Summary of Asia

Our big journey has unfortunately come to an end. After South America we spent 2,5 months in Asia visiting eight countries. We are afraid that our bodies can't adjust to the 50 degree difference in temperature between Asia and Finland anymore. We are still happy to come back home and being able to eat ryebread with cheese, yammy! :)

The highlights of Asia

- snorkeling with giant turtles in the Philippines
- our luxury hotels in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok
- riding on the back of motorcycles in Cambodia and Indonesia
- jungle trek and the orang-utans in Sumatra
- Mui Ne's red fairy stream
- Scandinavian bakery in Vientiane (where we bought ginger bread)
- puppies, especially in Kep
- the food!

We won't miss

- slow internet connections
- smelly bathrooms
- mosques and the loud noice they make five times a day in muslim countries
- buses breaking down
- people smoking everywhere and blowing the smoke in our faces
- cold showers

Details we won't forget

- having shower curtain as a bathroom door in the Philippines
- preferring asian squatting toilets more than the western (if they are dirty that is, easier not to touch anything disgusting)
- having to pay stamp and overtime fees on the borders of Laos and Cambodia
- people calling us many things; we have been called ma'am, mister (!), miss, brother, young lady, mrs, lady (which always sounds like Lili)

Thank you all for following our journey through our blogg!

Luxurious life part II: Kuala Lumpur & Bangkok

We spent five weeks in KL and three days in Bangkok shopping and just enjoying ourselves. We hadn't shopped for five months (Singapore and LA don't count) so we had to make it up to ourselves.

View from our hotel room in KL

A sign in KL

Petronas twin towers, KL

After staying five months in budget accommodations (once again Singapore and LA don't count) we wanted to stay in a five star hotel in KL. And our hotel was like heaven! The beds were super comfy and the location was superb with pavilion shopping mall right next door :) Bangkok was our last stop before heading back home to cold and snowy Finland.

View from our hotel room in Bangkok, we stayed on the 48th floor

In the jungle

After Bali we wanted to visit Sumatra and flew to Medan. It is probably one of the ugliest cities we have ever seen. We felt like celebrities there as everyone was staring us, pointing their fingers at us, talking to us and even taking pictures of us. Luckily we didn't have to spend more than one evening in Medan. The next morning we left to Bukit Lawang to the jungle!

When we arrived in Bukit Lawang we were kind of bored as there really isn't much else to do than go to the jungle there. So the first day we met some locals who took us on their motorcycles (again without helmets, sorry mums!) to a shed in the middle of nowhere where they picked coconuts, snakefruits and cocoa fruits for us. They also took us to a lookout point and we had the most amazing corn on the cob there, yammy! :) In the evening the locals entertained us by playing guitar and drums and we sang along. Our favourite song was the business song! The melody is jingle bells and the lyrics go pretty much like this:

Jungle trek Jungle trek

In Bukit Lawang

See the monkey

See the bear

See orang-utan

Jungle trek Jungle trek

In Bukit Lawang

See the monkey

See Mina

And everybody run

Cacao fruit, it tasted nothing like chocolate :) Lili drinking coconut juice in the background



Pineapple!

 

Bukit Lawang in the background, we posing with our motorcycles

 The next morning we left for our two day long jungle trek. Our jungle trek included a lot of steep up- and downhills and the paths were nowhere to be seen. We had to climb up and down and be really careful not to fall or slip as the mud was really slippery. The first day we saw about nine orang-utans which is really rare. We also got to see the infamous Mina! Even Lonelyplanet has written her story in their guidebook. Mina is kind of aggressive and all the guides are really scared of her as many have been bitten or scratched. So when we heard Mina approaching us, the guides told us to walk really fast to the other direction as they fed her with bananas to keep her distracted. Apparently she was treated badly when she was a baby and that might be the reason for her aggressive behaviour. In the afternoon we also saw black gibbons. They were really cute with their big bellys. We were told we were going to sleep in a tent but as we reached our campsite all we saw was two big tarps where we had to sleep. The night was long! The ground was really hard and our backs and sides were aching so we weren't well rested the next day. The second day we went trekking by the river and had to cross it twice. This was almost impossible due to the strong stream, but luckily we managed to cross the river both times (with a little help from the guys). Our trekking on the second day was really dangerous. We had to walk on very slippery rocks and at one point our guide slipped and fell almost on top of Katja and they both almost fell to the river. We came back to Bukit Lawang in a tubing train. We were supposed to go rafting but instead the guides tied many huge inner tubes together making it a long tubing train.




