Photo's etc.

Hello,

Just thought I would give everyone a few photo's. Hey it's christmas and I am in a giving kind of mood.

Katie and I at the Petronas Towers:


Me:


Katie:


Katie (with dreads):


A Dog with makeup (pen):


A Cocktail bar in a service station:


A Satay (etc) stick stall, Penang:


I hope you enjoyed them. ; )

Have you ever seen the fake emergency/police sirens that kids put on there BMX bikes and ride around pretending to be the police. Well, picture three Real Police men gathered around a Real police motorbike playing with there new toy siren and all having a great time making all the different sounds. Welcome to the Thai Police. (no I am not kidding I saw it with my own eyes).

Now picture a death metal band that made love with the Power Ranges and had a few hundred kids. Imagine if these kids went to a fancy dress party. Welcome to "Winter Rock" in Bankok (excuse the pun). I am so sorry but the only photo's I took were on my film camera so you will have to wait a while to see what I really mean.

Thailand never disapoints when it comes to funny and tacky things to see. Babys with mohawks, cute Thai girls dressed in Santa suits (with short skirts) luring you into a club, men selling silly string, Tuk Tuk playing loud music, Santa and his helpers on a huge flashing trishaw playing techno music, street vendors selling a rip off of anything you could ever want the original of, tourists acting like they own the place, taxi drivers in safari hats selling cheap rides to the ariport, and squashed pigeons while you're eating lunch.

I hope you liked this little break from 'we traveled from here to here to there' as much as I did, not likely, : -)

Dylan

KL, Melaka, Penang

Hi,

Just another update about whats been going on. Not much except for traveling.

From Kuching we few to KL where we got a room in a friendly is not stoned guest house. On the first night we went to see the Petronis towers, you might have seen these on a postcard, they are the tallest building in the world I think, two towers joined by a bridge which is 100m off the ground. They look really quite specky at nigh all lit up. The next day we went for a long walk to the Butterfly park and the Orchid/Hibicus garden, the gardens were nice Katie loved the orchids. The butterfly park was nice but would have been a bit of a let down if it was just the butterflies. There were numerous fish ponds and a few aquariums and also a turtle pond which had just been cleaned and had no water in it so the turtles were climbing all over each other to get to the puddle that was left. That night we went to the recently opened Aquarium, which was pretty cool, they had some of the usual suspects, Nemo, nice Lion fish, some large sharks etc but they also had some other really exciting things like bright coloured poisonous frogs, live Tarantulas, and one of the largest fresh water fish in the world. There was also divers feeding fish in the large aquarium which as well as fish had a Christmas tree?! You really cant get away from it.

We stayed 3 nights in KL and then headed off to Melaka. We got our nicest room yet, it was a small loft suite (spotless new paint, hot water, aircon, light switch near the bed towels, a window in the room and one in the bathroom, the shower didn't spray directly onto the toilet) in a friendly guest house. We really didn't do much in Melaka we sat around and drank coffee and read trashy magazines. We did venture out for a little sight seeing but only for an hour or two.

After our day of relaxing we got the night bus to Penang. The bus is made for eskimos thats all I will say. We got a short break from the cold when the bus broke down misteriously (it was a new bus not some old crappy thing) after a while another bus came and we were put on that along with one other family while everyone else stayed with the broken down bus?. The new bus was colder but we got to penang and warmed up with coffees and teas for 2 1/2 hours till the sun started to come up and we made our move for a guest house. Little did we know, the bus stop had been moved half way around the island so after a bit of a walk finding no land marks we went back to the bus station for a taxi.

After a shower and some breakfast we went to the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion. Cheong Fatt Tze was a Chinese man who started out poor and ended up being very rich and famous (to cut a long story very shot) He built several houses the best being the mansion here. It was built in the 1880's in an old Chinese style (old for the time too) and there was a major focus on Feng Shui. The house is amazing there is a detail on everything. There are 38 rooms 220 windows (all of which open). Water runs off the roof and down through copper pipes in the walls and through the floor into the 5 courtyard where it pools and is slowly released back through pipes in the floor. Although feng shui in a house does not last more than about 20 years this house still has a really nice feel to it. I am thoughly impreased.

Thismorning we visited the Khoo Kongsi (Khoo family clan house). It is an elaborate Temple/house built in 1894-1901 and was burt down by unhappy ancestors when it was completed (the ancestors thought is was too elaborate). They built it again a little less over the top.

Tomorrow we are heading back to KL so we can fly to Bangkok. We were to go overland but there is major flooding and all the trasport has been cut off so we have not choice but to fork out the money and fly.

Anyway, not long till Christmas now.

