Singapore to Macau 2009

Goodbye

2009-03-09T03:09:00.000-07:00

My friends, thank you very much for following this blog and sharing my experience with me. I hope it was a little interesting and inspiring. I am very much looking forward to seeing you all again in person soon. No more virtual relationships for a while. Take care! Stefan

Best country: Laos

Worst country: Vietnam

Best city: Luang Prabang, Laos

Worst city: Diem Bien Phu, Vietnam

Best hotel: The Chedi, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Worst hotel: Muong Thanh hotel, Diem Bien Phu, Vietnam

Best food: Dinner at the Oriental, Bangkok

Worst food: Dinner at the Shangri-La hotel, Beihai, China (stuffed sandworms!)

Most modern place: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Most rural place: The Laotian mountains

Worst moment: Flat tire in Laos after days of bad roads

Best moment: Right now, Hong Kong, looking out the window over the city from the 32nd floor, knowing I am coming home

Best driving tunes: Bob Marley

Worst driving tunes: Vietnamese radio

Biggest surprise: Cellphones work even in the most remote areas in the world

5 weeks is very very long when you are far away from home.

FINISHED!!!!

2009-03-08T01:54:00.001-08:00

WE MADE IT. 7000 miles, 5 weeks, millions of kamikaze mopeds, deadly potholes, rocks, mountain passes, buffet dinners, hazardous pigs, chickens, stray dogs, naked babies, bicycles riders on highways, border crossings, bus transfers, buddhist temples, soot and smoke, insane passing maneuvers, packing and unpacking bags, earplugs, telephone calls and text messages, BLOGS, british small talk, miles...miles...miles, plastic water bottles, money changing, hotel beds, fried eggs over medium, gas stations, tolls, rice patties, run-over snakes, 6 am alarm clocks, british humor, sand and dirt, buses oncoming-in our lane...

It has not sunk in yet that we are done...or what we have been through. I'm still working on it in my head, digesting the trip.

We have REALLY been looking forward to this moment! Cigar and Cognac after the finish. My dad and I enjoyed our treat at the Westin in Macau. We will be here for one night and then take a jetfoil boat over the bay to Hong Kong, our last stop of this journey. A drink never tasted this good.

Best and worst of everything to follow tomorrow!

On a junk in Ha Long Bay

2009-03-07T02:41:00.001-08:00

Hey! We slept on a junk in Ha Long Bay in the Chinese Sea last night, about 150 miles from the Chinese border, still in Vietnam. As we approached the boat pier after a long drive through traffic chaos, we weren't sure if we were up to spending the night on a boat with our fellow rally colleagues...but I am glad we did. Counter to what the name of this type of boat may suggest, the junk was not junky at all, but actually a very nice boat. My dad and I had the biggest beds so far on our trip in a beautiful wooden stateroom aboard. The crew shipped us out to sea for a few hours to a cave in the side of one of the large rocks sticking out of the water...and we had dinner in a cave! Nice buffet, complete with dancers and bottles of Vietnamese wine (not bad!).

In the morning, we were woken up by the boat's diesels ferrying us back to shore for a late 8.30 am takeoff. We had a long way ahead of us to the Chinese border and then on to our overnight stay at Beihai.

The border crossing out of socialist Vietnam into communist China was one hell of an event. It was our seventh border crossing. Imagine a border through which normally thousands of people on foot cross from Vietnam to China and back. Here we are, 25 European SUV's with equally unusual looking drivers and passengers...all full of dirt. It was a big spectacle, lots of photos being taken, every nook and cranny of our cars being searched and inspected. it took a while, but everyone was very friendly and no troubles were had.

We're at the Shangri-La hotel in Beihei, China, for tonight. Tomorrow, we'll drive to Macau and drop the cars at the container shipping company!

Our hotel for last night! The Bai Tho junk "Du Lich" in Ha Long Bay, Chinese Sea in Vietnam.
It was cold last night...maybe 50 degrees, but we enjoyed the views of the rock formations from the bow of the junk.
Crazy...dinner in a cave miles and miles off the Vietnamese coast.

Sapa, Vietnamese Mountains

2009-03-05T15:27:00.000-08:00

We spent the night before last in a village in the Vietnamese mountains called Sapa, close to the Chinese border. To get there, we drove up a mountain pass to an elevation of around 6500 ft and found a very cute town that felt almost like were were in the Swiss alps, plus some squealing pigs that woke us up in the morning. The Victoria Hotel up there in Sapa is a beautiful place...fireplaces burning, tribal woman hand-weaving fabrics for their robes...good food and warm water!

The warm, humid air in the valleys rises up and meets the cold air higher up in the mountains, creating condensation in the form of fog coming up the mountains from the valley.
By the way...you can click on the images and they should enlarge. Here are some kids having lunch together out of a bowl. The girl just dropped here kitty into the house...there are animals everywhere in these mountain villages. Cats, dogs, chickens, pigs, buffalos, horses, cows...some more agreeable with car traffic than others. In general, none of the creatures living here, including the humans, are used to cars driving through their villages.
Rice planting is extremely laborious work. We were watching a bunch of planters putting each seedling into the ground for a while. It's amazing what a large number of people can accomplish when they work together on a project.
My dad checking the undercarriage of our car for a dead chicken that may be stuck somewhere. Unfortunately I produced the first casualty of our trip today. I managed to avoid the rooster, but the hen that came running after him had no chance. I'm glad it was only a bird not something more serious.

