Southeast Asia and bacterial infection
Well hello! It’s been a long time since I last looked at this blog, sorry for that. I have been exceptionally lot with friends so I have not taken the time to look for an internet cafe and wrote up a blog entry. But I am alone again so here I am hahahaha. A lot has happened and seen many places since the last entry so I’ll just briefly (maybe) go through the events!
So my next destination after Guangzhou was Hong Kong and there I was to meet my friends Lydia and Winsy (both of whom I met in a hostel in Ulan-Bator). The train ride from Guangzhou took less than two hours and it was a direct train so that was cool. However, the security checks , passport controls and customs took a while but I guess it’s understandable since I was basically leaving China. I had booked a hostel for the first night as Lydia was working really late in the evening. When I was searching for hostels in Hong Kong I found out that surprisingly there’s little selection on dorm accommodations and they are rather expensive. At least considering what I am used to hahahah. I paid like 15 euros for my small bed in a small dorm room in a huge apartment complex called Chung King mansions with like 20 floors. Ground floor has shops and Indian restaurants while the other floors have apartment building and tens, if not hundreds of hotels and hostels. I had also read about the whole complex from hostelworld/tripadvisor and most of the comments were negative, stating that people felt threatened at night and it was dirty and cramped etc. And not just talking about my hostels but the whole Chung King mansions in general. In my opinion though, most of Hong Kong is cramped and people live in small flats and the population density if huge so you should always put things into perspective. If the local people live ins small flats, you can’t expect to get a big dorm room really cheap. I found my hostel satisfactory to my needs. The bed was alright and I felt that my things were safe in the room. In addition you had a key card for the hostel and another one for the room. So no complaints there. The only annoying thing was all the people trying to sell you stuff on the ground floor (watches, accommodation, drugs etc) but I should be used to it already hahaha. Explored the city for a while and went to bed rather early. Next morning I checked out and headed to the metro to meet Lydia at her university (by they way, one of the uni’s building are up on a mountain, how cool is that?). We met up and went to drop off my stuff at her place where I was going to stay through my visit in HK. She lives with her parents and her sister. We went to see some parts of HK, some parks and a lot of busy streets full of restaurants, shops, street vendors and basically everything in between. Checked out the harbor and the Avenue of the Starts which is the same thing as the one in LA, just with Asian superstars. Saw the handprints of Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Jet Li, Donnie Yen among others. There was also a statue of Bruce Lee and a huge crowd of people taking photos of it. So naturally I took a photo of people taking photos!
Then we took a ferry across to the other side of Hong Kong (which is the business centre) from where we were supposed to take a tram to the Victoria Peak but apparently Lydia didn’t realize it would be flocked with tourists hahahaha. I think it’s the single most popular tourist attraction in Hong Kong. It’s like a 100 years old tram line and also the tram itself. There’s only two trams going up and down so the queues are horrible. Even in January. So we decided to skip it this time as we were meeting Winsy in like an hour and a half to get some dinner. They treated me for some traditional milk tea (Hong Kong style) with some good food of buns, beef, rice and eggs. 
After that we went to listen to some live music played by a Hong Kong band. They sang in English though but it was really nice! When we got back to Lydia’s place I met her parents and sister. Her parents didn’t speak English that well (her mom better than her dad) but we got along on sign language hahahah. They invited me for brunch the next morning and I accepted of course as it would’ve been impolite not to. However I was a bit nervours as we didn’t have a common language and I would be alone. It was unnecessary though as it went great. Had some of the best dim sum I have ever had and they just kept ordering more and more. Other part of the day I spent in the city and in the internet cafe searching for flight tickets for my next destination. I also wanted to catch the Victoria Peak tram to see the sunset to I started heading that way. Just so happens, I had underestimated the time needed for queuing there. I had to wait like an hour and a half to even get into the tram and by the time it got moving, it was already dark. So there goes my sunset. I was surprised at how touristy the peak was. What I had in mind was just a mountain peak with observation points. What I found was a shopping centre at the top with restaurants, stores and a Madame Tussaud’s wax cabinet. Nevertheless, the views were nice.
Found a Moomin shop!