Dylan

Update

From Uncle Tan's we went back to Sandakan for one night and then back to KK via the mountain where we walked around for a couple of hours which was nice (fairly cool). One night in KK and then onto Labuan which was a nice clean duty free island. A carlberg beer cost RM1.80 (less than 1 au$). We stayed in a pretty dodgy place that had a simple latch (that was nailed to the door) with padlock on the outside to lock the room and only a loose bolt lock on the inside. There was a great fire escape though, just as easy to go up to our floor as down. Anway nothing got stolen and we were only there for one night. While aiting for the ferry to Brunei I had a chat with a guy who was originally from KL but had been working on Labuan for 11 months, he tried to help us with suggested itineraries but his english was very hard to understand. Before we got on the boat Jon and Tanya turned up, they too were on there way to Bunei. After an hour delay we got on the boat and had a smooth trip to Brunei.

We all stayed in the Apek Utama hotel which was nice (cheap by Brunei standards) we were told exactly what we were going to see and do by our very friendly overly helpful hotel Lady. So we dropped our bags and started our walk up the hill for our photo opportunity at sunset. It was a nice walk, 800+ steps and 2 1/2 hours later we were back at the hotel to shower and race out to the night market. We had to walk to the water taxi stop then walk for about 20 mins through the city to get to it. The night market was more a few food stalls than a market but hey. We made a huge mess trying to eat a crab that was supplied without any utensils and without having its limbs cracked for us, it was fun though.

The next day after a bit of a sleep in we started our 15-20 min walk to the museum via the sultans tomb. After about 20 mins we got to the tomb/office after about 20 mins more we got to the museum only to find it was closed. Luckily a bus went past so we hailed it and went strait into the city and found aircon and icecream. Feeling rejuvinated we ventured over to the floating village which was another world. The city was imaculate the village was neat at house level but underneath was a rubbish dump. We couldn't tell in parts if there was ground underneath or just an island of trash. There were lots of cats some of which were quite fat (lots of rats and mice). We went off to see when the mosque would be open to non-muslim visitors (4:30-5:00) so we went for food and internet. At 4:30 we went back to the mosque only to find that it was not open to non-muslim people at all that day. Katie and I went back to the internet and Jon and Tanya went to see a movie.

Later we had tea at a different set of food stalls and then went back to the hotel. The next morning we met our ride to Miri (Sarawak, Malaysia) he was a news paper delivery man called Richard. It was much nicer to go all the way to miri by car instead of the 5 buses we would have had to catch to get there otherwise.

We stayed in miri for one night (in a brothel) and then got the early bus to Sibu. Sibu was a fairly nice town but we were woken in the middle of the night by a man in our hotel yelling (screaming) in an angry way and banging on doors. There was lots of commotion which sounded like other men trying to calm him down. He was locked outside for a while but he just kept on yelling and banging on the gate so someone let him back in. Although it was a bit scary Katie and I didn't really think anything of it till the morning when we realised it was all a bit wierd. Anyway we got up early to try and get on the 7:30 boat to Kuching but it was full so we had to wait for the 11:30 boat. It was mostly a smooth trip but it got a little rough when we got out to sea a bit and there was a bit of storm activity.

Well now we are in Kuching we will be flying to KL tomorrow to start the next leg. Kuching is a pretty nice city, full of western tourists and western tourist prices for things but hey. Anyway will write again soon.

Dylan

Uncle Tan's

Hello,

When I wrote last we had just been to visit the orangutans. The next day we went to the jungle on an Uncle Tan's tour. it was two ish days and two nights. the first day started at base near Sandakan where we were greeted by a very friendly guy (sorry I forget his name). We were fed lunch and registered then we waited and chatted to a few people that had just come back from a tour. We then met Jon and Tanya who had been at the orangutans the previous day also.

About 2pm we were loaded into a mini bus (bas mini) and we were off. After a short stop to pick up eggs we drove for an hour and a bit to the river. We then went for a leisurely cruise on a boat towards camp. Along the way the driver would stop and point out wildlife. We saw, birds, proboscis monkeys (orange with a big nose) and a small monitor lizard (1 m). When we arrived at camp we were again greeted by lots of friendly guys, we were given a hut and then we hung out for a while listening to Lan (camp leader) play the guitar and try to sing western songs adding in lots of la la's when he forgot the words. We had a snack, then our briefing, "program 1 swap with program 5 ok" (personal joke) then tea.

At about 9pm we went on our first program, night boat safari. We went cruising around the lakes with a big spotlight we didn't really see too much but Remy our guide spotted a sleeping kingfisher from about 30m away. We proceeded to approach the bird and stopped just next to it. Remy took our cameras and photographed the bird really close up. . After the safari it was back to camp, just before bed someone found a civit cat (leopard spots, longish nose, size of a domestic cat) which kindly posed for our cameras.

