A.S.I.A.: From the Islands to the Mountains

May 5, 2010
Chiang Mai, Thailand

One of the gates in the wall around Chiang Mai

It's amazing how drastically the landscape changes with only a few hour flight.  Rather than being surrounded by white sand and blue water we were greeted by majestic mountain ridges and lush northern jungles at the Chiang Mai airport.  A short songteaw ride brought us to yet another beautiful hotel, the Imperial Mae Ping, where we put down our stuff, freshened up a bit and made our way out into the city.

Teakwood Wat

Having been to CM a couple times before I had a pretty good grasp on some of the things we should see and brought Mom and Sue along on a walking tour through the city.  Despite being much farther north than we had been previously it was still shockingly hot as we were walking around.  We were sure to take our time and take ample rests/water breaks amongst the many temples and side streets we wandered.  Now, during this time the red shirt riots were in full swing down in BKK and a large population of the rioters were from the North, CM included.  While we were walking we stumbled across a small vendor stall with some red flags on it and beneath it was sleeping a small Thai woman-actually she looked dead.  A fearless Sue was able to rouse her and, after a bit of confusion as to why a group of tourists had woken her up, asked her if we could buy one of her flags for a souveneir.  She was more than happy to share with us and away we walked with some hand made protest flags (for free!) 



Inside one of many temples



I brought Mom and Sue to one of my favorite sites in CM, the women's prison/ rehabilitation center, for a quick look around-Sue brought some handmade table cloth to support the women :)  Our next stop was at a nearby massage parlor where some of the inmates are given jobs upon their release and where I've had a couple of my best massages in Thailand.  I must say it's a bit strange being massaged in a calm environment with some of the women looking a bit rough and tattooed, but they do a great job! (Unfortunately there was no impromptu comedy show as Mom was actually given the massage she had asked for) I treated Mom and Soup as a Mother's Day gift and after we were all tiger balmed up and relaxed we headed back to the hotel.  As was routine, we spent some time in the lobby with a happy hour special and background music provided by a young Thai girl and her khim (a small stringed instrument that you hit with mallets sort of like a you hit a xylophone.)  After a wonderful dinner we caught a bit of the Elvis look a like who was now performing in the lobby and then made our way to bed--after all, we had stayed up the entire night the day before!

A.S.I.A: All Day, All, Night

May 4, 2010

Langkawi, Malaysia

Despite it being our last day on Langkawi (oh, how we wished we’d had more time) we took full advantage of the morning sun down by the pool. Around lunch time we had At come pick us up and he agreed to take us on a half day tour of the island before we had to catch our flight back to Kuala Lumpur. It was the perfect way to end our stay as At drove us to many sites and was able to give us the lowdown on the history and life on the island.

Langkawi Cable Car

1st Stop: Batik. Langkawi is known for its very talented and traditional Batik artistry. We visited a Batik center where we got to watch the artists in action; basically Batik is the art of using cloth, wax and dye to create beautiful designs and motifs. An artist will use a small brush or pen to put wax on the cloth and then dye the visible fabric. In the end you are left with a painting like any other except it’s embedded in the cloth and is visible on both sides unlike paint and brush. We spent a good amount of time in the shop sifting through Batik paintings, clothes, sheets, etc. I had never heard of it before coming to Malaysia so it was really interesting to see it firsthand.

Langkawi Sky Bridge

2nd Stop: The Langkawi cable car. We hopped into our little cable car and made the 2km ascent up the side of Gunung (mount) Machinchang. It’s a bit daunting going up that high as there are points as you’re swinging in the breeze above the jungle at seemingly 90 degrees. Once you’ve made it to the top you climb onto the first observation desk and take in the sheer vastness of Burau Bay and the rest of the island. A short trek leads you up to the even higher second observation deck where you are even more surprised by all that lays ahead—I read online that some of the land in the distance is actually the South of Thailand! The highlight of the trip though was probably the sky bridge which is one of the world’s longest cable suspension bridges. As you walk along this bridge, which is literally hanging in the air, suspended between two mountain peaks (at over 2000 feet), you can feel the wind swaying you back and forth. It’s definitely not for those with acrophobia or vertigo, but the view is stunning and worth getting over your fears for! It’s like a layer cake as you look out and the blue sky meets the deep green jungle which rests gently upon the sea. Wow. Our descent was kind of scary as you are now looking straight down at the jungle below rather than up at the mountain top, but we thankfully made it down safely where At was waiting to take us to Stop #3.



View from the top of Gunung Machinchang

3rd Stop: Krafts Center. No it’s not a center sponsored by Kraft, but rather the way the Bahasa Malay language spells ‘craft’ (one of the words our racist taxi driver in KL was describing.) Here we spent a bit of time perusing the stalls and booths of all the artisans and typical paraphernalia—it seemed to be more geared toward tourists and as such we didn’t really come across anything original. We decided instead to head out and have At take us to one more stop before the airport.

4th Stop: ‘Black Sand’ beach. I use quotations, because the black sand beach was about 4ft x 4ft. It actually just looked a bit dirty as opposed to something unique. At told us, though, that the beach is unique, because the black sand isn’t the result of volcanic activity, as is the case in most of the world, but rather iron oxide. So, I guess we can check ‘see iron oxide black sand beach’ of our bucket list :) It was so nice to see the other parts of the island and At was very proud to show us around.



Black Sand Beach

5th Stop: Langkawi airport. We said our goodbyes and made our way inside the little airport. Realizing we weren’t allowed to bring liquid on the plane with us we decided we need to do something about our extra beverages. Not wanting to offend anyone, keep in mind it’s Muslim, Mom went to Starbucks and got some cups for us and we speedily finished up what we had. We dined at Malaysia’s finest for dinner, Kenny Rogers, which we thought was hilarious; in the middle of this small island off the coast of Malaysia we were eating greasy spoon American cooking. What a treat!

