Marvelous Malaysia!

Followers, stalkers, friends and fans,

A fresh and exciting story you are about to read again. Composed and written in Perth, Western Australia. That's right, I have been living in the land Down Under for a good 3 weeks now, but oy, that's an whole other story which will be presented to you very soon!

What can I tell about Malaysia? Well, it is just an awesome, beautiful and amazing country, which lots and lots of interesting places. If I have to recommend an Asian country for people to visit on their 3 week holiday, it would be either Thailand for the partylovers or Malaysia for the culture- scenery- and nature lovers!I like both and, lucky as I am, I had the time to visit both countries :-D

So, that's why I flew from Bangkok in Thailand to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. The capital of the country which is like any other city in Asia. Big, crowded, packed with traffic, and lots of noise. But it is a nice city as well, it's very well developed with of course - as the highlight of the city - The Petronas Twin Towers. Even when the WTC in New York was still the pride of the USA, the Petronas Twin Towers are with their 452 meters and 72 elevators the tallest TWIN skyscrapers in the world! Pretty impressive to see, whether you go there during daytime or nighttime.

I spent 2 weeks in Malaysia, together with Jeffrey. An awesome Dutch fellow whom I met in Cambodia 1,5 months ealier in Cambodia. We decided to meet up again here, since he had to get a flight back home and I needed to be in KL to get a flight to Australia. We met at the airport and it was like we only had seen eachother yesterday. It's so weird but cool how well you get along with people whom you've only met briefly months earlier in some stage of your travel. It's one of the beautiful things of traveling I guess.

Of course, when arrived at KL airport, neither me or Jef had a plan. As usual we were backpackers without a plan! We got dropped of at our hostel which turned out to be one of the best hostels in town  and even had 'award winning' certificates (not kidding) on the wall stating that it had been voted as the 'cleanest hostel in KL' with 'the cleanest mattresses'! And it sure was! Although the room Jef and me shared was freakin' small (prison cell) everything was extremely nice and clean! On top of that we had free wi-fi and hot coffee 24/7!! We liked KL already :D

The following day we decided to go for a little walk through the city. Since we still hadn't any idea of what to do we just wandered around the city in the direction of the twin towers. On our way there we passed a HERTZ car rental agency. I brought up the idea that it could be fun to rent a car. Jeffrey suggested to go inside for some information. And so we did. 30 minutes later we came outside with a free coffee in one hand and a rental lease of our very own "HYUNDAI something" in our other hand. Within 2 days we would be roadtripping for the next week. SWEEET. I love it when 'a plan comes together'. We spent the rest of the day at the Petronas Towers and made some nice pictures. In the evening we bought a ticket for the 'KL Tower' which is a massive radio tower opposite the twin towers which offers great scenic views from the observation deck at a height of 270 meters. The view was awesome. Have a look at the pics.

People back home know me as an 'very artistic, spiritual and cultural' person (hahaha) so Jef and me went to the National Museum in KL the following day. While pretending to be totally impressed by some stupid stones, rocks and trash, we eventually found something FAR more exciting at the exit of the museum. SEGWAY tours were offered around a nice and green park of KL. For anyone who don't know what a SEGWAY is, have a look at the pics. Having done the most awesome things during my trip, something simple as driving a SEGWAY (which was another 'first experience' for me) turned out to be absolute fun. They say it's fairly impossible to lose control on a SEGWAY.  But being stupid and clumsy as only I can be, I tried to do some tricks, which probably made me the only person ever to get a SEGWAY slipping, leaving a skidmark on the road and a wound on my leg! LOL!

And with the madness on the SEGWAY behind us we left KL the following morning in our rented car. Driving in the morning traffic. In one of the world's busiest cities. On the left side of the road. With the steering wheel at the right side of the car. With no knowledge of the road rules. And neither Jef or me had been driving a car for the past 5 months. And I (me, the clumsy one) drove us out of the city! Actually while I'm writing this I can't believe we're still alive! But I guess we knew we were destined to do this and within moments I was driving the city like I was a local and Jef was yelling 'WATCH OUT, GO LEFT, LEFT LEEEEEEEFT, BRAKEEEE!' like a professional rally co-pilot! What a rush and what a fun!

