Bangkok Baby

A first trip to Bangkok is a bit like nothing else so there's no point comparing it. The combination of revulsion, attraction, interest, disgust, anticipation and plain excitement is a heady cocktail best not drunk straight. Like Ottawa does to it's homeless, the Thai in Bangkok do to Backpackers. The western ghetto which is Khao San road is a palace to the negative effects backpacking has had on  this small corner of the world. Though Bangkok itself is a sprawling city resplendant with all the glories of any first world metropolis, it also has the more perturbing parts of the seediest third world shanty towns, and bang in the middle is Khao San. It's worth the experience.

Basically a massive monument to anti-buddhist principles in the middle of a massively buddhist city, Khao San stands like nothing before or hopefully after. Bars upon bars upon bars lay the base layers for seedy hostels and boutique hotels, whose facades wear a make-up job of random clothing vendors and touts pushing a host of toys, lights gadgets or the ubiquitous ping pong show on clueless foreigners. One night in Khao San is enough for the veneer to wear off, leaving a bare beast, intent on feeding on you wallet. Everything is overpriced, everyone is a flashpacker, and every local there is trying to get your money somehow. It scrapes just over the barrier of being fully an experience where description can fully paint a picture. Best put like this: The "traditional" traveler's woven bracelets have been so bent here that the locals are convinced the way to sell them is to weave "hairy cunt" or any other such overtly inappropriate two word expletive into them. The traditional Tuk-Tuk motorbike is used almost entirely for trips to and from Ping-pong shows (where women shoot the audience with ping pong balls from their vaginas, as well and smoke cigarettes and peel bananas). If it's not to a Ping Pong show, it's a "10 baht" tour, which is inevitably a scam of some kind. It's captivating and depressing, but thus is the allure of non-southern thailand.

We visit the red light district, famously called "Soi cowboy", in the company of a few Dutch girls, lending us the necessary look of legitimacy we need in order to avoid being constantly harassed by prostitutes. We even go into a ladyboy bar to have a drink. There is another fascinating aspect of Thai culture pornogrified by too much western influence. Katoeys are boys who are decidedly women. Due to their petite frames and quite effeminate features, Thai boys are natural contenders for most womanly men of the world. The culture is cloudy to me, and it's roots go back aways into territory I would need a translator to navigate, but there are plenty of both pre-op and post-op "ladyboys" on display at the bar, some much better looking than their female counterparts across the road. It's a more than vaguely alien experience. No pictures, but if you take off your google safesearch and just type in soi cowboy, you'll get the idea.

In a totally unrelated note and not at all in the same neighbourhood, Trouble tazed himself in the hand.

In the same inane vein as that last sentence, our second day in Bangkok was also Trouble's birthday, meaning bottles of the cheapest 8% beer we could find (big bottles), slowly moving into buckets of local whisky and coke(one mickey per bucket) and finally degenerating into a trip to 7-eleven(of which there are like 30 on every street) for a triple threat of Thai red bull(illegal in Canada), more local whisky, and a 2 litre bottle of Thai coca-cola(also probably illegal in canada). These were liberally mixed(the liberalism applies mainly to the red bull and whisky) and then carried down the street to be passed in between the three of us while looking for a bar. Needless to say the rest of the evening gets slightly hazy. Well, I suppose the endearing side to Bangkok is that we arrived home in the late morning from a windowless club, resplendent with stains on our newly purchased quintessential bangkok douchebag shirts, and we were relatively safe(from everyone but outselves). We even found our scotsman, fast asleep on a hallway matress in the hostel, because I had the key.

