Back home, Finland

Hello everybody! It's been now a while I wrote here last time. But I have a very good excuse. I have been busy!
This post will be my last one considering my journeys in Southeast Asia. I hope you have liked to read these stories. I can tell you that this time what I spent in SE Asia has been more perfect, more beautiful and totally more exciting that I could have ever imagined. It was great time I had there but now it's time to look forward again. I have started to work in a finnish company and I will continue my studies later this year as well. I have to say "good bye" to Malaysia and other countries now but I know I will go there again some time.

Here's what happened during my last weeks but first I put a short conclusion here.

During my 7 months (not 9 months because I had to come home earlier than planned because I got a summer job) period in Southeast Asia I visited in the following countries: Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Hongkong, China and the Philippines. I had amazing 18 flights and I learned at least "thank you!" from every local language. I spent some time in deep blue sea but as well on high mountains. I walked through dense jungles, took bath in the most scenic and refreshing waterfalls. I had the luck to see the most amazing animals: huge turtles, different kind of sharks, dolphins, orangutans, monkeys, elephants, snakes, spiders and all the beautiful different birds and insects. I saw a few historical, the most stunning places such as Angkor Wat and the rice terraces in the North Philippines. And of course I met many different people from all over the world. We all shared the same thing -- endless thirst to see and experience new places and new things.

But what happened since I left from Penang last time. After two flights I finally arrived to Macao. That was an evening on May 6th. It came clear very soon that these people here don't speak English. I didn't have any travel guide with me and I didn't know where to go over the night. When I got to the town center I was lucky to meet a group of people who had Lonely Planet and they were willing to help me to find a place to stay. They knew one place that was relatively close and was meant to be quite cheap. I took a taxi but soon I realized that this taxi driver has no clue where to go. My Chinese is not that good that I could have a good conversation with him and his English wasn't good at all so after driving for 30 minutes he returned me to the same place where we left earlier and he let me know how sorry he was.
I didn't have a choice and I had to take another taxi driver. This time the driver found the right hotel.
Hotel was pretty good and quite cheap (even though a lot more expensive than what I had used to pay in SE Asia). I was tired and I wanted to go straight to sleep.
In the next morning I left to explore the narrow streets of Macao. They had some beautiful Portuguese style buildings.
Later that day I put an sms to my friend that I will come to Hongkong and he replied that I should take a ferry from Macao to Kowloon. So that's what I did.

He came to the ferry terminal to see me. JP (that's his name) had been living in Hongkong for about 8 months so he knew the metropolis pretty well. First we wanted to find a place for me to stay. So we walked to Tsim Sha Tsui and found a place from Mirador Mansion. I paid 130 $HK for my very small single room. It was in the 15th floor, had A/C, hot water and cable TV so I thought it was a pretty good deal.
JP was great. He didn't have many exams left so he had time to waste with me. We went to quite many different places in Hongkong and I got even a touch to Hongkong's night life which is pretty good!

On May 10th I took a train from Hongkong to China's border. I applied for a visa and got it pretty soon as well. I could have stayed in Shenzhen, China, for 5 days but I didn't have more time than just one day. I spent that day just walking in a Chinese city, looking at Chinese people and of course eating a Chinese food. And of course I had to spend some money on shopping because China is a very cheap country and I got some nice stuff with very cheap prices.

JP continued with his exams and I took a flight to the Philippines. Manila is a huge city and I got some problems right away when I entered the country. I crossed one street from a wrong place and a couple of "police men" came to me and said that I have to pay a fine. I was amazed because some local people had crossed the street from the same place and they didn't have to pay any fines. Well.. that's just how things work in this country. Everybody are very corrupted. I didn't have a choice and I had to pay 1000 pesos to that police man. (They asked me 2000 pesos in the beginning which is like 28 euros). At least I learned my lesson very fast. Don't trust anyone! Don't ask help from anyone! Don't go close to the police men! Following these rules I managed to survive in this, not so nice, country.

As soon as I could, I left away from Manila. First I headed to Talisay. That small place is famous for Taal Volcano, still active volcano. I spent 2 days in that very small place. On the second day I took a boat ride to the volcano. Everybody else used horses to climb up there but I decided to walk. After one hour very hot walk, I arrived to the top. The view was very nice and this was the first time for me to see an active volcano. I'm glad it didn't erupt :)

After Talisay I took a bus to north. To be exact, I took the bus to Baguio. There was a local girl sitting next to me and she was very willing to show me Baguio the next day. Baguio is on the mountains and it's quite cool there if you compare to Manila for example. I had a flu and didn't enjoy exploring Baguio so much.
This was the place I was meant to see JP again and so on one day I didn't have much to do so I went to see new Star Wars -movie. It was great and very cheap as well. Less than one euro.
JP arrived one evening and we shared the room then. In the next morning, very early, we took a bus ride to Banaue. Banaue is a small village and it's a place to stay before going to Batad. When you go to Batad, you can see something unique. The rice terraces there are more than 2000 years old and it is something breathtaking!
So when we got to Batad we rented a local guide to show us the places. We went to the rice terraces, walked around there and we also took a bath in a waterfall. All of this was nice and I forgot the bad things that happened to me in Manila.

