Kuala Lumpur

It's my 4th day here in KL. I'm going to leave tomorrow by bus to Singapore and leave in the evening to Bali. The bus from KL to Singapore takes 6h and costs around 6 euros.

I have been visiting in the most tourist attractions in KL. Went to see the Batu caves. There's a hindu temple inside a cave and it takes 272 steps to entry. Lots of monkeys along the way up and I saw one monkey which stole a full camera film out of some lady's hand when she was changing the film. I wonder if she ever got that one developed :)

Of course I also went to see the twin towers and a grand new aquarium next to the towers. There was a lot of fish(surprise) but I have to admit that I prefer to see the fishes when I'm scuba diving and not through a glass :)

There are lots of big malls in KL so it's really a place for shopper. In times square -mall there's a theme park including roller coaster inside and also an IMAX-theater with really big screen(21m high and 29m wide). I went to see some 3D imax films there and also "memoirs of a geisha" which I liked very much. The tickets were around 3 euros so quite cheap.

KL is a city where money talks. The streets are all trafficked and pedestrian have no rights. You can see that most cars give way to the more valuable cars and on the contrary the rented cars find it very difficult to find space in the traffic. You can also find it hard to breathe during the worst traffic hours because so much pollution in the air.

I met a german guy who is working here in Kuala Lumpur in a European painting company which has many offices around the world. He told me that business is very different here than in Europe and he has a contract till 2009. When customer sees something he wants to buy, he usually wants everything delivered in one day which usually is impossible. It's usually also expected that if you make a big order for a some company you should get some money back "under the table", atleast few percents of the total amount. You are also expected to go to the holiday trips and bars with your customers. To ensure the deal, of course. The german guy was at my age and seemed to be earning quite well. If I remember right, the income tax in KL is 28% so it doesn't do too bad for your salary.

You will see most of the tourist attractions of the Kuala Lumpur in 2-3 days but you can still spend here more days atleast if you're into a very nice nightlife. It can be quite hard for your wallet though...

Thai Club, Kuala Lumpur

There's a nice nightlife in KL. I had a little slice of it yesterday when I went to a place called Thai Club. It is a club in a street with many other clubs as well so it's very easy to find. The entrance fee was around 6 euros and it included one beer, it was a bit of a shock after the cheap prices of Thailand but I could live with it.

The club was packed with people, asian people. I think I was the only western there but on the contrary I had really fun with the locals. The big difference to finnish clubs was that there was not much people taking shots at the bar desk. However people were ordering whole whiskey bottles to the table with lots of blenders. I also accidentally ended up to one of these tables with bottle of whiskey even though I had the fresh memories of the sangsum-whiskey from the full moon party.

This morning is something what I should have expected...No whiskey anymore, a promise.
And to make the morning more perfect, someone stole my sandals!

Enough travelling...

Here I am at Kuala Lumpur international airport. Had enough time to think about greatness of train journeys when sitting in full packed 2nd class railcar with numb arse. The seats were fastened so you couldn't turn your backrest(or whatever it's called) down so you had to sit like at church bench. The person sitting next to me was coughing like having the sars. To make the travelling more perfect, the train was 3 hours late. A/C was also freezing.

So when I arrived from the luxury/vip train journey to Hat Yai at 9:30, I immediately took a taxi(tuk tuk) to airport. The driver saw that I was in hurry and didn't know how long way there was to the airport so for him I was a perfect victim for some cheating. He asked me a ridiculous price first and then when I checked the price from some other travellers the price went half down. The driver told that it's going to be a 1 hour drive but what the hell it took 20mins and even with a tuk tuk which didn't go faster than 60km/h. The thais should check their time more often, because when you're waiting and someone says "1 minute" or "5 minutes" it usually means 15-20 mins. However if someone says "10 minutes" it's probably going to be a long wait...

Luckily there was free seats in the air asia plane to KL and I hit 50 euros to the desk and wanted one ticket right away. Ahh the feeling.....I probably would still be waiting for train in Hat Yai if I have stayed. With this arrangement I managed to decrease my travel time to 26hours from 44hours. Now it's time to get to the hostel....Damn taxi drivers are seeing my backpack and are waiting for the moment when I step out from the airport.

