June 29th saw us on our way to Amman airport bound eventually for Bangkok. The taxi ride to the airport took us by a different route than when we arrived, through really poor areas. I wondered if we were being set up to visit carpet shops on our way....
June 29th saw us on our way to Amman airport bound eventually for Bangkok. The taxi ride to the airport took us by a different route than when we arrived, through really poor areas. I wondered if we were being set up to visit carpet shops on our way. The 62 year old taxi driver raced a young stud in his car and scared me as he fish-tailed around a traffic circle. good job I was wering brown pants that day. After a few uncomplimentary words we arrived at Queen Alia airport 3 hours before departure. One thing I must say about these Middle East airlines, they sure make you feel like you are numero uno.
We had a 4 hour lay-over in Bahrain which wasn’t too bad as there was a lot of shops and restaurants in the transit area. Lots of legroom on the Gulf Air/Jet Airways code share flight to Bangkok. The only disappointment being the meal which was a rice and lamb (I think) dish.
Bangkok’s new airport is quite amazing, architecturally speaking, and very efficient to be processed through. The taxi ride that I had read as 150 – 200 baht ($5 - $8 Cdn) was actually 300 baht. About $10 for a good ½ hour trip. We arrived at our 2 week vacation apartment around 11 am and waited about an hour before the housekeeper showed up to let us occupy the 2nd floor apartment. Everything we needed except self catering set-up. As with Kas in Turkey, we had booked through a company called “holiday-lettings”. Basically they are a U.K. based company where homeowners rent out their investment homes in different parts of the world. This one cost us $440 for 2 weeks. I think a good deal. It’s in a poor area but you wouldn’t know it once inside the gates. Most of the people are either like ourselves, on holiday, or middle-class workers. The local rapid transit is only a 10 minute walk away and if that is too far in the humidity here, there are always moto-conchos waiting outside to whisk you away for a 20 baht fare, about 70 cents.
As of today (July 8th) we have been on a 2 hour boat ride (yes another quasi cruise),an hour each way. Visited 3 large shopping malls, seen the Grand Palace, walked and driven past hundreds of temples, visited a crazy day market and a night market. Travelled on the rapid transit from one end of the line to the other many times and on Saturday I (Colin) will be taking a 5 hour train trip to the Kwai river where the famous Bridge on the River Kwai was located as well as visiting the cemeteries of those who died building the “Death Railway” of World War 2.
When Saturday came,Jan stayed in the apartment as pre-planned and I took the train excursion. It left at 6:30am and after stopping at the River Kwai plus 3 other stops to buy supplies(anyone for cooked frog) we got to our destination (a waterfall) around 1pm. Our return started at 3pm and we stopped ar Kanchanaburi for a too short 15 minutes. A handful of us visited the war graves of those (mostly British) who died while building the Death Railway. Most of the graves were within a twelve month period and I didn’t see anybody whose age was below 23. Unlike other war graves where many are eighteen year or a little older.
After two weeks it is time to leave. We get the 1pm train on July 14th to Hua Hin, a resort town on the Gulf of Thailand and home to the King and Queen’s summer residence. We arrived at just after 6pm and hitched a ride to our hotel (G-House). Our plan is to chill out here for five nights. The hotel is very clean and moderately priced, about $30 Cdn a night that includes a breakfast and 2 bottles of water. Recommended.
We haven’t done much since arrival. We are trying to save money as our budget is still way overboard. We’ve been walking most places and last night (16th) we splurged and had supper at a restaurant on a pier. Total cost about Cdn$17. It’s very humid here and supposed to be their wet season. However it has rained for a short time once although lots of clouds. I think after a few days one can get bored with this place.
Our train left only about an hour late and we travelled through the night in a 2nd class sleeper, reaching the Thai/Malay border around 8am the following day. There was a slight hiccup for us which resulted in the train being delayed for 15 minutes. We had thrown out our departure cards after we got them at Bangkok airport so Thai immigration had to phone back to the airport to get the serial number of the cards. We went through Malay customs which is in the same building and got our forehead temperature taken before being released and sent on our way to Butterworth station.