But that wasn't all. When JP and I took a bus back to Manila, it arrived to Manila in 3.30 am. Very stupid time to arrive to that, not so nice, city. We took a taxi to the hotel. Taxi driver didn't want to use a meter. Well, we didn't care. We negotiated a good price anyway. On the way to the hotel, the taxi driver turned to a quiet street. We wondered that what's going on. Suddenly 2 "policemen" came to us and stopped our taxi. They asked us to show our passports because they were "searching for illegal immigrants". Everything seemed at least suspicious so we didn't want to show our passports. The other policeman wore an NFL jacket and came by a scooter. Real policemen, yeah right!! Finally we didn't have to pay any bribes this time and they let us go. We got to the hotel safely.

In the next day we met JP's college friends (2 Swedish guys) and we walked around Manila and saw the main sights there. Intramuro is quite nice and let's you know the history of the Philippines.

There was only one thing to left anymore. The main reason why we went to the Philippines: the beaches! Per, JP and me took a morning bus south from Manila and we headed to Mindoro island. There is Puerto Galera and some nice beaches. We went to a beach called "Big La Laguna" and found a nice place to stay from Scandinavian divers. We planned to dive on some day but we all suffered from flu so we couldn't dive. Well, there were enough to do anyway. Swimming in the sea, swimming in the pool, drinking beer in the sea, drinking beer in the pool and so on :D
I really enjoyed the beach life and knowing that it will be over soon I took every fun from it.

On the last day I finally realized that I am on my way back home. I took a flight from Manila to Honking. Spent 7 hours there shopping, eating and packing. In the evening May 28th, I continued from Hongkong to Bangkok and again to Helsinki, Finland. There was a small Taiwanese woman sitting next to me. She was going to Oslo, Norway, to meet her husband. I noticed that I enjoyed her company more than if there were some Finn sitting next to me. Weird!?

I arrived to Finland in the early morning of May 29th. I had to spend 7 hours at the airport because I was still waiting a flight to Tampere. My parents came to pick me up from Tampere airport and then 2 hours drive to home town.

In the next 5 days I suffered from very high fever and cold. I didn't like coming back to a cold country after spending 7 months in +32 degrees every day. I missed Malaysia and my friends there. I guess that's quite normal. My life was in SE Asia and now I had nothing again. I just knew that I had to continue forward. I moved to a new place in Finland, to a town called Hyvinkää and started working in a big company.

I still miss Malaysia. I miss the food there and mostly I miss my good friends there. On the other hand I am feeling good because I know that it's not impossible to go there again some day. Nearly not impossible. In fact it's very easy and not even too expensive. So I am positive that I will go there again some day. Some day indeed and I hope it's not too far in the future.

Pulau Penang, Malaysia

Yes, that's right. I came back "home". I flew from Kuching (Sarawak, Borneo) back to Penang on Tuesday May 3rd.

I spent one week in Kuching. I ate a lot of Roti Canai and Roti Telur (kind of bread with curry sauce, excellent taste). Then I visited a few natural parks: Kubah and Semenggoh. In Kubah I traveled in a jungle just by myself. I was alone there and followed a path that finally took me to a very nice waterfall. I bathed there and washed away all the spider nets that I had taken in the deep jungle. I didn't see any big wild animals (maybe a good thing, I am still alive ;) but many little ones. And the sound of jungle is something unique. I guess most of us have heard it from some nature documentaries.

The biggest thing in Semenggoh natural park is the Orang Utan rehabilitation centre. There I saw quite many semi-wild orang utans who came to get food from the centre. The biggest one who actually came very close to me, less than 3 meters, was a huge one. He walked very slowly, like showing everyone that he is the king of these jungles :)

Kuching is partly famous for its lively nightlife. That's one reason I wanted to see it. I met a few very nice groups of people there. On the first night I spent time with 3 American guys and 2 Dutch girls. The guys had just come back from some nearby village where they spent 4 days. The local people really loved these Americans and provided them everything they needed there. Food from the own garden and so on.
On the another night I spent time with 3 Swedish people. We went to bowling and eating together. We had a lot of fun. I didn't expect that I could enjoy the company of Swedish people that much, heh heh.