The next morning we were woken at 6 am for our 6:30 morning boat safari. It was quite misty over the lakes which set the scene nicely. This time our guide was Lan he had noticed I was keen on getting good pictures and he made sure I was ready for a good shot when there was one to be had. The highlight of the safari was the proboscis monkeys jumping from the trees into the water. They do this when the next tree is too far but I am sure they also do it for fun. We also spotted lots of birds and long tail Macaque (monkeys). Back to camp for breakfast and after a short break it was onto our jungle trek, well jungle stroll. We just wandered around and looked at trees and insects and wished we could find an Orang Utan. The coolest thing we saw was a tractor millipede about 10cm long with flat armour plating jutting out over its legs, when you rub it it jets out a liquid that smells like almonds, really, just like marzipan.

After the walk we had lunch and then a rest. I got a sore throat all of a sudden and started to lose my voice. I had a sleep in a hammok and was woken by Tanya saying they had found Orang Utans and I should come and see. I was a bit disorientated and my throat hurt so I passed on that and went to bed. Later as I rested Katie went out on the afternoon boat safari.

After tea (yes really all we did was eat) we went on our night jungle walk which was really cool. We saw heaps of frogs, they were all posing in a very comic frog way on tree trunks and branches
lots of Tractor millipedes some wolf spiders a 15cm scorpion which Remy picked up and let walk all over his arms.

(He said they don't kill you but the one time he got stung he was really sick for 3 days till he got an anti-venom shot and then got better). The scorpion kept arking up ready to sting but Remy was cool as a cucumber. The highlight, sort of, was getting to see a Tarantula, its abdomen part of its body (which is most of it) was about the size of a golf ball and its legs would have been about 10cm each, thick and hairy (no I am not exaggurating) I think I got a picture of it but it ran back into its nest. I was quite calm watching it but thinking about it now makes my skin crawl.

Just before bed someone found a reticluated python anout 4m long right next to camp. we all gathered around it to get our pictures, in the excitment of the moment I went right up to its head to get a close up shot then Lan said "careful Dylan" and I realised I was really close and thats probably not a good idea. Soon enough it slithered away, much faster than we realised it could go.

The next morning once again we were up at 6 for a boat trip. We had to go to a different boat landing because the water had dropped by more than a meter since the previous afternoon. We didn't really see too much but I think I got a series of pictures of a proboscis monkey leaping our of a tree flying and landing I will have to wait to develop the film to see.

That was about the end of our jungle experience. We said goodbye to all the guides and got on the boat. On the way back to the bus we got to see several Crocodiles, not really big but 2-3m which was a nice finale. We said goodbye to Jon and Tanya and got on our bus back to Sandakan. All in all it was a great trip and not something either of us will forget quickly. I am sure I can say that it will remain as one of the highlights of all my travels.

Dylan

Beeping Children and Orangutans

Hi again,

I love the music in here, we are surrounded by kids and adults playing computer games all of which have a great techno soundtrack.

We are currently in Sandakan, a small city with absolutly no night life. it is right on the sea but there is a market and a navy base of sorts in the way so you can't really see the water. Yesturday Katie and I went for a walk up to the observation pavilion to have a look over the city. about half way up we noticed some ominous clouds and of course the next minute we found out what monsoon means. we got absolutely soaked but it was warm. we waited for about an hour at the pavillion for the sky to clear then we walked back to town. Thats better, I just changed computers here because I had a runaway w key causing lot of wwwwwwwwwwww's to spontaneously appear.

Last night we saw what until today was the highlight of the trip so far. Sort of a you had to be there moment but anway... there was a small child probably about 2 or 3 in a parked car, she was standing on the drivers seat and holding the steering wheel with one hand and beeping the horn with the other, she kept at it but no one seemed to care. I am sure she was just saying to her parent hurry up I am bored and want to go home it was just hilareous.

Now to a real highlight and lowlight at the same time. Today katie and I went to an Orangutan sanctuary. They rehabilitate orangutans but to make money they feed them where tourists can see. It was great to see them all swinging around not in a cage and arguing with the monkeys about bananas. the only problem is of course something we contrubute to, Tourists. Once again naive bus loads of people with flashing cameras. Yes I can't help be a hypocrite it is hard, I really wanted to see them but I hate being part of the problem. Some people do the right thing, stand quietly look and move on quietly, others do the wrong thing make noise shout to their friends rush toward the orangutans and even try to shake their hands. but I am still glad to have seen them.

Dylan