Helo from Malaysia

• Gayegibson's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Kuala Lumpur

Trip Start Jan 01, 2007 Previous
Entry Trip End Ongoing Next
Entry

  Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan, Malaysia
Saturday, April 12, 2008

April 12, 2008

Five years ago, when I did my first solo trip for a year, Thailand was my first stop. It seemed to take a while for me to 'get in the groove', and I never felt that I did justice to Thailand. Time seemed to fly by, and before I knew it, it was time for me to leave, and I hadn't even done the beaches in the southern part of Thailand. I always wondered what they were like, so this year, I decided to go and find out.

After almost twenty-four hours of traveling, I arrived in Bangkok in the wee hours of the morning of Sunday, March 24th. I had a hotel room booked for the evening of the 24th, and I figured I'd have to wait around for check in time at 2pm. However, when I arrived at the hotel, my room was ready, so I was able to check in right away.

Lisa, the girl I lived with in China, was now teaching English in Bangkok, working for a place called Wall Street. Later in the day, I gave her a call, and we made arrangements to get together that evening. It was great to see her again, hearing about her travels to Thailand, and hearing all about working for Wall Street. She is thrilled with the company, and after talking to her, it has renewed my interest for teaching English again. A couple of days later, we met up with Graham and Eilidh, a couple from Scotland who taught at Bond the same time we did. It was great to seem them again, and we had a mini Bond reunion.

I spent about four nights in Bangkok, then headed to Hua Hin to meet up with Dan, who I had met in Vietnam during my travels in 2003. He was only there for a few more days, and was then heading back to Vancouver. After he left, Lisa met me in Hua Hin, and we spent a couple of nights there before we both headed back to Bangkok. I then had the dreadful (and expensive!) task of applying for all the visas I needed for my tour on the Trans Siberian Railway. I ended up spending a week in Bangkok waiting for my visas to be processed before I could move on to the south. While I was in Bangkok, I did a couple of side trips. One to Kanchanaburi to see the Bridge over the River Kwai, and one to Lopburi where there were loads of monkeys. I could have spent the whole day just watching them. At one of the temples, there seemed to be hundreds of them, and I don't know how the shopkeepers there managed to stay sane, because the monkeys were constantly jumping around on the roof of their shops, plus they would try to steal anything they could! I ended up buying some food for the monkeys, and when one of the monkeys felt that I was being chintzy with my rations for him, he decided to climb on me and grab more right out of my hands!

With my visas finally sorted out, I caught the bus to Chumphon where I stayed the night before catching the ferry to Koh Tao. Koh Tao was a nice little island, but getting around in a taxi was very expensive! On Koh Tao (and many of the other islands), there is a set price, and you are at their mercy, because there is no other means of transportation. On some of the islands, taxi fares were comparable to what I would pay at home - sometimes even more! Graham and Eilidh were in Koh Tao the same time as me, so we met up in some lame Irish bar, then went out for dinner together. After Koh Tao, I went to Koh Samui. Although it was nice, it seemed very much like Koh Tao, only a little bigger. It seemed to have the same beaches, the same restaurants, the same tours, the same shopping, etc. I only stayed a couple of nights, but while I was there, I went waterballing (www.samuiwaterball.com) which was a bit of a rip-off, and also had a foot peel, foot massage, manicure and pedicure on the beach. Kind of a nice way to end the day - being at the mercy of a masseuse while you relax and listen to the waves lapping up on the beach. As I moved further south, I found that the beaches were the same, and besides the fact that the people who worked there were Thai, it felt like I could have been anywhere in the world. I must say that I wasn't really that impressed with the beaches in Thailand, and I'm kicking myself now for spending so much time in Thailand when I could have been spending it in Malaysia.

I finally left Phuket and flew to Langkawi in Malaysia where I stayed in the Langkapuri Beach 'Resort'. Unfortunately, it seemed to be the farthest thing from a resort. However, it was right on the beach, so that was good.

