Ecotourism

A forty minute flight took us from KK to Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB), capital of Brunei, where the wealth of the country is immediately obvious - flash cars and new roads.

Checked into the PALATIAL 6* Empire Hotel and Country Club. The whole place is an exercise in the grandiose and the contradictory. In the foyer is a mini-mosque (5m tall) under a massive chandelier and everything is of the highest quality marble, yet no one bats an eyelid at Bec in her daggy Billabong hat or Glenn in his faded zip-off trousers. The place can hold 5000 people, yet we wouldn't have seen more than 200 people in total the whole time we were there. There's badminton, squash and tennis courts, an 18 hole golf course, a bowling alley and a movie cinema as well as a spectacular pool complex. Breakfasts were massive and we didn't open a single door for ourselves the whole time we were there. Completely out of our backpacking comfort zone. Settled into our room, had a few games of ten pin and then set off to Jerudong Park Playground.

The Empire Hotel

The foyer of the Empire Hotel

Jerudong Park is Brunei's equivalent to Disneyland or Dreamworld. It was given to the people of Brunei as a gift from one of its previous Sultans. We took the shuttle (A Class Mercedes) to the park to find that most of the rides were closed for maintenance (possibly forever), hence we got a reduced entry fee of $5. The place was virtually deserted, with the exception of a few teenagers canoodling in the darkness. The whole place had quite an eerie feel to it, semi-dark and overgrown. We did manage to find the log flume ride (the only ride not closed for maintenance) and went around four times without getting off. Plenty of bored park employees.

Got up early the following morning, breakfasted (too much choice!!), then took the shuttle into BSB city centre. Headed immediately to the very beautiful Omar Ali Sarfuddien Mosque for a look inside and out. Quite stark really but quite beautiful.

The mosque by day

The mosque by night

Went on then to the tourist information centre and booked a trip up the river to see the Proboscis monkey (nose-monkey, not bum-monkey). We were *lucky* enought to get the 'special weekend rate'. Wandered around town for a bit, bought a few cheap (and later found to be nasty) DVDs, then met our boatie for our monkey spotting trip. There was a German guy and a French guy in our boat who were disappointed to learn that they'd not gotten the 'special weekend rate'. Donned bright orange life jackets and off in search of the elusive proboscis monkey. It wasn't long before we'd parked the boat along the very dirty riverbank and were spotting the little critters swinging through the trees. Not close enough for a good photo though....... Back to shore, then off in search of dinner. Ended up in a market stall restaurant with no English menu so ordered randomly off the menu. Glenn took the Soto Claypot Special (chicken, beef, noodle and vegie soup) and Bec had the Chicken Chop (chicken in spicy sauce with chips!?!?). Watched the water taxis fly by with only a handheld torch for light.

Up late-ish the next day to take advantage of the pool and the beach before heading into town again, this time to hire a boat to take us through the stilt villages. Haggled (unsuccesfully) with the boatie and ended up paying $20 for what turned into about a 45 minute trip through the brightly painted houses, schools, mosques, police and fire stations that make up the stilt village that houses about 30 000 people. Our driver dropped us off at a village pier so we could wander around. As soon as we arrived,a young fellow ran the length of the village ringing a bell which seemed to be the cue for all the village children to race out and wave hello to us!! Wandered past schools and mosques and shops. Had to hail another taxi boat to take us back to the other side of the river. Another encounter with the tourist price/ local price phenomena, although Glenn did manage to bargain him down.

Stilt villages

Took a bus then to another, more beautiful, mosque. The bus stalled three times along the way, once on top of a very busy overpass. Walked then to the Mall Shopping Centre. Easier said than done with a massive, no-pedestrians round-a-bout in the way. Some creative jay-walking got us to the Mall Shopping Centre and then on to the Gadong Food Market where we bought a few things for dinner and then ate by the manky river in the company of some feral cats and young locals.

Gadong markets

Shuttled back to the hotel and off to the cinema to watch Barnyard. We were the only people in the cinema and yet they made us select our seats on a computer screen. And no we know where the dodgy DVDs are filmed.