On my way to Kuala Lumpur

I left Koh Phangan today, thursday morning, at 10.00 local time. Took a ferry to Surat Thani which cost 7euros with ferry + bus + taxi to train station, where I arrived 15:30. The bus + taxi took around 2h from the pier to trainstation so there's some distance.
My next destination is Hat Yai and the train departs at 00:55, so I have 8 hours to wait ._. The train to Hat Yai cost 4.5 euros in second class with a/c. I will arrive Hat Yai around 06:00 and the train to Kuala Lumpur should leave at 14:50 so 9 more hours to wait O_o Well I keep saying myself that the travelling is an important part of the journey...
I could also take Air Asia flight from Hat Yai to Kuala Lumpur for around 20euros and it should leave around 12:00 and arrive at 14:00 but I would probably miss all the fun :) Now I will reach(hopefully) the kuala lumpur at 06:35 in the Saturday morning which sums up to 44hours of "travel" time.

There's a very good site how to travel by train at http://www.seat61.com/Thailand.htm

I'm staying at internet cafe near to trainstation. Kids are playing Ragnarok online or something like that and some game keeps up playing "rudolf the rednose reindeer". Quite ironic, because the temperature is somewhere around 30 degrees.

The Full Moon Party, Koh Phangan, Thailand

Had to recover and gain hit points few days after the full moon party so that's why the late posting. Had maybe some fever yesterday because 2-day hangovers aren't very common to me and I was totally powerless during the whole day.

Koh Phangan is a little different compared to Koh Tao. More tourists, better roads, better beaches(atleast I think so), more crowded beaches and worse scuba diving just to list few differences. Here in Koh Phangan you can find both the relaxing beaches of the north and east sometimes with difficult entry, and the Mallorca/Ibiza-style nightlife beach of Haadrin in the southern tip of the Island. That's the place where the Full moon party is kept once in a month. Also other parties exists: the black moon party and the half moon party but I don't know anything about them.

The full moon party is just what you expect it to be. Lots of tourists(estimate 25000?) packed up in the same area. Next to next beach bars play different variety of music with nice volume so it's very easy to change place if you have for example had enough of d&b for the evening. Most of the people are sitting on the beach and having buckets which include whiskey/vodka, redbull and cola/sprite/soda. Buckets with whiskey are more cheap and of course I took them, maybe that's why it took few days to recover. Bucket with 0.33l whiskey and 2 redbulls was around 4euros and the same set with vodka was maybe 6 euros. Late night/morning cheese burger with a real beef was a bit over 1 euro and gave me some power on my way home. I'm staying in Baan Tai which is quite peaceful area with nice beaches about 10km north from Haadrin.

During the party there are people wandering around and asking you about "you want something else", referring probably to different kind of drugs. It would be a bad mistake to take anything because there are many polices under cover trying to bust people and get their comission.

Anyway in the evening I had lots of fun. You're sitting on the beach, having the bucket and the weather is nice. Lots of fire artists are having performances during the evening and you can smell the oil of their torches. Along the sealevel there's a long line of men pissing to the sea and people who are not sitting or just wandering in the beach are dancing madly in the front of bars. I can admit that the music they played in many bars was very nice and also had to make some dance moves by myself. If you don't like music/dancing/hangin around you can probably sit in a restaurant watching movies and I saw many spending their time like this.

Today I rent again a scooter and travelled back and forth of the island and also met 2 nice girls who were looking for the same way as I to some kind of waterfall. Well we coupled up and found the waterfall which hardly had any water at all. Well anyways it didn't bother me...

Now I'm going back to my bungalow and to the beach to finish the lousy book (night of the hawk) that Topi gave me before he left. Next destination Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in probably 2-3 days.

Tanote Bay, Koh Tao, Thailand

Koh Tao is a small island with few people. Not so many tourists here and it seems to be very quiet place. The island is great for scuba diving. I'm doing open water PADI scuba diving course here and also advanced open water course. So it sums up to 9 dives. It costs around 340euros for both courses. Quite cheap plus you get to dive in good places. The open water course takes 4 days and the advanced open water takes around 2 days so I'm staying here for a week. I think you will get a little bit bored if you stay here for long and don't do scuba diving.