I went out wandering after I got settled in my room, and was surprised that the place seemed so quiet. There didn't seem to be many people on the streets, and many of the restaurants and shops were closed. I found the same thing the next morning when I tried to find a place to go and have breakfast. I later found out that it was the low season, hence the lack of tourists. I stayed two nights in Langkawi, then headed to the bright city lights of Georgetown on Penang.

I stayed in a great place in Georgetown. It was pretty basic, but it was clean, and the staff was practically falling over themselves trying to make my stay more pleasant. The day after I got in, I went to the Botanical Gardens in hopes of seeing some monkeys, but no such luck. From the Botanical Gardens I hiked up to Penang Hill. It was 5kms straight up, and by the time I got to the top, there wasn't a piece of my clothing that was dry! I wandered around for a bit, then decided to walk back down another way. Thank goodness I asked someone about it, as it was 17KM long - it would have taken me forever, to go down! I decided to take the easy way out, and took the funicular car back down to the bottom.

I stayed two nights in Georgetown, then headed for the cooler climate of the Cameron Highlands for some much needed trekking. On the bus, I met Danielle from Holland, as well as Soren, a travel writer from Denmark. Soren had spent a lot of time in India, and it was great to exchange stories with him. I stayed at a place called Father's Guest House, and an hour or so after I got there, I met up with Graham and Eilidh. They had already been in the Cameron Highlands for a couple of days, and were leaving the next day. The three of us went out for dinner that night, and we ended up running in to Danielle, the girl I met on the bus. What a small world - Graham and Eilidh had also met Danielle in Georgetown!

The day after I got to the Cameron Highlands, I took a tour to the mossy forest. It included a stop in the tea plantations and we learned all about tea. After the tour, I had the driver drop me off at the butterfly farm. Just after I got inside, the heavens opened up, and it started to pour! There was actually quite a lot to see there other than the butterflies. Even though I had killed a bunch of time there, the rain still hadn't subsided by the time I was finished, so I decided to move on to the Rose Center. The place was huge and had so many different kinds of roses. It reminded me a lot of my dad - he would have loved it there!

The next day I did a trek and met a guy from Sweden on the way up. When we got to the top, we meet an insect catcher. He was sitting by himself on a stump at the top of the mountain with what looked like a big, green, butterfly net. We were talking to him when all of a sudden he jumped up and waved his net around in the air so he could catch a bee that was flying by. He took out his little plastic bottle laden with chloroform, put it over the bee (still inside the net), put the lid on top, and waited a few seconds. When he was sure that the bee was drowsy, he took it out of the net and popped it in to his bottle. He said that sometimes he goes up there for hours and never catches anything!

The next day I took the Super VIP bus to Kuala Lumpur, or KL as the locals call it. I have to say that the bus ride was probably the best ride I've done in all my travels. The seats were like first class airline seats, the scenery was beautiful, and the bus driver drove at a normal speed. Graham and Eilidh were already in KL, and we were going to meet up to celebrate Eilidh's 30th birthday. We stayed at a place called stayorange.com. The idea is that the rooms are very clean and basic, but boy are they small! There was only room for a single bed, my backpack, and a space to walk into the bathroom (which was see through glass - I guess to make it appear bigger!). Anyways, it was only for the night, and it was in the heart of Chinatown. Once I unloaded my bags, I went and had a look around Little India.

That night the three of us went out to celebrate Eilidh's 30th birthday. First of all, we went out for a really nice dinner, and Eilidh and I polished off two bottles of wine. It was such a treat drinking nice wine out of an actual wine glass! After dinner, we went around the corner to a bar and proceeded to try many of the fancy drinks they had on order. There was a live band that was playing, and a DJ playing music on the breaks. I kind of lost track of time, but I guess the band stopped playing around 1am, and the DJ started playing music full time. There was another girl, Angel, who was also celebrating her birthday that night, and the DJ invited both the birthday girls up on to the bar (literally on the bar) to dance! A little bit of dancing on the bar, a little bit of dancing on the dance floor, a little bit of having a laugh with the locals, and before we knew it, it was 4am, and the bar was closing. My, how time flies when you're having fun!