After that madhouse of an evening and a half day of sleep and recovery, the decision is made to actually see bangkok, shed our outfits of the eve before, showered and hit the town anew. Found a hostel slightly removed from KhaoSan, and went about the business of figuring out what the few tourists who don't JUST party actually do here. The city is monumentally large, and cabs try and scam you everytime. Insisting on meters is like talking to walls. Walking away will yeild better odds than haggling for a meter, everytime. Off the main strips the driver's are generally more honest, though never rely on anything you hear from any one person. The old saying is "Everyone is on the take in Thailand". Cabs get generous bonuses just for dropping people off in certain locations in front of bars, clubs or pubs. Tuk-tuks will lower their prices if you "stop somewhere, 10 minute", its all bullshit, it all costs more. Quotes for what an honest meter cab will charge 50 baht for run in the range of 300 baht. Long story short, there is a 10000 stall market spanning the size of most neighbourhoods. There is a Muay Thai stadium free on sundays where contenders slug it out and then have a strange fifth round where nothing happens. Crowds form and bet, people get knocked out, and money changes hands. More will come to memory later I'm sure, for now, Bangkok is a hectic, crowded party with weird culture and a dark and seedy side best left to the geriatric white guys you see crawling all over it. Catch you on the flipside.

No Dinner Invite?

Some temple jewellery

So the right honorable governor of Penang forgot to invite us to dinner. No big deal, only slightly put off. After gazing at his not so humble abode in admiration, the inhabitant thereof wheeled past in a slightly less than presedential motorcade, offering a simple wave. I wanted a dinner invitation, it was not to be.



The Penang Team



Rewind a few days and a few hours and Penang is slowly crawling into view on a night bus from the islands. The Scotsman aforementioned has been enlisted as a temporary member of team Canada, and will prove a rigorous ally in the near future. Upon arrival a neon city leaps up seemingly in the middle of the sea, framed into reality by a few large mounds of earth cloaked in darkness behind it. Seemingly every skyscraper is lit, and the second largest city in Malaysia slowly dawns on our bus. The bus driver gleans a few extra Ringgit by ferrying a trio of travelers to Chinatown, where accomodation is most likely to be found at 5:30 AM. End up in some guesthouse reminiscient of an elongated tropical fruit with a vaguely penicyllin like taste. Banana house sounds right.

Snooze a bit upon wake up the following day and commit to a wander, in search of "penang food", alledgedly some of the best in the entire country. Greeted with largely the same old fare. Ubiquitous in southeast asia are restaurants somehow managing to serve not only indigineous cuisine but also a hodge-podge of western style dishes, mostly pastas, sandwiches, steaks, and the worst attempts at English breakfasts. Happily Penang has a decent variety of cuisine that isn't catering directly to bloated foreigners who seem to have misplaced their interest in other cultures. Little India is a bit of a jewel, directly connected to chinatown and boasting authentic tandoori food done directly before your eyes, as well as dozens of different sorts of curries and lassis to keep your palate kicking. Pick well, some places  just leave their curries out all day in metal trays and microwave to order. When it's good, it's very good, but you need to make sure to give a miss to anywhere without obvious effort.

Chinatown itself has a pretty great hawker's market directly outside the backpacker's area. Sweaty, trash-filled streets alive with stray dogs accomodate everything from fruit stands to random noodle vendors hurling piles of hot oil around. The added bonus on our second evening on revelry is the addition of the lovely and ebullient S.Z. to our mix of chaos. She is a personal favorite of mine from as far back as high school and has been scooting around Asia with a sort of enthusiasm enjoyable to any traveler. A couple drinks and a quick catch-up later, bed calls and the parties at work retire to seperate quarters for a little shut-eye. The following day's wander yeilds a new guesthouse, this time with a four bed room, and quite horrendously comfortable quarters. Almost in the vein of a boutique hotel, yet it's two blocks from the main drag stripping it of any right to charge prices worthy of it's interior. Twenty Ringgit(totals about 6 CDN) gets luxe dorm bed facilities, free breakfast and wireless internet, including a computer, and showers that make it feel like warm summer rain it falling. Uncertain about he usefulness of adding jacuzzi jets in the shower walls, but enjoy the prospect nonetheless.

Penang kind of degenerates into a blur of eating and walking, so mush walking. These activities are punctuated with a trip up Penang hill, sort of the epitome of local tourist attractions and a beautiful viewpoint to see a unique city. A cable reluctantly drags a sort of futuristic cockpit up a steep track, stopping to let off some mountain dwelling locals. At it's apex it breathes out it's passengers onto a hilltop walkabout, where the reality of Penang is drawn into focus. On the way there we get free fried banana from an enthusiastic hawker. The island is really mostly hill, with the city clinging to the flatlands around it's edges, hoping not to slip into the sea. Proximity to the mainland explains the cheap price of the ferry over(like 17 cents).