Unfortunately the battery of my camera had died and I forgot to charge it so there goes proper photos as well. Not my best day. Also had to wait another 30 minutes to get down again. After that I met up with Winsy to have some dinner. We went to this place which served congee, a type of porridge with different fillings. I took one with preserved egg (it was black) and some pork. No matter how strange it might sounds, it was DELICIOUS. Then just headed back to Fanling to sleep. Next day was the day to actually make a decision on where to go next. I wanted to do it spontaneously in a way that I would just appear at the airport in the morning and buy a cheap ticket somewhere but I backed out because I’m a coward. Ended up buying a ticket to Bangkok for the next morning. Took a lot of photos of Hong Kong with my camera charged this time and went to the beautiful park called Nan Ling gardens, one of the most pretties places I have ever been to. Unfortunately no photos now as they are in my other phone. Met up with Lydia and Winsy for the last supper before heading off to Thailand. Had some hot pot, buffet style. So they bring you the soup and then you can get all the ingredients you want from the buffet table. Also, unlimited beer. Spent a good two hours just eating and then walked for like 40 minutes digesting the food. I had to wake up around 7am the next morning to catch the airport bus and Lydia promised to come and see me off. The airport was easy to get around and quite organized. So bye bye Hong Kong and see you next time!
When I arrived in Bangkok I was meeting my friend Hanna at the airport as she flew to Bangkok as well, just 15minutes after me! She had been traveling in Thailand for about a month and a half already. Gonna spend a few days in Bangkok and see what’s next. She’s going to Cambodia and wants me to joing her. The first thing about Bangkok was that it was freakishly hot. And I don’t mean like pleasantly hot but uncomfortable one. Even for her and she loves hot weather. It was all polluted and the air just stood still. We took an official taxi as we were too tired to get the public transport. Next destination; Khao San Rd. Now I know what you’re thinking, it’s a hell on earth and I kind of agree but we were new in the city and just wanted to get a cheap place to stay for a few days so that was the easiest way to go. So we got there and went to a few smaller streets just a stone’s throw away from the actual street to ask around for prices. We settled for a KS house, which cost us 495 baht (13 euros) for a twin room with a fan. Dropped our stuff and went to see the infamous street. It is quite horrible in my opinion and I did not like it one bit. Vendors pushing their stuff, tuk tuk drivers offering rides, massage, tourists, Burger King and McDonald’s fast-food joints and those tacky sleeveless shirts stating ‘I love Khao San Rd or Bangkok” and so on. Went to walk around for a bit, saw the Great Palace, lot of police officers and militia. In the evening we went for a dinner and at this point I started feeling ill (as I didn’t even want to finish my beer). I though it was just the heat and dehydration. Then went to sleep and I was feeling more ill. Didn’t help during the night either and I decided to just rest the next day while Hanna went exploring. First symptoms were a bit of fever and a bit of diarrhea. Didn’t eat pretty much anything during the whole day as I did not have the appetite except in the evening when I went to McDonald’s….I know, sad but I thought it would be a safe choice. I felt seemingly normal despite running in the bathroom every now and then so we decided to head off for Cambodia the next morning. Took a local bus to the train station (6,5baht = free) and bought train tickets for Aranyaprathet, which is the border city to Cambodia. Travel time supposedly was 4,5 hours but most of the times it is at least a few hours late. The train was really packed and moved really slow, luckily we had gotten seats. There was also a drunken Thai man wearing a US army jacket and purple teddy bear shorts. Stylish. He was rambling on for maybe over an hour, annoying everybody before the train security (?) took him away. Then, maybe an hour before the train was at its destination I started shivering like crazy and I couldn’t control it. I put on pants, long sleeve shirt, scarf and a jacket. Didn’t help. I checked my temperature and it was like 38.8 at some points. I also threw up once. I had some paranoia about contracting malaria but then again, I had only been in Thailand for a few days and so far hadn’t been bitten. Nevertheless, wasn’t feeling like a king hahahah. We decided to get a hostel from Aranyaprather and wait for a few days to seee if I got better. Found one called Siam Guesthouse for 580 baht with a wifi, hot water and an air-con. I checked my temperature again and it was already 39.6 so decided to get a doctor. Luckily one employee of the hostel wanted to drive us there and he worked as a translator for me as none of the staff at the hospital spoke English. The doctor who examined me spoke a little English and told me I had a bacterial infection from food poisoning. She prescribed me a whole bunch of medicine, like six different ones (they cost me 123 baht = 3,4 euros). Then we went back to the hostel to sleep and let the medicine do its work. My Southeast Asia tour didn’t start as well as I had planned hahahah. So next day Hanna went exploring again while I stayed in the room, reading my Kindle and sleeping. They day went alright, no shiver and no vomiting. We stayed there for two night before I was ready to head off for Cambodia. Oh and by the way, Aranyaprathet was a cool, small city to make a stopover on your way to Cambodia. Really chilled and not touristy as most people just pass it by.