6th and 7th Stops: KLCC/KLIA: Being the ‘experienced’ traveler I am, I convinced Mom and Sue that we didn’t need to book a hotel for the night, because we could just get one near the hotel when we landed. That’ll teach me. We landed at KLCC and hopped in a taxi to the hotel we looked up online where the proceeded to look at us like we were crazy for not having a reservation and informing us that the hotel was hosting a convention and all the rooms were filled. Great. They were nice enough to call the discount hotel next to KLCC (which we found out was also full) and then offer us a spot on their free shuttle to KLIA (the int’l airport where they said was open for 24hrs and had a hotel attached.) Our hopes were soon dashed as the airport’s cheapest room was a couple hundred dollars which wasn’t worth it at that point-it was after 11pm and we had a departure at 7am.

Being savvy as we are, we wove our way through the other travelers who had either chosen or were forced to stay over at the airport and plopped down at the 24hr McDonald’s. We got some food and Mom and Soup got their coffee and we made the group decision to just stay awake all night. I felt horribly that I’d gotten us into this situation, but I lucked out that I was travelling with such easygoing people (I mean how many moms are willing to do something like that?!) Good thing they have such good experience with all nighters due to their nursing and the three of us ended up having a great night talking and laughing. There were definitely a couple of lulls in which we debated catching a quick cat nap, but it was nothing a good story or refill of coffee couldn’t cure. 5am finally rolled around and it was time to make our way to check-in at the other airport for our flight back to Thailand. Selamat tinggal Malaysia!

A.S.I.A.: Langkawi or Bust

May 2 and May 3, 2010

Langkawi, Malaysia

May 2, 2010

Our First View of Langkawi

Breakfast was nothing to write home about with cold hot dogs and some traditional Malyasian dishes which were a bit salty and fishy in flavor.  A plus, however, was that our hotel was within walking distance of the pier where we were to catch our ferry to Langkawi.  Whilst we were waiting for our boat to arrive we were met by yet another overly friendly man who took a liking to Mom; we thought Sue's Iranian man (who offered her a tour) was funny, but hs guy took the cake.  He had one arm and knack for talking.  You have to give him credit for his confidence, but I think what made us have to bite our lips from laughing was the fact that he kept talking about his arm and how due to his situation he had a special pass (laminated around his neck) that allowed him to ride the bus and other modes of transportation for free.  He even used the pass as a pick up line for Mom saying he could get her free rides too; at this point Sue and I couldn't even watch for fear of bursting out laughing. 

Jacuzzi, Pool and Swim Up Bar

The ferry finally came and we made our way to some seats only to be found once again by our new friend.  I think he realized Mom wasn't going to be travelling to Langkawi with him and he moved on a little bit into the ride.  We got of the ferry and were greeted by lightning blue water and warm tropical sun.  We walked through the duty free shops (which are a huge deal, because as a Muslim country, certain goods are heavily taxed on the Malaysian mainland) and made our way to a travel agent counter to book a hotel.  Malaysia is known as one of the countries with the most and cheapest 4- and 5-star resorts in the world, so we had a fairly large selection of very nice places.  We opted for a 4-star recommended to us by the agent and, man, were we happy about that!

Our Own White Sand Beach

We were driven from the port to the Holiday Villa Resort by an extremely nice man named At who helped us bring our bags inside and taught us some basic phrases to practice during our stay on the island.  The resort was absolutely beautiful with wonderfully cool rooms, and an incredible series of pools/jacuzzis, beautiful gardens and it's own private white sand beach.  Paradise.  After a quick bite to eat a Chinese restaurant up the road we grabbed our gear and headed to the pool.  It was exactly what the doctor ordered after our bus fiasco the day before.  We made our way to the swim up bar for a nice happy hour (how can you not be happy when you can have whatever you want without having to even get out of the pool!) and then to the beach for a perfect sunset over the water.  After some great pictures and washing the sand from our well-rested feet we showered and went do dinner at one of the resort's restaurants.  It's amazing how one day you can be so tired and exhausted and the next day you are in a state of complete relaxtion and everything seems to move calmly--if you hadn't guessed it that's how we felt that night and went to bed some very happy travellers.

 

May 3, 2010

Perfect Langkawi Sunset

Today was our full on, no plans, relaxation day.  We ate a nice breakfast after which we immediately claimed some prime real estate next to the pool for late morning/early afternoon ray soakage.  It got a bit cloudy around lunch time so we decided to do a bit of exploration near the hotel (a.k.a. Mom and Sue were ready to get some shopping in.)  There some really nice strips of shops featuring a cool mix of local and tourist-oriented goods and being the curious shoppers they are, Mom and Sue were actually able to get a store to unlock it's doors to let us in because they said they liked something in the window.  The people were really friendly and told us about their restaurant that was going to be opening for dinner later and were so happy and excited about us being there that we naturally said we'd come back later to eat dinner.

Traditional Malay Dinner

Continuing on with our theme for the day we headed back to the hotel for some more pool time and then some room time.  Don't you wish every day could be like this?  When hunger struck we kept our promise and headed back to the Sunday Bistro from excellent food and wine.  We were even treated with some dinner entertainment as an extremely rude and vocal group of Russians wouldn't stop complaining about their food.  Our waiter kept apologizing for them and how much time he had to spend with them (he said that groups of Russians and tourists alike come in all the time and order the expensive fish and then continue to send it back to the kitchen and moan about the service in hopes of getting the meal free.)  Who does that?!  The food was extremely good--I indulged in a traditional Malaysian multi-course meal--and the service was the same if not better, so were more than happy to sympathize with the staff.  In a state of food coma we waddled back to the resort for another night's sleeep.