Necessities

I am heading off towards Malaysia and Indonesia without a guide book. It would be a nice tool every now and then, but people could live happily even without cell phones at some time...

So we'll see how it goes.

Pushing my luck

For me, Khao San road was seen rather quickly. Lots of people, lots of bars, lots of services (Fish massage! Feed our hungry fish with you dead skin!) and lots of food stands. If you are in to drinking and clubbing I guess it really is the place to be. At least you might want to check it out. Personally I am planning on taking an overnight train to Malaysia tomorrow. I haven't got a ticket but am still kind of hoping I can get one from the train station tomorrow...

Here is some price information:
Bus to Khao San road from airport, 150 baht
Single room in Khao San, 250 baht
Internet: 20-40 baht/hour
Pad Thai from a street stall: 20-40 baht (veggie-chicken)

The Pad Thais are really nice. Cooked in front of you and you are free to cast in the desired amount of spices yourself. So if you want to eat cheap, take a veggie portion (add 5baht for one egg) and throw in as many spoonfuls of crushed peanuts as you dare. The egg and nuts should keep you filled for a while. But be careful with the chili, no matter how delicious it might look and how accustomed to it you think you are. :)

Otherwise Bangkok is one of the largest cities I've been in with only London coming close and Mumbai topping it. And from an overall view, Bangkok has a lot more of a metropolitan view to it with more skyscrapers and more rats than the two combined. Nice place to stop by, but staying here now would have made for a quite a boring blog. So hopefully tomorrow I will be southbound.

City of angels

The heat strikes you instantly as you come out from the airport. It fills your lungs with a heavy mixture of air, moisture and pollution. On your skin it feels like you are covered with warm rags all over. You get used to it fairly quickly but come across an air-conditioned area and you are in for the same treatment over and over...

I took a bus from the airport directly to Khao San road. "The" traveller centre of South-East Asia. Signed myself in to a fairly nice hostel (had a bed, always a plus) and mainly went to bed somewhere around 7pm local time. I couldn't really sleep on the airplane and the four hour time difference seems to have taken its toll on me.

Last night I just grabbed some Pad Thai from a street vendor, bought some water from a local 7-eleven and wandered around the local streets and alleyways until I got lost. Got a bit more systematic and in a truly masculine fashion found myself back on my own. Best hour ever spent for a five-minute walk...

I am still totally unaware of the time. It tells me on the screen that it's around 4:14 pm but I feel like I would be ready for the bed soon. It's around noon in Finland, but it feels like 10pm. Hello jetlag.

Travel fever

It is actually kind of annoying to be leaving late at night. You are already set in the mood, you've checked yourself in on the net and now you just have to wait for 11 hours more. Damn. The tingling in your stomach is much nicer when you have to wake up early and head straight for the airport. Now it is just slowly escalating hour by hour.

Feels like I have everything in check so really all I can do now is just wait.

Packed already?

Well, that certainly went a lot easier than I anticipated. The total weight of my carryings seems to be pretty much 15kg. Kind of light and easy, especially since I can fit my smaller day pack inside my rucksack so the whole weight can be easily carried with no fighting with extra straps or anything. It is really starting to feel like the trip is about to start...

Only problem I have faced packing was that I forgot my travel towel to a friends house. And should one still need to emphasize the importance of a towel, I shall hereby quote the ever-amusing text of Douglas Adams:

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

But fear not, I will just have to make a small detour and my set is complete. :)

Packing once again

How come is it that I always leave everything to the absolutely last possible moment? I would like to go and sleep soon but I still have pretty much everything spread open on my bed. Tomorrow morning to Helsinki, a couple of nights there and on Monday my plane leaves. So that means that I need to be packed and ready to go tomorrow morning.

But I am really not stressing over it that much. As long as I have my passport, plane tickets and some money I'll be fine. Kind of takes the motivation out of me but I guess I should still throw in some more pieces of clothing or something. And my toothbrush.

But somehow I just couldn't be bothered to do that...Things have a tendency to sort out one way or another. They always have.

Getting real

I just realized that I need to be packed and ready to go on friday. Weekend in Helsinki and the flight will leave on monday evening. I just booked myself a 21€ flight from Kuala Lumpur to Indonesia for September 7th. So initially not much of Thailand but mostly heading south to Malaysia and after that to Indonesia.

I have been checking out some surf camps and there are some quite appealing all-inclusive offerings for $35 per day. Food, accommodation, teaching and the gear. Could easily imagine doing that for a few days. I've also heard that there are lots of seasoned pro surfers around Indonesia willing to teach you for money, but still an actual establishment seems nicer to me.

But anyway... After arriving to Indonesia I will most likely stay in Medan for one night and then head towards one of the largest (if not the largest) calderas in existence: Lake Toba. I've heard quite a lot of positive things about the place so I want to see it for myself.

The next fixed date after that is around Septeber 28th when I should be meeting a friend of mine - probably somewhere in Malaysia.