Surprised by Malaysia

Perhentians!

After a long long bus ride from Ao Nang I arrived in Penang, with a really good first impression. I loved the Malaysian people right from the start, they are SO friendly!

In Penang I arranged my 2 months visa for Thailand. I rented a motorbike with an English boy I met on the bus and we drove around the island. It was a lot of fun to be on a motorbike again in the chaotic Asian traffic.  

The next morning at 5am I got a bus to Kuala Besut with some amazing views on the way.

From there I took the boat to the smallest islands of the Perhentians, Kecil, where my friends Guillem and Jose were waiting for me. The boat ride to the Perhentians was beautiful. We seemed to be floating over the turquoise water.

Arriving at Long beach, one of the two white sand beaches of this very small island, the water seemed to be like the water of a swimming pool. So clear! I have never seen clearer water in my life. Arriving on the beach, not sure where to go because nobody seemed to know the place Jose told me to go, I luckily saw Guillem walking towards me. Perfect timing. So together we went to the bungalow to wake up Jose, who was still sleeping/recovering from the night before.

Within no time we created a group of friends, all staying in bungalows in Rock Garden.

Rock Garden is the nicest guesthouse on the island, it’s on the left side of the beach and you have a beautiful view over the whole beach.

With Jana, Luca, Ibrahim, Qasim, Jose, Guillem and me we had 10 days of relaxing on the beach.

Swimming in crystal clear water, having dinner in one of the few restaurants on the beach and party at night in the beach hut and the Black Tip, the only two bars on the beach. In the Beach Hut we were always welcomed with a shot of Monkey Juice (illegal sweet liquor) by Natalia, a Spanish girl that travelled with Jose and Guillem. She is working on the Perhentians for a few months.

Besides from the days of party and relaxing I did a lot of beautiful dives! I went to three different places: Temple, a place with millions of fish. You swim thru schools of fish and they all surround you. Another dive place is T3, there is less fish but beautiful rock formations, it seems like you’re in the mountains under water. And the 3^rd was a wreck dive. For my advanced dive course I had to study a bit and do 5 dives: a night dive, a deep dive (30 meters), navigation, fish ID and Peak Performance Buoyancy. It helped me a lot to feel more in control under water. Especially the buoyancy dive, where you learn to move your body in the way you want and keep balance, so you can stay still at a place to look at something and to not disturb your surroundings by moving a lot.

After 10 days it was time to move on. I was supposed to go back to Thailand to start my volunteerjob but I was too curious about the rest of Malaysia. My first impression was so good. I was surprised about the beauty of the country and the Malaysian people. So I decided to stay and continue traveling with Jose and Guillem. 

It was great to have stayed in one place for a little while and feel at home. And what we used to say every day: You only live once!

My beloved Asia

Bangkok - Railey - Ton Sai

Arriving in Bangkok I loved being back in Asia. The smells, the people, the food, the heat, the differences. I LOVE IT!

But after 2 days in Bangkok I needed to leave this big and busy city. I longed for something smaller and friendlier. So I booked a bus ticket south, to Krabi. A place well mentioned by my friends in my Annies Planet. In the bus I met Mirka, a girl from Quebec. She was going to Railay, a peninsula surrounded by the Andaman Sea, close to Krabi. Talking about it she explained that from Railay you can walk to another beach called Ton Sai but only with low tide. You can get there thru the jungle but that takes much longer. And this was when I realized that this was the place where girl in New Zealand told me to go to do my open water dive course. I hadn’t looked into it because I wasn’t planning on doing my course at the start of my travels in Asia, but this was such a nice coincidence that I decided to go with Mirka.
The center of Railay is not really the nicest place, because of all the resorts, but the dramatic limestone cliffs that surround Railay are incredible!


We found a cheap bungalow with a hammock, so we were happy.

I arranged my dive course and dove for 3 days. 2 days in the islands close to Railay, the 3th day at Ko Phi Phi. I was very curious how I would feel under water, but immediately I noticed that I couldn’t be more comfortable underwater. I definitely have a new addiction! I saw so many beautiful things: bluespotted stingrays, giant pufferfish, lionfish, scorpionfish, porcupinefish (my favorite!), giant morays, yellow boxfish, barracuda’s, nemo’s and so much more! You can leave me underwater for hours, days, weeks. If my air would last.

In Railay you have an east and west beach connected by a 3 walkways that take about 10 minutes. On one of the walkways there are monkeys everywhere, playing, relaxing, looking at the people passing by.

