Odyssey Overland 2010
April 10th to October 11th
So Odyssey Overland ended a few weeks ago. With a bang, I might add. When one certain hung-over member (who shall remain nameless) had to throw down her bags whilst in line at the airport and run to the toilets to be sick, you know it’s been a good night.
Since then, I have been traveling Indonesia with Heather, Roberta, and Lesley. We have had a very interesting time so far. After landing in Jakarta, Roberta, Lesley and I took the taxi through Java’s hectic roads to the “Sunny Days Hostel” where we were to wait for Heather. We didn’t quite know what to expect, and that’s just as well, because nothing could have prepared us for what we found.
The taxi driver dropped us off at “Sudirman Park tower A”, which was part of a massive apartment complex consisting of 2 big residential skyscrapers in the center of downtown. The thing was, there was no indication that a hostel, or indeed any tourist infrastructure existed in this huge place. We talked to the security guard at the entrance, who took us through some locked doors, down a long hallway of apartments, and then stopped at a plain, unmarked door. After knocking, a teenage girl answered, and she appeared to be in the middle of a party with some of her friends. We asked if this was the Sunny Days Hostel and she said yes…. so, we got inside, and she showed us to the room. It was actually one of the rather small bedrooms of the apartment, and somehow several bunk beds were crammed in. After settling down in the “hostel”, we debated on whether to stay in this strange place for more than one night. Then, we discovered the big luxurious pool in the courtyard. Which made the decision to stay rather easy.
Anyway, after meeting up with Heather, we took the train to Bandung. Apparently the town where many Indonesian’s go to do their shopping, it was not a tourist place by any means, and many strange looks were cast our way as we walked down the crowded streets. Lesley also had the opportunity to spy a naked man doing his business on the street outside our hotel. Wonderful.
Next we got on the train again and went to Jogyakarta. The big volcano nearby was erupting, and coating the surrounding area with a thick layer of ash. It was quite ashy on the train ride in, but the town itself seemed pretty clear. Unfortunately I did very little sightseeing here, because I was in bed with a stomach bug. But it was a nice town in any case.
After Jogyakarta came Solo. We somehow got a free train ride to Solo…. not sure why, I think they were giving out free train rides for refugees from the volcano eruption. Maybe we fell under the category of “refugees?” not sure… Oh well, free transportation is always nice.
There really wasn’t much to see here, but the hotel was quite pleasant. Also, there was a McDonalds. And of course Heather tried a hard-boiled egg, apparently for the first time in her life. Not only was the egg “not very good”, but she stated that she was actually “quite scared of this egg”. ……….
After surviving the scary egg, we took the overnight bus to the Hindu island of Bali. Our stay here has been excellent so far. There’s lots of tourists, and people selling things, but the locals are extremely friendly. They make a real effort to get to know you… and to friend you on facebook for some reason. We started on the north side of the island, and we’re now in Ubud in the central area. We walked through “Sacred Monkey Forest”, featuring Kirstin’s good friend the macaque, took a day tour of the surrounding countryside, and I bought a pair of sunglasses which lasted about 12 hours. Oh yes, and we swam in the nice pool at our bungalow, which honestly was a major highlight for me, simply because cold beer and a swim is the perfect way to finish off a busy day.
Tomorrow, we are off to the Gili Islands, which should have some nice walks and beaches, although it will mean saying goodbye to the swimming pool, so a few tears may be shed. But oh well. Anyway, hopefully another blog post (and pictures!) will follow soon.
Koh Phangan
Spent the past few days on the island of Koh Phangan, which is one of the most beautiful places we’ve been so far.
When I first arrived, i was by myself, because Kay was still traveling in Burma and Simon was off in Laos. I took the taxi from the pier to the “JB Hut” bungalows. On the way I met a girl from Los Angelas who was working in Thailand, so that was pretty cool.
When I arrived at the bungalow, I was dissapointed at first. It wasn’t quite as luxurious as I had been hoping. Also, When I wandered down to the beach, I found that the water was mostly un-swimmable because a storm or something had pushed the coral line very close to the beach. So anyway, the first day was pretty dissapointing.
On the second day, i was woken up by Pete and Kirsten knocking at the door. They had driven over from the opposite side of the island (no easy task, the roads here are really bad), in a rented Jeep. We drove around a lot of the island, and Pete had fun terrorizing me by driving on some incredibly treacherous roads. We went to this remote look-out spot, and met a nice couple on holiday from South Africa. Later that day I rented a motorbike and drove around some more.
On the third day, Kay was due to arrive from Burma, so I drove my motorbike all the way down to the port to pick her up. Somehow I missed her though, and she was already at the bungalow when I got back. We spent most of this day driving around some more on the motorbike, and checking out other beaches to see if any of them were swimmable.
