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Published: February 1st 2006
Buzzing away from the jetty, waiving goodbye to the Burmese customs official, we’re on our way back to Thailand. We share our boat with three male tourists, sporting sickly pallor's and a curious reluctance to engage us; all the hallmarks of my English country folk. 15 minutes later our boat is nestled in amongst the dozens of other long tails bobbing and tussling in their moorings. I hurry excitedly through the bustling murky market area fronting the pier and out into the car park to be confronted by silver Japanese made SUV's and 4x4's dazzling boldly on the gleaming tarmac.
Despite having spent only 5 weeks in Burma, and knowing exactly what I could expect to find back in the developed world - it still astounded me. These contrasts exist throughout the world, and even within the most developed of nations; they provide the hunger that drives the system.
In Burma it had taken three hours of smiley-tea-drinking-bureaucracy to pay an 18-dollar fine for overstaying our visas. On the Thai side, a dozen people were processed in five impersonally efficient minutes.
Back on the road we try to hitch a ride on an 'Executive Visa Run' double-decker coach
(Elton John would have been proud). Though found the $20US price tag a little too decadent for our tastes, meaning we'd have to settle for the 'local bus' (complete with reclining seats and AC), for a fifth of the cost. Giving us a pretext to blow our savings in 7-Eleven buying all the junk food we’d craved back in Burma.
It's obvious at this point our juvenile excitement with all things sweet, shiny 'n' Thai wouldn't last forever - but it had some mileage in it yet - fuelled by Pepsi ‘lattes’, Austrian Goulash and those magnificent 40 cents sea food curries!
We stopped in Khao Lak on our journey south. Most accommodation was booked-out, which seemed odd since there weren't any tourists around? After an afternoon stroll along the beach we made the decision to leave the following day. The beaches of Khao Lak, were the hardest hit by the tsunami of December 26, 2004, with waves reaching 12 meters high, resulting in mass devastation and some 3,000 deaths. The whole beachfront was being re-built and the town seemed to be occupied almost totally by NGO's and hardy volunteers.
Next stop, Krabi, and the jumping off
point for Rai Leh beach: Three beaches with spectacular forested-limestone cliffs plummeting into the sea at each end, sheltering magical caves and offering superb climbing. The beaches differ in quality from 'East'; muddy-mangrove which seemed to be populated mainly by the Swedish backpacker crowd. 'West’ was more for the tour groups, families and package holidaymakers - a picture-perfect-paradise until you discovered the jewel in the crown of Than Phra Nang - an exceptionally beautiful beach catering predominantly to the high-net-worth crew and honeymooners. And with people allowed to roam at will between the three, no prizes for guessing which beach saw the most beach towels.
Traveling over a thousand miles south in the last week, we'd inadvertently stumbled back into the rainy season. And when it came, the beaches emptied, the rain beat the surface of the warm waters into a steamy green haze, allowing those so inclined to frolic in a huge sandy bottomed bath, complete with bountiful backdrop, away from prying eyes.
We stuck around Hat Rai Lai for a while catching up on the 3-DVD-a-day fix we'd missed out on in Burma and waited for the weather to clear so we could head out on
Tap Island
the dream...a sea kayak adventure. It was only 6kms to Poda Island from Rai Lai, and with the wind on our backs we set out (Ernest Shackelton eat your heart out!). After an hour we came upon a pearly white beach populated by bronzed seal-like creatures. Undaunted, we found a gap between them to come ashore; discovering on closer inspection that they were actually copper tone Homo sapiens. So after a short snorkel in the wasteland of dead corals fronting the beach we made a further attempt to escape those in search of Alex Garland’s fable, and paddled over to Tap Island.
Tap Island is a beautiful little place where it’s possible to walk along a white, sandy causeway from one island to the other at low tide. Though to be honest it was so crowded I thought the whole place was about to sink! This minor disappointment however, was totally offset by the titillating spectacle of a rather attractive Law Breaker!
