Southeast Asia 2010

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

dinner and a movie

We were invited by Danny Ng and his wife to his place for dinner. He is a coworker of Lindsay's and his wife is a school administrator in Singapore. We took the MRT straight from work to his HDB apartment (Housing Development Board = government subsidized housing). The apartment was very nice, and the dinner was great. I'm very poor at remember the names of the dishes; but there was a couple fish dishes, coconut fried rice, fried chicken wings, an anchovies and nuts dish, great chili sauce, a fish cake I believe. It was all perfect. We sat and talked and ate for a while then watched the movie Snatch. Afterward we chatted then departed at around 11.

It was very enjoyable being able to go to a local Singaporeans place and have dinner and hang out. Usually we just make it back to the hostel, I go for a run, then we eat dinner, then we go to bed. Tonight is going to be an interesting one, tomorrow is going to suck. We will be getting steamboat for dinner (kind of like fondue where you cook the food at your table), then we get some drinks, then we watch the WC game at 2:30 a.m. This is all organized by Lindsay's mentor Daniel who is Austrian and loves soccer; and, um, has some wild stories from his travels throughout asia. Tonight will be interesting.

Bangkok Round 2

Bangkok Round 1

100 baht = 3 US dollars

So I ended up in BK about 12 hrs before the rest of my group arrived. Despite the political turmoil, and violent repercussions, my arrival was met by the "land of smiles" that Thailand is known for and not violent protests that has been on the news in the past few months.

I did some last-minute research on the internet prior to leaving to establish and agenda because I had lost my travel book "Southeast Asia on a Shoestring" in KL the weekend prior. I decided my best bet was to head straight from the airport to Khaosan Road (KSR), which is a one block stretch that is full of younger, backpacking folks. The street is filled with market stalls, massage parlors, suite shops, bars, and some more bars. The demography was mostly 20-30 year olds from Europe or Austria stopping in Bangkok during their month-long backpacking trip. From those that I talked to, it seems like this is a popular thing to do during breaks between the different stages in school. I was a little nervous being by myself, but it turns out all I had to watch out for were tourist traps that BK is notorious for.

The second I step off the bus, I'm convinced by a tuk-tuk driver to go to a "Tourist Information Center" for 5 baht so I can get a map. Seemed like a great idea because I needed to take the infamous tuk-tuk ride and I also had no idea where my hotel was. Turns out this was a little trap because the tourist info. place wasn't certainly for profit, as they tried to sell me a map for 300 baht. I didn't bite. They didn't know where my hotel was. I took the tuk-tuk back to KSR. From there I resorted to my mental map. I wanted to go to the Siriraj Hospital which had three small museums. Two centered around human anatomy and parisitology and the third dealt with pre-historic human history.

Of course I didn't have the map that I drew the day before, but there was a large park nearby and that was a great reference point. I followed Thai folks as they crossed the street so I didn't die, and I ended up walking along the fenced park, no side-walk, on a 3-lane road. Everybody else was doing it so why not me. If you've ever been walking along the side-walk and a speeding bus flies past you unexpectedly you'll understand what it was all about. Just add nasty exhaust fumes, remove the side-walk, and increase the temperature. I made it to a ferry terminal that I knew was correct because I could see the hospital across the street. There were all sorts of information desks at the terminal, but it turns out they are there to sell tourist over-priced river tours and not advise on how to use the cheap ferry service offered by the city. I just hung out, observed which ferries went where, took the correct ferry and cruised across the river. I sat down on the half of the ferry covered in shade, and 3 monks immediately followed. They were the typical monks that you image in your head with the orange clothing and bald heads. Interestingly enough, the got up to allow these Chinese women to sit down and they moved to the opposite side of the ferry and sat in the sun. I figured I should do as the monks do, so I followed suite. I was a little out of my element, so I left out the small-talk and just soaked in the sights and sounds of the big city.

