees and vegetation blocking the sun to the floors of the forest. Nevertheless I sweated big time, we hiked through some thick vegetation, moving through small streams and steep hills, not one for those brand new trainers!
The closer we got to the springs, the smell of sulphur was pretty powerful, ignoring the smell and the yellow covered water, I dipped my feet in for a quick and well needed cool down session.
Morning breakfast at my aunts was followed by a short drive to Tawau Hills Park which is home to the largest tropical tree in the world, unfortunately we didn't go and see that but instead hiked a 90 min journey through the forest to the natural hot springs.
The hike was very humid but cooler than normal due to the high coverage of trees and vegetation blocking the sun to the floors of the forest. Nevertheless I sweated big time, we hiked through some thick vegetation, moving through small streams and steep hills, not one for those brand new trainers!
The closer we got to the springs, the smell of sulphur was pretty powerful, ignoring the smell and the yellow covered water, I dipped my feet in for a quick and well needed cool down session.
Monday, 12 September 2011
Kota Kinabalu
Ive now moved on to the east side of Malaysia. Yesterday I arrived at Kota Kinabalu, after having a dinner a family friend, Wesley, took us to a local drinking hole which followed up by our usual and really unhealthy late supper... I'm hoping that my family travels will move on swiftly as all the eating I'm doing is turning me into a fat boy!
Just before sending us back to my aunts place, Wesley did a quick tour of KK, showing us a couple of famous sights, including the local ladyboy prostitution area... almost made me throw up what I just ate...
Congratulations to wesley who's wife went into labour and gave birth as soon as he dropped us off! It was a pleasure to spend your last night together before becoming a father!!
Tonight will be a short flight to tawau, a small town in the south east region of east Malaysia.
Just before sending us back to my aunts place, Wesley did a quick tour of KK, showing us a couple of famous sights, including the local ladyboy prostitution area... almost made me throw up what I just ate...
Congratulations to wesley who's wife went into labour and gave birth as soon as he dropped us off! It was a pleasure to spend your last night together before becoming a father!!
Tonight will be a short flight to tawau, a small town in the south east region of east Malaysia.
Thursday, 8 September 2011
F**K the PO-LICE - except you with the MP5!!
Having been to Malaysia many times before, I've heard numerous stories from friends and family about the corruption and policing techniques. On Friday and Saturday evenings, road blocks are often set up to catch drink drivers, but instead of arresting them and banning, the police are just waiting to be paid off. The police are paid peanuts by the government and the way they earn more money is to extort the public in the way of bribery. Apparently it depends on the individual cop, but I've heard of people hiding all their money as soon as they see the police and saying all they have is 3RM (just over 50p) on them and getting away with that.
The situation we found ourselves in on Wednesday night was a first hand experience of how the corruption system works and seeing the "ugly side of Malaysia".
We'd finished drinking in Changkat around midnight and our friend kindly offered to give Lewis and I a lift to meet my cousin. Arriving near the destination, our slightly drunk friend jumped a red light thinking no police in sight only then to find blue lights and sirens coming towards us.
I was told under normal circumstances, the police would have let her go for nothing, but as she had foreigners in the car, with no passports, they used the opportunity to get some money out of us. There were two police officers, one who came to check the driving license and one holding an MP5 and checked our ID, something I didn't really want to mess with! Initially asking for 2000RM, with the police's excuse being, your friends are rich, they can pay. my friend bargained her way down to 100RM before they let us go!!... Cheeky bastards!!
As Malaysians say......Malaysia BOLEH!!
The situation we found ourselves in on Wednesday night was a first hand experience of how the corruption system works and seeing the "ugly side of Malaysia".
We'd finished drinking in Changkat around midnight and our friend kindly offered to give Lewis and I a lift to meet my cousin. Arriving near the destination, our slightly drunk friend jumped a red light thinking no police in sight only then to find blue lights and sirens coming towards us.
I was told under normal circumstances, the police would have let her go for nothing, but as she had foreigners in the car, with no passports, they used the opportunity to get some money out of us. There were two police officers, one who came to check the driving license and one holding an MP5 and checked our ID, something I didn't really want to mess with! Initially asking for 2000RM, with the police's excuse being, your friends are rich, they can pay. my friend bargained her way down to 100RM before they let us go!!... Cheeky bastards!!
As Malaysians say......Malaysia BOLEH!!
Sunday, 4 September 2011
Ready to go...?
It's finally the day to leave for the big trip, I still remember I was up late one night reading Patrick's blog about his round the world trip, sometime about a year ago. I then thought to myself... I have to be doing this too.... Thanks Patrick... this is very much down to you and your travels.
I've tried to cram in as much as possible in the last 2 weeks to prepare myself for this trip, plan where I'm going, what I'll be doing, but I've finally got to a moment, where I don't have enough time to do anymore and am just going to let everything hit me full in the face! I guess you're never going to have enough time. But I can anticipate long train and bus journeys where I've got plenty of time to read!
So after a year of planning, applying for visas, looking for routes, reading about where to go, the time has finally come to say goodbye to London, and hello to an exciting 5 months!
I've tried to cram in as much as possible in the last 2 weeks to prepare myself for this trip, plan where I'm going, what I'll be doing, but I've finally got to a moment, where I don't have enough time to do anymore and am just going to let everything hit me full in the face! I guess you're never going to have enough time. But I can anticipate long train and bus journeys where I've got plenty of time to read!
So after a year of planning, applying for visas, looking for routes, reading about where to go, the time has finally come to say goodbye to London, and hello to an exciting 5 months!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)