After spending about 6 weeks in Thailand, Cambodia and on Borneo, I wanted to come back here on Penang island for the last time. Even though traveling is fun, it is sometimes a bit hard. That's why I came here to relax, meet my friends for one more time, eat the great local food and shopping of course ;) I think I have to send one more package to Finland.. clothes and souvenirs. Malaysia is a really cheap place to send packages overseas. For example sending one big box (under 15 kgs) to Europe costs like 20-25 euros.

When I came here, I wasn't actually sure if I can stay in Sunny Ville anymore. Our rental agreement ended on May 3rd but I spoke with my landlord and he said that I can stay here till Friday.. and for free these few extra days, how cool is that!! :D
My housemates have left back to Finland already so now I am the last one enjoying about this awesome flat.

What else. So on Friday it's time to say finally good bye to Penang. I will fly to Kuala Lumpur on the afternoon and continue to Macau later on that day. I heard that there's not much to see in Macau so I will take a ferry to Hongkong on the next day.

My friend from Finland, is studying in Hongkong (HK), and I will go and meet him there. I don't know much about HK and I have planned to do no plans. I trust my friend will take me to the top places of Hongkong. At least we will take a deeper look to the nightlife scene in there and probably will do some shopping as well. I will spend one week in HK and I've actually been thinking to go to China's side maybe for one day. I could practise my Mandarin there (like I know anything, hah ;)

My final destination on this SE Asia tour will be the Philippines. My friend bought us airplane tickets from HK (that's the cheapest place to get them!). We will fly to Manila and then head to some beach location. I wanna do a few dives there and relax on the beach before it's time to fly back to HK on May 28th. On the same day I will continue to Bangkok and finally to Finland. In Finland I have my last flight (I counted it to be my 18th flight on this journey) to Tampere where I will reach on May 29th at 2.30 pm!

So before I will close this blog, I will have almost 4 more weeks to spend here in SE Asia. I am waiting to get back to Finland but at the same time I am still very happy to travel a bit more. I will update this blog later when there'll be something worth of writing. Till then, take care and see you people soon!

Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Borneo

Yes. Quite much have happened since I last time wrote here. A lot of diving and climbing to the Mount Kinabalu. Let's start with the diving :)

So in Semporna I went to Uncle Chang's diveshop and they had exactly what I wanted. A few fun dives at Pulau Sipadan. First I took 2 fundives and an accomodation in the close island - Pulau Mabul.

On Tuesday 18th of April I then left towards Sipadan. There was 6 divers and 4 snorklers in the same speedboat. We had all our equipments ready and finally when we reached P. Sipadan we went under water. First location was called South Point and it was famous for many different kind of fishes. And totally, in the first moment when I put my head under water and saw the clear water full of fishes, different colored and sized, I was amazed. I felt so happy and it was something totally awesome. On that trip we went to 18 meters and we saw many sharks (ao. white tip reef shark and leopard shark), big green turtles, easily and slowly 'flying' in the water. They were beautiful! Also we saw a school of jack fishes going in front of us. Never seen anything like this.

After the dive we went to Sipadan-island for relax a little bit before the second dive. Sipadan island is nowadays strictly restricted and there isn't many places you can go. That is because the army has made that island as their military base (has to have something to do with the kidnapping that happened a few years ago).

Second dive was at Barracuda point. This time we were unlucky and didn't see any Barracudas. Anyway it was a great experience although the visibility wasn't so good as on the first one. Also very strong current was something new to me.

After the dive we had a lunch together. Good local food. After eating was final dive for that day. Some people made 3 dives that day. I didn't. Anyway I came with them and when they dived I snorkeled. You don't always have to go deep down to see nice fishes and I enjoyed snorkeling as well.

On the evening, after the dives, our boat driver took us to Mabul island where some of us spent the night. We walked around the island and everyone (locals) were really interested about us. Always said 'hi! or 'hello!' and they wanted us to take pictures about them (with our cameras). It was so funny to them. They were purely interested about us, not about our money.

On the next day I took one more dive at Sipadan. That place was called a Turtle patch. Sipadan island is surrounded by an amazing coral reefs and right next to them is something quite unique. It gets deep very soon, I mean really deep! It's like a wall that continues 600 metres down to the bottom of the sea. On that dive we went next to the wall. It was a bit scary to be there (in 21 metres) and think that below you is only water.. about 580 metres :)
But we saw some great lobsters in a cave, very rare sight. Also a trigger fish attacked us. I guess we dived a little bit too close to its home, heh :)

Diving at Sipadan has been one of the best things here that had happen to me. It was such a nice experience that I will remember for a long time. I recommend for every diver Uncle Chang at Semporna, next to Dragon Inn. Everything went really great and the service was very good!

