Butterworth-Melaka ~500 km 2010/05/25

If we’d speak about hitchhiking in Malaysia it is very easy past stopping cars, which sometimes takes time at least on highway. Drivers are not lazy to drive you even if it is somewhat not along their own route. This way I got on a E1 highway after following 1 national road. I was brought back about 10 km and droped off at rest area. Later while doing small local hitchhikes near or in Ipoh, drivers were eager to drive me around as long as I would need to find the place. Once a motorcyclist after his ride not being able to drive me anymore just paid his friend taxi driver to bring me to a shopping centre, where I was going to look for a new gas stove 🙂 Later that day while going back from Ipoh to it’s outskirts in Bercham I was also being driven around until I saw a familiar street. So summarising, in general, people here once they stop for you, are eager to help you as far as it is possible. Really helpful 🙂

Being in Ipoh for the second day I first exchanged finally some money for Malay Ringgits and later called Augustas, as sms’ing wasn’t helping. We met at the Tesco Extra supermarket, where they were brought by their couch-surfing contact – Chinese girl Junice. It so happened that this day was Augustas’ birthday, so we had a box of ice-cream together. Later Junice brought us 3 to the place Augustas and Katja were renting for at least a month. There I was offered a stay and so I decided to rest from traveling about a week. For going around the place we for the most part used hitchhiking, which was easy here in Bercham. While exploring neighborhood we found a cheap 1 RM internet cafe as well as a cheap vegetarian restaurant 🙂 Life at one place proved to be very laid-back for a change. Although at first I had to fight the mold on most of my spare clothes, which were wet for all the time since my crossing the border last time. Had to get rid of the hardcore moldy stuff, but at least this means a lighter backpack. I was reading a lot of books. Among them – “Follow the road”, written by Katja, “Power of now” – a spiritual book concentrating on living in the “now” and observing your own ego 🙂 and “The giant book of western” – a collection of western stories.

I visited internet cafe each day for an hour, just looking up some information on traveling by sailboats, at which idea I got fired up not without Augustas help and stories 😀 At last I tried contacting an Australian captain planning 6-8 months sailing trip from there to Europe. Now just waiting for reply, but as I was told it is more possible to find a sailboat willing to take you while visiting yacht ports physically. So I’ll try this when I will be in Australia. Vicinity of Bercham seemed to me good for some morning running, which I did and discovered a Zen Buddhism temple and a cave at the end of my run route 🙂

Overall meeting with Augustas and Katja was like some sort of an eye-opener for my hitchhiking life. I hope to try out some stuff they advised me off. Meeting people who’s interests are close to yours is always a great experience, exceptionally while traveling. Last few days of my stay with them, Katja got sick and had to spend them in hospital, but luckily she wasn’t waiting for too long for operation, which was all right. While living with them I had a chance of eating a few healthy dishes and their green stuff they mix to have in the mornings 🙂 On the day that Katja got back from hospital I went to look around the town for a gas stove once more, but now with Junice as a helper. No success though, but I got to taste famous White Coffee of Ipoh on the other hand – has a very sweet sticky aftertaste by the way ;D Walked back from Ipoh that time – 2 and a half hours of nice walk. Saw very toy-looking snake at one time falling from the tree and being instantly run over by the car 😐

Last day of my stay I was packing up my stuff, which was scattered over the room, where I stayed. Felt like a 2’nd or 3’rd leave of home for the same journey 🙂 In the evening Augustas showed “follow the road” (http://www.FollowTheRoad.com) presentation, they were going to show on Couch-surfing meet on Saturday. And then he also have shown a few nice magic tricks 🙂 This was a last and exceptionally warm, cozy evening with these interesting and welcoming people, whom I hope to meet some time, some place again 🙂

7 in the morning I prepared some food of my leftover poridge, cooked eggs and tea for the road. And after a belly overfilling breakfast I had to say goodbye to Augustas and Katja. We parted with a hug and I walked to the highway. First ride was a long awaited one and got me only a little bit out of Ipoh, but from there I got a ride on some petrol carrier, which shouldn’t actually be allowed for their drivers, but well – it all fine with me ;D Didn’t go to Kuala Lumpur, lost the desire, when I saw the net of roads from afar. So I just hitchhiked almost to Melaka, where next day I wandered around. Got some info about the ferry, which costs 110 + 9 (tax) ringgits. Visa on arrival as I was told at the counter was 25$. After walking around the historical part of the town I was too lazy to go to Singapore now, so I decided just to spend the night and go to Indonesia tomorrow. With a 4 hour-package got somehow to use internet for 6 hours, costing me 6 ringgits, even though it is 2.5 ringgit per hour at that internet cafe.

