#1: Exit Norway, Enter S-E Asia!
Oslo- Stockholm- THAILAND: Bangkok- Phimai- LAOS: Vientiane- Luang Prabang- THAILAND: Chiang Rai- Chiang Mai- Bangkok- Pattaya- Bangkok.
#2: Southern Thailand: Beach, Party & Diving.
THAILAND: Bangkok- Koh Samui- Koh Tao- Koh Phangan- Bangkok
#3: Cambodia: Beauty and the Beast!
THAILAND: Bangkok- CAMBODIA: Siem Reap/Angkor- Phnom Penh- Bokor National Park- Sihanoukville- Phnom Penh- VIETNAM: Ho Chi Minh (Saigon).
#4: I love the smell of fried noodles in the morning!
VIETNAM: Ho Chi Minh (Saigon)- Mekong Delta- Ho Chi Minh- Cat Tien National Park- Dalat- Nha Trang- Hoi An- Hue.
#5:
Good morning Vietnam! Hello China!
VIETNAM: Hanoi- Halong Bay/Cat Ba- Hanoi- Sapa- Hanoi- CHINA: Nanning- Yangshuo-
Shanghai- Qingdao.
#6: Hardcore Sightseeing and then back to Beach, Party and even more Diving.
CHINA: Beijing– Xi’an– THAILAND: Bangkok- Koh Chang- Bangkok- Koh Phi Phi- Pattaya- Koh Samet- Pattaya- Bangkok- Malaysia border- Krabi- Koh Phi Phi- MALAYSIA: Georgetown/Penang.
#7: Season's greetings from paradise!
THAILAND: Koh Phi Phi- Koh Phangan- Phuket- Koh Phi Phi.
THAILAND: Koh Phi Phi- Phuket- Koh Phi Phi- Bangkok- Chiang Mai- LAOS: Luang Prabang- Phonsavan- Vang Vieng- Vientiane- THAILAND: Bangkok- Koh Phi Phi.
THAILAND: Koh Phi Phi- Similan Island- Phuket- Koh Phi Phi- MALAYSIA: Penang- INDONESIA (Sumatra): Bukit Lawang- Pulau Weh- MALAYSIA: Penang- THAILAND: Bangkok- INDONESIA: Bali: Kuta- Flores: Moni- Bajawa- Ruteng- Labuanbajo/Komodo- Lombok: Senggigi - Gili Trawangan- Bali: Tulamben- Kuta.
#10: OZ: Further away, but still closer...
INDONESIA: Bali- AUSTRALIA: Brisbane- Cairns- Holmes Reef- Arlie Beach- Cape Hillsborough National Park- Hervey Bay / Fraser Island- Noosa- Surfer's Paradise- Brisbane.
#11: Back in good cold Norway.
AUSTRALIA: Sydney- Melbourne- INDONESIA: Bali- SINGAPORE- THAILAND: Bangkok- Koh Phi-Phi- Bangkok- PAKISTAN: Islamabad- NORWAY: Oslo.
Exit
Norway, Enter S-E Asia! Travel mail #1
22/06-9/07 2002
Oslo- Stockholm- THAILAND:
Bangkok- Phimai-
LAOS:
Vientiane- Luang
Prabang-
THAILAND:
Chiang Rai- Chiang Mai- Bangkok- Pattaya- Bangkok.
Click here to see interactive Google map of the area covered in this travel diary.
Yeah! Finally I get myself together to write this travel e-mail. I decided to do
this in English to reach more people. Please disregard all my typing mizztakes
and bad grammar...
The last week in Norway ended up being a bit more stressed than I had hoped for,
as I followed the just in time principle. But in the end everything got sorted
out. A BIG THANK to everybody that helped out the last days!!
Ok, let's cut the crap and write travel e-mail ('cause that is what this really
is!).
Bangkok was noisy and hot, as always. I met up with some English guys
(hi dudes!) and just spent the rest of the day looking around in the Khao San
Road area. The street get more and more busy every year. The street is now also
a popular hang-out place for Thai people. Khao San is a natural starting point
for all travel in the region and I kind of like the place...
Next stop was Phimai, a small city in N-E Thailand. Why travel to Phimai? Well,
there is not much happening there, but I was going to meet up with Kim and Noi,
that was visiting Noi's Father (with family that lived in..........Phimai). We
checked out the local marked, saw the local attractions (an Angkor Wat'ish temple
and the BIG three of Phimai), visited some farmers and chilled with Noi's
family.
After Phimai, Laos was next on the travel agenda. We took a night bus and
arrived EARLY at the Laos border (Friendship bridge). After some waiting we got
to Vientiane. Changing money in Laos is something else than you're used to.
10.000 Kip is about 1 USD. The largest bill is 20.000 Kip, but most of the money
is received in 5.000 Kip bills (the 10k and 20k bills are brand new and most
locals looked at them with awe when we spent the 'big ones'). Needless to say,
you get a lot of bills when we received 3.5mill Kip, mostly in 5k Kip bills.
Nothing much happens in Vientiane. Tony (a guy we met in the taxi to Vienntiane)
and I went to have an herbal sauna and massage (the massage guy called it
Kung-Fu massage!) at a local temple. Really refreshing!! Had big marks on my
back from the sucking cups for several days. 1 hour massage and unlimited herbal
sauna for USD 3.
Going to Luang Prabang we had two choices: take the night bus for about 10 hours
on a bumpy road (and miss the Brazil-Turkey semi-final) or spend about 9 hours
cruising down Mekong River in a speed boat. The latter was much more expensive,
but also more tempting and became our choice. We got to see Brazil crush the
Turks (...while drinking beer in a nice place for 0.7 USD per liter) and the
trip along Mekong river was a cool experience. They use long-tail boats, so you
get really close to the water and a great sensation of speed. The speed also
makes you forget how warm it is and we all got fried in the sun.
Luang Prabang is a beautiful town. The first day we went with slow boat to see
the Pak Ou caves (caves by the river packed w/ Buddhas). Ok trip, but not a
must-see. A must-see, however, is the
Kuang Si
Falls! The next day we went to
see this extremely beautiful waterfall (see link, even though is much nicer than
the pictures!). We spent most of the day swimming/jumping in the natural pool on
the top level, complete with view over the valley and jumping ropes. Got back in
time to see the rather cool match (...disappointing result, though) between
S-Korea and Turkey.
Time for more speed boat travel up Mekong! We spent another 8 hours traveling
from Luang Prabang to the Thai border. The boat was more crammed with people
this time, but we managed to get the best seats, so we were ok. Reached Chiang
Rai JUST IN TIME to see the WC Final.
Left Chiang Rai for Chiang Mai EARLY in the morning. Chiang Mai is a cool place.
You get the feeling of being in a city, but nothing like the massive traffic
hell of Bangkok. Spent some days checking out the city on a hired moped. I did a
Bungy jump and went to see one of the local snake farms (the farm is actually
crap, but the show is kind of cool and the lady speaking in a speaker during the
show is hilarious: kissy-kissy snaky, hi-hi-hi!). The nights were spent playing
pool and drinking beer.
Next stop was again Bangkok. Met Fredrik, a Swedish guy, on the bus and we
hanged out in Bangkok. During the day we went to Siam Park, a kind of odd place
with rides and a water park. The rides were so bad that they were fun! Imagine
'the Viking ship' that newer goes fast and has Thai teens that compete who can
scream highest or a pre-Star Trek space simulator that we had to ask the
operator to start just for us. The water park and the loop were cool though. It
was week-end and I found out that Khao San road is a really cool place to party!
Mekong & Coke rocks! The bars close early at 2:00, but I stayed up until
early morning both Friday and Saturday, talking and chilling (Friday: some
people had brought along guitars) in the streets of Khao San Road.
Managed miraculously to get up in time for check out on Sunday and went to
Pattaya to meet up with Kim and Noi, as well as Geir and Nok, again (they left
me after a couple of days in Chiang Mai). Again I had a great time partying in
Thailand! Official closing is again 2:00, but I found a really cool place that
was open LATE. We checked out some Go-Go bars earlier that night, but I didn't
find that too inspiring.
This brings me back to present time. I arrived in Bangkok today. Kim and Noi
will come by Khao San road any time...
Over and out....for now!
:)
Helge
Southern
Thailand: Beach, Party & Diving - Travel mail #2
09/07-28/07 2002
THAILAND:
Bangkok- Koh Samui- Koh Tao- Koh Phangan- Bangkok
Click here to see interactive Google map of the area covered in this travel diary.
Back in Hello Guesthouse in Khao San road in Bangkok (my new center of the
universe!) and time for another travel e-mail. Been in the South of Thailand and
the title basically sums up what it is all about: Beach, party and diving. So if
you wish to read about great cultural discoveries you might just do something
else than reading this e-mail...
Flashback!
I stayed one more day in Bangkok before I went South. Party (Immortal Pub, named
after the Norwegian Black Metal
band, but only play metal once a week), shopping
and travel arrangements are key words.
Koh Samui had changed a lot since the last time I was there (1995). Back then it
was a typical back packer’s island with dirt road and cheap bungalows. Now it
started to look like Phuket with a lot of girlie bars, expensive hotels and
charter tourists. The only thing I recognized from my last visit was the night
clubs, Reggae Pub and Green Mango (mostly by name as they were bigger now).
Anyway, I stayed one night in Northern Lamai. It was nice, but a bit too quiet
for me now. I wanted to party, so I went to Chaweng. At Chaweng I found one of
the few remaining "cheap" places to stay: Charlie's Hut (300 Baht for
bungalow with private bathroom). At Chaweng most of the week was like this: get
up late, eat breakfast at Ninja Crepes (great place: good/cheap food and very
friendly staff), relax at the beach/look around, watch movie/eat, out and party,
get up late etc. Ok, I had a few quite nights and rented a motorbike one day to
see the sights: a dead monk (!), a waterfall without water (pretty lame after
just having been at the great waterfall in Laos) and a BIG Buddha.
I mostly went to the Green Mango, but I also checked out a few other places. All
the night clubs close at 2:00, but at some nights a place called My Place (at
the end of the beach) was open until late (depending on the police). The beach
parties also go on all night. My standard drink is the Bucket (= bottle of Thai
Whiskey, Coke and Red Bull). It costs from 150-250 Baht (anyway less than one
beer in Norway) and keeps you going the whole night!
Next stop was Koh Tao for some scuba diving. I managed to oversleep and had to
stay one more day in Samui, but eventually I got to Koh Tao. The diving in Koh
Tao is cheap (3600 Baht for 6 six dives, about the same as for 2 dives from Koh
Samui) and good, but not fantastic. I ended up going with Ban's Diving Resort as
they were the only one going to Sail Rock. Ban's was good, but I would recommend
going with an operation that goes early and has small groups (Ban's had a LARGE
boat with up to 30+ divers). Most times I was in the first group into the water,
so it was ok. The
dive sites I went to was: Sail Rock/Shark Island, Chumpon
Pinnacle/White Rock, Southwest Pinnacle/Hin Ngam Bay. The last two dives were
during a small storm, but ended up being the coolest dives. On the last dive we
saw close to 10 rays (mostly small blue-spotted rays, but also one large ray) and
we were attacked by a big trigger fish (have it on
video!). Other than that, I
saw many large schools of fish, morays, barracudas, big groupers and the other
usual marine life. Some of the deeper sites had blurred visibility and some
current. Other than diving I did not do much in Koh Tao: some snorkeling (there
was supposedly a good chance seeing black-tip sharks in Thian Og Bay, but unfortunately I
did not see any) and relaxing on the beach (beautiful beaches, but almost empty
as most people are diving or attending courses).
I ended up staying longer in the South (cutting some time of my Cambodia trip)
to do more dives and to attend the legendary Koh Phangan
Full Moon
Party. The
full moon was on July 24, but due to a Thai religious holiday (Buddha day) the
party was moved to July 26. I went over on the 24th to make sure I got a place
to stay. The days before the party was mostly spent on the beach (I finished a
couple of books). The Full Moon Party was cool! About 7-10.000 people painted in
fluorescent body paint (ok, not all) partying and dancing all night on the
beach. I will be back! Managed to get some sleep, even though my room was in the
middle of the beach (Anan Guesthouse) before I went on the boat towards Bangkok.