Unfortunately, we didn't have as much fun the next morning, as check out time was 11am, and we were still feeling the effects from the night before wee hours of the morning. There were no windows in our rooms, so it was very dark and still felt like we should have been sleeping. We quickly packed our bags, and headed over to Starbucks to see if they had anything that would put us out of our misery before catching our flight to Sabah.

We got to Sandakan in the early evening, and after getting settled in our hotel, we went out in search of food. It was only 8pm, but it felt like the town had shut down for the night. Luckily, we were able to find the night market, but it was pretty dead as well, and we were the only foreigners there. However, I had a good feed of fresh corn on the cob, and roasted chicken.

The next day Graham and Eilidh left for their jungle trekking adventure, and I had a few days to kill in Sandakan. Trust me, there is nothing to do in Sandakan, and I was glad when it was finally time for me to go to Turtle Island.

I was picked up at my hotel at 8:30am and taken to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center, the meeting point for most of the tours. From there, we took a bus to the jetty where we caught our boat to Turtle Island. We cruised through a mangrove forest before heading out in to the open waters. We got to Turtle Island in the early afternoon, but what we had come to see wasn't going to happen until some time later that night. I walked around the entire island in about 30 minutes, then spent a couple of hours on the beach. We met in the dining hall at 6:30 where we were given a briefing on what was going to happen that night. We were all there to witness a mother turtle laying her eggs. It was explained to us that it could happen anywhere from 8pm until 6:30am the next morning, when we were to leave. There were no guarantees as to when the mothers would come up on the beach to lay their eggs, and our guide told us that when we heard the call 'turtle' from the Park Ranger, that we shouldn't wait for her, but head in the direction of the ranger's voice. The group the night before were lucky, as their mother turtle had started laying her eggs at 8:05, five minutes after the ranger started work that night. We had dinner, then settled in to wait for the call. I went and sat on the beach under the stars, and just after 10pm, the ranger calmly came up and said 'it's turtle time'. We followed him to where the mother had dug her nest and proceeded to watch her lay her eggs. Although I was a little disappointed that we didn't get to watch the whole process from the beginning (the mother coming out of the water, making her way up the beach, then digging the nest), it was still pretty amazing to watch her lay her eggs. As she started dropping them one by one, they were picked up by the park staff, and put in a bucket where they would be taken to the island's hatchery. After she finished laying her eggs (there were 59 of them!), she covered up the hole she had dug (thinking the eggs were still there), then the park staff measured her. The next step of the process was taking the eggs to the hatchery, burying them in a protected environment, and waiting for them to hatch. The last part of the process was releasing any hatchlings in to the wild (there were two that night). Although it was a long day to experience an approximately 30 minute process, it was still pretty amazing. The next morning, I went down to the beach and saw many tracks made by other mother turtles, making their way up the beach to make a nest and lay their eggs.

The next day was a two-night stay at Uncle Tan's Jungle Camp. I was picked up at the Orangutan Center and taken to Uncle Tan's headquarters where they fed us lunch, then prepped us for our trip. They kept mentioning the fact that the accommodations were very basic, and that the camp had been flooded a couple of weeks before. Apparently it was still very muddy (what an understatement!), and they recommended a pair of rubber boots. We were taken to the camp by boat, and almost immediately, we started to see some wildlife. When we got to the camp they were right - the place was extremely muddy and the accommodations were basic, but hey, we were in the middle of the jungle in Borneo! The two days were packed with boat rides and a jungle trek. On the first night we were there, we went out on an evening boat ride to look for wildlife. I didn't care if we spotted anything, it was enough for me just to be out on the water, under a star filled sky, listening to the sounds of the jungle. Over the two days, we saw a scorpion, an orangutan, tons of monkeys, (lots of them around the camp site trying to steal food!) birds, crocodiles, large lizards (mini dinosaurs!) and wild pigs.

