Olya meet World, World meet Olya

World met Olya

2011-04-17T13:04:00.000-07:00

It seems that I pretty much abandoned my blog. I quickly realized that writing is just not my thing, but photography is. That said, to celebrate the 1-year mark of my trip, I thought I'd summarize all the randomness that happened to me in a top-50 list. Writing a list of sentence fragments where each item has nothing to do with the preceding one was far more enjoyable than writing sentences that have to relate. And since my choice of religion is Hedonism, here it is, in no particular order.

· Learned to scuba dive

· Ate a raw sea urchin

· Lost my hotel room key and unlocked the door using a straw and a hairclip

· Rode on a motorcycle loaded with luggage

· Learned to cook Thai and Laos food

· Couchsurfed

· Got my phone stolen by a monkey

· Dropped a phone in the waterfall and saved it

· Hired a motorbike to chase a bus that I had missed

· Rode an elephant

· Drank home made rice wine (30% alcohol)

· Saw how tea and coffee grow

· Dove and snorkled with sharks

· Saw Russians in every single country

· Saw the milky way over the ocean

· Got a job for three days photographing at a bar

· Saw hundreds of monks collecting food at sunrise

· Paid a guy to carry my backpack

· Hiked/Climbed the highest peak in se Asia

· Skied in the Alps

· Went to the full moon party

· Found Russian food in Cambodia and Vietnam

· Ran through the jungle at night

· Swam to an island

· Hiked to a lady's home through the jungle for 15km to have dinner with her family

· Went to a hospital in Thailand

· Got bitten by various fish

· Went to the Chinese border with the sole purpose of giving it the finger after being denied a visa

· Visited minority tribes in several countries

· Saw fresh water dolphins

· Crawled around in caves trying to photograph bats

· Was a nanny to a 2.5 year old for a week and a half

· Saw snakes, rats and monkeys on a menu

· Saw dog meat at a market

· Went to the water puppet theater

· Spent the night at a train station in northern France

· Saw bears in Laos

· Kayaked exploring islands and caves in Halong Bay

· Was on a bus that stopped because a man with a dead squirrel was running behind it while the passengers were hanging out of it with hands full of money, bargaining who gets the dead squirrel.

· Gave out pens to tribal kids

· Was invited by a tribe teacher to his home for a few beers where I hung out for a couple hours, having many wonderful conversations while neither of us spoke each others’ language

· Stood on the corner of a street for a few hours with the sole purpose of photographing people on motorbikes

· Spent 4 hours each night for several nights trying to photograph lightning

· Filled up a motorcycle from a hand pump and Coca-Cola bottles

· Walked on sand dunes

· Allowed a large gecko to live in my room because he ate the mosquitos

· Ate pig intestines and they were tasty

· Drove on the left side of the road

· Rockclimbed

· Was attacked by a snake and avoided the bite.

A trek to Mao's home

2010-07-29T05:41:00.001-07:00

More pictures here: http://public.fotki.com/FierceKitten/travel/2010-atw/sapa-ii/

Mao was one of the girls we met on our first trek. She proposed to take us on another Trek to her village, so we took her up on the offer. This time, the "we" was Koen, Dieter and me (they're in the group picture of the previous post.) We told her that we wanted a 4 hour trek, so I assumed we're going to do 2 there and 2 hours back. I brought half a liter of water with hopes of buying water as needed on the way, just as I did on the previous trek. All assumptions turned out to be completely wrong. The trek was quite mild at first, just a simple walk through town. Unexpectedly, we turned off into an alley between a couple buildings and began climbing up a steep hill. I was out of water in about 15 minutes and inquired where the next village will be. Mao looked at me with confusion and said that we're going to her village and that it's not very far. She said it was just another kilometer up the steep section, so once again, I presumed her village must be near by since we were closing in on the 2 hour mark. We reached the top of the hill and I asked how much farther till we can get water. She replied smiing "Oh, not far, just 8 more kilometers." My jaw dropped. There was no way I could do another 8km with no water. We started figuring out how we can find water. Koen suggested trying the stream that looked clean, but I reminded him of all the wild animals that might be doing their business up stream which quickly discouraged the idea. We stumbled upon a house where we asked for some boiled water. We filled out our plastic bottles with boiling water and dropped them in a river to cool off. The water didn't taste too good, but it kept us hydrated.

After 2.5 hours, we reached Mao's village. She led us through the yard full of ducks, chickens, dogs, and hogs, past the indigo barrels and a weaving machine, into a concrete structure.

The interior was very dark with illumination coming off the two free hanging lightbulbs and the TV. A couple kids were standing in front of the TV in a zombie-like state watching the gruesome instructional show on killing chickens. I had to look away. Mao lead me to the kitchen to point out our lunch being cooked. Seeing the kitchen, I knew that my stomach won't be the same after that.

Once the water boiled, a chicken was placed in there. It was then cut up on what looked like it my have been a cutting board on the ground and then served to us. The chicken was very bland, exactly what was expected from boiled chicken. Rice was served in small bowls and chicken was to be placed on top. The only spice available was the extra spicy chili sauce which I ended up using with hopes of killing off all the bacteria. During lunch, each member of the family approached us with a shot glass demanding that we have a shot of 30% rice wine with them. The problem was, the family was big, so we were pretty drunk by the end of lunch.

Here's the big, drunk, happy family.

The clothing that everyone is wearing is hand made by the women of the family. They make linen thread out of the plant, then weave the fabric on a machine that resembles 500 year old technology. The fabric is then dyed with indigo. Garments are sewn on antique sewing machines and are hand decorated with cross stitch and embroidery.

Sapa Trek

2010-07-21T22:41:00.001-07:00

I've decided to try to do something different with my blog. I'll skip forward and write about my most current adventures and then backtrack to catch up. So I introduce: Sapa,Vietnam

More pictures can be found here: http://public.fotki.com/FierceKitten/travel/2010-atw/sapa-i/

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At Hanoi, all hotels seemed to sell train tickets at a fixed price of $27 for a soft sleeper to Lao Cai, but we managed to purchase what we thought were the same tickets for half the price at the train station. The "we" was me and Josh whom I met a few days earlier at Hoi An. The train ride wasn't very pleasant. The entire night I was worried that I'd fall off the upper bed due to abrupt stops. It was also very shaky and, at some point, my bag fell out of the shelf onto me. Finally, at sunrise, we arrived at Lao Cai. From there we took a 1 hour mini bus to Sapa. I found it quite shady that the much needed air conditioning was turned off as soon as we began moving, when we had no opportunity to switch over to another company's mini bus.

An hour later, we arrived in the small town of Sapa. Everything there reminded me of Cusco, Peru for some reason. All the happy memories of travels with Dima, Dean and Jenny made me like the place immediately. Josh and I reserved a room at the Cat Cat Hotel. Apparently, a few hotels had the same name and the first one we walked into wasn't so nice, but then Josh found the right one. We got a room on the 9th floor with a fantastic view of the mountain. The stepped rice paddy terraces coming into view as the dense morning fog began to dissipate and the golden light of the sun illuminated the mountains made for a truly breathtaking view. Mistakenly, I thought I'd get the picture later in my trip, unfortunately, it was not to be... I woke up several times with the hope of capturing that same brilliant sunlight but it was never to make a second appearance :(

Once settled in, we discussed the tours over a breakfast of eggs and chocolate crepes. Since Josh only had 2 days in Sapa, he didn't want to take a chance and pass on the great weather for trekking. Despite being completely exhausted from the cold, uncomfortable train ride, we decided to go on the 15km trek through 4 villages - organized by the hotel.

We left hotel with a group of about 10 people. The Muong girls followed us, dressed in their traditional linen indigo colored clothes, wearing large baskets on their backs like backpacks. They seemed to have a system going. There were roughly the same number of them as there were of us. Moments after stepping out of the hotel, they all paired themselves up with the tourists. After a short introduction, the girls cycled through the typical questions: where are you from, how old are you, how many siblings do you have, how many kids do you have.

They were all very sweet and sincere. My girl offered to carry my bag, would hold the umbrella over my head trying to protect me from the sun, would give me a hand during the steep parts of the hike and would wait for me when I fell behind taking yet another picture. In the picture above the lady has some grass-looking stuff wrapped around her. She explained to me that she was making linen thread to be used later for weaving fabric. Her finger tips were purple from dying the clothes with indigo. I never knew that this is how linen looks before its fibers are made into thread.