The infamous orang-utan Mina with her baby



Having a break from running away from Mina on our jungle trek





One of the orang-utans we saw



Lunch break, eating like locals with our very clean hands



We "slept" under this tarp

 



Black gibbon



We were supposed to go rafting but instead we went train tubing

Pulau Weh was our last beach vacation before returning back to Finland. The island is really pretty and according to LonelyPlanet it is what Thailand's beaches used to be 20 years ago. We were just relaxing in Pulau Weh as we needed to save our energy to extreme shopping in Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. :) There are only six restaurants on the beach where we stayed and they all have the same menus and almost all of them are run by the same family. Service is extremely slow and you have to write down your order yourself. :)



Beautiful view in Pulau Weh



Our lunch view

 We wanted to spend a day in Banda Aceh too see all the tsunami sights. Banda Aceh was almost completely destroyed in the Boxing Day 2004 tsunami and about 75 000 people died because of it. We wanted to visit the tsunami museum but unfortunately it was closed for reconstruction which is kind of weird as it opened less than a year ago. That's why we visited the boat in the house which now serves as a tsunami memorial and the 2500-tonne power genrerator vessel that was carried 4 km inland by a wave. The whole tour took us about an hour and after that we had nothing to do. We didn't even want to go outside anymore after hearing an angry comment about the way we dress (we know this is a muslim country but it is way too hot to cover yourself up!). Luckily we managed to take us to De Helsinki Cafe without drawing too much attention to our bare legs and arms. (Martti Ahtisaari and Helsinki are famous here because the peace agreement between the Indonesian gowernment and the Achenese people who wanted to be an independent nation was mediated by him and took place in Helsinki).

Now we are off to our shopping spree/vacation in KL!



The boat in the house



2500-tonne power generator vessel



Travel-worn (but still not complaining)

We have now been traveling for about four months and it starts to feel like a full time job (just kidding :) ) but we are a bit tired of traveling and we don't get as excited about new things as we used to get. We have already seen so many nice white beaches, temples and beautiful sceneries that almost nothing has the "wow effect" for us anymore. Luckily in Bali when we visited Ubud we finally saw something we hadn't seen before; rice terraces! We also tried to come up with new activities to do and decided to go surfing; big mistake! We hired Kuta cowboys who taught us surfing and because the waves were way too big for us beginners we got both physical (Katja) and psychological (Lili) traumas. A huge wave smashed the surfboard right at Katja and she injured her knee and thigh and her body was/still is covered in bruises and she couldn't walk properly for a few days. Lili on the other hand almost got strangled by the rope that is attached to the surfboard and the surfer. A huge wave threw her off balance and when she was under water the rope got around her neck. Luckily she managed to get it off but the surfing was pretty much over for us. We didn't really mind because we both still had managed to stand up on our surfboards. :)




Rice terraces in Ubud



Hindu temple in Ubud, we had to wear sarongs to get in




We saw a lot of monkeys in Monkey forest sanctuary in Ubud

 We think that the people in Bali are a bit out of ordinary. Our driver told us that they never have holidays and even if they had time off they wouldn't know what to do. If they have extra money they give it to the temples and if they have extra time they have ceremonies in the temples. Also their naming system is a bit weird. Regardless of being male or female, each person receives one of four names based on birth order. The first born is called Wayan, the second born Made, the third Nyoman and the fourth Ketut. If the family has more than four children the fifth one will be called Wayan or Wayan Balik (Wayan again). :) So basically you can meet a family where the mum, dad and the first born all have the same name :)

Luxurious life in Singapore

Happy New Year from Singapore! (We are a bit late with our update due to internet connection problems :) )