A final day hurrying around and haggling bus fares before departing from dear S.Z. and moving to the mainland to power through a night buses worth of travel to bangkok. The trains are full, and though buses are cheaper, they promise much less sleep, a promise well kept. Scotsman is now earning the status of "temporary Canadian".

Sand, Surf, Sun and Sausages

Fast forward through a night of vomiting and rickety train rides to arrival at a jetty in central east Malaysia, and you'll find our heroes excited to. relax on a beach after a harrowing trek through the jungle and a horridly cold and uncomfortable night.

Once some of the remnants of the jungle had been left behind and the sordid condition of our clothing and selves had been slightly altered for the positive, a bus to Jerantut was a necessity. The night train was to leave from there later this evening, and though much time was to elapse before it's 2 am departure, food and relaxation were priorities. Arriving well in advance of the next departure is a good idea because it allows time for two ol' fashion favourites: food and drink. Teaming with a few fine folks who were also ambitious enough to grab the night train, the local Chinese bars got a touch of what Canadians can accomplish in a few short hours. Chinese bars are a necessity in Malaysia, due to the penchant of everyone else to be Muslim and therefore not serve alcohol or pork. This is not nearly as troublesome as the price of alcohol, which is exorbitant, therefore we were quite pleasantly surprised when our somewhat dubious company produced a bottle of Thai whisky, seemingly from nowhere. After some food at a local Malay restaurant, quite delicious spicy beef with black pepper and garlic, rice, bok choy, ginger, scallions and spicy fish sauce, it was time to slink to a bar to drink some Jaz(horrible) and Royal Stout(passable).

On time for the trains, split with companions headed divergently to Singapore. Train rumbles into the station, headed directly north into the thicket we just spent a day struggling to escape. After gleaning our lives and limbs in suitable condition for happy existence, it feels almost ironic to board a train headed directly back into it's depths. Alas, thus is life, and happily no derailments take place, though one would have been welcome reprieve from the torturous existence that constituted a night on that train. CIA cold cell treatment is one thing, but when it trundles along awkwardly on rails apparently built to smash passengers up out of their seats at precisely the moment when they are most likely to be asleep, pain takes on new meaning. This was a six and a half hour horror show of wind and misery which due to hearty constitutions and drive to live, we both survived. Trouble fared less well than myself, probably due to the thick fur sweater grafter permanently to my exterior. Upon exiting the train cab, Trouble left his lunch in the local station bathroom and we mounted an illegal cab to the jetty. Much more expensive than expected, always get clarification on prices here, due to the penchant for locals to swiftly change numbers with similar sounds(15 and 50, 18 and 80) into each other. Arrival at the jetty precipitates more projectile from my travelling partner, but a German girl and her Scottish travelling mate are a welcome sight and a spot of conversation ensues, leading to a hostel together after the ferry crossing.

First, a word about the ferry crossing. It could be something to do with the trauma of the train ride the evening previous, or my generally well publicized land blubbery, but this experience is likely one shared by the ill fated passengers of that Italian ferry, albeit on a much smaller scale. Our driver seemed determined to shatter his boat upon the waves, as if the higher he could smash down on them from, the less they would slow him down. He was mistaken.The boat, however, proved heartier than his efforts could dispel, and though Trouble certainly didn't enjoy his ferry experience, all was well upon landing.

As stated before, a hostel is procured with a four person air con room, in which the sick member of our troupe promptly crawls into bed fully clothed and stops motion for a full 8 hours midday. The rest frolic lightly in the warm ocean waves and generally relax. Night leads to more frivolous activity at the one open bar on the entire Island. A small mickey of something called "monkey juice" is bought. People on the island insist it's laced with something, due to it's 25% markings compared to how much it feels like a wet hammer to the brain. Sleep comes almost as swiftly and comfortably as it refused to come the night before, and a second day on the island is under planification by nightfall. Snorkelling it is. Oh yeah, There is also garbage everywhere, adding a sour taste to this otherwise fruity tropical paradise.

