Stayed in Khao San Rd for 3 days then I had to get to the train station to catch the 5AM train to Aranyaphratet to get to Siem Reap, Cambodia. I went back after 2 weeks so the next post on Bangkok will be more detailed.
After spending a little more than a week with my parents in Sarawak, I flew to Kota Kinabalu on the 11th of June because I wanted to be with the monkeys on my birthday. Since there was no direct flight from Bintulu to KK, I had to take a 4 hour bus trip to the city of Miri and took a plane from there to KK. Kota Kinabalu is the capital of Sabah, which is the other state in Malaysian Borneo. Since there lots of really cheap but clean and homey guesthouses in the city, I decided to live it up like a real backpacker instead of couchsurf. So I checked in at Borneo Backpackers Guesthouse which was really awesome, and we had free internet and wi-fi. I shared a dorm with 6 other backpackers, and pay only RM20 (Malaysian Ringgit) which is about Php260 a night.
First night, I went out with a couchsurfer Suchen, and his friends Chris and Kwan. (Refer to this post) The next day, I went to Lok Kawi, a wildlife park about half an hour away from the city because I told myself I want to be with ze monkees on my 30th birthday. I was supposed to stay there for 3 days but had to cut my stay short because of a flight schedule problem (which I’ll talk about in my next post). Suchen was going to have a barbecue party Friday night and I’m so sorry to miss it. I met Jaci, another couchsurfer from KK on my last day and I like her a lot too… She was very much an evil ampao girl!
Click photo to view album.
colorful masks in kota kinabalu
How I met my Big 30.
June 11. “I’m going to see them monkeys the tomorrow, but tonight, I’m gonna spend it with people.”, I said to myself. So I informed Suchen, the couchsurfer that I previously contacted that I’ve arrived Kota Kinabalu.
He invited me to have dinner with him and his friends who also just arrived from Kuala Lumpur which I gladly accepted. Suchen, with his friends Chris and Kwan picked me up from my guesthouse that night. Suchen is a professional photographer (check out his awesome photos at www.suchens.com), Christopher and Kwan are event organizers whose work invlove travelling, and getting drunk. They make me green with envy I want to stab them and take their jobs from them.
We we went to KK’s version of SuTuKil and they ordered loads and loads food! Fresh fish, shellfish, veggies, (I’m drooling as I’m typing this.) Then we went to KK’s posh revolving bar and restaurant Atmosphere. It’’s situated on the 18th floor of Menara Tun Mustapha and revolves 360 degrees every hour, which got me quite dizzy… or maybe that was from the 2 rhum-colas I’ve taken. Suchen told me that I’m very welcome to stay in his place if I wanted and that it’s perfectly fine with his wife as they’ve hosted couchsurfers before. Since I’ve already paid my 3 days stay in the guesthouse in advance, I had to stay there. The three guys I was with were really nice and I really like them. They’re all married so don’t look at me in that tone of voice. I like Malaysian people a lot. They’re very friendly, and warm, and hospitable. When I found out that they’re all in their early 30’s, I told them I was entering into version 3.0 myself in a few hours. (Yes, I was born on the 12th of June, The Philippines’ Independence Day). They were all pleasantly surprised that I was meeting my big 30 with them. The highlight of my night was when we went to this bar called Shenanigans. Guess what. They had an all-Filipino showband playing! Apparently, a lot of Filipino bands are in Malaysia. Jaci, another couchsurfer I met there on my last day, is convinced that all Filipinos are good singers. Hahaha! Anyway, it was less than an hour before midnight strikes to mark my Big 30. The boys ordered a bottle of Scotch whisky. I’ve never had scotch in my whole life but nothing will stop me from trying scotch to meet my big 30! (I can’t stand whisky that’s why I didn’t bother trying Scotch.) And what do you know, I LIKE SCOTCH ON THE ROCKS!
Apparently, Suchen is quite a personality in these here places. Everyone in the bar knew him and some even taking his photos for the local magazine! Cool! I’m with a local celebrity! Haha! He was going around like he was running for public office. Hahaha! As soon as midnight struck, the house DJ announced to the room that it was my birthday! Then the boys I was with gave me a big hug and we drank and cheered. Like that was not enough, Suchen goes on to tell every person he knows that passes our table to give me a hug! I can’t remember how many people I hugged that night! And like I said, he knows almost everyone in the room! Hahaha! “Give her a hug! It’s her birthday!” And like that’s not enough still, and because this bar has a girl who goes around with a bottle of tequila and a shot glass holder with at least 10 shot glasses in it, Suchen had some of his friends (I figure those were his rich friends) buy me a shot if they made a huge mistake of passing by our table. I think I had more than 5 shots of tequila that night on top of my scotch whisky. Then me and the 3 men went to grab something to eat and they drove me home.
What a fucking amazing way to meet my Big 30. With people I’ve just met, free hugs from strangers, in a city I’ve never been to until then.
Three men and a lady.
My Little Southeast Asia Adventure – Third Stop: Sarawak Malaysia
Malaysia consists of two separate regions, the Peninsular Malaysia, and the Malaysian Borneo. Malaysian Borneo is in turn divided into 2 states, Sabah, and Sarawak.
Flew by AirAsia from KL to Bintulu. My parents live in Bintulu, a big town in Sarawak with seemingly very few people that it almost has a ghost town atmosphere (at least to me). As if that’s not strange enough, this place has huge ass houses like everyone here is a millionaire. Our gates are even remote controlled! And dig this, the ratio of cars here to people is 2:1. Two people for one car! Hell, if we had the same ratio of cars to people in the Philippines, that would mean my family would have 3 cars. Everyone here seems to have a car that I can hardly find a cab on the streets. It’s nice to just walk around here because the town center is really clean. I keep wondering where they get the money when there seems to be no one here, and there seems to be nothing much happening and they only have one mall that is not even very big at all. Not that I’m complaining, but it just seem too peaceful it scares me LOL!
Samarakan on the other hand, almost all you can see is green. It’s all just trees, and rainforests. You can drive for hours and hours at end and the only non green you see is the dusty road and the bright blue sky. The line from U2’s song “Beautiful Day” “See the world in green and blue…” keep popping into my mind.
In Sarawak, tribal people live in longhouses, and one of these ethnic tribes are the Punans. Longhouse is the very centre of communal life in Sarawak. These communal houses, built on stilts, may contain up to 100 individual families in separate ‘apartments’ built under one long roof. So, yeah, 100 families under one long roof. I was lucky to have had the opportunity to go with my dad’s colleague when he was scheduled to visit the Punan tribe to promote community development. The particular longhouse we went to had 98 “apartments”. The 2 hours very rough road travel was well worth meeting these people.
Though it was obvious that they have started to adapt to modernized living, one can still experience the primal and basic lifestyle these tribes live. Longhouses are usually built near a river because this used to be their main mode of transport.
Click photo for album.
My Little Southeast Asia Adventure – Second Stop: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Date: May 31, 2008
Transportation: Air Asia, 11.45AM
LOS: 2 days
The things that cross my mind when I think of Kuala Lumpur are, FOOD, Batu Cave (Rock Cave) and the monkeys everywhere, food, day and night markets, FOOOOD, so many Indians, Malays, Chinese, fud, sore feet after a 5 hour walkathon, skyscrapers, Petronas, “Eddieee! Slow down!”, Ed’s cool old school 1971 Toyota Corolla, makan! makan!, pagkain, pagka-on, drool, yum yum, staying up late and going out at 2AM to eat some moooore! Dammit. I should’ve written the names of the food i ate.
Click image for photos.
