Return from two weeks of absence
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chrissifniotis
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- Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2012 5:33
- Location: Sydney, Australia
Return from two weeks of absence
G'day all. I've stepped outside for a couple of weeks while me and my sister took our first oversees trip, touring southeast asia. It seems I've missed a good deal.
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troublesomekeen
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Keening_Product
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chrissifniotis
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- Posts: 431
- Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2012 5:33
- Location: Sydney, Australia
We were in a tour group starting from Singapore, going up the peninsular to Bangkok.
It was quite an experience. The weather is predictably humid but not really that hot. The bathrooms were the biggest surprise, they're tiny! The hotels we stayed in had a basin, toilet and shower in the space of an average closet.
We didn't do much in Singapore; we had an extra day there and my sister knows a friend living there but he wasn't available for very long and our first tour day was just meeting up with everyone so we just explored the city a bit. From there we traveled almost constantly along Malaysia's spine, the trip was an education. The people are very friendly and given their history the country is very open with its beliefs and cultural differences. In big cities like Kuala Lumpur and Penang the traffic is...quite bad, it's not an entirely safe place to be a pedestrian. Having said that there are excellent sites to go to there like the Batu Caves in the outskirts of KL and the Petronas Twin Towers in the city. The Cameron Highlands is another nice place to go to for some beautiful landscapes and the weather is much cooler, a nice relief from the heat. The road up to the towns there is also a fun ride, winding up the hills in our minibus, clipping all the corners like a racing driver. Penang was cool as well, we arrived the day before a newly constructed bridge was opened to the public. We toured many temples around the city and Penang Hill, it's intriguing to see the differences between the Buddhist temples of different styles. In that tour we also got to see a Taoist temple and learned a bit about the religion, very different from Buddhism.
From there we entered Thailand; landed in Krabi first, a very tourist-y coastal town. We went kayaking around a nearby mangrove and took a few photos when we weren't moving, that was one of the highlights of the trip. From there we hit the Khao Sok National Park, the park itself is a lovely spot to just look at, but we went canoeing with a guide and took an elephant ride the next morning, and I have my first cocktail there too. I'm a drunk now!
We took a ride across a lake, I forgot the name, and spent the next day in a raft-house. The experience was fantastic, not only going to a beauty spot on the lake and taking pictures of the sunset but as day became night the light was so low and the land blocked the horizon, the scenery was just the lights of the raft-house and then just black everywhere. The entire scene was surreal, like seeing a blue screen in a movie. Then when the power went out and we went to bed the sky opened up some more and we could clearly see the stars. From there we hopped on an overnight train to Bangkok, it was my first grizzly experience with a swat toilet. It's actually difficult to describe it without vulgarity, it's not a pleasant action, experience or feeling. If you can, avoid it at all times. Bangkok was fun though, our first day we went to the Floating Markets and visited the Tiger Temple. The temple is actually a large nature reserve held by the Buddhist monks there and many of the animals roam the large space, I took a lot of pictures of deer and a few cattle. Our last day wasn't so great, we had to check out at midday and our plane wasn't until 7:30 so we decided to check out temples and they were in walking distance. The problem was that after about a half an hour was managed to get lost, with a map, and took directions from a local who pointed us in the wrong way. Coupled with mad traffic I felt very insecure and wanted to go to the airport. We did but then had to wait a couple of hours before we checked in. So besides the last day the whole trip was excellent.
It was quite an experience. The weather is predictably humid but not really that hot. The bathrooms were the biggest surprise, they're tiny! The hotels we stayed in had a basin, toilet and shower in the space of an average closet.
We didn't do much in Singapore; we had an extra day there and my sister knows a friend living there but he wasn't available for very long and our first tour day was just meeting up with everyone so we just explored the city a bit. From there we traveled almost constantly along Malaysia's spine, the trip was an education. The people are very friendly and given their history the country is very open with its beliefs and cultural differences. In big cities like Kuala Lumpur and Penang the traffic is...quite bad, it's not an entirely safe place to be a pedestrian. Having said that there are excellent sites to go to there like the Batu Caves in the outskirts of KL and the Petronas Twin Towers in the city. The Cameron Highlands is another nice place to go to for some beautiful landscapes and the weather is much cooler, a nice relief from the heat. The road up to the towns there is also a fun ride, winding up the hills in our minibus, clipping all the corners like a racing driver. Penang was cool as well, we arrived the day before a newly constructed bridge was opened to the public. We toured many temples around the city and Penang Hill, it's intriguing to see the differences between the Buddhist temples of different styles. In that tour we also got to see a Taoist temple and learned a bit about the religion, very different from Buddhism.
From there we entered Thailand; landed in Krabi first, a very tourist-y coastal town. We went kayaking around a nearby mangrove and took a few photos when we weren't moving, that was one of the highlights of the trip. From there we hit the Khao Sok National Park, the park itself is a lovely spot to just look at, but we went canoeing with a guide and took an elephant ride the next morning, and I have my first cocktail there too. I'm a drunk now!
We took a ride across a lake, I forgot the name, and spent the next day in a raft-house. The experience was fantastic, not only going to a beauty spot on the lake and taking pictures of the sunset but as day became night the light was so low and the land blocked the horizon, the scenery was just the lights of the raft-house and then just black everywhere. The entire scene was surreal, like seeing a blue screen in a movie. Then when the power went out and we went to bed the sky opened up some more and we could clearly see the stars. From there we hopped on an overnight train to Bangkok, it was my first grizzly experience with a swat toilet. It's actually difficult to describe it without vulgarity, it's not a pleasant action, experience or feeling. If you can, avoid it at all times. Bangkok was fun though, our first day we went to the Floating Markets and visited the Tiger Temple. The temple is actually a large nature reserve held by the Buddhist monks there and many of the animals roam the large space, I took a lot of pictures of deer and a few cattle. Our last day wasn't so great, we had to check out at midday and our plane wasn't until 7:30 so we decided to check out temples and they were in walking distance. The problem was that after about a half an hour was managed to get lost, with a map, and took directions from a local who pointed us in the wrong way. Coupled with mad traffic I felt very insecure and wanted to go to the airport. We did but then had to wait a couple of hours before we checked in. So besides the last day the whole trip was excellent.