Bangkok

Laura and I went to Bangkok for the weekend. There's not much you can do in a weekend, but it's enough to get a feel for parts of a place.


Compared to KL, I was fairly impressed with Bangkok's public transport: there are cabs that use the meter (no bartering with outrageous cabbies = no upping of blood-pressure everytime you approach a cab!); their skytrain (light rail above ground) doesn't squeal and groan as it moves along; the skytrain, subway, and water taxis are all connected and stretch out through a fair part of the city. The only complaint is that there are a few of tuk-tuk drivers that try to rip you off or scam you in one way or another.
When people say that there's a lot of shopping to do in Bangkok, they're not kidding!! There are giant shopping malls, giant markets, little markets, little street shops, tiny street stalls and vendors that set up shop on a cardboard box at the side of the road, together selling pretty well everything.
We went to Chatuchak Weekend Market, a place that is said to have over 15 000 stalls and see over 200 000 people in a day. We spend over half a day there and saw a ton of stuff, while only a little of the market.
We went to an IT mall: 5 large floors of computers, cameras and accessories! And of course, every piece of software/music/video imaginable.
We spent our evenings wandering the streets and sitting at the open cafes, eating, having drinks, watching people go by.

Pos Atap

Deep in the heart of pennisular Malaysia, there still exist a few small kampungs (villages) of orang asli (lit: original peoples). It is to one of these kampungs (pos atap) that TMC asked me to go on the weekend of 29/30 Mar. Two guys, Goh and Ong, had purchased and were carrying in some supplies (rice, salt, sugar, coffee) to one of these villages and had appealed to others for assistance. TMC was one of those others (they had found him and his love of trekking through his blog). So at an ungodly hour on Saturday morning, TMC, Amos, Ikwan, and I left home to meet up with Goh and Ong in Ipoh. We then drove to a village accessible by road where we met our guide. Then proceeded the 7 hour trek through dense jungle the likes of which I have never seen (No one had been in or out using that route in years). It was easily the most gruelling 7 hours of jungle trekking that I have ever done. It was difficult enough that, until we arrived at the village, I never once took out my camera to take a picture. There was no recognizable trail, and if our guide had chosen to disappear on us, and had we not had Amos' GPS, it is quite reasonable to suggest that we would never have found a way out. Each step was either up or down from the previous; each step involved swinging your parang (heavy machete) to clear a path, or swinging your body left to avoid a big thorn bush or right to avoid cracking your skull on a low hanging piece of bamboo, or hopping over or crawling under a fallen tree. We crossed numerous streams and rivers, got rained on three times, had countless leeches chewing away at our ankles and legs, mosquitos taking care of our necks and arms, and every time we asked our guide how much further, the answer was always the same: 1 hour. It was the combination of jungle density and the undulating terrain that exhausted the body very quickly. I cannot in words describe the feeling of seeing the village after 7 hours of this effort.


The village was a really neat. There were only 5 huts and only older people remained; the young people had all moved to villages closer to the highways, or into the cities. They were expecting us (as Goh had had some interaction with them a few weeks prior) and had set us up with our very own hut for the evening! This was really fantastic.
We hung out there for the rest of the day, too exhausted to do much but lay around and chat. The next day, when Goh suggested taking a different route out of the jungle -a 3 hour trail that was nicknamed 'the highway'- he was met with unanimous and hearty agreement. It was easy to see why the trail was referred to as 'the highway'. It was a clear, defined trail -check out the pics in the album!!
Our different route took us out of the jungle, a few hours away from where we had parked our cars, and into a tea plantation in the Cameron Highlands! As we left the jungle, we came upon a village and the children ran out to meet us. So, out came the cameras and we had some fun posing and shooting pics.
Walking out of the tea plantation, we got on a bus going to Ipoh and asked to be dropped off on the side of the highway near to where we had parked our cars.
This was definitely a unique and fantastic experience and I am glad for all of it: I am happy to have gone into the village on the super-tough "trail"; I am equally happy to have gone out the easy way; it was really nice meeting the orang asli and staying in their homes; it was fantastic to pass through the tea plantations and to play with those children for a few minutes.

To read TMC's detailed account of the trip, or to see a gross picture of about a dozen leeches on his ankle, check out his blog

Vietnam

We had Thurs 20 Mar and Fri 21 Mar off so Laura and decided to spend the long weekend in Hanoi. Many of you who know Rob DeAbreu may also know that he's working in Hanoi. Unfortunately, he was going on a school trip Fri-Mon so we only got to hang out with him on Thurs eve. We arrived in Hanoi Thurs morn, met up with his maid who let us into his place and gave us a key, and then spent the day walking around town. After work, we met Rob who took us out to a nice Vietnamese restaurant (great catfish springrolls!) and out on the town. It was great to see Rob again!


The next day we said seeya to Rob and headed to the East Coast -the famous Halong Bay- to spend a night on a boat in the bay. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't great (apparently, it rarely is anymore), but it was still lots of fun to cruise around the karts; plus, I can't seem to get enough of hanging out on boats!
Saturday evening we headed back to Hanoi. We spent the evening and the next half day hanging out in town, checking out little shops, and hanging in cafes watching people go by. The old quarter in Hanoi is a really interesting and very unique area: women wearing conical hats selling goods out of their baskets or bicycles; streets packed with motorcylces, bicycles, the odd car and bus, and pedestrians; and the ubiquitos face mask of motorcyclists.