Halfway on this walkway starts a climb to the Lagoon. It’s quit a climb, especially when it’s wet and slippery.

So when you see people walking thru Railay covered in mud you know where they have been. When Mirka and I went we were lucky because it didn’t rain, so it wasn’t too hard. After climbing up for about 20 minutes you can go to a lookout where you see all Railey. WAUW!

After the viewpoint you start climbing down to the Lagoon, that’s a bit harder than climbing up. But it’s worth it! You arrive at a small pool surrounded by forest. If you lie in the middle of the lagoon and look up at the sky you see that the ends of trees and plants form the shape of an eye.

  Mirka is a bit afraid of heights so I had to guide her thru it, but she made it. Go Mirka! To reward ourselves we went to a sacred penis cave J

When I finished my dive course we moved to Ton Sai.


Unfortunately the tide was high so we had to walk with our backpacks thru the jungle, climbing rocks. I think we lost at least 3 liters of sweat. But it was worth it! Ton Sai is small bay, also surrounded by lime stone cliffs that are covered by climbers from all over the world. There is a very relaxed vibe. Everybody knows each other. There is one restaurant where everybody goes: Chicken Mama. We had an amazing rock ‘n roll party in the jungle with good music! That’s hard to find in Thailand. We booked a bungalow we didn’t like but we didn’t want to walk anymore. We just wanted beach. And that’s where we met Jose and Guillem. Two guys from villages close to Barcelona. Guillem is traveling for 8 months in Asia, learning English. Jose traveled for 8 months in Africa and has inspired me a lot for my next trip. Now he is finishing his trip in the islands of South East Asia. I didn’t know yet that these two would be my travelbuddies from that day on. The next day we moved to their guesthouse to become their neighbors for a week.

One night we went to a bar close by the guesthouse that was really nicely decorated, with a lot of style and details. Paintings everywhere.

So when Mirka told the owner that she did art school and paints, he asked if she could make a painting for the bar. This was the result.

I found out that the owner of the bar (the one in the picture knows TCDF, the place in Pak Song in Thailand where I’m going to volunteer. What a coincidence!
And they have a cat called coffee!


The only thing less nice of Ton Sai was that it was raining a lot. Almost every day. Around 12pm the weather changed drastically. Within 5 minutes the sky was totally grey and a really strong wind started blowing.


Employees would only have a few minutes time to bring everything in safety and to close the sides of bars with simply fabricated plastic sails with weights on the end. Climbers could be high on the wall at this time and had to come down very quick. You could see the stress on their faces. Sometimes it would rain like this at night, but that created nice and cozy party’s inside bars. The day before we left Ton Sai we talked to the guy who sold me and Mirka our boat tickets and he told us that the rain season normally isn’t like this. It’s a depression and that happens usually once a year and lasts a week. How fortunate… that we chose exactly this week to be there. But imagine, if I love this place in a week of depression, how it would be when it’s good weather. Magical!

The boat ride from Ton Sai to Ao Nang, from where Mirka would go back to Bangkok to start her journey home and I would continue to Malaysia to get my two months visa for Thailand, was a bit scary. Mainly because a woman in the boat kept on repeating that the day before 3 boats collapsed and sank. She was well prepared with her waterproof box with all her belongings inside. But luckily nothing happened and we arrived safely in Ao Nang, where we had breakfast for the last time and gave each other a big hug! I miss you my sweet pompui...

Time to go to Malaysia, a new episode!

Australie met m'n Blondie!

From Christchurch to Melbourne. The 3th part of my trip.

It seems ages ago. But I had such an amazing time with Floor in Australia. There was just no time to write my blog. And after Australia so many things happened. So many people crossed my path. So I will try to go back in time, sitting in a bus (made for very small people, so imagine how comfortable I am) leaving Dumai (Sumatra, Indonesia) behind me to go to Medan, the capital of North-Sumatra and 4th largest city of Indonesia. We will just be passing thru, on our way to Bukit Lawang where we will do a hike to hopefully see ourang oetans. I can’t wait! In Kuala Lumpur I bought a mini laptop, so I will be able to write whenever I’m traveling from one place to another. So there I go!

Australia!

After meeting my mother’s sister and her family in the broken city Christchurch, I took a plane to Melbourne, to meet my cousin Gerrick and his wife Emma. They just got married, a beautiful wedding I attended a month before. I had to wait for a few hours because they were visiting Emma’s parents in the countryside. But I was lucky because Melbourne's yearly International Comedy Festival was going on. So when I arrived on Federation Square I bought my 7-Eleven’s travelers cappuccino (1 dollar, not super good, but drinkable) and sat down to watch a few shows that were pretty good!