Arrived in Vietnam

2009-03-04T03:12:00.000-08:00

Vietnam is a country of mountains and fertile green valleys full of rice planting. The landscape got much wider and more dramatic here in Vietnam--the roads are still very twisty and treacherous. There are so many opportunities for good pictures here..mostly images of people working the fields in their traditional Vietnamese clothing and hats. I am reluctant to jump out of the car, hold the camera in someone's face and drive off..but I need to do that more often.

I wish I could write something more poetic today, but I am pretty tired. Had a flat tire today that resulted in a stressful drive. It's a good thing we only have 4 more driving days. I think most of the group is ready for some stationary time.

This is where the rice farmers live. No windows, no bed, no a/c. The house is just big enough for one or two people to lie down in.

The dogs were messing with the pig...but not for long. That pig was mean! The dogs were gone in a second.

This is what people look like here in northern Vietnam. Beautiful traditional tribal costumes. Carrying wood up the mountains for many miles, with a smile.

The humid valleys here offer the perfect climate for growing rice and there are terraces carved into the landscape in every valley here.

Every single rice plant has been planted by hand into the wet soil of these massive rice fields.

Road hazard...one of many...water buffalos.

From Laos to Vietnam

2009-03-04T03:05:00.001-08:00

From our last stop in Luang Prabang we drove nearly 400 miles over rough mountain roads to get to the Vietnamese border and finally our destination for the day, Dien Bien Phu. We arrived at a hotel without running warm water and a building full of ugly hookers next to it who showed us their "goods" right upon arrival. Spent a night in beds with plastic covers on the mattresses and no pillow cases.

Go Toyota! I wasn't sure if our truck is going to fully disappear in this ford, but it did just fine.
Our first ferry crossing. A very old boat pushed the barge from shore to shore. Lots of kids swimming and playing in the wake of the boat's propeller.
This is how they build bridges here, and most other structures: bamboo rods tied together. This is a pretty long bridge over the fast flowing river Pak in Laos.

Luang Prabang, Laos

2009-03-04T02:55:00.000-08:00

Finally, I am back online. The last few days were spent at hotels of no quality to have any internet connection that could handle image uploading. Here are the pictures of our two days in Luang Prabang, Laos. If there were only one place one could go to in Southeast Asia to experience the whole thing, it would be this little town. Situated right on the Mekong River, Luang Prabang is an artsy little village full of crafts, cafes, little restaurants and incredible views of the river. We had a wonderful time there.

The Mekong right before sunset from our hotel's terrace. We had dinner right there...the only downside was that there were bunches of big hairy spiders in the lawn and on the tablecloths!
You can take one of these wooden boats on the Mekong from Laos all the way to Thailand. A two day, one night ride.
My dad and I hired this guy and his boat for a few hours to ship us around on the Mekong. He was very proud of his boat that he had just recently bought for 1000000.00 Kip, which is equal to $1500.
The river is the key to life here. Playing, bathing, fishing, transporting..it all happens on the Mekong.

Chaos in Laos

2009-03-01T03:10:00.000-08:00

Sitting in the hotel manager's office...no internet in the hotel rooms...have to make it short and can't upload many pics today.

We drove 300 miles on twisty high mountain roads through Laos, from Vientiane to Luang Prabang.

Many villages along the road in the mountains. People living in the most basic conditions we have seen so far. No running water, naked children on the side of the road, very basic farming or craft work like basket weaving. It was a hard day...not the best atmosphere in the car...but the scenery of the Laotian mountains was great.

Luang Prabang is interesting. A lot of backpackers and European people here. As we drove in, we saw some cute French looking cafes that we will surely visit tomorrow. The Mekong river flows right next to our hotel. It is a beautiful, history-laden and very wide river that we will explore tomorrow. The sun is setting over it as a big orange ball as I am writing this.

"65% of the world's population gets its drinking water from the Himalayans."

Smoky Mountains

2009-02-28T01:14:00.000-08:00

Hello!

So sorry I didn't write anything yesterday, but nothing worth reporting happened. We stayed at a pretty shabby hotel in a pretty shabby town and were very happy to leave early in the morning. When we got downstairs to the car lot, some very nice fellow drivers had decorated our Toyota with ribbons and a poster for my birthday. I thought that was very sweet. Thank you Simon.
We drove a lot over the last few days. Around 500-600 km per day, a lot of it on twisty mountain roads. These remote roads would have afforded us some spectacular views of the mountains and today of the mighty Mekong river that flows down here all the way from Tibet. But the problem is that everyone is busy burning brush and clearing forests with fire that that entire northern part of Thailand is covered in a blanket of smoke. You can't see at thing--even the tropical sun could not overcome the dense dirt in the air. The government is trying to stop this, but with no success. The amount of pollution that is produced here must be of global concern.
This could have been an amazing view of the river snaking its way through the mountains of northern Thailand, but the smoke was so dense, we had a hard time breathing.

We arrived in Vientiane, Laos, around 2.30 pm. It's a pretty nice little town, on the edge of the Mekong river. We'll spend one night here and tomorrow drive on to Luang Prabang, still in Laos.

