For my taste of Sumatra, I followed a friends recommendation and took the bus down to Bukitingi before returning to PKU. I met Dominic at the guesthouse in PKU, and due to the fact that I had two beds in my room, the guesthouse was full, and the town had no other budget accommodation, his arrival late at night kind of lended itself well to our sharing a room. He was going down to Bukitingi as well, so I not only had a roommate for the night, but a traveling companion for most of my visit. Our arrival to Btingi demonstrated [View Full Entry]

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Not much to say for this blog, Dominic wanted to check out this village close to Btingi, and we trekked through about 2k of jungle to get there, and then explored the village and rice paddies. Had a blast. Went back to Btingi. End of Story! [View Full Entry]

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The minibus service to Penang was uneventful, with the possible exception of the driver who was smuggling something across the border. Nothing like being used as part of the drug trade, or whatever it actually was. It went something like this. Right before the border crossing, liaison with women in car. Right after the border crossing, liaison with women in car, load a few crates of dogs into minibus, arrange something under the floor of the crates. Drive past checkpoints (being waived through because we were 'tourists', pull into a rest stop about halfway between the border and Penang, and th [View Full Entry]

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I flew into the brand new but quaintly small airport in Krabi, and yet again, the Thai's somehow managed to screw up something as simple as airport signage. The design was fine, but all of the passengers went out to the airport drive only to find out that ground transport had to be reserved from inside the terminal, which required one to go back through security. No signs stating this, just one taxi company with a booth inside the terminal, and a plane full of people making a revolving door trip out to the airport drive. It was good and comical. [View Full Entry]

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Somehow, I arrived in Bagan still able to function. It had been a 15 hour bus ride, with seats designed for midgets. I was locked into place, just barely able to fit into my seat, and my headrest was lodged between my shoulder blades. I didn't think it was possible for a 6' guy to have this kind of problem. Live and learn. The bus had almost all locals on it, with the exception of David, an American who had moved to Northwestern Australia about 10 years ago. I was starting to doubt how much I was going to like this [View Full Entry]

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<div>First off, I guess I should address the whole question of why I came here. This comes up a lot at hostels since, according to Lonely Planet, 'should I go' is a question that each backpacker needs to ask themselves when dealing with suppressive dictatorships like Burma. Short answer: I came because I wanted to see this part of Asia, and the $20 Visa fee plus $10 departure tax is not going to make or break any grip that the rulers have on the country. The Billions of $$$ China is pouring into the country offset any minor boycott backpackers could [View Full Entry]

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Just a 12 hour comfortable bus ride from Bangkok, Chiang Mai may as well be a different country. The differences are that large. The people are nice, the touts are nonexistent (2 offers for a taxi during my entire stay), and the climate is even cooler. Gotta love the place. Orientation is even possible, due to the walls of the old city and the presence of street signs. The first experience I had was getting in on the bus at 5am and then taking the 'free' pickup truck ride by the agency that runs the bus to listen to their pitch [View Full Entry]

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After our long and exhausting bus ride, we arrived at the infamous Khao San Rd. I set off to find a room, which proved for difficult than I had imagined. I tried about 20 places (all full), and then decided to take a hike before attempting anything else. I followed my map to what looked like a horrid part of town, but sure enough, one of the guesthouses in the book was where it should have been. The night attendant was not, so even though they had a sign saying they had room, they did not have anyone working there to [View Full Entry]

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I woke up, got ready, and was waiting for my bus 15 minutes before I was supposed to get picked up by my Victory Guesthouse. Had I known more about the day ahead, I would have been running in the other direction. My 'pickup' amounted to a motorbike coming by and telling me to walk over to this stretched minibus that looked like it mus have been 20 years old. I was directed next to a young guy that turned out to be a surfer hippie type from Northern Ireland. Mark added a lot to the trip, and did make the [View Full Entry]

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The whole Angkor experience started off on a very pleasant note in the form of our bus going right into the center of town and dropping us all off at the Capital tour office instead of the bus station which is a few k outside of the city center. I had tried several times to make a reservation for this city, but my luck had run out by this point and I got 2 numbers of people that were not in the city at the time. Since calls cost about 0.50 cents a minute for tourists, I decided that I would [View Full Entry]

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