Photo: click

Phangnga-Butterworth ~680 km 2010/05/15

So after Phangnga I was hurrying to the border to get to Malaysia in two days. My feet by the way paid dearly for such a pace. In one day I made  it all the way to Padang Besar town near the border, which was about 430 km away from Phangnga. I reached it with about 10 rides I think and had sometimes walk a lot between them. Anyway as I got to the border town I decided to settle down for the night as it was late already, but situation was that with the beginning of rainy season here in SE Asia weather changes very fast. And so I had to sponge out the water puddle from the tent after setting it up 😀 And  this was only with the rain starting after I was half done with setting it up. Well, at least it is cooler now at nigh ts. Crossing to Malaysia was the easiest thing so far since Latvia 🙂 One thing I instantly didn’t like was unending settlements along the road. Lots of junctions and drivers pointing to left or ride as they pass you by 😐 Well I still moved on and got my feet in a more terrible condition.

I visited on the second day of being in Malaysia a nice place near Gerai mountain – Bujang Valley. I got a ride there of a guy name Wan. He also drived me around the friends home, who by the way were catching wild birds, process of which I got to witness. We also visited his father’s place, where I was treated to fresh coconut juice. Finally I, Wan and another person Rahi went to Bujang Archeological Museum. Very nice, beautiful and cozy place as I discovered it to be. And the most important thing – free 😀 There was even a river with small waterfall nearby and medieval temples on the mountain slope. Overall it was a nice day and all, but evening proved to be less so, because of too high humidity such as no fanning helped to dry the skin while being in the tent. This was caused by the rain of course. Next day do add some more salt I discovered a hole in the tent made as I think by a rat, which one are running around here in water canals along the roads. Next place, where I went was Batu Ferringi Beach near Georgetown on Pinang island, where I got with a help of a driver Amran, who lifted me to Butterworth. He suggested I take a ferry to that island and not go by the bridge which was farther. And as I said I still didn’t have any ringgits as I couldn’t so far exchange any, he gave some of the small cash he had, which proved really useful not only for a ferry, but later for public transport in Georgetown and now for the internet 🙂 So all say thanks to him for the chance to read my post sooner than it could be otherwise. Oh, and I finally took a chance to upload that stack of photos – let’s click here.

U Thong-Phangnga ~1320 km 2010/05/11

From Kanchanaburi I went South in the direction of Malaysia while visiting a bunch of different beaches on the way: Cha-am, Huahin, Sairi and Patong beach in Phuket. One thing I didn’t like is that there were no changing booths on the beach to change into my swimming trunks. Well some little improvising settled the matter by just visiting toilets. But anyway, beach culture in Thailand is poor in my opinion. Noone is wearing swimsuits here and goes into the sea in their shorts and t-shirts. At least locals do, while only a small number of tourists do wear proper swimsuits. Only in Patong I saw considerable number of later ones. Although Huahin and Sairi beaches should be no less atractive to tourists. I’ve spent a night at Sairi beach by the way. Though not completely calm as there were some fishing boats going on around close by. There also was a tide which got me somewhat worried if my tent was far enough from the water, but that proved to be ok.

On my way I met quite a few people who treated me to some dinner or a drink: Pat, Pem, Om, Kid, Joan, Op, Joy, Pranom, Nu, Mibu, Niki, Pat, Ki and more probably if I forgot some. It was really great to meet all them, to be invited to their company and have some talk, because in Thailand it’s pretty much possible to get across something in english. People are genereally really helpful and friendly. Only near touristic places do some drivers ask for money and laugh at you as you explain how you travel 😀 There was one disturbing thing which happened one morning as I was starting hitchhiking to Cha-am beach. A car stopped about 50 meters in front of me and as I was passing it I saw someone masturbating, deliberately trying to show off that to me as I understood when he drove in front of me again as I passed him. Well, there ARE some sick people here afterall I guess, not mentioning that ladyboy thing, which I also had a chance to confirm as I saw one “girl” walking with her boyfriend from afar and when they came closer I distinguished a voice not quite so girly 😀 Anyway, it wasn’t boring here so far that’s sure.

