Monday, December 31, 2007

Experiencing brown China


Hakka earth buildings (tulou), originally uploaded by fangie2000.

My Singaporean friend, who became a farmer in rural China termed the countryside "brown China". It's definitely not the typical postcard pretty Chinese gardens, pagodas, temples and palaces. But it is a realistic snapshot of middle China, the lives of the average peasant working in the fields and living in villages.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Bako National Park


Bako National Park, originally uploaded by fangie2000.

Fabulous view of Gunung Satubong against the sea from the viewpoint of Limtang trail at Bako National Park. It's absolutely rewarding after a long and tiring hike to be here.

Wildlife watching


Kuching, originally uploaded by fangie2000.

One of the highlights of Sarawak is its jungle, and the National Parks around Kuching didn't disappoint us in terms of wildlife, whether it is the semi-wild orang utans in Semenggoh Orang Utan Sanctuary (the orang utans here roam freely in the jungle to look for their own food, but if they are free to come and go in the sanctuary at fixed times for food) or the proboscis monkeys in Bako, or even the tiny leeches, ants, creepy crawlies, snails, butterflies or snakes...along the jungle trails.

Journey of a leech



Imagine a jungle floor full of leeches? Imagine having to stop every five minutes for "leech check"? That's what happened during a jungle trek at Kubah National Park in Sarawak, the day after a heavy rainstorm. It's a yucky experience not to be forgotten. Watch how a leech moves, it's amazing. This leech was caught and removed from my hiking shoes. Phew...thankfully, it didn't manage to make its way to my blood.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Bordeaux


Bordeaux, originally uploaded by fangie2000.

Just back from another trip, this time Southwest France :)

Friday, July 27, 2007

Camping in Ko Adang

I have never been an enthusiastic camper, much preferring the comfort of an en suite toilet in a chalet or hotel room.

So it came as a surprise to myself that I had actually enjoyed camping in Adang more than sleeping in the chalet in Lipeh or even Tarutao.

As the ranger station is the only chalet operator in Adang and Tarutao, advance reservation is necessary in order to secure a room. We were lucky to get a room in Tarutao when we arrived. But Adang's chalet was fully booked.

The camping ground in Adang is very pleasant, under the shade of casuarina trees, right beside the white sandy beach. Corals and fishes are relatively plentiful along part of the long stretch of beach. So you are practically almost jumping off from your tent to the corals without having to hire any boat. During sunset and sunrise, you can also admire the flaming red or orange sky cast by the sun from the tent.

The camping area is very large, and campers are free to pitch their tent anywhere within the camping ground without having to stay too close to other campers. Unfortunately, our tent turned out to be a crappy one when it started raining during the 2nd night, as rain water leaked through. That was the end of our camping.

But after spending one unsatisfactory night in a chalet at nearby Lipeh, we found ourselves back to the camping ground in Adang. Except that we opted for a more luxurious tent set in a coconut hut that comes with thin mattresses and light bulb. And the beautiful beach is just right in front, a few steps away. Five star camping, I would say.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

More on Tarutao-getting there and away

It's been a rather long time since I updated this little space. Have been on a few more trips since coming back from Tarutao, from Ho Chi Minh City, Tioman to Pulau Aur. But I'll like to introduce more of Tarutao here.

Despite its relative obscurity, Tarutao is not difficult to get to, and is fast gaining popularity among European backpackers. From Hatyai, regular mini buses go to Pak Bara, the jumping off point to get to Tarutao. The bus boarding point is diagonally across the train station. Exact bus schedule can be enquired at the hotel you're staying at.

Beware though. Before we even reach the bus stop, we were approached by locals wanting to sell us bus and ferry tickets. We thought, why not. So were led to a travel agency round the corner. The travel agent tried to convince us to buy return trip tickets, including for ferry. In the end, we got our bus and ferry tickets at this first travel agent we saw (luckily not for return trip). It turn out that the travel agent option is not necessarily the cheapest and most flexible option.

