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South East Asia and India

November 2016 - March 2017
A 147-day adventure by Resfeber Read more
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  • ResfeberSouth East Asia and India
    2111
    Day 27

    A new hat and new home... Pulau Pangkor

    November 29, 2016 in Malaysia ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

    Pulau Pangkor (translation: beautiful island) where the Malays holiday, is a low key sleepy isle, with a lush jungle interior.

    It offers a real insight into their family life; eating, drinking and larking about in the sea. Kinda how we do it, but for some reason it feels less urgent, more relaxed. Maybe it's because they get more than one day of sunshine a year, who knows.

    There are three cultures that make up Malaysia. Malays, Chinese and Indian. A melting pot that seems to work in a predominately Muslim country.
    Everyone is expected to abide by an ancient hindu customary law, that places great emphasis on collective rather than individual responsibility on maintaining harmony. It is called Adat.

    Seeing the female Malays playing in the sea with their children, fully clothed for modesty, is a lovely sight. It has no impact at all on their enjoyment and they beam with love and happiness. This image is not usually portrayed to us in the west, and I wonder why this is?!

    Oh and Tam loves my new hat!!!!    Read more

  • ResfeberSouth East Asia and India
    1
    Day 29

    Georgetown, Penang

    December 1, 2016 in Malaysia ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    We have arrived in Georgetown!!! I have been chomping at the bit to get here .... And it has not disappointed. You know that feeling you get, when you just feel so comfortable, relaxed and excited at the same time... I feel it here. I think my mum gets it in Brighton, I've had it before in Lisbon.
    Anyway, we are staying in an amazing hostel in the old town, right in amongst it. Our room is basic but stylish and the shutters make me feel like I'm in a French colonial villa in the Far East.

    We dropped our bags and headed straight out to mooch around the lanes, with our heads in the sky gawking at the architecture, the street art and the FOOD!

    It's only been 6 hours and I'm already considering a job/flat situation.

    Roll on day two in Georgetown!    Read more

  • ResfeberSouth East Asia and India
    111
    Day 31

    Started with Laundry .... Ended in Ink

    December 3, 2016 in Malaysia ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    So by now we had more dirty clothes than clean. And on our mooch yesterday, we spotted a dazzling, all singing and all dancing launderette!!!! Ha! After that was all done.. We got ourselves freshened up and did a walking tour around Georgetown, that incorporated all the street art highlights and some good food too.

    We had a very smiley afternoon of taking photographs and slurping on ice balls!

    When we found the swing street art, I instantly remembered a photo my friend has had taken when she was here... see photo.

    After all the walk in the heat, we decided to go to a bar for a G and T. B@92 is a retro american bar run by a Serbian man and a Thai lady, who rustled us up some wild boar Thai stew with mash.... It. Was. Incredible.

    After our second gin, I was looking up at the buildings and saw two swallows flying in unison, (they seem to everywhere on this trip so far) and they made me think of me and Tam on this adventure... So without any time for thinking, we heading to a tattoo parlour and I had them tattoo'd on my left middle and index fingers. It was agony but totally worth it. Something to remind me of this adventure.

    Another memorable day, one of the best.

    (Mum please don't kill me)    Read more

  • ResfeberSouth East Asia and India
    311
    Day 36

    Langkawi

    December 8, 2016 in Malaysia ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    So we left George Town after 5 nights of incredible cuisine and stunning street art, and headed to the island of Langkawi. We took a "superfast" ferry from Penang an arrived to Langkawi for about 530 in the evening. On the journey me and Tam decided it would be best to hire a car, in order to explore the island as much as possible. Also the place we had booked to stay for the next 7 nights, is a little off the beaten track (jungle retreat).

    We met Justin Bieber at the port ( a 62 year old Malaysian version,) and i managed to get him to rent us manual (hurray), can on wheels for 50 ringgit a day, instead of 100! not bad, although after we paid Justin, we had to wait a good hour or so for the car to appear. During that time we managed to pick up a Swedish lone traveler. Sandra was very sweet and had been travelling for 4 years, and by now all she wanted was a wardrobe! ha!

    We eventually made it to Pondok Keladi, ran by a gay Malay- British couple. It is heaven and so relaxed. http://www.pondok-keladi.com/

    So far we have mostly been having lazy mornings, driving to beautiful beaches and cooking dinner, whilst drinking duty free gin in the evenings. BLISS!    Read more

  • ResfeberSouth East Asia and India
    313
    Day 41

    One night in Bangers

    December 13, 2016 in Thailand ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

    After a seven night stay on Langkawi, we decided to leave our jungle beach haven and headed to Thailand. We took a boat to Satun and entered Thailand. We made our way to Bangkok and arrived at Cacha Hotel, an industrial, contemporary hotel. We loved it!

    For our day of fun in Bangkok we had the best street food, took part in an art exhibition and mooched around the famous MBK centre.

    Oh and I also cut Tams hair.

    The black and white picture is of the King of Thailand, who recently passed away. Thailand is now in a year of mourning. And everywhere you turn are beautiful tributes to what I can only observe was a great King.    Read more

  • ResfeberSouth East Asia and India
    2
    Day 44

    Siem Reap, Cambodia

    December 16, 2016 in Cambodia ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    We made it to Cambodia yesterday!!!

    Today was a good day, one of the best.

    Tam treated me to an early Xmas present; wood carving at the Angkor Handicraft Association. She found the course on a dealt cool website www.backstreetacadamy.com

    We were taught by An, who has been wood carving for 16 years. It took us three hours, with a lot of help to produce what we did. I did love the carving, but what I really enjoyed was chatting with An and his translator Malish. We discussed Khmer culture, food, politics, Buddism and most humbling the Cambodian genocide. I will never forget our morning together, they were beautiful people.

    After we had finished our masterpieces and said good bye to our new friends, we headed to pub street for 50cent draft beer as Khmer food. Yum. We met as American chap who was travelling solo, he was super friendly and we swapped travel highlights and tips and even touched upon the Trump issue . (sssshhh)    Read more

  • ResfeberSouth East Asia and India
    3
    Day 47

    The Temples of Angkor

    December 19, 2016 in Cambodia ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    Siem Reap is the town and gateway to the historic temples of the Khmer empire. We used two of our days here, to explore as many of the incredible buildings as we could.

    Day one was an a hot and overwhelming experience. Two reasons ; the vastness of the workmanship of a time before and the sheet influx of over eager people desperate to get their perfect shot. There is no denying Angkor Wat is stunning and a place to be behold. However, the magic is diminished by the lack of respect and sheer opportunism of the human race.

    We moved on to Angkor Thom, my favourite. The calming but authoritative faces looking down on me, made me feel safe yet humbled. Humbled by the fact that nearly a thousand years ago, the people who constructed this temple, took time and effort to fit each jigsaw stone in place to create the face of Jayavarman VII. Incredible.

    We finished our day at the temple of Ta Prohm, where the "Spung" trees have claimed the temples of centuries before. Mother nature again triumphing over man.

    Day two was an EARLY start. 4am to be precise!! We were picked up by our Tuk Tuk driver Seymour, who I call "see more Temples".
    He ran out out of petrol on the way to Angkor- he had one job! Ha! But we couldn't be miffed, he was just so sweet and smiley.
    Eventually after two break downs and a couple of spits in the petrol tank, we reached Angkor Wat. Cloaked in darkness we made our approach, finding a spot to sit and take in the show that was about to begin. As the sun rose, the silhouette of the temple grew in hight, reflecting in the pools that lay the feet of Apsaras.

    The day finished with a dip in our hotel pool. £6 a night for a luxury experience.
    http://sambath-residence.com/    Read more

  • ResfeberSouth East Asia and India
    Day 58

    Phnom Penh

    December 30, 2016 in Cambodia ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    Before visiting PP, i had a lot of misconceptions and i wasn't particularly looking forward to embarking on the hassle and seedy undeground.

    YES .... there are middle aged white western men hanging around the red light district!

    YES... poverty is everywhere you look

    and YES the roads are insane! (Asia have no concept of a give way at a roundabout!! )

    But once you look past this, you find sweet caring gentle people with a horrific past, that was not so long ago.

    On April the 17th 1975, the Khmer rouge stormed PP and began its extermination of the "new people" (people who were modern thinking, educated, had soft hands and wore glasses). The leader of the regime was Pol Pot (brother number 1), he had a deluded Maoism communistic idea of returning the land to the "base people". This day was called year zero.

    The new people were arrested, with there families and tortured until they confessed/lied that they were involved in crimes against the state, as soon as the confession was signed, they were taken to the killing fields and murdered.

    3million of the 8 million population of cambodia were killed and the rest were worked like slaves in the country side.

    This went on for 4 years with no intervention until 1979, when the Vietnamese army liberated PP and the Khmer rouge fled to jungle on the Thai border.

    i don't really want to use my blog to preach and to go into to much detail, but what me and tam found so shocking was that the UN still gave these murderer's, the Khmer rouge a seat in the UN until 1991!!!!

    I did feel quite uncomfortable visiting the places of torture and death, but how i made it seem okay was that it educated me and now others, so their deaths were not in vain, to prevent this from happening ever again.

    I haven't included any pictures out of respect, as i didn't take any.

    We lay a flower at the memorial garden.    Read more

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