Warning signs stating that the drug smuggling penalty is death were displayed prominently. Why would anyone flout it ?
Butterworth station, Malaysia. Just about deserted. Apart from a money changer where we changed Thai and some U.S. notes. We had pre-booked 4 nights at E.T. Hostel in a place called Batu Ferrenggi on Penang Island about ¾ hour outside of Georgetown, a bustling place with many Chinese areas and a distinctive colonial feel. Big houses from the 40’s and 50’s were prominent . The influence of British rule can still be seen.
When we arrived at the hostel we were told it was full so hustled to another one 2 doors down which was owned by the same person. OK place but paper-thin walls. The deck looked out toward the beach so we decided to spend 4 days there.
Did the usual Mall shopping and hawker stall shopping. Spent very little time on the beach as it is their wet season at the moment. Hired a moped for the day and took off to explore the island only to misjudge a bus and so both fell off the bike less than five minutes after starting out. We got around the island in less than 3 hours. Unfortunately it rained for half the time so that kind of spoiled things. There was also a troupe of monkeys in the trees near the hostel which was something Jan and I had never experienced. They would climb from roof to roof looking for food.
Back to Butterworth on July 23rd to catch the overnight train to Kuala Lumpur (KL) We had chosen 2nd class sleepers from Butterworth to KL and KL to Singapore but had to take 1st class to KL which doubled our cost. The train left fairly close to time but there was a hitch, no electricity. The train kept stopping for someone to try and fix the situation and after an hour or so it was OK but I think it left some people a little irritable as there was no fan or air conditioning. Anyway as 1st class passengers we were looking forward to our meal. It was brought to us about 11pm. A half litre of water and a piece of chocolate cake. Quite the disappointment. So with little food and a restless few hours we arrived in KL station on time at 0530Hrs.
Jan had always wanted to go to Malacca which is not far from the hospital at Terendak camp where she was to serve had she and I not married. It was now a Malay army garrison. We were later to find out that there was no way we could have gone to see the place but I think we kind of knew that beforehand. Saying all that, we still headed for Malacca and had pre-booked a 2 night stay at Ringo’s Guest house. There are no trains to Malacca so after a couple of Metro stops, found a bus headed that way. It was a double- decker (not the London type) comfortable express coach. The cost was $4Cdn each, very cheap for a 2 hour trip. After arriving at the Central bus station, we hopped on a local bus that dropped us off at the wrong stop so we must have walked for about an hour with our backpacks on in 30C+ humid weather before finding our hostel. It is situated above a shop and typical of hostels but kept clean. We had a friendly welcome and decided to stay 4 instead of 2 nights (this would change to 6 nights due to me picking up a cold and not able to travel).We met Brits, Ozzies, Chinese, Taiwanese, an American and a family of five from Holland.
Malacca has been a Dutch, Portuguese and British colony in its time. There are beautiful 18th and 19th century houses but what I liked most was the weekend night market that turned Jonker Street into Jonker Way. Lots of different foods to try, mostly Chinese but some Malay and Indian that would give you a meal for about $3Cdn. However, if you wanted a beer to go with it, it would cost more than the meal. My guess is that it's because of it being a Muslim country.
We bought day tickets on the Panorama bus. This was hop on, hop off so we just got off at places of interest. The cost each for the day was 2 ringitts each, or about 60cents. On Monday Howard the manager of the hostel took us and others, 12 in all, on a trip to Palau Besar. An island just off the coast so that we could swim and suntan. It took about 2 ½ hours to get there and as we arrived at a secluded beach, down came the rain. A little at first followed by thunder and lightning with a wind that caused the rain to come at a 30% angle. We headed back to try and catch the 12 noon ferry but it couldn’t leave because of the weather. By this time everyone was absolutely soaked. Who would have thought to bring some warm clothing. Around 4pm the ferry came to the island to take us and others back. That evening, because many of our group were leaving in the morning, we all went out for supper with our ranks now increased to 15.
