"How can we escape this taxi alive?"-Chinese New Year Part 3: Jakarta, Indonesia

Hello

So it's been a while since my last installment to our CNY travel adventures, and isntead of looking at my pre-work for a protein lab next week, I decided I would much rather write the 3rd part, so here it is. We only stayed in Jakarta for 2N 1D, so it's going to be a shorter blog.

Who: Anna, Vicky and I
Where: Jakarta, Indonesia

The Taxi Story

So this is where our time in Jakarta begins, at the airport, getting into a taxi. As it turns out, we got massively ripped off (by about 3x), but that's only a minor detail in this tale. Anna had booked the hostel/guesthouse for us this time, and on her piece of paper from them, it said "travel time from airport to Guesthouse: 30minutes." Admittedly, Jakarta is the second worse place on earth for traffic, so we knew it might take a while longer than that - and oh boy did it.

After travelling for about an hour (now on a motorway,) I attempted to ask our driver how long it was - to which he responded "not far, not far, 30minutes." His English was limited, so communication wasn't easy. Cue thirty minutes later, still on some motorway. I now notice (NB: the taxi was a people carrier style one, so nothing on the outside to indicate it was a taxi,) that there's nothing taxi-ish on the inside of it - no official number, no taxi driver ID, no meter. Ok..... Here comes the slight paranoia. Again, I ask him how long it is, and he says "soon," or something to that affect. It's fast getting dark, and I've realised we're stuck in a taxi that's seemingly already taking 3x the amount of time to get our destination (with no destination in sight,) and to top it off, the taxi might as well not be a taxi at all.

2 hours into the journey. It's now dark outside, and we've come off the motorway. I can hear the girls behind me whispering to each other and rustling around in their bags, removing passports and purses, ensuring they are on their persons.

2 and a half hours into the journey. We pull of a main road and start to drive down what looks like a more residential road, dimly light, and seemingly in the middle of nowhere for all we know (we thought our guesthouse was going to be somewhere in Jakarta, so had expected to end up in something resembling a city by now at least). Driving past two guys standing on the side of the road, the taxi slows, and stops.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," our taxi driver mumbles to us, before getting out of the taxi, locking it, and walking down to see the two guys we just drove past.

Looking back in the taxi, Anna and Vicky are just as worried and on edge about the fact we're in the middle of nowhere, and he just got out apologizing to us. Drop the sphygmometer, I wouldn't have needed a device with the longest name ever to tell me that my blood pressure was probably sky high at this point in time. Now, we're all pretty much convinced this it - we're either going to get mugged here for all we're worth, shot in some random field, and it's all going to go downhill like "Taken," except this time, there's no Liam Neeson to save us.

It's ok. We survived. Turns out he was just asking them for directions, they weren't his cronies hellbent on mugging some white tourists. Phew. That was a relief and a half. The directions they gave him weren't any good either though.

After about 3hrs, he decided he might be a smart idea to phone the guesthouse for directions, and we finally arrived, all in one piece, after three and a half hours in the taxi. Speaking to Anna and Vicky afterwards, they both in their heads had been thinking of when to take out the taxi driver and make a run for it - and I can say they weren't alone in trying to come up with escape plans.

Tamara Guesthouse

So, this was our home for the brief stay we had in Jakarta. Turns out it wasn't anywhere near the city centrally, so not the best location at all - false advertising! The main lady in charge, was an American called Joy, and to say she was eccentric was to put it lightly. Insanely clever, but absoultely crazy, and could talk the backlegs off a donkey - in the evenings we tried to take it in shifts, letting one person go escape to the shower, whilst the other two tried to survive a conversation with her.

Despite her personality, she had our utter best interests at heart, and the Guesthouse was a great place to stay. All meals were provided by the handyman-chef called Ignaice, the silent character to Joy's endless chatter. Tea and Coffee's were provided en masse (much to the happiness of my ever growing Caffiene addiction.) The whole place's decoration was almost colonial in design, with grand glass chandeliers and fancy two-story rooms, it was a bit like walking back in time.

Two photos of our room. The girls slept in a bed on the upper floor, whilst my mattress was just to the left of the green desk in photo 1. You could have easily lived in this space for a period of time.

As we only had one day in Jakarta to spend doing things, we asked Joy over breakfeast what was the best tourist thing to do around. Turns out, there isn't a whole to do tourist wise, but we ended up heading to somewhere called "Taman-mini." I'll do my best to explain it. It's a large park, fulled with completely different sections. There's a reptile house, a bird park, a cable car ride, an Indonesian Culture Museum, a Science Learning Museum, a Disney-esque castle and a boating lake, and that's just what I can remember. Definitely an odd place. There was enough to keep us entertained for the whole day however, as we wondered around exploring different parts (including me touching a snake - it involved about 5 minutes of slowly edging closer to it, my hands shaking more than a leaf in a storm. I'd like to point out it wasn't just a small snake, but some kind of python, and about 4-5ft in length.) 