Christmas decorations in one of the malls



Skyscapers


We spent three days in Singapore and celebrated New Year's Eve there as well. We wanted to have a break from budget accommodation and we decided to stay in a luxurious hotel in the ´"penthouse suite" (our room was on the 18th floor which was the top floor). We spent our days shopping and that's about all we did in Singapore. :) There are about 25 huge shopping malls on Orchard Road and that is only one of the shopping streets there so in the end we had no time to relax as we had to visit as many malls as possible in only three days. :) Singapore was a nice break from all the dirty Asian cities as it is very western. It is the cleanest place we have probably ever seen! :)




The riverbank where we had dinner



The green thingies in the water are balloons


Our celebration on New Year's Eve was very wild. We even had a glass of white wine! :) We had dinner on the riverbank and afterwards we went to see the amazing fireworks. After the show was over we went straight to our hotel so we wouldn't be tired/hangover on our next shopping day! :)



Having dinner...



...and drinking wine



Happy New Year!



Same same (but different)

From Laos we continued to Cambodia. We have noticed that every time you cross a border in Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia you have to pay a stamp fee which is 1-2 USD depending on how rich you look :) In Laos they also charged us extra for crossing the border during the weekend.

Our stay in Cambodia didn't begin well. We had bought a bus ticket all the way to Ban Lung but our bus just left us in the middle of nowhere and told us to wait for another bus that would arrive in 3-4 hours. We were not happy! We really didn't have any other option than to wait (nobody spoke English here either) so we waited and got our first Cambodian friend, a little baby girl that was just handed over to us. This has happened many times already, as soon as you smile to a baby the parents just hand the baby over to you (and they don't even wear diapers here). Luckily after only waiting for 1,5 hours a bus showed up and there was one person who spoke English on the bus. The bus was going to the right direction but it wasn't the bus we had tickets for and we had to pay again. Apparently our bus had broken down and no one knew how long we would have to wait for it. So that's why we agreed to take this bus.  The bridges that we had to
cross were really shaky but luckily it was dark so we didn't have to see all the bridges. Even the locals looked worried when we were crossing a bridge.

Cambodian treats

In Vietnam (beacuse of the crazy traffic and all the accidents we saw) we had decided that we would never ride a motorbike with or without a helmet. Apparently we suffered from memory loss in Ban Lung as we spent a whole day on the back of motorbikes with and without helmets. This was the only way to get to the waterfalls and we really enjoyed it a lot. We visited three different waterfalls, saw elephants and went swimming in a volcanic lake (that reminded us again of Finland and its lakes). In the morning we had our helmets on when riding on the back of the motorcycle but in the afternoon when the roads were just bumby paths we apparently didn't need our helmets anymore. Eating in Ban Lung was a bit difficult especially for Katja as she is a vegetarian as all the menus were in Khmer and nobody spoke English.




Crossing the river



Swinging on a liana



One of the waterfalls we visited



Elephant



Our motorcycle and our little friend



Bridge

From Ban Lung we took a bus to Siem Reap. The buses were once again delayed and the bus ride was extremely boring. Lili loved Siem Reap because it was an ice-cream heaven. :) She actually ate six scoops of ice-cream in one day (she hadn't gotten any ice-cream in a looong time). :) We came to Siem Reap to visit the temples of Angkor. We rented a tuk-tuk that took us around the temples. The day was really hot so we actually enjoyed the tuk-tuk ride (and the cool breeze) more than the temples (the temples were actually really nice as well but it was just too hot).



Angkor wat



Angkor wat



We really like the heads here



An elephant



A weird tree




Having a very ticklish "pedicure"


We spent Christmas in Sihanoukville, the beach capital of Cambodia. Our Christmas was very different from the one back home except for the fact that we also had the feeling you have on Christmas when you eat too much (in Finnish Jouluähky) beacuse of our breakfast buffet. :) We spent the days chilling by the pool and at the beach. One day we took a mani-pedi at the beach and had about five Cambodians around us all the time.