Exhausted from the party I slept through the whole buss journey.
Well, now I can delete one more item from my "to-do-in-Bangkok-list".
Tomorrow I head for Cambodia and the mighty
Angkor Wat. Then Vietnam (Visa:
5/8-5/9) and China (I meet my mother in Beijing 18/9 and fly back to Bangkok
27/9).
The only thing I miss about Scandinavia is YOU, so e-mails are appreciated!
That's all folks.....for now!
:)
Helge
Cambodia: Beauty and the Beast! - Travel mail #3
28/07-08/08 2002
THAILAND:
Bangkok- CAMBODIA:
Siem
Reap/Angkor- Phnom Penh-Bokor National Park- Sihanoukville- Phnom Penh-VIETNAM:
Ho
Chi Minh (Saigon).
Click here to see interactive Google map of the area covered in this travel diary.
I'm back! And this time the subject is Cambodia (+ some Thailand/Vietnam). A
beautiful country with very friendly people and a sad history...
But as all my previous e-mails the story starts out in Bangkok. Since my last
e-mail I went around in Bangkok to fix stuff and do some shopping. But without
money, both shopping and organizing is difficult. Yeah, my visa account was
empty (due to the slow bank transfer....and a slow Helge). So I had to delay the
Cambodia trip one day and went out to party instead. I went to bed after
breakfast and when I woke up my Visa card was up and running again. I finally
found a MP3 player that took care of my needs: Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox
3, 20
Gb (takk for gaven folkens!!!!!). It took some time to download all 20 CDs of
MP3s, but finally I had my music!!
After many delays (diving, full moon party, visa card) I was finally on my way
to Cambodia. The trip from Bangkok to Siem Reap took the whole day. Getting to
the Cambodian border was quick, but the road is really bad from the border to
Siem Reap (150km took about 8 hours!). Along the road we saw a lot of signs
warning about mine fields. In Siem Reap we (Chee and me) checked in at a very
nice/new guesthouse; Moonrise Guesthouse (nicest place I stayed in so far).
Massage (by blind people) was needed to loosen up the body after the bumpy bus
ride.
Rise and shine! Up early the next morning (alarm clock at 4:40!) to see the
sunrise over
Angkor
Wat. We were climbing/walking/driving (hired moto drivers)
around the Angkor area the whole day from sunrise to sunset, only with a short
break at the guesthouse before the sunset. We saw a lot of very impressive
temples at Angkor (dating between the 9th and the 13th century), but the
highlights are:
- Angkor Wat: Should not need any introduction. A magnificent temple surrounded
by water. Beautiful in the sunrise!
- Bayon: The temple has 52 towers with more than 200 big faces.
- Ta Prohm: Large temple with large roots from the Banyan trees climbing down
the walls.
- Bantey Srey: Small temple, but with the nicest carvings.
I took about 100 pictures at Angkor and I will put a selection out on the
Internet....eventually.
Up early again! This time for the boat trip to Phnom Penh. I enjoyed the five
hour boat trip, sitting on the roof of the boat watching the scenery and
listening to music. In Phnom Penh we checked in at 'Same same but different
Guesthouse', a cool place by the lake with cheap rooms, a nice atmosphere, lake
view, pool
table and movie room. We decided to do the genocide sightseeing when we arrived.
The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek is a sad place where about
9000 people where
executed by the Khmer Rouge. The site is basically a bunch of holes in the
ground with signs like: 'mass grave of 200 headless women and children",
"mass grave of 450 victims" etc. and a 17 story high monument with
8000 skulls (organized by sex and age!) inside. Next stop on our horror trip was
the S-21 prison where about 17000 men, women and children was detained and
tortured before they where taken out to the killing field for execution. We
could see where the prisoners where contained and tortured. The Museum of
Genocidal Crimes included pictures of the prisoners (Khmer Rouge held strict
records), paintings of atrocities committed, as well as torture devices and more
skulls/bones. Next stop was the Royal Palace. Nice place, very similar to the
Grand Palace in Bangkok.
The next day we planned to go to Udong, but ended up in Phnom Penh Water
Park...just in time to catch the heavy rain, but we where going to get wet
anyway, so what the heck. The park was a nice place to do slides, floating
around in rubber rings and play around with the Cambodian kids. In the evening I
got myself a bottle of Cambodian Mekong Whiskey (0.9 USD in the Guesthouse!) and
went to check out the city's night life (this night: Heart of Darkness and
Nexus).
The next day finally made it to Udong! Ok sightseeing (some temples and some
large royal tombs on the top of a hill), but the coolest thing about the trip
was seeing the Cambodian countryside (well, at least out of the city and the
tourist trail) and interacting with the local kids. Back in Phnom Penh I went to
the hospital to give some blood. The night was spent in the discos Casa and
Manhattan, dancing to (mostly) Cambodia techno.
When I managed to get my struggling body out of bed I went to Kampot (2-3 hours
south of Phom Penh). I had no plans for the place and ended up leaving straight
away, renting a moto driver to go to Bokor National
Park. The road up the
mountain side was in terrible condition (even for Cambodia!), so the 2 hour trip
was a bumpy ride. At the top I stayed at the ranger station/guesthouse. The only
people there were an Australian guy, working with the rangers, his girlfriend,
two British girls, my moto driver and me. We had a good time having a beer and
playing cards (a cool Cambodian game called Bunlong). We also made a night visit
to an old hotel/casino (well described by Lonely Planet as '...straight out of
The Shining'). The eerie feel was strengthened by the thick fog.
The next day I cooked some fried rice with chicken (we had to bring and make our
own food) and then we headed out to see the Casino in the daylight. Due to the
thick fog, it looked about the same as it did in the night time. The old church
was also covered by a thick fog. Needless to say, I did not get to see the
spectacular view that you are supposed to have from the top. Next stop was a
pretty nice waterfall, before we headed down towards Sihanoukville, Cambodia's
leading beach resort (still not very developed). I got a nice bungalow with sea
view (Bungalow Village), but never got to the beach as it was raining most of
the time.
The rain continued the next day, so I decided to head back to Phnom Penh.
This brings us back to present time! I am now at an Internet cafe in Saigon.
Today has been a day consisting of war sightseeing and walking around in the
city. At the Cu Chi Tunnels we got an insight into how the Viet-Cong used and
protected (with nasty traps) the tunnels during the Vietnam War. The
War
Remnants Museum (formerly Museum of American War Crimes) was very interesting.
It was a basically a collection of photos (from both sides) and tools of war.
Nice to get a different perspective on the war than the US 'Nam movies. The rest
of the day I have spent walking around in the city. You can buy a lot of cheap
(Music CDs: NOK 5, DVD: NOK 10, Lonely Planet books: NOK 35, Internet NOK 2 per
hour etc.) and strange (what about a bottle of Snake wine? - including cobras,
other snakes, geckos and scorpions!!, supposed to be good for you, I had a shot
and feel pretty good!) stuff here! I live in a nice/cheap place in the ally
behind 'Saigon's Khao San road': Pham Ngu Lao, it's called Hen Guesthouse, but
it's basically just a family that rents out the second floor in their house (one
room + bathroom).
I was supposed to go on a 3 day trip to the Mekong Delta tomorrow, but the zoom
button on my camera got broken, so I will wait here in Saigon the two days it
takes to fix it (I feel naked wo/ my camera!). Tomorrow I will probably visit
Saigon Waterpark.
That's all about the past. I will stay in Vietnam for about a month (Visa
expires 05/09 and I can't enter China before 27/08 due to the China Visa).
Thanks to everybody that has sent me e-mails/SMSes! It's nice to hear from you!
That's it folks...until next time.
:)
Helge
I love the smell of fried noodles in the morning! - Travel mail #4
09/08-25/08 2002
VIETNAM:
Ho Chi Minh (Saigon)- Mekong Delta- Ho Chi Minh- Cat Tien National Park- Dalat-
Nha Trang- Hoi An- Hue.
Click here to see interactive Google map of the area covered in this travel diary.
I'm now sitting in an Internet café in Hue, hoping that the taste/burp after
eating Durian
ice cream soon will go away! Durian is a fruit that taste like onion (...at
least the ice cream did!) and smell like sewer!! NOT recommended!!
Flashback!
Yeeeeeaaaahh! The Saigon
Water park was great fun! Rather big with many good slides and a slow river
around the park for relaxing in between (I actually fell asleep floating around
in my rubber ring just before closing time). In the evening I went to eat with
some English guys I met on the bus back from the Water park. There I met another
guy that joined me out looking for Bia Hoi (cheep Vietnamese draught beer).
After consuming some liters, we checked out the Apocalypse Now bar...
After picking up my camera I went to see the Notre Dame Cathedral (the classic
"stop here for 1 min to take picture"), the Zoo (seen far better, but
also far worse (India), the aquarium inside is small, but has some nice tanks
with cool fish) and the Emperor of Jade Pagoda (I realize that I have seen way
too many temples, another very quick stop!). Later I had another blind masseuse
massage.
The next two days was to be dedicated to the Mekong Delta. This means up early
in the morning. We went with boat to see the four Islands of Mekong. Had various
stops eating fruit, listening to traditional Vietnamese music, seeing honeybees,
visiting a coconut candy factory and cruising down narrow channels. In the
evening we were served good food on a restaurant boat cruising down the river.
Pretty early to bed in a Hotel in Can Tho city. The next day: more of the same,
but different. We saw two floating markets, more canals, rice noodle factory,
incense makers village and the bonsai garden of My Tho (had some small cages
with sad animals). All together a nice trip, a bit touristy, but what can you
expect...
Instead of taking the usual tourist track from Saigon to Dalat (...or Mui Ne) I
decided to spend a day in Cat
Tien National park. Not too many tourists go there, I was the 4th Norwegian
visiting the park this year. Had targeted a night at the crocodile lake, but due
to several reasons (the main being the bad weather) I ended up doing a 2 hour
trek trough the jungle instead. The trek was cool! We saw no animals, but a lot
of Jungle. Huge trees and lianas everywhere. In the evening we went night
spotting, driving around with a pickup truck and a spotlight. We saw many deers!
So I ended up seeing my share of wild animals in the park: deers, monkeys,
toucans and the snake. The snake was hiding behind the pillow in my bed! I saw
it creeping underneath the pillow I had just been relaxing on when I got up to
get my GameBoy. My heart was pounding fast when I captured it into the garbage
bin! I brought the snake over to the rangers HQ. They where not sure if the
snake was poisonous or not, but they thought so....
It's a bad feeling when you are 90% sure that the moto driver is going the wrong way,
but the driver does not know a word English and is very persistent that he is
going the right way. Well, I was right! So I ended up on a local bus instead of
the bus that was going to pick me up. Interacting with the locals on the bus
made up for the frustration of missing my pre-paid bus...
In Dalat the weather was even worse than Cat Tien. It was pouring, cold (about
15C!) and windy! It's very touristic, but in a different way. After a while you
realize that I'm not the tourist being targeted here...rather the Vietnamese
tourists (Do you know anybody that would buy a plastic Buddha figure in pastel
colors?). Dalat is the Vietnam honeymoon spot #1 and kitsch heaven. The next day
I went on a trip outside the city to see the amazing sites: Meditation Temple
(another temple, the most interesting thing was the talk with a very energetic
old man about meditation), Chicken Village (minority people with a huge chicken
in their village, weird!), Silk farm (basically a bunch of silk cocoons imported
from China), two waterfalls (complete with "love boots" and gondola
over one of the waterfalls), Mushroom farm (I guess most of you envy me this
one...), Crazy
House (a kind of concrete "Alice in Wonderland" three house with very cheesy
rooms for rent, build by the architect daughter of the processor of Ho Chi Min)
Crazy Monk (a temple with a lone monk that paints...a lot!). Other classic
features in the city is a Eiffel tower, Valley of Love (where all the Vietnamese
tourist with respect for themselves go and you can see Vietnamese dressed up
like cowboys!) and the lake where you can rent "romantic" swan boats for two! The rest of the day was spent
on the Internet preparing my new web site...
