Down the peninsula

Happy New Year to you all!

I celebrated the New Year in Singapore! Amongst massive crowds, I watched the fireworks in front of the new iconic Marina Bay Sands building heralding the dawn of 2011 in this part of the world. I had gone into the center of town to watch the fireworks with a pretty large group of travelers from the hostel in Singapore. We had had a small pre-party in the hostel before, and after the fireworks we had some good fun in the bars at Clarke Quay until the wee hours. In fact, the hostel in Singapore turned out to be one of those hostels with a really social atmosphere, which I don't see too often actually. It was frequented both by younger and older travelers (not only the gap-year travelers), with a large communal room where people just tend to hang around, and I actually had a very good time there, met some very nice and interesting people. A bit tired from recent travels probably (as one of the comments on my last update suggested rightly), I mostly hang around in the hostel for the week that I stayed there, going out for a bite to eat mostly with a small group, or for a walk to the beach nearby, etc. I did go out to see Chinatown and the area around the Singapore river, but I didn't even make it to Orchard Road here, so most people's experience of Singapore as 'shops, shops, and shops only' totally passed me.

I made my way down the Thai-Malay peninsula over the course of about 5 weeks to arrive in Singapore on the 30th of December. This was already intended to be a bit of a relaxation and 'transitory' stretch of my trip, really. My next cultural interest after Thailand was admittedly more Indonesia, less so Malaysia (don't know why, just personal preference) and after my pretty elaborate Thailand tour I was looking forward to having some leisure time on the southern Thai beaches for a while, getting my PADI diving license there, and finally taking the time to read a few books I bought.

I still had two weeks left on my 2-month Thai visa visa when I arrived in Krabi, the starting point for the islands on the Andaman coast, and from here my plan was to 'island hop' my way down to the island of Langkawi in Malaysia. I met an Australian guy in Krabi Town and we headed out to Railay Beach together the next day, after waiting for the rain to pass. Although at this time of year the rainy season in southern Thailand is supposed to have ended, on most of the islands it was definitely more cloudy than sunny, with several days of constant drizzle, so time for "good 'ol sunbathing" was quite limited. There were certainly some real sunny days too, though, and of course it's always warm in this region anyway.

Railay is not an island, but a small beach area on the mainland that is inaccessible by road because of an impenetrable mountain range, which is why you can get there only by boat. In hindsight, Railay was actually the most beautiful beach I've seen. After the rain it turned sunny and warm in the afternoon and the scenery was just stunning. White sand, turqoise sea, very clear water, and out-of-this-world limestone karst formations right from the brochures rising up from the sea. From Railay I took the boat to Ko Phi Phi, well-known and deservedly popular because of similar beautiful scenery as in Railay, though I guess you'd have to go out of the main two beaches, which are just too developed, to some more secluded bays on the island to really appreciate the surroundings.

Although Phi Phi is touristy to the point that you need earplugs if you stay in or near town and don't party till 4am every night, it was supposed to have some of the best diving in the area (with good diving sites very nearby), so I decided to do my PADI Open Water diving certification here. And I loved it! It takes 3 days, doing theory and a final exam, some exercises in shallow water, and four dives in total. It all went pretty smooth, which added to the fun, of course. The first time we took the boat out to a dive site early morning and I had to jump into the dark water with my gear on near a solemn limestone rock rising out of the sea, I did feel a bit nervous, or seasick, or both :) but after that it felt great and I loved experiencing the underwater world, which was indeed beautiful here! I enjoyed it so much that the staff from the diving company convinced me to stay an additional day on Phi Phi and do my Advanced Deep Adventure Dive, which now certifies me to dive to 30m, which is convenient for many dive sites.