Interesting trivia:

"Balls of light are observable from time to time rising from the Mekong's water surface in the stretch of the river near Vientiane. These are sometimes referred to as Naga Fireballs. The locals attribute the phenomenon to Phaya Naga, the Mekong Dragons."

Rally-itis

2009-02-25T22:06:00.000-08:00

From conversations with fellow drivers on this trip who have done many of these long rallys I have learned that we all go through a sequence of mental stages on these journeys. in the beginning, the excitement and mystery of things to come dominates and everyone is busy, organizing and learning the ropes. The first few weeks, we are all focused on getting from location to location without getting lost or breaking our gear. Towards the middle of the event, people start suffering from rally-itis. You're a bit tired from driving, you miss things at home, the quirks of your car- and roommate start getting to you and you still have a few thousand miles to travel. Closer to the end of the journey, you realize that this adventure is going to be over soon and it's clear again that this is a non-reoccurring opportunity to experience places most people can't get to. A bit of sadness in the face of the end of traveling sneaks in. The most intense period of trips like these, I've been told, sets in when we are all back home and our brains relive our experiences in the comfort and safety of our familiar environments. I wonder what this will be like and if it is all true. For now, we have a lot more traveling to do and the next few days will take us through Laos and then Vietnam, probably the most basic countries on our trip. Away from highways and cosmopolitan accommodations.

Very zen...candles sitting on golden vessels floating in reflection pools.
Even here, at the end of the world, you can't escape the globalization of American "culture": McDonalds and Starbucks in Chiang Mai. But I must admit that that grande latte was pretty good.
Of all the hotels we've been at, I think the Chedi here is my favorite. I'd like to return here one day if I can.
A picture from our probably last buddhist temple visit. There are seven buddhas, one for each day of the week. You pour oil into the lantern corresponding with the buddha of the day of the week you were born. That is supposed to bring lots of luck. There are so many rituals in buddhism that are intended to extend life, bring happiness, guarantee love and create wealth that we participated in that I should be set for life :-)

Day off in Chiang Mai

2009-02-24T23:15:00.000-08:00

A novice monk and me...in Buddhism, you can be a monk for a day or your lifetime. Monks in training wear orange robes, teaching monks wear brown robes.
The temple in Chiang Mai...lots of bells here.
Gold leafing is a sign of religious sacrifice in Buddhism. I was able to buy 100 gold leaves today...I'm looking forward to using them in my work when I get home.
We visited a Chinese pharmacy in Chiang Mai. They had an amazing variety of herbs and spices there and blend them according to ancient recipes for all sorts of ailments. The herbs then marinate a large bottle of whiskey for at least three months until the liquid becomes potent. Maybe this ritual is just an excuse for people to drink a lot of booze.

Pachyderms and Zen Hotels

2009-02-24T03:25:00.000-08:00

This is one sweet place! We are now at the Chedi Hotel in Chang Mai, after we spent last night at a dump in the middle of nowhere. It is beautiful here--well deserved after a few days of hard driving covering hundreds of miles. We will be here for three nights.
One the way here we stopped at a place called the Thai Elephant Conservation Center. It is a very well maintained facility complete with elephant hospital that keeps a large number of animals under great conditions. They put a special show on for us today.
Elephants have very prickly hairs on their skin.
Since it is so hot outside here the elephants get to go in the water 3 times a day. They love it in there.
Ok...I promise this is the last temple picture. We have seen so many buddhist and hindu temples, I think we had enough for a lifetime. This was actually a very beautiful ancient temple site called Phimai. It was a huge maze of statues and temple buildings on a big lawn. Very pretty.

Off roading from Angkor to Korat in Thailand

2009-02-22T00:10:00.000-08:00

Our last night at Angkor ended with an amazing dinner outside at the 1000 year old temple of Kravan. It was an unforgettable experience to dine in these ancient ruins.

Now I know why we shipped a 4x4 over here from Florida. We could not have done today's drive without it. 100 miles of very rough dirt roads. You think the road is getting better and you speed up...and here comes a huge hole. Our car did great...nothing broken, just really dirty.

It's a different world here. Our cars driving by the homes along the dirt roads caused quite a stir. These kids working in the mud probably have probably never seen anything like that...25 4x4's driving by in one day.

Stuff is still transported by cow and carriage in this part of the world. Here is our fellow driver Sir Terence English and his partner in front of us in their Land Cruiser.

Angkor Temples

2009-02-20T22:33:00.000-08:00

The stupa towers of Angkor Wat. These huge sandstone towers are also the national symbol of Cambodia on the country's flag.
Lots of elephants in Cambodia, in tourist places, but also wild in the forests.

The over 200 large face sculptures in the temple of Bayon make you feel like you are watched anywhere inside this big temple.

The temple of Ta Prohm in the Angkor complex was my favorite. It has not been restored and the forest had 400 years to overgrow the site resulting in incredible views. Somehow the massive plant growth makes the age of the buildings more tangible and impressive.

You can drive through a lot of the temple areas, they are so large!

Yummy fried tarantulas

2009-02-19T23:27:00.001-08:00

The Cambodian countryside offers a lot of interesting sights. It is a totally different world out here. People's activities revolve around farming and hauling basic materials from a to b...small horses pulling carts filled with rice or bamboo chicken cages, mopeds with baskets strapped to them filled with small pigs, tuc tucs with bundles of live ducks tied together by their feet. The concept of animal cruelty definitely does not exist here.

