I arrived in KL just before the Chinese New Year. It was boring so I left for Sumatra on a whim...best decision I've made -- Sumatra is the shit! But anyway, I'm not gonna bore y'all with the details so here are some pics. Most of the Malaysia pics are of Thiapusam this crazy Hindu festival. In Penang currently -- best street food city ever! Going to Southern Thailand tomorrow...two more weeks...no more blog after this so don't check. See you soon....
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=89898&l=a115b&id=581927958
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=89895&l=1bb8a&id=581927958
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
finally some pictures
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=85160&l=8dccd&id=581927958
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=85163&l=003cd&id=581927958
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=85163&l=003cd&id=581927958
Monday, January 12, 2009
Holiday in Cambodia
I'm currently in Sihanoukville, a beach resort town in Southern Cambodia It's on it's way to becoming the Puket of Cambodia. Development is going up everywhere, massive hotels, bungalows, the whole lot. The problem is -- Cambodia is still very poor. Plus, during the course of the Vietnam War we landmined the shit out of this country, most of which remain. So while you're on the beach trying to enjoy the beautiful day people come up to you trying to sell you everything, bracelets, fruit, copied books, fake sunglasses, whatever. Then come the people begging and people that come to show you their blown off hands or legs that they lost to a landmine hoping you'll give them money. Obviously, it makes it a little hard to enjoy the day. But I don't regret coming, I needed some beach and some party and easily found both.
Overall though, Cambodia is great. I started in Ratanikiri Provence, a beautiful remote area that no one visits then headed to Phnom Penh the capital, which for a city in one of the poorest countries in SE Asia is actually pretty cool. The Cambodian people are great especially considering what they've been through. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge managed to take one of the most prosperous countries in SE Asia and totally destroy it in five years killing two million in the process. But despite all this the people are still super nice and surprisingly, most speak some English. I've got a ten days left in Cambodia, a few more days here then back to the Capitol then on to Siem Riep to see Angkor Wat. I then fly to Malaysia....
So I've gotten super behind on the blog, a mix of laziness and being in the middle of nowhere. I spent Christmas on Don Det, an island in the Mekong River in Laos. It was chill. Too chill actually - we were bored after a few days. Two of the people I'd been hanging out with, Brian and Dan had rented a boat for a day and explored some of the area around our island. Our island was one of thousands in the area -- dubbed the 4,000 islands -- and many were uninhabited or completely off the tourist trail. We thought it'd be cool to boat more around the area but below Don Det was a massive waterfall and travelling upstream would not have been very enjoyable. So we decided to head up about 100km north of the 4,000 islands, buy a boat and paddle down the river.
We were completely unprepared. We had no map, no supplies and barely any money. We found a boat easily enough though, it cost about $100 that we split between the four of us. We spent that night on an island in the Mekong at the only guesthouse in the area and headed off very early in the morning on a crazy adventure. The days were spent paddling down the river and trying to guess where we were. When we'd stop for food people would swarm to our boat to laugh at the stupid white people floating down the river. We spent the nights in local villages, staying in families homes or sleeping the in temple. Every village we visited people would follow us around and just stare at us -- I don't think many had seen any white people before. Most people didn't speak any English so if we were hungry we'd make eating motions and if we were tired we'd rest our head in our hands and say "sleep," it didn't always work so well. We never could figure out exactly where we were. Our first night, we had managed to hand draw a map based on the one on the wall in the guesthouse and we wrote down all the names of the towns going down the river. No one could read our map and no one had any idea of these towns we'd say to them. It took us about 5 days to get back to Don Det and we had planned on three. We arrived on New Years eve smelling of Mekong and totally exhausted. It was an epic trip though, I'd totally do something like it again.
Overall though, Cambodia is great. I started in Ratanikiri Provence, a beautiful remote area that no one visits then headed to Phnom Penh the capital, which for a city in one of the poorest countries in SE Asia is actually pretty cool. The Cambodian people are great especially considering what they've been through. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge managed to take one of the most prosperous countries in SE Asia and totally destroy it in five years killing two million in the process. But despite all this the people are still super nice and surprisingly, most speak some English. I've got a ten days left in Cambodia, a few more days here then back to the Capitol then on to Siem Riep to see Angkor Wat. I then fly to Malaysia....
So I've gotten super behind on the blog, a mix of laziness and being in the middle of nowhere. I spent Christmas on Don Det, an island in the Mekong River in Laos. It was chill. Too chill actually - we were bored after a few days. Two of the people I'd been hanging out with, Brian and Dan had rented a boat for a day and explored some of the area around our island. Our island was one of thousands in the area -- dubbed the 4,000 islands -- and many were uninhabited or completely off the tourist trail. We thought it'd be cool to boat more around the area but below Don Det was a massive waterfall and travelling upstream would not have been very enjoyable. So we decided to head up about 100km north of the 4,000 islands, buy a boat and paddle down the river.
We were completely unprepared. We had no map, no supplies and barely any money. We found a boat easily enough though, it cost about $100 that we split between the four of us. We spent that night on an island in the Mekong at the only guesthouse in the area and headed off very early in the morning on a crazy adventure. The days were spent paddling down the river and trying to guess where we were. When we'd stop for food people would swarm to our boat to laugh at the stupid white people floating down the river. We spent the nights in local villages, staying in families homes or sleeping the in temple. Every village we visited people would follow us around and just stare at us -- I don't think many had seen any white people before. Most people didn't speak any English so if we were hungry we'd make eating motions and if we were tired we'd rest our head in our hands and say "sleep," it didn't always work so well. We never could figure out exactly where we were. Our first night, we had managed to hand draw a map based on the one on the wall in the guesthouse and we wrote down all the names of the towns going down the river. No one could read our map and no one had any idea of these towns we'd say to them. It took us about 5 days to get back to Don Det and we had planned on three. We arrived on New Years eve smelling of Mekong and totally exhausted. It was an epic trip though, I'd totally do something like it again.
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