Liam Page
Liam Page Joined: September 6th 2008
Logged in: December 28th 2010
Logged in: December 28th 2010
Travel Blog Posts
So my next destination was Galle. It has a big ass Dutch momma fort built around the old town and has lots of European style buildings and alley ways within the fort. The wall protected it from the tsunami but cut the wave in two and so was worse for the people living on either side. Still, protected the nice buildings. After the usual theatrics with my tuk tuk scam artist I found a reasonable hotel and went out to explore. Walking the walls of the fort was pretty good and I had a great view. Although to be honest I'm boring myself even thinking about it. There was a literary festival on at the time which is apparently regarded highly around the world. I thought I might as well check it out although it became ... read more
Well hello again ! Colombo airport welcomed me with an ocean of fibs. My hotel had apparently sent several taxi drivers to meet me, which was strange as I hadn't booked a hotel. I consulted my lonely planet to check prices for a three wheeler to Negombo, the nearest resort and somehow read a much lower figure,meaning I stood bargaining with a driver over 50 pence for half an hour. When i got to my hotel i realised i had demanded a much lower price than was the going rate and refused to budge. And so i continued to endear my self to the locals. I chose Negombo as everyone says Colombo is horrible and Negombo was much closer. It was also a bit minging. I made an effort to tourist my self about, hired a ... read more
I am now in Australia, but here are some notes I scrawled ages ago as my Asia dream came to a close... Lake Toba was a hard place to escape from. If I wanted to head South, which I did, the only option by land was a 18 hour bus journey to Pedang, with nowhere to stop on the way to break up the trip. It would be through beautiful mountainous countryside, but it would be at night. And the road is a swirly bumpy nightmare I was informed. I decided I was going to do it though, and as a result stayed in Toba for far too long, alot of 'one more days', when ordering a pizza and watching football seemed like a more appealable alternative to bus torture. Eventually I bottled it and booked ... read more
After Takengon I went to Blangkejeren, another tiny village of Sumatra's highlands and a beautiful one at that. Nobody really spoke English but I asked a phone credit store where I can get a guide and they rang one for me as they could speak a little. They rang the only one in the village, 'Mr Jally,' who was a rugged master of the jungle but whose English speking technique involved guessing whether he should reply 'yes' or 'no' to whatever I said. What time do we leave Mr Jally? Ummm, yerrrs. ( I point at watch) what time..we.. go? Oh! hahaha... Nooo. You ..mau perrighi sekeraaang? Er hang on (get out dictionary) er perrighi..? Oh..no...hahaha (awquard laughter) sip drink. All conversations took on a similar form until I gave up, nodded and smiled politely and ... read more
Good day, since i last wrote I have done some things, including at some point, eating cockroaches as a healthy snack. Mid December and went up to the north of Ko Phangan to a very remote beach called Hat Khom, where there was just one restaurant and one place to stay, all owned by a Thai family with a crazy gun toting dad. (when we informed dad that we were going to get a taxi bus up the road to the full moon party instead of with him as it was nearly half the price, he said ‘they are not a family!’ and made gun hand gestures in their direction. We went with dad.) The beach was amazing and that but the tide was all ballsed up for some reason so there was no sand ... read more
Well i love Sumatra. I arrived in Medan, the gateway to sumatra about 2 weeks ago and quite liked it form the off. There were not loads of scam artists and rip off merchants, i think as tourism has dwindled here so have the numbers of mosquito men that follow them around. Any scamming attempts were pretty lame and offered some free amusement. I was there for a minute outside the terminal before one old gut followed me and sat down next to me in the cafe that i went in to escape. He pointed to the tourist office and said it was his office, then handed me his card, which was a bit of notepaper with his scrawled contact details on, with ' Tourist ofise' written above it. He can get me to my hotel ... read more
And another one.. just to bring you up to date with where I am, should you care, before I head off to another country and open a new chapter in my scintillating adventure. I headed to Langkawi, a Malaysian island, which you can catch the ferry to from Thailand. After being told the bus wouldn't leave until 3.30, despite the timetable saying the next one leaves at 3.00, we were forced to pay a higher fee to hire the entire bus between us other wise we would miss the ferry. i.e they were blatantly scamming us, on the official bus as well. We somehow managed to refrain from slapping any smug heads in though and made it to the boat on time. Langkawi was alright. It's referred to universally as 'a duty free island' which just ... read more
And another one.. just to bring you up to date with where I am, should you care, before I head off to another country and open a new chapter in my scintillating adventure. I headed to Langkawi, a Malaysian island, which you can catch the ferry to from Thailand. After being told the bus wouldn't leave until 3.30, despite the timetable saying the next one leaves at 3.00, we were forced to pay a higher fee to hire the entire bus between us other wise we would miss the ferry. i.e they were blatantly scamming us, on the official bus as well. We somehow managed to refrain from slapping any smug heads in though and made it to the boat on time. Langkawi was alright. It's referred to universally as 'a duty free island' which just ... read more
Volleyball on the beach in Hua Hin
I haven’t been doing one of these blog type things for a while for two reasons. 1) everything has been going well so I’ve not had amusing stories to tell and 2) enjoying myself so much I didn’t want to sit on the internet moaning. It’s so sad but I don’t want your sympathy, that would just make it worse. Well after my last entry, when I was in Ko Samui and it was pissing it down, I checked the weather and headed to Hua Hin. I knew it was very touristy and resort based but it seemed to be hogging all the sun so I headed there anyways. After a first night of wandering the streets at 3am, looking for Liverpools game with Marseille I was ready to leave. There were brothels everywhere and old ... read more
December 8th 2008
Dear all, I decided to head to Ko Samui, hire a motorbike and find a nice quiet little beach. When i got there it was raining and it didn't stop for the next 5 days. It's completely miserable when it's raining, the streets were overflowing up to knee height with water, the sewage system is not the best and this can cause problems. I literally thought there was a river running through the road behind my hotel, only when i saw the poor little business' in the middle of it did i realise that it was just flooding. All very eerie to see with the tsunami pictures I've seen. I tried to summon the glastonbury spirit that lurks somewhere deep inside my soul and refuse to let the weather get me down, but it's a little ... read more
