Darren

Meeting Caroline From the Airport, Bali

Abby’s mum, Caroline, is flying in from England today, via Kuala Lumpur.

We get a Taxi from Sanur to the Airport. I ask the taxi driver to wait, with the meter off, and he says fine. The airport taxis are more expensive, and not as good as the Blue Bird Taxis.

Caroline’s flight is early and she is through immigration in no time. She is tired, but enjoying being in Bali.

We spend the day chilling, with dinner in Sanur.

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Earthquake in Bali

I’ve experienced my first earthquake here in Bali. Everything seems fine, there are no warnings.

At around 7am local time, I was awake and thinking about getting up when I felt a minor tremor. Then immediately after the proper earthquake could be felt. It lasted for about 5 seconds from start to finish.

There is no obvious sign of damage to anything. There was a little noise during the quake as things around me were shaken.

The guys who run the guest house here don’t seem bothered at all, so it must be a fairly regular occurrence.

I checked a few websites, and it seems the earthquake occurred 60 miles south of Bali. This is a worry as this is a dangerous area for earthquakes near Bali. The same fault that caused the 2004 Asia Tsunami also runs south of Bali. And it is this fault that is most likely to cause a Tsunami for Bali, especially for Kuta and other southern resort areas.

There seems to be no warning given.

See the links below for more information

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Shopping in Bali – Kuta, Bali

Abs and I head over to he Matahari shopping centre. Abs wanted to get a dress and some new sunglasses.

Abs doesn’t find the long dress she is after, but she does get some sunnies, and a new pair of flip-flops.

On the way over I notice that my flip-flops are about to die, so I get a new pair and…. I find a cheap guitar. Only IRP400,000 (£25) and a lot better than the one that I bought in Indonesia last year.

So all round, a great days shopping, and it really didn’t cost very much.

The Matahari store is a great place to shop in Kuta. The market stalls that line the streets all same the same stuff, and it’s way overpriced, meaning harsh bargaining is required to get a fair price. The Matahari is probably overpriced by locals standards, but great for us visitors.

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Kuala Lumpur to Singapore

After a casual day in the city we grab our bags from the hotel and take the Metro to the KL Sentral railway station.
The train, is of course, delayed. But only by about 30 minutes.

Once on the train we settle in, but some of our fellow passengers don’t. A big group of Indian travellers are spread along our carriage. But hey have been allocated the top bunks, rather than the bottom bunks. This is a huge problem for them it seems. They are all elderly and I guess the top bunk is not easy for all of them.

They spend the whole night complaining and shouting at various people. Eventually they end up bargaining and swapping bunks with people. Not before they’ve laid on, eaten on, and messed up other peoples lower bunks. Sad.

Indian passengers, making a lot of fuss

We have a great time enjoying our snacks, watching them argue, and eventually get some sleep, with the aid of earplugs.

In the morning we are woken by the immigration officers, and we cross in Singapore.

The customs is straight forward, and we watch with excitement as we roll across Singapore.

The landscape is new, modern, clean and dense, very different when compared to the rural Malaysia we have just left.

We get to Singapore station and head off on foot.

We ask several people for directions to the Metro, and find people to be so friendly and helpful.

We make it to the hotel, the Ibis. This hotel costs us £50 a night, compared to the £10 we normally spend. But it is really nice – a short of luxury we rarely see on our budget travels.

We enjoy every bit of staying in this hotel, especially the buffet breakfast. I have a big appetite and try just about everything on offer. Yum !

Singapore is expensive for almost everything, so shopping is kept to a minimum. We love walking around though.

We only have a few days, and cram the activities in. The zoo was great, and exploring the city in the evening provides great photo opportunities.

Singapore CBD skyline at night

After a few days we take the AirAsia flight to Bali.

Clouds between Singapore and Bali

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More shopping and walking – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

We get up at 07:30, quickly shower, then take the train over to the Petronas Towers. We had read that the tickets for the sky bridge sell out by about 11 am. We get there at 9am to find a massive cue, and the sign stating the tickets are all gone is already out. We ponder joining the cue, but it is massive. It’s a shame, and we figure this is a bigger than usual crowd today. Oh well.

We grab some breakfast and take a look around the shops, most of which aren’t even open yet. After an hour or so we decide to head over to Buka Bintang, the series of shopping centres, including the IT mega-mart Low Yat.

On the walk we find a park by the Petronas Towers, and find several impressive buildings. Once we get there we take a good look around. Abby buys a new top, I buy a new shirt, and we replace the LAN cable we use for our computers. I don’t by the TV cable for my MacBook that I have been thinking about, as it’s just more crap to carry around.