After my jungle trek, I had three nights in Sepilok, where the Orangutan Center is located. I didn't really have enough time to venture anywhere else, but I was okay with that, because I love orangutans, and I was happy to spend three days with them. Unfortunately, the rehab center turned out to be a bit of a rip-off. You pay the equivalent of about $13Cdn (including camera), and you only get to spend approximately 30 - 45 minutes (2 times a day) watching them on a feeding platform. I was hoping that I would be able to do some walks through the forest in hopes of seeing them in their natural habitat, however, the trails in the forest were closed, so I was limited to just seeing them on the feeding platform. Mind you, it was pretty neat seeing them at the feeding. - When I first approached, I could see some of the orangutans swinging along the ropes to the feeding platform. They sat there waiting for the workers from the center to bring them bananas. One of the bigger orangutans kept getting sick after eating the bananas, and for some reason, kept eating his vomit. I felt so bad for him because he looked like he really didn't feel well, because he laid slumped over on the platform. He would eat a couple of bananas, then throw them up. Pretty well all the other orangutans (with the exception of one of the smaller ones) had left the platform, and the one that was getting sick was still there. It was almost like he didn't have the strength to leave. I felt so sorry for him, and was actually a little worried about him, so I asked the crew from the center about it. They reassured me that this was normal, and there was nothing wrong with him.

Seeing as there wasn't really anything else to do in Sepilok, I changed my flight, and came to KL a couple of days early.

I treated myself to a stay at the Crowne Plaza, and it's been nice living in a bit of luxury after having been in the jungle. My room has a view of the Petronas (Petro-nas) Towers, and it's close to lots of malls and attractions. KL is a beautiful city with lots to offer. It is very clean, modern and everyone here speaks English.

Tomorrow I leave for China, where I will pick up my tour on the Trans Siberian Railway on the 14th. If I had to do it all over again, I would have waited and done the tour at another time, instead of including it with all my other travels. It seems like my travels up until now, have revolved around the April 14th tour date, and having to get visas, etc. sorted for the trip. It's very frustrating trying to get everything organized from abroad. To make matters worse, I ended up having problems with Trek Escapes, the company that I booked the tour with. When I was trying to decide whether I was going to do the train on my own or with a tour, I started looking at the Trek Escapes web site where I found a tour for three weeks, costing $2595. When I finally made the decision to take a tour and went to book it, the price had gone up to $3395!!! When I asked the travel agent about it, she said that the price increase was normal. An $800 price increase in one year??? I finally ended up booking the tour through the Edmonton office of Trek Escapes, as it seemed that whenever I contacted the travel agent in Vancouver, she was always very busy, and it sometimes took almost a week for her to get back with information on my inquiries. Besides, I was booking from China, so it didn't matter which office I used. Fast forward to Bangkok. For the tour, I needed to get three visas, one for China, one for Russia and one for Mongolia. When I was filling out the application for the Russian visa, it asked me the date that I would arrive in Russia. I started looking through the e-mails that I had received from Jim (the travel agent) to see if they included a detailed itinerary. As I started searching through the e-mails, I started clicking on links to see if they had info with the dates of arrival in to Russia. One of the links took me to the web site of the tour operator (Geckos) and lo and behold, there was my tour for $400 less!!! When I contacted Jim to inquire why I had to pay $400 more, he said he would look in to it for me. A few days later, his colleague, Karen, contacted me. Apparently Jim was on holidays and she was looking after his clients. She asked me for the URL of the web site again, and interestingly, when I clicked on the link, I got the message that the page was no longer available. What a coincidence that it was no longer available immediately after I had brought the price discrepancy to their attention!! A few weeks went by and I kept getting the odd e-mail saying that they were 'still looking in to it', and would contact me when they found something out. I finally contacted them again, and got a message back from Jim saying something about the exchange rates, and I got the feeling that he was trying to brush me off. However, after I told him that what he was telling me wasn't acceptable, and that I was going to lodge a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, he seemed to be more sympathetic, but still explained that there was nothing he could do. I have now booked my last tour with Trek Escapes, and I will be going on my tour, paying $400 more than my travel mates. Oh and by the way, if you look at the Geckos web site today, the price for my tour is still quoted as $2995!

Until next time,

Gaye

Print this entry Share

Previous Entry Next Entry