Attack of the 5 Deadly Venoms / Tioman Islands, Maylasia

Normally I would have nothing to do with these things, but was hoping to avoid anything more so I wrangled up an army of cough drops, aspirin, decongestants, aloe vera and lip ointment. For a day it succeeded thwarting the initial problems. I was happy with that and I hadn't paid much attention to the fact my gums we're feeling a little tender so I packed up my gear, said goodbye to KL and headed for a beach. I was to be in Singapore in a few days and thought some time by the sea and some cautious sun tanning might be the answer. I arrived at night in Tekek, Tioman...it was very quiet and secluded, a nice change from the sleepless city. I checked myself into a little bungalow, found, dinner and crashed.

Honestly I was feeling alright, but during the course of the evening something went very wrong...when I awoke everything had got disturbingly worse. My skin had formed these peculiar layer of pore sized blisters, the cold sore that had all but disappeared had grown 5 times the size, my throat was raw, my head was throbbing and when I flashed a menacing grin what I saw in the mirror made my eyes pop out of my head. It seems I had been visited by what I now refer to as The 5 Deadly Venoms: Sunstroke, Strep Throat, a Cold Sore, General Fatigue and one white bloody, ugly, exceedingly painful gum infection topped with an inflamed wisdom tooth no doubt sprouted by the Evil Oral God of Pain n' Suffering himself.

By noon I couldn't move my face without wincing, tears filled my eyes at the sight of a toothbrush and drinking water was altogether not an option. I thought the hell with the beach, I'm going to the doctor/dentist/old wise man on in the jungle.

From the Beach to the Ice Age / Koh Samui to Kuala Lumpur

It all started with a joke about lobsters and motorbikes, but after 26 hours in and out of buses, boats, travel agencies, border customs and moto taxis I arrived in Kuala Lumpur, Maylasia and the joke was long since over. Once the taxi drivers were gone and the bus had left it was just me, my new Swedish friend Emily and more symptoms that I would like to admit. You would think that after seering your own flesh under the unforgiving ultra violet that nothing would be more pleasant than the ice cold air-conditioning of a bus right? Think again, I had left my warm clothes in Bangkok and the paper thin blanket they provided for the ride just wasn't cutting it. No kidding, I nearly froze to death right there in my seat. Then came the aches. It started in my neck, gradually crept into my head and joints, once it had set it in even my fingertips hurt. I thught to myself, that couldn't be good.

It was 4:30am when we were dropped off at the mouth of Chinatown, we succeeded in tracking down a hostel in short order, met up with a friendly Yank named Mark, booked a triple and crashed until noon. When I awoke it felt like I had been beaten with a hot aluminum bat and forced to chug a mug full of broken glass.

Despite the obvious discomfort and strange zombie-like state I was in, I rustled up some over the counter stuff in the pharmacy and made my way to KL Tower with the others. The view was stunning, but the AC was on full tilt and I was quickly fading. Determined not to make a scene by expiring in KL's second most popular tourist attraction, I propped myself up with my tripod, managed to snap some pics, admired the view and stay conscious. Far more difficult than it sounds. When it was over I was pleased as punch to reenter the balmy evening air.

Once we were back outside I felt better. In celebration of our ascent we found am open air restaurant and ordered up enough Indian food to sink a ship...by accident of course. We thought we ordered four dishes to share with 3 orders of naan bread. What we ended up with was that, multiplied by 3. It was culinary comedy, they actually had to pull up a second table to accomodate the feast. Other patrons looked on in amazement and confusion. Admittedly, we were something of a spectacle and to make things even more rediculous we barely dented the spread despite stuffing our faces until we could barely move. In the end it cost a grand total of 27 Ringette ($7US) and it was wonderful (even if most of it was still on the table).

Who ever said Lobsters can't ride motorbikes? / Koh Samui, Thailand

Considering the breakneck speed at which I have chosen to travel, which for the record, is revealing itself to be truly insane. Were it not for my insatiable drive to throw myself well outside my comfort zone all for the sake of one 'around the world in 80 day' adventure I would have just started with Thailand, taken the last month to ease into the beach and more than likely avoided today's 'ultra violent' beating.

Let me explain. Knowing my time on the beach was limited (1-3 days in each place max.) I thought it would be a good idea to try and get that 2-week tan in about 2 or 3 days! Crazy, I know, but if the truth be told, the first two went pretty smoothly, I went easy and the golden hue was coming in nice; I was beginning to look like I even fit in. However, today, well today was not so good. I rentd a motorbike and decided ripping around the island all afternoon would be a far better way to 'catch some rays' as apposed to rolling in and out of sweaty unconsciousness lying on the beach. Which, by the way may sound lovely, but personally I find it is dreadfully boring, there is only so much reading, swimming and banana shake ordering a guy can do before actually going bananas!

