Tokyo highlights

Again, we've fallen behind on the posting... so here's a snapshot of our Tokyo time (Kyoto and Hiroshima details hopefully to come, if the internet in Vietnam is more accessibly than it's rumoured to be).

Tokyo (2 days)
- stayed with Tim (Watson) and friend Dave (Barecka) - great Queen's/NT reunion and had some fantastic curry... somehow even in Japan we manage to eat Indian. Our waiter had to move us to a bigger table because we ordered so many dishes, and asked us concernedly whether we were sure we wanted to order everything.
- explored Kabuchicho, the red light district, and went to the baths (in a spa, not a brothel).
- explored the subways - a well-oiled machine of a system that was still incredibly confusing to us, requiring three tries to get anything figured out! The same goes for travel in Japan in general...
- did the fish scene - from Tokyo Sea Life Park (it was raining, and you can only ride the subways for so long!), to the huge fish market.
- sat in the busiest Starbucks in the world. Literally.
- witnessed a small earthquake! (causing minor subway delays in the north of the city, then back to business as usual.)
- took the Shinkansen (bullet-train) to Kyoto.

Thai massage at Wat Pho

We had our first Thai massages today! After a morning of wandering around several wats and the grand palace, we opted for a half-hour, full body, $5 rubdown. The spectatular Wat Pho, a temple with intricate tiling, beautiful gold leaf, countless chedis and home of the largest Buddha in Thailand, also conveniently houses the School of Massage. They give you a queue number then rush you to one of the many beds crammed into the small building, knead your body and muscles with strong hands for the requisite time period, give you a glass of juice, and send you on your way. Production line or no, it was fantastic. Thai massage is a whole body affair, and by whole body I mean the masseuse's whole body... They sit, stand, and straddle you in all possible positions while using their hands, arms, backs, and even feet. At one point my masseuse was sitting at the end of the bed, grasping my feet with both hands and stretching my legs apart, while her leg was extended along mine and she pressed her foot into my inner thigh. Somehow it felt great. (?) The whole affair is really relaxed but without privacy, and the masseuses chat each other up and laugh away in Thai while you wonder if they're joking about your stinky feet. My masseuse liked to make fun of me for not knowing what to do and would tap me on the wrist and laughingly order, "turn over, sleepy!" The whole session was great and Em and I seriously considered going back for a full hour... although my inner thigh is relaxed enough for one day.

-alyssa (learning how to write short posts, finally!)

Hello touristy Thailand!

Bangkok is one crazy city. I've overcome my initial daze inflicted by the noise, heat, smells, and overwhelming touristy-ness of this place and I think Thailand may become my favourite country... especially with its unfair advantage of the best food in the universe.

We've been feasting already, surprise surprise (you may have noticed the odd picture here and there of us eating during this trip... we like food...). Last night was a seafood bonanza with spicy shrimp salad, mussels, and crab curry. I'm salivating just remembering it. The spicy salad turned out to be too spicy for our inexperienced tastebuds, but the mussels in their bright green shells and the buttery crab was tasty deliciousness (as soon as I figured out how to get the crabmeat out of the shells, inelegantly but sucessfully). I really want to take a Thai cooking course!

Other impressions of Bangkok so far:

1) It has everything! Someone once told us that the best way to travel in Asia is to bring nothing, fly to Bangkok, and buy anything and everything you need there. Definitely true. We're adapting that advice into "buy lots of stuff here in December, pack it into a faux North Face bag (the biggest allowed in airplane carry-on), and open up a wholesale market when we get home." We spent 7 hours wandering around the huge weekend market here; I only got lost about four times. We spent most of the time in the clothing section (although I'm a large/extra-large here and unfortunately they don't often stock those sizes.. grr), but we plan to head back another day and visit the "pets for sale" section to see the snakes.