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I left from Semporna on Wednesday morning. I took a minibus to the Mount Kinabalu. I had some problems with the accomodation there but finally I got a bed from staff's room at Laban rata. So I rented a guide and we started our climbing on Thursday at noon. I was so excited about this climbing so I thought to take it as an excercise. It took for me only 2hrs and 45 mins to Laban rata. Which is 6km from the starting point. My guide said later that he had sometimes problems to follow me because I climbed so fast. I was suprised about my good fitness as well. I didn't know I was in this good condition. Nice suprise indeed :)

In the next morning we left towards the summit at 3.30. We reached the check point at 4.10 and because we went so fast again we relaxed there for an hour. Finally at 5.10 am we started our final climbing. I reached the summit at 5.55 am and the sun rised only a few minutes later. It was a beutiful sight. I am glad I climbed there and can now hold this precious memory.

Going down took us 3 hours and we were the first ones down there. Everyone were really suprised that someone is comnig down already when some people had just started the climb in the morning.

After quick shower I took a busride to Kota Kinabalu where I am now. I will spend here quite many days before leaving to Kuching, Sarawak, Borneo, on the next week.

Let's keep in touch.

Semporna, Sabah, Borneo

So, after Bangkok I flew back to Penang. I didn’t have much time this time but I wanted to go for tandoori chicken. God I missed that food.. it’s just so good!

In the next day I sent one package (13kg - clothes, school books etc.) to Finland and went to the airport again.

This time I had a flight to Kuala Lumpur and again to Tawau, Borneo. Well, flights didn’t go like planned and I needed to sleep one night at the airport in Kuala Lumpur. I can tell that sleeping there is not so nice. I guess it could be worse as well. At least I got about 5 hrs. sleep.

In the next morning I flew to Tawau. Again problems. AirAsia ‘lost’ my backbag. They promised to send it to Tawau on the next airplane. So I just went to Tawau center and booked a hotel room for one night (20 rm with A/C, not bad!).

Tawau wasn’t the nicest city I’ve been in but not too bad either. I played snooker with a few local guys (they were too good for me, I lost all the games :) and we had a few tigers (Singaporean beer) at the same time.

I got my backbag back in the next morning and then I took a minivan ride to Semporna.

Now I am here and so excited. I will dive tomorrow (twice) at the world’s best diving location (at least the most famous one) – Sipadan island!

I will comment here how the dives went. I have quite big expectations!

Bangkok, Thailand

Yeah, I finally got here. And the pleasant thing was that the night bus wasn't so bad at all what I expected it to be. So I reached Bangkok on Monday morning at 6.30 am. not tired at all. At that time it was more difficult to find a cheap room from a guest house than I thought. But finally I found a double room from My House Guest House at 250 Bahts. In the next day I changed it to a single room at 190 Bahts. It's ok price in this very nice and a clean guest house.

What have I been doing here. First I went to a tailor shop and ordered a custom made suit with couple shirts and ties. Nice!

Last time I was in Bangkok we saw most of the interesting sightseeings but not Wat Phra Keow so this time I really had to go and see this magnificent place. Ticket was 250 Bahts but it was so worth it. Beautiful big temples and a lot of buddhists praying. Also a nice museum. Oh my Buddha!

I have also been trying to get to know the local bus network. It is so cheap if you just knew how to use it efficiently. Once I took a bus from (former) World trade center to Wat Phra Keow which was only 4 Bahts - with taxi more than 30 Bahts. This would be no doubt the way I travelled here if I spent more time in Bangkok.

I am glad I stayed here on mid April. I didn't know that this is a special time for these local people here because they celebrate their new year. It is Songkran - time of the water festival.
Local people (and most of the tourists) have gone totally crazy and they throw water onto each other and put some kind of white paint on people's faces to wish them good luck. Almost everybody are carrying a water pistol or whatsoever and they shoot water all over. And that means of course that everybody are more or less wet - usually more :)
But everybody seems to enjoy this special festival and so do I!

Today is Thursday 14th of April. It is time for me to fly back to Malaysia. I have enjoyed beeing in Thailand a lot and I will miss this country and these happy people here. I will most likely return here some day.

