Week 5 and 6 Malaysia and Thailand

My last major update was in Kota Bharu. After Kota Bharu I headed off to the Perhentian Islands. The Perhentian islands were nothing like any beach I was on in the Philippines. The perhentian islands is made up of two islands and several beaches on each island. I only visited three beaches as the others were the resort beaches where prices are 10 times more. The beach I stayed at was called long beach. Simply said it was a backpackers beach. The beach was a lot smaller then others I have visited it had no roads (the only access was by water). There were a lot of white foreigners on the beach nearly all of which were in there 20s. Many of the waitresses and scuba diver instructors were also foreign. The beach was very clean and other than taxi drivers (that took people to the main land and other beaches) there was nobody asking you to buy something. The prices were about double the regular mainland prices (Beer in Malaysia costs alot). I stayed at a place that had a 24 bed dorm (which as practically empty for most of my stay).  I spent most of the time relaxing and reading.  On my third day I went Snorkeling.  It was a day long trip and we went to about 5 sites.  The neatest thing was the giant sea turtles (with up to 1m diameter shells).  Well you're swimming along looking at them they'd occasionally come up to breath and surface right next to you.  I think I enjoyed the fish and coral better in the Philippines but it was still really amazing here.  It seemed like older coral or at least coral that was exposed more then what I saw in the Philippines.

 

I was planning on leaving the next day but I came down with some food poisoning that lasted about a day.  It was ok though lots of people came in that day (about 12 new people into the dorm) and it rained most of the day anyways.  So I just visited most of the time.  I decided to skip the beaches in southern Thailand and head straight to Bangkok from the Perhentian Islands.  Beaches get boring and it seems I've spent most of my time on them.  Unfortunately I didn't find anyone to travel with on the Perhentian Islands (and thus save money on long distance taxi).  I took a Taxi from the Perhentian Islands to the border crossing about 1 and a half hours and it cost about 20 Canadian.  I was a little surprised to come a cross a police check point on the way.  They asked to see my passport and then let us pass.  The border crossing was really easy in fact a little to easy.  If I had wanted I could have easily walked across without getting my passport stamped, I had to look for the booths to stamp my passport.  on the other side I took up an offer to get a bike ride to the train station.  At the train station I hooked up with a couple people from Calgary.  Unfortunately the computers were down so we had to take a train to Hatt Yai in the hopes of finding another train to Bangkok (the train was just about to leave when I arrived so it was perfect timing).  It took about 5 hours to get to Hart Yai, here I changed what was left of my Malaysia Ringets to Thailand Baht and grabbed some lunch/supper.  The next train was about 2 hours later so it was great timing and the food was really good.  From Hart Yai to Bangkok the train was about 16 hours we took a sleeper train so we could sleep on the way. 

It really is amazing the diversity of places the world has. I guess I didn't really know what to expect but I've been shocked just how different each place is. It really is an eye opener. Bangkok is amazing. I've spent the last day catching up on sleep and checking into travel plans but throughout it all I've got a pretty good first impression of the khao san road area. I can't really describe it... but in simplest terms its a stable chaos. Theres a lot more police in Bangkok. I've even seen one give a ticket for an illegal left turn. In the Khao San Road area their main purpose is to protect the tourists. People really do a great job of milking money out of tourists, especially on Khao San Road. Chang Beer is 6.5% and comes in can or 640mL glass bottles. After a day in the Thailand heat and walking around that one bottle will make anyone pretty tipsy. The price ranges from 40 baht to 80 baht that is around 1 to 2 dollars Canadian at most restaurants. Water is 5 baht for a 1L container. Prices fluctuate everywhere its not a shock to walk just a few steps and find something half the price. My lunch today was fried noodle and beef from a restaurant on Khao Sand Road, it wasn't that great but I paid 65 baht for it. My Supper was beef and yellow noodle on a street stall a little ways from Khao Sand Road it was 20 baht and much much better then my lunch.

I think the strangest thing about my travels is the fundamentals of life in other countries. Overall in Asia there is little to no enforcement of the law, and so for some enforcement breaking has severe penalties. Still many laws are not in place. I have not seen a real DVD since I was in Canada. In the philippines you where asked if you wanted to buy DVD's. Elsewhere (Malaysia and Thailand) people openly sell and show pirated DVDs on the street. I've watched several at guest houses and restaurants. The DVDs come out within a day of the release of the movie. The quality is ok, however they also include English subtitles which are usually very bad, written by someone who seems to have very poor English. It seems the poorer the country the less the law matters. I never experienced the Philippines like I've experienced the rest of Asia but its definitely the poorest area I've travelled. In the Philippines I saw several signs that seemed to advertise that beer is good for driving (keeps you cool). Just now on Khao San Road I saw several things that surprised me (all within the watchful eye of the tourist police). One sign at a liquor cart said they didn't ID people and just next to that you could get fake ID (student and press ID). You would think that this lack of laws and enforcement would make it extremely dangerous to travel. I'm sure this is the case in some parts of the world but from what I can tell Asia is a very safe place. Of course I still consider things around me and protect my stuff as I know that if some wrong doing happens to me there is little I can do about it. Manila looked the most dangerous of all the places I've been and this for the most part could be attributed to the incredible poverty, overpopulation and lack of other white people (making me stand out). In Malaysia and Thailand white people don't stand out as much, and in many places there are tons of them. People are friendly, and often honest (I don't trust anyone that approaches me on the street to sell me something). Things are left very much in the open and look like they would be very easy to steal.

 

4 more days in Bangkok then I'm off to Ayutthaya.