Sightseeing in Bangkok
I had an easy bus trip to Bangkok a nice change from the previous trips. I knew where my hostel was when I arrived, but wasn’t exactly sure where I was arriving too or how to get there. I knew that if I could get to a skytrain (subway) stop it would be no problem. I asked the information desk at the bus station and found out what local bus to get on. I had my eyes peeled and my map out, but wasn’t seeing the skytrain anywhere. Regardless we were pretty much going in the direction I wanted so I stuck with it and eventually it appeared. I had to walk on an elevated walkway for a couple hundred yards all the way around a huge roundabout, but got to the station and was at my hostel in no time.
The hostel is really cool (Suk11.com). They have done a great job of decorating and lighting to give it a homey feel. The corridor to the rooms has an almost Disney like feel with wood planks with that move as you walk on them and have little steps up and down along the way. They might be a bit dangerous after coming home from a night at the bar though. In a completely sober incident I kicked the doorframe two days ago and my left pinky toe is very swollen and bruised. I’m guessing its broke, but it isn’t bothering me while walking and I don’t think a doctor would be able to do anything about it.
My first full day here I went to two major tourist sites, the Jim Thompson House, and the Grand Palace. Jim Thompson was an American who revived the Thai silk industry after coming here after WWII while working for the CIA. He fell in love with the Thailand and the people and collected many artifacts which were on display in addition to the beautiful teak home that he had built. The tour (and the ones I’ve taken since then) vary from what I’m used to in that they don’t really tell you about the building, how it represents the local ways, or what period its from. You do find out exactly what type of wood is in each room, what country all of the display cases were made from, and what dignitary each piece was given too. I tend to spend most of my time looking around and loose interest in the commentary fairly quickly. Most of the tours have also banned photographs inside the building so you will be spared those.
After that I hopped on a local bus ($0.25US) and got halfway to where I wanted to go, but ended up in Chinatown so I cruised down the stalls for a little while, but wanted to get to Grand Palace. I continued there and was appropriately dressed (long pants, no bear shoulders) so I didn’t have to borrow any clothing items to go in. These were the most impressive buildings I’ve seen here. They were so bright in the afternoon sun I was squinting with my sunglasses on. Everything is covered in gold leaf, small pieces of glass, or broken porcelain pieces. And it is everywhere you can see. There is no way you can get it all in one picture unless you are way up in the air.
The highlight there is seeing the Emerald Buddha who is only about 4 feet tall and is perched about 30 feet up on a shrine with so many gold statues, vases, and jewels in front of him it is completely overwhelming. The emerald buddha was “discovered” in the 1300s when a piece of plaster fell of a buddha statue and it was found to be bright green beneath. The monks continued removing the plaster and found the entire image was like this. It turns out he is made from jade and not emerald, but the name has stuck.
Yesterday I hit another big tourist spot, Dusit park, and toured the largest golden teak building in the world which housed the royal family for about 100 years. It has two 66 yard long sections, two stories tall, and is built without using a single nail, just wooden pegs. Again I was told exactly who gave every piece to the royal family, but don’t remember any of it. The highlight of the day was taking the ferry down to a skytrain stop and getting to see the city from the river. You can’t see far into the city, but get to see a good blend of skyscrapers, traditional waterfront building, and the tops of temples nearby. The river is just as busy with boats as the roads are, but without the stoplights and traffic jams.
There are 10 million people living in Bangkok out of 60 million in Thailand so you can imagine how busy it is. If they didn’t have so motorbikes I don’t know how they would survive. The motorbikes weave in between cars, ignore lines on the road separating traffic, and choose which stoplights to pay attention to. However they move through the city much quicker and if it were just cars, they would be backed up so far you would never move. For all of the madness when driving I’ve only seen one accident (in Malaysia) and one very close call. There are taxis and tuk-tuks (motorbikes, with a carriage behind them making a tricycle) offering there services every ten feet you walk. So far I haven’t needed either and am tired of them asking. Same for body massages and naked girl fliers. It reminds me of Las Vegas 20 years ago, but I don’t think it is something they are trying to get rid of anytime soon.