Bus tickets could be bought directly at the bus stop, which is only about 20m from the travel agent (we thought it was much further away). Upon reaching Pak Bara, found that there are other ferry companies going to Tarutao at a better timing and price.

It would be good to not buy return ferry tickets too. For us, we went to Tarutao, didn't quite enjoy it as much as we want, so bought ferry tickets to bring us to Adang from there. Took longtail boat to Lipeh, didn't like it there, so went back to Adang. There was a couple we met at Tarutao, saw them at Adang a few days later, and was told that they didn''t enjoy Adang and were planning to go back to Tarutao.

The bottomline is, these little islands each have their own characteristics, suited to different tastes. So, don't bind yourself to only one of them with prepaid return ferry tickets. It's rather easy to buy tickets back to Pak Bara, either through the chalets or the park ranger.

Some of the longtail boatman can be dishonest too, though they are probably in the minority. Had an unpleasant encounter with one. Longtail boat between Adang and Lipeh is only about 50B. As there's no jetty at this 2 islands, the ferry from Tarutao drops passengers in between the 2 islands, for them to transfer via longtail boat. Always ask before getting onto the boat. As everyone was jostling to get onto the boats, we made the mistake of not confirming the price with the boatman. In the end, all the passengers on our boat were made to pay 100B each after the boat has left the ferry.

Despite the little hiccups, it was definitely worth the journey. Along the way, between Tarutao and Adang, the ferry even stopped at a charming little island for 20 minutes. It was almost a perfect beach, totally secluded with amazingly white sand and crystal clear water. hmmmm....I wouldn't mind going back to Tarutao soon.

Monday, March 12, 2007

Tarutao


It's not as well-known as even Ko Tao. Such that when friends asked me where I went, I always have to explain that it is in the far south, just a few kilometres north of Langkawi.

Because it's less troden by tourists, it is very tranquil and serene, with amazing secluded beaches that rank very high on my growing list of beautiful beaches.

The whole Tarutao National Park is made up of several islands, the main one being Tarutao itself, and Adang, where the only accommodation is operated by the national park office (which ensures that these two islands are not fallen to over development). The other island is Lipeh, which is directly opposite Ko Adang, and somewhat lies outside the national park boundary, and has the potential to be the next ko phi phi, with lots of chalets, restaurants, boats, foreigners and rubbish...
The rest of the islands in the area are mostly secluded and visited by day-trippers on snorkelling and diving trips.

Tarutao and Adang are very good places for a laid-back holiday. My favourite is Adang, such that I spend most of the week on this little island. Nice and quiet beach, with rather good corals and many fishes just off the shore. Friendly park rangers and serene environment. Well, nice place, but will probably go into more details next time.

The misunderstood French

This is a very common personal experience told by many Chinese tourists visiting France.
The same story, albeit experienced by different people, are always related to me, whenever I told them I: a) have a French bf; b) have travelled to France for holidays.

The story goes:
Mr A went to Paris (somehow, Singaporeans/Chinese perception of a French holiday is to go to Paris, never mind the fact that there are many more lovely places to visit in this country. The most romantic city plus buying the latest LV product at a cheaper price is enough reason to make the trip to France worthwhile).
Mr A got lost in the city, needed to ask some Frenchies for direction, or to ask some Frenchie train station officer for help.
Not knowing how to speak French, he asked for help in English.
The super proud and Anglo-hating French would pretend not to understand a word, or even ignore the question altogether.
The desparate Mr A, after several futile attempts in communication started to speak in Chinese, and voila! The Frenchie was suddenly enlightened, and began to render help to the poor tourist in English.

This same story was repeated to me, this time by a Malaysian Chinese I met at Ko Adang. According to his experience, he has to swear in Hokkien before the French train officer finally answered his questions in English.

Are the Frenchies really so haughty and in disdain of the English language?

I'm no French expert and have been to France only three times. And thankfully, I've not been in such a situation.

It's true that the French are no English speakers and don't like to speak English.

However, from my personal experience in interactingn with French, I would think the French do not like to speak English (even to English speaking tourists) not because they look down on the language, but because they can't speak it well and are too "pai seh" to admit it, and too embarassed to show their lack of command of the language.