Enough of Dalat's rain and cold! The next day I left for Nha Trang. And this was
a wast improvement; still rainy, but WARM! Yeah! Ended up in a Hotel a bit
outside the center, a bummer, but ok...I got a cheap room with a bathtub! Nha
Trang is Vietnam's beach/party town #1. I did not see much of the beach, but the
party was not too hard to find! Most nights were spent at the Rainbow
Bar. Very easy too get drunk as it was cheap (2 beers for NOK 9 during happy
hour) and the bartenders was serving free tequila/redbull shots and arranging
drinking games all the time. The first night I met two Norwegian girls, Bente
and Stine, which I have been spending quite some time with since...
The weather was still bad the following day and nothing really happened until I
sat in the Rainbow bar, again...
The next day we went to the
Thap
Ba Hot Spring Center to soak in mud and mineral water. Very healthy indeed,
after some not so healthy nights at Rainbow Bar. Before we headed off to Rainbow
again, we managed to book a trip with the legendary Mama Hahn's Green Hat boat
trip for the next morning (Mama Hahn herself is currently in jail for a year for
giving away 'illegal substances').
Good morning Vietnam! Well, Stine did not think so, so only Bente and I went for
the boat trip. The boat trip was good! We visited several islands, snorkeled,
had a great buffet lunch, drank (not so great) wine in the floating bar (some
classic quotes will SOON be in the "Travel Quotes" section on my web
site) and beer on the roof of the boat. We managed to drink all the beer in the
boat, but that was strange as we did not drink that much. The girls went on to
Hoi An in the evening, but I stayed another day in Nha Trang to do some diving.
As it is very difficult to take "just a few beers" in the bars here, I
had a quiet evening a caught up on some sleep...
The diving operator (Octopus
Diving Club) picked me up on time the next morning (a rare thing over here)
and we went out to the sites PADI Beach and Bob's house. Both dives were
shallow, but long (77/60 min). The diving in Nha Trang was ok. The visibility
was not that good after a week of bad weather. The corals and marine life was
below average of what I have seen in tropical water, but we saw some cool
things. The highlight was a really big scorpion fish. The lunch was a big and
very good buffet on the top of the boat. Back to the hotel I managed to get a
cyclo driver that did NOT ask me if I wanted marijuana or "massage, very
beautiful woman" for the first time in Nha Trang (probably because his
English was non-existing)!! Yeah! Took forever to get on the bus to Hoi An, but
I managed to get the back seat, and had a good night sleep lying down... Ahhh!
The buss arrived later than planned in the ancient city of Hoi An (surprise). I
found out that for the first time here in Vietnam, Lonely Planet was wrong about
the Hotel prices in a negative way (I found most places to be cheaper than
stated in LP). Still I managed to get a nice hotel at reasonable price (Stine
and Bente was not too happy about the rats running around over the roof of the
room at night, but it did not really bother me too much). We did not do much
during the three days in Hoi An. The days were mostly spent bicycling around and
on the beach. The girls went around shopping clothes, as Hoi An is the #1 place
for tailor made clothes in Vietnam. I really don't need more clothes, but my old
Beavis & Butthead and Batman boxers was replaced by some nice tailor made
USD 1 silk boxers. Every full moon, Hoi An has a festival. This fitted nicely
into our schedule, so the evening 21st of August was spent enjoying the
festival: lanterns, light sculptures, games and a lot of people all over the
ancient city.
On Saturday morning (24/8) we went on the bus towards Hue. On the way we made
several stops; the caves of Marble mountain, a nice view point overlooking the
ocean and the Han Van Pass and a short stop at Lang Co beach (supposed to be 1
hour, but was just about 30 min, still we managed to get a nice bath!). In Hue
we found a nice hotel, where I share room with Bjorn from Denmark (met on the
bus). We went out looking for a place to eat lunch, but probably looked in all
the wrong places because we could not find a ok place, at least not for
a while. For dinner we knew where to go (less than 5 minutes around the corner
from the hotel). We checked out the light show on the Trang Tien Bridge and went
to bed.
Up EARLY next morning! The bus for the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) was supposed to
come 6:00, and it actually did! A mini bus only drove us for 10 minutes and then
stopped. We soon realized that the only reason the bus was on time was that we
had said that the bus better be on time as we got up this early (it's usually
more than 30 minutes late). We were picked up by the tour bus 35 minutes later
and then saw other people from our hotel already in the bus. We saw some
important places from the Vietnam War (...or the American war, as the call it
here). The main site was the Vin Moc Tunnels. These tunnels differ significantly
from the tunnels near Saigon that I wrote about in the last e-mail. While the
tunnels in the south was on enemy territory and made mostly for fighting and
hiding from the US soldiers, the Vin Moc Tunnels was more of a shelter for the
village. The tunnels are large enough to walk in...At least for Vietnamese
people. It's is interesting to hear stories of the war from the North Vietnamese
perspective. In the movie we saw in the Cu Chi Tunnels the Americans was
described as the "American devils" while the Viet Cong was "brave
American killers".
Well, I'm now back to present time. I still have the nasty taste of Durian ice
cream in my mouth! Other than that I'm doing great! I really feel alive and
privileged to be able to travel around. A big thanks to all the people I have
met on the way and to those that has sent e-mails and/or SMS!
Next stop is Hanoi (take night bus tonight), Halong Bay and Sapa before I'm
heading for China.
Selected pictures from the whole trip will be available on the Internet early in
September.
That's it folks...until next time.
:)
Helge
PS: Ok, I'll tell you the whole story about the snake in Cat Tien. The rangers
thought the snake was a poisonous Krait, but the biologist confirmed from my
pictures that it was actually a harmless
Indochina
Wolf snake. So there you have it, how to make a great story just plain good...
Good morning Vietnam! Hello China! - Travel mail #5
26/08-17/09 2002
VIETNAM: Hanoi- Halong Bay/Cat Ba- Hanoi- Sapa- Hanoi-
CHINA:
Nanning- Yangshuo- Shanghai- Qingdao.
Click here to see interactive Google map of the area covered in this travel diary.
Hello!! Hello is the only English word most Chinese know...and they let you know
that they know it! Well, before I go on about China I have to finish up with
Vietnam...
I just managed to write the last e-mail in Hue before I headed to the bus
towards Hanoi. We arrived EARLY in Hanoi (before we were supposed to!!). The
most of the first day was spent wandering around in the streets of Hanoi's Old
Quarter. Each of the different streets have specialties, like the tombstone
street, the towel street, the ghost money street, the laminator machine street
etc.
The next morning we headed for a two-day boat trip around in Halong Bay. Halong
Bay look kind of like the Krabi coast with thousands of vegetation-covered
islands rising from the sea. We saw the two large Sungot caves (very nice, but
too developed with lights and paved tourist paths), island surrounded lagoons
and beautiful scenery. We had a swim before we docked at Cat Ba island. After
dinner we went out for a few beers and ended up sleeping at the balcony in the
hall, as the hotel room was extremely hot.
The boat trip back was somewhat distorted by rain, but that did not stop us from
having a good time and a swim. On the bus ride back to Hanoi I started freezing
and ended up catching a fever. I was a walking zombie when we went to eat
dinner. The next day was spent sleeping, relaxing and on the Internet. After
dinner I said goodbye to Bente, Stine and Bjoern and went to the train station
heading for Sapa. I was "just in time", as always, and at the train station I
had a hard time finding the right wagon, as the coach number and the seat number
was mixed up. Ended up getting the ticket from the guide after the train had
started moving!
Sapa was beautiful! The curvy road up to Sapa had a spectacular view of the
mountain peaks sticking up from the clouds. In Sapa I had three days trekking.
The Sapa countryside has high mountains, deep valleys, bamboo forests, rice
fields, rice terraces, a river running through the valley, shaky bridges,
waterfalls (w/ swimming), villages, buffalos (..and all the other countryside
animals) and various minority people. Check out my
pictures to see what I am writing about. The backside of the coin was the
constant nagging from the minority people: "Why don't you buy from me?!!". Even
though you get street sellers bugging you all over Vietnam, Sapa was extreme!
The first two days I trekked with a Swiss couple and a guide. We hooked up with
a Canadian couple, a Spanish couple and their guide. The night we spent in one
of the many minority villages. Back in Sapa my "home-stay" turned out to be just
that: I stayed in this teenage girl's room complete with stuffed animals,
toiletries, clothes...everything but the teenage girl! I wandered around
checking out the market and minority people dancing at Apocalypse Now Bar. After
the minority dances the local teens took over. Quite interesting, I have never
seen anyone be so excited over Vengaboys...
The next day I did a short trek before I headed back to Hanoi with the night
train. I arrived in Hanoi EARLY the morning of September 2nd. Vietnam's national
day! I had expected commie parades, boat races, fireworks and a big party. But
nothing much really happened. I ended up spending the evening with some
Vietnamese students that I met by Hoan Kiem lake. They were really sweet to me
and we had che (a drink with white/green/purple substance and ice), tea and some
kind of seeds that was difficult to eat.
The next day was my sightseeing day! I missed Uncle Ho, but who wants to see a
stuffed dead man anyway... I did however go to Hoa Lo prison (Hanoi Hilton - a
interesting museum mostly dedicated to the the struggle for independence from
France), and the Army Museum (ok, but I liked the more balanced War Remnants
Museum in Saigon much better).
The train to the China border was leaving EARLY in the morning and I was "just
in time" as always. On the train I met Scott, an American I traveled with for
the next weeks. Well over the border we had our first experience with ordering
food with only Chinese signs on the menu and no English speaking persons in the
restaurant. Animal sounds, pointing at other people's food and sign language is
the name of the game. We had a transit night in Nanning, a very modern city.
The next stop was
Yangshuo, a beautiful city surrounded by limestone pinnacles. We spent 6
days in Yangshuo. The first day we rented bikes and went out to Moonhill, a
"hole in the wall" mountain with a spectacular view. The sellers are not as
pushy as in Vietnam, but an old lady followed us to the top while explaining: "Moonchil;
beautiful". After the hike up to Moonhill I went to a cave. We walked through
the cave while the guide explained what the stones was supposed to look like
(..and I thought I had a vivid imagination!). I had a mud bath and swam through
the narrow water parts of the cave with fish jumping around me while trying to
keep the lamp out of the water.
The next day we went to
climb. We did a site called Golden Cat Cave. We climbed 5.3-5.9 graded
routes. My second time climbing outdoor and I had a great time! The next climb
was two days later.
The day in between I went on a boat trip cruising down the river around Xingping.
Beautiful scenery and the motive of the 20Y bill and a local cigarette brand. We
had to duck down in the boat as the police was looking for boats taking tourists
on cheap alternatives to the government tours.
The second day climbing was excellent! We went on a multi pitch route up about
70 meters at Thumb Peak. The difficulty of the climb was perfect with the
grading ranging between 5.8 and 5.9 (some parts was very difficult, but we
managed through). We anchored at 2 ledges before the last pitch up to a hanging
anchor. Great view!
The next day was spent biking almost 60 kilometers on a loop around in the
countryside. We had a couple of well deserved swims on the route. The
countryside had a high "Hello!" factor!
The same day as we were flying to Shanghai (...avoiding a 35 hour train ride for
only slightly more than double the price) we went to Longsheng to see the rice
terraces. Another beautifuuul sight! Again pictures speak loader than words...
Arriving in Shanghai was great as we were picked up by Rebecca's driver. Rebecca
is an American working as an ex pat in Shanghai and a friend of a friend of
Scott. No problem sleeping on the coach when you are in a nice apartment, in the
center of the city (Pudong), with Internet, DVD, shared swimming pool (indoor
and outdoor!), golf putting range etc. Most of the time in Shanghai was spent
wandering around in the city: the Bund, Frenchtown, old Chinese city etc. The
city is ultra modern with skyscrapers popping up everywhere. The night scene was
expensive and not as happening as expected! The Shanghai Carnival started on
Saturday, but it wasn't too tempting to go on a open street dance party when it
was raining (...even with performers like Samantha Fox/Boy George! He-he!). On
the cultural front, we went to one museum...the Museum of Chinese Sex Culture!
Yeah!
The last day I just picked up my 2Y dumplings for brunch, relaxed and started on
this e-mail before heading for the bus to Qingdao. The bus was faster (11 hrs
instead of 16 hrs) and better than expected (beds where you could lie down!).
Qingdao
is a costal city with German architecture mixed with modern Chinese buildings.
The first day I spent wandering around (I actually managed to get lost and ended
up in a military area, where some officers guided me out after a "interrogation"
in Chinese/broken English!) and at the beach. The beach is nothing more than ok.