Just as an aside here. I’ll be glad to get to Australia if only to have a meat pie, taters and gravy. This choice of rice or noodles gets a bit boring after a while. But I digress.
The following day everyone moved on to their next destination except us. We were due to go to KL for 2 days but my cold had gotten worse so we stayed at the hostel for 2 extra days, only going out to eat or get medication for me.
Today (30th July) we are leaving for KL by bus to catch an overnight train to Singapore which leaves at 2130Hrs and gets in to Singapore at 1130Hrs tomorrow. We spend just the one night there before leaving for Cairns on Jetstar, a subsidiary of Qantas, arriving in Darwin at 0230Hrs and Cairns at 0805Hrs.There we will meet the girls (Lisa and Cheryl) and drive toward Rockhampton the following day (Aug 3rd)
Today is also day 124 since leaving Chihuahua. It has just flown past. Now we are hoping to spend 6 months in Australia and will probably, God willing, return to Mexico via Vancouver around the beginning of March. BUT who knows, plans change.
Singapore, our final Asian stop. What a nice city. Very clean, modern but still that colonial feel about it. I bet it was a sad day when the British Army finally said goodbye. We really only had a day to look around. Went to Clarke Quay for a satay dinner. Lots of restaurants each side of the river but oh the prices. S$8 for a beer. That’s about $5.50Cdn. People everywhere out just enjoying themselves in the evening warmth. Today we went to the Government buildings, the Sir Stanford Raffles monument and of course the Raffles Hotel(which I thought was going to be more grandiose than what it was).
It is around 9pm August 1st Singapore time. We are on our way to Cairns and I am looking forward to a nice meat pie. No more squat toilets either. Bye the way, saw a sign on one of the trains advising passengers not to try and squat on a western toilet. Are people really that stupid ?
Posted by colin stray on Mon 14 Dec 2009 11:09:05 PM EST
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June 29th saw us on our way to Amman airport bound eventually for Bangkok. The taxi ride to the airport took us by a different route than when we arrived, through really poor areas. I wondered if we were being set up to visit carpet shops on our way....
June 29th saw us on our way to Amman airport bound eventually for Bangkok. The taxi ride to the airport took us by a different route than when we arrived, through really poor areas. I wondered if we were being set up to visit carpet shops on our way. The 62 year old taxi driver raced a young stud in his car and scared me as he fish-tailed around a traffic circle. good job I was wering brown pants that day. After a few uncomplimentary words we arrived at Queen Alia airport 3 hours before departure. One thing I must say about these Middle East airlines, they sure make you feel like you are numero uno.
We had a 4 hour lay-over in Bahrain which wasn’t too bad as there was a lot of shops and restaurants in the transit area. Lots of legroom on the Gulf Air/Jet Airways code share flight to Bangkok. The only disappointment being the meal which was a rice and lamb (I think) dish.
Bangkok’s new airport is quite amazing, architecturally speaking, and very efficient to be processed through. The taxi ride that I had read as 150 – 200 baht ($5 - $8 Cdn) was actually 300 baht. About $10 for a good ½ hour trip. We arrived at our 2 week vacation apartment around 11 am and waited about an hour before the housekeeper showed up to let us occupy the 2nd floor apartment. Everything we needed except self catering set-up. As with Kas in Turkey, we had booked through a company called “holiday-lettings”. Basically they are a U.K. based company where homeowners rent out their investment homes in different parts of the world. This one cost us $440 for 2 weeks. I think a good deal. It’s in a poor area but you wouldn’t know it once inside the gates. Most of the people are either like ourselves, on holiday, or middle-class workers. The local rapid transit is only a 10 minute walk away and if that is too far in the humidity here, there are always moto-conchos waiting outside to whisk you away for a 20 baht fare, about 70 cents.