Of course, I knew that she wasn't doing it for nothing. There of course was a catch. When we reached the first village, after a fairly easy hike down hill thus far, the girls following us asked that we buy stuff from them. They were selling bags decorated with cross stitching, bracelets, rings, and earrings. What they asked of the tourists at that point was that, if they were to buy something, they would buy from them rather than the girls at the village. At the last village, at the 12km mark of the hike, a lunch of veggies, bread and cheese, and fruit was served. After that, the sales pitch intensity increased. The girls were very demanding, guilt tripping all of us into buying stuff. They would whine "I know you long time, I follow you long way, why you not buy?" I ended up buying some earrings for a few bucks.

The last 3km of the hike was where I felt the real trek began. There were several steep inclines that we climbed presenting spectacular views all around of seemingly endless rice paddies with scattered houses.

During the hike, the girls disappeared for a moment. They reappeared from the bushes shortly after with marijuana plants. I inquired what it's for and the girl responded "We make clothes out of it, you guys smoke it." It is, however, illegal in Vietnam just as it is in most of the Asian countries except for Cambodia where the police just look the other way.

We encountered many children along the hike, all unsupervised. There was a girl taking care of her buffalo, a girl caring for younger siblings, boys riding buffalos, and others just playing around.

In the end, it was a fantastic hike and deffinitely a highlight of Vietnam. I had a fantastic time with a fantastic group.

Tourists from left: me, Josh, Jenny, Koen, Dieter, and Kevin. (Some of the picture above are from Koen's camera. Thanks Koen!!!)

Travel info:

Cat Cat View Hotel $20-$30. Great views. Breakfast can be included. Can arrange tours and treks
Address: 046 Cat Cat Road, Sa Pa
Phone: 84-30-387-1946
Email: catcatht@hn.vnn.vn

Train tickets on a soft sleeper train SP7 purchased from a hotel in Hanoi are generally $30 and are VIP. A cheaper soft sleeper exists that can be purchased directly from the Hanoi train station for 330,000 vnd. The difference is the bedding, head room and storage space as well as a water bottle and tea in the VIP vs the cheaper soft sleeper. Book both your ticket there and the return one in advance as they tend to sell out fast. Often tour agencies will buy out all the tickets from the train station forcing people to have to go through them. The train itself can sometimes be cold, so bring pants and a long sleeve shirt in case it gets uncomfortable. I always travel with a sleeping bag sheet which works great on the train.

A minibus from Lao Cai to Sa Pa will cost 35,000 vnd

One of the less expensive places to eat in Sapa is the LIttle Sapa Cafe at 18-38 Cau May St.

Ask for a city map from the hotel.

Phnom Penh

2010-07-08T00:50:00.001-07:00

Phnom Penh photo album: http://public.fotki.com/FierceKitten/travel/2010-atw/phnom-penh/

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We arrived to Phnom Penh by bus with no hotel reserved. It seemed like a good idea to just walk around and find something, but after 10 minutes of walking around in blistering heat, navigating strange streets and looking at slummy hotels, we decided that maybe it's best to just pick something out of the guide book. After a quick call to the Sunday Guest House, a tuk tuk picked us up. (This was one of those times that I was very glad I bought a sim card).

The main currency used in Cambodia is American dollars. The ATMs dispense only dollars. However, they don't have American coins out here, and this is where Cambodian Riel come into play. It's 4000 Riel to a dollar. If wouldn't be so bad if it was only Riel, but when you get change as a combination of 2 currencies, suddenly it becomes evident who paid attention in math class and who didn't. This also makes it easy for people to give wrong change and they usually try. I, of course, would stand with the money in my hand, taking as much time as needed to do the calculation and demand more money after.

The Sunday Guesthouse provided us with a room containing 3 beds. There was air conditioning, wifi and even hand soap in the bathroom. Yes, hand soap is an impressive freebie in Asia. When washing hands before a meal at restaurant kitchens, I very rarely would find soap there. The only annoying thing about the room was that there were tiny little ants all over the place making it impossible to store any sort of food. The hotel had a cheap restaurant in the lobby that served the typical stir fried noodles and fried rice for lunch and dinner and excellent omelets with mushrooms and onions for breakfast for less than $2. The cool thing about the hotel was that they had a large TV in the lobby that played "The Killing Fields" movie every evening at 7pm. This was where our education started on the horrors imposed on the Cambodian people in the recent past.

During our first breakfast, a monk appeared in front of the hotel entrance. He stood motionless and quiet for a good 5 minutes. Then a lady came out of the hotel and placed some money in his bag. He sang a prayer as she bowed for a couple minutes and left. 5 minutes hadn't passed when another monk appeared on the door step. The process of donation and prayer repeated. This went on all morning long. When I asked the lady how much money she gives out on a daily basis, she responded with "Oh, don't ask."

We spent one day sight seeing around the city. It was incredibly hot, 43C in shade during the day and 39C at night. We insisted on walking around the city visiting the palace and the city temple.

At the bottom of Phnom Wat (Temple on the hill) was a park with lots of trees. This was pretty much the only place in Phnom Penh where we found anything green. The trees were inhabited by a bunch of monkeys. I had a blast photographing the little monsters going about their daily tasks.

Mom, this one seems to have our ears. Is it a relative of ours? ;)

Of course, all these places had very annoying signs outside.

I feel incredibly ignorant for not being aware of the genocide that had happened in Cambodia during my lifetime. I don't recall any of this being taught in history classes. In order to truly understand Cambodia, the Tuol Sleng Museum and the killing fields, I needed to understand what had happened and why.

Here's what I learned:

In March 1969, United States launched "Operation Menu", an illegal and secret bombing campaign on eastern Cambodia. The purpose was to prevent north Vietnamese offensives. However, the mission failed. Shortly after, Lon Nol, the Army Chief of staff overthrew Sihanouk, the prince of Cambodia, while he was away on a trip to China.

Meanwhile, the Khmer Rouge, which consisted of Cambodians educated in France who joined the communist party there, was beginning to expand. Sihanouk joined with Khmer Rouge in hopes of being restored as the prince. The beloved prince sent out a radio message to his people, telling them to join the Khmer Rouge forces and rebel against Lon Nol. People followed and joined, but no one knew what this meant. In April 1975, Lon Nol's republic collapsed and Cambodia fell to Khmer Rouge.

At the time, city dwellers were the rich and exploited the poor peasants of the countryside. The Khmer Rouge wanted to get rid of corruption making everyone equal, like the other communist nations did. They attempted a social-engineering project where they would remove all of the rich and educated citizens and anyone suspected of involvement in the free-market activities while creating a self-sufficient society. The suspected capitalists were professionals, everyone who had an education, city dwellers, people with connections to the government, doctors, lawyers, teachers and those who wore glasses. (space)Khmer Rouge believed that parents were tainted by capitalism and would separate children from their parents and brainwash the children to socialist beliefs. Later, these children often as young as 8 would work as prison guards and torturers.

The entire population of Phnom Penh was told of a coming US bomb attack on the city and was moved to the country side to work on the rice fields. The suspected capitalists were weeded out and placed in prisons where they would be accused for various treasonous activities, often being labeled as KGB, CIA or Vietnamese spies. People of all ages, men, women and children were tortured until they confessed and were then killed.

I visited Tuol Sleng in Phnom Penh, a grade school converted into a prison and interrogation center, also named S-21. The prison was run by Comrade Duch (pronounced as Doik). He was single handedly responsible for the deaths of at least 17,000 people. I'll spare you the details of the photographs posted in the museum as well as all the torture devices displayed. Words can't describe what I felt when viewing picture after picture of the portraits shot when the prisoners were checked in. The eternity of the images presented a false hope that these people might still be alive, however we know that only 7 people made it out alive.

The Vietnamese invasion in 1979 marks the beginning of the decline of the Khmer Rouge reign. By this time, nearly 1/3 of the Cambodian population had been killed. Throughout the next decade, people began to return to Cambodia from all around, including the refugee camps in Thailand. Gina, when you told me you were born in Thailand, I assumed your parents immigrated there, I had no idea you spent the first 2 years of your life in a refugee camp escaping the Khmer Rouge.