The water at the beach close to the hotel had a lot of seaweed floating around,
but the water was cleaner around the corner. Not many tourists here! Only met an
confused Israeli at the Hotel.
Had a good time walking around in Qingdao today (yeah, I'm now writing in real
time). I took the bus to the end of the beach and walked back towards the train
station. On the way I saw the German "castle" (THE place to get married in
Qingdao!), the Aquarium (quite nice, but as usual some of the bigger creatures
had too little space to move around), the Navy Museum (look inside a Chinese
submarine, see battle ships and other war machinery, as well as a lot of
pictures with Chinese text) and a couple of quite nice beaches (much better than
the seaweed hell close to the station). Scott came over here from Najing this
evening. Tomorrow I will take an early train to Beijing. I have one day to
explore the "wild wall" before my Mother comes over (20/9)....
Remember to sign the
Guestbook!
Over & out!
:)
Helge
Hardcore Sightseeing and then back to Beach, Party and even more Diving - Travel
mail #6
18/09-26/11 2002
CHINA: Beijing– Xi’an– THAILAND: Bangkok- Koh Chang- Bangkok- Koh Phi Phi- Pattaya- Koh Samet- Pattaya- Bangkok- Malaysia border- Krabi- Koh Phi Phi- MALAYSIA: Georgetown/Penang.
Click here to see interactive Google map of the area covered in this travel diary.
Yeah! Finally back with a new travel e-mail after a long
time without an update. I’m doing great! My semi-permanent location is now at
Phi-Phi Island in Thailand,
where I will be for the next two months. Just finished the PADI
IDC/IE (Instructor
Development Course/Instructor Examination) to become a dive instructor (it will
take some more days before the paperwork go through), got a job at
Island Divers and a
bungalow
on the beach.
So let us now pick up from where I left you after the last e-mail……
After some bribes I got a ticket for the morning train from Qingdao to Beijing. The trip took about 8 hours, but I never got the time to get bored as the locals were very eager to speak. Found a cheap dorm in Beijing for the next two nights.
The next morning I headed for the “Wild Wall” of Huanghua. After a 3-hour trip on as many local busses I arrived at the wall. It was raining and freezing cold (at least for somebody dressed as me: the usual shorts and t-shirt) and had I strained ankle, so it was with mixed feelings I started the climb. Still I had a great time! The wild wall was really wild (a narrow and steep path went up through the bushes on the wall) and really deserted (I was the only tourist on the wall that day). After the 2 hour trek I was really happy to have taken the effort to get out here (…it was even worth the 4 hours bus ride back).
The morning I went off to meet my mother at our posh hotel. As I was checking in I realized that I had lost my Visa card. I had no clue about how (mostly had it on me or in a safe) or when (somewhere between Shanghai and Beijing). Still it could have been a lot worse as the card had not been used and I could borrow money from my mother. I met my mother and we hooked up with our guide, Cindy, and our driver for some hardcore sightseeing. The first stop on the agenda was the Temple of Heaven. The temple was really beautiful and gave us a first glimpse of the emperor’s taste of grand architecture. Everything in the temple area was planned so that it added up to 9, the lucky number. We also had time for a visit to Tiananmen Square where we could see kites in all variations covering the sky and flower decorations being set out for the national day (02/10). It’s the largest square in the world (14 hectares) and the evil dictator Mao was still watching the people from a large picture on the Heavenly Peace Gate. In the evening we had the famous Peking duck for dinner; delicious food on a very decorative display.
The Imperial Palace (Forbidden City) was grand. No surprise, as it was the imperial residence and center of the kingdom during the reign of 24 emperors in two dynasties (Ming and Qing). The Forbidden City covers an area of 72 hectares and has 9,000 rooms (9 is the lucky number, remember). I reckon I would gladly have taken on the emperor’s responsibilities for the perks! We also went to a beautiful park.
Time to check out the emperor’s summer hang-out spot. Needless to say the Summer Palace was very grand and beautiful (surprise!). The whole garden covers 290 hectares, with an artificial lake taking up 4/5 of its total area, and included the Long Corridor (728m) decorated with paintings, the 60m tall Longevity Hill, a marble boat and a 17-arch bridge (9 arches to the middle from both sides, lucky eh?). In the evening we went to see an acrobatic show. Amazing to see how they balance and twist their bodies!
For our day with no program we decided to visit the Beijing Zoo, mainly to see the pandas. The zoo was ok; it had the usual small cages with miserably looking animals, but also some quite large areas for selected animals. The highlights were the three baby monkeys playing, the pandas and the aquarium. The pandas mostly had their back turned, so I had to sneak into the guards’ quarters to get a good look at them (I can’t read Chinese!). The aquarium was great! It claimed to be the largest indoor aquarium in the world, all kinds of marine animals in huge tanks, as well as sea lion and dolphin shows. We also managed to get an hour at the silk marked before it closed (it looked like we had been there considerably longer judging by my mother’s shopping bag).
It was time to give the wall another visit. This time the trip went to the tourist trap of Badaling. I had been warned about Badaling, as it is rebuild and crowded with tourists and tacky souvenir vendors. Still I had a great time! Cool to see the wall in a less crumbling state and when you get over the top most of the tourists take the gondola or the (slow!!) slide down, so going down you have the wall almost by yourself. Cindy had never done the whole trek with any groups before and judging by her state the next day it will not happen again!
The destination for our last day of hardcore sightseeing in Beijing was the Lama temple. As most of you would guess, this has nothing to with the spitting animal, but everything to do with Lama as in Dalhi Lama. Nice temple with the biggest wood-carved Buddha in the world (26m). We went back to the silk market for some more bargaining (what about cashmere RL Polo shirt for less than NOK 65?).
The last day in Beijing we went with the bus to another market. It was the classic “have everything” marked, thus a great place to some shopping. In the afternoon it was time to head for the train station to take the night train to Xi’an.
Arriving in Xi’an (a “small” Chinese city w/ 6m people) the next morning we met up with a new set of guide and driver. Banpo and the Terracotta Warriors was the main event of the day. The Banpo museum was ok, but you needed imagination to understand that the holes in the ground were actually the remains of an ancient village from about 4500 BC to 3750 BC. Next stop was the Terracotta Warriors, acclaimed by many as the Eighth Wonder of the World. As with the pyramids and the Taj Mahal this is really just a tomb for a man obviously totally disturbed by having too much power (he started building it when he was 13 years old!). The old coffin in the dirt was not enough for the emperor; he needed to be buried with an army of more than 7,000 real size stone warriors fully equipped with weapons and distinct features, as well as horses and two bronze chariots. The tomb took 39 years and 700,000 workers to reach completion. But yeah, it was an amazing sight! Time for another tourist trap, this time: silk factory. The remainder of the day was spent walking around in Xi’an. We went to a very Chinese marked (meaning that you could not possible find anything of interest there!) and around in the central city area.
I was flying back to Bangkok the next day. Before my flight I managed to find buy even more cds in central Xi’an. The Chinese cds are extremely good value: they cost NOK 9-15 each (less than USD 2) and has excellent packaging if you can accept a few spelling mistakes (Vietnamese cds are cheaper, but has absolutely crappy packaging, while Thai cds are more expensive and only has ok packaging). The selection of cds is very strange: they have the new and popular stuff, as well as many obscure bands including various Norwegian Black Metal cds!
Coming to Bangkok was not so cool! The last airport bus had gone and I had only 150 baht (lost my Visa card, remember?). At last I found a taxi driver that was willing to take me to Khao San Road for that price. Back in my regular guesthouse (Hello Guesthouse) they had no sympathy that I was out of baht (was not even ok to use my USD as deposit), so I had to go out to look for any friend that I could borrow 150 baht from or someone that could change some USD. Ended up with the latter and got myself a room (…for the last time in that place!).
The next day was spent mostly on the Internet. I spent my last baht (exchanged my USD) on some street food and went to the airport to meet my mother. I came in good time and waited forever and ever. After an hour or so I went to the information and I got some information that I did not like at all: I was in the wrong terminal! I ran like hell to the correct terminal, but my mother was gone. Again I was stuck at the airport in the nighttime, this time with NO money at all. Luckily I was able to get a hike with some people that were going to Khao San road anyway. I meet up with my mother in Khao San road.
Time for sun and beach life! The destination was Koh Chang. Chang was very nice, but just in the transition phase to become developed, so they were building everywhere. This place is going to look very different in one year. The days were mostly spent relaxing on the beach. We did also go to see the waterfall (nice waterfall were you could swim), on a snorkeling trip and I went to dive one day. I went on a dive trip with Eco-Divers as Divemaster and was offered a job. I decided to check out the south first….
Before my mother went home we managed to do some more shopping in Bangkok. After my mother left I shared a room with Tore from Norway. Party, cinema and internet was the very cultural mix for Bangkok this time (..also).
Next stop: Phi-Phi Island! The place for party, beach and diving! This time the days were dominated by the two first. We had a bungalow close to the beach, so most of the days were spend on the beach by Hippies Bar. Most nights were spent partying in one of the many bars/discos. Phi-Phi has the best nightlife in Thailand and they DO NOT close down at 2:00. I also went on a snorkeling trip around on the island and to other islands around Phi-Phi. Pretty cool snorkeling and we went to see some rather aggressive monkeys on Monkey beach. We also went to Maya Bay (where the filmed The Beach). Hard to recognize due to tons of longtails, speedboats and diving boats as well as the fact that the lagoon is actually just a bay (the rest is computer generated), but still a beautiful place. Still, I wasn’t here only for party and beach, but after my job search I realized that I was either too early (…for the high season: Nov-Jan) or too late (most dive centers had already staffed up) to get a job as Divemaster on the island. I decided to sign up for the IDC (Instructor Development Course) before I went up to Pattaya to meet up with a friend, Paul, which was coming over for a week.
Even though Paul had a sad reason for coming, we had a great time together. Quite a few buckets were consumed over the week, both in Pattaya and Koh Samet. In the daytime we were mostly chilling at the poolside or at the beach.
Had a day in Bangkok that was mostly spent in Pan-Tip Plaza buying a laptop (Belta Mollis P1701, P4, 1.7GHz, 224 Mb RAM, 30Gb HD, Combi drive, 2 kg) and some software. As my visa expired in a few days, I took the bus all the way down to the Malaysian border to re-new my visa. After some quality time in Malaysia (about 2 minutes) I headed back to Krabi to catch the first ferry the next day to Phi-Phi.
Back to Phi-Phi! I had some time to prepare for the IDC; caught up on the theory and did the knowledge reviews in the workbook. Also had some time to party and get sick before the course started.
The IDC was quite busy with classroom sessions and water sessions during the day and usually preparations for presentations in the evening. But after the 9 days the course lasted we were well prepared for the IE (Instructor Exam) and everybody passed with no problems. A very happy crowd went out to celebrate after the last day of exams. The IDC was a great experience; learned a lot and met many cool people.
Ole-Andre & Co came to Phi-Phi for a week and we went out the first night to celebrate his birthday. After some days of relaxing I went to look for a job. I was offered a job at the first place I went to, Island Divers, were I also accepted the offer.
After having lived for some time in the center of Phi-Phi, I moved to a monthly rent bungalow on the beach near Karma pub.
Have now been working at Island Divers for about a week
and has been diving every day. The dives has mostly been at
Bidah Nok and
Swim
Through Garden (Maya Bay), but I have also been to the
King Cruiser (a 85m long
car ferry wreck) and
Phuket Shark Point. The wreck was amazing; it’s like flying
through a ghost town. I have seen tons of cool fish including leopard sharks,
schools of squid , moray eels (including zebra moray), schools of barracuda , lion fish,
scorpion fish, stone fish, clown triggerfish and various other fish. As I have
not been given my teaching status yet (the paperwork should take about 2 weeks),
I have been working as a Divemaster guiding fun divers or helped out with
students.
My visa expired the 23/11, but I decided to stay another day at Phi-Phi (…and pay the 200B fine) to do some fun dives with a colleague. If I had gone before I would have to stay another day in Penang, as the consulate would have been closed on Sunday anyway. It was cool to go diving without having the responsibility for other (more or less experienced) divers, stay down longer (clients usually run out of air before the max time) and do stuff you can’t do with clients, like go swim into caves (relax: we use a line and torches). The cave we went into at Bidah Nok was 20-25m deep and went around in a circle, so you could see the light from the opening at the end of the cave.