Snorkelling, as you might imagine, was amazing, sea turtles, massive fish, a shark, all the cool corals. Not many picutres, however, so I won't bore you with elaborate descriptions of the amazing blue hues of the water, the feel of ocean spray on the boat, or the salt water rushing up your nose when you accidentally breathe incorrectly and you convulsively vomit in the water. The islands were ridiculously nice relaxing places, full of the usual sunburns, overpriced food, attractive women, and general stuff I don't give a shit about. They have been left behind now, and Penang (best food in Malaysia? is the current destination). Look forward to some straight food porn, folks.

Welcome to the Jungle

Teman Negara is a place like few others. Wildly thick vines hang from vines the support a canopy so thick as to be rooflike above the jungle floor. Superfluous adjectives and descriptors come to mind when trying to encapsulate the thicket of jungle that encompasses some of the planet's oldest rainforest. Other adjectives come to mind too. Sweaty, muddy, bloody, uncomfortable and maybe most aptly the three word kicker :"teeming with leeches".

Our route into the national park is via bus then boat. Sadly the bus is late and arrival comes after the boat has already departed on it's three hour journey lazily floating downriver. Compromise and get a minivan with a few Polish geography teachers. Good for a spot of choppy English conversation. Arrive an hour later, still two hours earlier than the fabled boat, though cheated the beautiful views coming in on a waterway winding through the deep jungle. Kuala Tahan is the jump off point for this madhouse. A small town, clinging mercilessly to the river for survival and economic growth. Everything happens on the water here. The town is barely fifty buildings, the economic hub being a mass of floating barges drifting around on the shoreline of the light brown river. Restaurants, tour barges and gear-rental locations abound. Decide to stay at a really basic and cheap hostel which borders the river as well, happily not floating directly on it.

Meet some Brits on the patio, hang out shooting the shit and resolve to make a mission of destroying out bodies and minds at the furthest available hide in the jungle. This is a five and a half hour to seven hour trek through some of the toughest terrain available out here. The kicker is that it's the furthest in the jungle you can wander whilst foregoing the delightfully reassuring company of a guide, which we absolutely intend to forgo. It's now destiny that me, Trouble, and three of our quick witted British friends are going to Bumbun Kumbang, the deepest jungle hut we can stay in.

As epic as this plot seems, it is not to be. The following morning, after extensive packing, repacking, dressing, judging survivability, and re-dressing, the hide is fully booked. This is a massive blow to our five person party, but we send Gill and Andy on to fill the two available spaces. The three straggling remainders of the party manage to book the first beds for tomorrow night, and return our sleeping gear with a promise to come get it the following day. We head back into the jungle to get a practice trek on, see how tough this stuff really gets. We walk a one hundred meter canopy walkway which is surprisingly(and disappointingly) very safe. It affords some views of high up, and some serious army ant swarms, but not much else. Better is the climb up Bukit Teresek, a hill with some sweeping views of the regions size and majesty. Upon descending an Italian couple is enlisted to replace the Brits in an adventure to a murky swimming hole is the fast moving river. After an afternoons trek worthy of a shirt filled with sweat, this watering hole is more than delightful. My passengers resolutely refuse to leave my legs, preferring the warmth of my blood to the relative chill of the river. People constantly point out the vampiric monsters growing fat upon my calves for the rest of the day. People are also constantly confused when receiving the answer that they are a science experiment destined to inform the world of how long a leech will take before naturally leaving a delicious host. Turns out to be a measly three hours or so, in which time they will consume around ten millilitres of blood. All things considered, there are worse animals. Our British companion writes that our party has seen a tiger, and whispers rip through the village, where tiger sightings are rare and exciting. This makes his day.