The people who returned to Cambodia were both the oppressed and the Khmer Rouge. They now live side by side. It was odd riding on a bus and seeing elderly people, wondering if perhaps the old man sitting next to me might be one of the prison guards or a torturer. No one really knows who was who.

Other than the Toul Sleng prison, tourists are encouraged to visit the killing fields, the mass graves from the Genocide. We chose not to visit the fields because it seems very immoral that the Japanese came and purchased the land, now making profit off the deaths of thousands, putting their graveyards on display.

Angkor Management

2010-06-18T09:31:00.001-07:00

Angkor served as the center of the Khmer Empire between the 9th and the 13th century. The word "Angkor" means "city". The Angkorian period started when Jayavarman II, a Khmer Hindo monarch, declared himself as the "god king" and lasted until Ankgor was sacked in 1431AD causing the population to move into the Phnom Penh area.

There are over 1000 temples in the Angkor region ranging in scale from fields of rocks to Angkor Wat, the temple Jayavarman built for himself in the 12th century as his state temple and capital city. Angkor Wat is the best preserved temple in the complex and is the only one that remains as a functioning religious center, first to the Hindu and second to the Buddhist religions. This temple has become a symbol of cambodia and is pictured on the country's flag.

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As suggested by our hotel, we arranged for a tuk tuk the night before and left around 8am for Angkor Wat. The guy drove us around the complex, patiently waiting outside for us at each stop.

The ticket booth was surprisingly high tech. They took our $20 and, in exchange, gave us a ticket with the worst possible mug shot on it. Mom and Dad, that's one of the papers that you got in mail, take a look again, I'm sure you skipped it not knowing what it was.

Someone in town recommended that we get a guide. We asked the police officers in front of Angkor Wat where we can find one. A short phone call from the law enforcement and we had a guide. As promised, he did speak English. However, we couldn't understand 90% of what he said. But hey, the 10% was very interesting!

Being a functioning temple, there were many monks and nuns visiting.

It took me a long time to find out who these old women with shaved heads were. After several attempts of googling it, I finally found out that the "Women are not ordained, but older women, especially widows, can become nuns. They live in wat and play an important role in the everyday life of the temple. Nuns shave their heads and eyebrows and generally follow the same precepts as monks. They may prepare the altars and do some of the housekeeping chores". However, I don't believe that anyone actually lives at Angkor Wat.

Through the main gates and down a long path, we approached the probably most photographed spot in Cambodia.

The green construction objects that made it quite annoying to photograph the temple are part of the German restoration project. Gosha, I thought you'd enjoy learning that.

We must have spent 3 hours wandering around Angkor Wat, following the long, seemingly endless hallways on multiple levels decorated with reliefs depicting the ancient Khmer history.

One of the reliefs was particularly humorous in my opinion. I inquired with the guide as to why the warriors wore such large shirts but didn't seem to have enough fabric for the pants, but his response was just a shy giggle.

From Ankgor Wat, we moved on to the Ta Prohm temple, also known as the Tomb Raider temple. I was told that the story behind the tree roots taking over the ruins is that during the Thai occupation, no one took care of the temple which was pooped on by numerous birds who had eaten the tree seeds.

I ended up coming back for more photo opportunities the following day, arriving at 4:30am, just in time for the sunrise and taking my time exploring the Tomb Raider temple completely alone. What a fantastic moment it must have been, being the first person to walk into this magical place after the hundreds of years of abandonment.

When I was all photoed out, shooting for 5 hours, my tuk tuk driver suggested I go see one more temple. Our original agreement was that he takes me to the temples at 4am and back to the hotel around 11. He insisted on me seeing one more and I didn't think much of it. I was tired and my brain was starting to boil from the heat, so I agreed. We were driving for quite a long time, I fell asleep and managed to have 3 dreams. When we finally arrived, I realized it was the temple that's super far from the rest, the same temple that we told him previously we didn't want to go to because it would be too expensive. Crap! Annoyed, I hopped out, gathered the little energy I had left from my breakfast that consisted of a toast with jam and a small banana 6 hours prior, and snapped a few shots.

When we got back to the hotel, the shady, sneaky tuk tuk driver demanded I pay him $30 instead of the original $5. I'm sure I don't even need to write what happened, since most of you know me well enough to guess. To make the long story short, I told him that because he tricked me, I'm not going to pay him what he asked. I said I'll give him an extra $5, making it a total of $10 because he intentionally tried to rip me off. Had he been honest, I would have paid him more. He insisted on arguing, at which point I told him that the longer her argues with me, the less money he'll get, removing a dollar from the pile of money every few minutes. He finally stopped arguing with me and took the money.

More pictures can be found here: http://public.fotki.com/FierceKitten/travel/2010-atw/angkor-wat/

Travel Info:

We stayed at the Golden Mango Inn (http://www.goldenmangoinn.com/)run by two incredibly hospitable brothers, Phin Ly Ngeth and Sokvann. Our room with 3 beds, aircon, wifi, and free breakfast was $15 total.

I highly recommend starting at Angkor Wat at 4:30am (bring a flashlight), watching the sunrise over the pond and continuing through the temples until 11am. That's when it gets super hot, so go back to the hotel, rest, shower, and return around 3am to see some more ruins and the sunset. You should be able to negotiate with a tuk tuk driver to take you around for the entire day, including the returns to the hotel for about $5/person.

There is a lot of good shopping in Siem Reap. I found things to be cheaper there rather than in Phnom Penh. Don't forget to bargain though. The initial price is usually more than double the real price.

Facebook Access in Vietnam

2010-06-09T18:58:00.001-07:00

I know it's my travel blog, but I'd like to post a solution to a problem that many people will face when traveling in countries that block access to specific sites. Vietnam, as well as a few other countries block access to social networking sites such as facebook. I found a way to make it work on my laptop with OSX.

Download firefox if you don't have it already
Download Tor Vidalia (it will hide your IP): http://www.torproject.org/easy-download.html.en
Install the TorButton by double clicking the "Install TorButton for Firefox" shortcut in the downloaded Tor package or install it from Firefox extensions.
Run Vidalia and when its icon in the the doc turns green, click the Tor button in your firefox so that it says "Tor enabled" in a green font.
Then enjoy your facebook! :)

Tor also has free installers for windows and linux machines. For public computer use, tor has a pre-configured self-contained browser that can be installed onto a usb drive. All downloads can be found here: http://www.torproject.org/easy-download.html.en

Siam Reap, in the land of pajamas

2010-06-08T08:51:00.001-07:00

The city of Siam Reap is a group of villages clustered around approximately 1000 temples of Angkor. The name Siam Reap means the defeat of the Siamese aka the Thai referring to the century old bloodbath.

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The Siam Reap airport was pretty much what I expected. The small hut-like building on the side of the airstrip managed to efficiently get everyone through passport control and my e-visa, printed out of my gmail, was legit. At the entrance, there was a mob of people standing around with signs and it took me a while to find the guy with my name. He lead me through a parking lot carrying my big bag to his tuk tuk, which is like a modern "carriage" towed by a motorbike.

I arrived at the "Golden Mango" guest house and was greeted by Julie and Jill who were screaming my name off the balcony "O-lee-a, O-lee-a". In comparison to all the hotels thus far, this was a mansion! The room was large, with 3 beds, clean towels, nice bathroom with shower accessories and air conditioning. All for $15.

I'd like to introduce Julie and Jill, the two Canadian girls that I traveled through Cambodia with. Here's Jill in a restaurant, in deep thought.

Here, Julie and I are enjoying our first Cambodian meal. I had rice with stir fried veggies and pork.

Of course the main attraction of Siam Reap is the Angkor temples, but we found a few things to do aside from that.

I finally got to try out the fish spa where fish remove any dead skin you have. I'm ticklish, so I lasted about 3 minutes in there. There was another lady who decided to try it out with me and after some chatting inbetween the giggles, it turned out that she's from Burbank. Small world.

We also went to get a massage after a long hot day of temple wandering. 1 hour massage cost $4. There was a peculiar sign though (Thanks guys, good to know).