Yeah, finally writing in real time!! Are now in Georgetown in Malaysia. Other than arranging my 3 month visa I have done things you can’t really do at Phi-Phi, like go shopping in shopping malls, eating food you can’t get on Phi-Phi (China food, Indian food and junk like KFC), seen some movies at the cinema (Harry Potter 2 and a Korean horror movie called The Phone) and be in cyberspace with a fast and cheap connection.
That’s it! I’ll try to be faster with the next e-mail.
Thanks to all that has written e-mails! Also; REMEMBER TO SIGN MY GUESTBOOK!!!
I have also posted a lot of new pictures. To see them go to Pictures or click on the links below:
#5:Vietnam2: Hanoi- Sapa- Hanoi
#6:China1: Nanning- Yangshuo- Longsheng- Shanghai- Qingdao
#7:China2: Beijing- Xi'an
#8:Thailand3: Chang- Bangkok- Phi Phi- Bangkok- Samet- Phi Phi.
#9:Diving Phi-Phi: King Cruiser wreck, Phuket Shark Point, Bidah Nok, Swim Through Garden.
Some more pictures have also been included in most of the earlier albums.
That's all, folks!
J
Helge
Season's
Greetings from Paradise!
- Travel mail #7
27/11-22/12 2002
THAILAND: Koh Phi Phi- Koh Phangan- Phuket- Koh Phi Phi.
Click here to see interactive Google map of the area covered in this travel diary.
I wish you all a merry Christmas and
a most excellent new year! I'm looking forward to a white Christmas this
year...on the beach. :) from some days off
work and Phi-Phi. Arun and I went to the
full moon party on Koh Phangan. We arrived the day before the party (full
moon = 19/12) and had some difficulties finding a place to stay, but it all
worked out in the end. The party was great, many thousand people partying on the
beach with various beach clubs pumping out music and lights. But the fun takes
it's toll, the next morning my head, stomach, legs and throat was hurting like
hell. Since Arun was going back to Norway 22/12 (..and I had to be back for
work), we decided to take a plane from Koh Samui to Phuket, to get some more
time in Phuket.
In Phuket we had some junk food and rest to recover from the full moon party. In the evening we went out to check out some of the infamous Patong shows, classics like ping-pong, balloon, smoke, trumpet, gold fish and water into coke where some of the magic tricks on the menu. Still, you get fed up with the go-go clubs pretty fast, the girls look like they are bored to death while they are dancing and the average conversation goes something like this: "What's your name? Where you from? Stay here long? Buy me a drink?" ...and that's it.
The last day in Phuket was spent on the beach and shopping. It's limited how much shopping I can do for logistical reasons, but some new fins, a shorts and business cards was sure winners. Other than that I made sure that I ate a lot of food that I can't get in Phi-Phi. Thai food is great, but Indian, Mexican and junk food was the three food groups that was consumed when I was away from Phi-Phi.
So what else has happened since last e-mail? When I returned from Penang I had about a week without diving due to an infection in the foot. And as soon as I was ready to dive I got my teaching status and my first course. I have had 2 full Open Water courses, 2 Advance dives (Deep / UW Photography) and done the first day of 2 other OW courses (theory and confined water) that I could not finish as I was going to Koh Phangan. The Advance dives were done in Hin Muang and Hin Daeng. This is two amazing dive sites where I saw my first Mantas (rays with a wing span of about 4m)! Other than the Mantas the sites was beautiful with schools of great barracudas, giant morays, large bat fish, scorpion fish and a huge variety of reef fish. A truly magnificent dive! Also done a lot of other great dives here in the area, for more details look at my diving page and my diving pictures (also include Hin-Daeng pictures).
Other than diving I have been mostly hanging out with diving friends and Arun (friend from Norway that was here for two weeks). The working hours are pretty long (10-11 hours, 7 days per week), but it does not matter as long as most of the work is just going diving and hanging out with customers and colleagues. A typical day goes something like this:
8:00 Dive shop: Preparations
9:00 Dive boat: Diving
2-3:00 Dive shop: Debriefing, Rinsing of equipment
3-4:00 Time off
6-7:00 Dive shop: Sell courses and fun dives / Theory / Preparations
9:30 Shop close
Relax, if you are still reading this, I'm not going to bore you with more details about my work. I only want to say that I love to get visitors wherever I am. The 6 months I have been traveling now I have have been seeing Kim/Noi (Thailand/Laos), my mother (China/Thailand), Paul (Thailand) Ole-Andre (Thailand) and Arun (Thailand). Next year Daniel/Hilde (Asia/Australia: 6 months) and Emma (Thailand) are hooking up with me right over new year and I hope to see both Rune and Mona when I get to Australia. As well as all of my new friends, that have made the last six moths traveling around so great. So, if you are in the area or the other way around, let me know...
I guess that is it!
Have a brilliant Christmas and a most excellent new year!!!
Keep in touch! CU!
:)
Helge
On the road again! - Travel mail #8
23/12-11/03 2003
THAILAND: Koh Phi Phi- Phuket- Koh Phi Phi- Bangkok- Chiang Mai- LAOS: Luang Prabang- Phonsavan- Vang Vieng- Vientiane- THAILAND: Bangkok, Koh Phi-Phi.
Click here to see interactive Google map of the area covered in this travel diary.
Again I'm late with the travel e-mail. But there are really not much to write
about when you stay in one place over a long time. The last mail was written
just before Christmas. On Christmas eve we went to
HC Andersen for Scandinavian Christmas dinner with pork roast w/ crackling on top, roasted duck breast etc.
Christmas was quite busy, working wise, I started a Open Water course on
Christmas eve and also had another course that ended on New Years eve. On New
Years eve some of the guys where doing the "100 club" at Carlito's, meaning that you should
drink 1 shot of beer every minute for 100 minutes, thus drinking the equal of
about 12 beers in slightly more than 1.5 hour. I stuck to my trusty buckets....
I have done a lot of great dives since the last e-mail. After Daniel and Hilde finished their course we went out for some fun diving at Hin Daeng / Hin Muang. The dive on Hin Daeng is probably my best dive ever! Mantas everywhere!! I went out again to Hin Muang/Hin Daeng the next day (Advance course) and also now we saw mantas in both dives and MANY at Hin Daeng. Have been diving the sites two times more without seeing mantas (still very good dives!). Have also been to the King Cruiser wreck a couple of more times, as well as two dives to the underwater caves on Phi-Phi Don, where you can swim 60m into the cave and then swim up to a large cave with air that is not accessible from the surface. I have also had a lot of great local dives. Seen lots of cool stuff like leopard sharks (see them 9 of 10 times on the Bidah Islands), back tip reef shark, turtles, sea snakes, moray eels, cuttlefish, squids, scorpion fish, barracudas, lion fish, box fish, to name a few. Have taken a lot of under water pictures and the best have been posted on the internet.
So how has it been working as an diving instructor on Phi-Phi? It has been great!! I have done some great diving, met a lot of cool people and even made some money from it. Sure the first day of the open Water Course, with theory and confined water, is not that exiting and DSDs could be a bit tiresome at times, but the pleasure of seeing my students (finally) mastering their skills and having a great time makes up for it. It is also nice to settle down for a short while after a lot of traveling.
Have also been on a short trip to Phuket to extend my visa and to do the instructor update from Medic First Aid to Emergency First Response (PADI's first aid/CPR course).
I met up with Daniel and Hilde on the 16th of February (they had been two weeks in Cambodia). We did not do much that day, just wandered around in Bangkok and went to the cinema.
To travel by train to Chiang Mai was an excellent choice. The price was only slightly higher than the bus and you got a bed to sleep in. In Chiang Mai we checked in at Rendezvous guest house. Enter total luxury for only 110 baht each (= about NOK 18); fridge, warm water and a telly (ok, 80% of the channels was in Thai and 80% of what was aired on the remaining was crap, but you got to zap some channels).
We had motorbikes most of the time in Chiang Mai. One day we went out to the open zoo and Wat Umong. Was not really too exciting! The coolest thing was the lake packed with turtles and big carps.
Trekking time! Our group consisted of three Brits, an American (born in Argentina), an Italian couple and us. After some hours in a truck we started walking along a dirt road and came eventually to the small village that we were going to spend the first night. A bit disappointing that the village was quite modern with some really nice houses, cars and television. At night it was freezing cold, but the bonfire helped. The next day we walked in the forest until we came to the elephant camp. I helped out cleaning the elephants in the river. We rode on the elephants for about an hour and did the last stretch to the Karon village by foot. The village where we spent the second night was much bigger than the first. This village also had some houses with television and even a street light on the main square. Some village kids came to sing songs and did the bamboo stick dance. The next morning we walked until we came to the river where we went bamboo rafting. The rafting trip was cool and included a water fight and raft boarding. A car came and picked us up and we went to see two quite new, but nice pagodas built for the king and queens birthday high up in Thailand's highest mountain and the a waterfall (not Luang Prabang, but quite nice, no very suited for bathing though). All in all a nice trip, but compared to my last trek in the area 8 years ago I was a bit disappointed. Back then the villages was much more remote/primitive and the elephant / rafting trips was much longer. I did see more animals this time though; a snake and two squirrels. Yeah!
Back from the trek, it was Saturday and after a Mekong/Coke voerspiel, I headed out for the Bubbles disco. After a day of relaxation we headed out early to the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre in Lampang, about 70km north-west down the highway. The centre was cool, we saw a elephant show (mostly demonstrating the skills elephants use working with lumber in the jungle, but also more artistic skills like painting and playing music), played with the baby elephant (a "little" 1 year old bully), checked out the hospital and got some tips on how to recycle elephant dung into paper. Yeah!
After a week in Chiang Mai we went to Chiang Khong, a sleepy little town by the Laos border. We had some Mexican food and went to bed. The next morning its was time to enter Laos again. And again the speed boat down the Mekong river was chosen as means of transportation. And again I was lucky with my seating as I got the front seat (with space for my feet on the luggage, sweet luxury!) for more than half of the 6 hours trip. The others where crammed together and hated the trip. On the way we saw a dead guy that had floated up after some time in the river. Freaky!
We arrived in Luang Prabang quite late and did nothing really the fist day. The electricity is closed off early in the morning and turned on in the evening, usually around 6 pm, but sometimes much later. Daniel was not feeling well, but Hilde and I rented bicycles and tried to get lost around the city, something we managed quite well. The next day was dedicated to the Kuang Si waterfall. We rented 100cc bikes and headed off. The road is crap, but it's still a nice trip, due to the beautiful country side, dotted with rice fields and small villages. It was less water in the waterfall than the last time I was there, but still extremely beautiful. After some time jumping and dozing in the natural pool, I went for a 1.5 hour walk into the jungle, wading in the river and eventually finding a pathway. Before going back to Luang Prabang I assisted in feeding the local tiger with buffalo meat. The next day we checked out That Phou Si, a temple with a really nice view over the city. With the cultural extravaganzas for the day out of the way, I spent most of the remainder of the day reading Lord of the Rings in a hammock in our regular restaurant.
The next morning we headed off to Phonsavan with the local bus. The trip was surprisingly painless: reasonably good roads (curvy, but paved), few people so lots of space and the trip was quicker than expected (7.5 hrs vs. 8-9 hrs). The main attraction in Phonsavan is the Plain of Jars. We visited three of the main jar sites. The jars are believed to be about 2000 years old and weighs up to 6 ton. The purpose of the jars are not known, but we concluded that the best theory was that it was used for burial. Pretty cool sight! Driving around we also saw villages, bombs (in the scrap yard and used for different purposes, like pillars, decoration, pig tray, metal for knifes etc.), the remains of an old tank, opium, some stupas and the old capital of Laos (it was totally ruined by bombs, so they had to rebuilt it from scratch, the only remains we saw of the old city was the crumbled remains of the temple and what once was a school).
So, what about the bombs?, you might ask. Even though Laos was declared neutral by the Geneva convention, by 1973 the US lead secret air force dropped an average of one planeload of bombs every 8 minute, 24 hours a day for 9 years! At the end of the war the bombing amounted to approximately 1.9 million metric ton in all, equaling 10 ton per sq km, or over a half-ton for every man, woman and child living in Laos. Defoliants and herbicides (750.000 liters) was also sprayed over the country. All Rules of Engagement (like no bombing within 500m of a temple) was ignored.