Got up early on our last day for some pool time and some mocktails by the pool. Mmmmm mocktails at 8am. A final breakfast (eat like we're never going to eat again), then a golf buggy to the lobbly to check out. Off to the airport where our plane was delayed for an hour before heading home to Brisbane.

Mocktails at the Empire

We arrived in Kota Kinabalu (via Brunei for two hours) late in the evening and crashed out in our hotel. Awoke early the next morning and looked out the window to expansive (though somewhat hazy) views across the South China to the Bornean islands. Stir-fry for breakfast, then off to explore the town.

View across the South China Sea

Kota Kinabalu is easily seen on foot and we legged it to the State Mosque, the Sabah Museum and the Heritage Centre (collection of stilt houses), as well as to the tourist bureau to book a hire car for a trip to Poring Hot Springs for the end of the week. Glenn bought some corn juice from a local market (Bec gags and races to nearest garden bed on tasting) and insisted on drinking the entire thing on principle. Dinner the first night was at a food market along the edge of the South China Sea. A very spicy crab curry for Glenn put paid to any plans Bec had for an extended shopping night.

Up early the following day for a day of white-water rafting. We drove for an hour or two through the rainforest, our driver successfully avoiding random water buffallo and mangey dogs along the way. Arrived at our drop off point and got in a boat with three young Japanese girls. The river was pretty tame and Glenn was a bit disappointed that it wasn't more hard-core, although we did manage to tip out one of the Japanese girls. Glenn was careful to buy the 'Ride the Waves, then the Babes!' t-shirt, rather than the 'Surf the Waves, then the Dudes!' version.

Did a bit of shopping. Note to self: Twisties in Borneo are not the same as Twisties in Australia and Green Pea flavoured crisps are passable if desperate.

Set off reasonably late the following day to check out one of the neighbouring islands. Walked to the ferry terminal and chartered a boat with another Japanese couple out to Sapi Island. Hired snorkel gear at a grossly over-inflated price ('You hire snorkel from me. No snorkel on beach') and arrived at the island where snorkel hire stores abound and the park entrance fee left us destitute. No lunch for us. Walked around the island but the mud and mozzies made it more arduous than pleasant so we headed back to the beach for a spot of snorkelling and a game of 'spot the worst swimwear'. The beach was soon evacuated though as a huge wind sprang up and the clouds rolled in. Found our Japanese friends and left the island early, never having used the over-priced snorkel gear. The boat ride back was harrowing. Glenn spent the trip assessing the structural integrity of the boat while Bec mentally listed the pros and cons of staying with the boat versus swimming to the nearest island in the event of capsize. Made it back to the boat terminal fairly saturated. Back to the hotel for a quick tidy up and then out again in search of a head-hunter statue.

Sapi Island

Up early the next day, more stir-fry for breakfast, then legged it down to pick up our rental car for a trip to Poring Hot Springs. In true Malaysian style, no one seemed to know what was going on when we arrived and we had to wait 45 minutes for our car to arrive (45minutes for them to find someone willing to lend their car to a pair of foreigners for the day for a fee). Finally our car arrived and we found ourselves the proud temporary owners of an ageing Proton, complete with broken tacko and back-of-dashboard noises. Drove out of town along the same route we took rafting so at least we were familiar with how to get out of town. It took us about two hours to drive the 100km to Poring to find the outdoor thermal pools were closed. Probably a good thing given Bec's last experience with sulphur thermal pools in Bolivia and the ensuing allergic reaction. Hired an indoor thermal pool (read big bath tub) and soaked in there for a while and congratulated ourselves on surviving the death-defying, OH&S-defying tree-top canopy walk. Made our way back to KK, all the while on the lookout for the elusive Rafflesia flower but to no avail. Likewise no luck in finding and random water buffallo to photograph, though we did find a few picturesque rice paddies. Dinner for Glenn that night was the most enormous whole fish obviously just dragged fresh from the ocean. Note to self: always choose your own fish.