The first night in Siam Reap, we had dinner at Karo restaurant which was recommended to us by a local. We were told that all tuk tuk drivers will know where it is. We grabbed a tuk tuk and asked him if he knew where Karo was and he said yes. He drove down the street and pulled over to ask someone. Cambodians have an annoying habit of agreeing with everything even if they don't know the answer to a question. No one seemed to actually know where the restaurant was. Eventually, we found it and the food was very yummy. Flipping through the long menu, I ran across a couple interesting pages. First of all, they pointed out what they do not serve and they also seemed to have invented a new drink called a "Block Russian."

On another night, we decided to try the "happy" pizza that I recalled hearing about from my cousin Anya years back. When the hotel owner inquired as to what our dinner plans were and we told him the happy pizza, he loudly exclaimed "oh, you want marijuana." At that point, we realized it's not a secret thing and whispering about it was unnecessary. We ordered a happy pizza which came sprinkled with some grassy bits that tasted very much as they should. However, I wasn't any happier than I would have been had I eaten Papa John's back home.

And last, but not least, I'd like to explain the title of this entry. One of the first things that I noticed on my way from the airport to the hotel is that pretty much all of the women were wearing pajamas. I figured, well, it's morning time so maybe they haven't changed yet. As the day progressed, pajamas remained. People were wearing pajamas all day long, at work, on motorbikes, laying around in hammocks, etc. I've come to a conclusion that it must be a fashion trend similar to the track suit trend (which still exists in glendale...heehee)

More photos can be found here: http://public.fotki.com/FierceKitten/travel/2010-atw/siem-reap/

Pulau Tioman, Malaysia

2010-05-31T07:04:00.001-07:00

The Tioman Island is located a 3 hour boat ride from a small town of Mersing.

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I originally heard about Tioman from Martin ( I introduced him in the previous post) who got Padi scuba certified out there. Originally, my certification was going to be completed in Thailand, but since the bombs started exploding in the capital, I decided to stay out of the country. I headed to Tioman with Jule and her Malaysian friend Afham. We got off the boat at the last stop, Salang. It was already dark and we had no reservations. As suggested by Martin, we walked North along the shore until almost at the end of the road, we reached a Ella's Bungalows and there happened to be a vacancy. We got a $20 Bungalow which we later upgraded to a $30 bungalow due to lodging availability problems during the May 1st holiday weekend.

Our first day on the island, we decided to swim to the little island that can be seen to the right of the shore in the picture below.

Jule decided to swim from our hotel while Afham and I started along the rocks in order for the crossing to be shorter. We were warned that there is a significant amount of boat traffic between the two islands and that crossing must be done with caution. Afham got a cramp at about half way, so he stopped on the rocks. At that point, I had to quickly swim to Jule who was getting worried about what was taking us so long. On my way to the island, I got yelled at by a passing boat for swimming across w/out a life jacket. Tired, I reached the island and Jule swam off to check on Afham. She was to give me a signal when she reached Afham either to swim back or to wait for them. When crawling out onto the rocks on the island to wait for Jule, I slipped a few times getting some scratches, no big deal. When Jule reached Afham, she signaled for me to return because he wasn't able to swim. I swam to them and decided to get out of the water for a break. The problem was the tide got higher and the waves were choppy. I underestimated the sharpness of the rocks and got cut up on my hips, legs and elbows quite a bit. I didn't even realize this until Afham pointed out blood that dripped off of of me. (Don't worry, I'm all healed up, just had scratches all over) Once on shore, I walked over to the B&J Diving school that Martin recommended and told them I'll register for a diving course as soon as they can provide me with the necessary tools to disinfect everything. And that's how I signed up for an Open Water Certification course.

My next 4 days were spent watching Padi videos, reading the book, taking quizzes and tests, and of course, learning all the skills required by Padi in the water. I was in a class with 2 other people, a local Malaysian/Chinese couple in their 40s who were extremely slow in every aspect. They had a hard time understanding the reading material and videos as well as the instruction under water. The class was dragging on longer than expected and the instructor frustration was quite evident. I was beginning to wish that I came to Malaysia a little earlier and had been in the class with Martin, since he raved about the crazy amounts of fun that it was. The hardest thing to do was to remove my mask underwater, put it back on and get rid of the water. The first attempt at this resulted with me inhaling water somehow, which is an extremely unpleasant experience, by the way. The thought of quitting definitely crossed my mind after that. I eventually mastered the skill and was able to do the final "swim w/out a mask then put it on" test almost with ease.

I had a food ritual on the island where I ate breakfast at our hotel watching the ocean, which usually consisted of a banana pancake with a cup of Milo (a malt hot chocolate) and a lunch of "cheese roti" with watermelon juice or salad, in the restaurant that I referred to as "colorful" because of its railing.

On my first morning, I got woken up by what seemed to be a very loud earthquake. I hopped outside out of habit only to see a storm all around the island. The thunder was so loud that it was shaking our poor little bungalow. However, it passed quickly leaving behind some great views. :)

On our second evening on the island, we met a group of Europeans who also acquainted shortly before with whom we spent majority of the time on the island. (You guys were a ton of fun and I miss you all) Every day, we ate fresh sea food for dinner on the beach where fresh seafood could be picked (calamari/fish/prawns) and then cooked in any way desired. It later turned out, this favorite restaurant was where Terry worked (The guy who spent a ton of time looking for my stolen mobile phone in the jungle)

See more pictures here: http://public.fotki.com/FierceKitten/travel/2010-atw/pulau-tioman-malaysia/

Kuala Lumpur

2010-05-27T03:13:00.001-07:00

I arrived to Kuala Lumpur by bus from Singapore. The bus cost S$20 and was the nicest bus I’ve ever been on; clean, air conditioned with large cushiony seats.

Oh, and I keep forgetting to mention that they drive on the “wrong” side of the road in both Singapore and Malaysia. Breaking out of the habit of looking left before crossing the road is more difficult than I imagined and every time I had to cross the street, I’d feel a teeny amount of stress. Along with driving on the other side come several differences in vehicles. The obvious is the driver sitting on the right side, which also kept confusing me when taking the taxis because I’d walk over to the wrong side and the taxi driver would exclaim with a grin “what, you want to drive?” The oddest thing that comes to mind about the vehicle designed for the other side of the road is the windshield wipers moving in the opposite direction that we’re used to. I’m not sure why, but it really bugged me.

Ok, back to Kuala Lumpur. The bus from Singapore arrived at 4am, much earlier than I calculated. I somehow managed to confuse myself and come to a conclusion that the bus will arrive at 5:30 and Martin, a really nice Czech guy from Edinburgh whom I met on travbuddies.com, was supposed to pick me. I hung around the lobby of a fancy hotel that I found down street until Martin found me.

The Equator hostel at Times Square, Kuala Lumpur that Martin found was a nice little place. It was located just behind the large fancy hotel, was several stories high and had about 50 pairs of shoes outside. Being in a Muslim country, the hostel had its rules clearly posted.

The rooms were nice with shared asian bathrooms, meaning shower and toilet are all in one room, often with the shower almost directly above the toilet.

The living room was comfy with a TV and dvds of all the new movies that just came out in theaters in the US. The kitchen was well equipped as well, with tea, hot chocolate and coffee free all day. I was most intrigued by the green faucet in the kitchen. Up until now, I’ve never seen faucets made out of plastic.

While Martin was sleeping, I decided to go to the Petronas Twin Towers in the center of the city. According to the map, it’d be only two stops on the airtrain, which reminded me of Disneyland.

I walked to the train stop ands to my surprise, the train arrived completely full; rush hour. People began pushing to get in once the doors open. I gave it a try as well, but there is no way in hell I was getting in there with my backpack. The doors closed and the train left. I looked around with disappointment and a guy who didn’t get into another door walked over to help. It turns out that the trick is to go 2 stops backwards and get on when it’s partially empty. Good to know!

Petronas towers were exactly what I expected. Beautiful Islam influenced modern buildings stretching up toward the clouds. All sorts of tourists were scattered throughout the park underneath the towers: large groups of Japanese, Chinese and Korean tourists as well as quite a few Saudi couples with women wearing full black burkhas. Brought back memories of traveling in Egypt with Masha and Kia.

