Posted on March 14th 2012 in Travel with no comments
I woke up late on my night train. My occupation of the bed had prevented the bunkbeds being converted into normal train seats, leaving the woman below me horizontal and therefore annoyed. I tried to apologise the best way I could, with exaggerated sympathetic expressions, but I don’t think it helped. After a few minutes of watching the rural countryside roll by, she seemed happy enough. There was still an hour or two till we got to Bangkok, so I watched as the view outside got more and more industrial, till at 10am I arrived in Hua-lumpong Central station. My…
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Posted on March 13th 2012 in Travel with no comments
Tha Kham – the town I stayed the night in Surat Thani – really was a no horse town. As such, I had to take a tuk tuk back to the largest city in the area – confusingly also called Surat Thani. This place was similarly devoid of attractions, but I saw on the map that it was close to the sea, built on a large river delta system, which I thought would be interesting to explore. I headed to the main river channel and there found a man who was about to set off in his boat to deliver…
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Posted on March 7th 2012 in Travel with no comments
While most of the temporary residents of Phuket were recovering away in their hotel rooms, I decided to flip flop my way down to Patong Beach. Away from the tawdry sights of the tourist streets it was very beautiful, with long sandy beeches receding into the distance and a cool sea in front to swim in.The sun baked me till I was soft and golden, which took about 2 hours at gas mark 4. I felt very relaxed walking back, feeling like I could cope with the hectic streets infested with masseures and taxi drivers. I began walking away from my hotel, taking pictures here…
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Posted on March 7th 2012 in Travel with no comments
I felt like a bit of an idiot when I woke in my hostel this morning, because I had stupidly booked a flight the night before to Phuket. It was stupid because firstly I was rather enjoying myself here in Penang, and didn’t want to keep rushing onwards to new destinations quite so rapidly as I had been up to now. The second reason came retrospectively, when I arrived at my destination 7 hours after I originally started. I booked the flight to save time, but because of having to change flight in KL 300km to the south, and because…
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Posted on March 6th 2012 in Travel with no comments
My final stay in Malaysia was on the island state of Penang, in the north of the mainland. This meant taking a 5 hour coach ride again, but seeing as the one I had booked turned out to be equivalent to a first class air ticket, I wasn’t too bothered. The views outside were similarly premium in their appearance. Rolling hills evolve into bulbous mountains, each looking homoegenously green from a distance, but up close were a teething mat of interlocking species of different flora. Disappointingly, I occasionally saw huge tears in this vegetative carpet, mining scars of orange and brown, remind…
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