The road was long, the bike was swift and with the wind blowing past me I barely felt the heat at all, but it was there...in a very big way, it was there. It's been a couple of hours since I got out of the sun and I have applied 7 hearty 'bastings' of aftersun lotion. I'm as red as the paint on a fire truck..."Smells like...buuuuurning".

My motorbike is bright red and so am I, we make a cute pair. This could very well be my last entry depending on whether or not I need to fly home for skin graft surgury. Cross your fingers that it won't come to that. I would, but my fingers are burned!!!

Wretched n' Reliable / Khoasan Road, Bangkok, Thailand

On the front windshield of my bus it said in big bold letters, hmm, V.I.P. Very Important Progress? I left the capital in early afternoon and was in Thailand by nightfall where once we crossed the border everything just got better, first off all the bus,, for the first time since arriving in the ride was fast and smooth...if you've ever been to Thailand you know what I mean, for those of you who haven't well, it makes Greyhound (Canada) look ghetto. The huge luxury double decker buses they use have big comfy seats that go waaay back, giant windows, AC and movies in English. I watched a total of 5 Hollywood flicks on Chinese buses that were dubbed in Cantonese. Now, personally, I have a special fondness for old Kung Fu movies where the dubbing just adds to the appeal. Well if you think it works the other way...think again. If I had to sit through one more of those I would probably shoot myself.

Yeah, it's that bad!!!! Then there are rest stops, they have actual food, my favorite being little balls of meat on a stick in deep fried and dunked in Thai sauce...hmmm hmmm and the toilets, well, they're still nasty, but you don’t need to watch maggots crawling at the end of your stream or your neighbor taking a dump a foot away from you. A special bonus for me.

So, Bangkok, more precisely Khoasan Road. I rocked in about 5am and it's just like I left the place in a soiled state of organized disarray. The air was hot and smelled of fried food, beer and sweat and luke warm garbage. Tuk tuks to my left, stumbling tourists to my right. The bars were closed, but the Irish restaurant was still pumpin' and the whole strip was lit up like a Christmas tree. It's glorious and hideous all at once. After 3 weeks of relatively uncomfortable and unpredictable travel it was a welcome feeling to be someplace familiar even it was in the strongly appealing wretchedness of Khoasan.

"200 baht room for you, special price, foth floor, no Thai lady, no Thai boy, night night"
was all that needed to be said for me to get a key to my room.

How's that for an introduction? I caught a shower, grabbed a bite to eat and called home and while I was on the phone it started. By it, I mean, those 'unwelcome friendlies', some are women, some are men, all are wearing mini skirts and saying something to affect of

"Ooh, you beddy handsome man, where you going? You looky me? You go wit me blow job, I have room".

Kinda funny in that I've heard this all before so it's not really a shock, but no way in hell is it going to work this time either. However, thanks for the offer mam, er, I mean man!

I gotta hand it to them though they are persistent, and obvisouly there are enough poor fools out there to make worth their while.

"Heddo, where you from, what yo name?"

"Beat it!"

"Where you going?"

"Uh, I'm on the phone"

I said I was talking to my mom and he-she still wanted to chat, I said I was talking to my girlfriend he-she still wanted to chat and when that wasn't enough well, I don't know how to describe the motion she did with her mouth and her hand across the street, but the idea of it caused me to dry heave! Though I have to admit it just wouldn't be Khoasan without something like that right off the bat.

Beer Loas and Heavy Conversation in the capital / Vientiane, Loas

Oooooooh, I mean Loas nice and it was good to meet up with some fellow backpackers, but if you ask me it's a week run at best unless you plan on really, really exploring and trekking and well, that’s it...so yeah like a week and half tops. Met up with some more brits, enjoyed a good meal with good conversation and finally fell a victim to the cold and caressing clutches of Beer Loas, the beer out here...like seriously the ONLY beer out here. That night, well, it's a bit of a wash, though I do recall several bars, several beers and several hours of intriguing dialogue involving everything from world conspiracy to contemporary literature and trends in modern art...then there was the seedy after-hours karaoke club and the overfriendly Loasion girls. But, now that I read it, it just sounds like a typical Wednesday night doesn't it.