Twice during our time at Taman-mini, we had what I'm dubbing the "Tourist Celebrity Experience." If you're a fellow international student out here in Malaysia, I'm sure you've experience this one, be it here in Malaysia, or abroad on your travels too. The first was with another group of Tourists from the Middle-East, who stopped us and asked for a photo. You want us to take a photo of you? Nonon, we want a photo of you with our young (5-8 I'd say,) children. Riiiiight. The next was with a bunch of high school children who wanted to interview us for some English Project (just prior to this we had brought ice creams, so any of their photos/footage of us will contain us holding ice creams...)

We left the next day, after Ignaice cooked us Ommlettes for breakfeast, an early taxi taking us to the airport (this time, without hiccup... thankfully,) marking the end of our short hop into Jakarta. With hindsight, Jakarta isn't the most touristy of locations, but it was another stamp into the passport, and I can now say I've been to Jakarta. We had fun at Taman mini, and all have left with the Taxi story forever ingrained in our minds. Next stop was KL for a brief stopover for Vicky and I, as we were to say goodbye to Anna before journeying onwards to our last stop - Hong Kong. That blog might be written tomorrow, I'll see how I feel.

Missing everyone loads,

\

Jacob xxx

Wat you looking at? - Chinese New Year Part 2: Cambodia

Title pun from the ever funny Vicky.

Here we are, back again, installment number two, which I'm sure will either be met with groans of "who ever let Jacob touch a keyboard," or "I guess I should be reading this..." Either way, I appreciate the reading <3
The accompanying photo album can be found on my facebook page.


Where: Siem Reap, Cambodia
Who: Anna, Vicky and I
When: 25th-29th Jan 2014

Yes, you've read that right, Alice dropped us like it's hot. We all had an emotional farewell at the airport in Bangkok, before trying to come to terms with it - acceptance is the first stage, or so I've been told. Srsly though, Alice had different travel plans, so we parted ways as she went onwards towards Hong Kong.

Travelling in style
Our ride from the airport to our hostel. Not quite what we expected. 

By the time we arrived on the 25th, it was getting late, so after a quick check into the hostel, we went to find dinner and then slept - we're the biggest party animals around.

Our hostel room. Again, practically luxury.
Anna makes a cameo apperance.

If you're to ask anyone what they know about Cambodia, odds are the first thing they will say is Temples/Angkor Wat. And no, you're not getting a citation on that one. As such, our first activity was to go see some temples. And by some, I mean lots. Angkor Wat? Check. Angkor Thom? Check. Bayon? Check. Ta Prohm? Check.

Jacob, what are all those words?! You may ask, and I'm going to give you a quick and easy way to distinguish between the aforementioned temples (only a few out of probably hundreds...) so you too, can sound like you know all about Cambodian history and impress your date when she/he turns out to be writing a dissertation on the architecture of Angkor Thom. Or y'know, just for general knowledge. Whatever floats your boat.

Angkor Wat: The big famous one (a complex)
Angkor Thom: Also big, not as famous (a complex)\
Bayon: The one with stone faces
Ta Prohm: The one Laura Croft was in.

Simple. For Angkor Wat, we ended up hiring a tour guide, a man who approached us within the complex, and assured us that he knew "everything there was to know," and he did seem pretty clued in. I highly suggest doing this for at least Angkor Wat if you're not going in with a pre-booked tour group, or spending a few hours reading Wikipedia before/afterwards. All in all, we spent about 7~ hours looking at various Temples - a short amount of time according to our hostel staff. If you want to spend days there, it's perfectly possible, but I feel we got to see the main ones, and that was enough for us.

Listening to our tour guide, the man in the blue

Somewhere towards the top on the main Angkor Wat Temple

That night, our tuktuk driver for the day, suggested we go to a "dinner dance" which is where whilst you're having dinner, there is traditional Cambodian dances taking place on a stage. Whilst what we got to see of the dances was good, the time he said it started at, was about 15minutes before it actually ended. Bit of a shame. Headed for more central Siem Reap, we explored the night markets, which were a nice mix of touristy things, as well as more traditional crafts and the like. After grabbing dinner, we sat in a bar on Pub Street (think a strip full of Bars and Westerners, and you're on the right track), listening to live music, and waiting to see if Hector, Faye, Alice (Brooks) and Joe would materialize - they were also in Siem Reap at the same time, and we'd roughlyish arranged to meet up with them (they did).

