My travels through Asia and beyond

I am in Penang right now and one of the things I love about the place and Malaysia in general is the food. You have the choice between Indonesian, Malay, Chinese and Indian. It is a real melting pot of cultures with Muslims, Indians and Chinese all seemingly living together in harmony. People seem to mix languages between English/Chinese/Malay. I even read that some young Malaysians now only speak English.

I love Indian food and you can get a tandoori chicken set with nan bread and some curry and a softdrink all for US$2. Hainanese chicken and rice, another one of my favorite dishes is also about the same or cheaper.

The people also some genuinely friendly and many people speak English well. They call Thailand the “Land of Smiles”, but it is hard to know if people are genuine or they just want you to spend money in their business.

I am catching the ferry to Medan on Friday. I thought it would be a good chance to visit Sumatra, particularly Lake Toba. I always like traveling overland or by boat rather than flying, but now with the discount airlines, flying is usually only a little more expensive. The plane and ferry were actually the same price, it just the extra charges you need to pay that makes it more expensive.

Long bus/ferry trips can sometimes be tough, but sometimes I believe the fun and most memorable experiences are in the journey rather than the destination.

Anyway it should be a bit of an adventure.

Moving on today from beautiful Langkawi, I took the ferry to Penang. We made a brief stop at Pulau Tuba island, which is a popular place for diving. Next time I think I will stop off for a couple of days because it looks like a beautiful spot.

Not sure if it was exactly the same boat, but on the same route I took to get to Langkawi from Satun in Thailand caught fire. Fortunately no-one was injured in the fire.

In Friday’s 3.45pm incident, 67 passengers, including eight crew members, had a narrow escape when the ferry caught fire in the middle of the sea.

The ferry, en route to Langkawi from Satun, Thailand, was carrying 59 passengers, including tourists from Britain, Denmark, Switzerland, Canada and Thailand. – Bernama

Source

Looking up into the sky now, you can see the moon and what looks like two bright stars, but they are actually Venus and Jupiter. It looks pretty amazing.

Keep in mind that this head-turning display of three celestial objects crowded together is merely an illusion of perspective: The moon is only about 251,400 miles from Earth, while Venus is nearly 371 times farther away, at 93.2 million miles. Meanwhile, Jupiter is almost 2,150 times farther away than our natural satellite at 540.3 million miles.

Source

After eight days Bangkok’s international airport will reopen this Friday and will be fully operational around a week later. It is good news for the some 200,000 travelers who have been stranded in Thailand, but the tourism industry will be set to lose millions of dollars.

The closure is going to stay in people’s minds for some time. Most people only get a few weeks vacation each year and they don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars going somewhere, only to have their vacation interrupted.

The protesters got what they wanted and at least it all ended fairly peacefully. The problem is that a precedent has now been set and if a particular group isn’t happy with the government, they know what they have to do.

Thailand’s Prime Minister has been found guilty of vote buying at the last election and has been banned from politics. This is basically what the protest at the Bangkok airport and government house was all about. Flights like they are now slowly resuming.

But is it over?

I doubt it very much. Thailand’s politics are still in a mess and there is a good chance that the current government will still be able to come back in some form, possibly leading to more protests and mayhem for the country.

I caught a bus to Satun today in southern Thailand and a ferry to Langkawi Malaysia. Apparently all of the resorts are full here because of people leaving Thailand.

Even if the airport gets going again, this years high season for Thailand is going to pretty dead. At least 1 million jobs in tourism will be lost.

I stayed here last year and really enjoyed the place. Much more low key than the island resorts in Thailand and the food is great, with lots of variety.

I caught a ferry this morning from Koh Samui to Surat Tani and then a mini bus to Hat Yai. It has been a pretty long day of travel, but the scenery driving through southern Thailand is interesting and different to the north. There were quite a few people busing it to Singapore and one German girl was heading to Phuket to catch her flight home, now with Bangkok airport still closed. From Koh Samui to Singapore it is a long bus ride to catch a flight. The weather hasn’t been great the last couple of weeks, so I am sure some people haven’t had a great holiday in Thailand.

I sat in the front of the mini-bus on the way to Hat Yai. Out of the blue, some cows and calves started crossing the road. The driver slowed a bit and then a calf made a dash across the road coming from the right side of van. It all happened in slow motion and the driver didn’t even hit the brakes. We hit the calf with a thud and the driver kept going. The front wheels went over what felt like a speed bump and then driver started to slow. You could hear the calf squealing as it was dragged along under the bus for around 15-20 meters.

I didn’t know how we would get it out and I started to feel sick with the thought of it. The driver moved a little bit forward and miraculously the calf jumped out from under the bus and took off. Fortunately, it escaped to the road side without getting hit again.

It poured rain for the rest of trip and windscreen wipers weren’t working. I looked across at the dashboard and saw that the speedometer and gas gauge weren’t working either. I buckled in and noticed a little while later that even the driver fastened his seatbelt.

We made it to Hat Yai in the pouring rain and I checked into a nice hotel across the bus station that even has free wifi, where I am writing this now. I am thinking of going to Songkhra which is about 20km away from Hat Yai and spend my last few days in Thailand before heading to Malaysia.

Despite some hope that the airport would reopen this weekend, I strongly doubt that much will happen this weekend. The first clash between protesters and police, earlier today saw the police having to retreat.

More people seem to be joining the protest and on television today, I saw a woman who brought her two small children to the airport. It is unlikely in this situation that the police will use violence to break up the protest. Numbers could drop again by Monday as people return to work.

Since the police and army are reluctant to really try and break up the protest, perhaps something politically really has to give for the madness to end.

As I have been writing about, Bangkok’s domestic and international airports are currently being occupied by ant-government protesters and all flights into and out of the airport have been cancelled and the airport evacuated.

People with flights booked when the airport closed, have been put up in hotels free of charge by the airlines. Visitors who have now overstayed their visa because of the cancellations will not have to pay the usual fine (1000 baht a day).

Even if the protest finishes this weekend it could take some time to get the airport up and running again. If there is damage done to the airport as the police and army attempt to break up the protests, it could even be longer.

For people who cannot wait until the protest finishes, they could take buses overland to Cambodia, Malaysia or Singapore and fly out from there. It seems like some people are already doing this as airlines in neighboring countries are already increasing their airfares with the new demand.

The next deadline for negotiations is 12 p.m. tomorrow, although it seems unlikely right now that leaders are prepared to call off the protest. The problem for the police and army is that there are children and women in the protest, so they can’t just go in with tear gas and weapons.

I remember reading somewhere yesterday after Bangkok’s international airport was forced to close because of Thai anti-government protesters, someone said at least they could use Don Muang airport, which is Bangkok’s old international airport and currently used for domestic travel. Well, the protesters have now taken over that airport as well, making it almost impossible for international travelers to arrive or leave Thailand through Bangkok. Not to mention disruption to mail and air freight.

The island resorts of Phuket and Koh Samui have international airports which is one alternate solution and I have heard that they might use a military airport near Pattaya which could handle emergencies, but the logistics of getting it ready for commercial use, it is not going to be quick or easy.

The PAD have been protesting at government house since August so who knows how long they are planning to block the airport.

One thing for certain is that it is going to cripple business and tourism in Thailand. Neighboring countries such as Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia might be happy with what is going on, but the situation, could have a negative impact on the whole region. Even the Philippine President said what is happening in Thailand is a lack of “political maturity.”

Of course in the rest of Thailand, life goes on and no-one seems to care too much and after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, the focus of the world news has already shifted.