Friends: Seasons 1-9 / Vang Vien, Loas

Hmmm, there isn't much to say about this sleepy little stop, except that I can't figure out why anyone would spend more than a day or two here. I guess coming from the Okanagan rafting in a slow river didn't appeal to me and since it was sunny the last thing I thought would be cool would be to explore some caves and as much as I like watching 'Friends' and lounging about while food is served to me the idea of it playing in 8 out of 12 places in one block over and over again from open to close is a little bit terrifying, I don't care hot you think Rachel is!!! One thing I will say is if you ever find yourself in Vang Vien and you're headed south, definitely do the Kayaking down the river. Man, was that cool. Sure there even some rapids, not epic, but enough to surf and turf me a couple time. Then there was cliff jumping from which I'm still a little battered and bruised, but it was grand! (Note: arms up or arm to your sides or you'll be sorry). In total a few hours in a truck, 4 or 5 hours in the boats and boom...you're in the capital, Vientiane and you didn't have to hold your knees to your face for hours on end or share a seat with a chicken.

Social Studies / Luang Prabang, Loas

An impressive though somewhat crumbling collection French quarters and sleepy temples. There are 44 in total, I managed to get in about half that and it was more than enough. You see, wats are like cathedrals in Europe though all are impressive and one should really see them in person, if you look at too many in a row they all just start to look the same. Unlike China Central Loas was hot and sunny so a day of exposure wasted me, but not before I would be introduced to Beth. Beth, the frizzy haired brit whose stories of heavy drinking, black outs and experimental drug use were as amusing to her as she told the tales as it was for us to hear them...wow, I thought now here was an element of traveling that I was missing.

My social skills had somewhat regressed in the solitude of China, but tonight I was out with a group and happy to throw in a tale or two. We chit chatted for a bit as the movie Troy played out in the background, then headed to another bar run by a leather faced expat from San Francisco. He had older look in his eyes. He wore a black knock off, Von Dutch t-shirt and looked like he might be an interesting character.

Then the words "Heeey, you look like one of those computer nerds.", dribbled out of his mouth in my direction and screwed up the forming impression.

The first thing that came to mind was "Yeah funny thing about assumptions, I thought you looked like a recovering homosexual alcoholic, but you know I didn't wanna say anything", but I didn't let that one go.

Within seconds a half cut brit couple from Maaaanchester piped up beside me concurred
"Yeah, a rich one."

I was surrounded by idiots I thought, but quickly reminded myself it could be much worse...at least I KNEW what it was they were saying and decided in an instant that I preferred this situation over one where I was surrounded by snickering Chinese. I was in Loas and I was having a laugh, bottom line. In the end I played off the 'computer nerd' brand to my advantage and got them all laughing at themselves while I basked in comments like "Canadians are al-right with me" and "Pity to hear about that hockey thing mate" LOL.

Kunming to Loas.....beddy loooong time for you.

One overnight bus south from Kunming to Mengla in Yunnan, China 22hrs
One Mini bus to Mohan, China with a mudslide and a flat tire to mix it up a bit 3 hours
One rickshaw to the bank and then the next bus 25 minutes
One 2 mile walk from the Chinese check point 30 minutes or so
Attain Loas Visa at the crossing point 30 minutes
No buses out of town till morning 26hrs
Sleep over night in Boten, Loas (one road border town), hang out at a Loasian barbeque and practicing my Loa while eating on chicken, pork skin and duck heads with sticky rice.
Bus comes to town and is full, forced to catch 12 passenger minibus that is eventually packed with 20 people and 15 boxes of jeans headed for market in Udemxai, not Luang Prabang where I want to go, but have no choice. 3hrs...with my knees pressed against my chest..super comfy!
Tourist bus from Udemxai to Luang Prabang 8-9hrs
Hop the back of a motorbike 5 minutes to Guesthouse...enjoy glorious shower!!!

40+ hours spent in transit over a possible 60 which was a little extreme, even for me.

I'm not there anymore, but Loas was beautiful, a lush green place spread unevenly over bright red earth, from atop the leafy hills of Northern Loas were some stunning views and I would have stopped in every second village if I could as they were teeming with photo opts, but we just kept barreling along. Long, twisting and treacherous, would be the best way I could describe the roads, if you've been there you know what I mean, maybe not as rugged as Cambodia, but at least in the desert you don't run the risk of plummeting over a cliff or having a head on collision at one of the countless blind corners. Once the sun goes down, the driver goes twice as fast trying, no doubt to make up the lost time he spent dodging villagers in the daylight. You see it's not so much the distance we covered in all that time, it's that the roads, provided they're still there after a heavy rainfall are questionable, on a good day and precariously slither up and down mountain after mountain after mountain. It's no wonder the region still maintains that charming underdeveloped feel that it's so famous for.