As of today (July 8th) we have been on a 2 hour boat ride (yes another quasi cruise),an hour each way. Visited 3 large shopping malls, seen the Grand Palace, walked and driven past hundreds of temples, visited a crazy day market and a night market. Travelled on the rapid transit from one end of the line to the other many times and on Saturday I (Colin) will be taking a 5 hour train trip to the Kwai river where the famous Bridge on the River Kwai was located as well as visiting the cemeteries of those who died building the “Death Railway” of World War 2.
When Saturday came,Jan stayed in the apartment as pre-planned and I took the train excursion. It left at 6:30am and after stopping at the River Kwai plus 3 other stops to buy supplies(anyone for cooked frog) we got to our destination (a waterfall) around 1pm. Our return started at 3pm and we stopped ar Kanchanaburi for a too short 15 minutes. A handful of us visited the war graves of those (mostly British) who died while building the Death Railway. Most of the graves were within a twelve month period and I didn’t see anybody whose age was below 23. Unlike other war graves where many are eighteen year or a little older.
After two weeks it is time to leave. We get the 1pm train on July 14th to Hua Hin, a resort town on the Gulf of Thailand and home to the King and Queen’s summer residence. We arrived at just after 6pm and hitched a ride to our hotel (G-House). Our plan is to chill out here for five nights. The hotel is very clean and moderately priced, about $30 Cdn a night that includes a breakfast and 2 bottles of water. Recommended.
We haven’t done much since arrival. We are trying to save money as our budget is still way overboard. We’ve been walking most places and last night (16th) we splurged and had supper at a restaurant on a pier. Total cost about Cdn$17. It’s very humid here and supposed to be their wet season. However it has rained for a short time once although lots of clouds. I think after a few days one can get bored with this place.
Our train left only about an hour late and we travelled through the night in a 2nd class sleeper, reaching the Thai/Malay border around 8am the following day. There was a slight hiccup for us which resulted in the train being delayed for 15 minutes. We had thrown out our departure cards after we got them at Bangkok airport so Thai immigration had to phone back to the airport to get the serial number of the cards. We went through Malay customs which is in the same building and got our forehead temperature taken before being released and sent on our way to Butterworth station.
Warning signs stating that the drug smuggling penalty is death were displayed prominently. Why would anyone flout it ?
Butterworth station, Malaysia. Just about deserted. Apart from a money changer where we changed Thai and some U.S. notes. We had pre-booked 4 nights at E.T. Hostel in a place called Batu Ferrenggi on Penang Island about ¾ hour outside of Georgetown, a bustling place with many Chinese areas and a distinctive colonial feel. Big houses from the 40’s and 50’s were prominent . The influence of British rule can still be seen.
When we arrived at the hostel we were told it was full so hustled to another one 2 doors down which was owned by the same person. OK place but paper-thin walls. The deck looked out toward the beach so we decided to spend 4 days there.
Did the usual Mall shopping and hawker stall shopping. Spent very little time on the beach as it is their wet season at the moment. Hired a moped for the day and took off to explore the island only to misjudge a bus and so both fell off the bike less than five minutes after starting out. We got around the island in less than 3 hours. Unfortunately it rained for half the time so that kind of spoiled things. There was also a troupe of monkeys in the trees near the hostel which was something Jan and I had never experienced. They would climb from roof to roof looking for food.
Back to Butterworth on July 23rd to catch the overnight train to Kuala Lumpur (KL) We had chosen 2nd class sleepers from Butterworth to KL and KL to Singapore but had to take 1st class to KL which doubled our cost. The train left fairly close to time but there was a hitch, no electricity. The train kept stopping for someone to try and fix the situation and after an hour or so it was OK but I think it left some people a little irritable as there was no fan or air conditioning. Anyway as 1st class passengers we were looking forward to our meal. It was brought to us about 11pm. A half litre of water and a piece of chocolate cake. Quite the disappointment. So with little food and a restless few hours we arrived in KL station on time at 0530Hrs.