We visited a rural market on our way and found a local delicacy: fried tarantula. Piles of large fried spiders on platters...and some buckets full of live specimens, big and hairy. I am somewhat of an arachnophobic person, so this sight really got me. No, we did not try them.

No matter how rural you get here, the children leaving school on their bicycles all wear uniforms. Blue skirts or pants and nicely starched white shirts. It is a beautiful sight.

We are here at the Raffles Grand Hotel D'Angkor now, a very nice old palace close to the temples of Angkor Wat, which we will visit tomorrow. I'm very excited to see this temple of all temples here in Cambodia. A 1000-year old massive site in the middle of the jungle.

Links to other trip blogs!

2009-02-19T06:08:00.000-08:00

Some of our fellow travelers also have their own blogs covering our journey. Check them out!

Tim Franey:

singaporetomacau.blogspot.com

Paul Wignall:

paulwignall.blogspot.com

$290

2009-02-19T01:43:00.000-08:00

We explored Phnom Penh today. The way to get around here is by Tuc Tuc, which is a moped with a carriage attached to it that can very slowly carry up to 4 passengers. So my father and I took one of these to the Russian Market, a typical very basic bazar...similar to what you can find in other developing countries of the world. A mix of raw meat hanging from hooks, dried fish, little shops filled with all sorts of spare parts for mopeds, tourist t-shirt shops and buddhist paraphernalia. Counter to our expectations of a total tourist trap, this market was authentic and also a place where local Cambodians went to buy groceries and the occasional Moped cylinder block. When we exited the market, we instantly got approached by numerous Tuc Tuc drivers who wanted to take us somewhere. We discussed for a few minutes what our next adventure should be and decided that we'd like to get back to the hotel. So we agreed to one of the Tuc Tuc drivers to take us. But he was second in line to some older guy who had been ahead of him and proceeded to rip the guy's key out of the ignition. They got into a major argument...we had to switch to the other Tuc Tuc...the old guy drove us for 15 minutes and then stopped and turned around to communicate to us that he had no idea where the hotel is. Anway...the point for me was: the Tuc Tuc ride was $3, and we didn't even bargain. It was a 20 minute ride. Right afterwards in the hotel I had to pay $30 to get our internet activated for another day. That made me think...one day of internet, that's 10 Tuc Tuc rides for the guy...

1 Tuc Tuc ride, 20 miuntes: $3

2 T-shirts at Russian Market: $5

1 Day of internet access at our hotel: $30

1 Year's average income per capita in Cambodia: $290

1 Night at our hotel: $400

My friend Darvish's blog

2009-02-18T03:22:00.000-08:00

I am very lucky to have found a fellow artist and friend who is also traveling in our group: Darvish Fakhr. He's a great painter living in London, check out his website and work at www.darvish.com.

Darvish is also writing a blog for our trip: seasiarally.blogspot.com

Brother number One

2009-02-18T01:33:00.000-08:00

One eventful day! We made our way for hundreds of miles through rural Cambodia, a lot of it on dirt roads. For the first time on our trip, my cellphone did not work and our GPS navigation system did not have any maps of the area available. As we finally approached the country's capital, Phnom Penh, we detoured to the Genocide memorial center at Cheung Ek.

In 1975, the Khmer Rouge and their leader Pol Pot ("Politique Potentielle") took power in Cambodia. Pol Pot and his communist party believed in the Maoist idea of the supremacy of the agrarian working class, the "agrarian communist utopia". In order to achieve his idea of the perfect agrarian state, Pol Pot forcefully evacuated all major cities and executed more than 26% of the Cambodian population. Every teacher, doctor, lawyer, scientist or person affiliated with the former government was captured, hauled off to a nearby killing field, forced to dig their own mass graves and then hit in the head with steel bars or farming tools until they were dead. Bullets were considered too "capitalist" to be used for this purpose. Babies and children were held by their feet and their heads slammed into a tree, which is still standing there, until they perished. At Cheung Ek, where we were today, 20000 humans were exterminated in this incomprehensible manner and the traces of these relatively recent events are still visible. 300 were killed every day until the Vietnamese liberated the place in 1978. Some had to wait until the next day in nearby shacks because the killers were exhausted for the day. Bone fragments, clothes of victims half buried in mass graves, a building stuffed with 9000 skulls, most of which show fractures and other signs of blunt force. After all that, there were no teachers, doctors, lawyers or educated citizens left in Cambodia and it took until now that these systems are established again.

How is it possible that a human loses all humanity? We found a few answers. The killers were mostly indoctrinated teenagers who didn't know better. Plus, if you did not want to do the killing, you were killed yourself. But still...it appears that mankind has this potential to turn into animal stored somewhere, readily available.

This is a very current topic, as some of the surviving perpetrators ("Duch") are now on trial at a UN war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh. We are here for two days in Phnom Penh and I'm sure we will learn more about this.

Pol Pot died from "natural causes", guarded by the Thai military in his own home, age 72, in 1998. Well done indeed.