Nothing really happened in Phonsavan. There supposed to be a night club there, but the electricity was shut down at 11, so why bother (could it then be called a night club??!!). The place was hardly a culinary heaven as every time you ordered something you where up for a surprise, like "Beef steak with French fries" = pieces of beef with slightly fried potatoes in sauce, "Spear ribs" = a couple of small pork pieces on a plate, "Fried chicken" = some small pieces of chicken with bone on a barren plate, "Sweet and sour chicken" = "sweet and sour cabbage with a few tiny pieces of chicken, "Chicken sandwich" = decent sandwich, but with dry, wool looking pork meat (don't ask me!), I could go on and on, but I'll finish off by mentioning two of the specialties on our guesthouse's menu; would you fancy some "Fresh cow dung - 10.000 kip" or maybe a "Baked hedgehog - 15.000 kip". Yummy! Not too many tourists there though, so that was cool.
The next morning we were off to Vang Vien. Again the trip with the local bus was above expectations. Lots of space in the bus and the trip only lasted for 6 hours (we were told that the trip took about 13 hours just a couple of months ago). Vang Vien is a place that is mostly build up around backpacker tourism, as people needed a place to stay on the way from Luang Prabang to Vientiane due to the former crappy roads. You see more tourist in one glimpse there than through a whole day in Phonsavan. We did not do much after arriving, just checked out the "beach" (really just a river bank with people sunbathing and drinking) and watched some movies. The next day it was tube-time! We where dropped off just a few km up the river and told that it would take abut 3 hours to get back floating down the rive in the tube. We were certain to get back way before that, but it actually took about 3 hours to float down the lazy river. Dozens of Beer Lao stops was dotted on our way down the river, but we did not bring any money (doh!). Shit happens. We had a really nice trip and spent the rest of the day on the "beach". Dean (a guy from NZ that we met in Phonsavan) and I decided that this was the night to "hit the city", but after a few buckets the lights faded. The bar closed at 11:30!!!!!!!!! I thought that the 2:00 bar closing in Thailand was stupid, but this is ridiculous, a country that has no control over their ever flowing stream of opium and other drugs is commanding people to bed way before midnight! Urk!
The next day was supposed to be our caving day. But we ended up just floating down the river in tubes again. This time we brought money, but to no use for me as Daniel, Hilde and Dean got lost down the stream while I hooked up with some other guys. So only one Beer Lao and no caves. Still I had a great time floating down the river for four hours. Back in town it was time for my 4th visit to Nazim restaurant (2*Luang Prabang + 2*Vang Vien). Great Indian food! For really nasty food the local market was the place to go. You could buy dead bats, rats, squirrels, snakes, live iguanas (for cooking), a small dogs head etc. Most of the meat came with complimentary flies. Yummy!
Up early next morning to get the 7 o'clock bus. More people this time, but no problem when it only takes 4 hours. In Vientiane we arranged the transport to Bangkok and headed out to the Buddha Park. The park was filled with concrete sculptures of grim looking gods. Pretty cool! At the border we were introduced to a new scam, the Thai customs tax; if we did not pay 20 Baht each the customs would go through all our luggage. They got our money and we got a receipt for 10 Baht, but at least we did not have to spend forever on the border.
I Bangkok the most important thing on the agenda was to get a flight ticket to Bali-Australia-Norway. I had to do some changes to my original plans, but it all fitted in fairly well and I ended up paying less than I had expected (about USD 1000). So this is my route now (may be changed slightly):
20/04: Phi Phi-Sumatra (bus or train)
04/04: Bangkok-Bali
04/05: Bali-Brisbane-Cairns
25/06: Sydney-Singapore
27/06: Singapore-Bangkok-Islamabad-Oslo (back in Oslo 29/6)
I think that will do for now. I'm now writing this on the bus to Phi-Phi. Will spend about 10 days of diving and partying, including a 4 days Liveaboard trip to the Similan Islands (I hope, as it is not confirmed yet).
My picture page include a selection of my travel pictures, including the ones just recently taken in Chiang Mai/Laos.
Keep in touch! CU!
:)
Helge
Don't Worry, be Happy! - Travel mail #9
12/03-02/05 2003
THAILAND: Koh Phi Phi- Similan Island- Phuket- Koh Phi Phi- MALAYSIA: Georgetown/Penang- INDONESIA (Sumatra): Bukit Lawang- Pulau Weh- MALAYSIA: Georgetown/Penang- THAILAND: Bangkok- INDONESIA: Bali: Kuta- Flores: Moni- Bajawa- Ruteng- Labuanbajo/Komodo- Lombok: Senggigi- Gili Trawangan- Bali: Tulamben- Kuta.
Click here to see interactive Google map of the area covered in this travel diary.
I'm back with a new e-mail! It's late and long due to the difficulties of
finding decent internet connections in Indonesia. The mail will contain lots of sharks, snakes,
spiders, bats, huge man eating lizards, children eating demons, crocked cops, tourist deserted areas, SARS areas,
Muslim areas,
earthquake areas, flood areas, active volcanoes, a fresh terrorist bomb crater
and buckets. So have I been living dangerously then? No, the point is that these
things are not more likely to hurt me than a coconut. I'm not then saying that
it is a large chance that I get hit in the head by a coconut, just........ Don't
Worry, be Happy!
So where were I?
Yes, I did go on a Liveaboard to Similan Island. After checking around with the different operators I ended up with the company where Anders (a Swede I met in Thailand in 2000) worked; Similan Divers. Had a great 4 days/4 nights on the Dolphin Queen with 14 cool dives on the Similan Islands, Koh Bon, Koh Tachai and the Boone June wreck. Other than great visibility and uw topography, some of the highlights were manta rays, white-tip reef sharks, leopard sharks, turtles, sea snakes, octopus, napoleon wrasse, giant barracudas, all kinds of moray eels, clown triggerfish, lobster etc. The Boone June wreck was cool (bad vis, but great fish life), but sad as a #%*@! fisherman had put a net around the whole wreck, so dead fish was lying around everywhere. We spent quite some time cutting loose some of the damn net. We also went to the beach of some of the islands, great white beaches and wildlife (monitor lizards, other lizards, flying fox), but some bungalows are now starting to pop up.....
The rest of my days in Thailand was spent diving and partying on Phi-Phi. Had some great dives in the caves and the King Cruiser/Phuket Shark Point (saw two large kingfish, ghost pipefish, sea snake etc.). It is cool to dive again without having responsibility for all of the other divers, more relaxing and you spot a lot more. But then it was time to have another farewell party on Phi-Phi, this time for the last time. The next stop was Penang for the ferry to Sumatra....
Penang was the usual: shopping, fast internet and cinema. I hooked up with Daniel and Hilde again, but they decided not to go to Sumatra as they had heard that the Muslims there could be hostile due to the just recent outbreak of war in Iraq. After talking to some people that had been in Sumatra about the situation, I decided that it would not be a big problem and that I will not let a few angry Muslims change my plans. And I'm very happy that I did, as people was very friendly, even more so than most other places in Asia. Got some questions if I was from America, but that was it...
Went straight from the ferry in Medan to a bus to Bukit Lawang, the place to see
Orangutans in the wild. After a dip in the river and dinner I booked a two days
trekking trip starting the next morning. The trek was really cool, WAY better
than the trek in Chiang Mai in all ways. We saw lots of animals: Orangutans (4:
female/male, female/kid), blue monkey, black monkey (also called Funky monkey
due to their hair style), turtle, snake, monitor lizard, other lizards,
squirrels, hornbills, enormous ants, tons of butterflies in all kind of colors
and shapes etc. The jungle vegetation was also amazing: huge trees and lianas
everywhere. The trek was also harder than most of the other treks I have done,
but that is in a positive way. The camp was a fireplace and a sheltered sleeping
place by the river. Also here we had a lot of animals: monkeys, monitor lizard,
snake etc. The evening was spent playing cards. The next morning we went out to
look for a pack of Gibbons that had been spotted by the other group in the camp.
We climbed up and down some hills. It was a nice trek, but no Gibbons. Back in
the camp we got into some large inner tires for rafting down the river. The
rafting was cool, no BIG rapids, but still enough action to keep you happy. Back
in the guesthouse I went straight for the bus back to Medan. Would have loved to
stay longer in Bukit Lawang, but I had to get to Pulau Weh for some serious
diving....
The night bus would have been great if I was a penguin with a taste for Indonesian night music. I arrived early in the morning in Banda Aceh and had to wait half the day at the pier as the ferry to Pulau Weh was leaving 3:00 (well, as always in Asia the :00 is just misleading, it should really be: 3:something...maybe!). It was already dark when I checked in at my bungalow. Iboih beach is heaven for people that is looking for a laid back place where it is cheap to live and great to dive, but hell for anybody looking for fancy resorts with all frills included. Luckily, I'm in the first category, my only concern was that it was hard to get hold of meat on the island (I'm carnivore), but I got a couple of chicken meals and was very happy about that. The accommodation was simple bungalows with a shared squatting toilet and mandi (a water tank where you pour water over yourself with a dipper), but what can you expect for 2 USD. The evenings was mostly spent in the restaurants talking and playing cards and the days were dedicated to diving. The diving was great and cheap (only 10 USD per dive for DM/instructors with equipment). I had 8 dives during my 4 days on the island, mostly with Rubiah Tirta Divers:
Pantee Ideu (Shallow Reef): Honey comb moray eels, clown triggerfish, blue-spotted stingray
Bantee Glaa (Slippery Rock): Turtles, garden eels, moray eels, blue spotted stingray
Bantee Tokong (Center Rock): Dawn dive; black-tip reef sharks, 2*octopus, moray eels, juvenile emperor angelfish
Canyon*2: Great rock formations, Napoleon wrasse, school of bumphead parrotfish, school of great barracudas, turtle, sea snake, scorpionfish
Arus Paleeh (Bastard Current): Black-tip reef shark, octopus, tons of moray eels
Anoi Ham (Bleak Sand): Scorpion fish, blue-spotted sting ray. Three turtles in the lunch break.
Batee Meuduro (Splinter Rock): Flounder, scorpionfish, blue spotted stingray
On April 1st I started my 4 days journey towards Bali. First stop was Banda Aceh, where the time between the ferry arriving and the night bus leaving was spent in an internet cafe, as it was raining. The night bus to Medan was great with large seats (only tree seats per row!) and it was not as extremely cold as my ride to Banda Aceh. Again, as little time as possible was spent in Medan: straight to the ferry to Penang. My pre-booked train towards Bangkok was leaving around noon and I ended up in the same cart as my Canadian friends from the Pulau Weh-Penang trip. As usual the train trip was pretty comfortable; had a good night sleep and we even found a electricity socket so that we could watch a DVD on the laptop. Did not do much in Bangkok, but I went to the cinema to see a really cool movie: Adaptation, a Nicolas Cage movie about a book about flowers (!).
The next day I was on the plane to Bali (via Singapore). Arriving in Bali, it took me some time to fit Kuta beach to my memory of the place, as many of the places I remembered had been moved or destroyed in the October bomb blast. I found Poppies 2 and moved in to Hotel Taman Mekar, only 100m from where I had been staying when I was here last time in 1996. According to the calendar, the high season has just started in Bali, but there will be no real high season in Bali this year, only low season and even lower season. Why? Because of peoples more or less irrational fear regarding to the bomb blast in October, the war in Iraq and the SARS virus.