After the swimming hole, we return sharply to the village and jump on a boat upriver the see the indigenous tribes of the area, first shooting some mediocre rapids and getting rained into a sort of wet oblivion. Shore is reached at the Orang Asli settlement, and depression sets in. These people are basically just in existence as a tourist attraction, and though they have some interesting traditions and features to their culture, it has been heavily destroyed by the advent of a westernised society taking root nearby. Demonstrations of the traditional way to make fire are trumped by the fact that there are empty lighters amongst the garbage which is universally strewn about the village. Demonstrations of the traditional blowpipe and the way to make darts are marred by the all too convenient usage of a swiss army knife (fruit of the rare swiss army tree). Though these put a damper on what was to be a glance into how a people could survive in the jungle, there are highlights. Me and Trouble are the only two foreigners who manage to use the blowpipe accurately, striking the target(helpless teddy bear) directly in the face twice. Even our guide only hit the hand.

We wander the village a little bit, but the inhumanity of wandering into people's homes to photograph the squalor they inhabit is too much for us, and we quickly depart back to the safety of the boat and the promise of a civilization in which we can quietly ignore all the damage we do to those who refuse to partake in our exact method of colonizing the planet. It isn't easy.

Following a short period of dejected showering and some more preparation for the morrow, the mood lightens upon the realization that at this hour the following evening, nothing but the jungle will be around. Resolutions to wake early lead to a reasonably octogenarian hour to retire to bed. Rising alongside the sun glaring in the window and removing the mosquito net, an unreasonable excitement sets in and the trail is begun with vigour after a short breakfast. Outstanding pace through a hellish environment uniquely designed to break human souls is about the only positive to be drawn out of our situation. Around two hours in we meet some fellow travellers heading back the other direction. They inform us of around three and a half more hours of hard trek ahead. This is basically on pace with expectations, though still disappointing to a group of  weary trekkers who thought they had been making amazing time though terrain which could ostensibly be used for military training. Trudging on, the path becomes more laden with hills and wet gullies, mud and leeches, rope climbs and slight slopes long enough to test thigh stamina to it's limits. Gratifying in a strange way. Eventually slogging through the final kilometre of nearly exclusively swampy mud holes to arrive an hour under the projected time, finishing in four and a half hours. We are the first to arrive for this evenings sleep and animal watching.

The hide is a large concrete box set atop six sturdy pillars with a metal roof. Four windows, what could at one point be called a bathroom and an array of wooden bunks are the only real elements to the interior. One end has a long bench in front of a wildlife viewing slot looking onto a clearing and water hole. When we arrive, a group of French doctors are stopping to eat lunch with their guide under the cover of the hide. After a quick chat and some noodle sharing on the doctor's part, they depart for the boat back, a mere thirty minutes walk away. Their guide says he can make it back to Kuala Tahan in three hours via the inland route. Challenge accepted.

Others slowly trickle into the encampment, the first and only lone ranger is Tyler, a fellow Canadian and former Carleton university engineer. Small world, this jungle. Perhaps the least prepared trekker all day, looking vaguely traumatized by what just occurred. The decision to wear white pants, which are now various shades of brown and red from mud and blood, is evidence of poor planning. Though my own legs are war-zones, he looks to be suffering. A quick wash up renders into focus a fellow human being, and everyone gets on quite well.

Beds are selected, others arrive, including a very nice Dutch couple and a few Australians who appear to have every intention of talking very loudly and for some time about absolutely nothing of import. One wonders why they couldn't have stayed in Australia and instead chose such an uncomfortable venue for this conversation, but they respond well to demands that they shut the fuck up so no real harms done.

No animals seen, many animals heard. By the time everyone gets to bed a deluge has begun, and the decibel meters slowly reach the levels commonly associated with placing a metal bowl overs one's head and banging it repeatedly with a spoon. Sleep is fitful at best, and the hard wooden beds are not helpful in this respect. Waking up with numb limbs is a common occurrence. Various makeshift pillows adorn the room, no one seems really happy. The following day a trek back via the inland route yields a much flatter, more reasonable trail, but also includes a red herring path which throws us willy nilly into the jungle, causing a half hour wandering game trails in search of a marker. Worries of lord of the flies scenarios begin to cross my mind before finding the main trail again.