After traveling in Egypt, I can’t say I was looking forward to staying in another Muslim country. My biggest concern was traveling alone as a woman and how it would be perceived by the locals. Malaysia is nothing like Egypt. The only thing that the two have in common is the religion. People in Kuala Lumpur were very nice and helpful. (Despite good maps, I still managed to get lost tons and asked for help and directions. ) The country has a mix of cultures, Malay, Indian and Chinese. The most common language is of course Malay, but all the signs are in English with smaller Chinese characters below. All 3 cultures speak their own languages and English when communicating to each other. All of the commercials and billboards are also in English.

By a popular request, I will now include pictures of the food. Yes dad, I’m taking photos of my food, just like you do back home ☺
I grabbed some early lunch with Martin at an Indian restaurant two steps away from our hostel. He recommended Roti Chanai, a pancake crepe type pastry often filled with something. Mine had eggs and onion.

In the evening, the owner of the hostel took a group of people for a traditional meal outside of the touristy zone. It was a buffet full of unfamiliar scary things all served on top of a blue purplish coconut rice with all sorts of spices. To my surprise, it tasted amazing… I actually liked the spices! ( I generally don’t like spices, even black pepper, right Vanya?)

After dinner, a few of us went for a walk to the Petronas towers because I wanted to get a night shot of them. We figured it couldn’t be that hard since they can be seen from everywhere. The difficulty as it turned out was to get across a highway that ran through the city. We walked through several sketchy neighborhoods with the locals gladly greeting us with “Halo” as we passed. After several miles of walking, we finally asked for directions and found a way to the other side. It was a very nice experience, just walking around and seeing what life is like.

At 9:55, we arrived to the towers and just as I set up a tripod to include the waterfalls in the foreground of my shot, the clock hit 10 and the waterfalls shut down. Damn!

This is Jula, a German girl who I met at the hostel with whom I later traveled for 2 weeks. This was the end of her 7 month journey around the world.

From Kuala Lumpur, I went up north to Cameron Highlands with Jula and Martin where my tooth started hurting quite bad, possibly due to changing air pressure after the rain storm. I figured continuing with such a strong tooth pain is a bad idea and that I better go back to KL and see a dentist. But how in the world would I figure out which dentist to go to? On travbuddies, Faisal wrote to me a while back offering help with anything I might need while traveling in KL, so I emailed asking him if he has a good dentist. When I returned from Cameron Highlands, he picked Jula and me up from the bus station, took me to a dentist who fixed my tooth in a jiffy, saying that the reason why it’s been hurting is due to an air pocket between my tooth and the filling. Afterwards, Faisal had to go to work, so he just dropped me off at his apartment to relax and instructed me to turn on channel 103 at 8:40pm. Turns out he does sports news for TV3 in Kuala Lumpur.

He was nice enough to host me for a few days until I went to Tioman as well as my short returns between my other destinations in Malaysia.

Completely off topic… I spotted this sign from a rooftop restaurant where I was hoping to get some pictures of the twin towers. No twin towers, but Mom and Dad, I thought you’d appreciate this.

Sipadan and Mabul Islands, Malaysia

2010-05-17T03:05:00.000-07:00

I left Kota Kinabalu on a 7:30pm overnight bus to Semporna.The bus was reserved for me by the agency that booked the Sipadan Scuba trip and was to cost RM75, but hey, it was a 10.5 hour bus, so it’s somewhat reasonable. I later found out that other people were able to bargain the prices down to RM40, which is what locals pay. Why didn’t I think of that? :(

A little information about Sipadan, which happens to be a world class diving site:
The island is located in the Celebs Sea, rising 600 meters above the seabed. Over 3000 species of fish and hundreds species of coral can be found on this island that is formed by coral growing on an atoll. It is considered one of the richest marine habitats in the world, therefore it’s no wonder it’s one of the best diving spots in the world according to a few scuba magazines. At the bottom of the column of the island, formed by a limestone cave with a labyrinth of tunnels and chambers lies a turtle tomb that contains many skeletal remains of turtles that got lost and drowned ☹

View Larger Map

When on the bus, I was hoping to get a row to myself, but it was fully booked, so I sat next to a young guy who spoke minimal English. He was nice enough to let me have the window seat. When the bus started moving, we got 3 items: a water bottle, a chocolate cookie bar and a plastic bag. I asked the guy next to me, is the bag for trash. He laughed and shook his head answering me with a gesture demonstration that it’s for vomiting. Funny, are they predicting that the passengers will get sick from water and chocolate? LOL, obviously not. The second gesture that my neighbor displayed was the wavy road through the mountains.

The bus ride was mostly fine, but very bumpy. We arrived an hour early, which didn’t thrill me because it was 4:30am. I was told that I can either go to a hostel and get a bed there for a few hours or hang out at the bus station. When I walked of the bus, I was rushed by a bunch of men asking me where I was going, what I wanted to do and claimed that they can help with anything that I need. I politely declined everything and sat down on the stone bench. Wow, 3 hours to kill, what do I do? People periodically approached me and offered to book me a hotel or a scuba diving trip in broken English, but I was able to convince them that everything was arranged and someone was meeting me in a few minutes. Of course, no one was meeting me, I need to walk across town to the Billabong office by 7:30am, but they didn’t need to know that. There was a woman with a small child sitting at the bus stop as well, so I figured I’d approach her for help. She spoke enough English to explain to me that the hostel is 2km away and that if I want to go there, I need to take one of the private taxis because that’s the only kind of a taxi that exists in the village. I opted for waiting at the bus stop because all the taxi drivers were just too eager to help, always a red flag in my book. The woman said that she’ll walk with me and help me find the billabong office. I had a drawn map of how to get there, but the map turned out to be useless until I was in front of the building. She told me that the reason why she was there waiting is because the office for national ids is located in that village and she had been waiting for 2 years to receive her card. Once she got her card at 8am, she would return back to KK on the next overnight bus. I asked why she couldn’t receive the card by mail and she told me that you have to travel to pick up your card in person. Messed up!

Once I found the office, I was rushed over to the boat that would take me to Mabul, and island on which my hotel/hostel was located. The boat was a decent size boat, partially covered with a cloth roof fitting 8 people comfortably. Shortly after leaving shore, it started to rain and the water got choppy and the wooden bench was no longer comfortable to my bottom. The rain drops hitting my face would hurt pretty bad so I managed to get my jacket on just right to protect my face. This brutal boat ride lasted about an hour and I was drenched by the time we got to the hotel. Once again, we were rushed to get gear and back onto the boat to dive at Sipadan.

I was told by the dive master that because my reservation was made so late, I had to register with someone else’s name. So on Monday, I was Rachel Carey from the UK and I didn’t remember my passport number. A short boat ride from Mabul was the famous Sipadan island, which didn’t look too impressive with dark grey clouds around and sprinkling rain. I registered as Rachel, as I was instructed and off we went for my first dive outside the Open Water course, South Point. The dive master said that we will dive to 30 meters, which is out of my certification but not to worry. He stuck with me throughout the entire dive, dragging me by the hand half the time to show me all kinds of neat things. As soon as we descended, we saw a few sharks both above and below us.

We hung around the sharks for a while so that everyone had a chance to get some pictures and then proceeded to look for turtles.

The underwater world was so colorful, with bright yellow, white and black angel fish, blue sea slugs, gigantic clams, hard and soft coral of all imaginable colors, sharks, turtles, frog fish, leaf fish, lion fish, anemones, clown fish (Nemo) and many many more.

It was very odd thinking that my 30 meter depth under water was like the height of a 10 floor building, because when looking up, the surface looked so close. After a 40 minute dive, we ascended to the surface and it was quite a bit of a shock. The first thing I felt were heavy cold raindrops hitting me on top of the head. When I looked around, it looked like a scene from a Hollywood movie where a ship wrecked. We were all floating in dark grey water with minimal visibility, hard rain coming down and gigantic waves rocking us up and down, waiting for our boat to come find us. The boat couldn’t have arrived sooner because this shipwreck feeling was quite unpleasant.

The second and third dives had much better weather, After short breaks for food on the island, we did a 47minute dive in the Hanging Gardens and a 47 minute dive at the Barracuda Point.