I was supposed to go the airport last night and meet Michelle for her two week stay, but her flight was late leaving Dallas and she just missed her connection in Tokyo. She stayed there last night and is currently in the air to arrive here this afternoon. I’m glad its a two week trip she is on instead of just one with the lost day. I was doing my last email check before going to the airport when I found out she didn’t make the connection. It would have been a long wait if I didn’t get that email. We’ll stay here until Monday and then head for an island near Cambodia, Ko Chang, for a week of relaxing on the beach. We are both looking forward to that very much and I’m sure she will be ready to finish her travels for a little bit. Thanks for checking in and I’ll get back to you from the island.
Brian
Small City Life
Phetcburi is a nice small city. You can walk nearly anywhere you need to go although it has gotten quite warm and humid that last couple of days. Just gave what I needed for an excuse to siesta. After my overnight journey and bus back down to here and walk around town was just what I needed. My guesthouse gave me a nice map which included a suggested walking tour past many of their temples and actually told you what they were in English! Quite a treat trust me. The temples range from 1,000 to 500 years old and are in various conditions. I thought the old Hindu temple was the coolest built from rock. All of the other temples are Buddhist and that one has been converted to that now. There are so many in town that they just blend in with all of the other buildings. Sometimes you are halfway past one before you realize it.
I needed and got a good night sleep despite having a window without glass right on a busy road in my room. Thats what you get for $4. I went to the hilltop temple the next day which was built to resemble the great temple in Bangkok. The buildings were nice, but the setting is what really made it. You could see for miles in every direction with trees and flowers growing everywhere around you. Monkeys were on all the paths and trees waiting for you to drop something or sometimes being more bold and going for your water bottle.
I took another siesta and tried to convince myself to go north of town to the Buddha temple built inside of a cave, but just couldn’t that day. I did meet a german couple who had just got there earlier that day and we agreed to go the this morning. At 9 Alex was there, but not Anica, turns out she had been throwing up most of the night. The two of us went up and I’m glad we did. A very big cavern with Buddhas all over and a large hole in the ceiling letting the sun come through. Such a peaceful place. There were several caverns like this with the light coming in and statues everywhere. Not to be missed if you come here.
Right now I’m trying to fight off a cold/sore throat that has been coming on and is getting annoying. Its taken a little bit of energy from me, but the coughing is the worst part. I’ve heard a couple of similar coughs at the guesthouse and am sure that it is just from being in such tight quarters with so many different travelers in the last two weeks. I’m going to be going back to Bangkok this afternoon and meet Michelle there Saturday night. I’m anxious to see some of the sights the big city has to offer, but dealing with all the hawkers and so on there isn’t high on my list. This will probably be the only significant time I spend there unless it surprises me. Thats all for now, here’s hoping for any easy day of travel, you never can tell here.
Cheers!
Traveling in Thailand
I left Krabi a couple days ago planning on heading north about halfway to Bangkok. The was a bus advertised at my hostel to the large town halfway to where I wanted to go so after my kayak trip I was picked up and taken to the bus station. There were people going to all different cities and we were given colored stickers depending on where we were going. About 30 minutes after I was supposed to leave the tell me to get in a van (which I was not expecting), but ok. We drove up to some small shop in Sarat Tani where I payed for and where I wanted to get another bus from.
Let me explain these shops. They are a independent company that setup your travel and arrange the buses. They have basically no responsibility especially to the traveler and no plan on making things better for you. I arrived and found out there is no bus to where I wanted to go, but I could take a ferry to and island, spend the night, and ferry to where I wanted to go. Total cost maybe 1,400 Baht. Five other people on my van had paid and were supposed to get on a ferry to a different island. They were told there wouldn’t be another ferry that night, but I know where you can stay tonight. I checked out the map and decided to get on the express bus to Bangkok leaving in 30 minutes for 400 Baht.
I got on the bus and found an empty seat until someone came up and said he was sitting there and had left his water bottle there. It was a double decker bus and I found a couple empty seats at the top in the very back. I went to sit down and the guys around there said the AC was leaking onto them, but one seat wasn’t too bad. We piled up some blankets on the other seat and off we went. Once we got going the seat next to me was like being in the “splash zone” at Sea World. Luckily with the blankets properly arranged I was ok. It was an overnight bus 10pm to 5am and I slept basically the whole way.
