China, Thailand, Maleisie, Indonesie, Nam, Cambodja en meer

Beste fokkers,

Het werd eens tijd dat ik een bijdrage lever aan het travel forum na al de vragen die ik hier heb gesteld. Ik heb voor het gemak mijn verhalen (lichtelijk gewijzigd) van mijn site geplukt en helaas zijn deze in het engels, maar dat moet geen probleem zijn voor jullie denk ik! Binnenkort zal er nog meer bijkomen. De 29e ga ik naar Vietnam en Cambodja, en ik zit er aan te denken om in december Macau en Hong Kong nog mee te pakken. Ik hoop dat jullie het interessant vinden.

17 augustus 2005:

"Hello,

This topic is dedicated to my upcoming travels to Asia. I will be spending most of what's left of 2005 in Thailand for the purpose of obtaining college credits. Sigh...

Officially, I will be attending Rangsit University in Pathum Thani which is part of the Bangkok metropolis. This opportunity to study abroad is offered by my college in Arnhem (HAN). The programme will start around mid-September. Naturally, I will leave the Netherlands early to go sightseeing. My journey will commence on the 18th of August, which is, at the time of writing, tomorrow. I will arrive in Bangkok on the 19th and I will leave for Shanghai the same day.

Shanghai is where I will meet my friend and classmate Teddy. Teddy is chinese and grew up in Shanghai. He is currently visiting his family and friends and will be returning to the Netherlands at the end of August in order to be on time for his classes in Arnhem. I will stay with Teddy and his family for a week.

On the 28th, two days after Teddy's departure, I will once again leave for Bangkok. This leaves me with another two weeks to entertain myself. I can't really tell you what I will do in that period, mainly because I change my mind about interesting places to visit every few days. The initial plan was to go to Manila (the Philippines) to see a penpal and perhaps secure an internship for the second part of this college year (there will be another semester abroad after this one). This idea became less appealing when I read the dutch ministry of foreign affairs' warnings about the frequent violent robbing, kidnapping and drugging of tourists in Manila. Maybe I'll go there later if I can convince someone to join me and help kick some ass if necessary. More on this later.

Well, this about sums it up for now. I will update this page with stories and pictures regularly if I am not too busy or killed at some point. I hope you will check back occasionally!"


23 augustus 2005:

Shanghai
"Hello everyone,

I haven't had too many chances to go online so far and I was also very, very tired from the flights I had to endure to get here. Also, I did not even get a glimpse of Bangkok because there wasn't enough time between my flights. However, everything went quite smoothly and according to my plan.

I am now a little bit outside the centre of Shanghai near the appartment where Teddy and his family live. This is a somewhat quiet part of town compared to the insanely crowded centre of the town which I will call Shanghell from now on. Shanghell is an area which largely consists of enormous skyscrapers, expensive (and slightly boring) shopping malls and many, many people. The scope of everything is so big that it's overwhelming and exhausting. It's a shame that the centre doesn't offer more variety."


mijn buurt


de winkelstraat, Nanjing rd.

"Secondly, the nightlife in Shanghai is a bit dissapointing in my opinion, though of course I haven't seen everything yet. You can find many clubs but they seem to lack originality. So far, I have only seen places that play hip hop or r&b, the stuff that you hear everywhere else.. Surprisingly, I have also seen bars that remind me of the shady nightlife in Bangkok. These bars merely cater to the single male who is looking for love. In addition, Teddy pointed out to me that there are many hair and massage saloons which offer services that go far beyond what one would expect from such places. There are also quite some beggars on the streets and old people that can barely walk. So even though on the surface Shanghai appears to be properous and completely sound, there are some signs that tell a different story.

A very big pro of Shanghai are its restaurants. I have seen the inside of many interesting and fun places where they serve delicious food. I particularly enjoyed dinner at a place called People 7 which had an amazing sci-fi interior made up from metal, glass and designer furniture. The food there was of the highest quality and best of all, the price for a meal including drinks was a mere 10 euro's per person.