Rice Paddies

Thursday 7/10/04

Packed up early and headed by minibus to the beachside town of Krabi. The place is stunning with its clean, white beaches and karst formations climbing randomly out of the ocean and there are so many restaurants preched on the side of the ocean taking advantage of the view. Clearly, we spent quite a bit of time in said restaurants. We stocked up on dodgy CDs and Glenn had a suit made by one of the many tailors along the frontage.

Island hopping in a longtail boat.

We took a trip to Rai Leh island where we were wet from the word go. Wet from the longboat trip over, wet from the tropical rain and wet because we figured we couldn't get any wetter and got in the ocean for a swim. There is an interesting cave at the end of the East Beach which is actually a shrine to fertility and is, in fact, full of wooden carved penises of all shapes and sizes. The true definition of the 'foot long schlong'!!!

Rai Ley Island

Glenn went to a Thai boxing match back on the mainland which he describes as a cross between a tribal dance and the latest nightclub moves.

Thai boxing match

We took a tuk-tuk taxi to the township of Krabi itself where we had a look around and did a bit of shopping before again being dumped on by monsoonal rains. Our tuk-tuk driver was nearby so we started our trip back to the beach but didn't end up getting to far before we had to get out of the tuk-tuk and wait for the water to subside. We were up to our knees (hips if you're short like me) in water and couldn't go any further. Eventually we made it through, with a bit of encouragement to our driver, to the beach side of town.

Road block!!

That night we had (quite) a few drinks with a few people we'd met along the way and had a fairly comprehensive tour of the Ao Nang night life.

Needless to say and due to an overly generous and overly intoxicated Irish guy (love the Irish), cheap Thai spirits and eighties beatbox music, neither of us were feeling too flash the following morning. The ferry boat to Phi Phi Island was made more unpleasant by Glenn's inability to retain food. Glenn was left on the beach under the premise of minding the bags while Bec took off with the first tout she could find to secure the nearest airconditioned room. Glenn spent the afternoon in various stages of consciousness while Bec delighted in the fact that 14 out of her 14 dodgy CDs actually worked in her 10 quid Brick Lane discman!!

Approaching Phi Phi Island

The next morning we were up quite early and were successful in our quest to find some slightly more authentic beach front accommodation in the form of ocean front cabins (open door, step onto beach). We were quite pleased to see our buddies Helen and Steve and Gavin had the same idea about coming to Phi Phi Island. Did some snorkelling, watched the sunset then off to a seafood restaurant for dinner with Helen and Steve and Gavin.

The view from our front door on Phi Phi Island

Hired a longtail boat and it's driver and went out the next day on a snorkelling trip around the islands. Plenty of bright fish and movie-scene scenery (The Beach, Leo De Caprio). Saw a few monkeys swinging through the trees on the way back in. Dinner again with the usual suspects then spent the night sitting in our deck chairs under the stars.

Got up at the crack of dawn (ok, not really) on our last day on Phi Phi Island and hiked up the mountain at the end of the island to the viewpoint which overlooks the whole of Phi Phi Island. The walk was almost vertical (ok, not really again, but it felt like it) and fairly exhausting in the humidity but the view from the top was worth every minute of it. We had a cup of tea in a very small but perfectly positioned cafe on top of the mountain and then slowly made our way back down again.

The view from the hilltop on Phi Phi Island. And one equally as knackered cat.

• It was never my intention to highlight the fact that a lot of this has been blogged retrospectively, but I can't write about this part of our trip without mentioning the tsunami. We were on Phi Phi Island two months before the tsunami consumed most of the island and its surrounding areas. The people of the island are beautiful people and helped make our time there brilliant. It broke my heart to see the island and its people so badly devastated and I hope that one day we can go back to Phi Phi and its people.*

Time to reward those aching hill-tribe-trek muscles with a relaxing Thai massage. Or not. There's nothing relaxing about having one leg sat on and the other forced over your head!! Headed for the train station again for an overnight train to Bangkok.

