Pulau Perhentian and itinerary woes

Hey all,

After leaving Koh Phangan's awesome beaches and Salad Beach Resort we headed south and over to border into Malaysia again to sample the Perhentian islands. People say they are the most beautiful islands in Malaysia so we thought we ought to check 'em out.



Going back into Malaysia travelling the most direct route to the Perhentian islands turned out to be a bit of a headache as it took 2 days of bus, ferry & taxi rides to get there. We also had to go through the most dodgy part of Thailand with military checkpoints every 5kms and lots of troops and machine guns everywhere. Wasn't easy but we made it. After some initial crappy weather, everything cleared up and the Perhentians were looking pretty damn nice. The islands are very remote only accessed by boat and they have no roads and don't have stable 24 hour electricity. We pretty much spent everyday on the beach. The only downside staying on the islands is that food is bloody expensive (compared to the mainland) and generally low quality with a couple exceptions. I'll tell you, I was constantly hungry and my stomach couldn't wait to get off the islands so I could chow down like the pig that I am.

The sand was perfect for sculpting and we got creative trying to makes castles and stuff. Uriah's posing with her turtle. The picture doesn't do it justice because it looked much bigger in person.



Water... Crystal clear with surprisingly nice coral and fish just off the beach.




After leaving the Perhentians we headed to Kota Bharu to figure out our next step. Kota Bharu is in the north-eastern state of Kelantan which is said to be the most conservatively Muslim part of Malaysia. It didn't really feel all that conservative compared with the rest of Malaysia though and the people were incredibly nice. A genuine kind of nice that we haven't found anywhere else in southeast asia. And... I got some good FOOD in quantities acceptable for a largish man. Malaysia has some damn good desserts too.



There wasn't much to do in Kota Bharu except eat and browse around. We spent a good part of the day planning our next moves and we've had to shake up our travel plans again. Ever since we left Cambodia, we've been just making it up based on what we feel like doing. Thats how we ended up in Japan! Its an amazing feeling to have the freedom to be able to do that sort of thing. To just wake up and ask yourself "where do you want to go today?"



Anyway, we bought overnight bus tickets to Kuala Lumpur and from there we were planning on going to Bali & Lombok in Indonesia. Flights turned out to be too expensive though at this stage of our trip so we're saving Indonesia for another day. We also encountered some problems with buying our tickets for London as our discounted Qantas tickets cannot be issued electronically for Bangkok->London and would have to be printed paper tickets issued from Australia. Rather than sitting in Bangkok for probably over a week waiting for tickets to be mailed here (which would be very risky because they may never show up!) we've decided to head back to Sydney for a week to straighten out our matters before heading to europe for a month. Its not going to cost us that much so why not? Hopefully we get our flights!

On another note...Its been 6 months of travelling now. How time flies.

-Derek

Back to water bliss- Koh Phangan!

After an early morning start from Yokohama catching the 7:30am train back to Tokyo and from there change terminal to Ueno from Ueno catch the super slow "express" train to Narita Airport...ahhhh! Haven't had breakfast yet either, no matter there are always a Macdonalds in Airports.

Air India treated us well and flew us back to Bangkok safely. I thoroughly enjoyed watching two Hindi movies (not understanding a word they were saying) and my chicken curry for lunch. We didn't want to stay in Bangkok any longer so we opted to bus and ferry to Koh Phangan first thing in the morning at like 5:30am. I guess it was an eye opener for us both as we saw how the ladies and ladies boys attempt to lure foreign men at the end of a big night out.... you know. I tell you they were really straight to the point........

So we came from this

to this...

Back to water bliss. It's nice to be able to sleep well, actually its just nice to have a room as suppose to a closet like the one we stayed in Tokyo. I do miss Japan already. However, thai food i guess makes up for that.

We are staying in the north-western part of Koh Phangan and as far away from Haad Rin (overdeveloped backpackers party beach) as possible. We biked there yesterday and sadly it truly was disappointing. The beach was dirty as there were empty beer bottles left on the beach and taxi boat touts galore.

Haad Salad is one of Koh Phangan's unspoilt and less developed areas and the road is a clear statement to this.

Salad Beach Resort is perfect, i love swaying palm trees and gorgeous sunsets and peaceful uncrowded beaches. The only complaint is the water is too hot!