We got into Bangkok and I followed a few people to a hostel to check my bag in and figure out what to do. Since it was so early no travel places or internet cafes were open. We sat around for a while, nodding off. I decided to head back south a couple of hours if I could make sure I had somewhere to stay. About 7 I found an internet place and got the phone number I needed, called them and got a room. While on the Internet I also saw something saying to take the blue bus to this town (Phetchuburi) not the blue and orange ones which make lots of stops. I took the local bus to the station and immediately had 5 people trying to “help” me get where I was going. They kept taking me to different blue and orange buses until I finally found the actual official ticket area and bought the ticket I wanted and arrived two hours later.
Its amazing how difficult they make travel here and how much everyone involved with it wants to take every last dime from you they can. I have not had any troubles outside of actually getting place to place. At least now I’m a bit more aware of it and know to start my travels early in the day, try to find the official bus station, or try to take the train. The state run buses and train seem to be the most reliable and have set prices, what a concept. Well I shouldn’t be taking quite as long of trips for a while so we’ll see how I do trying to go between smaller towns.
Exciting Times in Krabi
I enjoyed myself in Krabi which is good considering how difficult it was to get there. After the buses, train, and taxi to get there I wandered down to the pier area for some good cheap food from the stalls there. I met a German fellow, Immo, and had a few beers and chatted with him. It didn’t take long for the beers to kick in and I got tired early, but we decided to meet there the next day and take a water taxi over to a beach near there.
The water taxi was piled full of people and luggage as some where staying at the beach, but it was big enough and wasn’t going to sink. The ride over really opened my eyes as there were cliffs coming right up to the ocean most of the trip. They were covered in trees just like everything here and had straight drops down to the ocean. I knew this area was known for these formations, but didn’t know they would be so prevalent or impressive.
We arrived at the beach and I spent the first hour just looking around and all of the palm trees and cliffs. The beach was quite touristy, but at least that meant you buy beer and corn on the cob right there from the vendors going by. We wandered around a little bit and walked around one cliff to go to another beach. It was just what I needed to relax after my travels and the water temperature is great. Warmer than some of the showers I’ve had in the hostels!
The following day we got a bit more adventurous and rented motor bikes so we could go off exploring on our own. We just had a tourist map which showed the big roads in the area, but also pointed out many of the highlights. I hadn’t every driven a motorbike before, but picked it up right away and was able to follow Immo to make sure I stayed on the correct side of the road. We set off for a couple of caves marked on the map and drove right to the first one. I had brought my headlamp and we walked a little ways in having to crawl in a couple of places. There were some big rooms, but it seemed to end quickly as it was only from a large outcropping and didn’t really go down into the earth at all.
We got back on the bikes and drove up the hill until we came to a tent city with cars parked everywhere. It was Chinese New Year and we had stumbled onto one of their celebrations. We got off and walked towards the temple where everyone was waiting to see a monk and get blessed and leave a donation for good luck. There weren’t any other tourists there and we got a few strange looks as we looked around. Across the road we tried a few of the meats being served, how can meat on a stick be wrong? And a really sweet drink that looked like coke, but was basically pure syrup. That was enough of that so we got headed up to another cave from.
We passed the elephant trek to a waterfall on the way and were tempted, but kept on. As we pulled up two little boys came running up with lamps wanting us to rent them or have them guide us. We kept telling them we were ok, and 8 more people showed up so we hurried up the trail real quick. This cave was literally a hole in the side of the hill and as soon as I took one step in could here bats chirping and starting to fly. None came towards us, they just flew further back into the cave. The formations on the wall and in the middle of the room were stunning here. We wished we had more than one light so we could look around more instead of trying to see where we were going so much. We continued in quite aways and came to a large pond that we stopped at. Finally we stepped in and made our way across to the other side, but there was just more water the rest of the way so we decided to turn back.
It is so warm here that the water was not cold at all and we dried off by the time we got back to our bikes, that is when it started to rain. It got going pretty good so we pulled over and hung out under the overhang of a shack. It didn’t last too long so we decided to try to get one more cave in. This one was about an hour drive away and we kept checking to see if we were on track. We finally decided we weren’t when we saw three tourists walking in the middle of nowhere. We pulled over to ask them and it turns out they were there with the peace corp, one american and two germans. We chatted for a bit and they told us where to go, but the really dark clouds were rolling in then. Just as we got back to the main road it started to come down so we pulled over for dinner and to watch the rain.
