I'm leaving Ton Sai tomorrow!

Maybe...

I'm accidentally still in Ton Sai.  It's easy to make excuses to stay.  I was going to leave Ton Sai after a few days, but the tide was high and I didn't want to get my pants wet when I walked out to the boat.  I was going to leave that evening when the tide went down, but the sunset was too beautiful so I had to stay to watch it.  I was going to leave after the sunset, but then there was a pretty cool lightening storm out on the water, and it was nice to have a beer and watch the storm.  I was going to leave the next morning, but the sky was clear and it was a perfect day for swimming.  I was going to leave after swimming, but then I met some guys who wanted to go climbing the next day.  I was going to leave after climbing, but my muscles were too sore and I needed a rest day on the beach.  I was going to leave the next day, but the Peace and Love Bar was closing, and they were having a great going away party.  I was going to leave the next day, but I was too tired from staying up so late the night before.  I was going to leave the next day, but then my friend started teaching me Thai and I had to learn some more before I left.  I was going to leave after my lessons, but then the guys started playing some good music, so I lied back down on the beach and forgot about trying to leave Ton Sai.  It's a losing battle.

This is Ton Sai.  It's paradise whether you're climbing the rocks or just swimming next to them.  I like to lay flat in the water and look up at the limestone cliffs shooting up over my head.  The water is a nice bath-tub temperature, and it's usually sunny but not too hot.  This picture was taken at Ton Sai beach, and between the two biggest rocks in the picture is Railay beach.  Railay is famous and full of resorts and the like, but Ton Sai was somehow left behind during all this development.  Ton Sai is only a 20-minute swim away, but the town is just a dirt road, a few bungalows, and a lot of bartenders who really like reggae.

This is my first view of the beach.  The guy walking there is Tom from the Netherlands.  We met in Penang and took the boat to Langkawi together.

 In Langkawi, I met a really nice German girl named Jana and we rented a car to drive around the island.  The driving was kind of scary because people drive on the wrong side of the road here.  I guess it makes sense that they drive on the left hand side of the road, though, because this used to be an English colony.

The first place we went in Langkawi was the Seven Wells waterfall.  This is a bunch of little pools where you can side from one to the other (like I'm doing in the picture).  It's like a natural water slide.

This is where the pools become a waterfall.  In the picture of me above, you can see that there's a little wire fence that keeps you from sliding all the way down the waterfall.  From the top, it looks like a really good idea to slide down.  From this view, it looks like a pretty stupid thing to do.  Thank god for the little wire fence.

After leaving the waterfall, we stopped at a little place on the side of the road for lunch.  Lunch was not so special, but THIS is delicious.  It's a dragon fruit.  It's sort of like a hot pink kiwi.  Life can't get any better than that.

At the end of the day, we went to the far north part of the island to walk across a sandbar that extends between some islands.  The water is only up to your knees, but you walk for a long way to get to the other island.  It's a pretty awesome thing to do, and a pretty awesome place to watch the sun set.

At night, we went to a reggae bar.  Since getting here, I've learned that reggae and beaches tend to go together. 

This is me and Jana going out at night.

This is me after leaving Langkawi and taking a ridiculous number of boats, buses, and other vehicles to get to Ton Sai.  This last boat ride totally restored my spirits after all the exhausting bus trips. Passing by all the huge limestone towers made me really excited to meet the bunches of climbers at Ton Sai.  When you get to Ton Sai, you feel like you've just joined a super-awesome club of climbers who have found paradise.  It's sort of like magic.

This is Ton Sai at low tide.  The tides here are crazy - In the morning, the water comes right up to the restaurant, so you basically have to swim if you want to get out of Ton Sai.  In the afternoon, the tide goes out so far that you can walk a few kilometers out onto the rocks and even walk over to Railay beach.

One day, I got really close to leaving Ton Sai.  I even went and spent the whole day in Krabi (which is the big town near by).  This is a pretty temple in Krabi.

This is another little temple in Krabi.  I really don't know anything about these temples, because there are no signs or any people around to explain what they're for.  Either way, they look really nice.

In this temple, they had lots of donkeys and elephants.  Is it a political statement?  I have no idea.

These are a few of my friends at Ton Sai.  They have a really nice cafe on the beach where I like to sit and make my next big plan for leaving Ton Sai.  Great guys.

This is also the last picture that my camera was able to load onto the computer before it died.  I'm watching it right now as it gives me helpless error messages, beeps a few times in apology, and turns itself off.  Poor little thing.  Next time I'm in a big town, I'll purchase my third camera of this trip.  This time, I'll try to find one that's not so fragile.

I'll hopefully be able to upload some of the rock climbing pictures from Ton Sai in the next few days.  I really am planning to leave Ton Sai soon, and once I leave I'll hopefully acquire some kind of technology (jump drive, new camera, etc) that will let me show you more pictures.  Until then, it's a nice day for swimming.  I'll go to the beach today, and I'll leave Ton Sai tomorrow.

The Last of Malaysia

I meant to post this right as I was leaving Penang, but I ended up on a beautiful Thai beach where I completely lost track of time.  I think it's been something like 5 days since I got here.  Oops.