I am annoyed at the amount of stuff I am carrying at the moment, even having had a good clear out. I reckon I can throw away 50% of the stuff I have, even though the items seem essential, and still travel fine. But we only have 2 more journeys to make (KL to Singapore, and Singapore to Bali) before stopping for a while, so I will keep my stuff until we start taking lots of small journeys again.

After the Bintang shops we take a walk back to KLCC, the home of the Petronas towers. After a lot of walking we catch the monorail back to the hotel, and sort our bags out for tomorrow.

Kuala Lumpur Monorail

in the evening we take another long walk through Little India. We stop for Indian food…. hmmmmm…. yummm….

Petronas Towers at night

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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

We arrive in KL, at the Pudaraya bus terminal. We’re familiar with this bus station, and easily find our way to the Metro stop.

We have visited KL may times, always staying with our friends Cameron and Anna. Cameron now lives in Bali though, so we decide to stay in the Tune Hotel, downtown. Cameron and Anna lived an hour outside of the city, in the very un-atomspheric suburb of Puchong Prima.

We decided to stay downtown to get a feel for the city, and to do all of the things we haven’t done here.

After taking the Metro to the Tune Hotel, and checking in, we hit the streets. We’ve a love of shopping centres. Not that we buy much, but we like to walk, look and enjoy the air conditioning.

Inside the life – Kuala Lumpur Tune hotel

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Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia

We’ve been staying in Georgetown for a few days now, at the Tune Hotel.

The Tune Hotel is good. Malaysia has the worst budget accommodation in Southeast Asia. Whilst in most countries £10 gets you a pretty good room (Aircon, TV, clean), in Malaysia is doesn’t (grubby).

The Tune Hotel is costing us £10 a night, but it’s modern clean, has AirCon and doesn’t have bugs!

We rarely stay in corporate run hotels, so it’s always nice to do something a bit different.

During this visit to Malaysia we have discovered the Old Town coffee and toast houses. A chain of stores that sell lots of different coffees, and lot of different toasts, and other rice-style dishes.

In Malacca we also found Old Taste, which is a rip-off. The colours, uniforms, menus, and just about everything else seems to have been copied.

Well, in Georgetown, they have Georgetown Coffee. Yet another rip-off of Old Town. There is not much to choose between them. Better coffee at one, better breakfast menu at another.

We visit them on most days for coffee and breakfast.

It’s the start of Ramadan, the Islamic period of fasting during the day. Malaysia is a predominantly Muslim country, so there are a lot of celebrations and events.

We found a great Indian restaurant. During one meal, just before sundown we noticed a number of Muslims sitting at tables with food before them. They didn’t eat their meals though, they waited until the time was right. Interesting stuff.

Around the streets of Little India are a lot of celebrations, especially after dark.

Whilst in Georgetown we take a bus out to Bakinafaso. The beach is quite nice, but the surrounding areas are rough and poorly planned. In fact the area has a bad feel and is so disorganised that it’s not a great place to be. After a little lunch we head back to Georgetown.

We take a lot of buses whilst in Penang. It’s a good network that works well. It’s just as well, as Taxis in Malaysia are dreadful. Not only bad cars (clapped out Protons) but the drivers are rip-off merchants. Although they are reasonably priced in Malacca, and the Kuala Lumpur airport limousines are good value.

There are constant religious celebrations in Georgetown. The Muslims have their Friday prayer times, but the Chinese burn incense and paper all of the time. We see gigantic incense sticks all over town.

We do the heritage trail. A walk that takes in 30 or so historic buildings that formed Penang’s history. Some are most interesting than others.

We stop at an old Chinese clan house, and a friendly old Chinese man shows us around the old house. It’s an interesting stop, and we tip him nicely.

Friendly man at an old Chinese clan house

We try a few of the Indian sweets on offer, and fine some better than others.

Abs buying Indian sweets

One of the reasons we have visited Penang is to get visas for Indonesia. If we get visas in advance we can stay for 2 months, rather than 30 days. The visas are easier to get in Penang than Kuala Lumpur.

I read that one of the big guesthouses can get the visas for us, for only £5 more. We get the paperwork together and drop it off. They take our photos, on a red background. We think this is scan to get a few quid off us, but later read it is how the Indonesia embassy accept them.

We get out visas back in 24 hours, as they said. Good stuff!