Lili being pampered on the beach



Sihanoukville beach



After Sihanoukville we took a minibus with locals to Kep, after about 15 minutes we noticed that there was a terrified little puppy on the floor of the minibus. It was shaking and drooling on the floor. Kep wasn't really anything we had expected. It was expensive, everything was far away from each other and even the beach was below average. The only good thing in Kep was the cute little puppies in our hotel. They didn't have names so we named one of them Coco. We visited pepper plantations in Kep and also saw a lot of mango trees. Katja was very unhappy that the mangos weren't ripe yet. :(




Pepper plantation


We came to Phnom Penh from Kep with a bus and decided to take a tuk-tuk to a hotel. We had decided where we wanted to stay but our tuk-tuk driver disagreed. When we asked him if he knew Spring Guesthouse he said yes just because he wanted customers. But as soon as we had driven for about 30 seconds he stopped and said Spring Guetshouse closed down a week ago. We didn't really believe him because we had heard a lot about the scams they try to do to tourists. So we just asked him to take us there anyways. He took us to a construction site on the same street where the hotel was supposed to be and told us that was the hotel. We still didn't believe him as the address was wrong. So we asked him kindly to take us to the right address. He drove around for a bit and stopped and said that we could walk to the hotel from there. We didn't agree and forced him to take us to the hotel. Then he asked us what the name of the hotel was, and with really poor actor skills told us "Oh, you meant Spring guesthouse, I heard you said King". So in the end he took us to the right place, and the hotel wasn't closed. :) He had also tried to sell us a tour to the killing fields but we thought that the price was too high. After his scam attempt the price suddenly went down from 20 USD to 10 USD. We still didn't want to take him because of his immoral nature. In the end we got the same ride for 8 USD from our hotel.

In Phom Penh we visited the killing fields where Khmer Rouge killed about 17 000 people. It was a really disturbing and yet peaceful place with a lot of skulls.



Skulls



Monks in the killing fields







A piece of Finland

Pakse is a really small town, and we were there only beacuse of the nearby waterfalls. We spent a day visiting the two waterfalls. We had to take a local bus there, which was an experience itself as we had no idea where we had to get off and it didn't help that nobody in the whole bus spoke English. Fortunately everybody else in the bus knew where we should get off and they pretty much threw us out of the bus after spending the whole busride staring at our fair skin, blond hair and blue eyes. When we came back to Pakse, we thought we knew where we were and decided to walk to our hotel. It wasn't a good idea! It was dark and we didn't even remember the name of our hotel :) We assumed that everything would be near in a small town like Pakse. There are three different bus stations in Pakse and cos we had already visited two of them, we assumed we had arrived to the bus station close to our hotel (cos it looked really similar). We started walking around (probably in circles) and even though we had a map we had trouble finding the right street as the streets had no English names. At one point we were quite sure we had arrived in a wrong city as nothing
looked familiar to us. :) Luckily after wandering aroung for about an hour, we finally found people who spoke English and they showed us the way to our hotel.




Tad Lo waterfalls


After Pakse we took another bus to Si Phan Don (four thousand islands). The scenery was almost like back home in Finland. The place also reminded us of Finland because it was like walking into a sauna, we were literally sweating our asses off! The first island where we stayed at, Don Khong, was really peaceful and quiet and there wasn't really anything to do there. So we decided to go tanning on the riverside of Mekong. Just when we thought we had found the perfect place to relax, tan and swim, three big water buffalos joined us and went swimming/peeing next to us. Lovely! :)

One of the waterbuffalos interrupting our sunbathing

Beacuse Don Khong was too quiet for us, we only stayed there for one night and took a boat to a backpacker island called Don Det the next morning. This was a lovely little island with more to do. We stayed in a cute little guesthouse (which only cost us about 4 euros) which accomodated only us and three gay couples. We decided to rent bicycles to explore the island. This ended up being a lot of fun and we just cycled into "town" when we had nothing else to do. We also cycled to another island called Don Khon which is connected to Don Det by an old french bridge. We went dolphin watching there and spotted three Irrawaddy doplhins. The doplhins are really rare and only about 20 doplhins live in this area, so we were really lucky to see them. We also went to see some waterfalls (again) on Don Khon. This time Lili couldn't really appreciate the waterfalls becuse of the heat and the fact that she just wanted to jump in even though it was forbidden to swim in the waterfalls. The last day on Don Det we went tubing which was really relaxing. We were floating in the river in a huge inner tube and letting the stream take us forward.



Our bungalow



Chilling in our hammocks



On our way to see the doplhins





Cycling around the island



At the waterfalls, this made Lili very unhappy



Waterfalls