Another thing I enjoyed very much were the views on Shanghai's skyline from the Jinmao tower, a 420 meter tall skyscraper located in the central business district. The first time we went all the way up to the 88th floor, and another evening we had drinks in a luxury bar which belonged to the Grand Hyatt, a top-range hotel chain that rents some 50 floors of the tower."


uitzicht vannuit Jin Mao


the bund


meer down-town Shanghai


Jin Mao

"The last two days were a bit more cultural. Yesterday we escaped the crowded streets by visiting a temple and some very pretty gardens in the older part of Shanghai. Today we went to a an old village called Wuzhen where we saw traditional Chinese houses and more gardens. Today was also my first day on which my stomach gave me some serious trouble. It turns out that after all the crazy chinese stuff I've eaten so far, it was a simple club sandwhich that had me running in and out of the bathroom for several times."


tempel in Shanghai


tuinencomplex, Shanghai


Wuzhen


tuinen vlakbij Wuzhen

"After Teddy left for the Netherlands, I didn't do much besides watching dvd's in my hotel room. I was really worn out from the days before and it's hard to get around the city if you don't speak shanghainese or mandarin! So that's it for China. I will post some more info here soon, probably when I am in Bangkok again. Oh, and I still don't know what I am going to do in the two weeks between Shanghai and my studies in Bangkok, but I will let you all know as soon as I know myself!"


19 september 2005:

"I am sorry for being lazy and not being in touch for such a long time. I know it is a bad excuse, but I kind of got used to the easy going life here in Thailand. This mentality has also kept me here since my arrival, so there are no exciting trips I can tell you about!

However, I am having a great time here. The first two weeks of my stay have been one big blur. So far, all my hangovers have been completely ruined by people banging on my door inviting me to go on a trip to Bangkok, the beach or just to have an espresso or a couple of glasses of red wine. I am finally coming to my senses a bit, which is good because school started last week! For the rest, well, my appartment kicks ass, that's for sure. It is brand new (still under construction actually), the rooms are big, clean, equipped with a refrigerator, tv, shower and a bathroom. Most importantly, however, is that we have our own private swimming pool! We mainly use it to cool off after the bars close. I don't know if this will last though, because there have been some complaints about wasted students jumping from the first floor into the pool at 7 am..

Oh yes, this brings me to a painful subject. The government in Thailand is rather protective of its people which is why they stringently enforce a 1 am curfue for the nightlife in the country. This doesn't mean there is nothing to do after 1 am around here though. Some clubs and bars simply pretend to be restaurants and serve token meals in order avoid being shut down. It is quite funny actually, there is this place called Bali Seafood in Bangkok which is very obviously a club hosting some 1,000 young thais drinking and dancing their asses off ' till 5 am and the police can't do anything about it! Also, the police hopes to catch underage drinkers by randomly raiding bars, but the guilty ones simply flee to the top floor of the building, stay there for 15 minutes, and then go back to finish their drinks... Anyway, I'm not complaining.

So what now? Well, I am planning a trip to Indonesia (Java and Bali) for next month together with another Dutch student, and most likely a bunch of others. Also, expect more updates on smaller trips I will take during the weekends (I have fridays and saturdays off). I hope you will enjoy the pictures. Now take care everyone, I'm out of here!"


een bij velen van jullie bekend perspectief


Wat Arun


Chao Phraya rivier


grote chedi in the Grand Palace


de verplichte liggende boeddha in de Wat Pho


Koh Samet


19 november 2005:


"Hello everyone, I figured it was a.f.t. I updated this page. I've seen quite a lot of things since my last post so I won't be able to report as extensively as I did before. I'll do my best though!

