North from KL to the party Island

Right, last time you heard from me I was in Kuala Lumpur, trying to cut down on baggage, and promising to keep updating the blog.  Since then I’ve been hitching my way up north, and started several uninspiring posts which I never finished.  

Made it from KL up to Kuala Kangsar and Taiping in one afternoon, a distance of approx 290k.  I was very lucky with my lifts, after getting a city bus out of the busy centre to a place where I could set out on a relatively calm road.  My second lift of the day was from this really friendly Indian guy, who was just on his way home from the airport, and going all the way to Ipoh, which is most of the way to Kuala Kangsar where I was to meet my next CS host.  A self employed truck driver by trade, he was full of interesting stories from the road.  At one stage he gestured towards a highway police car, and explained that all the truck drivers are fearful of them, as they like pull them over to inspect licenses and what they’re carrying and dole out fines.  Then he pointed out an old grey hatchback with four aerials stuck on the back, telling me that every month these guys collect a little bit of money from the truckers, and in return they follow the cops around, broadcasting their position to give the guys a heads up if they are in the area. 

Not only did he drive me all the way to Ipoh, but as his father needed to get from Ipoh back to his home in Kuala Kangsar, he kindly offered to bring me all the way to my destination while dropping of his dad.  But only after he’d bought a gift for his nephew, which turned out to be a MASSIVE remote controlled artic truck, which barely fitted across the back seat, and which I found myself wedged under once his father got into the car.

As well as being incredibly helpful, he was very concerned for my safety, admitting that the reason that he picked me up in the first place was that he was afraid I’d be robbed or cheated or otherwise mistreated, although I assured him that I’ve had no trouble yet.  What’s more, he wanted to meet my CS host to make sure that he could be trusted before he left me with him, as I’d briefly explained that we’d met over the internet without going into the intricacies of CouchSurfing with him.

He needn’t have worried, my host was a complete legend, who went to great lengths to show me the sites of Kuala Kangsar, where he has a café, and Taiping, where he lives (and has another café).  I was treated like a Sultan for the two days I spent there, and enjoyed my time hanging out with him immensely.

When the time came to leave Taiping, he dropped me off at the toll gate for the motorway, a position that I hadn’t yet tried in Malaysia, thinking that too many cars would be going through too fast to have the time to stop for me, and I was afraid of causing a crash.  But he’d recently hosted a French hitch-hiker who’d claimed that the gates were the best place to start from.  Nevertheless, after dropping me off he waited down the road in case I did run into any trouble.  And as it turned out it was super easy, in the three minutes that it took me to catch a ride, I had to turn down several southbound cars before finally getting in with truck driver heading to Penang (my next stop).

He dropped me off at the ferry to the island, as he was staying on the mainland and over I went, looking for a place to pitch my new tent for the first time.  In my travels I came across an old abandoned building on the shore, which I was eyeing up as a possible place to stay for the night, as a storm was coming in from the sea, but just after I’d satisfied myself that this place didn’t have any regular human visitors that may disturb me in the night, I squelched into something nasty and quite fresh which suggested otherwise.  Thankfully I’d worn my shoes.  I decided to get out of there.

Penang was alright, eventually found my way to a place to camp (after a free ride from a friendly taxi driver who was going my way anyway), not in the national park camping grounds, as planned, because I was too late to get in, but on a little bit of sand by a jetty, near the gates to the park.  Not the best night’s sleep I ever had, especially as there were fishermen coming and going all night, but you get what you pay for I suppose.

I’ve since moved even further north again, getting a lift with a  CSer who was going my way yesterday and staying with him and his friends for the night in Kedah.  I even went to watch a football game with him!  Only realised after I got there that the local team's colours are green and yellow (as it's the colour of the many rice fields in the area) so I could have worn my Kerry jersey.  Sickened.

Just got dropped off at the ferry to Langkawi Island (famous for its beaches and clear water, as well as being a duty free island, so despite being a tourist party spot it’s hopefully cheap like a budgie) by my new friend this morning.  I’ve heard that it’s possible to hitch rides on sailing boats from here…although that remains to be seen.  Planning on camping on the beach for a few days and trying my luck with it, and if I don’t get anywhere, I’m going to move off to the east coast and bum around on the beaches there until my time in Malaysia is up on the 6^th of May.

Watch this space!

Shedding some weight and some light on what’s been happening since Japan

Having left Japan early after the quake on March 11, it didn’t make much sense to continue writing under the heading “Experiencing Japan on a working holiday”.  And while many may question the necessity of writing my drivel under any heading, on I go with a new blog.

Thinking of a new name was an issue, all the best ones were already taken.  I'm not entirely happy with the one I ended up with, and will no doubt think of something better now that I've started posting on it.  But what can you do?  Suggestions are appreciated.