Tomorrow I continue my trip from Penang to Borneo island. I will fly to Tawau, a city that I don't know much about. It lies in Sabah's SE coast. Will see what's gonna happen there.
Will continue writing here so stay tuned :)

Chiangmai, Thailand

In Battambang I rented a motorbike and left to explore the countryside. It wasn't far away and I really enjoyed talking to people there. Well, talking may not be the exact truth because not many people there spoke any English. It was more smiling and bodylanguage. I met few nice people near the river about 15 km from Battambang. The other was a student and could speak some English. He told me that his mother gives him money ($300) every year to go to the school. That's very rare and he is really lucky. He studied management. The other one made bambu drinks for people for 300 Riels. That's about $0,10. She didn't speak any English but made me one drink anyway. That was really sweet. Now I know what bambu juice tastes like :)

The next morning I took taxi to the border. From border a train to Bangkok and again to Chiangmai.

Now I have spent one week here in northern Thailand. I have really enjoyed the 'cool' climate here. And cheap prices as well. I pay for my single room in Lanna guesthouse 80 Bahts per night.

I took apart to a trekking. From Wednesday morning to Friday evening. That was really nice experience. Our group was 10 people. 6 from Japan, 2 from Canada, one Brazilian and me. The trek included quite much walking (which was the best part), we saw two hill tribes (Lahu and Akha), we rided with elephants and went down the river with bambu rafts. The trek was 1800 Bahts and included everything but drinks and snacks. I really recommend this!

Tonight I will leave to Bangkok by night bus. I hate night buses but it's so much cheaper than train so I decided to take the bus.

I am waiting to get back to Malaysia. I miss the food and my friends there.

Take care guys. I will keep posting here once a while. :)

Battambang, Cambodia

Hello People!
A lot has happened again since I wrote here last time. Here's a short post from me. The most exciting part in the end of this chapter.

First I went to Sepang, Kuala Lumpur, to see the formula 1 racing. It was a nice experience but maybe something I don't wanna experience again. Whole day was pretty much just waiting. Waiting for the taxi, airplane, busses, beginning of the race and so on. It was really hot day and the formulas were loud as he*l. But they went really fast! :)

Few days later we (me, Pekka and our local friend Ida) left to Thailand to Koh Samui. We met there Pekka's friend Janne from Finland. Samui is a nice island but big one. We didn't see much of it in the end. Because it was full moon time we just had to go to Koh Phangan to see the famous Full moon parties. Nice parties indeed (good music and cheap drinks) but actually a lot less people than I thought.

After Koh Samui we had to say farewells to Ida and me, Pekka and Janne headed to Surat Thani. Taking a night train to Bangkok. They didn't have 2nd class places left so we had to take 1st class tickets. The difference between the sleeping beds is very small.

In Bangkok we just wanted to find a cheap place for one night because we wanted to leave to Siam Reap in the next morning. We found a place called Kik Kik Kik, very close to Th. Khao San and it costed about 100 Bahts per night per person. In the next morning we took a bus to Cambodia. The journey to Thai-border went pretty ok. But after the border when we changed the bus everything changed totally. The roads in Cambodia are in really bad shape. The journey from the border to Siam Reap, which is about 150 km, took 6 hours from us. In some point it started to rain and because the roads are maide of sand and stuff the whole road became very muddy and slippering. We got stucked in the mud in the middle of nowhere. Didn't know should I cry or laugh. Well, there was this one big truck who finally pulled us a little bit further. Thanks to those guys.In Siam Reap we spent 3 nights. Taking of course a minitour to Angkor Wat which was great. Angkor Wat is a collection of ruins and temples near Siam Reap which was constructed by Khmer kings between 800-1200.

After Siam Reap me and Jouko (one finnish traveller) left to Battambang. We took the boat that was supposed to take us to Battambang in 5-6 hours. But because it was dry season and there weren't much water the whole trip lasted about 9 hours. I got really sick during that trip. But in Battambang after sleeping a lot and taking good medication I got healthy again.
Last night here in Battambang me and Jouko woke up suddenly when we heard a powerful explosion. Part of our ceiling came down and the first thing I had in my mind was that there had been a bomb attack against our hotel (there were many western tourists at that moment). Explosion happened about 2.30 am and we went down soon to see what had happened. Most of the people had went there and people were a little bit scared. No one knew what had happened.Later we heard that there had been a fire in the nearby military base. Their rockets and other ammunitions had exploded. Our hotel was about 3-4 km from there and still a lot of damage had happened.I am glad that there wasn't anything dangerous thoughts against us and I can continue my normal life here in Cambodia.Tomorrow I am gonna check the few sightseings here and then head back to Thailand and to Laos maybe.

I am feeling good and it has been interesting time here in Southeast Asia so far. Let's keep in touch!