After a great time in Penang we buy bus tickets to Kuala Lumpur. We normally travel by train when possible, and we can do so here. But the buses are quicker and they take the massive road bridge we’ve seen all week. We have the mispleasure of sitting with some constantly complaining Australians whilst waiting for the bus. They claim the Malaysian are constant time wasters. It’s not the case, and the bus service is well run.

Leaving Penang on the very long road bridge

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Ko Samui, Thailand to Pulau Penang, Malaysia

We leave our house, and home for the last 3 months, and grab a iced coffee at the local bakery.

The girls at the bakery, who have seen our faces occasionally for our stay here are curious as to where we are going. We see the landlord of our house drive by, with a few bits he has taken from the house.

After our drinks we wait by the road side for a pickup to the ferry. One soon drives by and we jump in.

It’s a nice journey, still seeing things for the first time.

At the immigration office, where we got our visa extensions we see a guy still with his ferry ticket on his chest. He jumps in the pickup with us. I guess he has come over from Ko Phangan to get a visa extension, and he is on his way back now.

At the ferry terminal we jump out, and quickly chat the pickup driver. They are not all bad!

We chat with the travel agent lady. There is no organised transport from the bus station to the train station. But, he brother has a car and he can take us. Now, this is not something we would normally do, as freestyling is the way to go, but we don’t want to be standing around, in the dark, at 9pm with few options. So we take her offer, and wait for the later ferry, as we have so much time.

Once on the ferry, we relax and admire the sunset, something we have seen little of over the last 3 months, due to being on the wrong side of the island for such a thing.

Sunset leaving Samui island

Once on the mainland we take a mini-bus to the bus station. On the bus I hear a Japanese guy is also trying to get to the train station, and offer him a ride in our car. We chat with him throughout the night.

At the bus station we only wait 10 mins before getting in the car, and are whisked off to the train station.

The train station is busy. At least 3 trains come whilst we are there, and clear most of the passengers away. We have a 3 hour wait here, from 10pm until 1am. Not the best time to be hanging around on a train station, in the dark, in an area of Thailand that has seen religious troubles in the past.

However, these troubles are not taken lightly, and the police are there in numbers, tucked away, but there.

We feel comfortable and being to pass the time. Later I see that our train is 50 minutes late and will arrive at 01:35 and not 00:40 as expected. Not such a big deal when already waiting this long.

We notice a lot of homeless people sleeping/living on the platforms between the tracks. At least they don’t face the freeing temperatures of Europe here. But we do see a number of cockroaches cruising around the platforms.

Eventually, the train arrives and we jump on. We are very familiar with the Thai and Malaysian trains and jump straight into bed. It takes us both a while to get to sleep, but we do.

In the morning we are woken earlier than expected (later realising that we didn’t change our watches at the border).  After a quick DIY breakfast (croissants from Thailand and iced coffee) we are ready for the border crossing.

We are across the border, and into Malaysia without any troubles.  An easy 90 visa again.

Back onto the train, and we continue south.  The train rolls into Butterworth early we think, but of course it’s a little late as our watches are wrong.

We jump off the train, and walk on the ferry terminal.  The boat promptly leaves and we are crossing the waters towards Pulau Penang.

The island looks very enticing as we approach.  Almost like a mini Singapore.  We can see the Tune hotel that we will be staying at.  A great relief from the normal dreadful accommodation in Malaysia.

The hotel is a little further than we expected, but we walk it anyway, and we’re glad to put our bags down in our room.

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Only a week left in Thailand

Our 3 month stay here in Thailand is drawing to and end.

We’ve loved living in our house, exploring the island, working on our websites (mostly www.campervanlife.com and www.travelphotographyschool.com) and learning a bit more about Thailand and the Thai people.

Whilst we are sad to be leaving Samui, and Thailand, we’re looking forward to getting on the road again.

We are heading down to Georgetown in Malaysia.  We will try and get 2 month visas for Indonesia there, whilst exploring this historic city.

From there we will fly down to Bali.

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Plane Crash on Samui

Samui Airport Crash
Photo by soma-samui.com

As you may have heard on the news, a plane crashed on Samui airport yesterday.  The airport is about 20kms from where we are.  Sadly the pilot died.

It’s a terrible thing to happen, especially to such a small community like this.  Many people will be affected.

We were sitting outside when the lunchtime rains started.  Drizzled turned into torrential rain, even harder than normal.

When the rain eased I went to the bakery, and heard an emergency vehicle pass, but thought little of it, as this is a fairly regular sound.

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