I made some more trips in Thailand and I've been to Malaysia (by accident) and Indonesia. In Thailand, we've visited the Kanchanaburi province (famous for the Birma railway, its lush mountains, waterfalls and hotsprings), Ko Chang, a tropical, undevelloped island near Cambodia and Hua Hin, a prostitute-ridden beach resort which seems to be lacking business these days. It was all good fun, especially zipping through the mountains on our turbo-charged motorbikes. These things go surprisingly fast (120kmp/h) considering how tiny they are and the fact that you don't need a licence to rent one. Actually you do need an international driving licence, but the police doesn't seem to want to harrass foreigners for minor violations (except when it concerns mind-expanding substances) and the rental shops don't bother to check."


Erawan waterval, Kanchanaburi


de welbekende brug in Kanchanaburi


wat van de omgeving tijdens onze motorbike trip door Kanchanaburi


Hat Sai Kaew, Koh Chang


oostkust Koh Chang


monnikken op koh Chang


Hua Hin

"As for the trips abroad, my friend and I planned a trip to Indonesia for our school hollidays. We were a little late with booking our airtickets so there weren't any real good deals available. However, Air Asia offered flights on their web site to Jakarta leaving from Kuala Lumpur so we decided to book 4 flights with them. The idea was to get a flight to Kuala Lumpur, a flight from KL to Jakarta, a flight from Bali to Kuala Lumpur (we would do Jakarta - Bali by land) and a flight from Kuala Lumpur back to Bangkok. This would cost us significantly less than any other fare we were offered. When we were booking the second flight (KL - Jakarta), we noticed that they had suddenly raised their prices (Ivo had checked the fares one hour before). We checked them again and discovered that this itinerary would now cost us 300 euro each, instead of the 140 we'd expected? Of course, the web site stated: "prices are subject to change at any time and all bookings done via the web-site are non-refundable."

So fate had brought us to Malaysia; we didn't have a choice! The humanity! It turned out to be an o.k. trip though. I got to see KL again and took another couple of those obligatory Petronas Towers shots. Furthermore, we went to one of the Perhenthian islands in the north-east and got our scuba-diving licences, we saw the main islamic city of Malaysia, Kota Bahru, and the Chinese-dominated city/island of Penang also known as Georgetown. From Butterworth, the town on the mainland closest to Penang island, we took a train back to the Land of Smile where we would spend four days doing exams before going to Indonesia (yes, we did find an attractive airfare after all). Sorry, I am getting ahead of myself. Back to Malaysia.

All in all, Malaysia is a fairly boring country compared to its neighbours. It lacks a real big city (KL has only 2.5 million inhabitants), taxi drivers are true assholes and the atmosphere not always as pleasant as in other countries. Of course, most of the time we managed to keep ourselves well entertained. Another problem though, was that we had a hard time finding food in some parts of the country because we visited it during the month of Ramadan (fasting). Though in touristed areas (KL and the Perhenthian islands) or towns with many Chinese immigrants it wasn't a problem to find a hot meal."


down-town KL vanuit de KL Tower


het kleine Perhenthian eiland


gearing up


eetmarkt in Kota Bahru vlak voor zonsondergang; inslaan dus!


mijn ontbijt in Penang

"Indonesia was quite something else. While also being predominantly islamic, the Javanese are more easy going than the Malaysians. Java has its fair share of crime and poverty though. Jakarta in particular is infested with beggars and full of slums. Generally speaking however, the people are very friendly. We had a really great trip. We saw beautiful temples and volcanoes on Java and went boardsurfing in Bali. We were on an extremly tight schedule so we did our travelling by night. We took some really crappy trains and buses and we were lucky if we could catch some sleep at all. In our business class train headed for the Bali ferry, we managed to score some seats after having had to stand for three hours (at that time we hadn't slept for over 24 hours and we climbed a mountain during that day), but we were kindly requested to move to another carriage because the one we were in was being disconnected... It didn't come as a surprise that all the seats were occupied in the other carriage. Though the fact that there was no more room to sleep on the dirty floor pissed me off slightly. I tried to sleep standing up but that did not work out too well. Imagine all this suffering, and add the element of constantly watching your belongings to prevent the notorious bagslashing punks from stealing it..."