After some lazy days on Kuta beach, mostly dedicated to relaxing, beach, body boarding the waves and jam jars/jungle juice at the (new) Bounty, we decided to rent a car and see some of the island. But the eeeviiiiil, corrupted police on the island crushed our plans and after less than one hour of driving we returned the car after spending all our money on police bribes. We also talked to others that had similar experiences and when we rented a car AND A DRIVER the next day the police waited by the tourist attractions to steal more money. Fuck da Police! Other than the police the trip was really nice! The first stop was a temple. I'm pretty fed up with temples after 9 months in Asia, but the Bali temples are something else. The temples in Bali are decorated with demons with sharp teeth and long tongues doing their evil deeds. Let your children come to me......so I can rip them apart and eat them! In Ubud we walked around in the city and went to the sacred monkey forest. The holy monkeys went crazy when they saw our bananas and some even crawled up on me to get them. Another cool temple crawling with monkeys inside the forest. We had a nice, but expensive lunch (the only restaurant I have ever been to where you could haggle for the food!) with a beautiful view of the Gunung Batur volcano and Lake Batur. Around Ubud there was tons of small shops making various kinds of Bali art, mostly wood carvings, so the drive was like a drive-thru art exhibition. Our last stop was Goa Gajah (the Elephant cave), an old holy place that consists both of a Hindu and a Buddhist temple, but not much is left of the Buddhist temple after a earthquake.
Daniel and Hilde changed their ticket to an earlier flight (17/4 to Darwin), but I still wanted to see Flores and the Komodo Dragons on Komodo/Rinca. To get to Flores I could either spend at least 4 days doing some hardcore traveling by ferry and bus or spend a few thousand Rupiah more (if any) for a flight directly to Maumere in east Flores. Easy choice! I did not stay long in Maumere, but went straight to Moni.
Moni is a small village close to Flores' biggest attraction; mount Kelimutu, an volcano with three crater lakes in different colors (changes from time to time, but at the moment; Black, Turquoise and Green). As agreed, I was picked up by my motorcycle driver at 5 in the morning. At that time, the market had already started. Up on the mountain did not get to the main view point in time for the sunrise due to an intersection with no sign (go left!), but I did not miss anything as the sunrise had been behind the fog anyway. I climbed straight up to the Black lake and continued along the edge, passing the Turquoise lake, up to the view point. After waiting for about an hour the clouds cleared and we could again see the amazing sight of the crater lakes. Very cool! Walking back, I got lost again. But I had a nice walk and managed to find a village where they had transport down to Moni. Back in Moni the marked had already started to die out and I decided that it was time for me to leave as well. The bus was packed so the first hours, before I got a seat, was pretty painful. One week before there had been a big flood in Flores, where at least 50 people got killed. The flood had taken it's toll on the roads also, so all the bridges was broken, but eventually I made it to Bajawa.
Bajawa is a pleasant little town. The next morning I got myself a motorbike ride around in the area as soon as the banana pancake was consumed. The main attraction was the traditional village of Bena. The village look something like a small Asterix & Obelix village, with 30-40 wooden huts, with straw thatched roof like a high square umbrella, lined up in two rows with a stone section in the middle. Not many tourists here or elsewhere in Flores, the whole day I did not see one single white face and I was the first Norwegian visiting the Bena village in 6 months. No wonder the "Hello!" factor was big.
The bus to Riung was supposed to leave at 8:00 and was postponed to 10:00, due to Easter, but it never came. I decided to go to see the red lakes of Wawo Muda. The volcano erupted in February 2001 and the lakes turned red. After a less than an hour walk through forest and crater landscape, the huge crater with the four red lakes, as well as a great panorama view all the way to the ocean on the other side of Flores, appeared in front of us. Bagus! (= Good in Indonesian). Inside the crater I was walking among the lakes and the crippled remains of threes. It was a special feeling being in the barren crater landscape. Back in the the nearby village, Ngoranale, I joined the villagers playing football. Eventually I took a bemo back to Bajawa to catch the night bus to Ruteng (no bus was leaving the next morning to Riung because of Easter, so I had to give up going there).
I got a bad feeling when I realized that I was the only person waiting for the bus in the pitch dark bus station. Again I had waited for the bus out of Bajawa in vain. Easter screwing up for me again! Great timing to go to the only Christian region in Asia during Easter. Here in Flores they celebrate Ester quite differently than we do back in Norway. While we associate Easter with happy things like vacation, cuddly Easter chickens, painted eggs with candy inside and drinking beer, the people in Flores focus more on going to church, this story about this guy that was brutally executed some 2000 years ago and a bizarre ritual that involves drinking of blood and eating of human flesh. Weird!
The next morning I caught the bus to Ruteng, but there was no busses going from Ruteng to Labuanbajo (Easter, remember), so get ready for my day in Ruteng. No big attractions here and everything was closed due to Easter, but I had a nice drive around checking out the circular rice fields, some villages and waving back to the locals on their way to church; "Hello mister!!".
In Lubanbajo I signed up for a two day Rinca/Komodo trip with 3 Germans. The fist day we went to Rinca for a trek. We saw 4 Komodo Dragons, some wild buffaloes, as well as cool nature. Still, we saw lots more Dragons, as the ranger station was crawling with them. Fascinating creatures! The Dragons live only on a few islands in the area and grow up to 3m/100kg. Some people have been eaten by the large lizards, but mostly they pray on deer, wild pig, wild horses and even buffalo. Next we went to see the flying foxes. We saw tons of the large bats and at dusk they flew out to feed. Woke up by bat screeching and headed for Komodo. No Dragons on the trek, but again some LARGE Dragons was lying/walking around in the Ranger area, as well as wild pigs and deer. Before we headed back to Lubanbajo, we went to Red Beach to snorkel. I had rented two tanks, so I went diving instead and had a nice dive. The official language on the boat was German, so I finished my Wilbur Smith book (River God; pretty cool) and fried in the sun.
Back in Lubanbajo it was Earth day and all the dive shops was going out to clean a site and kill off some crown of thorns (spiky "sea stars" that eat the corals and is growing out of control) at Sebayor Kecil, so I joined Bajo Dive to help out. We did not find any crown of thorns, but had a really nice dive. The highlights was a school of about 30 bumphead parrotfish, 2 cuttlefish and a white-tip reef shark. Went out also the next day to Crystal Rock / Castle Rock. Another nice dive, mostly small "aquarium fish", but I we also saw a family of 16 bumphead parrotfish, some stingrays and a small white-tip. I was convinced to do another dive trip, this time to Batu Bolong. This is one of the very best dives I have ever had! We saw a manta ray, lots of white-tip reef sharks, 3 turtles, napoleon wrasses, big trevallies, tunas, beautiful nudibranches, Juvenile Emperor Angelfish, Clown Triggerfish and tons of beautiful reef fish and hard/soft coral. The only thing missing from a perfect dive was a Octopus, but that we saw on the next dive (also on Batu Bolong). The second dive was also great, but it was hard to compete with the first dive.
To get to Lombok went with the Perama boat on a 2days/2 nights trip. On the fist day we had a stop at Rinca (saw Komodo Dragons eating on the 3 days old remains of a Buffalo!) and Gili Laba (swimming/snorkeling; the typical dull snorkeling spot). The second day we had two stops on Sumbawa; Moyo Island (nice waterfall with swinging rope for jumping) and Keramat Island (swimming/snorkeling; decent snorkeling, better than the last snorkeling stop), before we came to Lombok. All in all, the boat trip was nice, beats the local alternative; ferry - bus - ferry - bus.
I had a night in Senggigi before I headed out to Gili Trawangan. Trawangan is the most busy of the Gili islands, but still pretty laid back. The main road goes along the beach with horse carriages (no cars or motor cycles), "homestays", small shops, bars serving "fucking bloody fresh magic mushroom", movie restaurants and huge dive centers. The first night there was a party at one of the dive shops, but the rest of the nights has been very quiet, just like the days; lazy days at the beach and one dive with Trawangan Dive. The corals are crap after years of dynamite fishing, but the marine life is good. Some of the highlights were 4 turtles, white-tips, ribbon eel, cuttlefish, clown trigger fish, trevallies, bat fish, nudibranches.
Time to move on. Our car literarily broke down on the way to the ferry to Bali, but eventually I made it to Tulamben. At 7:00 the next morning I was on my way to Tulamben's main attraction; the US Liberty wreck. The 120m, 6211 ton cargo ship was hit by a Japanese torpedo in 1942 and is now easily accessible from the beach at 5m to 30m deep. The diving was great, but after two tanks and 2.5 hours under water both my dive computer and my watch was telling me that is was time to leave for Kuta.
The last two days in Asia will be spent in Kuta. The plan is to go rafting, check out the waterpark and get some more jam jars before I fly to Australia 4th of May.
My webpage has now been moved to a new server. So from now on all my pictures will be placed directly on the page (with thumbnails) and there will be no pop-ups or advertisements. I have also reduced the size of the pictures for faster downloads and improved the quality of the underwater pictures in Photoshop.
I have posted 6 new picture albums since the last e-mail:
#16: Diving Similan
#17: Indonesia: Sumatra
#18: Diving Indonesia: Pulau Weh / Komodo
#20: Indonesia: Komodo / Sumbawa / Gili
#21: Diving Indonesia: Komodo / Gili /Bali
That's it for now! Keep in touch!
:)
Helge
OZ: Further away, but still closer... - Travel mail #10
03/05-02/06 2003
INDONESIA: Bali- AUSTRALIA: Brisbane- Cairns- Holmes Reef- Arlie Beach- Cape Hillsborough National Park- Hervey Bay / Fraser Island- Noosa- Surfer's Paradise- Brisbane.
Click here to see interactive Google map of the area covered in this travel diary.
Before I left Bali and Asia I checked out the Waterbom park, had a night on the town and went rafting. As I was out the night before I ordered a late rafting trip (11:00). Apparently this trip was less popular then the morning trip, so it was just me and the guide that went down Talaga Waja river. The river had some nice rapids (grade 3-4) and scenery. The highlight of the 2 hrs trip was rafting down a 3 meter high dam at the end.
ENTER OZ! After more than 10 months, coming to Australia was like coming half way back to Norway (...even though I was actually going further away). It was more expensive and colder, but you could understand what they were saying and things are mostly done in a more controlled manner. Time to get re-introduced to things like warm clothes (even shoes/socks!), hot showers with good water pressure, washing your own clothes (in warm water!), making your own food, frozen pizza, night time kebab, seat belts, Simpsons on television etc.
I flew into Brisbane and decided to stay a couple of days to visit some friends from Phi-Phi. Erik had a hectic period at school, so I spent most of the time walking around in Brisbane and updating the picture section of my homepage from the university computer center.
The next flight brought me to Cairns where I met up with Daniel again (Hilde visited a friend in Newcastle). Cairns is located in North-East Australia by the Great Barrier Reef and have a myriad of activities and trips to offer. The Undersea World aquarium was nice, but quite small. We went rafting one day with Raging Thunder down the Tully river. The rapids were mostly grade 4 rapids and we had a great time even though the weather was crap and the five hours rafting included quite a lot waiting. The rapids were quite a lot better than the ones in Bali. My birthday was on Sunday, so we went on an organized bar trip (Ultimate party) on Saturday. Party on!
Got some money for my birthday so I decided to go on a Liveaboard diving trip. I ended up with a four days trip (two days diving / 9 dives) to Holmes Reef in Coral Sea with Coral Sea Diving Company. Holmes Reef is 240 km East of Cairns and the main attractions are great visibility (average 40m) and lots of sharks. The 18 hours trip out to the reef was pretty rough, but I was part of the half of divers that did not get sick. The diving was great! I got what I came for; amazing visibility (we had up to about 50m vis) and lots of sharks (saw sharks on most of the dives and plenty on the shark feeding dive). Other highlights included caves, deep wall, Cedric the big potato cod, turtles, bull rays, sting rays, barracudas, trevally, clown trigger fish etc. The corals was disappointing as it was lacking color due to bleaching. One special thing about this trip was that one of the dives was a shark feeding dive. Blood and fish was put in the water to attract the big predators and before we went in the water was boiling with sharks and huge trevallies. Once in the water we sat in a semi circle as the bar with dead fish was lowered into the water. Cool! The sharks at the shark feed was white-tip reef sharks, grey whalers and silver-tip sharks. Cedric (the potato cod) also showed up, but we did not see Scar (the 6m long great hammerhead that lives in the area).
Back from the diving trip I met up with Daniel and Hilde again and we started our trip back to Brisbane. This time our means of transport was a rented Wicked camping van. The Wicked vans are all painted with everything from South Park to hippie flowers. My first night in our whale painted van was by a scenic view point north of Townsville.