The next day, we drove down to Haad Rin, the party central of the island. We swam at the beach and had really good burgers. In the evening, we had dinner on the beach, and who should come walking by but Pauline and her daughter, who had relocated from the opposite side of the island. After talking to them for a while, i heard someone call out my name. I turned around, and saw the South African couple from the lookout! I talked to them for a while, and they were staying at this resort right on the beach. It had a big pool, breakfast was included, and they said the bungalows were really nice and not too expensive.
So the next day I walked down to their resort to check it out, and it was amazing. We relocated that very day, and it’s been great ever since. The pool is very nice, and it’s only about 10 feet from the beach. You get driven around in golf carts, and they’ve also cleared that section of the beach of coral so you can swim. So it’s a great way to end beach week, with a bit of luxury!
Thailand has been a very interesting experience for me so far. In fact it got interesting within the first 10 minutes of crossing the border, when our two minibuses were pulled over by the police. They somehow came to the conclusion that it was necessary to check all of our luggage. However, upon opening the trunk and seeing the sheer quantity of luggage in our possession, the cops apparently decided their jobs would be much easier if they let us go.
So, we continued on our way to Bangkok. The journey was made much shorter than I expected by our guy’s reckless driving habits. Believe it or not, it really is possible for a bus to maintain a steady 130 kilometres/hour through rush-hour traffic on a two-lane motorway. Our driver was quite skillfull though, and very few people were injured/killed.
We had a great time during our 4 nights in Bangkok, although it wasn’t a cheap city. Beer was an average of $3 a bottle (compare that with China, where we once found beer for 30 CENTS a bottle), and a good meal easily cost over $4 (once again not cheap compared to the places we’ve been). But the sky train, while air-conditioned to arctic-like temperatures, was fantastic, and so were the riverboats and the palace. Also, Simon led a 2-man expedition to Pat pong district, but we won’t talk about that.
Anyway, at the moment, im sitting in the restaurant at Apple’s Resort in some National Park outside of Bangkok. It’s really nice here, the food is incredibly good, and with all my potential room-mates off on their own adventures for the moment, I get a wonderful hotel room all to myself! Including my own double bed!!
Alright well, that’s all I’ll write for today. I really am on a roll now, 2 consecutive blog updates in a row! Hopefully there will be some pictures to follow…
Yes, I know it has been over 2 months since my last blog post. But I’m just going to pretend it didn’t happen, and continue on like there was never a break. If I have to recount everything since Uzbekistan, I’ll never have the energy to start up again… so here we go:
After our fantastic time in Vietnam, we crossed into Cambodia from Saigon, and headed straight for the capital of Phnom Penh. While it wasn’t everyone’s favorite city, Phnom Penh certainly had an interesting character. It’s hard to explain, but it had almost an ominous feeling to it, although not in a bad way. If that makes any sense. Also, we had Simon’s FIRST birthday party at the Foreign Correspondants Club here. After disappearing from his party for several hours, he came back, promptly got drunk, and proceeded to knock over a table and some glasses. Anyway moving on…
After Phnom Penh, we took the bus to the town of Battambang. The main reason for being there was because it’s location on the river means you can take the ferry to Siem Reap. While not the most exciting place, it was interesting nonetheless. Also, we had Taylor’s birthday party at the Gecko Cafe here (and also Simon’s SECOND birthday party, which he actually decided to attend!). After spending one full day here, we got on the “ferry” and headed for Siem Reap, home of the one and only Angkor Wat.
Yes, about that “ferry”. Not so much a ferry as a rickety jumble of wood, bamboo, and old auto parts (the steering wheel said NISSAN on it. I was pretty sure they make cars…), it was an interesting way to get to Siem Reap. As soon as we docked, the scores of tuk-tuk drivers waiting on shore surged onto our tiny boat like an enemy horde, looking desperately for potential fares. We braved the sea of screaming men and begging children to reach our minibuses and finally got to the hotel.
Most of us went to sleep early our first night in the town, because today, we got up at 5 am so we could get to the temples of Angkor Wat by sunrise. We didn’t quite achieve that goal, but we had an amazing day nonetheless. No one failed to be impressed at the massive ruins, although our guide’s hour-long history lesson was somewhat lackluster.
When we returned, I went shopping with some others at the night market. My day was looking up when I found a replacement watch for the one I lost. After it broke an hour later, I took it back to the stall and made him give me a different one. That one just stopped working as well. So, tomorrow I shall return to the same stall. And get my money back. And once again I will be watch-less.
Well that’s all for now. I’m gonna post a few pics as well. Just random things from the past couple weeks. I’ll hopefully post some of Angkor Wat tomorrow. Anyway, night all.
From the city of Khiva, in Uzbekistan.
Some pictures of Ashgabat, capital of Turkmenistan. Policemen on every corner stop you from taking photos of any of the buildings, so I unfortunately have very few Ashgabat pictures.
More of the Crater