Crossing a Chasm

2009-02-17T01:40:00.000-08:00

While geographically neighboring, Thailand and Cambodia feel worlds apart to me. A few hours ago, we arrived at the Kho Kong resort right at the border between the two countries, on the Cambodian side. The hotel here is a huge post-communist palace with slot machines, gambling tables and lots of marble. Gone are the days of Ginger tea, warm smiles and Lotus flowers. Things are a lot harder here. I feel more watched here than in Thailand. Maybe my view of it all is tainted by what I know happened here 30 years ago. Or maybe it is possible that certain events and experiences can permanently change the collective consciousness in a country and therefore how we as visitors experience the place. Tomorrow will be my day for dealing with this: we'll be in Phnom Penh. We will visit the genocide museum at Cheung Ek...the killing fields where during the Khmer Rouge regime Pol Pot and his insane communist followers killed 2 million people. I hope I can manage to see past the image of this awful history and find beauty in Cambodia.

Venice of the East

2009-02-16T01:37:00.000-08:00

Our morning started very early today with a 6.50 departure on a traditional Thai long-tail boat. We first spent about an hour exploring the many canals that weave their way through the city and gave Bangkok the title of "Venice of the East", although the water is much dirtier and the way people live along these canals is a lot simpler than in Italy. From the canals you have a very good view into the Thai homes there...people in bare rustic homes preparing something in their kitchen, nursing a child or playing with a dog. It was a very unique view, away from what you'd typically see as a tourist.

After the canals, the boat took us to two important and huge Buddhist temples in the city. The largest and most famous Buddhist temple here in Thailand is the Grand Palace, which houses the Emerald Buddha, an ancient statue carved out of a block of jade that is the palladium of the city of Bangkok, the sacred thing that keeps the city safe. It was nice to see all this, but there were so many fellow visitors around us plus the temperature was around 95 degrees and our visit was a bit of people and temple overdose.

We then took the boat to the Royal Barge Museum. The museum houses the gold-covered long tail boats that the royal family here uses on the Chao Phraya river for special ceremonies. Incredible boats..120 feet long all carved and gold plated...

After that, we continued our to in an air-conditioned van (thank god) and we were driven to a huge jewelry market where an army of pushy salespeople tried to talk us into buying expensive gifts. We left as quickly as we could...ran back to the Oriental Hotel and indulged in a 90-minute Ayurvedic massage-the highlight of our day so far.

Tomorrow...driving driving driving...out of Thailand, into Cambodia. Let's hope they cleared all the landmines. Take care!

Nirvana?

2009-02-15T01:05:00.000-08:00

The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism

Life as we know it ultimately is or leads to suffering.

Suffering is caused by craving or attachments to worldly pleasures of all kinds. This is often expressed as a deluded clinging to a certain sense of existence, to selfhood, or to the things or people that we consider the cause of happiness.

Suffering ends when craving ends, when one is freed from desire. This is achieved by eliminating all delusion.

Reaching this liberated state is achieved by following the path of the Buddha.

Our long journey today took us up North into Bangkok. The first 100 miles we drove along the Thai coast through very simple little fishing villages. We saw little harbors, fishermen scraping dried little fish that looked like sardines off the tables in the sun. The air smelled like a blend of fish, incense and garlic everywhere.

At the end of our coastal route we climbed up a hill to a beautiful Buddhist temple, the temple of Khao Thongchai. Based on the size and quality of the temple buildings this must have be a very important site in Buddhism. A 60-foot golden Buddha sits in front of the temple, overlooking the Thai sea.

My father and I agreed that Buddhism and the celebrations of this religion we have witnessed so far don't really feel like the religions we are used to. The temples and shrines don't intimidate. Their churches don't instill fear. There are no depictions of suffering, men nailed to crosses and hellish demons on the walls. The images that are on the walls depict life in the village. The people getting together and celebrating something as a group. People are smiling on these pictures in the temples, working, talking...it seems like this is a religion from a person (Siddhartha Gautama) for the people. No fear of hell here.

We got un-enlightened pretty quickly when we approached Bangkok on a 6-lane highway. This monster city of 10 million people must be the reason why we have holes in the ozone layer and global warming. The whole place is covered with a blue-grayish smog cloud that makes your skin tickle, gives you a dry cough and a bitter taste in your mouth. You feel like you're sucking on a truck exhaust when you walk around here. But the Oriental Hotel that will be our home for the next two days is a very nice oasis in all this chaos here.

Tonight we're going to the Suan Lum night market...we were told to be very careful here. Lots of shady tourists and even shadier locals. More tomorrow!

LOL

2009-02-14T02:08:00.001-08:00

Khao Lac

2009-02-14T01:29:00.000-08:00

Our long travels today took us along the coastline of southern Thailand from Phuket to the town of Chumphon. We passed through a few cute little tourist towns, one of them being Khao Lac. Saw lots of little restaurants, bars, dive shops, hotels...it all looked very new and nice. That is because on December 26, 2004 a 100 ft high Tsunami wave ripped through this village and killed anywhere between 4000 and 10000 people-pretty much every person there. The second largest earthquake ever recorded released the energy of 550 million Hiroshima bombs into the water off the coast of Indonesia. I have to admit that I am curious to find out what the people here have to say about this experience, but I am afraid to ask. From what we can see, there aren't any visible traces left over. But there must be lots of memories.

