Motorbike romance 

North Western village town on route to Sapa 

 

Last leg of the trip - rode almost a 1000km at this point and it was good to have the end in site. 

Alex working it infront of the road we just rode up 

Singapore lacks the lure that the rest of the South East Asian possesses. People are Westernized to the max; their only hobbies are seemingly shopping, shopping and working...boring. After just minutes of being in the very clean and finely policed city I wanted to escape. Luckily, moments after this stream of thought raced through my head I walked into my clean, cheap and fun hostel. I smiled and gained some relief.

The hotel's main area has a huge pool table, soft cushions to chill on, a large well equipt kitchen, and friendly staff. Each night the hostel hosts outings or events. The evening I was there, they were going on a night safari at the local zoo. The safari itself was alright, but that was only because I was with a good group of folks who could make light about the little cages and laugh our faces off when a flying squirrel plowed straight for one of the guys heads. Mental animals!

With no desire to do any shopping, I decided to skip town as soon as I could. I shared my plans with the night safari posse and one of the guys, Rasmus, said he was heading in the same way at the same time. Early the following afternoon we hopped on a bus, paid the few dollar fee to make the twelve hour bus ride to Malaysia's capital city Kuala Lumpur. During the ride we learned we had a number of things in common: both of us believed that essential travel items included many technical devices and only a few articles of clothing; we were both heading to Hanoi in a few weeks, we really liked the show Top Gear. That and he had a laptop, I had portable speakers, so we made our own mini theatre system in the back of the bus. Late that night we arrived in KL, both of us satisfied from laughing our faces off at the caravan Top Gear episode and also very tired from the long journey.

Warm greetings were dished out at our guesthouse by both the amazingly friendly owners and staff and by Raz's mates who we met there. Tired from the long journey, I curled up on the comfy couch, watched one of the hundreds of DVDs on the hostel's TV, and just generally had a wicked time telling jokes and mucking about with movie trivia. The next few days were spent chilling out and getting to meet a great group of English mates, eating good food, seeing a few local sites, and spending countless hours trying to figure out where, how, why and when to get to the allusive Vietnamese consulate. Once that was sorted, Razz and I decided to do a little exploring and headed North-East to the world's largest protected rain forest.

A long thin wooded boat picked us up from a little town on the outskirts of the thick jungle. We slopped up the river for hours as we were rocked and bumped by the waves pressing against the thin, wooden traditional style motorized canoe. As we made our way, we were able to watch wild monkeys playing in the trees, birds singing, and endless untouched jungle pass us by. The boat stopped next to a little floating restaurant, we hopped out and were greeted by some lovely Malaysians who directed to the nearest dorms and arranged all the events we wanted to do during our stay.

Our first night there Razz and I hopped on a roof of a jeep and went on a night safari. The animals were OK, we only saw a tiny cheetah looking cat, a small snake and a slow-giant-eyed-tiny monkey, but what was really good was dodging the palm leaves and other trees as the jeep booked it through the night.

"What trip to the jungle could be complete without an overnight jungle trek?", we asked. So the next day we meet up with some trekking buddies, Billy, Andy and our guide, and headed into the thick bush. Before the serious trekking began, we stomped, jumped and generally mucked about on a canopy walk that was a few hundred meters above the jungle. After that fun we took the plunge and headed into the dense jungle.

Six hours of walking later, we reached a large cave which we clambered into. The floor was caked with meters of bat poo, thousands of massive roaches and god-only-knows what other bugs. While the roof was inhabited by thousands of large fruit and insect bats. Our guide told us that we would sleep in a cave that night, luckily for us it was not that one. After more stomping about, and I mean stomping, we arrived at the cave that would be our home that night. Unfortunately it was shared with number of very large rats that were happy to come out visit us, try to steal our food and walk over us during the night. It was very hot that night, yet I managed to sleep with my entire body including my head inside my sleeping bag. Uck.

The jungles of Taman Nagara hosts some of the world's most exotic wild animals: tigers, elephants, all kinds of monkeys, the king cobra -- the world's most deadly snake... We were eager to see some of these species; however, we were not very quiet during our trek. Actually, I think we spent most of the time laughing and telling stupid jokes, so on the first day the only exotic creature we bumped into was the leach. Every few feet we were stopping and pulling them off our shoes and from within socks, and the ones that evaded us caused mass blood spillage all over our clothes (check out the photo of a few on my blog: sexy). The next day, while the guys and I were eating lunch on a little sandy island in the river, our guide yelled out for us to come and look. We watched the tail end of a massive king cobra slither away. Glad it was not in the biting mood, as one bite and there would be no way the attacked would have made it out alive.

Billy and Andy, our trekking mates were such good dudes that we invited them to come and spend the next week traveling with us. During that time I never left their company. We took Malaysia by storm, hit up the amusement park, water park, pool halls, and the endless labyrinth of malls together. Andy even played a devish prank on a conartist. The guy actaully ran away from Andy. Ha ha. Such good, funnny, wicked people!

After a fun filled few weeks in Malaysia, it was my time to depart to Vietnam. Razz was already there, so he set me up with accommodation and invited me on a week long motorbike trip through the rural North West countryside. I've never ridden a motorbike before, but I agreed to take the challenge. What an adventure, I will write about it next time I have a few hours to spare.

 

 

 

Tamah Nagara 

boat trip up the river 

Morgan trying to make fire 

Ras making fire 

shooting blow darts...in a few weeks I am going to learn how to use a rocket launcher. You may think I'm kidding, but I'm not. 

 

jungle trek 

Jungle village 

Me sitting peacefully reading while the rare rasmus-a-beast, which I caught while on the jungle trek, grunts and groans for food and attention. Shortly after the picture was take I had to put the muzzle on him. 

Trekking group. Don't know if anyone else has noticed the me-and-only-men theme, but I'm so girl starved that today I met a few ladies and I basically begged them to let me hang out with them. Luckily it worked, tomorrow we're off to a few sites and then checking out a water puppetry show. Hope they don't plan on leaving soon because if they do I might grab hold of there leg like a monkey and force them to take me with them. 

Ah that's so sweet! You're a swashbuckler, vagabond, nomad, and all round wicked dude. Looking forward to stealing your fries when I see ya in Aus. P.S. Andy no word from you since you hit Bali, did you get lost in Bounty? 

When sleeping in the cave we built a fire candle circle around us. Soon the fire and candles when out and even though it was in the rainforest and it was roasting, but I still slept with my entire body and head in my sleeping bag. You would too if there was rats running everywhere. 

Billy, we love you man. F.Y.I. There is a 100% probabily that both Raz and I are going to come and visit you in Thailand. 

Mountain man Rasmus making fire

Mountain man Rasmus blows darts and hits target bang on...well at least he did on the 10th or 11th try

leaf frog 

On a two day trek in the world's oldest rainforest we slept in this cave. I learned that night that it is very hard to fall asleep when rats, cockroaches and God only knows what else is running around you.