It was an absolute monsoon for 45 minutes. You could barely see the other side of the street for a while and the roads were just filling with water. We were stilling trying to get back before dark so once it slowed down to a steady rain we took off. Pretty soon we couldn’t get any wetter and thankfully I had a couple of ziplock bags in my pack for my camera and notepad. Eventually, it got too bad to drive in again so we pulled over and waited it out in someones garage for another 40 minutes. By this time it was dark, we were soaked, and didn’t know when it would let up. It finally did and we cruised back into town. We were clean from our caving adventure, but really wanted to dry off. Thank goodness it so warm here. One hour later the temperature wasn’t any different than if it hadn’t rained at all.
I set up a sea kayak trip for the next morning and was going to catch a bus up north at 4 after that. I was the first to get picked up which made for a long trip to get there, but it was so worth it. Our guide didn’t have a whole lot to offer, but he didn’t need to the canyons, trees, and wildlife were enough. I had my own kayak which was great since I could get pictures and go at my own pace. Some of the canyons we went through were about 10 feet wide and over 100 feet up above us.
It was a convergence zone between sea and fresh water which where the mangrove trees grow. They are in the water and their roots are exposed, up to about 6 feet at low tide. We saw a couple foot long lizard and then got to the monkeys the guide kept saying we would see. I think he learned English from reggae albums because every other thing he said was “Jah mon”, “No problem mon”. The monkeys would jump right into the water to get to the other side or to go after the apple pieces we were throwing to them. That was just until we got close enough when they would jump right onto the kayak and check it out and take the food right from you hand. It was all happening so quick I didn’t know which one to look at. They hung out with us for a while and we finally moved on stopping in a little lagoon with cliffs surrounding us. The last part through the mangrove trees I wouldn’t have wanted to do without the guide as there was not much more than a kayak length to navigate at times and you had to pick your path carefully. It was a great way to end my stay there and I hope the rest of the days offer so many cool experiences.
A Really Long Night
I made it into Thailand, but it was an adventure getting here. The plan was simple enough. Take a bus to Ipoh, get on the train to Hat Yai – Thailand and bus to Krabi. Here is what actually took place.
Feburary 15 – 5:45pm Left hostel for bus station
6-8pm On bus to Ipoh train Station
8-10pm Wait for train ticket office to open while 12 train workers sit around doing nothing
10pm No tickets are available for the train, couldn’t they have told me that two hours ago??? I was now stranded with no plan, and no idea of what to do. I was the only traveler around.
10:10pm Meet a Malay man in front of the train station who says I can get a bus north from a town 10 miles away. He says a taxi will cost 10Ringat, but since I’m a foreigner they will charge extra. He gives me a ride to the Ipoh bus station.
10:20pm Ipoh bus is full. The worker there will have his buddy give me a ride for only 20R, says a taxi would charge 25.
10:21pm Find a taxi for 12R.
10:35-10:45pm Arrive at the bus station in Medan Gopeng and look for any other caucasian faces. I would have latched on and gone with them wherever, but I was the only one again.
10:45-10:55pm Stare at the map Malaysia figuring out where to go.
11pm Buy a ticket to Alor Stara leaving at 1:45am
11-1am Get about 50 minutes of sleep in 10 minute intervals leaning on my backpack.
1-1:45am Sit on the bus with my pack on my lap. For some reason they didn’t want to open the storage area underneath.
1:45-4:45am Bus to Alor Stara, slept maybe 2 hours.
4:45-5am Tell taxi drivers I don’t want a taxi to the border while trying to figure out what I am going to do. I was not seeing any buses to Thailand and really starting to wonder.
5am Met a Filipino who spoke English and was going into Thailand also.
5-6:15am Got to a coffee shop with JoJo. He says that at 6 he is going to take a taxi to the train station and try to buy a ticket. This is the same train I tried for earlier and got back ahead of.
6:15am Take a taxi to the train station.
6:30am Arrive at an empty train station and see that the train leaves at 8:30am.
7:30am JoJo meets Lim, a Malay, traveling to Hat Yai and gets him to help me out after he gets off at the border.
7:45am Buy a ticket to Hat Yai!!!
8:40am Get on the train and pull out, plenty of room on the train.
8:45-11am Sleep to Thailand
11-11:02am Go through customs
11:02-10:02am Go back one hour for Thai time
10:15-11:45am Get back on the train and arrive in Hat Yai
11:45-12:30pm ATM, buy bus tickets, and buy Lim lunch
12:30-12:50pm A minibus (10 person van) picks me up and drives around the city picking up people and packages.