I’ve taken the past two afternoons to get my affairs in order.  Namely updating the blog (or starting a new one) stripping my bag of more unnecessary weight, as the heat is atrocious, and walking around with a heavier bag than you have to is just silly.  So, I have discarded a grotty old fleece that I’ve had since a school ski trip back in 2003, which I took because it’s light and warm.  It’s still wearing alright, but I think it’s time to say goodbye.  Also getting the heave-ho are two old tee-shirts which leaves me with five – still too many, but I quite like all of them, especially my icebreaker tee-shirt which is full of holes on the right shoulder from taking on and off my bag.  Wore it practically every day I hitched in Japan and it’s got a story behind it - not that anyone asks, they just think I’m a hobo.  A nasty old pair of orange shorts I got in Greece (although I cut out the pockets and I’m going to sew them into my bag for keeping things neat), two pairs of uncomfortable cheap underpants that I bought in Penney’s and a few pairs of socks that have nothing particularly wrong with them, except for the fact that they’re far too thick for this climate are also out.  My cargo pants are too thick and heavy so they're going to have to go out as well.  It’s tough saying goodbye to stuff, but life is all about sacrifice.  I’m going to leave the clothes in the hostel, and hopefully they’ll donate some of them to the homeless, if they’ll even take them.

After ditching all this weight I then went and bought a tent, which will put those extra kilos straight back on, but on the other hand it will mean that I don’t have to worry about being homeless if I get stuck on the road somewhere.

As for my whereabouts, last you heard from me I was just after leaving Japan and had flown into Hong Kong, where I spent a week with a few of the other guys that left with me.  We all went our separate ways on the 26th of March, and I flew to Singapore to see the sis.  She’d booked a week off work to visit me in Japan from the first of April, which was obviously no longer going ahead, so we looked into other ways of productively spending her holiday time.  We were interested in doing our open water diving course, considered going to Bali and then decided on Sibu Island off the east coast of Malaysia, where we spent the week chilling out and reading beside our little beach hut (I highly recommend A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami, if you can get your hands on it); getting shown the ropes of diving with Grant, our friendly instructor; getting to know the staff around the resort; having the odd drink and playing SCRABBLE.  Overall very relaxing indeed, and on top of all that we finally are qualified open water divers.  At the end of the week, we went back in the direction of Singapore, although I hopped out at the Malaysian side of the boarder in Johor Bahru.

The JB CS Gathering

I was only planning on staying in JB for two days, but instead stayed four getting caught up in the social high life that comes with meeting the Couchsurfing society there, but then began my hitching career in Malaysia.

I got off to a rocky start as at first it seemed that nobody understood what I was doing on the side of the road with my thumb out.  One guy on a scooter stopped and asked what I was doing the conversation went as follows:

Guy: What are you doing?

Me: I’m going to Melaka.

Guy: You want the bus?

Me: No, I want to go by car.

Guy: You have a car?

Me: No, I’m waiting for a –

Guy: - ah, your waiting for your friend?

Me:   ...y-es...?

Several other people stopped, offering to take me to the bus station and another guy asked where I was going, and asked how much I would pay him to bring me there, I told him I was all right.

Finally a gent in a jeep stopped for me and offered to take me to a better place to hitch to Melaka, as the place I was in wasn’t really on the main route (oops).  This guy was a chicken farmer, who when he was sixteen had started his farm with twenty chickens.  Now, twenty or so years later he has over TWO MILLION of the things.  I, for one, am impressed.

Once he dropped me there I carted my gear along the road until I was standing at a less dodgy part of the road hoping that someone in the three lanes of traffic would spot me and stop for me without causing a major crash.  Eventually someone did stop and once again offered to drive me all the way to Melaka if I paid him, I refused again, and in the end had to tell him that I was waiting for my friend again.  He drove me to a better place to wait for my friend, right beside the bus stop in case he didn’t come, which was very nice of him.  He also gave me his number in case I was back in JB and needed a drive.

When he’d disappeared I left the bus stop and stood once again beside the busy road, but this time under an overpass.  Nice and shadey, but it also made me less visible, and additionally I was actually practically standing on the road now, instead of on the pavement.  A few taxis thought I was flagging them down.  So did a bus, which started pulling in to stop for me but, when he saw I didn’t mean to get on, kept driving in the margin where I was standing and I had to sidestep quite quickly out of the way to avoid being driven over.  Eventually a young fella pulled in and told me that he had nothing to do, and he didn’t mind driving me all the way to Melaka, so long as I covered the petrol and the tolls on the highway.  He seemed reasonable enough, so I decided to go along with him.

As it turned out, the price of the tolls and the petrol cost more than a bus would have, but at the same time my new friend, a twenty-one year old airport security guard, was chatty and interesting, and he dropped me off exactly where I needed to go, so I really got a good deal.

It was raining, but not pouring two days later, as I was making my way out of Melaka, but I had more success in getting rides, for one because I had decided to steer clear of the larger roads and highways after careful consideration and consultation with some Couchsurfing friends I made during my time there, and secondly because my CS host drove me a fair ways out of the town until we finally found a decent stretch of road.  In the end I made it to Kuala Lumpur in good time, and just three lifts (although I did have the obligatory offers of a lift to the bus stop thrown in)

And that’s where I am now, still in a cheap, but very clean hostel, bang in the centre of the capital city.  It looks like I’ll be sticking around Malaysia for a while, as I’ve discovered that to cross the border to Thailand by car gets you a fifteen day visa, whereas flying in gets you the full month.  Seeing as I had already booked flights from Tokyo to Bangkok through Kuala Lumpur before things got messy in Japan, I may as well use the second leg of those flights.  It suits me fine anyway, I’m liking the place so far.

More than enough writing done for the moment, I’m going to try to become more regular with my updates  (promises, promises), if not because I know all of you are simply dying  to know what's happening in my life, but also because I take ages trying to decide what to cut from the post and what to leave in.