What happened then? A standard night of cheap alcohol and merriment? That'd be too standard and un-eventful for a night out when travelling. Around midnight, Hector left us - his stomach wasn't feeling too good, and Joe decided he fancied some ice-cream from a certain shop, so we parted - or so we thought. Within probably a minute of leaving us, Alice B spies the silhouette of Hector definitely not feeling good on the side of the road, and starts running to get to him. The rest of us see her running, and think "ooooh, running, sounds fun," and join in, before learning that she's actually not doing it for the fun of it. Cue dramatic music, as a motorbike drives by, before the back wheel skids out, sending the bike and it's two passengers skidding across the road right infront of us, sparks and all. Thankfully they weren't going that fast, so as they stand up, I got the bike up (gotta get my workouts in somehow when travelling...) and out of the road, as the rest check to see if they are ok. Seemingly un-shaken, the hop back on and drive off. Riiiight, that's not how a standard night out normally ends - both events took place within the space of about 30 seconds. Deciding to call it a night before anything else happened, we parted ways.

The Cambodian Trio

The next day wasn't the most productive surprisingly, we had a lazy start (with lots of water and ibuprofen for me on the menu,) before walking to the Angkor Wat National Museum. Ok, so it doesn't sound like the craziest of activities, but it was actually pretty good, with 8 different galleries, and enough information to soak your brain cells in for hours, I'd say it was worth doing. That evening we went to see a circus show. The circus was run by a charity called PPS, which also runs a school, giving kids from disadvantaged/rough backgrounds an education in trades and arts. This gives the temples a run for their money for my favourite part of our stay in Siem Reap, easily. 

For our final day, we spent the morning looking at various craft workshops/locations, which turned out to be not as good as we had hoped. The mainly consisted of a brief tour around the process and what was being done at each one, before being dropped into the shop to buy those products - we went to a soap one, and an art one. In the afternoon, we went to the Landmine Museum, which was a 45minute tuktuk drive away, but worth every moment. I had a brief idea about the recent tumultuous history of Cambodia, but learnt many things that I wasn't aware of , as well as being exposed to the very real effects that are still being felt by Cambodians today. Afterwards, we headed to the very serene Peace Cafe, which felt appropriate after learning about the horrors of past conflicts. That night, we met up with the others again for dinner, before we left for Indonesia the next morning, and they moved down to Pheom Penh. 

Reflecting on all of our travels, Cambodia was my favorite destination, and I'd quite like to visit Phenom Penh sometime. A wonderful country, with very friendly people, and steeped in history - both ancient and grandiose, as well as the more recent and raw. 

Of Protests, Buddhas and Elephants - Chinese New Year Part 1: Bangkok

Hellllllllllo,

I'm now back on campus! Woooo, bring out the welcoming party. Or not. Arriving back last night was somewhat of a shock to the system; I'm not used to going away, and then coming back to somewhere that isn't actually home - and campus is like a ghost town at the moment. Before I get onto the meat of the first part of our adventure, here's a little something I recently recived that I wanted to share. I about squealed and would've jumped off the bed if there was room in our tiny Hong Kong hostel room.

There may be a lack of photos in this blog, and (at current) a lacking accompanying photo album on facebook. Erm, that's because I accidentally managed to delete the photos off of the camera for Bangkok, in my efforts to collate them all - I made a new folder on the camera itself, to put them in that one from various locations on the camera. Unplug the camera, move up to TCR for fast upload, open up camera folders - and it's gone. Smart one Jacob! So until I can get hold of a USB Memory Card Reader, and then attempt to run data recovery programs on that, I have none of the photos I took from our trip to Thailand... So if you're reading this, and are near campus/on campus and have a card reader I can borrow for 30mins tops, please save me <3 To make up for that in the meantime, the collection of quotes from our holiday will also go up today.

Thailand

Who:Alice, Anna, Vicky and I
Where: Bangkok, Thailand
How Long: Three days

After what seemed like the longest exam period ever, the four of us set off to LCCT on the 22nd of Janurary to begin the much needed holiday. Being the clued up travellers we are, we had all been keeping a (nervously so) close eye on the recent developments in Bangkok - including the government declaring a "State of Emergency" in the capital. As such, we arrived knowing the dangers and risks, and what to avoid (the protest areas.) Upon perhaps two hours of arriving at our Hotel (Lemontea Hotel in Pratanum, a great place to stay, and very reasonably priced,) we'd managed to walk into one of the protests. Oops.

As it turns out, we need not have been so worried about it. The protest area we wondered into, was one of the main streets in Bangkok, that they are currently camped out in, and have been for some time. Street stalls line the road, the shops behind doubtlessly annoyed at the lasting intrusions. If you want a t-shirt saying "Shutdown Bangkok," then you're in the right place. The opposition leader was making a speech a street over, and we could hear his voice booming over the microphone, the speakers and large screen broadcasting him weren't quite necessary this close by. Enough excitment we decided for night, lest we start feeling rather Che-Guevarat-esque, we left to go do a bit of exploring around the area, and wondered through some of the night market stalls, grabbing dinner at a restaurant on the way.