Law Breaker: featuring illegal public exposure of the uncovered breasts.
Back in Krabi we took advantage of traveling Thai style; you pick up the guidebook, decide where you'd like to go next, walk to the reception of
Tap Island
the reality... your hostel/restaurant/internet café/travel agent/movie theatre/bar/consulate, they will issue you with a ticket and at the allotted time you’ll be picked up and deposited several hours later at your new hostel/restaurant/internet café/travel agent/movie theatre/bar/consulate. It is in fact, easier than tying your shoe.
Malaysia feels more western than Scandinavia. Arriving 'Thai style' in Malaysia, across the 13.5km Penang Bridge, skyscrapers illuminate the entire horizon. Penang is the oldest British settlement in Malaysia. It has grown and spread out from the original capital, (and now backpacker ghetto) of Georgetown. The central glory abandoned to time.
It's become seedy by day and night, yet too valuable an icon to tear down, and despite or because of this, tourists come. Its unshakeable popularity as a ‘must see’ stop on the South East Asia tourist trail has injected a steady stream of income, allowing parts of it to go through a process of gentrification, with nightlife now the new draw.
The magic of Penang lies in the mix of architectural, cultural and culinary legacies; walking through these intimate cultural pockets past Hindu and Buddhist temples, Mosques and British colonial houses you’ll witness Malay women dressed in headscarves, Chinese women in mini-skirts, and
that increasingly familiar sight adorning the contemporary nocturnal South East Asian backpacker trail; the lady boy.
It was in Penang that Jennifer’s money finally ran out - and suddenly the prospect of work loomed menacingly on the horizon. Jennifer promptly bought a Korea Lonely Planet and a flight to The States. Our travel saga was affectively over at this point; leaving us a stressful week searching for teaching jobs, sending out CV’s and organizing interviews.
“So what would you say was your biggest weakness?” the interviewer asks, with what I presumed to be a straight face. If this was a psychiatrist, and I was answering honestly I’d have said “Work”. However I was now experiencing something akin to an out-of-body experience; seeing myself on the phone in the lobby of a Kuala Lumpur hostel answering ridiculous preplanned questions, expected to give ridiculous preplanned answers laced liberally with false enthusiasm.
At this moment I knew I couldn’t even convince myself I wanted this job, let alone the guy on the other end of the phone. And I was no longer willing to deceive this man into enslaving me “So why do you want to teach children” the guy asks.
“Well, actually…errrm… I don’t…” …and this world you get no credit for honesty right;-)
The prospect of teaching English had been in the pipeline for almost a year now, but not whilst I had $2,000 at my disposal. I’d only been traveling for three months and after a couple of weeks back in the uninspiring comfort zone of the travel bubble; I’d developed an overwhelming urge to explore the unknown. I had to satisfy my restless soul, which was hinting at retribution by devouring me completely if I opposed its desire.
Suffice to say; we never saw much of Kuala Lumpur. Even avoiding the overpriced ‘local’ restaurants that littered China town by unashamedly gorging on A&W’s, McDonalds, Burger King and KFC. On our last day we made the effort to visit the National Mosque, though actually walking the kilometer or so from our Guesthouse took almost an hour skirting the skyscrapers, roads and railways that seemed to vie for every available patch of land; crisscrossed and intermeshed into a pedestrian’s worst nightmare. Nobody seems to stop and consider the consequences of progress; it’s always a race, a mad-dash of frantic growth. Kuala Lumpur has that feeling, like many
a modern metropolis, of unplanned carcinomas.
The National Mosque’s attempt at modernity, in my opinion, loses something in the translation from spirituality and is the only mosque in the entire world I was refused entry into the prayer room for being an infidel? My bafflement further compounded by Malaysia’s attempted drive to market the place as a tourist destination?