Every few minutes we would pass a small village or group of villages walking along the side of the hauling all manner of things, wood, produce, television set...you know the basics. The villages seemed more or less the same after the first 20 or so...small dusty clusters of what can only be described as huts. Hand woven thatch walls with thick dried leafy roofs. Cows, pigs, chickens and astonishing number babies and kids scurried about stopping sometimes to watch you whiz past. I wondered what it must be like to live out here, sure, they have electricity and I did see a few TVs, but it's a far cry from an urban townhouse complex. I couldn't help, but wonder if some of them have ever left, or would even want to? I wanted to know more about these places and about the people who lived there. I wanted to stop so many times to take photos and wander around, but it just goes to show that the richest images are often on the road less traveled, or at least at the places one doesn't usually stop on that road. I had a lot of time to peer and ponder out the window of a bus or a train and I feel like I want to describe every fleeting detail it's a rolling memory and far too vast to get into one spot. Go see it, you'll know what I mean. As the thick green jungle dissolved into inky black night, bright orange moon lit up the sky.

Here's the thing / Kunming, China

China's population is said to be somewhere in the mind boggling 1.3 to 1.4 billion range and if you ever step foot in one of the major cities it is not hard to imagine it's true because they all seem to be out, smothering the streets, walking, on motorbikes, buses, pushing carts, driving cars; some that even look like the ones at home, but with different names as though someone just switched the logos.

There is a saying about Asia and China is no exception...it's goes something the effect of 'no matter where you go there is always someone (usually a woman) eating food, preparing food or selling food, at all hours of the night and day in every direction.' It's no secret the Chinese are an industrious bunch, a massive country in the process of undergoing equally massive progression into the new millennium. Consider the above; that accounts for about half the people I walked past...the other, well, simply put there is a loooooot of loitering going on in China, mainly men, sitting, standing, smoking, spitting endlessly and on rare occasion smiling or laughing. Street corners, storefronts, restaurants. I could walk past the same place three times at varying times of day and the same group would be chilling right there where they were 6 hours before. It was weird.

Motorbikes are an omnipresent here as they are in many other Asian cities, but in China you are much more likely to be run over by one. That is if you're a young white guy because they don't seem to like those, or at least that's the impression I got. If it weren't for, wrong directions, rude deliberate shooing's and the constant stream of unfriendly gawking I might dismiss the fact people regularly walked or drove within a inch of my toes without even looking and chaulk it up to the fact they have no sense of space since there seems to be so little of it here.
When I arrived here (by cab) I noticed how modern it all appeared, boring and indescript, but modern all the same. Clean, sterile, developed, a city of the verge. The China I saw from the window of my railcar as I left was a distinctly different China. Crumbling brick buildings, decaying apartment blocks and soiled shanty villages sewn together with colorful lines of drying laundry. A sense of guilt washed over me for feeling a little hard done by during my stay. I have it so good at home and almost everywhere else that I've gone. I'll admit China was a tough go, but the fact remains, I'm just visiting and this isn't how I will ever have to live. Poor me, I got stared at, shooed away, ripped off and nearly run over more times than I want to mentionm but the truth is I get to get on a train and go on with my trip in some other country and when it's all done, I get to go home to a country where I don't have to live in a shanty village or work in a nasty market or try to rip off foreigners so my kids can eat. I'm reminded of my old saying, "We've got it so good, even when we think we've got it so bad." For millions and millions of people in slums all over the world it isn't a choice they are able to make.

• Things I've noticed
  
  Chinese people don't like me (or so it seems)
  
  Chinese love to shop and eat and if they're shopping or eating, they're NOT selling food or working in the one of the bevy of shops or market stalls.
  
  Staring. Everywhere I go there are nothing but long curious stares. Then when you smile back, they turn away or simply continue staring until you have walked past. In Vietnam, sometimes I felt like a celebrity. In China I get the understandably less appealing sense of being in a Zoo.
  
  Honking, ALWAYS WITH THE HONKING!!!
  
  There is no hockey in China. In fact the only sign of sports that I saw was that 10 foot Chinese dude on billboards who plays in the NBA.
  
  In London, Vancouver and NYC when you want to get on the subway an elevator or simply go into a shopping mall you wait until the people who are exiting, exit. In China when you want do any of those things from what I can tell the thing to do is push in as hard and as fast as you can. To say it's an irritating practice would be an understatement. How I don't 'spaz' and trade my best impression of the language into my best impression of my favorite kung fu movies is a real mystery? Perhaps Chinese prison is part of it.
  