It took a while to find the museums. The first was the pre-historic one and it was really small and pretty boring. Pretty much a bunch of rocks that were labeled as different kinds of tools and bones with scientific labels that were beyond me. The anatomy museum was very interesting. It was kind of like the Body Works exhibit in the U.S., but Bangkok style. There were essentially real, human dissected portions of the body preserved in formaldehyde. There were also two full adults, babies and fetuses at different developmental stages, diseased parts of the body, yaddya yaddya. It was pretty cool for me as these sorts of things interest me, but quite erie at the same time. The third museum on paristology was closed. I ran into this English guy walking out of an area marked do not enter. It turns out inside were school children dissecting cadavers. I took peak into the rooms with him, and it was pretty crazy. The kids looked like they were in their young teens. Groups of about 5 or 6 had a human cadaver that they were dissecting. When they noticed us they all started waving, it was pretty cool.

Following this I returned to KSR on foot and had nothing to do. By now it was about 3 or 4 pm and I was meeting my group at a hotel at 11 pm, which I had no clue where it was. I ended up finding this hotel/restaurant/bar and got a couple beers. I met an employee, who also worked at a suit shop that was connected, named Krishna aka Jonny. We sat and drank and watched a WC re-run, then the Italy-Slovakia live match. I proposed a bet on who wins, and I chose Slovakia just so he would accept. I wanted to spice things up a little. A beer was on the line. I had to leave before the match ended, but it turns out Slovakia one, and I ended up getting that beer when I returned the next weekend. Krishna was a great resource for us because he informed us on the different ways we might be/were scammed and answered all our foolish questions about life in Thailand. I ended up getting a great picture with him wearing a tailored suit for this massively overweight Belgian man that was waiting to be picked up. Unfortunately all my photos for this day were deleted because I had to reformat my memory card. Krishna attempted to help me find where my hotel was but we never really came up with anything. I left at about ten, giving myself plenty of time. I knew the address of the hotel. I told the cabbie the address and he pretty much had no clue. We ended up stopping at a police station and 3 hotels to figure out where this place was. I finally made it an hour later and met up with everybody at the front steps.

The next day, Friday, was temple day. We went to the Gran Palace, Wat Pho (reclining Buddha), and the standing buddha. This was all via a 20 baht tuk-tuk "tour" where the drivers would wait for us at each stop and then take us to the next. In reality this was all a scam because they also took us to about 5 shops in between the temples that they were getting paid to take us to. The drivers made up this grand scheme that it's a gov't sponsored tourist day, and the gov't subsidized public transportation's fuel so it's cheaper. All they have to do is get fuel at different stops, which are actually the shops. We just walked in, looked around, and never bought anything. They actually didn't care if we didn't buy anything, we just had to walk in the front door so they could get paid. It wasn't really that bad for us because it was super cheap for the transportation (20 baht). They did end up taking us to somewhat of a bogus temple I think (standing buddha). When I return the following weekend I learn that the tuk-tuk drivers try to propose this to pretty much every white person walking on the street.

At night we got ate, got some drinks, and made it home safe and sound.

The next day, Saturday, was market day. We went to the Chatachuk market, also known as the weekend market, which is massive. We were there for about two hours and saw maybe 10% of the whole thing. I picked up this great antique map of Southeast Asia that is written in Thai. We started out walking through the animal area which had a ton of dogs, little squirrel things, iguanas, snakes, birds, and fish for sale. All very illegal and very sad. Then we went through this area full of really cool furniture. I decided I'm going to have a room in my house with an Asia theme -- I dubbed it the "Asia Room." The day carried on and we figured out how to take a ferry way up the river to another crazy market. This was much smaller, but filled with locals. I don't think we saw one westerner in this part of town. It is also the location of our bug eating experience. It was a fried grasshopper I think. It actually tasted pretty good. I guess you really can fry anything. In the evening, once again, we ate and drank and had a great time. This time our taxi driver didn't know how to get back so we went through the same ordeal I did Thursday. My group finally understood why i was so ecstatic getting out of the cab on Thursday night.

Sunday we went to Victory Monument then took a cab to the airport. We were all tired and maybe hungover. Victory Monument wasn't that great, but we did see a burned out building just loaded with trash. Definitely aftermath from the redshirt protests.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Monday night dinner

Gabe, Lindsay, Akilah and I met with two of our Singaporean connections, Trisha and Trina, for dinner. The first destination was closed due to spring cleaning. This is the first time Trisha or Trina have seen this. We then went to the Esplanade mall food court called Makansutra Gluttons Bay. It was the best street food I've had in Singapore by far, and only a couple of bucks more per plate. Unfortunately I did not get photos of our plates. Names will be coming soon. We'll be returning tonight (hopefully). I'll get some pictures up. The food court is right on the bay overlooking the business district and the Marina Bay Sands, so it was beautiful.