Anyway, last time I posted I was in Penang (Malaysia) and had just spent a day walking in the wrong direction. The next day, I walked in the right direction.  This is what I found:

This is the Hainan Temple, which was really beautifully Chinese-like.  The special things about this temple were the ridiculous number of red lanterns, dragon statues, and beautiful stone carvings.  Inside, there was a hole in the roof and a pretty garden in the center.  This is my favorite temple so far.

Who's this guy?  I think he's Confucius.  That makes sense for a Chinese temple, I think.

These are some of the stone carvings.  Apparently, the temple was built in 1895, but they had Chinese workers come over and fix up the stone carvings in 1995.

These are all the red lanterns.  Really, there were a lot, and it definitely made the temple more fun-looking.

So, after seeing this temple, I ran into Ahmed again.  Ahmed was the Canadian/Iraqi guy who I met in Kuala Lumpur and who came with me to the Cameroon Highlands.  What are the chances of that happening?  Apparently, he decided last minute that he wanted to sit on the beach in Penang one last time before flying back to Canada.  So, naturally, I went with him to the beach.  We took a bus for about an hour north to the Penang National Park.  Here I am on a swing by the beach after we took a long and sweaty walk through the jungle.

We decided to reward ourselves for doing such an intense jungle trek by going out for dinner in Batu Ferringhi, which is the beach resort area where all the rich people stay.  It sort of looks like Vegas, right?

 Since we're by the sea, people here like seafood.  This is the Golden Thai restaurant, where you can walk along a path of fish and choose one for dinner.  Half the fish were already dead in their tanks, so we decided to go elsewhere.

This is a sea creature who is in a tank much too small for him.  His antenna things were touching the corners of the tank, and he had to just sit there like this... poor guy.

This is a restaurant shaped like a boat.  How cool.

The restaurants compete with eachother by putting up lots of lights.  Though this place had a camel, I don't think they actually serve camel.

This is where we went out for dinner.  It was a halal barbeque.

Here's Ahmed enjoying the barbeque on the beach.

...and me doing similarly.

The next day, I went on a walk to see more of Georgetown.  This is the WWII memorial.

This handsome young man is Captain Light at Fort Cornwallis.  Captain light was known for coming into Penang before it was yet discovered by other Europeans and establishing a port there.  As I understand it, he founded Georgetown.  A funny thing - there's a sign at one of the churches that says something like "British settlers and locals both loved him for his work."  Somehow, I don't believe that the locals would really have loved him that much for taking over their land...

This Georgetown's coast.  Only 300,000 people live there, but they have a lot of industry and hence a lot of skyscrapers.

This is the clock tower.  I guess it's kind of exciting.  I found it most useful to orient myself during the many times that I got lost.

This is just another example of the kind of colonial architecture that Georgetown is famous for.

This is St. George's church.  It's the oldest Anglican church in Southeast Asia.  It's kind of funny how I got here:  While walking down the street, I met a Dutch guy named Tom.  The day before, Tom had met a crazy old Malay guy who showed him a free bus that you can take around the city to all of the main historical sites.  Tom and I went to take this bus around, because it was way too hot for walking.  While we were on the bus, the crazy old Malay guy got on.  We all got off at the same stop (at this church) and sat around under a tree for a few hours while the old guy told us all about the history of everything.  Even though the old guy seemed crazy at first, he actually had all of his facts straight and knew a ridiculous amount of history about everywhere in the world.  He said he knew these things because he's psychic.

After sitting around at the church for half the day, Tom and I went to get some tea in little India.  This is a Hindu temple in little India.

















Since leaving Penang, I've started the "breathtaking-tropical-islands" part of the trip.  After leaving Penang, I took a boat to Langkawi, which is a beautiful island at the northernmost part of Malaysia.  After Langkawi, it was time to go to Thailand.  I took a boat to the Thai mainland (to a town called Satun) where I took a local bus to Trang (a town farther north on the Thai mainland), took a minivan to Krabi (a town still farther north), took a sorngtaaou (which is like a pickup truck) to Ao Nang (a town on the beach), and finally took a longtail boat to Ton Sai.  I'm actually really proud of myself for having figured all of this transportation out on my own.  When I was leaving Langkawi, a guy wanted to charge me something like $50 to get me to Ton Sai.  Instead, I just set off on  my own, and I made it there for under $10.  Go me!

So, now I'm living on Ton Sai beach.  It's the closest thing I've ever seen to heaven.  There are huge limestone cliffs with stalactites hanging off them and the sea coming right up to the base.  The town is tucked between the cliffs.  There are no cars and barely any people here, but there are watermelon shakes and palm trees.  I might call it paradise.

I've just taken a day to come into Krabi (which is the big town near Ton Sai), but I unfortunately forgot my camera at home, so no pictures for now.  Next post will be all pictures of paradise, I promise.

Butterflies, strawberries, and tea... Oh my!