After resting from the dives at the hotel, I went for a walk through the village. I was shocked at the number of children running around. It seemed like there must have been 10 children for each adult on the island, a really crazy ratio. They came running after me, screaming “halo, halo.” When they saw my camera, they pulled me in all sorts of directions begging me to take a picture, trying to do all kinds of things to get my attention.

Continuing that the town, the adults displayed similar behavior, but on a different level. They would all say “halo” with big smiles and ask if I wanted to take a picture. Was very hard to decline. I found an older couple running a small shop, who didn’t ask me to take their picture and instead I asked them. They gladly agreed.

[insert a picture of the old couple]

The village itself seemed incredibly poor. The building were simple wooden shacks with no furniture inside. People just had mattresses on the floor and lots of creativity was used for common western luxuries. The plant pots were old used paint containers and clothes were hung to dry on a barbed wire fence, which may come as a shock to the western travelers. However, the people seemed happy, they appeared satisfied with their lifestyle.

The next morning, I went out for 3 more dives. A Russian guy who had just arrived in the morning joined the dive group and it was nice to speak Russian for once. He was an experienced diver and pointed out many cool things underwater along w/the dive master. The first dive was at Kapalai House Reef. Other than the fact that this used to be an island 200 years ago and was eroded, I really don't have much history on what the underwater structures are unfortunately :( The other two dives were at Water Bungalows and at the Eel Garden.

Travel Info:
I booked my trip from the Summer Lodge Hostel in KK. One of the ladies running the hostel, Betty, always came to the rescue to make a successful booking when everyone else in town said there was no availability and that I should have thought about booking weeks ago.

A taxi from the center to the Inanam bus station should cost about RM20. The bus from the Inanam bus station to Simporna should take around 10 hours and the cost can be bargained down to RM40.

When in Simporna, wait for the sunrise before trying to find your way to the reservation office as the town can be a little sketchy. From what I heard, Uncle Chang’s is one of the nicer agencies to book with. The hotel is nice and clean with wonderful and helpful staff. Uncle Chang's, as well as Scuba Jeff, Scuba Junkie and Billabong all sell all inclusive packages which include diving, hotel, 3 meals/day and to/from island transportation. My trip with 6 dives (3 Sipadan/3 Mabul) cost around RM800, but it can be done for cheaper if booking ahead.

I dove with Billabong which was fine, but it wasn’t as nice as some of the other places. The hotel itself wasn’t super nice, everything was very poorly organized, no one had their Padi license to show and an instructor by the name of Keri, a rude, bitchy, unpleasant girl from South Africa are all good reasons not to book with them. That said, if there is no other option, book through them because Sipadan is absolutely amazing and should not be missed because of the above reasons.

If traveling during the rainy season, be sure to bring a windbreaker and a rain coat as the boat drive can be very cold and unpleasant during rain on the way to and from the island. There are no ATMs on the island, so if you’re planning on buying any snacks or supplies, withdraw in Simporna. All scuba, snorkeling and underwater photography gear can be rented on the island, so you’re not expected to have your own. Cell phones do work on the island and wifi can be found at a few hotels. Uncle Chang’s charges RM6/hour for the internet.

Here are some pictures of the Billabong hotel/dive shop

And here's a shot from the deck of Uncle Chang's hotel which I should have stayed in.

More pictures: http://public.fotki.com/FierceKitten/travel/2010-atw/sipadan-and-mabul-i/

More videos: http://www.youtube.com/fiercekttn

Mount Kinabalu Hike

2010-05-13T16:48:00.000-07:00

The whole Mount Kinabalu hiking thing is controlled by the Malaysian government, so basically it’s a monopoly. Two days into my stay in Borneo, Malaysia, I decided that I should try to climb the mountain, despite all my reservations about it. After attempting to hike with Jula and Martin and crossing the jungle on the way back to Salang on the Tioman Island, I felt I may not have what it takes. The physical and mental challenges thus far are much greater than I expected. That said, I was told by numerous people that their moms hiked the mountain, so I figured I should try.

There are all kinds of rules and regulations with the hike. The first thing the government requires is proof of accommodation at Laban Rata, the half way point and the second thing is the hiking permit along with numerous miscellaneous fees that need to be paid. After comparing the prices with the ones of the all-inclusive packages, it made sense to just book through an agency rather than collecting all the documents and reservations myself.

Once I booked my scuba diving trip and had set dates, I was ready to book the hike as well. All of the 5 agencies that I visited told me that booking a day in advance is impossible and that the hotel at Laban Rata is all booked. I figured it was all BS. I returned to my hostel asking Betty, the lady that set me up w/a lucky trip to Sipadan for scuba diving if she could hook me up with the hike as well. She made a few calls and shortly after, I was all set to leave the following morning at 5:30am to Mount Kinabalu.

The following day I met the other 2 people that were doing hike as well. They were a Czech couple, the least friendly people I’ve met yet. Perhaps it was the fact that they didn’t speak English that they seemed unfriendly, but either way, no fun at all. I wanted to hire a porter and our guide, Tumas said that he can carry my 8kg bag for RM9/kg. Totally worth it! Tumas suggested we get hiking sticks and having read the Lonely Planet carefully, I remembered the book saying that the hiking stick is a must. I’ve never hiked with a stick before and this was a wooden staff, but hey, it was only RM3, I could just leave it somewhere if I didn’t like it. When the Czechs saw the wooden stick, they decided it was unnecessary, despite my telling them that my book highly recommended it.

The hike started as a small path in the jungle with a few rocks around. Shortly after, it became rock, the kind that definitely required the use of my ankle brace. I was told that it’s cold during the hike, but the air was fairly warm in the beginning. Usually, I’m tired after climbing 4 flights of stairs, but here, I just kept going slowly and everything was fine. I remembered Jule telling me that the trick about hiking is finding your pace, and I must have found it. Maybe it was the stick, maybe it was my expectations of an impossible hike or maybe the ability of doing the hike was all mental like some locals told me, but I was doing just fine. I was happy that Tumas was carrying my bag and that I had a stick to assist me.
Near km3, the vegetation started to change. The lower branches of trees were covered in thick moss and trees had large roots wrapper around rocks . Concerned that one might be a snake, I insisted on poking the suspicious objects with my stick.

The jungle seemed more moist with a few puddles between the rocks and the soil was starting to get slippery. Before we reached km4, fog rolled in quite suddenly.

The weather change was so sudden that it’s no wonder the local people believe the mountain is mystical. At km4, it started pouring. My raincoat from the 99 cent store worked surprisingly well. By km5, many of the tall trees were replaced and red leaves covered the ground. I saw this peculiar leaf, not sure what to make of it.

After a while, people started catching up us, but they weren’t hikers. The people were carrying gigantic packs on their backs made of wood with straps over the shoulders and across the forehead. They all must have been carrying at least 20 kilograms and were going at a pace double ours. It was amazing. As we later learned, there is no road that goes to Laban Rata Hotel , which runs a restaurant for the guests. This means that all supplies must be carried up the hill by people. No wonder it’s so expensive to stay up there. Many of these porters passed us on the trail, some had packs full of apples and oranges, some had a couple cases of coke attached on top of their packs. These porters were both men and women, crazy!

By km6, the thinning air was definitely evident as we were all gasping for air. Every step and every breath was work and short breaks became an absolute necessity. Finally, by 3pm, we completed the hike at the Laban Rata hotel only minutes before the wall of water came down on the mountain.
After dinner at 5pm, I was lucky to have witnessed an amazing sunset above the cloud line just outside my dorm room.

Due to numerous requests as to how my accommodations look, here's a picture of the dorm room.

The next day, we got up at 1:45am and breakfast was served at 2am. All the Chinese tourists were wearing ski jackets, pants and face masks. It was chilly outside, but I didn’t think it was that cold. I heard that it can get down to 0C and winds can reach 120km/hr, but ski gear seemed like an overkill. I thought that maybe they knew something I didn’t and opted for a RM10 jacket.