2) It is so touristy! We knew we'd find that here but it's still shocking and fun. Bars, restaurants, travel agents, and pushy tailors line every street in our neighbourhood of Banglamphu. The tailors are hilarious/infuriating. They sit inside their stores, peering out at the street and waiting to hunt down tourists. When you walk by, unsuspectingly, they jump out at you and start their spiel - and when you try to explain that you really, truly, just don't need a wool suit right now, they look at you incredulously and ask "why NOT?"! We went out last night for our first beers in weeks, and while pouring our $2 jug of Singha saw a woman walk by with a bunch of balloons. Just proved to us what a circus it is here.

3) All they play here is Black Eyed Peas. Day in, day out.

4) It's an interesting mix. As in many SE Asian cities, one street block will hold several local restaurants, a bunch of trendy or beautiful tourist cafes, a temple or fort or historic building, some corrugated iron houses across the street, and street vendor stalls everywhere you look. There's always so much to see, explore, and (forget to) take pictures of. (Ed note: We've been in Bangkok for a whole day and haven't taken any photos yet. What's happened to us?)

5) Have I mentioned the food is fantastic?

This is just a first taste of Thailand - we actually haven't seen enough yet to comment on much of what this country is famous for. To be continued!

-alyss.

(Malaysian) Toilets

What would a trip abroad be without a comment about the loo? You can tell a lot about a place from its bathrooms. We`ve started judging establishments by the state of their toilets... you can predict a joint`s overall cleanliness by the presence (and size) of insects in the bathrooms, its classiness by the ratio of tile to concrete, and its generosity/helpfulness by the presence or absence of toilet paper. Added points go to stalls with anything resembling a hook on the door, but we`ve only found one of these.

Most washrooms in Malaysia are of the squat variety, but every so often a hotel will offer a western-style toilet (although you generally still have to flush manually using a bucket and scoop... it was an enlightening day when Em realized the intricacies of how all toilets work, i.e. water plus gravity, with no magic behind the pull of the western toilet lever). Some of the squat toilets are clas-sy, with tile surroundings, textured non-slip areas for your feet, a porcelain basin, and tile mosaics around the edge. Those appear in the fancier hotels (where we use the phone and the bathroom, and leave quickly before they notice we are not guests). Public toilets, however, can be another story. I am incredibly sad that I did not think to take some pictures. Public toilets are always labelled with `TANDAS AWAM` painted on the wall, in red or black block letters. However, some part of my brain always confuses `Awam` with `Awas`, a common roadsign warning; hence whenever I approach a public toilet I see: `TANDAS AWAM` - `Toilet! Caution!` Enough said.

More to come on other countries... stay tuned for how Alyssa was peed on by the fancy Japanese self-cleaning toilet.

Mt. Kinabalu

Apparently there are just not enough hours in the day to be able to make up witty stories for you about all our adventures, so sometimes pictures will just have to do. We'll scribble some stories on our way to Japan tomorrow (if we're not too busy catching up on movies that is). But here's a taste of us climbing the highest mtn in Borneo and the tallest summit between the Himalayas and Papua New Guinea:

A Thanksgiving Story...

Well our first holiday away from home has come and gone, and what stories we have for you! After the trials of Mt. Kinabalu, we took a puddle jumper flight to Sibu, the 2nd largest town in Sarawak, the other Malaysian province in Borneo. The main attraction in Sibu is its location on the Batang Rejang, the largest river in Malaysia and where numerous ethnic tribes live, including the Orang Ulu, Kelabit, Penan and Iban, all of loin-cloth and head-hunting fame.

After one rainy day in Sibu, it was time to take a boat trip up the Batang Rejang and go experience living longhouse-style with an upriver tribe. Besides, it was Thanksgiving and who better to spend it with than family? Even if that family lives 3 hours upriver, 30 minutes inland by rickety bus and consists of 400 people living in a row of adjoined houses on stilts.

Upon faithfully researching how exactly to ingratiate onself with a tribe of head-hunting fame, our guidebook and Sibu Visitor's Centre strongly suggested bringing a gift to present to the Chief of the Longhouse as payment for room & board. Specifically, Lonely Planet mentions two enthusiastic travellers who brought a live pig upriver and were invited to stay for as long as they liked! Since it was Thanksgiving, we decided to purchase from the market in Sibu a live chicken (it was that or a duck... apparently no turkeys in Borneo). Even though our parents would likely think this was a fowl idea, what with the avian flu pandemic of Southeast Asia and all, we decided that taking one chicken wrapped in paper and three layers of plastic would be ok for a few hours. (Moms and Dads, please don't worry - we also washed our hands frequently like health websites said, we were nowhere near the culling, defeathering, or cooking of the chicken, and we promise not to go anywhere near live birds in any of the next countries. Besides, think of the pilgrims).

