Around the world (sort of) in 180 days (ish)

Malaysia & Singapore (the end of one odyssey and hopefully the beginning of the next)

Malaysia: 25th September 2011 to 8th October 2011
Singapore: 8th October 2011 to 10th October 2011
Total days travelled: 176

Distance travelled: 23,710kms on the truck, plus buses in Vietnam & Cambodia

Malaysian flag, banner style

We left the jungle in Thailand, me with a touch of a hangover from a lovely drunken time the day before, and had quite a long truck day down to Georgetown with a nice easy border crossing and a stop at the duty free to stock up in advance of high prices in the mostly muslim country.

Georgetown is an old colonial town and is really lovely. It's tatty and faded, but lovely. And had it not bucketed down all day the one day that we were there I'm sure I would have had a really lovely time. As it was we took a wee wander round until the rain got too much, then retired for curry, beer, and a truly terrible band (so terrible we thought it was karaoke) playing across the road from the hotel all night.

Pretty terraced houses, Georgetown

Jenn and I went out in our new Odyssey shirts, and matching trousers and shoes. Oops!

No escape. This only serves to remind me that the real world awaits.

Typical street, Georgetown

From there it was good news - we went off to the Perhentian islands on the east coast of Malaysia which was therefore a little less monsoony. And it was the beach. With diving and sunbathing and all that malarky. Lovely.

Beach on Perhentian

And to add to the beach vibe, we had our last big trip quiz/games etc. First of all Mandy set up a brutal photo quiz with "where's Calypso" and "what the hell is this bit of the truck" type questions. My team enjoyed trying to figure it all out, but did rather miserably!

And then Zoe & Susan ran a beach olympics which involved all sorts of beach games, mostly involving getting covered in body paint and sand and doing energetic things. And everyone that knows me knows just how much I enjoy running up and down the beach....
We had a great time and neither won nor lost which I consider quite a result (especially as Jenn and I were sneakily adding vodka to the diet cokes we were using to hydrate ourselves).

Red team writing quiz answers on me in body paint

Mermaid competition

A touch sandy after becoming a mermaid.
This is before Denis added to my comfort levels by putting a handful of wet sand down the back of my bikini. Bloody west coasters!

We were supposed to then head for another jungle, but after the monsoon like conditions in the jungle in Thailand, and with everyone worn out, an executive decision was made and we headed straight for KL. KL is a strange sort of a city in that, yes it's massive, and yes it's got history and big skyscrapers and malls and all that jazz, but there doesn't seem to be any heart to the place. There aren't really proper pavements and you can't really walk anywhere so I didn't really get a proper feel for the place. But the boys did find a pub serving draft guiness and Jenn and I spent a reasonable time in the malls and we went up the KL tower so a good time was had. Oh, and we found an M&S and bought crisps and chocolate raisins which was brilliant!

Me at the Petronas towers. Sadly the viewing bridge is closed at the moment.

The KL tower and the Petronas towers at night (from our hotel room no less)

Honestly though, the highlight of Malaysia for me was our wee Ben's comedy gig. Ben was fab and there was lots of beer drunk and laughter had. Ben's one to watch - he'll be a superstar some day I reckon.

Ben doing his thing

Me and Jenn at Ben's gig

And so to our last stop in Malaysia, and the final port of call for the truck, Melaka. Another wee old colonial town, this time with a bit more charm (mostly based on the fact that it didn't rain all the time, and had a shop that sold really good mini cheesecakes).

Portuguese church, Melaka

Temple, Melaka

The maritime museum, cunningly housed in a replica ship

After a couple of days, we said goodbye to the truck and loaded ourselves into comfy minibuses for the easy journey down to our final destination (for most of us anyway), Singapore.

Saying goodbye to our trusty Calypso

Sign on the Singapore metro - No durians!

Singapore

Love this sign! The equivalent in Malaysia had the robber being shot in the back whilst running away.

Loved Singapore. Jenn and I managed a quick run round the colonial centre upon arrival, before allocating a couple of hours to get ourselves spruced up for a wee visit to the Long Bar at Raffles for Singapore Slings (it had to be done!). And the following day, under Mandy's competent organisation, we all went for our final fling at the Hyatt brunch buffet which was EPIC. They let us in at 1130am and rolled us out, drunk and stuffed at 330pm. The food was amazing and the fizz flowed constantly. Utterly wonderful, and a great end to the trip.

Jenn, Jim and I at Raffles

Raffles Long Bar with Singapore Slings and Jenn

With Jim and CJ and their girly pink drinks

Brunch at the Hyatt, with Colin, Jenn, Jim, Sally and CJ

The following day was spent marvelling at my lack of hangover and saying goodbye to everyone before heading back to Melaka with CJ, Colin and Wendy and taking Calypso north to KL to be readied for her sea voyage back to the UK ready for her next epic adventure.

As for me, I'm going to HK soon and then will be heading home in late Oct before deciding what to do with the rest of the year. The work avoidance continues people.....

Thailand

Thailand: 5th September 2011 to 25th September 2011

Total days travelled: 162

I had previously been to Thailand a whole 10 years ago for about two months and absolutely loved the place and this time was no different. OK, so 20 days is not quite two months, but, having been before, I took some pressure off myself from seeing every sight and going to every bloody night market!

We crossed in from Cambodia and went straight to our hotel in Bangkok which was handily situated about 2 mins from the (in)famous Khao San Road, full of backpackers, scuzzy hostels, tattoo parlours, bars, pad thai stalls etc. It's changed a fair bit in 10 years (no surprises there), with MacDonalds, Subway etc to add to the Boots that was previously there, but on the whole it's pretty much the same place. And most importantly the pad thai and banana pancakes from the street vendors were as remembered!