We had a stop in Townsville where we went to the Reef HQ, a pretty cool aquarium. Other than the usual small/medium sized tanks they had a nice predator tank and the largest coral reef exhibit tank in the world. Next stop was Arlie beach. It was the 17th of May (Norway's national day) and the evening was, of course, spent eating BBQ and drinking beer. Hurra! Before we left Arlie beach we checked out the infamous Vic Hislop's Great White Shark and Whale Expo. Hislop is a shark hunter and his museum is filled with propaganda against sharks (Great White and Tiger) and a dead, 1.8 ton Great White in a freezer. Did you know that sharks eat cute animals like whales and turtles when they are hungry? Wow! Shocking news! Eh... A bit hard to take this guy seriously.
Time for some kangaroos! We drove to the Cape Hillsborough National park. The park had plenty of wallabies (small kangaroo species) and turkeys. We went on a nice walk through the woods with some nice view points and some cool bat caves. When we got up in the morning, lots of wallabies was jumping around on the beach with the sun rise as a backdrop.
To cover some miles we decided to dedicate the entire next day to driving. Everything went really smooth, except when I got a speed ticket for driving in 114 km/h in a 100 zone, maximum unfortunate as I was just passing a slow moving truck in the long awaited overtake lane. After almost 900 km we managed to reach our goal: Hervey Bay, the main access point to Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island and our destination the next day. A daytrip was a bit too short, but we had a good time driving around in the 4WD bus; had a swim in the crystal clear McKenzie lake, checked out the rainforest by the central station, had a drive down the beach where we saw a dingo (Australian wild dog) running along the beach, walked in red colored sand, saw the Maheno ship wreck, had another swim (this time in Eli creek), checked out a sandblow (large shifting dunes) and listened to the guide's endless Fraser Island stories. Back in Hervey Bay we saw the new Matrix movie. By now it was getting pretty cold to sleep in the van, particularly when I only had two sarongs to keep me warm.
The Lonely Planet claimed that the Noosa National Park was a good place to spot koalas. Our hopes was pretty low after talking to a park ranger, but we spotted two koalas on the Costal walk. Sleeping up in a eucalypt three, of course. Yeah! We also saw some huge spider nets, a Goanna lizard and some cool costal scenery with impressive breaking waves and plenty of surfers.
After feeding the caravan park parrots we went on to our next destination; Australian Zoo, Steve "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin's zoo. The zoo was really nice and well kept. Quite different from some of the shit I've seen in Asia. The focus was on reptiles and Australian animals. The Crocodile Hunter himself was not there, but they had a "hand feeding the huge salties" show with some other dude. We sticked to feeding the kangaroos and emus...
After a cold night in one of the Brisbane suburb caravan parks it was time to check out one of the many theme parks close to Surfer's Paradise; Dream World. The park had some really cool rides like the Giant Drop (a 120m high vertical drop), Vortex (a fast spinning tube where the G-force "glued" you the wall), Wipeout (twisting and turning) Rocky Hollow Log Ride (certain to get wet) and a couple of cool rollercoasters, as well as a IMAX cinema and a small animal park with Australian animals and some tigers (including a pretty cool tiger show). The water park was closed for the season and the Big Brother house was as big as an attraction for us as the Dora the Explorer Sea Plane kiddy ride.
The next couple of days was spent doing as little as possible at Surfers Paradise. Had a party night out on the town and some hours at the beach next to the caravan park. And then, after 11 days and 2700 km, it was time to return the Wicked van. It was cool way to travel down the coast, but I've had my share of caravan parks for a while and looked forward to not freezing my ass off during the night...
Back to Brisbane and Erik's apartment (...and Johnny/Hege). This time around we got to do a lot of partying! Pre-party at Lars' place/college party with 2$ drinks/Down Under pub on Wednesday and VB party with free booze and food on Thursday (from 16:00). On Saturday I met up with Carolyn (from the trek in Bukit Lawang, Sumatra) to see an Aussie Rules football match. Her brother taught me the rules and it was a pretty cool game, even though the match was not particularly exiting, as it was over before it started, as the Brisbane Lions was leading 42-2 against the Melbourne Demons already in the first quarter. The game was less brutal than I expected and the almost 30.000 on the tribune was more quiet than I'm used to from football. After the match I met up with Erik and Johnny at a party. Erik and me shared a bucket. The bucket was laaarge and we were missing the premium quality Thai whiskey (had to settle with Bundaberg rum, a rather nasty Australian rum).
After a classic coma Sunday, I went to check out yet another theme park; Movie World. Had a full day at the theme park doing most of the rides and shows, like Ride Lethal Weapon (cool "hanging below" rollercoaster), Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster (the name gives it away), Wild West Adventure Ride (log ride), Batman Adventure (moving simulator), Police Academy Stunt Show (lots if crashing, falling and explosions), Movie Magic Special Effect Show and a 3D cartoon movie. Most shows/rides I did was cool, but the Batman show was rather lame and the Western burgers were some of the worst I've had in a while. Back in the apartment I finished up this travel mail......
The last leg of this trip will include one week in Sydney and one week in Melbourne visiting Rune and Trine, before I head back to Asia; one transit day in Bali, couple of days in Singapore and a week in Thailand (need to get back the tan after the cold Oz winter). I'll be back in the land of the Moose 29th of June.
I now have a Australian mobile phone#: +61 404 160 771.
3 new picture albums have been posted since the last e-mail:
#23: Diving Australia: Holmes Reef
#24: Australia
The albums are continuously updated and all pictures and thumbnails should now be ok to view and download....
That's it for now! Keep in touch!
:)
Helge
Back in good cold Norway - Travel mail #11
04/06-29/06 2003
AUSTRALIA: Sydney- Melbourne- INDONESIA: Bali- SINGAPORE- THAILAND: Bangkok- Koh Phi-Phi- Bangkok- PAKISTAN: Islamabad- NORWAY: Oslo.
Click here to see interactive Google map of the area covered in this travel diary.
Well, it's not really that cold here, but certainly NOT Asia and it was the best title I could figure out at the moment. As you might understand, I'm now back in Norway for a month or so. But lets now go back in time and travel to the other side of the world....
FLLAAASSSHHHBBAAACCCKKK!!!!
On the Sydney airport I found a guesthouse with free pickup and free BBQ/beer on Friday, located in between the city centre and King's Cross: Australian Backpackers. The guesthouse was also located close to the botanical garden, a nice place to walk around, relax and take the obligatory pictures of the Sydney Opera house. After viewing Sydney's most famous building from several angles I walked around in the city centre. I was expecting Sydney centre to be bigger, but after having been in other Australian big cities like Brisbane and Townsville I was not too surprised. The next day I went to the Sydney Aquarium. The aquarium was really cool and the highlights was the platypus and the open water exhibit with large rays, turtles and sharks. The Maritime Museum had a shark exhibit, so I decided to check that out. Had a guided tour around in the museum and learned more about Australian maritime history. And for the myth that the sharks in Australian waters are so fierce: on average 1 person die every year from shark attacks in Australia, almost twice as many is killed by bees (1.8) and lightning (1.7), the chance of drowning is 300 times greater and 3000 times as many die in traffic accidents.
To complete my theme park overdose the last two weeks I went to Wonderland. The park had a couple of cool rides, a Australian Wildlife Park, a decent magic show and was almost empty with people (no lines). The drag was that the park only had a couple of cool rides and several was closed due to heavy wind and that I had already seen and done most of it before, only better. 20 years ago the tricot clad marvel superheroes would have saved my day, but now I could not care less.
Since I saw the mighty grey nurse sharks (or sand tiger shark) in the Sydney aquarium I have been trying to arrange a trip to Magic Point, a dive site where you are almost guaranteed to see the large sharks. Sydney Scuba had a vacant space on the Saturday boat trip to Magic Point, so I signed up with them. The Friday night free BBQ/beer party was a bit amputated, as I was getting up early for the dive trip. The two dives with the grey nurse sharks were great! A small group of the sharks was swimming majestically back and forth by the shark cave. The sharks are more than 2m long and has fierce teeth sticking out of their mouth, but are not dangerous. I also encountered two smallest and the two biggest cuttlefish I've ever seen. Apart from the tropical fish, the dive reminded me of diving in Norway, both in in the uw landscape and temperature; it was 18C, but I've never shivered so much after a dive, ever....
The rest of the days in Sydney was pretty lazy. Some more walking around in the city, buying the new Metallica cd and a night on the town on Saturday; that's about it. After a week in Sydney it was time to move on, this time for my last destination in Australia: Melbourne.
The main reason I went to Melbourne was to visit Rune and Trine, who was living in the Melbourne suburbs. Most of the week I just hanged around with them, not doing to much, really. On Friday we went out to a pub in Melbourne and I went by my self to a club. The club was still pumping when I tumbled out at 7:15. That is how it should be! Freedom to decide by your self, when it is time to go home!
On Sunday we went to check out the Old Victoria Gaol (the old Melbourne prison, where the legendary bush ranger Ned Kelly spent his last days), Queen Victoria Market and full of cultural inspiration I even went to the National Gallery of Victoria. The next morning I was going to attend Australia's second most visited sight (after the Great Barrier Reef); the Penguin Parade. But before the main event we had some other stops. First we went to a Wildlife Wonderland where we could cuddle wombats, feed kangaroos, check out the ever-cool koalas, see a dead 5m great white shark and visit the mighty Wormland; with huge worms and exhibits like; "see how the world looks for a worm" and "walk inside a worm". Pretty weird! Next stop was the old Wonthaggi State Coal mine; went 60m underground accompanied by old mining stories and drove the old coal cart up again. Time for Phillip Island and the Penguin Parade. The parade is hundreds of small penguins walking back to their burrows by the beach after a busy day fishing in the sea. The penguins were so cute and the sight was absolutely worth the cold wait! Also great to hear the penguin couples singing to each other outside the burrows.
Time to leave the cold shores of Australia and head back for some quick stops in Asia before heading home. The first stop was Bali, but then only for less than 24 hrs, still I got to do some shopping and had a couple of sunny hours down at the beach.
In the big city that is a small country, Singapore, I had two goals; buy a new digital camera and go to the Night Safari. Mission accomplished! Upgraded to the Canon IXUS 400 (w/ UW housing). The Night Safari was cool. Over 90% of animals are nocturnal, so a lot of the animals where more active than you are used to in a zoo. They also had nice, large areas to roam around. I also did a lot of walking around in the city centre; seeing the Merlion fountain, the large starlit domes being the Theatres on the Bay, the Fountain of Wealth (the word's largest fountain, but with hardly any water), Chinatown, lots of huge buildings/shopping centers and went to the cinema to see the new Hulk movie.
Back in Bangkok I headed with the bus down to Phi-Phi again. It was low season, so less people than I'm used to and most of my old colleagues from Island Divers had left the island. The shop still had a decent customer stream and I ended up working for 3 very busy days; 1 OWD course, 2 DSDs, 1 fundiver and started another OWD/SD course with 2 people. My timing was good, as there was a staff party while I was there and the visibility was very good.
I arrived in Bangkok on Friday and my plane was leaving just over midnight. Did some last minute shopping and had dinner with Ulrika, who was working in Bangkok through her studies. On my way to meet her I was denied to enter the first bus, as it was a "lady bus". Que? You never stop to be amazed in Thailand! So now you know why there are so many transvestites in Bangkok....
When I reconfirmed my flight ticket, I was told that I was going to have a night in Islamabad. Did not have a visa, so I was dreading a night at the airport in Islamabad. But no, everything turned out just fine! We were waved on in immigration and Pakistan International arranged with complementary hotel including all meals (got some great Pakistan food). Excellent value, considering that I paid 11,000 baht (~ 260 USD) for the whole trip! I shared a large room with Nils, another Norwegian. Rented a taxi for a couple of hours to see the city. We went up to the Daman-e-Koh high vantage lookout to see the whole city from above, the world's biggest mosque; the Shah Faisal mosque (covering 198.703 m2, 4x66m high towers and a 40m high dome) and to a marked where we had a Pakistan kebab and bought some more DVDs (Black Adder + South Park collections). Entering Norway, the next evening, I was stopped in the customs, for the first time ever.
That's about it! This is the last travel e-mail I will send out in a couple of months. Hope you have enjoyed my e-mails!
The plan is to go to Central/South-America in August, but that is about what I know now.
Hope to see many of you while I'm in Norway. So send me an e-mail, SMS or give me a call. CU!
Signing off for now....
:)
Helge