Jungle Train & travels

Leaving Taman Negara I was bound for Jerantut, one of the stops on the infamous jungle train. The train went straight through the heart of Malaysia and was suppose to be a wonderful view and ride through the jungle. So i decided why not, it wasn't the easiest way to get to Thailand or the safest but it seemed intriguing. My bus arrived at 11:30am to Jerantut, I panicked a bit because I thought the train left at noon and I still hadn't gotten a ticket. Lucky for me, trains in SE Asia are notorious for running late. This one wasn't leaving until 6:30pm that night so I had plenty of time. Unlucky for me this town was pretty dirty and boring and since it was Ramadan, a lot of places were closed. I ran into a guy. Lee, who I had met while hiking in the jungle the day before. We were both going to Krabi, Thailand and decided to go together bc the border crossing is pretty dangerous on the east side. It is heavily patrolled by the Thai military and shootings and bombings occur quite frequently due to Malay Muslims battling for autonomy from the Thai Buddhists. Anyhow, We were able to meet up and ended up spending the next 2 days together trying to get to Krabi. We departed the jungle train at 3:30am into a sea of taxi drivers all charging 5x the price it would normally charge. Its not a matter of the money ($4 vs $.50) but a matter of principle so we decided not to go and sleep at the train station until the sun came up and the border opened. That lasted for about 5 minutes before the mosquitos started eating us alive. Next paln of attack, hitch hike into town and try and find an open hostel. No dice. We did find a food stall that was open who gave us a ride into town so we decided to go with that, but the whole town was dead, not a light on and no where which looked open at 4am. So we went to the one place that was open to wait out the sun and the opening of the border, McDonald's. So after spending a sleepless night on the jungle train I found myself in McDonald's, a rather busy one at that too.

After waiting for a few hours we finally decide to take a taxi to the border and cross over. The sun was rising as we walked over the bridge into what seemed to be a ghost town. We finally made it to a hotel to try and ask how to get to Hat Yai but no luck, After wandering around aimlessly for about half an hour we found a minibus that was headed our way! 4 hours later we arrive in Hat Yai just in time to try and find another minibus to Krabi. We both did some price checking to make sure we wern't getting screwed and ended up in an air-conditioned mini bus all to ourselves. We kind of looked at each other and were really excited, but it was too good to be true. 15 min later we were moved to a different minibus packed full of people and lucky us, we got the back to ourselves. Thing is it was maybe one and a half seats and the luggage was hovering over us so it was going to make for a very long 6 hours. Oh and there was a DVD on playing some kind of Thai Justin Timberlake/Cheech & Chong/an  adolescent named Gumby and some drag queens. Apparently thew mini bus got the box set of the concert because we had uninterrupted 7 hours of pure Thai entertainment. It was horrible. Eventually we made it to Krabi and couldn't have been happier. That's where I met Bob.

Pinky Shakes & Petals

The day couldn't have started any better. I was having breakfast on one of Taman Negara's many floating restaurants and happen to strike up a conversation with 2 South African men who were working on a TV game show that was being filmed in the jungle. One of them stood up to introduce himself and gave me a pinky shake. Now this took me a little off guard considering the only pinky shakes I've ever done were in middle school as a bonding agreement rather than an introduction. Regardless it made me smile and there is no better way to start the day with a laugh and a pinky shake.

About the same time I finished eating a got up to pay a bus load of Japanese tourists began loading onto the floating restaurant. I'm guessing there were about 60 of them trying to squeeze onto this floating restaurant which couldn't have been bigger than 15ft x30ft. The South Africans must have seen the fear in my face as I realized that with every Japanese person crossing the plank onto the restaurant we were getting closer and closer to the water. They invited me to join them at their table, although I had to decline to catch the bus, pinky shake man sent me off with another smile. "All right Petal, lovely to meet you and safe travels."

Maybe it was the accent, although I'm not usually one for foreign accents, but this particular pinky shaking, petal calling South African made my heart sing that morning. Good thing too because the next 48 hours were spent in travel hell.

Squatting with the best of them

Apparently all Thai's and Nepalese are born squatting. You see so many people sitting comfortably squatting. Doesn't look that hard but try it once and i guarentee you will fall over. Erin and I have decided to make it our mission by the end of our trip to perfect the squat. We have had a few practice sessions and they mostly end up with us falling over. We met up with Erin's friend, ryan in Thailand. His wife is Thai and her parents were visiting from the north Although there was a immense language barrier we shared many laughs while this 60 yr old woman tried to teach us to squat. Pretty sure she is the best squatter in Thailand because i trip to tip her over a few times and she didn't budge.

If you want to try it just look at the pics, feet as close together as you can and butt almost touching the ground. Let me know how it goes.