All of a sudden my hair started to grow out, and a most wonderful 'stache graced my upper lip upon entering the protests.

At the airport, in the process of booking a taxi, we had stumbled across a tour operator. This was to be the basis of our first whole day in Bangkok. The tour bus and our guide picked us up in the morning (of the 23rd,) for the "Temple and City Tour," visiting two large Buddah Statues in two seperate temples around Bangkok. For the un-aware, there are a total of 8 differennt Buddah poses seen in statues, with each being assigned to a different day (Wednesday has two, the greedy thing,) and the one that you pray to, is the one assigned to your day of birth. The first Buddah we saw, was the "medidating buddah," one made of solid gold(I think?), and weighing in at a hefty 5.5tonnes.  Next up was the "Reclining Buddah," and this one happened to be the 3rd (only 3rd?!) largest Buddah in Thailand. At a crazy 15m high, and 46m long, it was fairly impressive to say the least. Not solid gold this time though.                                        

Down by the feet.
Once again, photo from Alice, as you all know the saga of mine...

And here is a picture, from Alice.
 I'll learn to open my eyes in photos one day

The rest of our tour (City) was just being driven around to see a few governmental buildings, the Royal Palace (which is private,) and then a jeweler shop and a tailors - the last two being fairly common type stops at the end of tours as we've learnt, with the drivers/guides receiving bonuses/benefits for taking people to these places, so we just pretended to be interested in the things before making excuses to leave. In the afternoon, the girls went off for a Thai massage (the sign stated in no uncertain terms that it was JUST a massage,) whilst I grabbed a power-nap back in the hotel room. Before leaving our tour guide, we booked onto a tour for the next day, and bought tickets for a Cabaret show in the evening, at somewhere called "Asiatique," a short boat ride away down the river. The whole Asiatique area had lots of restaurants and bars, as well as good views of the river and Bangkok skyline. I can't say I had ever been to a Cabaret show, so it was an experience, but a very good one at that. A drink being included in the ticket price was a nice bonus too - evenmoreso when it started with G and ended in "in and tonic." I didn't start giggling, don't worry. 

Photo with performers after the show.
 Don't ask me to tell you who's a he and who's a she.

 

Our tours for the second day (24th) involved a lovely early morning start, as we had to drive 90min outside of Bangkok -destined for the floating markets. I wish I had my photos now, as I've got a great one of Vicky and a floating fruit seller re-enacting Michealangelo's famous "Creation of Adam,"(clothed...) as adorns the Sistine Chapel, but that'll have to wait till I manage to recover the photos... :( The floating markets were really good, lots of touristy things, but also more traditional sellers on their small boats up and down the river/canals, selling fresh fruit, noodles (they cooked on these tiny boats - pretty much wooden kayaks,) fried bananas and more. There was also, much less to my enjoyment, various stalls with large snakes for photo opportunities, never once failing to trigger what felt like my fight and flight response every time we had to walk past once. Next on the list of acitivites, was riding an elephant. I'll share with you, a pearl of humour from this activity. 

"Why did the chicken cross the road?"

"Because were coming on an elephant."

Anna and Alice's elephant saying hello. 

In the afternoon, we were headed to a show/Zoo place of sorts. Not before a buffet lunch of course. Om nom nom Thai food. The first show, as befitting for Thailand, was an Elephant show. It went through the cultural and historica signifcance of Elephants to the nation, as well as more silly things, like Elephants playing football or doing handstands. There was even a mini battle re-enactment involving Elephants, which still sounded a tadge risky, with fake explosions and sword fighting happening around these large animals. It was a very good show, and one I'd recommend anyone visting Thailand to try and see something similar.The same place also had a crocodile wrestling show, yet this one wasn't as good. The two guys seemed to just be provoking the animals by dragging them out of the water, and then putting various limbs/bodyparts into their mouths. Hey, perhaps it's perfectly safe, it just seemed a little too far for me. The evening was a chilled one, resting of what was a rather busy day.

The 25th, sadly, was our last day in Thailand. We didn't do much, had a lazy morning and packed, before heading off to the Airport to see Alice off on her travels as she was leaving us, and then waiting around a fair while (too many hours for me to want to remember) for our flight. We passed the time reading books, being silly and thinking about what we were gonna do in our next destination - Siem Reap, Cambodia. 

That's it for Thailand, and once again, sorry for the lack of photos from yours truly at present - I'm a numpty.Hopefully I can sort it out, and I'll probably do Cambodia's blog tomorrow, or maybe this evening. For now I'm off to the gym (it's been two weeks, I've gotten serious withdrawal symptoms,) 

And no, for anyone asking, we didn't go to see a Ping Pong Show. 

Not that kind of Ping Pong.