We ordered Satay (http://travelandliving.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/satay.jpg), Roti john with chicken http://www.photosofsingapore.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/dsc_2544.jpg) , carrot cake, seafood fried rice, and stingray

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

370 KM ~ 230 miles

Trip Outline: Bus trip --> Little India --> Petronas Towers --> Bird Aviary --> Chinatown --> Dinner/world cup/sleep --> Batu caves --> Islamic Arts Museum --> Home

Our trip started off with a slight snag whose blame lies solely on me. Luckily we arrived about 4 hours prior to departure, planning to get the tickets then eat dinner. I expected to arrive at a bus terminal with multiple stations, and I would pinpoint which business we used, I would present my passport, then we would obtain our tickets. Weellll, I didn't have the name of our bus line written down, nor did I have the number for their business, but I did know when we left! So we hunted and hunted, then finally realized the name of the bus I thought we were taking was incorrect. Akilah called her father who checked her email for the bus invoice that I emailed to everybody. This is how we obtained the name of the bus company. Then we called our Singaporean friend Yi-han to get the number to the bus company. She kindly called for us and got the address. We went to the the bus terminal and it was closed. After a brief stress-filled period of talking to Yi-han we decided the bus company representative left and would return prior to the bus departing. After all, I knew we had booked the tickets and there would surely be others that would need to get their tickets prior to boarding. We ate dinner at a Thai restaurant in a very interesting complex near the bus terminal. Afterwards the terminal was open, their was an employee waiting for us, and he was very helpful in guiding us to KL.

The bus ride was also quite interesting. It was from 12 a.m. to 5 a.m. The drivers did not have much consideration for the those on the bus that wanted to sleep (everybody). They talked loudly, laughed loudly, and the driver didn't mind using the horn. In addition, the two drivers enjoyed listening to music. Despite this we all probably got about 2 to 3 hrs of sleep.

We arrived in KL at a completely different bus terminal than what we were told. According to my map, we could walk about 1 km to our hotel. The taxis were asking for 50RM (25SD or about 17USD) to the hotel. This did not add up. We decided to just take the taxi bc we were lost. Lucky for us. We find out that we were not where we thought we were and the taxi fare was quite fair.

After settling into our hotel we headed to the Petronas Twin Towers to get our free tickets. We waited in line for about 1.5 hrs to get the tickets. To go up to the towers you get your ticket in the morning and chose a time to attend (145 pm). after the getting the tickets it was about 930 am. In the meantime we headed to Little India to explore.

Outside view of the Petronas Twin Towers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petronas_towers

A large mall and a massive, modern building. A frequent scene in Asian cities

Little India was pretty cool. Lots of small stands selling the typical fake goods. An old man with no teeth told Lindsay that she was pretty, then that he would sleep with her. That was pretty funny.

View down the "main drag" of Little India

After returning to the Petronas towers we got lunch in the connected mall. The mall was huge which is typical here in Asia. We then went down to the entrance to the tourist observation area. There was a typical museum-esque large room with displays about building the tower and facts. They sat us through a video that explained the oil company Petronas and how much they invest in Malaysia and how awesome Malaysia is. I wasn't the biggest fan given the anti-big oil sentiment brewing in all of us Americans. After this we took an elevator up to the 43rd floor which is where the bridge connects the two towers. We looked at the view then went back down. The view was pretty amazing as expected.

One of the many viewpoints from the Petronas Towers

Afterward we took the train to an area near the KL tower and we got a look at that. We decided not to go up because it cost money and just had our view of KL from a great height. Nearby was the National Mosque and a series of gardens that we wanted to check out. The National Mosque was not open to tourist when we were there. There are only a few 1/2 hour time intervals that tourist can go inside. So we checked out the building from the outside then moved on to the gardens.

View of the KL tower from a distance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kl_tower

The Bird Aviary was one of the areas we could walk through. It cost about 30RM so Lindsay, Gavin, and I attended and Akilah and Gabe passed. Gabe had an allergic reaction from something and at this point was pretty tired. The aviary was the largest in the world. It consisted of about 30 acres of jungle covered by nets that allowed the birds to fly around and us to walk through on trails checking them out. In reality, many of the birds were in cages for their (and ours probably) protection. In my opinion, it was definitely worth it. It started to rain during which only added to the atmosphere and cooled us off.