de nachttrein van Jakarta naar Yogya


de Borobudur


Hindu tempel, Prambanan


de krater met Bromo links


vulkanisch landschap, 's ochtend vroeg


woestijn van as

"Anyway, from Bali we flew back to Jakarta and spent our last day exploring the city. We didn't nearly scratch the surface of it because after all, it is a city of 9 million people. Funny detail is that the place was completely forsaken because most inhabitants went to see their family to celebrate the final days of the Ramadan. Despite the city being a bit of a ghost town during our visit, it was still an interesting day. Interesting, because of the eye-popping poverty and the scorching heat. Jakarta made me realize how prosperous Bangkok really is. I would not recommend Indonesia to everybody. Just those who seek a little bit of adventure. This is not Thailand. It is exhausting, inefficient, slightly dangerous, frustrating, but also very, very rewarding. It was a tough cookie but I don't regret having gone there for one second."


Kuta beach, Bali


surfstand met hond


haven in het voormalige Batavia, Jakarta


downtown Jakarta

"Talking about tough cookies... Next up is a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia. I will undertake this journey together with my Dutch friend and three other exchange students at Rangsit. We will fly to Hanoi and do the rest of the travelling by land. We will go some 1,250 kilometres to the south to Saigon, hopefully catching the major sights of 'Nam in the meantime. After that we will go west to cross the border into Cambodia headed for the capital Phnom Penh and if we have time we will check out the temples of Angkor. Also, my personal goal is to get a picture of me (alive) together with some heavily armed Khmer Rouge soldiers. From Phnom Penh or Angkor we will head west again hoping find our way back home before the final exams start.

As for my time in Bangkok, I'm just enjoying life with my friends like before. I am completely used to this environment now and I know the city like the back of my hand. I love being here, but I also look forward to going back to the Netherlands. I hope you'll enjoy the pictures. I'm gonna get some healthy sleep now, it's been a rough weekend!"

[ Bericht 21% gewijzigd door alter.ego op 20-11-2005 15:32:25 ]

quote:

Op zondag 20 november 2005 13:39 schreef trith het volgende:
In Nederlands zou leuk zijn.

ik was nog ff bezig. zie bovenaan voor mijn excuus

quote:

Op zondag 20 november 2005 19:26 schreef Douwe het volgende:
Je wilde specifiek met KLM naar Jakarta om weer eens wat Nederlandse glorie mee te pakken?
Tot wanneer blijf je in Bangkok?

haha, het ging wel om de nederlandse glorie idd. daarom ging ook alleen mijn nederlandse studiegenoot mee we vlogen trouwens met kuwait... ik ben hier nog tot 24 december denk ik. het hangt er een beetje vanaf. ik ga misschien met mn beste vriend stage lopen in bangkok, maar dat is nog lang niet zeker (of we wat vinden). zo niet, dan ga ik voor een half jaar terug naar nl. in dat geval blijf ik iets langer om het onderste uit de kan te halen. als dat noodzakelijke kwaad moet geschieden kun je nog wat meer updates verwachten

quote:

Op zondag 20 november 2005 23:34 schreef Shakermaker het volgende:
Lekker verhaal, mooie foto's. Begrijp ik nou goed dat je tussen al die reizen door ook nog studeert daar? Wat precies? Goed geregeld trouwens.

ik doe international business en management in arnhem. het 3e jaar studeer je een semester in het buitenland, en een semester loop je stage in het buitenland. nu ben ik dus eigenlijk gewoon hbo aan het doen en studiepunten aan het vangen

quote:

Op maandag 21 november 2005 17:28 schreef yonielo het volgende:

[..]

Cool! Ik ben deze zomer ook 2 maanden naar China geweest, en heb vorig jaar ook een half jaartje IBMS gedaan, volgend jaar start ik daar weer mee overnieuw in utrecht.

waar ben je geweest in china? en hoe heb je het overleefd met je nederlands en engels? en weet ja al wat voor een landen je gaat kiezen voor je jaar buitenland tijdens ibms?