Kuala Lumpur’s new airport however, has that relaxed ambience all airports should strive for; the AC was set to perfect, I had CNN, an array of restaurants and bookstores at my disposal, and a choice of seats to stretch out on and lay my weary head. It was sure better than our sweaty ply board hostel room;-)
We said the kind of goodbye at the airport, which befits a couple parting for work in the morning; we were both preoccupied by the next phase of our personal adventures and expected to see each other again very soon. Jennifer was afforded the luxury of a day’s stopover in Tokyo before continuing to the states. And as I was traveling solo again; choosing the kind of destination that I knew no responsible traveler would accompany me too anyhow. I was
inside the cave...
Stalactites, Hat Rai lai off to Mindanao.
But first I was to fly to Sandarkan in Sabah, Malaysia. $50US was a fantastic price, even if I had to endure the fact that Airasia is the official airline of Manchester United. If I’d traveled by sea and land, the trip would have cost at least four times that and taken over a week. These low fare airlines will change the face of travel in South East Asia, I don’t doubt; allowing people to travel cheaply and quickly to those once out of the way places in greater numbers. Although on the other hand, I think the destinations between routes will see a lot less traffic and just as it seems that there are too many travelers in South East Asia, aficionados of the trials of overland travel will once more be rewarded with wonderment.
I was awoken by the pilot informing us that Mt. Kota Kinabalu was to our left if we looked out of the window. And there he was, the highest mountain in South East Asia, a solitary granite massif rising from the dense jungles of Borneo. Back in 1998 I hadn’t climbed it because it cost too much, and now
inside the cave...
Stalagmites, Hat Rai lai the cost was higher I would forgo the opportunity once again. But looking down on the spot I’d visited seven years before, so far from home, suddenly the world seemed very small. I looked over the vast stretch of the unknown that is Borneo, where just a few days earlier a new mammal had been discovered, and hoped that we realized the implications of losing that unique and rapidly shrinking jewel that we in actual fact, have no right to destroy.
Sandarkan was the place I would catch the boat to Mindanao, but first I had some unfinished business; I was off to see the orangutans. Sepilok Rehabilitation Centre is a home for orangutans who’ve been orphaned when their parents are killed by loggers or poachers so that they can be sold in the illegal pet trade.
Visitors are able to view the orangutans when they come to the parks headquarters twice daily to be fed. It was a bit of a melee at feeding time, with tourists and Malaysian holidaymakers gathering to witness the spectacle. The orangutans clearly reveled in all the attention, and I was amazed at their ability to show-off and play to the crowd.
It seems the height of ape humor is to slap a friend on the back of the head or clip him around the ear and then let someone else take the blame. A game every schoolboy has taken delight in playing at some stage. How it took mankind so long to come up with a link between these creatures and ourselves is a mystery to me. Though I don’t doubt some random tribe in the jungle has toyed with the notion of evolution for millennia.
Then this being the rainforest, the rains came, and like clockwork the onlookers fled the scene, leaving the orangutans and myself to become personally acquainted. The ambience totally changed, I was no longer one of the herd but an individual, at first some of the older orangutans were weary of me ‘what was I doing here alone without my buddies?’
Slowly, (and I do not recommend you do this) I approached them, then simply sat and marvelled at their behavior. The park was closed now and as I was still inside I decided to go out-of-bounds and look for some the parks other residence including rhinos and maybe even a large male orangutan, who
prefer the anonymity of the jungle. I trekked an hour through the dense forest and it felt so liberating; the jungle so alive with sounds and life it felt like I was wondering through its soul. I never discovered anymore wildlife, but when I got home I realized it had discovered me… Leeches!
But that was two months ago, I’m in Manila now and have a few tales to tell.
I’ll catch up very soon I promise;-)
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Kate
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Would You Recommend Rai Lei?
Hiya Nomad, I'm heading to Krabi in 6 weeks. Would you recommend heading to Rai lei? By the sound of it, you werent all that happy about the amount of people. Are there any places instead of Rai Lei (from Krabi) that you would recommend? I'm Anti-Tourist and it scares me. Cheers k! www.kateonthego.blogspot.com