Anyways, so after choosing the tastiest (and healthiest) looking bird we could find, we headed off upriver. Somewhere along the way, Alyss & I decided this was absolutely the most hilarious thing we have done yet on our trip, although both agreed not to tell our parents for a few days (just to prove we didn't have avian flu). As for our little manuk (chicken in Iban), it hid for most of the trip and seemed a little dehydrated, so I tried to feed water to it, but ended up pouring water all over it which didn't accomplish much except to provoke some outraged squawking. Oh, and birds also don't appear to enjoy 3 hours of deafening twin-engines. Who knew? Anyhoo, upon arriving at Rumah Bundong a few hours later and presenting Chief Bundong with his gift, our squawking friend disappeared and mysteriously reappeared a few hours later in cooked form mixed with some mee hoon noodles. Tasty. Although some gravy, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce never hurt a meal, we decided it would be too hard to try to suggest this using hand gestures and happily ate our little bamboo-steamed manuk.

























As for the longhouse experience itself, it was certainly interesting and well worth the trip. We couldn't communicate except with a few English speakers so we spent most of our time playing with the 3 and 4 year olds (luckily 'choo choo!' translates well), or just sitting and listening and trying not to feel like we were imposing. Visitors are common though, and although the Iban have always welcomed guests without question, the economic kickback of having tourist visitors is quite welcome now as well. We evetually relaxed into the slow, laidback, communal atmosphere of the place, sitting in sarongs on the long wooden verandah and going for a swim in the river with some teenagers and lots of little naked kids who could swim like fish. And were they ever cute.

And not to disappoint, there were even skulls hanging from the rafters:

So that was our first Thanksgiving away from home. As for our walk on the wild side by spending time with a live chicken in Borneo, we're fine and OBVIOUSLY have no bird flu. Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving as well.

Love, Em (and Alyss)

The Amazing Race

At least half the time in Malaysia we feel like we're on an episode of "The Amazing Race." I've never watched the show but that has nothing to do with my credibility on the subject; Em's given me so many play-by-plays of different teams' adventures that I've become an expert and die-hard fan. (If, like me, you don't have cable and haven't seen it, it's a reality TV show where teams compete against each other on a global treasure hunt race...). The Emily-Alyssa team, on the other hand, is on a race solely against ourselves to catch various planes, trains, boats, and buses so that our carefully concocted schedules work out perfectly and we maximize our time enjoying our destinations instead of waiting in various stations.

The latest adventure was the return trip from Pulau Tioman (beautiful beachy island where Em snorkelled and dived and I spent many hours and 50 ringgit finally submitting meds applications). Ok, Tioman deserves more than once sentence in parentheses. It is one of the most popular beach destinations in the area but luckily it was off-season so it still felt peaceful; we only had to share our lawn with a group of large lizards. (They looked like strange alligators when they went swimming in the river - very cool.) Em was a good sport about me being anti-social and writing applications all day; she rented snorkelling gear and checked out some humphead parrotfish just out from the main beach, and did a great dive with more parrotfish and no malfunctioning regulators! The beach was beautiful and deserted, the island mountainous and impressive, the beer was cold, and the squid not too chewy - all in all a nice 24 hour stay in Tioman.

Getting there and away was slightly more of a challenge. Buying boat tickets from our hostel in advance went well until we got to the jetty at 7:30 am to find that our company's 7:30 am boat was nonexistent. After shelling out another 45 ringgit for a different company, we enjoyed the 1.5 hour trip in the large speedboat with not twin, but triple 200 hp motors.

