Thai Beaches, Malaysia Truly Asia & Melting Pot Singapore

I was back in Bangkok! As I previously said, it’s always nice to come back to a place you’re familiar with. You know how to get around, you know some words and you don’t have to struggle that much with the currency. One of the first things I did in the Thai capital: get one of those famous toasties at the 7/11 store. This international chain of convenience stores might be very convenient, but I’m not that big of a fan that I would tattoo the name on my wrists as two British girls I met did. 

Now that I only had three weeks left I was in a dangerous place: Khao San Road. Shopping for clothes and souvenir gets very tempting at that point. But it’s ok I told myself, you will never find anything that cheap back home. And when I discovered that my friend Jolien would be here at the same time (she was flying back home from BKK) we just enjoyed ourselves! There are a few things you have to do when at Khao San. One of those things was getting a Thai massage which was actually rather painful but funny at the same time: the Thai’s started giggling every time they heard our bones cracking. As if it was their goal. I also had my nails done. Jolien ate a scorpion; well that’s even a more interesting sound than hearing bones crack. We visited a night market, a floating market (I’m happy we didn’t get on a boat cause it was packed with tourist, but nice to take pictures from the side) and we got offered a free tour to the train market!  This one was nice: people sell their goods next to the railway and when the train comes they pull their sunshades to the side just in time. And when the train is gone, everything goes back to normal in two minutes. It’s their daily business. After saying goodbye to Jolien, I was off to Koh Tao.

Koh Tao is one of the smaller island and known for its beautiful diving spots and also cheap diving. It feels weird to leave the island without having done any diving at all because that’s what it’s all about on this island. But I had a nice time anyway and just enjoyed the island life. We had a small celebration of King’s Day and I had a lot of banana nutella crepes. My next island on the list, which is way bigger, was Koh Phangan. This one is known for the Fullmoon parties (you know with all the fluorescent paint and clothes)! Unaware of it, I was going to be here during the Halfmoon party, which is twice a month. It’s a bit smaller than Fullmoon, which I didn’t mind because I heard Fullmoon is pretty craaazy. On my first day we hired motorbikes for 3 days to go around the island. It’s pretty much the only way to get around because it’s so big and tuk tuk’s are overpriced. We decided to go to Bottle beach, which was supposed to be one of the prettiest beaches. It was a bit of a disappointment and it was not worth taking the dangerous road. On our way back one guy wanted to change the bike as the brakes weren’t functioning properly. One of the Thai staff members noticed a scratch that wasn’t there before (which is actually true cause he fell down) and wanted to make him pay 4000 baht (100 euros). He got it down to 2000 baht which is still a ridiculous amount (7 times the amount you pay for 3 days). This is a very common scam in Thailand, so if you ever go I recommend you to always check every scratch on the bike before hiring it. And if they still want to screw you over, just say you want to talk to the tourist police. In case they would screw us over as well we decided to bring back the bike immediately. So for the next couple of days we did not have transportation what kind of sucked. The Halfmoon party was a lot of fun though and there were a lot of nice people in the hostel to be with. I thought I wouldn’t have enough time so I didn’t go to the other side of the south of Thailand. Too bad, but I will come back one day. Instead I went directly to Penang in Malaysia, an island that is connected by road to the mainland.

Georgetown is pretty much the only thing worth visiting in Penang. It used to be a Biritsh Colony, so that is quite interesting. In Malaysia I just love the culture mix. You can find so much different food and different people. It’s very interesting to learn how they all live together. A person with Mixed Chinese and Malay parentage used to be called Baba or Nyonya. But, of course as in every country, mixing cultures never goes smoothly and people are still being discriminated. Georgetown is also known for its street art. So on my first day we did a nice city tour and took photos of all the art. The architecture is beautiful as well with a lot of historic buildings. I enjoyed the Indian food and I ate for the first time with my hands from a banana leaf! It’s a nice experience and so tasteful. In the museum I visited I learned that the headquarters of the East Indian Company (the biggest competitor of the Dutch VOC) was based in Georgetown, so there is quite some history in Georgetown. I met a lovely Filipina girl here and together we travelled to Cameron Highlands.