The hike began near our cabin and the difficulty level was high. I was sandwiched in line between the Czechs and Chinese, slowly moving up really steep stairs, illuminating the way with a flashlight on my head. The line was moving slowly, but I was glad. The last thing I’d want is to be the turtle up front and a long line of people behind me. After the first kilometer, which was probably the hardest kilometer of my entire life, people were starting to give up. I was shocked that I was passing people. I found my pace yet again and didn’t want to stop for a break because it’d be so difficult to start again. I lost the Czechs, probably because the girl kept having to stop to throw up due to altitude sickness. I just kept moving. I knew that I should stop to have some water though, so I did, which killed my pace. After that, short breaks were frequent, but I’d try to keep them under 30 seconds. Then the stairs ended and the ropes started. The rocks were so steep that it was too dangerous to walk. At first, I liked the ropes. It appeared to be so much easier to use all 4 limbs to get up the mountain, but it wasn’t long before my arms got tired and I used rope as an emergency railing and slowly walked upwards.
The rocks were so steep that turning around seemed terrifying. It would have been really easy to lose balance. At some point, I found a somewhat flat spot to sit down and look back. The moon was illuminating the clouds below and the entire sky lit up with lightning every 15 seconds or so. I could see the trail of lights snaking up the mountain, going kilometers back. Of course, I couldn’t help myself, I set up my tripod.

Another kilometer passed and it was starting to get light. The sun was rising and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful sunrise. The air got cold very quickly in the last kilometer, but my jackets remained tied around my waist because I was just way too overheated from the strenuous climb. Slowly, the stars were replaced by the beams of light peeking through the clouds and the sun was up. I was still about 400 meters from the top, so I quickly found a good place to set up my tripod and snapped a few shots and headed to the top.

After a photography break, I got all my last strength and climbed to Low’s peak. Wow, I couldn’t believe I made it.

More pictures can be seen here: http://public.fotki.com/FierceKitten/travel/2010-atw/mount-kinabalu/

Mobile recovery fail! Monky 1 Olya 0

2010-05-11T18:57:00.000-07:00

The biggest problem with finding my cell phone is the fact that the monkey bay has no cell signal. The other problem was that I didn’t know my phone number, so even if there was reception, Ni couldn’t call it. During dinner back in Salang, I realized that the phone has an alarm set for 7:55am. I returned to the pier asking for a boat back the following morning. I was told that it’s possible, but it’s going to cost RM80. Sadly, that was a bit too expensive, so I returned to my hotel where I complained to the owner about the monkey. Her husband had a small boat that he’d use to go out to fish daily. I asked him to come on the phone search mission with me and he agreed to do it for RM20. We decided to meet at 7:25am, perfect! The next morning, I step outside and I’m horrified to see how low the tide is. It’s not just low, it’s so far out, I was worried a Tsunami might be coming. Ella, the hotel owner assured me that everything was fine, but there was no way we can get the boat in the water at that point. With the time ticking, I rushed over to the green boat at the pier that Ella recommended. All on one breath, I explained to man that may not have even spoken English that a monkey stole my phone and the alarm is to go off in a few minutes and that he must come to the jungle with me to search for the phone. Luckily, the man spoke enough English to understand and asked for RM40. Not that I had time to bargain, but I brought the price down to RM35 and off we went. In about 5 minutes, we arrived in his speed boat to the monkey bay. The tide was low there too, of course. The closest he could bring his boat to shore was half a kilometer. While he was dealing with the anchor, I jumped out and ran towards the shore. Yeah, running in water, not easy! It was already 8 minutes into the alarm and I was pretty sure it’ll keep ringing for 7 more. I ran into the jungle only to be surprised by the huge amount of noise from all the insects and animals. The cacophony of sound was so overwhelming that I had to pause to remember why I was there. Oh, right, phone. Even if the phone was somewhere close by, distinguishing the sound of the alarm from the repetitive insect choir. I searched around for a bit in the different parts of jungle along the beach, nothing. I came out to the shore to see the boat driver coming onto shore. He said “what’s the phone number, I’ll call it.” Oops, I didn’t bring my phone number with me. Despite his phone not working on the beach, he was convinced that my phone would ring if he called it. We returned back to my hotel where I got the number and back to the beach we went. Terry, the boat driver stood ankle deep in water calling my phone over and over while I searched around in the jungle. After 10 minutes, I gave up, but Terry was determined. He gave me his phone and said dial and disappeared in the jungle. I stood in the water dialing for so long that by the time Terry returned, I was knee deep in water. Had I moved closer to the beach, the phone would stop working. Dialing my phone one last time, I heard a bunch of monkey noises down the beach. I could make out a few monkies quite far down the beach.. I thought “Hmmm… maybe my phone is ringing and they’re arguing who’s going to answer it.” I handed Terry his phone, grabbed a stick and ran towards the monkies screaming “which one of you bastards has my phone.” No, really, I did. They scattered and hid in the trees, no phone in sight. I turned around and headed back to the boat. The tide was high now and now I was walking thigh high in water, no fun! Terry made some jokes saying that the phone keeps ringing in the hands of the thief monkey and it’s probably dancing with its monkey friends to the tune. Grrr…. Stupid monkey. I can’t believe I underestimated monkey intelligence. I was thinking it’s equivalent to a 2 year old, but as it turned out, it’s more like a 10 year old. So, the monkey has my phone and it has RM2.5 to call its monkey friends. This is how I should have protected my bag :(

A monkey stole my cell phone

2010-05-05T07:28:00.000-07:00

After a busy 4 day Scuba Open Water Certification course, I finally had a day on the island to just relax. Hearing about the monkey bay from several people, it seemed like a good place to visit. There are two ways of getting there, a 45 minute jungle hike or a RM20 boat ride. (RM3.3 to US$) I decided to take a boat there and return through the jungle. Just as I was about to book the ride there, I saw Ni, a guy that I met at the B&J diving school on the island wandering around on the beach so I invited him to come along. Five minute boat ride and we were on an empty white sand beach with no promised monkeys in sight. I was warned that the monkeys are quite clever and can steal bags, so I attached both of our backpacks to a log with a cable, locking the bottom section of my backpack that contains my SLR. The top section of my bag had my point and shoot camera, along with a cell phone and some potato chips. I bet the monkey was watching me fiddle around with the bag at this point. I zipped up the top section of my bag, tucking the zippers in all the way down on one side of that back to make it harder to get into. Ni said he wasn't going to swim and could keep an eye on the bags, so I went for a far swim to look for a good spot to snorkel. I swam quite far off shore, at least half a mile but I couldn't find the corals. During my search, I spotted a boat that had scuba tanks which meant that they'd know where the coral is. I swam to the boat which turned out to belong to my scuba school, so I climbed up to take a break. I hung out relaxing on the boat for a bit, drinking orange juice and chatting with the instructors. They pointed out the good snorkel spots, so I hopped off the boat and swam around observing all kinds of marine life.
Maybe an hour or so into my swim, I decided to return to shore to get my camera. When I got out on the beach, Ni told me that a monkey stole my potato chips. It sounded like a joke, I didn't believe him. He assured me he was serious. While Ni was only knee deep in water, a monkey did indeed come off a tree and went right for my bag. Ni tried shouting and throwing rocks at it, but the monkey wasn't phased. It probably was laughing, thinking "Ha, silly tourist will never be able to hit me with a rock." By the time Ni made it to my bag, the monkey already disappeared in the jungle. I examined the contents of my bag and my cell phone appeared to be missing. After a long search in all the numerous pockets, we came to a realization that the monkey grabbed the phone along with the chips. Ugh! Spending a few minutes looking for the phone, I realized that it's silly. I went for another swim, this time with my camera and hiked back to Salang Bay, the town we were staying in. I snapped a few pictures of the jungle and this iguana lizard animal thing that I suspect might have been poisonous because it had no fear of me.

I wonder if the scuba rules of underwater creatures apply in this case; if something is really pretty, really ugly or isn't afraid of you, DON"T touch it. :-/ I continued thinking about how to recover my phone and realized that the phone has an alarm set for 7:55am. I figured that if I can make it out there by the time the alarm goes off, I can still recover the phone. (To be continued...)

P.S. I haven't had a chance to say happy birthday to my aunt Frida and my sister in law Lena. Happy Birthday!!! Sorry I couldn't call :(

Malaysia Insects and Flowers

2010-04-26T10:46:00.000-07:00

I arrived to Cameron Highlands with Jula and Martin. We settled into our hotel in the bunker and grabbed dinner at the hotel restaurant. I was craving vegetables, so I got a salad. Everything was fine until I bit into an onion and jumped out of my seat. My tooth wasn't happy. It had been hurting periodically, but not like this. This time, it was stronger and the pain wasn't going away like before. I ran to the bathroom and saw a rusty sink. I paused for a good 10 seconds, debating whether the water was drinkable and whether I should rinse my mouth or not. It was a decision between diarrhea and tooth pain. I went back and forth between the two and decided that tooth ache is worse, so I rinsed my mouth. It later turned out that the water was fine.

