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Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia

a travel blog by chrischarly

This passage will be our longest one and it will be during our time in SE Asia visiting Malaysia, The Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, proabaly in this order before flying to Australia towards the end of September. Unfortunately we've run out of time to go to Burma and Vietnam... maybe next time!
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Off to Ubud

Padangbai, Indonesia


Outside our place

Our lovely place in Padang Bai


Me about to leave Padang Bai
After sleeping like babies, we got up at 8am to get packed before catching a bus to Ubud. It was a small mini bus but as there was only 4 of us it was really easy journey lasting only 1 ½ hours, but transport is so much more expensive on Bali than anywhere else we’ve been in Indonesia about 3x more. We decided to stay just outside Ubud so walked about 1km North and found somewhere cheap to stay which is in fact really nice, so we had a great chill day sorting through over 2000 photos of the past few days…

permalink written by  chrischarly on June 22, 2011 from Padangbai, Indonesia
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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A 25km long walk!.. Exhausting!

Ubud, Indonesia


Hard work

To escape the intensely touristy centre I thought a nice walk around the rice terraces and villages to the North of Ubud was in order. Using the ever accurate Lonely Planet map, I planned a walk of around 10km………


Rice paddies

We started off across the rice paddies and it was very nice, the weather was fine but not too hot, the views pleasing to the eye. Only, whats this up ahead, a tourist shop, and then another, and another. Ubud really is saturated.


Living amongst the rice terraces

We marched on up asking for directions to Keliki (LP said it was about 5km), we kept going and going and we arrived in……………….Tegallalang?!


Rice terrace workers

Looking at the map and the road signs we were about 9km outside Ubud. Oh well, we took on some refreshments and got some new directions and headed up this hilly road for 3 km until we finally found Keliki.


A house with only the door finished

We were starting to feel the burn now and the constant up and down hill was not helping, but we powered through, thinking of our friends probably struggling up Rinjani, this was a breeze!


A cute house

There is nothing in Keliki, it just looked a nice distance to walk, so upon arrival, we left.
The sun decided that it was time to come out as we worked our way back around 12km to Ubud, via the Campuan Ridge walk.


The ridge walkway

Getting tired now!

Along the ridge walkway

Outskirts of Ubud

By the time we got there we were fairly exhausted but pleased with ourselves. We showered, and headed out for some dinner and a well earned Bintang!

permalink written by  chrischarly on June 23, 2011 from Ubud, Indonesia
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Chill day

Ubud, Indonesia


Temple

A temple


A temple
After our walk yesterday we were quite surprised that we were not too achy. Maybe we are a lot fitter now than before! We didn’t do a lot today, walked around Ubud for a few hours which although touristy it’s a nice place to walk about.

permalink written by  chrischarly on June 24, 2011 from Ubud, Indonesia
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Another walk around the bustling streets of Ubud

Ubud, Indonesia


van blocking other transport

Anything can fit onto a vehicle here

Not much to say about today... just another nice walk around the busy and slightly chaotic Ubud... Still a great day though!..

permalink written by  chrischarly on June 25, 2011 from Ubud, Indonesia
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Dead sealife and hidden local transport

Jimbaran, Indonesia


Chris outside our place
Today we lazily got up and ready to travel to Jimbaran. As Ubud is mega touristy, it was difficult to find cheap transport as everywhere has rip-off tourist shuttle buses and ‘Tourist Information’ here doesn’t mean anything as no one offered up any information on local transport.

Chris and I
So as usual, we worked it out for ourselves, as if you look hard enough and walk to the market area and haggled hard to the local bimo drivers to take us to Batabulan using our limited Bahasa (Indonesian lingo)to try to give the impression we had been here a long time so knew the correct fare.

A very strange statue?
Once in Batabulan, we once again had to haggle hard to get local transport to Jimbaran. It took about 3x as long to get there, but it was over ½ the price it would’ve been if we took tourist transport, so we were happy when we finally arrived. The bimo driver did however drop us off quite far out of town, to save on fuel,

Wavy sea
so we had a long walk to find somewhere to stay, where we had to negotiate our butts off to find somewhere cheap. Bali sure is hard work if you are a stingy backpacker! We did find somewhere though in a kind family’s home along a backstreet alley, but it was lovely

Me finding a dead baby dolphin, sad!
and good value. We then walked down to the beach and walked almost the length of it trying to find some cheap and tasty seafood for dinner, which was unfortunately not possible, so we ate in a local backstreet restaurant instead. All over the beach, there are dead fish carcasses, which

Dead dolphin :(
have been thrown away by the fisherman so walking along the beach was like an obstacle course dodging dead fish guts and bones. Yuck. But what was even worse was that we saw a dead dolphin lying on the end of the beach,

A blue marlin's head!
which we think must’ve been caught by a fisherman by mistake, as not far away from it, we saw the remains of a blue marlin’s head. Very sad.

permalink written by  chrischarly on June 26, 2011 from Jimbaran, Indonesia
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Last day in Indonesia

Jimbaran, Indonesia


Looking back at the beach
Sadly our last day in Indonesia. 28 days is so not enough time here. It was not the nicest of days raining on and off and very grey and cloudy, but a nice temperature to walk about, so that’s what we did all day; walked aimlessly along the streets and beach of Jimbaran.