The birds were not very shy.

This Bird Park houses more than 5000 birds, from more than 50 species, in an enclosed aviary. Out of these 5000 birds, 90% are local birds and 10% were imported from overseas. The size of this bird park is around 7-16 hectares. (wikipedia)

To top off the long day we cruised around Chinatown. This was craazy. The street was just outside our hotel. There were tons and tons of stands and very little walking around. Only 12 hrs prior the street was bare. We ended up hunting for a place to eat that was reasonably priced and also showed the world cup. We found a great Korean place that was on the second story of this building. We got a few beers, ate a well-deserved plate of food, and enjoyed the Australia-Japan soccer match.

Bed time.

We rose up at about 9/10 am and headed to the Batu caves via a 30 min. bus ride that costs us 2.5RM (0.8USD). The bus system was quite different then Singapore. You paid when you got one and they didn't always come to a complete stop at the bus stops along the way. One European couple had to run and jump on as the driver was in some sort of mysterious rush to get to the final destination. The caves were amazing. Monkeys were running around and we were told to get bananas to feed them, which we did. They were pretty funny. The Murugan statue was the largest in the world. It was a Hindu religious area. We found out later an interesting bit of info. that explained the small number of attendees on that Sunday, but that will remain confined to the travelers.

View entering the Batu Caves

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batu_Caves

The monkeys would snatch bananas straight out of your hand, unexpectedly, if held too low.

The cave is considered a Hindu shrine

The view of the opposite side after walking through the entrance, into the cave.

After this we took a taxi to the Islamic Arts Museum. It was very very interesting. The peices there were less paintings and more physical artifacts relating to the Muslim religion dating back to about the 14th century. There were scrolls, different Qur'ans, clothing, pottery, different tools, weapons, and tons of other stuff. The building itself was beautiful as well.

Rendition of the Qur'an. I want to say the whole book is squeezed into this piece, but I can't quite remember

The details of the script in some Qur'an renditions were amazing.

Finally, we smoothly obtained our bus tickets, ate (ice cream for dessert!), then departed. The trip back took waaay longer. There was an accident on the way. Traffic slowed way down on the three-lane highway. This led to cars forming their own lane on the shoulder. Once we reached the bridge that connected Malaysia to Indonesia we had to go through immigration then customs. Our bus waited in line for both of these processes for probably a total of two hours. Our bus departed KL at 430pm. We arrived at our hostel in SG at about 1230am.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

This weekend.....

Booked everything for the weekend. We are staying at http://www.chinatowninn.com/ for about 30 american dollars a night. Only staying saturday night. We are taking a bus from SG at midnight and getting in early Sat. morning. We'll probably walk around then eat, then check in, then go to the Petronas Twin Towers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petronas_Twin_Towers). Pictures will be posted in due time...

SUSHI

So I had my first true experience with sushi last night and it was amazing. The restaurant was in a mall that is near our hostel. Rotating around the restaurant was a conveyor belt, and the chef prepared the dishes at the front near the entrance then placed the dishes onto the belt. The food that we ate is recorded by keeping the plates you grab on your table. It was only $1.8SD for a small plate of sushi. This was two little rice ball things wrapped around the sushi and vegetables... I think? There were also other little dishes. There was also a menu with more dishes that could be ordered. We ordered a couple dishes with raw fish because all the dishes on the belt were cooked. I had raw tuna, and it was pretty good. I found out that wasabi is my favorite spice.

The floor above the restaurant had a this business that just had a bunch of gaming computers and you can go there for $2/hr and play online multiplayer games. I'm tempted. One kid was playing WoW and counter-strike at the same time. Right next to that was an arcade that was as stereotypically Asian as an arcade could get. It was great.

I had durian the night before and last night i had a durian pancake. I liked it quite a bit. They just cooked a regular pancake, then put down some durian fruit that and wrapped it up. Durian is a fruit that is a very pungent odor and unique taste and texture. Some people find the odor repulsive and others enjoy it. I really didn't mind it; maybe I even enjoyed it. So far I think I'm the only one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian