Catchphrase: I have how much time left now? ... seriously?!?
So
what does one do when you know you only have three days left in South
East Asia? You could wallow in self pity and nostalgia... OR you can go to the ever exciting Melaka stamp museum! Tchyeah!
Bangkok happenings:
So
the last time i wrote i had just booked my bus ticket from Siam Reap in
Cambodia to Bangkok, on the same day that negotiations broke down and
the protests got more violent. My timing, as always, is impeccable.
Though
i didn't see much. On the bus to Kao San road i saw glimpses of fires
and protests happening, but the rest of the city was eerily quiet. I
stayed overnight at an awesomely cheap, grungy hostel on the other side
of the river, but even from there i could hear gunshots late into the
night. Safe to say i booked a train ticket out of there the next day.
Two days later the army folks let loose and the red shirts set fire to
banks and such. So it turns out i scored the small window of relative
safeness. High fives all round!
Phuket happenings:
The
main reason why i had to go to Thailand was to drop in on my friends
Monika, Joseph and their wonderdog Leia, who've been living in Phuket
for the last two years. I hadn't seen them since i lived in America so
i was pretty stoked to catch up with them!
After living in
Phuket for so long, Monika had an extensive list of favourite places to
take me to. So we were kept busy with trips to the beach, thai massage,
and eating at all her favourite food vendors around town. The highlight
was having amazingly fresh traditional seafood at the sea gypsy
village. And a blind wine tasting of course! It was a difficult four
days...! And way too short a time, really. But i had a plane to catch.
Kuala Lumpur happenings:
KL
is a strange place to revisit on your own. I originally wanted to stay
a few days at my friend Yu's place, but i get funny being in an empty
place by myself. So i decided to go straight to Melaka, in the south.
But
talk about a major debacle! After asking everyone i met for a good
hour, i found out the bus depot had been moved from China town to some
stadium on the outskirts of town. And then at the depot no one could
tell me which bus i had to take to Melaka. Fun bus times.
I
was quite happy to collapse exhausted in teh bus for two and a half
hours, but an old Malaysian guy sitting next to me wanted to talk to me
nonstop for the rest of the trip. But after telling his whole life
story, which was quite entertaining and involved a lot of singing, he
decided that he was going to take me out and buy me drinks. I have that
effect on old menapparently.
Melaka happenings:
The guesthouse seemed quite nice
at first. I was staying in a small dorm, but then a rather large man
broke the bed in the air conditioned double bedroom with a balcony. So
the owner let me have the room for the same price as the dorm. But then
the owner also took more of a fancy to me than i would have liked. One
night i woke up in the middle of the night to hear someone trying to
get into my room, but i had already bolted the door from the inside. I
just assumed that it was someone drunk trying to get into the wrong
room. But then the last night i stayed it happened again, this time
from both the main door and the door that lead to the balcony, which
was connected to the owner's room. I couldn't go to sleep after that, so i moved to a more backpacker style guesthouse, with 18 people to a dorm. And it feels super safer having more peeps around :)
An exciting development was that my backpacker friend Ulrike was
also hanging out in Melaka, so we have been seeing the sights, mainly
the super awesome quirky museums and eating at every indian restaurant
we can find. Our favourite place so far would be the Villa Sentosa, a private family residence filled with antiques and historical artifacts. And doilies. It was like going to your grandparents house in the summer holidays and they get out hundreds of photo albums and
tell you stories about everyone in your family. Seriously that's what
the owner did! When he wasn't giving us photo albums to look at, he was
dragging us through the house, telling us stories and telling us to
take photos ourselves. It was hilarious, and i would recommend anyone
coming to Melaka to go see him! He is quite a character.
And then
Grace arrived from Phnom Penh yesterday, because one goodbye is never
enough. We are celebrating/commiserating Ulrike's last day here with
museums and more indian food :) As you do.
Future happenings:
So
i probably won't get up to much mischief over the next few days.
Tomorrow Grace and i head back to KL, then Clare is arriving the next
day, and on Tuesday Clare and i fly back to melbourne.
My goodness we leave on Tuesday...!
I've
been trying to avoid thinking about being home, and all the
organizational shite that's waiting for me there. In an attempt to be
enthusiastic i have started compiling a list of all the awesome
interesting things i want to do when i get home.Brewing beer, sewing and learning to juggle being high on that list. Oh the excitement
So i hope to see you shiny smiling faces very soonish in a colder melbourne :)
xxx mel