And go out of Paris, and you'll find English-speaking French becoming rarer and rarer, especially among older generation.

So next time, if you meet a French who refuse to speak English, don't mark him as "hao lian" immediately.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Home in a shell


Hermit crabs always fascinate me greatly. I particularly enjoy seeing them suddenly "pretending dead" whenever they sense a human coming near them.

At Ko Rawi's white sand beach, hermit crabs are everywhere, in varying sizes and different kinds of beautiful shells. We couldn't resist photographing and filming them, though this must have make one of the most boring video.

Fun aside, these cute creatures belong to where they are, so please, if your paths ever cross with these crabs, do not bring them home.

Friday, March 02, 2007

My latest trip


My latest trip to Ko Tarutao National Park. In case you're wondering where this wonderful place is, it is a marine park in the far south of Thailand, just about 5km north of Langkawi.

The beaches there are simply marvellous - white powdery sand, crystal clear emerald sea, multitude of colourful fishes and marine life and serene and relaxing atmosphere. Hmmm...what a charming place.

Shall update with more details again.

Monday, January 08, 2007

Maiden ski experience

It's my first time, and I've fallen left, right, centre and back. Yes, I've fallen so many times, on so many different positions that I've quite lost count.

The first time I tried ski, R signed me straight up for a one-an-half hour instruction course. Teaching a complete beginner is differennt from knowing how to ski well. And it frees him up to go ski freely in the difficult slopes without having to handhold me. So why not.

After the brief introduction with my cute instructor, he immediately ask me to do a little glide down an extremely gentle slope. Actually, the slope is so gentle and short I'm not sure I could call it a slope at all. But I still panick when my ski sense the slightest difference in gradient and down I go.

The class was quite a torture. First, the ski boots and ski felt so clumsy on me, they really make my movement very uncomfortable. Yet, as a complete novice, instead of smoothly gliding down the snow, I was made to do quite a fair bit of "walking" up the gentlest of slopes. And of course, each time I'm supposed/expected to glide smoothly down, I tumbled down instead and have to a) wait for the poor man to pull me up; b) do the torturous climb up again. The constant bending of the knees is also a huge strain. However, being a complete kiasu Singaporean, I endured through the discomfort without any breaks, wanting to make the full use of my lesson.

However, it was only during my 2nd ski trip that I manage to ski on my own without help or handholding. After practising the whole morning, gliding down the slope holding R's hand, I miraculously managed to ski without help in the afternoon (for reasons I would rather not mention here). The feeling was great. Instead of taking half an hour to go down a short stretch of snow, it suddenly only took less than five minutes. You forget the fatigue and strain in your knees and want to go for more.

It helps to get used to falling on the snow. Probably like unicycling, when you know that it is actually safe to fall, you are more daring to go ahead without the fear of falling. And sometimes, after a terrible fall (as long as I don't break any bones), I quite like the feeling of lying on the soft snow, looking up into the sky.

Still consider myself a novice. Posture still not quite right yet. Need bigger guts to ski down steeper slopes. But I'm already looking forward to my next ski trip, which may be years from now :(

The fact that the scenery on top of the ski slopes is always breathtaking helps to whet my appetite to improve my skiing skills.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

White Christmas?


Yeah! I spent my Christmas in France. It's the first time in my life to experience Christmas during the winter season, like in the fairy tales. No more warm and rainy Singapore, no more street busking trying to sell balloons to the Christmas shopping crowd in Orchard. I had even spent Christmas once before in Melbourne - a true summer Christmas, bright, sunny and terribly hot.


The burning question from my friends is: so did you have a white Christmas? Much as the photos here suggest, the landscape was hardly white, due to unusually thin snow during this early winter. It did not snow at all and we had to go high into the mountains to enjoy the snowy landscape.


The countryside in the early morning was also surprisingly "frosty", giving a very nice feel of a white Christmas, but the ice shied away within hours from the warmth of the mid-day sun.
 
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