On the way home, we timed everything perfectly. We caught the 3:00 boat from the island (with five minutes to spare), so we would arrive on the mainland and hop on our 5:15 bus to Johor Bahru (to jump on a plane to Borneo the next day). Yes, much 'catching' to do. However, while on the boat and only half-way to the mainland, we ran into some clouds. Clouds turned to wind, wind turned to rain, and the whole thing turned into the biggest storm and largest waves our driver had ever been through. We stood, watching as the boat crashed down on crest after crest, with water at one point pouring through the front window all over the driver and our bags. Em thought about which window she could swim out most easily and I contemplated whether there would be enough life jackets to tie one onto my backpack. One of the motors broke, luckily, which slowed us down so that we were no longer hitting the waves with a force that seemed strong enough to crack the hull, or at least tailbones. We realized we would miss our bus. The only other transportation to Johor Bahru (in time for our flight the next day) was a 120 ringgit taxi ride... we rationalized this option by deciding to get our money back from the hostel guy for the nonexistent first boat, as well as deciding to stay one more night in town to eat really good Indian (mmm roti and thosai).

We were shocked, and our bellies a little disappointed, when we docked in one piece and with 10 minutes to catch our bus. Feeling invincible at this point (or maybe reckless), we hailed a cab to go reclaim our boat money with all our extra time. The conversation with the cabby went something like:

"Selamat petang (good afternoon)"
"Selamat petang... East Coast Hostel, terima kasih banyak (thanks very much)"
"?..."
"Just go straight... ini jalan (this street)..."
"?..."
"Straight... follow my finger!... Forward!!" "We're in a hurry!...Fast!!" (making straight-ahead waving motions with all available hands)

We felt bad for being demanding, exhausting tourists so we tried to smile a lot and chat on the way there, but all we established was that he was from town and we were dari Kanada (from Canada). Our hand signals worked though, and we recovered our boat money easily AND made the bus. And the flight to Borneo. All at ridiculously low cost. Sign us up for The Amazing Race next season.

(Note: This post is actually ironically timed - we missed the boat today to an island off Borneo and spent the afternoon walking around in a mall, although a very nice air conditioned mall it was.)

-alyss.

Loving the Perhentians...

Ahh the beautiful Perhentian Islands. We left Kota Bharu via a wild taxi ride -- since all the cars in Malaysia seem to have broken speedometers, we're not really sure how fast we were weaving through traffic, but Alyss and I assume it was pretty fast! Anyways, we arrived at Long Beach in the Perhentians in the late afternoon with beautiful views of jungle-clad hills, white sand and fishing boats coming into the bay to settle in for the night.

It's hard to really describe how taken aback we were the next morning at the beauty of this beach - it was the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. And that's saying nothing of the soft white sand that extends for longer than you can swim out into the South China Sea. We spent four days total in the Perhentians which was when the amazingness of our vacation really started to sink in - at least for me, but then you all know how much I love my beaches!


We went on a snorkelling trip one day with a notable quote from Alyssa being: "Wow, you just haven't lived until you've swam in coral reefs!" and both of us even managed to get some scuba diving in. Being certified, I went on two amazing dives on the reefs off the islands, with some noticeable excitement being the dive I thought my regulator was busted about 60 feet underwater. (Ed. note: It wasn't and all was well). Alyss did an introductiory dive one afternoon and loved it (obviously) but I'll let her tell you all about that. We also tried to rent a catamaran and go explore some deserted beaches around the islands, but even with 4 days of vacationing in paradise, there just wasn't time... But don't think it was all glamour, we both got a little gloomy due to overpriced internet and looming med school/grad school applications...

But speaking of deserted beaches, I do have to delve into detail about one (and I swear I'm not trying to make you jealous, only convince you to take a trip to the Perhentians!) We found the most amazing beach ever on our snorkelling trip. It's this moon-shaped stretch of white sand rising into jungle and the water was the warmest, clearest and bluest water you can imagine. Oh, and have I mentioned the baby sea turtle nests yet? No joke, this place was amazing. Anyways, that's our latest update from Malaysia -Hope all is well in Canada and I'm very jealous of your trees that I hear are changing colours.

Take care, love em