The first week in Australia I spend with Gerrick and Emma. Very relaxed days  that started with a perfect coffee in the morning, made by the aeropress! Great invention.

Looking for a location for Gerrick’s new café, dinners with friends like the teppanyaki dinner with our own teppanyaki chef!

A meeting with Celeste and Natra, a couple that I met years ago in Barcelona.

Wandering around the city. Drinking chai tea.

    

    

Walking Dutch.

I had a great time with Gerrick and Emma!!

And then… it was time to go to the Southern Cross station to jump into Floor’s arms! I almost missed her because I was buying my crappy 1 dollar cappuccino but there she was, mijn lieve Blondie! After a few months of traveling it’s very nice to be reunited with friends :)
We spend a few days more with E&G, visited a second hand market on a parking lot in the middle of nowhere, went to a hilarious comedy show from Sammy J and Randy, ate sushi and visited a strange Maori festival in some far away neighborhood.

I got a new haircut from Naomi, a friend of Emma and Gerrick. I love it!

And then our roadtrip started with our beloved Slurpie! A Wicked van painted in pink and purple colors that used more petrol than we would have like to but at least she didn’t have a text on her like: ‘I’m not a gynecologist but I’ll have a look’. The text we drove around with was: ‘Politicians and nappies have one thing in common: they’re both full of shit’. Acceptable…

Slurpie would bring us safely from Melbourne to Melbourne by the Great Ocean Road and National park the Grampians. The GOR is really beautiful! Although i was a bit spoiled after the incredibly beautiful and dramatic west coast of New Zealand. I expected the GOR to be even better. It wasn’t, but we did really enjoy it a lot!

Driving along the coast with the windows open and the ridiculous music for the looooong road (a playlist made by the one and only Buurman, thanks so much!) coming from the speakers. We got a list of free campings, so for the first night we drove up a rocky hill with our 2 wheel drive, not sure of her strength yet. We made it after 15 minutes but we arrived at a totally deserted super simple camping site in the middle of nowhere and weren’t sure if this was the best place for our first night in the van.

But ater seeing our first exotic bird, the kookaburra (Floor couldn't be happier), we decided to stay.

After 30 minutes a police car arrived and asked us what we were doing there and what our plans were. After our explanation he said: ‘I guess you girls will be alright’. Not very promising, but we were about the drink our second plastic glass of wine so again we decided to stay. After the second glass we decided it was time to cook but discovered the gas tank to be empty. The doubtful answer of the policeman and not being able to cook was enough for us to decide that the first night would be on a normal camping next to the sea. So that’s what we did. We found a place and after impossible cooking on a kind of bbq that didn’t serve for the food we bought in the supermarket we went to the beach and watched a beautiful sky filled with stars and slept like baby’s. The next morning Floor woke me up with coffee and eggs ‘on bed’.

From here we moved on to Cape Otway where we saw wild koala’s for the first time! So many! Besides from 1 or 2 ‘active’ ones (read: climbing very very relaxed from one branch to another), koalas seem to be the laziest animals on earth. They don’t even wake up to shit.

This one, leaning against the little branch, we found the next day in the same position. I think he never even moved…

We continued on the GOR with beautiful views like the 12 apostles.

 A less known but just as beautiful view.

 We arrived at national park the Grampians where we saw beautiful sunsets and we did beautiful hikes.

AND we saw (and almost hit) kangaroos!

From the Grampians we returned to Melbourne and had to say goodbye to Slurpie. After saving Slurpie from our total chaos, we took the bus to the airport where we found a poster that must have been made for me. 

We arrived in Brisbane, which is not even worth mentioning. We picked up our new wicked van, a little bit cooler than Slurpie, with silver and green on one side and pink on the other side. She would go through her carlife as Floozy Loozy.  We weren’t sure where to go, but we got the tip to go the sunshine coast so that’s what we did and they could have better named it the deception coast (that actually excist) because for us it was a big disappointment. Very touristy and not really special beaches… So what to do?

Luckily we send a few CS requests in Brisbane and we got a response from Christelle to go to Mullumbimby, close to Byron Bay. So we decided to drive 5 hours south again. And that was the best decision ever because we had a GREAT time at the Arts Factory in Byron Bay, a very nice hostel where they organize a lot of things like workshops, open mic’s, bands, etc. And we stayed for a few days with Christelle and her son William in their beautiful home.