Next stop was Ko Lanta, which I thought was not particularly special, though I do believe you can have a perfect beach holiday in a nice family resort somewhere on the island, which is much quieter than Phi Phi. I stayed just for one day and continued to Ko Muk. Muk is a very small island. You can walk to the other side in less than an hour; electricity is only provided from 7pm to midnight, and it was pretty quiet as well, the high season not having started yet on these islands and the islands further south. I met a few other backpackers on the ferry and we headed a little inland, past the resorts, where we found a new guesthouse that was actually not opened yet, but which could provide some basic tents or bungalows with a mattress and mosquito net, which we thought was fine. It was beautifully located in the middle of the island's rubber plantations, with some stretches of jungle behind. The owner was very welcoming and prepared a big meal for us all with all kinds of Thai dishes and fresh fish and shrimps, which was great and delicious! An additional charm of the island was that it had a real old fishing village, hardly touched by tourism or any sign of modernization. The others had also seen it and thought it was a dirty, greyish, mess (it rained again as well), and they were right, but I loved it, some actual Thainess on the islands!

Ko Muk is also the island of the famed Emerald Cove, which was formed when the roof of a partly underwater cave collapsed, allowing light to flow in and jungle to develop. It can only be entered by swimming through an 80m access tunnel that is pitch-dark and the ceiling at some points less than a meter above the water surface. It is very popular with daytrippers, so it can actually get quite busy here. The boat from Lanta to Muk dropped us here and a local Thai from the boat swam with us through the tunnel with a torch, which can be quite scary if you have claustrophobic tendencies, although I felt quite ok actually after some initial hesitance. When you see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, it suddenly opens up into a really beautiful turquoise circular area with a white sand beach and jungle, full of bird sounds, and sheer rock walls surrounding it. This was quite a 'The Beach' moment and I was truly impressed, perhaps because my eyes first fell upon the beauty of it all. Others who had first seen the many Thai tourists in their orange life vests at one side of the beach, had had a less favourable initial impression.

From Muk, I went to Ko Bulon Leh and to Ko Lipe, the latter of which I knew has a ferry service to Langkawi. Bulon Leh can be reached by a relatively expensive, long, speedboat ride from Ko Muk, but as the other backpackers went to the mainland to continue their journey, I went with them to Trang and I took the bus to Satun. As it rained again, I considered staying on the mainland actually, because Bulon Leh was also supposed to be really quiet and this didn't sound too attractive for a rainy day. Yet it cleared up and I took the boat to Bulon Leh later. This island was actually not in the Lonely Planet at all, and I didn't know anything about it apart from its existence. There are some resorts on two beaches, but a Polish couple in the boat went to the third, less popular beach and I followed them there. Quiet but with a very social atmosphere, there was only one guesthouse there, and with only the Polish couple, an Englishman, and two (non-related) resident older German guys staying there, and having my own bungalow right at the beach, this was very relaxing.

After two nights there, I took the speedboat to Lipe to while away the last days on my visa. Lipe is becoming very popular, and it's destined to become the next Phi Phi, some say, but the high season hadn't yet started there either, so it was not too busy, and I thought it was still beautiful. As it was raining again the day I would leave for Langkawi, my ferry was canceled and I was transferred onto the speedboat. This was a smaller speedboat than the other ones I had taken and the sea being a bit rough and the sky getting black, this was a more spectacular ride.

This brought me into Malaysia, a totally different world. Although much of the south of Thailand is also Muslim (interestingly enough the first muezzin call to prayer that I heard was in hedonistic Phi Phi!), Thai-ness was still prevalent there. In Langkawi, though, the cultural diversity of Malaysia immediately became apparent with many Muslim/Arabic and Indian restaurants, quite interesting to see the sudden change. I didn't like Langkawi at all, though. I'm sure it has some beautiful secluded resorts, but if you're staying at the main beach where most facilities are, it's just nothing special. The town is busy, it's way too overdeveloped and the beach is not particularly pretty either. I'd prefer any Thai island over Langkawi.

So I took my last ferry (for some time) to Penang, and Penang was nice, an incredible cultural mix. Georgetown, Penang's capital and almost used synonymously with the island of Penang, brims with (crumbling) colonial architecture, Chinese temples, South Indian temples, and mosques, all within a small walking area of the city center. Its people exhibit the same cultural mix of Chinese, Indian, and Malay. I must say I had to get used again to the always indifferent Chinese and the loudly talking (but friendly) Indians, and I had (and still have) trouble grasping Malay society. The ethnic groups seem to all live together, but I barely see any intermingling. I guess the Spanish had a good word for it during the Moorish times: "convivencia".

