Blogs from Asia - page 13042

In my first (and more deserved) gap-year I travelled Southern Thailand with two post-uni guys from Chester, named Matty and Tim. Saturated with alcohol and tiring of the beach scene, we discussed a lot of potential ways to pass time doing something a little different than the standard, and one of the better suggestions at the time was to learn Muay Thai, AKA Thai kickboxing, at one of the many training camps around the country. In the end, unfortunately, I ended up going off to Australia to escape the deadly SARS virus, whilst Matty and Tim returned to England to become grown-ups, and so I never became the legendary Muay Thai warrior I might have been. However, four long and eventful years later, the idea still appealed to me and so with travel a few months ... read more

Today we departed Kuching and took our return flight back to KL. Then we took the skytrain back to the Equator hostel situated next to Times Square - the posh end of town. We spent the afternoon in the shopping centre stocking up on a few items - as some of our clothes had been wrecked by the orang work! We also had cheap hair cuts - Nick's included a head massage, then we watched the various theme rides and rollercoaster - all situated inside the shopping mall. In the evening we went to an Indian restaurant just up the road from the hostel, and ate dahl and roti - the complete meal cost was one pound fifty - great value!... read more

The journey to Kuala Lumpur took around 2.5 hours but it was a bit of a bumpy ride, the roads are in good condition, just bumpy! We arrived at the Pudaraya Bus Station around 2.30pm to a mass of noise, people and traffic! It was a bit of a shock to the system, having spent 6 nights on a quiet island and 3 nights in a relatively quiet town! We checked in to a hostel called Anuja, just opposite this bus station...needless to say, one can hear the traffic in our room! KL has the same abundance of malls as Singapore. It is also well connected by monorail/metro and buses. The only problem here is that parts of the monorail are owned by different companies so one has to change stations to get where they want ... read more

Traveling to Koh Phi Phi is a ferry good time Unlike our trip to Kohh Lanta on our speed boat, this time we traveled with the common people. Twice a day, ferry boats leave from Kohh Lanta to take the 1 hour trip to Koh Phi Phi, laden with sunburnt people, beat up backpacks and a few unwieldy rolling suitcases. After grabbing breakfast at the hotel - they actually made American pancakes with maple syrup, Mike and I were sooo excited! - we loaded up our packs and headed to Reception to check out and wait for someone to pick us up and take us to the ferry. It seems the hotel had “forgotten” that we had booked the ferry ride through them the day before and were obligated to get us a van/taxi to ... read more

So I'm a little late - I'm actually back in Om beach already, but I have to tell you guys about Holi. It is a Hindu holiday to celebrate the ending of winter and the beginning of Spring. People have prayer the night before, then somtimes make fires and stay up late (some are drinking all night). In the morning the COLOR starts, and people throw and rub colored powder or shoot and dump colored water at eachother. I was in Mumbai - and by the time I got to breakfast I was cover in color. After I ate, a family invited me to their home for a "Happy Holi." Their house was one very small room, but the fed me cake, sweets, rice vegetables, and offered fresh crab they were about to make. There was ... read more