If I could ever live in a house like this….

After more or less a week it was time to move on again. The next stop would be Frasier Island, considered to be the biggest sand island in the world. You can only go there in a four wheel drive and that’s what we did for 3 days.

We were with a group of 32 people and a guide, Kevin. The song that suited the cruisy beach rides best was a song from Kings of Convenience feat. Royksopp, I don’t know what I can save you from.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ6DtETOUGE

This became our theme song for the rest of the roadtrip (besides from Mr. Boombastic of course and Ace of Base). We saw beautiful places like the champagne pools.

Eli Creek, a stream that takes you meters while lying on your back watching the beautiful surroundings. Lake Wabby, a small, freshwater, green colored lake, that is dissapearing because the sand is slowly moving into the lake.

2 night sleeping in tents on super thin mats, watching the stars on the beach while dingo’s bite your hair, losing a game from a Swiss twin presenting ourselves as the adopted Japanese twin sisters.

In the first conversation with Kevin, the guide, we found out that we’re both fans of Mary Poppins. He appeared to be from Maryborough, the birthplace of Pamela Lyndon Travers, creator of Mary Poppins. They actually put a statue of Mary Poppins in the center of this town. So after Frasier Island Kevin had to take us there!

 

In MaryBorough we had the biggest part of our trip ahead of us. 1800 km with nothing we could stop for due to lack of time. 3 days of driving non-stop, sleeping in free campsites on the side of the road. Because of the floods the road between Frasier Island and Cairns, called the Bruce Highway, was dramatically damaged and there were a lot of roadworks. We were lucky that we could even drive this road!

A good initiative from the Queensland government is the Driver Reviver houses where oldies voluntarily hand out free (but disgusting) coffee, milk, lemonade and cookies! They even created a card game that will help you stay awake in case the dramatic signs on the side of the road (shown about every km!) aren't enough.

3 days and our first meeting with the ugly Cassowary later we arrived in Cairns what isn’t really worth visiting besides from the Lagoon, a free salty water swimming pool in the centre of the city. This is when we realized that the regional Australian governments really does a lot to make traveling and living easy and nice. They have so many free facilities in cities and on the road.

From Cairns we would go for 2 days and 1 night on a boat to discover the Great Barrier Reef snorkeling.

And WOW that was amazing! We were the happiest persons on earth when we saw a turtle on the first snorkel session, not really big but beautiful! Swimming around, going to the surface to enjoy the sun, Floor could even touch her shield because she swam so close underneath her.

And I was even happier when I found another turtle the next day.

She was very big with moss growing on her back. She was relaxing, nibbling on the reef for a few minutes and then started to swim. We followed her for 45 minutes  untill she returned to the place where we found her. We had the feeling she was showing us the reef (thinking this is probably human arrogance; the sounds of joy I made under water were not very human though). The reef is beautifully colored and so are the hundreds of fish swimming around you.

After the reef we had a few days left to explore Cape Tribulation, north of Cairns. Cape Trib seemed like a strangely deserted part of the East coast of Australia. It had a vibe like it was supposed to be very lifely, but it was more or less empty with sometimes big tourist busses full of teenagers passing thru. Not knowing where to go we felt a bit lost and spend the first night in a camping that was a bit strange. The next day we moved to another camping with a family vibe, nice people, campfires at night and super good pizzas made by Italians who arrived a few days before. Lucky us!

In Cape Trib we saw Estuarine crocodiles, one of the biggest and most dangerous species in the world. And that was pretty impressive. 

You can't go near the water anywhere in the north-east of Australia, because of the crocodiles, but luckily there are two natural swimming holes. It's just that after seeing a 5 meter long crocodile, you swim a little less at ease.

Besides from the crocodile we saw more Cassowary's, even with baby’s.

You are supposed to drive slowly because they can cross the road very sudden, like we experienced with the kangaroos. The sign used to warn you is this one.

The last morning together we drank coffee from our favorite orange seventies pan that we found in an op-shop. We threw everything out of Floozy Doozy to create order in our chaos.

And then I brought Floor to the airport in Cairns. It was hard to say goodbye after 4 GREAT weeks together...

I had 2 days left in Australia to prepare myself for Asia. I was happy to meet Paulina again, a girl that we met on Frasier Island.

It was time for part 4 of my trip. Waking up early early in the morning and going west, to Bangkok!