The border crossing on the Thailand side was pretty straightforward, just through immigration, they stamp your passport and you’re good to go. I needed to get a visa for Cambodia while Hanna had an e-visa. I’m pretty sure I read from somewhere that the Cambodian visa costs 20 dollars but at the office it stated 30 dollars. Other tourists were a bit outraged about the price as they had thought it to be 20 dollars as well. I filled out an application, took a passport photo out and marched to the counter where they told me to pay 30 dollars. Didn’t want to start arguing about the price as I knew I could not win. I also have a flight from Siem Reap to the Philippines so I really needed to get to Cambodia. It took maybe 5min to get the visa and altogether the border crossings took maybe an hour. I don’t know how long it would take if you took a bus straight from Bangkok to Siem Reap, maybe it would take longer then. So enter Cambodia! And all hell breaks loose. Tens of taxi drivers trying to lure you in and scam you. Gotta love it. They even just followed us despite us ignoring them. We sat down for a while to do some planning. We settled for a free shuttle bus to the bus station (which I think was not the official bus station) as the tickets prices were quite high to Siem Reap. However, we did not know any better so we purchased 10 dollar tickets for the bus. The bus was supposed to take two hours but naturally it took three. When they finally dropped us off, of course it wasn’t in the city center, rather a bus depot somewhere. There were tuk tuk drivers outside the bus just waiting to take us to a hostel/hotel of their choice where they could get commission. We said no so he told us the price is then 5 dollars to the city center each, as it is far away and there are no tuk tuk drivers anywhere. Bullshit, it’s Cambodia, tuk tuk drivers are everywhere. So we took our stuff and started walking away. A few other people joined us and we had walked for maybe like 50 meters when we came across the first tuk tuk driver so we took it. It was 2 dollars to the city. After the ride we realized it was really close and we could’ve walked. Well what can you do! Next up was to find a hostel. Turned out to be harder than we thought. Every place was either too expensive or already full. Eventually we found one called Mommy’s, which was cool and the room set us back 5 dollars a head. We rented bikes for the next day as we were planning to go see the temples at Angkor. It’s like the main reason why people come to Siem Reap. The city itself it nothing beautiful and at times it is quite touristy with a lot of bars, restaurants and souvenir shops. So next morning we started cycling towards the temple area which was like 5-6 km away from the city center. It was really easy to get there as it’s pretty much a straight road. However, we tried to enter trough a ‘wrong’ entrance as we could not buy tickets from there. And the people at the side entrance told us that it is a really long way to the main entrance and that we should take a tuk tuk there, only 5 dollars per person. Another scam tittidii. Fuck it, we’ll just cycle. It took us maybe 20 minutes to get to the main entrance (so far away). Purchased tickets for one day (20 dollars). They take a picture of you and attach it to the entrance ticket.
The ‘main’ temple area is not actually that big and you can get through it in a day. It’s the other temples that are farther away that take time. We had only one day and were quite happy with it. The temples and the scenery were magnificent. After getting back to the hostel we were dead tired and didn’t wanna do anything. Despite this, we pulled ourselves up and went for dinner, strolling around the night market and took a great massage to top it all off. Next day was departure day (for me) and we went to do a little shopping for some shirts and stuff. Then somehow ended up doing a small pub crawl in different bars hahahhaha.
Next destination was the Philippines where I met more Finnish people! More on my visit to the islands tomorrow as I am too tired now hahaha.
-Jani