One a much happier note...we witnessed a cool construction equipment delivery today; you know, like coastal tool rental towing a bobcat (thanks for the analogy, Miss Sayward)...but here it was two elephants on a big flatbed truck, ears blowing, trunks sniffing, tails wagging. A sight to behold. The best thing I've seen in a long time.

I'll upload the movie I made of this later today. More tomorrow...thanks for reading all this bs :-)

Heaven and Hell

2009-02-13T01:25:00.000-08:00

It was a bit of a sad goodbye from Rayavadee this morning, all 40 of us being hauled off in speedboats back to our cars on shore. Since we spent two days in Rayavadee, we got to know the place and the people there a bit and we really enjoyed being there. As we drove off, I felt a little heavy, knowing that I will probably never get to this place again or see any of the people who treated us with so much kindness. You wonder if there is a reason for why we meet certain people at different times in our lives. It is amazing how small the world really is. People here in Thailand in the middle of the ocean are just like us.

It's 3950 miles to the center of the Earth.

From the haven of Rayavadee we were dumped into budget tourism hell...we went on a boat ride from Phuket to the infamous "James Bond Island", a little rock in the sea on which there was apparently a scene filmed for the movie "The man with the golden gun". The boats they drive out there are traditional Thai long tail boats that are powered by huge diesel truck engines on sticks out of which come 15 ft long shafts with propellers on them. Obnoxiously loud and inefficient.

Lacking any other notable sights, the insignificant James Bond Island has become a tourist attraction. Lots of overweight, sweaty and pale Europeans plus Thais selling plastic buddhas. We were so glad to be out of there. Our visit was followed by a pretty nice lunch in a seafood place close to the island.

After that, it was a short 40 km drive to our resort for the night, the huge JW Marriott in Phuket. It's a good thing that we are just spending one night here. Tomorrow and the day after are days of long driving...we need to make our way up through Bangkok and then into Cambodia. Things will hopefully get a little off-road and rustic then. Yeah!

Beach Bumming

2009-02-12T06:27:00.000-08:00

Hi! We did absolutely nothing today other than hanging out at the beach, having the occasional beer and relaxing. There are monkeys in the trees everywhere! Anyway, tomorrow we are off to another short drive up to Phuket, but then the next few days will be very long hard driving days towards Bangkok. We will be taking a 4-hr ride on a traditional Thai fishing boat tomorrow. Keep posted! Here are some nice beach scenes for you.

Rayavadee

2009-02-11T18:23:00.000-08:00

What a long day! We took off at 6 am at the hotel on Penang island in Malaysia and started our 400 mile drive north to the resort of Rayavadee in Thailand where we just arrived at 5 pm. The first few hours of our trip were the usual panic; urban Asian traffic: people with dogs on mopeds, people with umbrellas on mopeds, people towing cages full of pigs on mopeds, people hauling construction materials on mopeds, people holding newborns on mopeds…and they are all going really fast and seem to completely rely on your alertness for their own survival. Needless to say that we were very relieved when we had passed the border post from Malaysia to Thailand. We exchanged some money (you can’t buy anything in the towns here without local currency) and entered Thailand.

The roads and areas we passed are a lot more rural and less refined here than in most of Malaysia. Malaysia benefits greatly from their oil resources in the East and they have invested their oil money mostly into building out their traffic infrastructure. On our way through Thailand we saw a lot more farming activity.

One very interesting thing we stumbled upon was a gathering of about 100 men and at least as many cages full of birds in the middle of a field. The birdcages were all hanging from wires over the grass. The chirping and birdsong was intense and apparently this whole ceremony was some kind of game whose purpose it is to have your bird jump from one ring in its cage to the next the most times within a certain period. I felt funny at first because we were entering this very indigenous local event as complete foreigners, but people waved us over, told us to get closer to the action to get a better view.

We continued our journey and stopped at a place called the Tiger Caves on our way. The caves are a holy place for Buddhist monks and we were lucky enough to see the initiation ceremony for two young aspiring monks who got all their hair shaved off (including eyebrows) right in front of us. Bloody scalps.

We continued towards the Thai coastline. The beaches here are very beautiful…traditional old fishing boats everywhere, the coastline lined with high cliffs and large rocks…we took a speedboat to our hotel, which sits on its own little island in the middle of the sea. It’s a truly amazing place. More tomorrow! Need to sleep now.

Monkeys and traffic jams

2009-02-10T02:02:00.000-08:00

Selamat Datang! Today wasn't really a day to write home about...but I'll do it anyway ;-). We took off from Cameron Highlands around 9 am and made our way up towards the island of Penang, off the Malaysian coast. Most of our ride was on a very nice highway; it continues to amaze us how modern this place is once you get out of the little villages in the mountains. The roads are new, there are people landscaping on the side of the highway, lots of new western cars. As a result, we covered a lot of miles in a few hours until we had to get off the main road to catch the ferry to Orang Utan Island.

Orang Utan Island is a nature reserve that takes in injured, abandoned or displaced Orang Utan babies, nurses them back to health and then releases them back into the Malaysian rain forest. It's a great cause, but we weren't very impressed with our visit, other than seeing the little Orang Utan babies in their diapers...sort of cute in a weird way.