Just landing
Just before sunset, Chris wanted to walk to the far end of the beach right by the runway of Bali airport to watch some of the planes taking off to help build up his excitement about flying tomorrow.


The airport from the beach

Air Asia flight just landed

permalink written by  chrischarly on June 27, 2011 from Jimbaran, Indonesia
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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To Thailand...

Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia


On flight to Hat Yai
We got up at stupid o’clock (3:45am) this morning to catch a taxi to the airport about 10 minutes away and then checked in quick and easily for our Air Asia flight returning once again to KL before flying to Hat Yai in Thailand. We arrived in Thailand at around midday (2 hours behind of Indonesia) and booked a shuttle bus to take us to the bus station in Hat Yai. That was the plan but the bus driver dropped us at the train station. We wanted to go to Satun and there is no train station there.

On rickshaw to Hat Yai bus station
We were touted to take a minibus for 700Baht, when we knew the price should be about 180Baht. We then tried to get a taxi to take us to the bus station and even they were trying to overcharge us. Damn them all!

Our amazing bedroom
After getting a bit pissed off, and very hot, we decided best thing was to walk away from the train station, aka tourist rip off area, and after walking a few minutes got a taxi to take us for the right money. We immediately managed to get a minibus for the right fare. Rip-off Touts 0: Chris and Charly 1

Our nice cheap noodle place
We arrived in Satun a few hours later and found a really nice guesthouse that we had seen on LP-online and Trip advisor. They only had an AC room for 550Baht, but we were too tired to care and it was really nice and we managed to get it for 500Baht. They had free super-fast Wi-Fi so we made the most of it and chilled the afternoon away before going out for our 1st Thai meal. We were not disappointed and even Charly liked it, Thai food 1: Charly 0.We headed back to our room thought about watching a film, realised we couldn’t be arsed so fell into a deep sleep.



permalink written by  chrischarly on June 28, 2011 from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Did nada

Satun, Thailand

Got up late, went for a walk and lunch, read our books, surfed the net, went out for dinner, went to bed.


Huge bathroom at our hotel

Cool bar


Funky decor at our hotel

View from our hotel

permalink written by  chrischarly on June 29, 2011 from Satun, Thailand
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Satun to Krabi

Krabi, Thailand

We decided to leave Satun today and move on to Krabi. We took a rickshaw to the bus station only to find out that the next bus wasn’t for 2 hours. Oh well, we were in no rush. There was a little shop selling food and got some fried rice with squid (think this was the cause of tomorrow’s bad stomachs!).

A frog in the restaurant

We were about half way to Krabi when an Aussie lady came running down the bus screaming for them to stop, and something about a door open. We thought someone had fallen out the back. It soon became apparent that the luggage door had opened (at 90kmph) and 2 bags had fallen out. Ours were quite near the door so I had a moment of panic, before running outside and seeing ours still there. Phew! There were a Swiss couple who got on later than us and they were not so lucky! They got a moped to go back and pick up the slightly scratched and ripped rucksacks. Note to self: always make sure the bags are well inside the luggage hold.
Got to Krabi and found a really nice guesthouse for £4 a night, went out with 4 Swiss to get some yummy dinner at the night market.

Thai fishing boat

permalink written by  chrischarly on June 30, 2011 from Krabi, Thailand
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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Feelin' pretty sicky :(

Krabi, Thailand


Eating yummy sandwiches after our dodgy bellies
Today we didn’t actually leave the hostel until 6pm. I spent the whole night last night and day today running from the bed to the shared bathrooms so I suppose quite an active day after all. It’s typical though that the one time we are ill we pick a place where there is no bathroom inside the room and it would’ve been lovely if we could’ve afforded air-con and a bed that didn’t feel like a slab of wood! Anyway, by 6pm I was desperately craving a nice ham and cheese Sandwich; something plain and reminded me of home, so we slowly and weakly went on the search remarkably Chris found me a cute café that served my dream dish and put a smile back on my face!



permalink written by  chrischarly on July 1, 2011 from Krabi, Thailand
from the travel blog: Chris and Charly's Passage through SE Asia
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