Travels in South-East Asia - Line Begby
A selection of some emails sent home from Line Begby
JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL MAY
KOH SAMUI January 16. 2003
Not even a week has passed since I left Norway, but it feels so much longer. At least like two weeks.
We left from Bergen to Amsterdam last Friday, and there we changed plane to Kuala Lumpur. What a plane! I have never been on the plane for more than two-three hours at the time, so I was very suprised when I entered and I saw three rows of chairs with two and three chairs in each row. A really big plane, in other words. We got blankets and head-sets for music and films. Unfortunatly, I wasn't able to get much sleep on the journey over. Maximum 10 minutes. It was not very comfortable chairs to sleep in.
So, 30 minutes or so before we landed, my friend Jorgen discovered that his visa had expired over a year ago! He was risking not being able to enter Malaysia at all. We got really nervous, of course, and wondered about what to do. Did he have to go back and leave me there all alone? We crossed our fingers that the guards didn't check the dates too closely, but we knew there were small chances of that. We had to contact the embassy in KL. We landed, and of course he wasn't allowed to pass the passport-control. I could enter, but in that case I wouldn't be able to go back and stay with him, so I stayed. We were taken to an office with a lot of stern looking men with uniforms, and were told to call the embassy, but since it was Saturday, the office probably wouldn't open untill Monday. That meant that we would have to stay at the airport for two nights. Great! The guards didn't want to help us, so we were left all on our own. So what did we do? Luckily, I had brought several phonenumbers with me, and after a lot of calls we got a norwegian lady from the embassy to come to the airport and make him a visa. So everything went well, happily. We rode with her to KL, and she took us to a luxurious hotel. We decided to stay there for two days.
We were not too impressed by KL, so we went to Thailand with buses. We arrived here at Koh Samui Monday, and we now have our own little bungalow with terrasse, and it lies 3 minutes away from the beach. The surroundings are Paradise. Crystal blue water, white beaches... palm trees etc. etc. I can really get used to this!
So here we'll stay for at least a week. The weather is wonderful, and tomorrow we'll go to The Full Moon Party at Koh Phang Ngan, a very famous party where thousands of backpackers go to have fun. That will be quite interesting.
So, right now I don't have much more to tell. I had thai massage today, and I really have to learn to haggle on the prices down here. I'm just too kind! We have found a great place to eat, and the food is wonderful. I have got a serious tan already, so when I come back home I will look like a chocolate on two legs!
KOH SAMUI 2 - January 24 2003
I'm still at the wonderful island of Koh Samui, and here are the latest events:
We had to change bungalow, because our first one was overcrowded of ants! Thousands of them, so when we were at the bathroom they came swirming against us! Poor Joergen was sitting at the toilet when the attack was launched! It was disgusting, so now I have a bit of paranoia against those small innocent insects. The new bungalow is ant-free, but I think the problem may have been caused by the fact that we ate sweet things inside. Now we have learned...
Some days ago we were supposed to go to a little sightseeing on the southern part of the island.We booked a scooter-taxi and went to the first temple, but it was not much to look at, so we took a picture and went on to the next, where we saw a mummified munk who had been dead for 30 years, but still wore sunglasses and had hair and nails that grew. Cool. Then, we went to a place where we thought we could walk for a long time and look at things. But it was completely deserted, so we decided to go back home. But the taxi had left, and we had no idea how to go back. It was 10 kilometres back to Lamai beach and very hot! I stuck my tumb out at the sight of the first pickup that came along, and we hitch-hiked with the car. We said that we wanted to go to Lamai, but when we were there, the car just when on going. We didn't mind, so we just sat there and wondered where we would end up. We figured it was a nice way to go north to the island. Finally, the pickup-driver stopped in front of a big shopping-mall.Tesco Lotus. Since we were there, we decided to go inside and take a look. Joergen bought som nice clothes to a good price, and we also got some fruit and octopussy-chips. Very interesting. Then we booked two taxi-scooters and went home. Not exactely the day we had planned, but we were quite satisfied.
The next day we hired a motorbike for a sightseeing at the island. After some jumps and husks, we went going. A bit unusual to drive at the left side of the road, but other than that, we didnt have any problems. It was a great experience to go down the road with the wind in our hair (no helmets!) and just look at the palm-trees passing by. We visited a big Buddha-statue, saw some buffaloes, but skipped a lot of other sights because we just enjoyed the ride in itself so much. We drove around the whole island in about two and a half hour without stop.
Yesterday we relaxed a bit. Just hired some water-scooters/jet-skis and had a lot of fun. In my red bikini and red scooter I felt like a real Baywatch-babe! I got really good at turning around 180 degrees in a couple of seconds and launching forwards again as the water spun around me! A real adrenalin-kick!
As some of you have remembered, I was at the famous Full Moon Party. It was incredible! A long beach full of bars and discos and ten thousand people just partying. It was an amazing sight, and I danced my butt off! But about 4 o clock I felt like going back home, and went back to where the boats would take us back to our island. (the party was at the island Koh Phang Ngang). But because of the complete chaos and all the people, I wasn't leaving until 6 o clock! And impatient and tired as I was, I was quite grumpy when I finally came home at 7 o clock. Joergen came home at 9.
I'm starting to be a bit bored of Koh Samui now. Too many shops that are all the same, and in the street there is this car going back and forth all the time playing loud music to announce MOAY THAI, MOAY THAI, all the time. That is thai-boxing matches. Still haven't been to one. Yet.
Today we'll pick up some tailor-made clothes we have ordered. Joergen has bought one suit and two shirts, and I have bought one suit with pants and skirt and one shirt. My outfit costs 750 NOK. Not bad, but I could have bargained a lot more. But I hate bargaining!Anyway, I hope my clothes will be perfect.
So now we have been here for 10 days or so. In three days we go to Koh Tao, a little island further up north. Not as touristy or big or beautiful as Koh Samui, but excellent for snorkelling and diving. We will stay there for about one week before we head to Bangkok to get visas for Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
In one way it will be a bit sad leaving this island, because we start to know a lot of people here by now. Especially one thai-swiss family who own a restaurant where we eat dinner almost every night. But they are shutting down at the end of the month, so perhaps it's just as good. Other than that, we have met some swedish girls here, a norwegian elderly couple, and a lot of germans.
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