I’m leaving Thailand in about 2 days. Before that will try to visit another beach in Krabi though. There was some news about earthquaqe and a danger of tsunami, but it’s calm here near the sea, noone is panicking, though you couldn’t boast here for the number of people enjoying their stay near the sea. Internet cafe, which I am at now is not awesome, not at all, net and somputer being slow… Don’t know if I will manage to upload photos. And after some tome internet completely broke down Feeling just wasting my money here. I went to Krabi in hope to spend another day at the beach. But road to the beach from the city seemed to me too puzzling and I decided to just spend the day walking around the town. But shortly after I discovered that I left my iPod at that internet cafe in Phangnga. By all means I hurried back hitchhiking now anywhere drivers could see me, weather too changed dramatically to a stormy one. I sort of believed to find my iPod just on the computer corpus where I left it. Well I didn’t find it, but I got very lucky that that cafe worker found it before any visitor could and secured it for me 😀 So I’m back here and internet seems to begun working more efficiently. But problem with photos remained as I could not open the folder on that computer.

P.S.: just forgot to mention that in Thailand people keep dogs. I mean they ALL keep them or such is my impression. It was really irritating walking in search for a place to set up a tent in the evenings. All the barking at some strange figure with a large backpack… 😐

Nong Khai-U Thong ~730 km 2010/05/03

After some asking around on Vientiane streets I got to so called morning market, from where I went on 14’th bus to the border across the city. Crossing Laos customs was without problems. On Thailand side I had trouble with Thai visa on arrival, which required me to have a paid ticket out of Thailand valid in 15 days of my stay there. But situation was solved by the help of a worker of travel agency near the Thai customs. I “only” had to pay 1000 bahts for a fictional ticket, which was reserved for me. Well after that and another 1000 baht for visa itself I got into Nong Khai. Wanted to exchange some leftover 27500 kip that I had, but that proved to be impossible in Thailand. Even though that was just near the border. Well after some walk through dark Nong Khai I found an empty spot to settle down. There were some bats flying around by the way and later I even saw a bloody red moon 😀 Nice start I say. One thing that is still disturbing me sometimes here is the change of the road side from right one to left one. Hitchhiking so far is not much of a hitchhiking itself as the drivers’ offers for the lift. I had such to Khon Kean and later to Suphanburi.

Days are even hotter than before. Good thing I can sometimes hide and cool off in some shopping and entertainment centers such as Big C, The Mall or Tesco Lotus, which I liked even before when I was velotouring around South East Europe. Sleeping in that hot environment is just too damn difficult. I pretty much just suffer from heat until some later hours, when it cools down more. And I sleep less because I wake up around 5-6 am again from the heat 🙂 For now I dream of getting to the sea faster, which is still another sightseeing thing away. For now I only visited Ayutthaya’s Historical Park with it’s nice ruins, broken budha statues, a bunch of tourists and a bunch of tourists riding elephants, which was an atraction there. Next thing on my list before going for the beaches is Kanchanaburi’s Death Railway, which I’m still in doubt of visiting after finding this internet cafe, where I’ll have to spend some time registering at Australian e-visitor system, looking up info on plane tickets from Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand and so on. Well my plans for trip duration have change so no help with that 🙂

People that I had a chance to meet so far were very nice and generous with some treats to drink or eat. Last company – On and Wan, who gave me a ride to Suphanburi even brought me to their friend’s Han place. There we had a dinner sitting on the straw mat with a pot of roasting coal over which a meal was prepared. I had overfilled my belly with all that tasty and never before tried food. We also drank some beer together too. For sleep I was allowed to set up the ten outside Han’s house, where I also got to wash my head too 🙂 In the morning On and Wan were going back to Ayutthaya, where On worked and on the way they lifted me to the road to Kanchanaburi. There I continued on with the trip and got the ride to U-Thong town, that I’m in now.

Photo: click