Tomorrow, we have yet again another early start. We rise at 5am to catch a taxi to the pier and boat it to Surat thani (if i'm not mistaken, i'm probably am) then bus to Hat Yai and from here we hope to catch another bus to Kota Bharu, Malaysia. Basically, our next destination is Palau Perhentian, Malyasia.

Until then,
Too brown Uriah.

BIG

Tokyo is really big. Where we are staying in Tokyo on the otherhand isn't. Just have a look below at the room Uriah and I are sharing. It's actually intended for one person but we had a lot of trouble finding budget accommodation last minute as most places were fully booked so we took it. Its clean but we do have to get a little creative in finding floor space to sleep on as the room is really friggin small.

We make up for our cheapness through our eating habits though and we found this all you can eat dessert bar (in 90 minutes) that had us bellyaching all afternoon. Food can be expensive in Tokyo but we've found good deals around town and the quality is usually pretty high.



Our Japan rail passes expired last Friday and before they did, we squeezed in a day trip to Nagoya. As soon as we got there we noticed a whole lot of Sumo wrestlers walking around. We soon discovered there was a tournament going on and spent most of the day watching these big units wrestle. Awesome sight.



Tokyo is bloody busy. Trains are full all the way to midnight. Shibuya's famous intersection didn't disappoint either as every 3 minutes hordes of people flow in all directions. Crazy.




Shinjuku was alright and Akihabara (electric city) was good times for me as Im a nerd at heart and love all the techie electronic stuff. Came real close to buying a laptop and a new SLR digital camera. Uriah helped me fight the temptation though.



Uriah and I have done a bit of shopping around town and we've been checking out a lot of the used/vintage clothes shops. Uriah scored some really wicked deals. As for me, size is always an issue as mostly everyone here is like medium. I can't even buy shoes here as they only go up to size 11 (Im 13) and there are good deals too. I've had to return to my old habit of buying records and Tokyo (particularly Shibuya) is a mecca for vinyl geeks. Shibuya has more record stores per square metre than any other place in the world!



Harajuku: Lots of "eccentric" kids.



Overall, Tokyo has made us fell a bit odd. In general, the Japanese are very trendy. Men and women dress up to the 10th degree and fashion is high priority. Uriah and I on the otherhand feel like travelling slobs. Japan is a very different place than what we have gotten use to in South east asia.

Tomorrow we're off to Yokohama before heading back to Bangkok.

- Derek

Cheeks in Fukuoka, Japan

Still in Japan!



Sadly our Japan trip is coming to an end. For the last few days we stayed almost right at the bottom of Japan in a city called Fukuoka. Great city and it can be done in two days. Here we stayed in a ryokan which is a traditional Japanese inn. Was ok, over priced and over rated.. i think.






In Fukuoka around the 15th of July they will be holding a festival where half naked men run around the city carrying big floats .... So every day i was greeted throughout the day with men showing off there bum cheeks. Pretty ugly sight actually.







We are now staying in Tokyo more on this on the next blog....


-Uriah

Osaka, Nara, Kobe, Himeji

So, we've left Kyoto and we have spent the last few days staying in Osaka. It's been good because we have been able to do day trips to other nearby cities including Nara, Kobe and Himeji. We have been a bit overloaded with all the walking and visiting old historic temples, shrines and castles. There are so many designated world heritage sites so we tried our best to see them but you can't really see them all.



Osaka turned out to be a crazy city with lots of everything. Im sure its not as hectic as Tokyo but it does have all the components of a large city.. Including homeless people!! And they all seem to sleep on the same street as our budget hostel. We definetly picked a place in the seedy side of town.

Nonetheless, we've had some really good sushi, seen the local punk groups, observed geishas roaming through town, and been to cool little used video game shops with all the vintage systems (Derek likes!!).



--
Uriah with a psuedo-samurai outside Himeji-jo Castle, Derek with the Colonel!



Us trying new poses with Himeji-jo and the five story pagoda in nara.


Cheap food alert! 3 bucks for all of that!!


Trying to get artistic with some shots.


This is a short blog.. Our hostel has a curfew and there shutting everything down right now.

2moro goin to Fukuoka.
-Derek and Uriah