From there we continued to the island of Penang, to the town of Ferringhi. The last hour of driving was pretty hellish...thousands of cars and people on mopeds everywhere driving circles around us. We were glad to arrive at our resort. Went to the gym...chilled by the pool...to bed early. We have to drive for 10 hours tomorrow, over the border into Thailand. But then we have a free day with no driving.

Hope you all are well! I miss home.

Driving back in time

2009-02-08T23:31:00.000-08:00

We left the metropolis of Kuala Lumpur and drove 150 miles north and at 150 years back in time to the tea growing Cameron Highlands. This beautiful hillside was "discovered" in the 1880's by the British surveyor William Cameron and is only accessible by a windy mountain road that leads you up to 4000 feet in elevation. I am amazed that my cellphone still works here and I can wirelessly transmit this blog entry. The highlands up here are a total departure from what's going on in the cities further to the South. Instead of the latest model Maserati people ride rusty bicycles with a bundle of firewood strapped to them for this evening's dinner cooking. Malaysians here live in wooden shacks on stilts that have no windows but only wooden screens to allow the breeze to blow through.

As we were driving by, my father and I pondered the concept of living this way: according to some UN world survey the people in this area would probably be considered to be living in "poverty" and the inclination would probably be that something has to be done to "help" and improve their quality of life. But to us it seems like everyone is very happy and content and you wonder how many of the things that make us westerners appear to be not living in poverty are really necessary. The hand-to-mouth subsistence economy of everyone here is working pretty well. Kids leave school in their uniforms, smiling. Everything is clean and well taken care of. Foreigners are received with kindness and no envy. Maybe it's the religion here that facilitates.

OM!

Kuala Lumpur at night

2009-02-08T15:31:00.000-08:00

Muddy Confluence

2009-02-08T01:39:00.000-08:00

Hi there! Today, we took off in Malacca at around 9 in the morning and drove for a short 140 km up the highway to Kuala Lumpur. I navigated again and was focused like a laser beam on the roadbook so I don't get us lost again and it worked. I have the hang of it now.

This city, deriving its name for two apparently muddy rivers that join here, is the ueber-modern capital of Malaysia. It is a very young city having been founded in 1850, but has come a long way from its origins as a small tin mining village. 7 million people live in this metropolitan area now and much like in Singapore (maybe even more so) there is high-end development going on everywhere. The cityscape looks like a result of a competition of who can slap the most glass and stainless steel onto a building. The difference between here and Singapore is that Kuala Lumpur sits at the edge of the Malaysian mountains. It is visually very interesting to see tall buildings nestled into this hilly topography. And it is hotter here than at the shore...95 degrees today.

Since we got here at 11 am this morning already, we had a lot of time checking out the Petronas towers and relaxing at the hotel pool. I was floating around in the pool here in-between the skyscrapers, listening to the Athan, the prayer call, coming from the city mosque, which reminded me that I am not in just another metropolis, but in a far away place.

Our stop here will be the last luxurious one for a few days. Tomorrow we are off to the Cameron Highlands, an apparently very beautiful tea-growing highland north of here. I'm looking forward to being in nature.

Hope you are all well!

40 Trishaws to Dinner

2009-02-07T06:06:00.000-08:00

Scary Day

2009-02-07T01:06:00.000-08:00

It all started on an exciting and positive note this morning, with Chinese Dragons and dancers seeing us off at the Raffles in Singapore. Finally we were driving! All the cars filed out of the underground parking lot in sequential order. We loaded the bags and off we went. My father drove, I navigated using our roadbook. You have to imagine. A roadbook is a very detailed set of instructions that guides you by providing distance measurements between points where you have to turn, plus it illustrates what these turns look like and what's around you where you have to turn.

Little diagrams called "Tulip Diagrams" are supposed to do this (see my pic above---the fateful page in the roadbook). Well, my dad said "you are doing a great job navigating with this thing already" and 2 minutes later we got ourselves so lost that I just wanted to curl up and disappear.

Read one little side note wrong--took the wrong turn--ended up at the wrong border post to Malaysia--totally different route from everyone else in our group. The whole thing was terribly stressful and scary, but we made it to our next destination in Malacca maybe 30 minutes after the last car of the main group. Anyway...all the Brits made fun of us, but I am just glad we are here and it all worked out. We are still working on our post-traumatic stress, but I think a few local Tiger beers will help a lot.

Malacca. Totally different from Singapore. This is a small not-so-fancy Malaysian town where, for the first time, I feel like we are in the heart of Asia. I spent a while walking through the Jonkers Street market, a network of little streets filled with all sorts of shops and a few very beautiful temples. There was a Buddhist temple next to a Mosque next to a Hindu Temple, which illustrates the eclectic character of the people who live here in Malaysia. People don't look as smooth and pure here any more as they did in Singapore, but everyone is amazingly friendly. We asked some random older gentleman in a shady back alley for directions and got the nicest and most helpful response in good English.

Tonight, our group is invited to a dinner at a local authentic Malay restaurant in the old part of this town. Tomorrow, we have to sign off and leave at 9 am...next stop Kuala Lumpur. I'm excited to see the Petronas Towers, until 2004 the tallest building in the world. If we ever make it there, with me in the car...

"On March 20, 1997, French Urban climber Alain "Spiderman" Robert, using only his bare hands and feet and with no safety devices, scaled the building's exterior glass and steel wall."