And off we went to discover Malaysia. Or at least a part of it. We went to old and scenic 'Georgetown' where we visited some old cultural VOC heritage sites, including Dutch war equipment and VOC canons. Very nice to see and we were happy we had our fair share of some 'cultural' sightseeing as well. After Georgetown we went to Langkawi. An island only accesable by ferry. The problem was that we were not able to bring our car on the ferry. So once arrived at the island, we rented a chopper to explore the island and do some nice things! While Jef was sitting on the back of our rented motorbike as my 'bitch' :P, we drove past a small harbour. The sight of the harbour brought us the crazy idea of renting a speedboat for some good old fashioned sea exploring. We parked our motorbike at a small bar and asked the very friendly (Canadian) owner if he knew a place where we could rent a boat. He told us it was impossible on Langkawi, but he offered his own private litte speedboat instead as long as we didn't made it sink and paid a small amount of money. We agreed ofcourse and after 10 minutes of meeting the good man, we were sitting in his little speedboat with nothing but a 2 minute walkthrough on how to operate that thing.

We had the greatest fun just navigating around on the open sea and not long after that we saw a big sail yaught which had dropped anchor some km's off shore. When we were in sight the owner of the boat yelled if we would like to come on board for a brief tour. And so we entered an massive woorden sail yaught, on the open sea and sat down on the deck with a bunch of strangers, for a beer and some good stories and amazing views of the Langkawi coastline. Another cool experience with has been brought to us by random luck.

Last but not least we traveled all the way to the Cameron Highlands. A 'must see' for everyone who will go to Malaysia. You can compare it to the idyllic sceneries of Switzerland or Austria, bu instead of having snow, it has big green tea plantations and rice terraces. Very beautiful to see, and after 5 months of Asia it was finally a landscape I hadn't seen before. (sorry if I sound spoiled here :P).

Malaysia turned out to be amazing and extremely fun and I couldn't think of a better way to end my 5 months touring South East Asia than this. I concider myself a lucky person and with that in mind I said goodbye to Jef as he left for Holland. Two days later I was at the airport, ready for my next adventure, in the Land Down Under.
click here for the pics

FollowBart.com Episode 2; Thailand Adventures

Live from the airport in Kuala Lumpur,

I hereby Proudly Present:

FollowBart.com Episode 2 - Thailand Adventures

ENJOY WATCHING!

Flying Gibbon's, Crazy elephants, and massive parties: Thailand part 2

Ola everybody

I hereby proudly present: part 2 of the three bandits beaming their awesomeness in Thailand.

Soooo, after Phi Phi Islands were we stayed for 5 sunny days, the guys wanted to see some nature and wilderness! The most popular place for that is Chiang Mai up in the North of Thailand. I’ve been here on my last visit in Thailand last year and I enjoyed it very much. But, being on the road for a while, with a budget, sooner or later you experience a 2 things.

1. You always spend more money than you want to
2. You get a little bit spoiled by all the things you have done before.

So with that in mind, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to pay quite some bath (the Thai currency ;-) ) to get a plane (by bus would take forever) and spend another few thousand bath for a place I already have been. I’d rather save that money and spend it for something else, a new experience. But at the other hand, I neither wanted to split up with the guys already and besides I didn’t have a plan yet what to do if I would decide to stay behind.

Fortunately I knew Jeffrey, a cool Dutch dude who I met while I was in Cambodia. Because we have made plans to see each other in Malaysia, I speak to him regularly by phone and mail. He gave me the tip to go to Chiang Mai, but leave there as soon as possible by mini-van to a small town called Pai (say: ‘bye’). He told me it was one of the most beautiful places he has seen so far and that it’s very relaxed, laid-back and cheap. It is very tiny and the people who live there are all kind of ‘hippies’ and musicians etc. You might say it’s a rather artistic place to be.

After looking up some details in the Lonely Planet and discussed it with the guys we all agreed that Pai would be the place to be. And so we arrived in Pai. And Jeffrey was right. A few small streets, filled with street BBQ’s, small shops and little markets. Pai was tiny indeed, but it is literally located in the middle of a green valley, so you couldn’t be more in the nature (except when you do a jungle hike maybe). The people here were very chill and nice and made music, sang or played guitar on the street. Even the local police officer – and I’m not joking – was playing guitar on the streets after his duty, while still wearing his police officer uniform. Looked funny but also reminds you of ‘YMCA’.

There were no big disco’s or clubs. Instead of that you could just chill out a little mats on the floor of a small bar, while listening to some live-music or covers from Bob Marley. It was a very relaxing atmosphere to be in. The environment was very beautiful and we explored it on our rented 140cc scooters. After cruising around for some time, we drove past an elephant camp. The guys really wanted to ride an elephant, so we parked our scooters and asked the 'elephant lady' about the possibilities. She asked us if we wanted to go into the river with the elephant. Yeah, we wanted that, why not!! 'Ok' said the lady, 'you should wear some swimming pants than and leave all your valuables here in the safe deposit box'. I was not sure what she meant by 'wearing swimming pants', I did an elephant ride last year as well but we all stayed nice and warm and didn't get wet! But what the hell, just let's do this! Sooooo, after changed into our borrowed swimming pants a nice Thai guy, who just smiled and said some incomprehensible words, brought us to our elephant. We were told to climb on his back by the stairs next to the elephant. 'Where are the seats' I asked the guy (usually you have kind of 'elephant seats' where you can sit in for more comfort during the ride). 'No seats' the guy replied, while he watched us climbing on the elephant trying to hold on the bare back of the elephant with little success.