I easily spent a few days in Penang taking a more and more relaxed pace of traveling, but also because there's quite a lot to see. One day I rented a motorbike again to go around the island, and outside of Georgetown Penang Hill and some small villages made for a very nice change of environment as well. Lastly, Penang is famous for its food, reflecting its cultural mix. You can find delicious authentic Chinese, real good Indian, and of course Malay food, but also various interesting mixes: the Eurasian, Peranakan and Nyonya (Chinese-Malay) kitchen, which are quite specific to Penang (and maybe Melaka).

From Penang I went to Taman Negara, the most famous national park in Malaysia. It is a 130 million year old pristine, primary rainforest covering a large area of the peninsula, and it is claimed to be the oldest rainforest in the world. I went by bus to Kuala Tembeling and took a 3-hour boat ride into the park over one of the several rivers flowing through the park. I was considering doing an overnight trip into the jungle, but it was also low-season here and there were not too many people, so it was difficult to arrange longer trips. Instead, I made two day trips into the jungle, of which one in particular stood out: together with Maggie, a girl from Hong Kong, who was also traveling alone, we chartered a longtail boat for a 45-minute trip upriver to Lata Berkoh, where there's a set of rapids, and we walked the way back (approx. 9 km) through the jungle along a marked trail, in about 4 hours. The trail was only marked by some red plates on trees every now and then, and of course because it was actually a path, but it was a pretty small path and jungle had sometimes overgrown it, so sometimes we really had some trouble following the direction of the path, which very much added to an authentic jungle experience. Of course, what added to it was the abundance of leeches, those creepy-crawlers that jump onto you and suck your blood. Unfortunately, 'wildlife' we saw was limited to small creatures like insects, spiders, and scorpions (during the night), as most species reside much farther out in the forest, but I really liked Taman Negara, also because it was the first time for me to really walk though thick, impenetrable jungle.

Then I took the bus to Kuala Lumpur (KL) to celebrate Christmas (I had planned to not be in the jungle during Christmas, but at least try to stay somewhere where they would maybe celebrate something). I stayed a few days, saw the Petronas Towers of course, Chinatown, Little India, Bukit Bintang, and the guesthouse had organized some bread, salad, and wine on Christmas Eve for the guests, so that was nice. Of course the shopping malls in KL were full of Christmas trees, reindeers, sleighs and everything, so although Christmas is not celebrated greatly here, there certainly was some Christmas atmosphere.

Finally, as a last stop before Singapore between Christmas and the New Year, I went to Melaka, an old Dutch colony actually. When I arrived in the evening I was welcomed by the sound of many birds on the main square, with the brightly-lit red "Stadhuys" and an actual windmill on the corner of the square. I felt home immediately :) Seriously, I quite liked Melaka. It felt a bit like Hoi An in Vietnam, somehow. I was staying in a very nice guesthouse with a very social atmosphere in an old creaky wooden building (maybe I should have gone here for Christmas). And even though it is very touristy (many more Asian tourists than Westerners though), there was considerable charm in this small area of Chinatown with all the restored colonial shophouses and the many Chinese temples and clanhouses. Penang has a similar history as Melaka with a colonial past and with a large Chinese and Indian community, but Penang is much more 'raw' compared to Melaka, so they're actually very different in that respect. While Melaka is all geared towards tourism, Penang seems to be just retaining its old identity and not changing and renovating everything for the tourists, for now. It's been declared a UNESCO heritage site as well recently, though, so we'll see what happens there.

Well, I was lagging behind on my updates, as you know, so this has been a long one, but at least you are up to date now, and me too :) On the 6th of January I officially entered 'island Southeast Asia', flying to Jakarta, Indonesia, thereby crossing the equator for the first time (!) and I am planning to spend two months in the Indonesian archipelago. This for the next update.

All the best,

Arnoud.