12:50pm Told to get off the van and wait there
1-1:30pm Get on another minibus and drive around picking up people and packages again
1:30-1:40pm Get gas
1:40-4:30pm Drive to Krabi
4:30-4:45pm Walk to hostel
4:45pm 24 hours after I started head for a much need shower and toothbrushing
Everything worked out ok, but I had absolutely no idea what to do or where to go for a couple of hours. It would have been much easier (and not much more) to go back to KL, fly into Thailand, and bus here once I paid for all the modes of transport that I used. Don’t think I will have as much trouble now that I am staying in the same country for a while. I certainly was an adventure and I’m glad that I was able to get it done without having any idea how to do it. A night I won’t forget.
Malaysia, A Beautiful Country
Greetings, I’m in northern Malaysia after a few days of travel stopping in Melaka, Kuala Lampur (KL) the capital, and am now in Thana Rata. I’ve been using their long haul buses to travel (primarily, more on that later) and they make it easy. A full size bus with just 36 seats leaves plenty of leg room, air conditioning, and big windows. I went to Melaka with two girls I had met in Singapore and met another American on the bus as well. The four of us hung out together there and saw the sites. It has been a major shipping port for 1,000 years and was settled by the Dutch and Portuguese in the 1500′s which influenced a lot of their buildings. We walked through the Chinatown night Market on Sunday which was packed until they shut down at 11. All sorts of basic souvenirs that were at every other stand, but lots of fruit and food stands, and local products also. I was shocked to learn later that there are 650,000 people living there it did not seem that big at all.
The food here is quite good and you can find anything you want; Malay, Chinese, Indian, Western. I’ve had lots of curry dishes, seafood, noodles, rice, vegetables (if you can believe that), eggs in the morning, and even a decent club sandwich. So far my stomach is handling all of it ok which is good because there is plenty more of it to try. Chinese New Year is coming up this weekend and every town is hanging up decorations and getting ready for it. This is the first town I’ve been in where all the guide books don’t tell you to go to Chinatown first thing. It seems like that all over the world though.
Moving on to KL it started drizzling 5 minutes before the bus arrived and advanced to pouring down as we got our bags and starting walking. The four of us were still together and found a hostel quickly and dried off. We split up for a while to wander and eat and met back up at a bar later that evening. I have been around so many British people I’ve already adopted all of their slang and think I may pick up their accent if I keep this up.
The next morning I said goodbye to the two girls from Devon and went to the Patronas Towers with Jon, the american. The towers were formally the tallest buildings in the world and are now #2. You may recognize the pictures as they were in a James Bond movie (I think Tomorrow Never Dies). Jon has been working 6 months and traveling 6 months for the about 6 years and has developed his own ways of doing things. There is a free tour to the skybridge between the towers on the 41st floor, out of 88. He decided he wanted to go to the top and sent them an email then stating this. When we showed up he asked to see the person he emailed in their media relations department. Anytime anyone said no to him he would find someone else and after about 45 minutes someone came down with our press kits. Jon kept talking and if we hadn’t been wearing shorts and sandals would have had a VIP tour to the 83rd floor! Stupid us! They ended up giving me a ticket for the skybridge between the two towers and Jon left for the airport to fly to Cambodia.
I had to hustle after going up to the bridge to get back to the hostel, get my bag, and to the bus station. I was heading to Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands were most of their tea production is as well as some mountainous area for views and walks. I made it there right at 3:30 and tried to get on that bus, but was told that it wasn’t going so they booked me on the 4:30 bus which was the last one of the day because the road is too narrow and windy for the buses to use at night. At 4:30 someone came by and said that bus wasn’t going either and that we could get a refund and come back at 9am the next day.
At this point I met another two English girls traveling together who were talking to a Malaya family who said there was a bus 2/3 of the way here and then a taxi would be about 50 Ringats ($24) the rest of the way. We decided to do that and had to wait until 6 for that bus. It pulled up, but never opened its doors like they always do and finally we were shuffled to a different bus where we got on and pulled out at 6:30. I’d heard that this sort of things happens and a lot of the time it is simply because the don’t have enough people so they just cancel the trip.