Timing is exactly the same back as it is there, disappointingly. Though legs are more sore and becoming lost adds thirty minutes, the pace is still taxing and the path is much easier. Had jungle disorientation not taken it's toll, the time would have been under four hours, highly acceptable for a bunch of Northern Hemisphere dwelling softies.

The jungle has been conquered. No tigers sighted, but Tiger beer is in order.

Lumping Koalas

Taking off from Singapore early, bus for 12$S to Kuala Lumpur takes us flying past city limits. Forget passport at immigration. Fiasco ensues. Get through Singapore exit immigration, have to throw away prawn crackers due to laws of no dried fish products. Debacle avoided by finding local trashcan.

Little signs on bus indicate cheerily capital punishment for drug smugglers.

Random roadside stop with so many birds standard conversation screeches to a halt in the face of sonic avian onslaught. Trees teem with black shadows. Acute risk of being shat upon. Storm coming.

Arrive in KL, help a few Germans find a bank before splitting off to find a hostel. Find a few, compare pricing, settle on Wheelers. Sketchy hole in the wall façade gives way to a tiki themed lobby two floors up. We get a four person room. Lock up, head out for a meal of decidedly poor quality fried rice, make pact not to eat in tourist areas ever again. Wash down with greasy bok choy and oyster sauce and oil laden springrolls. Award for oiliest meal so far. Wash down with Tiger beer, all is well again.

Head across to a street stall area, get a bunch of assorted skewers from a skewer truck. Pretty interesting set up. Pots of water boil at each table, cook it yourself ethos. Most skewers mediocre. Fried mini-crab and BBQ duck stand-outs. More Tiger. Late. Head to bed.

Rise suspiciously early, strip tow opposing beds and make a permethrin lab in our room. Spray down clothes for malaria and bug avoidance. Worry for life of caged Iguana outside our window.Head out, letting room air without our having to be in it. Still hope Iguana will be okay. Sticky ride pastry for breakfast, surprisingly good and quite filling. Head to Chow Kit market on local buses, fun ensues.

Chow Kit is awesome, around two football fields worth of pure food and spice stalls, surrounded on all sides by clothing vendors and other miscreants. Because their stock never goes bad, clothing vendors are popular here, and can be quite lucrative due to disillusioned tourists. They seem to pop up everywhere there is food, generally ruining the purity of my quest.

First half of the market is produce stalls, arrays of exotic fruit. Try some jackfruit. Curious and good, like bubblegum and cantaloupe had a lovechild and left it on Durian's steps to be raised. Past this innocent façade of fruit lies a deep dark interior. One where I could for example, stand and watch a man burn the hair off a severed cow head. Or watch a woman try and butcher a live catfish nearly as big as her, eventually stopping for her son to step in, quickly knock it out, and proceed to butcher it live. Get fish water all over me. Whilst perusing wares of questionable ethics in generally unhygienic conditions(not a complaint, the world would be full of strong people if everyone ate at Chow Kit from the time they were children), a seemingly torrential downpour begins outside. It leaks through the patchwork market roof, creating floods in the walkways and dripping on meat and produce. This is the Malaysian experience. Exiting the aromatic(sometimes disturbingly so) into the warm tropical rain is like being thrust from one mind numbing sensation to another. Within seconds soaked to the skin. Take refuge at a small Indian cafe. Eat some delicious nasi goreng and head out during a brief break in the deluge. Keyword brief. Soaked to my lungs after finding the right bus stop. Enter bus, immediately develop ice crystals due to overpoweringly cold A/C. Overall experience 10/10. Little girl runs by with her father, stopping for him to place plastic bag over her head. "Worst Parenting Award" gets doled out.

Return to hostel, still downpour, but so soaked no difference is palpable. Enter, strip, shower, dry, pack for tomorrow, head out for dinner. Deluge is slowing up, meaning staying under awnings is actually useful now.  Try a burger which is wrapped in an egg, some chicken satays done over wood fire with no grill, an assortment of pork pastries and some egg tarts before going back to Wheelers to be in bed. Bed is good. Sleep. Tomorrow will be early bus to Jerantut, then Kuala Tahan, gateway to the oldest rainforest on planet earth.

BRAINPAN!