Thank you friends for reading this stuff...I like writing to all of you.

Lion City

2009-02-05T23:24:00.000-08:00

We spent a hot and humid day trekking through Singapore by foot. Singapore, its name derived from the Malay word "singha"= "lion", is one of the few true city-states in the world-a very small but rich country at the southern tip of Southeast Asia, only 85 miles North of the Equator. The whole place is only about 270 square miles in size, but it contains 4.8 million citizens whose average per-capita GDP is the fifth highest in the world. You can tell...most areas of the city consist of brand spanking new skyscrapers and expensive looking infrastructure. But then in the middle of it all you also find the authentic manifestations of the Chinese culture that has shaped a lot of the way of life here.

The people you meet are a blend of pretty Asians from all corners of the continent (Thai, Chinese, Indonesian...) who seem to float through the streets with smiles on their faces completely unphased by the buzz produced by all the European ex-pat bankers present. The local financial industry is thriving as a result of Singapore's proximity to countries like China and Indonesia that have invested a lot of money here. But just like in Florida, the effects of the global real estate drama are being felt here as well, with prices dropping and financial institutions being rescued.

I talked my dad into taking a flight on the world's tallest ferris wheel today, the Singapore Flyer, and we had a great time enjoying the views from way up there. Some of the pictures included herein are from that ride. Then lunch at a German restaurant called "Brotzeit" that served authentic German food and beer but was launched as a trendy urban joint filled with young hip Asians who all drank big beers and ate fatty sausage with kraut. Didn't expect that.

Tomorrow is our first day of driving. 250 miles North into Malaysia to the town of Malacca. The main event of the day will be the border crossing into Malaysia which requires a serious amount of paperwork and preparation.

Take care y'all!

Some images

2009-02-05T06:09:00.000-08:00

We're in business

2009-02-05T00:57:00.000-08:00

Today our trip got a bit more serious with official signing-in sessions, meetings with fellow expedition participants and finally the picking up of our truck. There are a total of 25 cars participating in this event adding up to 50 drivers, mostly people from the UK, some from the Netherlands and few Americans.

Looking at our fellow adventurers I'd say that we're not really going to be roughing it. It appears like people are here to casually motor from nice hotel A to nice hotel B in the comfort of their very rally-ish looking Range Rovers, which don't look like they've seen much dirt. But I could be wrong. We may be building bridges over some swamp in Malaysia soon. It's been raining here the last few days, which is very unusual for this time of year.

We picked up the Tacoma in a shipping company's warehouse that smelled like a blend of vinegar and oriental spices and our car now has the odor of an Indonesian bazaar on wheels...very nice. Last time I saw the car was when it disappeared into an 18-wheeler's belly in front of my studio in Santa Rosa Beach.

The calibration of the computer that will help us navigate this trip was a bit of a problem and I think my dad and I both felt like morons for not being able to figure it out, but in the end after many trials we managed. Amazingly enough, my Floridian Garmin GPS device works here just like it does in the US; just type in where you want to go and the thing will guide you right to it, even in Singapore.

Tonight is the formal sign-in dinner here...will need to throw on a suit jacket and be all British.

Cheers!!

Arrived in Singapore

2009-02-04T04:40:00.000-08:00

You know that you are far from home when you see the Himalayans out your airplane window, they bring you soy noodles with braised meat and chillies for breakfast and a gentleman with a turban carries your bag. The Raffles Hotel here is the most historical building in Singapore; this reminder of the great global impact of British colonialism opened in 1887 and still owns the polished aura of that time. We had our first authentic dinner: Indian curry buffet. Don't eat the Lahsun Ka Achar is all I have to say. Nighty night..I am so very tired.

Into the well

2009-02-03T06:33:00.000-08:00

A day of goodbyes, peeking through the school fence at the kids playing, gluttonous indulging in favorite foods in expectation of meals of questionable origin. It's hard to give up control for five weeks; to hand yourself over to this journey and allow it to touch and change you. I'm off and away! Fort Walton Beach-Atlanta-London-Singapore. 35 hours of traveling. I'm in the lounge in London now and already feel like I lost part of my consciousness along with a number of hours of time. Record snowstorm in the UK yesterday, but everything seems to be working now. I worked for someone in NY once who flew to London for a meeting and when it was finished flew right back to NY. You don't know how deep the rabbit hole is...but it sure is exciting to jump in.

Map of the route

2009-01-30T06:45:00.001-08:00

Almost gone!

2009-01-29T15:43:00.000-08:00

Hello Friends. Starting this Monday, February 2, I will be off on an expedition driving 7000 miles through Southeast Asia, from Singapore in the South, all the way to Hong Kong in the North. My journey will traverse six countries: Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and China. My father and I will be driving a modified Toyota Tacoma pickup truck within an expedition planned by the British organization HERO 4x4 Explore. There will be a total of about 40 participants and 20 vehicles in this event. Hopefully, driving through these countries will enable us to visit remote and culturally very interesting sites. I am going to try to use this blogging tool to share my experiences and images with anyone who is interested. Here is the website of the organizer of our tour, if you are interested in learning more about the event (or maybe even want to participate in one yourself..): http://www.4x4xplore.com.

I'll start feeding this blog when I am off to Singapore!

Take care!