Jan had always wanted to go to Malacca which is not far from the hospital at Terendak camp where she was to serve had she and I not married. It was now a Malay army garrison. We were later to find out that there was no way we could have gone to see the place but I think we kind of knew that beforehand. Saying all that, we still headed for Malacca and had pre-booked a 2 night stay at Ringo’s Guest house. There are no trains to Malacca so after a couple of Metro stops, found a bus headed that way. It was a double- decker (not the London type) comfortable express coach. The cost was $4Cdn each, very cheap for a 2 hour trip. After arriving at the Central bus station, we hopped on a local bus that dropped us off at the wrong stop so we must have walked for about an hour with our backpacks on in 30C+ humid weather before finding our hostel. It is situated above a shop and typical of hostels but kept clean. We had a friendly welcome and decided to stay 4 instead of 2 nights (this would change to 6 nights due to me picking up a cold and not able to travel).We met Brits, Ozzies, Chinese, Taiwanese, an American and a family of five from Holland.
Malacca has been a Dutch, Portuguese and British colony in its time. There are beautiful 18th and 19th century houses but what I liked most was the weekend night market that turned Jonker Street into Jonker Way. Lots of different foods to try, mostly Chinese but some Malay and Indian that would give you a meal for about $3Cdn. However, if you wanted a beer to go with it, it would cost more than the meal. My guess is that it's because of it being a Muslim country.
We bought day tickets on the Panorama bus. This was hop on, hop off so we just got off at places of interest. The cost each for the day was 2 ringitts each, or about 60cents. On Monday Howard the manager of the hostel took us and others, 12 in all, on a trip to Palau Besar. An island just off the coast so that we could swim and suntan. It took about 2 ½ hours to get there and as we arrived at a secluded beach, down came the rain. A little at first followed by thunder and lightning with a wind that caused the rain to come at a 30% angle. We headed back to try and catch the 12 noon ferry but it couldn’t leave because of the weather. By this time everyone was absolutely soaked. Who would have thought to bring some warm clothing. Around 4pm the ferry came to the island to take us and others back. That evening, because many of our group were leaving in the morning, we all went out for supper with our ranks now increased to 15.
Just as an aside here. I’ll be glad to get to Australia if only to have a meat pie, taters and gravy. This choice of rice or noodles gets a bit boring after a while. But I digress.
The following day everyone moved on to their next destination except us. We were due to go to KL for 2 days but my cold had gotten worse so we stayed at the hostel for 2 extra days, only going out to eat or get medication for me.
Today (30th July) we are leaving for KL by bus to catch an overnight train to Singapore which leaves at 2130Hrs and gets in to Singapore at 1130Hrs tomorrow. We spend just the one night there before leaving for Cairns on Jetstar, a subsidiary of Qantas, arriving in Darwin at 0230Hrs and Cairns at 0805Hrs.There we will meet the girls (Lisa and Cheryl) and drive toward Rockhampton the following day (Aug 3rd)
Today is also day 124 since leaving Chihuahua. It has just flown past. Now we are hoping to spend 6 months in Australia and will probably, God willing, return to Mexico via Vancouver around the beginning of March. BUT who knows, plans change.
Singapore, our final Asian stop. What a nice city. Very clean, modern but still that colonial feel about it. I bet it was a sad day when the British Army finally said goodbye. We really only had a day to look around. Went to Clarke Quay for a satay dinner. Lots of restaurants each side of the river but oh the prices. S$8 for a beer. That’s about $5.50Cdn. People everywhere out just enjoying themselves in the evening warmth. Today we went to the Government buildings, the Sir Stanford Raffles monument and of course the Raffles Hotel(which I thought was going to be more grandiose than what it was).
It is around 9pm August 1st Singapore time. We are on our way to Cairns and I am looking forward to a nice meat pie. No more squat toilets either. Bye the way, saw a sign on one of the trains advising passengers not to try and squat on a western toilet. Are people really that stupid ?
Posted by colin stray on Mon 14 Dec 2009 11:09:05 PM EST