The next day, Jula and I took a tour of Tanah Rata, the town where we were staying. Below are some pictures of the insects and flowers from the tour.

The gardens consisted of a maze of paths, with beautiful flowers all over. I've seen many of the flowers in Huntington Library, but seeing them where they belong was absolutely spectacular. The hanging orchids in the picture below were everywhere.

At the butterfly garden, prior to seeing the butterflies, a local guide acquainted us with some peculiar insects.
Here, Jula is holding an insect that looks like an orchid.

I never knew that there are bugs on this planet this big. I thought that large insects only existed during dinosaur times. Crazy!

Here is an insect that looks like a leaf. When on a branch, it will move around resembling a leaf in the wind.

At the end of our tour, we made it to the butterfly garden. They were everywhere. Unfortunately, it was overcast and quite dark, so I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked. Here are a few that turned out

Here's where Cameron Highlands is located

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Cameron Highlands, Malaysia

2010-04-23T08:37:00.001-07:00

Considering the current situation in Thailand, I decided to wait and see how things are before heading that way. Several people mentioned the Cameron Highlands, which were significantly cooler than Kuala Lumpur and have some beautiful jungles. I hopped on the bus with a couple people I met in the hostel in Kuala Lumpur and arrived by night time. We decided to stay at Father's guest house, which we heard great things about. It's an old WWII military base converted into a hotel. Our room is in one of the bunkers, which I thought was super original. The bathrooms aren't quite what we are used to, but they don't bother me. There is a toilet and a bucket to the side (no toilet paper) You figure out how this works ;)

During the next couple of days, we did a tour and a hike. The tour took us to a few fantastic places: tea plantation and tea factory, butterfly garden, a buddhist temple and a rose garden. Here is what tea looks like when it's not in our mugs.

The process of tea making is quite interesting but I think I'll save that for another entry since I'm totally exhausted after the 12km hike. Leah, I didn't forget when you said I should pay attention to the smells. I cannot even begin to describe how amazing the tea factory smelled!

Self Defense

2010-03-19T15:11:00.000-07:00

I took a 4 week self defense course in Hollywood through Impact Self Defense. I learned the basic verbal and fighting techniques which I will hopefully not need to use while traveling. Here's my a short clip from my graduation class.

San Pedro

2010-02-16T23:41:00.001-08:00

San Pedro, originally uploaded by fiercekttn.

A friend recommended the 18-200mm Sigma as an all purpose lens for my travels (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B001PGXEH4/) I purchased it a couple weeks ago and haven't really had a chance to test it out until now. I'd like to shoot with it extensively before I leave due to the rumor where it fails after 200 shots. There was another high surf advisory in SoCal on monday, so I headed to San Pedro after sunset for some more experimentation. Since I haven't uploaded for months, here are 3 images! :)

Malibu Pier

2009-12-04T18:14:00.001-08:00

Malibu Pier, originally uploaded by fiercekttn.

After hearing about a high surf advisory in Malibu last Friday, I called my friend who was already planning to join me for dinner and told him to bring along his camera. After dinner, we drove up the PCH looking for some interesting rocks to shoot but settled on the Malibu pier. I wanted to experiment with long exposures and the conditions seemed almost perfect.

I haven't had a chance to post much here recently, mainly due to preparations for my trip. For those of you who haven't heard yet, I am planning to leave LA and travel around the world for about a year. I was originally supposed to leave December 15th, but due to some unexpected changes with my job, I delayed till April.

So, here's the rough plan:

Singapore
April 1, 2010 – April 3, 2010
Thailand
April 4, 2010 – April 18, 2010
Laos
April 19, 2010 – April 25, 2010
Cambodia
April 26, 2010 – May 9, 2010
Vietnam
May 10, 2010 – May 24, 2010
Hong Kong
May 25, 2010 – May 30, 2010
China
May 30, 2010 – July 8, 2010
Mongolia
July 9, 2010 – July 23, 2010
Russia
July 23, 2010 – August 31, 2010
Europe
September 1, 2010 – December 5, 2010

Huntington Library

2009-10-17T21:27:00.000-07:00

A few months back, I heard that the 50th annual Orchid Show would be held in Los Angeles instead of Santa Barbara and today was the day. I arrived around 1 and had a few hours to visit the orchid show as well as the rest of the park.

Having purchased some new equipment and a new camera bag, I decided to bring everything with me. The bag turned out to be quite heavy and the hot weather in the upper 80s didn't help. Despite the discomforts, I had a blast shooting the orchids and the park. This is one of the shots that I got while dragging my feet and dreading having to get back out in the sun :)

Odd tree in Venice

2009-10-06T01:36:00.001-07:00

Odd tree in Venice, originally uploaded by fiercekttn.

After walking around at a festival in Venice, I decided to head over to the beach. I thought that I knew the general direction and didn't need to check the map. After wandering around for an hour, I realized that maybe I should have checked the map after all. Turned out that it was the diagonal streets that confused me. During that hour, I ran acorss these odd looking trees.

Funny animals in Venice

2009-10-04T23:47:00.001-07:00

Grumpy dog, originally uploaded by fiercekttn.

I was wandering around at the Abbot Kinney Festival last week looking for interesting subjects to shoot. I spotted this dog and couldn't resist snapping a picture of him. Every time I'd point my camera at him, he'd turn his head away. Finally, after several attempts I snapped a shot. I think he was embarrassed of his under bite.

Alpaca, originally uploaded by fiercekttn.

Later that day, cutting through the festival on my way back to the car, I saw a petting zoo. This alpaca reminded me of the dog. LOL

The Station fire flames and smoke

2009-09-06T21:59:00.000-07:00

When the fire started, I saw a mushroom shaped cloud of smoke in the distance, north off the 101. I drove to the highest point I could find near my apartment, but the cloud didn't look the same. The following day, my co-workers were disappointed that I had no pictures to show. I decided that my best bet was to head towards the fire instead of away this time. Unfortunately, my first attempt was a failure, but I returned again the following day, this time with a friend. I wanted to get some shots of the residential areas near the fire so, when cruising through a hillside neighborhood and spotting a man in his backyard, I jumped out of the car and approached him. He seemed very worried and cautious when I got close. I introduced myself and asked him if I could possibly use his back yard to shoot the smoke. After negotiations, my "assistant" and I were allowed to photograph for about 5 minutes. This was my best shot from the back yard in La Cañada.

Red Rock Canyon at night

2009-08-31T01:26:00.000-07:00

I shot this image on the same night as the Milky Way photo. It was a moonless night and we wanted to get more than just a silhouetted mountain, so we needed a light source. First, we tried to paint the canyon with a 2 million candlepower flashlight, but that was providing far too concentrated light. Covering the flashlight with a white t-shirt and diffusing the light did the trick.

Haleakalā ("house of the sun")

2009-08-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

When my brother visits the US with his family, the first destination is usually Hawaii. This time around, I decided to join his vacation on the island of Maui. We took a day trip to the Haleakala volcano. After a 2 hour drive through fog and clouds, we reached the 10,023 ft (3,055 m) peak. Luckily, there was a break in the clouds over the volcano and I got the opportunity to snap a few pictures.

Milky Way from the Red Rock Canyon State Park

2009-08-17T20:31:00.000-07:00

I randomly decided that I wanted to go photograph the ghost town of Bodie, CA. Unfortunately, we just didn't have the time to go that far this weekend. Instead, we decided to explore a ghost town in Southern California which turned out to be a few destroyed structures far from being spectacular. I scanned the map to see if there was anything in the vicinity that would be worth visiting and found this small state park. Something about it gave me hope that we'd be able to make the 120 mile trek worthwhile. When we arrived, the sun was setting, so we only got a few shots. We decided to get some dinner and return to the canyon after dark and experiment with some night photography. I was amazed at the fact that we could actually see the milky way. After about 3 hours, here's what I came up with.