And so we took of for a little walk. On the regular road. Our elephant was quite lazy and the Thai man kept shouting commands to him what I think meant something like 'come on you stupid elephant, leave that tree for what it is and LISTEN to me and do for once what I WANT'. Very funny! After 10 minutes we arrived at the river and the elephant went in, with us still on his back of course. While the elephant stood in the middle of the river the Thai man shouted all kinds of commands from the shore while throwing little stones and branches at him to get his attention. The elephant didn't care at all and ignored the man completely, he was just standing there in the river, chilling his ass off, enjoying the sunshine... and yep, we were still on his back, enjoying the sun as well. Then, all of a sudden..... the elephant started to move around like a crazy bull! He literally rocked his body from left to right and stood on his back legs, lifting his back from the water! We all screamed like bitches and before I knew it I was thrown off in the river. I was a little bit in panic, 'cause I didn't know what happened and I sure didn't want to be in a river with a massive elephant next to me, going crazy! So I swam  like a crazy bastard to the shore. There I got my breath again and watched the scene displaying before my eyes. Ron and Michel were still on his back, but the elephant rocked his body several more times and they also flew off like little ignorant insects and landed in the water! I laughed my ass off. The Thai man laughed his ass off. It turned out the elephant didn't run wild, it was just all part of 'the deal'. Without knowing it, we apparently booked ourselves a real 'elephant rodeo'. When this became clear, we were more confident to climb back on the elephant's back and when we were all in place again, the Thai man screamed his commands again to the elephant. Prepared for what was coming this time, we hold tight to eachother and tried to stay as long as possible on the elephant's back. But again, we were launched and thrown into the water like we were nothing! It was sooooo freakin' hilarious, and it is so cool that after 4.5 months of traveling, I still haven't seen everything and still gets surprised! An elephant rodeo.... for about 30 minutes in a dirty river... IT WAS AWESOME! From now on there will be no more 'regular' elephant rides ever again! Compared to the rodeo, that will be too boring :P

On our last day in Pai we drove the scooter all the way back to Chiang Mai. We were able to drop off  the scooter in Chiang Mai so we thought we'd rather drive the magnificant route by ourselves on a scooter instead of sitting in a bus again for a couple of hours. While driving the scooter through the nature of Pai, I got the 'warm and fuzzy feelings' again which I had so many times while driving 'the Beast' in Vietnam. It was almost nostalgic. It was a memorable trip.

In Chiang Mai we booked an excursion called 'Flight of the Gibbon'. Yep, this concept is the same as 'the Gibbon Experience' which I did in Laos, only here you only do some ZIPPING for a couple of hours and that's it. Nevertheless it was great fun and we had some massive ziplines again, high above the ground and we reached speeds up to 80 km/hr. (according to the advertisment that is). But the highlight was not the zipping, but the fact that I saw actual GIBBONS this time. A little family with a male (who was minding his own business and being absolutely lazy) a female and her baby! It was so funny to see. The baby Gibbon was very curious and playing around, while the mother just watched him carefully. After a while she obviously thought it was time to go, so she grabbed the baby, put it around her belly and she swung off, from treetop to treetop! I was perfect in time to record this with my camera, so I've got some real good video's of it! It was beautiful to see.

And with Chiang Mai and the Gibbons as our last adventure, we took a flight back to Bangkok. Where the guys would stay 2 more nights and then fly back to Holland again. I, however, had still 1 week left before my flight would leave to Kuala Lumpur. Fortunately for me, Dave and Neil (my Vietnam Motorbike friends) were on Koh Phangan to experience the upcoming Full Moon Party. They invited me to come and I was able to crash in their bungalow for a few days! So, despite the fact that I already had seen Koh Phangan and already experienced the massive NewYears party there, I decided to go anyway! It was better than spending 6 long and boring days all by myself in Bangkok.

And so I said goodbye to Ron and Michel, and took off! For another legendary party, the mother of all beachparties, on Koh Phangan, with my other friends, Neil and Dave, who I hadn't seen for almost two months!

Damn... I hate my life!

click here for pics