Malaysia is hot.  Like, burning hot.  We sit around sweating all day and all night (unless, of course, we spend the day in an air conditioned mall...).  But Malaysia also has a secret (or not so secret...) place where the weather is perfectly cool and you can frolic through tea and strawberries with butterflies swirling around you.  This place is called the Cameroon Highlands.  It's a 4.5 hour drive north from Kuala Lumpur, and it's worth every minute in the car to get there.

By some great luck, I met a very nice couple who rented a car and invited me to tag along as they drove up to the Cameroon Highlands.  What would have been an exhausting bus journey all by myself turned into a relaxing drive through the hills with Sina (from Germany), her husband Javier (from Columbia), and a man I'd been hanging out with in KL for a few days named Ahmed (from Iraq/Canada).  We thought of ourselves as the world's most bizarre "family".

The town in the Cameroon Highlands that we stayed in is called Tanah Rata, and the first thing we did when we got there was eat a steamboat.  This is a Chinese-type meal where you get a pot of boiling water and raw meats, fish, vegetables, and noodles.  You put things into the boiling water (in some special order, unless you're too hungry to care) and then eat the soup.  It was delicious.







The next day, we took a tour of the Cameroon Higlands.  This was a very efficient way to see all the sights, because there really are a lot of sights to see!  The first place we went was the Boh tea plantation.  It was amazing to see table-high tea bushes carpeting such a huge area of land.  We also saw workers in the field harvesting the tea.  Nowadays, Malaysian people can't be bothered to pick their own tea, so most of the workers come from places like Nepal, India, and Indonesia.  The workers we saw used big shears to cut the green tops of the tea bushes and then threw the leaves over their heads into a big basket on their backs.  The guide said that other workers also use cutting machine things that they carry around to cut the tea more quickly.

This is a cool panorama of the tea fields with Sina taking a picture of me and Javi in the foreground.

The next place we went was the called the Mossy Forest.  In school and in the media, you always hear about how rainforests are necessary to clean the air and water and how they're a home for strange plants and animals.  I always knew that rainforests are important, but now I fully understand that the rainforests are an extremely special thing.  Before we decided to do the tour, someone said to us that "you can go into the rainforest, and you will see something amazing and green.  However, if you go there with someone who knows the land, they will show you the real colors of the rainfoest."  They were so right.

This is me about the enter the Mossy Forest with our guide, Wasu.  Walking through the forest, I just saw moss.  Then, Wasu would point out crazy plants hidden in greenery and tell us all about the medicinal uses.  It was really more than amazing.

hanging orchids

lip flowers

giant fern

ginger

spider orchid

passive insect-eating plant

These are cool!  Under the umbrella-looking part of the plant, they secrete sweet stuff that insects like to eat, and poison stuff that gets the insects drunk.  So, insects come and start eating that stuff, then they get drunk and fall into the body of the plant.  There is digestive fluid inside the body, so the plant starts eating them.  The insects try to climb up the walls to get out, but the lips are really slimy and slippery, so the insects fall back inside and die.

\

The next place we went was the butterfly garden.  I know, this doesn't look like a butterfly.  They trick you into coming here thinking that you'll see colorful butterflies fluttering about, and then they throw a big horned beetle in your face.  Just kidding - it's not that bad.  They had butterflies AND scary things.  Honestly, when I saw this thing, I thought I was going to die.  Apparently they don't really bite, though.  Instead, they snap their heads back and catch your fingers in the back of their neck.  That's still enough to cut your finger in half, but at least they don't bite.

 They also had a ridiculous amount of snakes.  I'm showing this picture because these are the friendliest looking of all the snakes.  Some of them were bigger than me, and I (again) thought I was going to die.

 Finally, they also had butterflies!  They were as pretty as you'd imagine, and the garden was sort of magical.  They were really used to people being there, so they'd even come land on you sometimes. 

On the way home we stopped for gas and ended up taking a survey that some kids were doing for school.  It was about the impact of tourism on Malaysia.  My survey was in Malay, so I'm not sure how many of the questions I got right.








The next day, I went on a hike to see the world's largest flower.  It was amazing and huge - like the kind of things you see in movies like Avatar and Jurassic Park.  Unfortunately, my camera died so I only have pictures of it on my iphone.  Even more unfortunately, I currently can't upload pictures onto this computer from my iphone.  I guess you'll just have to trust me that it was really cool.

This morning I took a bus from Tanah Rata to Penang, which is an island on the west coast of Malaysia.  This island is very famous because it's one of the oldest British colonies of the Asian islands, and it's now very commercially important because of it's location between Southeast Asia and India.  This results in a place with a lot of interesting cultural sights along with a lot of ugly commercial buildings.

I arrived in Georgetown (the main city of Penang) this morning at 11 am.  Once I got here, I decided to go out and see the town.  Unfortunately, I walked in the wrong direction and all I saw were banks, car rental companies, and other business-type things.  It was pretty boring, and I decided that Penang sucks.  However, I then took a look at the map and saw that there are tons of parks, forts, and temples in exactly the opposite side of town.  This is the life of a tourist: sometimes you make mistakes.  Tomorrow, my plan is to walk in the right direction.  I'll let you know how that goes.