Cameron Highlands is up in the mountains, so this was a very enjoyable ride. It’s mostly known for its tea plantations, but also for the strawberry farms and flower fields. Because it was higher in the mountains, the temperature was soooo good. After weeks I could untie my hair and stop sweating. How awesome. I have never been to Switzerland, but the little town had kind of a Swiss atmosphere with a lot of pine trees. We booked a tour for the next day and visited the tea plantations. What a lovely view. We also got to see how they produce the tea from tea leaves. Our next stop was the mossy forest where our guide explained us a little bit about the different plants you can find here. It’s like one big pharmacy: we smelled the limecello leaf, he showed us one of the plants that is being used in the production of tiger balm and a leaf that knows how to stop the bleeding form a leach wound. The pitcher plant is a special plant: it catches water so bugs can live inside. After the tour we asked if we could be dropped off at a strawberry farm and a butterfly farm. At the last one there was a very enthusiastic man who wanted to show us a lot of different insects and animals. It was hilarious. We held a leaf insect, a turtle, butterfly, a snake and a centipede. This was incredibly ticklish. Because there is just one road leading to the town in Cameron Highlands, hitchhiking is very easy. So we got quite the hang of it and decided to hitchhike all the way to Kuala Lumpur the next day. After 45 minutes, when we were about to give up, I nice man let us in into his truck. Yeah. It was not so comfortable but it least it was free. From KL we took the bus to Melaka.

I quite liked it here as well. Melaka used to be a Portuguese, British and Dutch colony. It’s a small, but very cosy city. On our first night we visited two night markets (we first went to the local one, instead of the touristy one; so we got a lot of looks). At the famous ‘Jonker Street’ you could find literally everything you can imagine: from colourful lanterns to body shaped – water bottles. It’s too bad haggling is not so common in Malaysia. The next day I just walked around the city and next to the riverside, I really liked the atmosphere. I had some cendol/tjendol: a famous ice dessert, they sometimes add red beans and corn. And there are a lot of Dutch names and building, for example the famous ‘Stadthuys’. In the evening I went up to St. Paul’s Hill all by myself. I thought there would be more people, but it was abandoned, expect for some cats and bats spending the night there. Originating from 1521, it’s the oldest church in SEA. It was pretty creepy and cool at the same time. But it was weird to see Dutch engravings on the gravestones.

I couldn’t believe that after 16 weeks of travelling I had just one week left. But I spend it good in Singapore! What a country! But it’s more like one very big city… Enormous skyscrapers, no waste on the streets and such a diverse population. One of the first sings that Singapore is different from the rest of the SEA countries: there is actually toilet paper available every time you go to a public toilet. The city centre and the transportation system are even more modern than Europe. It’s very impressive. The only thing I didn’t like that much was the rain. Even though I’m Dutch I experienced the heaviest rain and loudest thunder ever. But it didn’t stop me from doing a lot of sightseeing: Chinatown, Little India and the Merlion viewpoint. One of the most impressive things I found was the lightshow at Gardens by the Bay. A daily! show with tree-like structures and classical music. It’s a little bit like Pandora in Avatar. The sunset up at the famous Marina Bay Sands Hotel was stunning. After the sunset I went to have some food at the fanciest mall I have ever been to: you can find literally every expensive brand in the world. But of course you cannot escape the 7 Elevens! I also met up twice with two friends of my brother who were so kind to show me around so I could see a little bit more of the city.

There was a massive traffic jam before crossing the border back to Malaysia, but it wasn’t that bad knowing this was my last bus ever. This was already my third time entering Malaysia, but luckily I had no problems at the border. I had the nicest taxi driver who brought me to my hostel in KL, upon arriving he wanted to make sure I was able to enter the hostel as it was in the middle of the night. So he called my hostel from the cab and had a staff member come down to help me. He concluded: ‘Now I can sleep better at night’. The hostel was pretty empty, but I didn’t mind. The staff was friendly and I could prepare my journey back home in peace. I passed my very very first hostel of my backpacking adventure and walked around in Chinatown. I felt so different now that I wasn’t so overwhelmed by all the new impressions. I had my last noodles at the same restaurant as I had my first noodles. I bought my last souvenirs and now I was ready to go back home.