My only stay in Malaysia was in KL. Already very near to Port Klang I wanted to investigate about traveling by container ship. Besides walking in China Town I spend a lot of my time with taking pictures of Petrona Towers, the well-known landmark of KL. You cannot go to the top floor but the visit to the so-called sky bridge is for free. This visit also includes a pretty technology-admiring introduction to the construction of the Petrona Towers. The whole building is basically a big showing-off of Malaysias biggest petrol company. Still the photo opportunities are quite fascinating. Since I [View Full Entry]

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The fifth of December is the birthday of the King of Thailand. It's a national holiday and Bangkok looked like decorated for Christmas since days before already. On the evening before the birthday a big ceremony took place on the green next to the royal palace. [View Full Entry]

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My initial plan had been to visit Koh Tao again or to have a look at an island at the west coast for a short diving holiday. But bad weather forcast and storms had me decide to go to Koh Chang instead. This was a good choice! Koh Chang is just as beautiful as Koh Tao, the water is unbelievable clear and of turquise color. I stayed in a small wooden hut together with a Swedish girl I had met on the ferry. Diving is a lot more expensive than on Koh Tao. In a small dive shop I finally booked [View Full Entry]

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One day later we were back to Bangkok. Here Vaj left me again, for a flight to Mynamar. I had enjoyed traveling with him a lot. Being back to Bangkok meant also being back to the backpacker circus at Khao San Road. Since the last time I had been here a lot had changed. Everything got even more expensive, bigger, more noisy, poshed up, and morst of all, more crowded. Still I managed to find a not so noisy, not so expensive place, and having everything you need at walking distance, including cheap and fast internet connection is just convenient. [View Full Entry]

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On the way to Bangkok we stayed one night in Vientianne, the capital of Laos. Besides enjoying the french influence, namely the pain ou chocolat and croissant we payed a visit to the national sancturay, the That Luang. After finding many temple flowers I got a bit obsessed with taking a picture of one... [View Full Entry]

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After the festival the girl from Australia went back to work in Kunming. So now it was only two of us left, Vajira from Sri Lanka and me. I had long since thought about using a float or a boat to travel in northern Laos. This is way more natural than going by bus, most places here haven't had road connection until very recently. The Mekong and all its confluents are an extensive network of waterways and many villages can still only be reached by boat today. I asked Vaj if he wanted to go down the Nam Ou river with [View Full Entry]

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Muang Sing is a small village in a plain of rice fields just to the edge of the Golden Triangle in north-west Laos. In spite of govermental antidrug enforcement squads the locals still plant a lot of opium. And they sell it just about everywhere. When I walked down the main road old women approached me and between the jewelery and bracelets they offered, barely hidden in the palm of their hands were little packets of brown sticky stuff, an occasional 'Gansha' they whispered to make things clear... The main festival place was outside of town, some kilometers away on top [View Full Entry]

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Finally it was time to leave China. With almost four week it has been the longest visit to one county so far. My Laos visa was ready and my Chinese visa was due to expire. On the sleeper bus to the border I got some new company, two girls, from the US and Australia and a guy from Sri Lanka. The two girls are living in Kunming and teaching English language. Traveling to Laos is a possibility to renew the Chinee visa. Already during the bus journey toward the border I was looking forward to come to Laos. I had been [View Full Entry]

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During the waiting time for the Laos visa I went for a visit to Lijiang. This town, about ten hours by sleeper bus away from Kunming is where the Naxi people live. The Naxi are one of the many ethnic minorities in Yunnan and Lijing was once the capital of the ancient Naxi kingdom. What is left from those times is the old city of Lijiang. Unfortunatelly it has been badly damaged by an earthquake in the 90's and after the Chinese goverment financed a rebuild they are now exploiting it as a tourist attraction. This means that nearly all the [View Full Entry]

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When I was passing one of the narrow alleys in Lijing, an old man beckoned to me to come nearer. When I sat down next to him he started wispering to me. He showed me twelve steel balls and a balance and gave me the following riddle: One of the twelve balls is different in weight than the others. How is it possible to find out which ball is different in weight and if it is heavier or lighter than the other eleven balls by using the balance only three times? It took me a long time to find the solution, [View Full Entry]

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