  Markets of very interesting, but stink with the stench of thousand deaths. PS. Don't wear shorts and sandals, I think that was the breaking point for me.
  
  A plain old suit costs about $10-15 so every second guy is wearing one, even in the country while riding a bicycle. I saw a lot of people wearing camouflage, which when you think about it, kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it.
  
  There are fake 100Y notes ($12.50) circulating so watch out. I have one, grrrrr.
  
  In general (in the South anyway, since I haven't been to the North) virtually no one will voluntarily talk to you so be very suspicious of anyone who approaches you with a syrupy sweet "Hellloooo, my friend, where you from" is definitely NOT your friend 99 times ouf of a 100! In fact he may give you a fake 100Ynote as change, knowing that you're leaving and won't notice until you try to use it in the next town. NOT that I would know anything about THAT!!!!!!
  
  Perspective enhancing yes, but parts of China also made me very grumpy. Time to move along.

Deja Vu City / Nanning, China

Nanning wasn't unlike the last few Chinese cities I'd explored (with exception to HK) with it's indistinguishable city blocks concrete towers, alleyways, open air restaurants, retails shops and the obligatory sinus intruding market. I noticed a pattern in on my stroll...cell phone store, dumpling shop, clothing outlet, electronic shop, bank, lottery dispenser, corner store, repeat, over and over for blocks and blocks. Then, I found the park, a breath of fresh air in a city where diesel belching cars and trucks roar past, you're on the constant look out for rogue kamikaze motorbikes and everyone seems to be smoking and spitting. It was here I discovered the peculiar hobby of public dance lessons...no I didn't take part, but it was amusing to see. On one side of the clearing a group of women waving around bright red fans in sequence while on the other side another group honed their Salsa skills. Women, young and old just hanging out in the park learning to dance, I thought it was terrific.

Markets, when I first got here I was all about 'going to the market' seeing how people live and shop and what they eat and how it's laid out and well, having wandered through at least 25 such markets so far I think it's safe to say I'm over that urge. However if they would like to travel to Canada, pay a visit to Safeway or Superstore and take pictures of all the 'weird stuff' than I'd be happy to show them the way.

Lessons, like three the hard way / Yangshou, China

"Guilin, Guilin" was the cry as the man in the minibus rolled on by.

I raised my hand and within moments I was stuffed hip to hip with market bound locals and on my way north. On Arrival in Guilin an hour or so later I managed to find my way to the train station several blocks away and administered my usual (nearly useless) attempt at Chinese only be once again yelled at by the furry browed man behind the glass along with the shooing motion I was getting all to familiar with since arriving in Mainland China.

I finally found a girl who spoke a little (very little) English, explained I wanted to go to Kunming, she smiled and sent me upstairs to the waiting room. Great, I thought. There were people in this room and the regular array of unappetizing snacks...I mean really how many times can these people eat instant noodles with indistinguishable pictures on the package? Anyway, to shorten this up, I needed a ticket before actually waiting here so back downstairs to the same girl I had talked to before, she sent me back to the furry browed man behind the glass who was yelling at someone else...which in a strange way I found to be a little comforting, maybe it wasn't just me? I took a breath and did my best impression of "one ticket to Kunming please"...then again with the yelling and shooing!!! By this time my bag was getting heavy, I was wet from walking in the rain and I was fully ready to pull that angry furry browed man through that little talk hole and give him a personal demonstration of my mounting frustration. I got over it and went back to the girl who spoke a little English who this time decided to bestow upon me the fact that the train was not even leaving for two days. Suuuuper. I'd just spent the last an hour bouncing around the station like a soggy ping pong ball only find out that if I didn't figure something else out I would be stuck in this waterlogged city. Needless to say, I figured something else out.

After repeating the process I succeeded in securing a ticker and headed to Nanning on a 6 hour bus trip and booked myself into the finest room $5 could get. It was a virtually characterless Ying Bin Hotel was the cheapest of two choices in the LP, it high ceilings and a view of the square outside. Manky little orange slippers were set for me in the corner, the distinct odor of cigarette smoke hung in the air, however, it had a bed and a shower (or something like it) down the hall and it wasn't an overnight bus so it was good enough for me.

Shenzhenian Haircuts

No less than 3 people took on this duty, first, a soapy 20 minute melon massage, followed by a lay down hair rinse and massage followed by a clipping from one frizzy haired 80's rocker with a hemp couture and a half inch coke nail. All wrapped up by a cute 4 1/2 foot hair washing, head massaging shoulder rubbing dynamo who had the distinct ability to channel the strength of one much larger professional arm wrestler. It was heaven and it cost me 3 bucks.