We had no troubles on that bus and arrived and found out a taxi would be 80R, but just wanted to get there by now, the two girls had been waiting since 1pm for a bus. It took 1.5 hours in the taxi since it was an uphill and windy 50 miles. But it is still incredible that the ride was $24 total, for all three of us! Basically it cost me $12 to get here instead the $7 it was supposed. Absolutely incredible; travel, food, and lodging are super cheap. Beer isn’t cheep, but not bad either. I’ve been living very comfortably on $30/day and doing everything I’ve wanted to.
We finally arrived to our hostel at 10pm and set up for a full day tour the next day which included a tour of a tea plantation, two jungle walks, and visiting a native village. We left at 9 the next morning to a crystal clear day. We drove to the top of a mountain passing the tea plantation and learning all about how the tea is grown, harvested, and made into tea. The temperature is so mild and consistent that they harvest the leaves every three weeks in the dry season and two weeks during the wet. They get paid 0.20R for every kilogram which takes about 5 minutes to do.
Then we went for a walk through the forest there where our guide was absolutely brilliant. He knew all the plants, animals, and history that we asked him. He was only about 25, and there is no way he was just making it up. He made the entire day so worth it with his knowledge. The ground on the walk was just like a sponge even though it has hardly rained in a month. Every step you took the ground would depress in about a one foot circle and then pop right back up when you moved. The guide showed us one area where he jumped up and all the trees around him starting shaking. There is such a variety of trees, plants, flowers, everything just thrives here. The sun and night humidity let all sorts of flora grow and everything looks so healthy and exotic. Some of it I recognized and some things were so much bigger I never would guess what they were, while others were just completely new.
There were 8 of us on the tour at this point and we went for a nice leisurely lunch after which three of them left since they were just doing the first half of the trip. We switched to Land Cruiser and went to the southern portion of the trip for another walk and to the village. The guide put on an Indian rap song while we were bouncing down the highway (at our request) which I got a video of that is hilarious. As we got into the jungle our guide let the five of us out and told us to follow the road and take a look at everything around us while he drove aways down and would walk back and meet us.
Fairly quickly we started seeing some spiders about 2-3 inches across which were freaking the four girls out. As we continued down the spiders kept getting bigger and bigger, until we caught up to our guide and they were the size of my hand fully spread out. He took one off the web and just kept passing it hand over hand as it walked along, they weren’t poisonous so I asked if I could hold it. He let me and eventually three of the girls did also. He said that was the first time he had any ladies hold it.
We drove down to village and all of their building are built from bamboo. The walls are six pieces rolled out into 16 inch strips, bamboo supports holding them off the ground, and small bamboo strips as the floor. We all got to try out one of their blow guns and tried to kill the sandal nailed to the wall of a hut. We didn’t use the cyanide tips like they do just to give the sandal a chance. To my embarrassment I was the worst at it, but still only took two tries to hit the target. Next we went into the chiefs hut where we sat on the floor and had fresh mango pieces and hot hibiscus tea. The chief sat with us while the guide told us about them and the different tools that they use. He has lived with them for a couple of weeks and gone on hunting trips so again had an incredible amount of knowledge. We went back to the hostel nearly 12 hours after we left with smiles we couldn’t wipe off our faces and full of new experiences and information.
I’m getting my laundry done now and will be catching an evening bus then the night train into Thailand. I’m anxious to see what the train is like, but would rather do it during the day so I can see the landscape as we go, but it only goes once a day. Once I’m in Thailand I’ll get a chance for a few beach days, but I’ll still be moving to get to Bangkok and meet Michelle in a little over a week. At least I won’t have to think so much when I go to the ATM machine wondering how much money I’ll need in this currency before I leave.
Cheers,
Brian
Having Fun Already
Hello again my body seems to have adjusted, despite my nap and going to be after 3am everyday since. Guess that is a good sign that I am having fun though. Hostels are absolutely wonderful places because you get to meet the most interesting people who share many of the same interests as you. Hence why they are traveling also. A few of us bought a case of beer last night and hung out on the roof chatting for quite a while last night. Same as in Australia most of them are English, but I’m not holding that against them.
I’ve decided that while Singapore is an incredibly clean and well run city it is a city much like all the others I’ve been to and will be heading out today. I’m taking a bus to Malyasia and will start my journey northward. I haven’t done much research on this part of the trip so I will be winging it and open to whatever catches my eye at the time. That should give me a few interesting stories and pictures to share when I find the time to let you know about them instead of going to find even more. Until then …