We arrived in Bangkok early int he morning and were met by a driver for a trip to Kanchanaburi via Damnoen floating markets.. The market was alive with color and sound as the women sold their fruit and veges from their boats to eager shop keepers.

Damnoan floating markets

Off then to Kanchanaburi, to the bridge over the river Kwai. There was a good museum centered around the 'Death Railway', a lot of which was really confronting. The railway is still used today, though generally only for tourism purposes. We walked across the bridge but had to run along it to avoid an on-coming train. It would seem that workplace OH&S hasn't made it to Kanchanaburi yet.

The bridge over the river Kwai

Headed back to Bangkok then with a trip to a tiger sanctuary on the way. The tiger sanctuary is run by a bunch of monks who rehabilitate the tigers to the point where they can return to their natural jungle environment, although they very seldom do. We took advantage of the photo opportunity which was pretty unnerving. It was pretty hard not to make any sudden moves when the natural reaction to a tiger moving towards you is to panic and run away!!

Big cat!!

Made it back to Bangkok in time to take in a bit of Thai culture in the form of a lady-boy show. It was a very well choreographed cabaret-style show performed by men, most of whom have had the first stage of a sex-change operation. Their make-up was exquisite and some of them looked incredibly feminine, however there was also a lot of five o'clock shadow. We declined the opportunity to take in a ping pong show in Pat Pong which, by all accounts, was quite rote-learnt and featured a mind-boggling assortment of ping pong balls, darts and footballs.

The following day we boated and song thaewed around Bangkok before getting on an overnight train to Khao Sok lake district. We took a local bus to the treehouses which were quite a novelty- a double bed with a mossie net, toilet, shower and two chairs perched 15metres up a tree and accessed by a ridiculously steep ladder. Spent the afternoon riding down the nearby river in tyre tubes before a nice dinner and a table tennis competition where Glenn's left-handed, one-eye-closed, hopping handicap was more of a laugh than a hinderance but he was soon annihilated by one of the locals.

Lakeside raft houses

We spent the next two days relaxing at rafthouses on the side of the lake. The place is post-card beautiful and we swam (in bat caves!!), floated, canoed, slept and ate for two days.

Tuesday was the first day of a three-day hike through the hill tribe areas north of Chiang Mai. The weather was incredibly muggy and oppressive and the walking was made harder because of the thickness of the mud! We walked through rolling fields of corn set against a back drop of limestone mountains. The jungle was thick and we made a couple of river crossings using bamboo poles as bridges. The first night we stayed in a village rampant with chickens and piglets and we had a good meal by candlelight in a thatched hut illuminated by a near full moon.

River crossing while hill trekking

We were woken early the next morning by a bunch of roosters and set off again through the rolling corn fields on our way to a small village where we road the next couple of hours on the back of an elephant. Our guide sat us on a little (unstable) platform on the back of a massive elephant and we took off through the jungle. While it was a brilliant experience, it was also pretty gross. Because it's so hot, the elephants suck up water from the ground into their trunks and then spray it back over their heads, covering us in elephant snot in the process. The first thing we did when we reached the next village was to de-elephant and jump in the river for a wash!!

An elephant ride!!

After another afternoon traipsing through the jungle (poncho on, ponch off due to monsoon), we reached our stop for the night and again, jumped in the river for a bit of a bath. Some of the local village women had set up their craft stalls and Glenn and some other guys ended up playing soccer with some of the (very competitive) village kids. After dinner the village women and girls put on a traditional song and dance around the fire. Along the way we had bought a pig as a gift for the village for hosting us and the villagers were very grateful.

Soccer with the village kids

On Thursday morning we left the village and headed past the village school. The buildings were very basic but the kids seemed very happy, although it must be difficult to concentrate if you're always a tourist attraction!! Across a few more fields and we reached the take off point for our bamboo rafts and were soon floating along to a backdrop of reeds and distant hills. Nothing too scary, but we did hit a rock in the water and our guide fell off the raft but was soon retrieved. We reached Chiang Mai late in the afternoon, just in time for a bit more market haggling.

Village school kids