On my dives I have already seen a seasnake, murray eel(mean looking bastard), sea snake(lethal) and a really big turtle. There are also lots of fish and I don't recognize any of them but they look beautiful. I'm learning all the time though.

I just rented a 125cc scooter with a swiss gyu and we explored some island. The roads inland and on the east coast are in really bad condition so you need a dirtbike or 4wd to access them. I'm staying in Tanote bay, which is a small bay in eastern side of the island. The electricity usually works and no mobile network is available so perfect place to relax, but it also means that no big parties are available. There are only few taxis going to Tanote Bay daily so it's not very easy to access the "town" if you want to go for example partying. The 4wd ride takes about 45mins on a bumpy road.

I'm living in a comfortable 2 person bungalow by myself and the accomodation with scuba diving course is 5 euros / night. I have learnt to like spicy thai food and you can eat well in a restaurant for around 3-4 euros.

On friday I'm going to leave to Koh Phangan and try to find some accomodation there. There's going to be a full moon party and masses of tourists are coming to the island. Let's see what happens...

Leaving Bangkok

I'm leaving Bangkok today and heading to Koh Tao. I went to a train station and bought a train ticket(2nd class, a/c, seated) to Chumpon. The train leaves 22:50 and should arrive Chumpos in the morning. It costed 390 bahts(around 8 euros)

I'm writing this post in the MBK-mall a great big place for those who like shopping. The internet-cafe I'm in is equipped with white leather chairs and "the fastest internet" with 8mbps connection. I could say something about my 100mbps student connection but maybe it's better to stay quiet. Most of the users seem to play cs or other multiplayer games and their aim doesn't seem to be too accurate.

Topi left to Finland this morning and kindly gave me some equipment that he won't probably need in Finland (mask,snorkel,mosquito net etc...). Now I'm on my own, but no probs because there are lots of other travellers around.

I'm going meet a person in 30 mins so gotta go.

Bangkok, Topi is a good guy

I arrived Bangkok and it's really more and more hot and humid here than in Singapore. I immediately contacted Topi(Ofnok) after the 2 hour traffic bus ride from Airport. Topi had a little hangover and I met him at the Khao San Road. It seems a really great place, a lot better than Singapore. More relaxed people, cheap beer, social life, no probs :) You won't see much fat local people either.

Today our plan is to explore some Bangkok nightlife. We have already took some mojitos/Gin fizzs and beers at our guest house pool. The beer we are drinking is Chang and it costs around 60-70 cents. It's 6.4% alcohol and volume of 0.64 liters. A
fair price.

Topi is waiting for his tailor who is going to take the second fitting of his suit which he ordered at the bargain price. Topi gave me some warnings about the local ladyboys and the massage at the lavatory. There are usually few people working at the local bar lavatory and when you are at the urinal("pisoaari" in finnish) the servants(male) will give you a shoulder massage without asking. Really weird!

Singapore

I finally arrived to Singapore. Had a very pleasant flight from Frankfurt to Singapore with Qantas. At the beginning of the flight very good looking Asian-hostess gave me some sparkling wine and told "happy new year", I was immediately sold.

The year exchanged very smoothly in the plane. The captain made a countdown to the loudspeaker and I was somewhere over Linz/Vienna at 33000ft when the year changed. The meals were also excellent compared to lousy meatballs what were offered in the Lufthansa flight from Helsinki to Frankfurt.

Now I'm staying in the 8-person dorm at the inncrowd-hostel in Singapore. It's really hot/humid outside. It was like a wet towel smashed against the face when I first came out from the terminal. The other thing that I noticed was the masses of people. Lots of people in the train and much much more when I arrived to Little India. It's no use to walk on the pedestrian walkways because they are so full, but there's some room in the streets among the cars :). The first backpacker I met in the train on my way here to the hostel was a german guy who suddenly started to speak finnish. It was made out that his mother was a finn, what a coincidence.

The local beer, Tiger, tastes good...
...tomorrow morning to Bangkok