Christmas morning, 2010. We’re crossing the Andaman Sea from Krabi to Phuket, a two-hour trip. It’s a gorgeous day, and we are lucky. When we entered Thailand a few days ago, we encountered a Frenchman going the opposite direction who said he’d not seen the sun for two weeks. Monsoon season is not quite over yet.
Today a long journey lies ahead of us. We’ll spend about three hours crossing the Andaman Sea to get from Malaysia to Hat Yao, Thailand, then another few hours overland. First up, a limo pries us away from our fantastic beach paradise and takes us to the other side of the island, where we wait for our ferry. A little motorboat takes us from the pier to the waiting vessel. The weather is a bit temperamental, the waves high and the ride rough. The boat is packed. Everyone has a seat, but there are no seats to spare. Someone behind us gets seasick. Continue reading
Langkawi… ahhh. I had never heard of it before beginning research for this trip, but apparently it’s “Malaysia’s best-known holiday destination” according to Lonely Planet, and now I can see why. Seb’s request for this vacation, well, besides being somewhere developed, was that we would find a place to spend several days in a row doing nothing but relaxing beside a beach. This was the kind of place I hoped he’d had in mind. We just had to rush through the first several stops to get here.
On Thursday morning we said goodbye to Kuala Lumpur and headed back to the train station with our $20 tickets. Seven hours later we arrived in Butterworth, then walked right on to a waiting ferry that shuttled us in 15 minutes across the Malacca Straight to the island of Penang for less than 40 cents per person! Continue reading
I love trains. They’re a comfortable and fun way to travel, not to mention much cheaper and greener than flying. And unlike flying, you get to see stuff while en route. There’s a great website for train travel that I’ve used in China, India, and throughout this trip: seat61.com. It’s written by one dude whose job I envy and is chock-full of details and travel advice. I may use it more than Lonely Planet, even.
Our train to Kuala Lumpur left Singapore a taddd early for my tastes – we were at the station by 6am if I remember correctly – just to make sure we had plenty of time for check-in. We did. Ahem. Continue reading
First up, two flights and a night in Johannesburg before the next-day’s flight to Singapore. We almost blew the budget at dinner that night, we were so excited to be in the presence of an actual restaurant and on our way. And despite arriving at the airport nearly three hours before departure the next day, we almost missed the flight to Singapore. We stood in line for two hours at the cramped international terminal in a line that barely moved the whole time. There seemed to be only two attendants working, and no self-service kiosks anywhere. I finally went up to the empty “internet only” desk and asked if we could check in there. We still have no idea what “internet only” means exactly, but we got through. As usual, my husband encouraged me to travel with a single backpack; it helped that we didn’t have to check in any luggage.
Holy cow, if this is the service we can get in economy class with Singapore Airlines, what do they have up there in business class — individual suites with a private bathroom and personal assistant??
What a luxury to be able to travel for an entire month. This has never happened before in our working lives (and may never happen again, unless we remain expats). At first, we had quite exaggerated views of what we could accomplish in a month. “Let’s go to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and maybe Hong Kong too!” we thought. Continue reading
We’ve only been here a few months, yet already we’re cheating on Congo.
One of the benefits of being an expatriate is having generous vacation time and an annual travel budget. The idea is that the company wants us to be able to go home every so often to keep up on things, but it’s okay to go elsewhere, too. Since we don’t have many loose ends at home, we’d like to use the opportunity to travel to far-flung places, especially those hard to reach from the States.
Our first vacation will be to Southeast Asia. I feel guilty that we’re not exploring more of Africa instead. But my husband (who’s been here longer than I) had one request for our first Christmas abroad: it must be somewhere developed. Apart from South Africa, I don’t know if “developed” is a good description of the continent, but I hope we find out during our stay here. I want to see Ethiopia, Ghana, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya, Namibia, Botswana… I want to see it all. But, to be fair, Asia has been on both our must-see lists the longest. And living in the eastern hemisphere has its advantages. So off to Asia we go…
Adventures in Congo 