The boys went for a boys night out (which can only mean one thing in Bangkok) while I escorted Jenn out to get her new tattoo done; much more civilized!

Jenn's new, and rather gorgeous, tattoo

Jenn and I then spent the next day shoe shopping in the lovely malls of Bangkok, being a little cultured-out after Cambodia and we all had our girls' night out, starting at the Vertigo Bar on the roof of the rather fancy (too fancy for me!) Banyan tree hotel.

Super expensive cocktail at the Vertigo Bar

With Jenn

The rest of the girls then sampled all that Bangkok had to offer, but I left at that point and get a mototaxi back to Khao San Road to meet up with the lovely Alice Orton and another of her Edinburgh chums for a fantastic meal and a beer or two in a blues club. It was really nice to see Alice and so kind of her to take me out on a school night.

The next day was cultural day, taking in the Grand Palace, and getting local ferries back to the hotel.

We got the sleeper train up to Chiang Mai and it was quite a different journey from that 10 years ago, but surprisingly, a fair bit less entertaining, with fancier (but not as fancy as the Chinese train) sleeper compartments and some irritating ladyboy waitresses.

Chiang Mai is a lovely city up in the north. It was pretty much as I remembered it and I had a great time just hanging around, eating cheap food and drinking beer. Perfect. Jenn and I also managed a wee wander round town and visited a couple of wats, but we didn't go crazy!

A picture of the King (Elvis) with the King (of Thailand)

Wat Chedi Luang, Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai

Wat Phra Singh, Chiang Mai

The truck (which Jim had picked up in Vientiane and driven into Chiang Mai in one mammoth day) then headed south to Kanchanaburi and the Bridge over the River Kwai, but I'd been before and I wanted to get some diving in, so I took myself off on a plane to Koh Samui and boat to Koh Tao, a diving island in the Gulf of Thailand.

The place is super famous for diving, but it's a bit like Utila in Honduras - nice enough, but clearly more famous for dive schools and number of students than fantastic dive sites. I managed to squeeze 5 dives in over 2 days (including a night dive) and saw reasonable amount including barracuda (on the night dive and wreck dive), a fairly big turtle and other bits and bobs. I also managed to squeeze in about 15 green curries, a massage, and a bit of sunbathing in the few days I was there, before catching another boat to Koh Phangan where I met up with a fair few of the group for the much anticipated "beach week".

Beach in Koh Tao

Koh Tao

Beach Week was our chance to pick for ourselves where we wanted to go (never mind I'd picked where I wanted to go with Shanghai, Beijing, Hue and Koh Tao anyway!). A fair few of us followed Zoe & Susan like sheep and booked in at the same resort which turned out to be lovely. I spent the week mooching by the pool, eating, drinking, learning to drive Jim's moped (and almost killing Jim - sorry!), watching some of the rugby (thankfully not Scotland - far too depressing). Jim and I did manage to squeeze in a day's diving out at Sail Rock, supposedly (and correctly) regarded as the premier dive site in the Gulf of Thailand. The place was absolutely teeming with life and we were swimming through vast schools of Barracuda, Spanish Mackerel, Travellys and all sorts of other things I can't identify.

Beach Week was absolutely glorious and was over far too soon. And I took no photos - sorry.

We then drove down to Malaysia, via the Khao Sok National Park (jungle) where it rained and we got bitten by a thousand bugs (also no photos).

Cambodia

Cambodia: 30th August 2011 to 5th September 2011

Total days travelled: 142

We were only in Cambodia for a few short days, but managed to see one of the most harrowing sites and awe inspiring sites I've ever been to.

We started in Phnom Penh with a trip out to S21 which was a prison based in a school building during the Pol Pot years. Of the 20,000 or so people imprisoned there just seven survived. Of them three still live and hopefully at least two of them (who we were lucky enough to meet) will still be well enough to testify at the war crimes trials that should finally happen later this year. The place was absolutely harrowing. The schoolrooms had been turned into torture rooms where the educated and skilled were imprisoned until it was time to be shipped off to the killing fields. I think somehow the place was that much more moving as it all happened so horribly recently, even within my lifetime. What's worse is that we don't seem to learn - similar horrors are still ongoing in the world.

I didn't take any pictures, but you can read and see a bit more if you follow the link above.

From there we went off to one of the Killing Fields. This is where prisoners were taken to be beaten to death (partly at least to save on the cost of bullets) and tipped into mass graves. Again, it was harrowing.
Some of the graves have been excavated and for a while the skulls were stored in wooden huts (and certainly that was the image I had), but they've now been placed in a large stupa in the middle of the site. Walking around the place was awful, with bones, teeth and clothes emerging from the mud - apparently more surfaces every rainy season.

After a truly horrible day we met up, dressed in our finery, for some drinks at the Foreign Correspondents' Club on the river to celebrate/commiserate the last 6 weeks of the trip. All I can really say is that a good time was had by all and it was a lovely reprieve from the morning's activities.

Gin martini at the FCC

The following day I forced Jenn and her hangover for a quick trip round the palace before the heavens opened again (and when the heavens open in SE Asia in the rainy season it gets a little damp).

Palace, Phnom Penh

We then headed off for Siem Reap which is the town from which you access what I think is one of the most amazing places I think I've ever visited, Angkor Wat. The place was built as a truly enormous temple complex about 900 years ago, when we were still scrabbling about in the mud, and supported a huge population. Amazing.

And some other pictures in Cambodia:

A civilised glass of wine

With Jenn on a tuktuk

"Master of Auditing"

Roadside food - deep fried bugs

Roadside food - deep fried spiders

Roadside food - baby chickens or similar small bird

Just Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore to go before this particular trip finishes. But, fear not, I'm not planning on being back in the UK til Xmas. Laters, C