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2007 - December - Back to index |
Did some ecotravelling today: took the local train to Lota, then bicycled along the Manly beach boulevard to Wynnum, visited the minuscule but awesome mangrove boardwalk to see hundreds of black-winged stilts, and finally took the train back to the city.
When I was a kid, I used to read preposterous amounts of books. I was also a big fan of science fiction and tech toys in general. If somebody at that time had told me that one day I would get a Christmas present that lets me read all the books in the world and weighs about 150 grams, I would've gone totally bananas. (I still think it's pretty nifty.) I hope everybody else liked their presents as well. A Very Harry Christmas!
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Batu Cave is a natural formation turned into a place of worship, conveniently an hour's bus ride north of the city centre (buses 11 and 11D from the Pudu Raya bus terminal). Its local inhabitants, cynomolgus monkeys, probably would not hesitate to steal candy from a baby.
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Coliseum Cafe near Little India is a lovely remnant from the age of imperialism and has excellent gin and tonics as well as newspaper clips on its walls with some rather splendid advice.
Back in Kuala Lumpur. Checked out the Christmas carnival at Mid Valley Megamall, spent the night near Jalan Bukit Bintang, and had the most exquisite dinner in the neighbourhood Chinese called Dragon View. This was the first time ever I had frog's legs, and by Jove, they were magnificent!
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A stone's throw from Siem Reap is Tonle Sap, a lake of prodigious proportions (on the first glimpse from the airplane I actually mistook it for an inland sea) dotted with floating villages. Didn't do my homework beforehand, so ended up visiting the most touristy one of them. Oh well, these things happen.
The next destination was far away in the middle of the jungle, so a bit of driving as well as a bit of hiking were required to reach the riverside carvings of Kbal Spean. Also, I'm happy to report that there were some cows.
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One more visit to the isolated Banteay Srey temple, one more sunset from top of Pre Rup, aaand it's a wrap.
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Soundtrack of my life Holiday in Cambodia Dead Kennedys |
The direct flight from Kuala Lumpur to Siem Reap was short and painless, the immigration with the electronic Visa (that I had printed myself two days earlier) even easier, at least for those who made it to the very beginning of the immigration queue. The people who made it there last may not feel quite the same: the Cambodian immigration officer needed to stamp each traveller's documents fifteen times (yes, I did count). After a quick peek at the Psar Chaa market I was off to see the marvels of Angkor Wat.
Ta Prohm is famous for providing the setting for the Tomb Raider movie. Too bad I didn't prepare myself for this trip by playing the video game all night long and pretending to be Angelina Jolie.
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The ruins in and around Angkor Wat are absolutely huge and the only way to see all of them, or even just the highlights, is by taxi. Angkor Thom alone covers approximately ten square kilometers. Displayed below: reliefs on the Terrace of the Elephants and the compact but stunning temple of Bayon.
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Angkor Wat itself was built in the early 12th century, and, unlike the other neighbouring khmer temples that have been dug out from the jungle only recently, has been an active place of worship ever since. Only the religion has kept changing.
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The walls of the temple have hundreds of bas-reliefs of court women, each with different characteristics, different jewelry and different props. Some of them are depicted together like these hugging girls. They make your mind wander. Were all the reliefs carved after real people (it would seem so)? Were these two best friends, or lovers, or both? Were they happy? What happened to them? Will anybody remember me when I'm dead? Is it possible to eat klunssi?
During the day I managed to lose my travel notes which said, among other things, that at sunset Phnom Bakheng should be avoided at all costs. However, having lost the bloody notes I just went with the crowd (or more like, with the taxi driver) and ended up in something not completely unlike the Stockmann department store during the Hullut Päivät sale. The view from the temple on top of the hill was nice alright, it's just that you saw very little of it and a lot of necks and tops of heads.
Air Asia, possibly the most megalomanic budget airline in the world, just expanded their network to Australia. Their first, and so far only, destination on this fine continent is the Coolangatta airport, some 100 kilometers south of Brissie, and their pricing policy tremendously aggressive, so obviously I had to give it a go. (After all, we are running out of oil at a quick pace, so I better hurry and use as much of it as possible so long as there is any! By the way, will someone let me know if they find a department store with snow leopard fur coats? They've been unavailable for ages and, you know, we're only six months from winter!)
Where was I? Oh yes, the first pit stop on the journey was an overnight transit in the Air Asia hub, Kuala Lumpur. Note to self: both the low-cost carrier terminal and the main terminal have the same airport code, KUL, although they are miles and miles apart - not a good thing if you've happened to book an airport hotel near the wrong terminal. Did get a chance to see Kuala Lumpur for the first time, though. Compared to many other Asian cities, Kuala Lumpur is modern, well-kept and civilized (although quite boring). However, the Malaysian politicians seem to have decided that it's much easier to avoid the transportational problems of the city than solve them, so they have built a huge new federal administrative center just outside the city in Putrajaya with the abundant oil money. -This is something I suspect Brisbane might end up doing in the long run as well. My home town keeps growing and the tax money from mining companies keeps pouring in, but the best plans for solving the already horrendous traffic jams of South East Queensland involve discontinuing five (5) bus stops in the whole city to speed up the bus traffic, while not a single new train or metro line is planned for construction in the next eighteen (18) years...you get the picture.
I decided to start reading the Harry Potter septology now that all the books are out and I could no more be fooled into a painful wait for the next sequel. (I'm not exactly hoping to own all seven books, though - just to read them.) I started out by looking for the books in second hand bookstores, but surprisingly, few had them, and the ones that did were asking for ridiculous prices. I asked all my friends - one of them had the books, but, alas, in German; another one, in French; another, in English! But only parts IV, V, VI and VII...even the regular bookshop told me that the print for the first book was sold out. This went on for weeks! -Well, on this Saturday, I continued my quest by going to Toowong Village, because I had heard they have yet another second hand bookstore upstairs. I never made it to the bookstore, but on my way there I happened to notice that there was also a...library. Hmmmm...what were those places for, again...?
In the evening, Giulia threw her farewell party at Lorenzo's new house (and everybody else threw her into the pool). My thoughts fly to Europe with her.
Went diving on Cook Island and managed to get lost underwater, which was somewhat adventurous. Our dive boat was anchored off the northwest coast, and the dive plan was to swim north along the bottom from buoy 1 to buoy 3, then let the current carry us southwards back to the boat. The buoys were not numbered, however, and me and my dive buddy managed to swim all the way to buoy 4. There was a current there allright - it just happened to be going southeast, not south, and as the rental gear we were wearing had no compasses, we were blissfully ignorant of it. Ten minutes later, as we surfaced, we found ourselves on the other side of this minuscule island, out of sight to our dive boat. On the surface, the current was almost unbearably strong, taking us further away from the boat. We started to fill the safety sausage with compressed air to become more visible, but luckily a couple of dudes in their tiny boat noticed us and turned back to pick us up before we ended up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Scared more or less shitless, we spent most of the latter dive directly underneath our dive boat (which was completely cool; there were loads of stingrays and a huge turtle that decided to settle to rest on the bottom in slow motion).