Love/Hate Relationships

There are some things in life that people either love or hate. I don't like using the word hate but when it comes to India people I have spoken too either love it or hate it. My friend Kesse had someone tell her that India stood for I'll Never Do It Again. I'm off to India in about a week and headed there solo. Erin is going to stay behind and do a Yoga retreat in Nepal. Over the past week I have heard more good stories than bad about India but it makes me that much more excited to go and see for myself.
Speaking of love/hate relationship, I have one with kids. Sometimes I can't stand them and they annoy the crap out of me. But other times they can make me smile a smile that doesn't come around that often. One of those days was yesterday. Erin and I had gotten our permits for trekking Annapurna and both of us were not feeling well. We were walking down the street and had about 5 little kids run towards us and start waving and saying "Hello, Goodbye, Namaste!" It was maybe one of the cutest things I have ever experienced, they followed us for a block or so and just kept repeating "Hello, Goodbye, Namaste!" It's the little things (and people) in life that can really make you smile.

Malaysia/Thailand and beyond

I will write more when I have the chance. We are Currently in Bangkok and i need to pull together the highlights and thoughts of the last few weeks. We are off to Nepal tomorrow and then into NE India.

Indonesian Intensity

From the moment I stepped off the plane to the moment I left for Kuala Lumpur everything was intense. I think Erin explained it best when she added the 'unexpected'' factor. So for me Indonesia = Unexpected Intensity. The traffic, the motorbikes, the people trying to sell you something, everything. At the same time we met some interesting characters and I have learned not to be so scared when other people are driving because in Indonesia there are no rules when it comes to driving and motorbikes and buses alike just do as they please. A few of the highlights from Indo: Bert & Ernie: The place we stayed at in Kuta had two managers whom we named Bert & Ernie. they couldn't have been more helpful and told us how to get places and what to pay etc. They would argue like an old couple over what they should tell us and finally come to a conclusion and set us straight. Yogyakarta: I met up with a guy my dad does work with, Firman, and we went out tot dinner with him and his family. He and his family were a fountain of knowledge about Javanese culture and we soaked it in. Also, in relation to the crazy driving habits of Indonesians it makes it very difficult at time to cross the street. We went to cross the street and found myself holding Erins hand, who was holding Firman's daughter's hand, who was holding her fathers hand. It was like human Frogger. Which for the record Erin and I have become very good at. Bromo Volcano: We arrived off a night bus to Proboliggo where we went on a mini tour to watch the sunrise then go on to the volcano. Pretty sure our driver was the inspiration for a cartoon somewhere in the world. We had by far the crappiest mini-van but the best driver. He was passing people left and right and when he waited fort us to come back from watching the sunset or climbing to the top of the volcano he greeted us by dancing around with his bright pink scarf on. Speaking of the volcano, pretty sure it was the moon, not a volcano. The wind was so strong that the sand would sting your bare skin when it it you. there was nothing around except for people trying to sell tourist rides on their horses up through the sand so they wouldn't have to walk. While walking up and looking into a volcano's cone was pretty cool I am still finding moon dust in my bag and pretty sure inhaling the noxious gases has shortened my life by at least a year. Circus Train: We took an overnight train from Yogya to Jakarta. We have dubbed it the circus train for the following reasons. Within 30 min of departing the station train stewards and stewardess were in the aisle on after another. Coffee, Newspapers, Hot plate of Food, Mystery box food, Dried fish in a box, Future orders of food (about 5 of them came by), the toy cart man, and my personal favorite the blanket man. All in all Indonesia was an interesting introduction to SE Asia. Although I always want to spend more time than I have in a country I was ready to go to Malaysia.

Country to City...

I've been laying low for the most part in Australia, spending time with the Rodgers and road tripping to Sydney in a campervan with Emily. We got into Sydney on Thursday night and had a walk around the city. I guess I have never really experienced a city before but for some reason I was enthralled by everything that was going on. Businessmen on their way home from work in their handsome suits, women plowing by me in heels I couldn't even imagine walking in. They could have been wearing tennis shoes but the sound of the click-clack made me smile and give them silent high fives because there is no way some of those shoes could have been that comfortable. Men picking up bouquets of flowers off the streets to bring home. Peering into pubs and seeing the gathering of a happy hour group, glad the day is over. Waiting for traffic lights to change so everyone could walk across the busy intersections, occasionally someone would sneak across when the man was still red and you could see the jealous/nervous on lookers still waiting patiently for the signal to change. Passing by store fronts, re doing their display windows or doing construction, or passing through China town seeing whole roasted ducks in the window. Cities are full of life. Although I don't think I could ever live in a major city, simply because I don't have the patience to wait for the signal to change or sit in traffic, or on a crowded bus or train I have come to appreciate walking slowly and admiring all the different events going on.