Travel with Small Duffel Bags and a Small Back Pack

I only travel with what I can carry in my hands and on my back. That forces me to be a minimalist. In my case, I use the small Eagle Creek duffel bags. I carry two small bags rather than one regular size bag for several reasons: First – it keeps me balanced. One big bag would make me lopsided and it would be too heavy for me to lift. Second – two small bags can fit into the luggage sections of tourist vans far more easily than a larger bag could. Third – I often use one bag to carry stuff I’ll need for the next few weeks and leave the other bag in a guest house to pick up a few weeks later.  This lightens my load tremendously.

If you’re planning to travel in third world countries, avoid getting luggage with wheels. The sidewalks are uneven. The curbs are high. The wheels add weight. It’s just not practical.

My backpack is a small PacSafe camera bag. Of course, I carry my camera in it, but I also carry my MacBook Air, iPad, iPhone, external memory, external power supply, noise cancelling headset and all the cables and other paraphernalia I need. The PacSafe bag is lined with a wire mesh that prevents thieves from sticking knives through the bag. It’s lined with an RFID shield to prevent others from reading my credit cards and passport. It has a place for everything so I can quickly scan the cubbyholes to check that I have everything. Although I’m generally a low-budget traveler, I don’t mind spending top dollar on luggage because it pays off big time.

Computer, Tablet, Smart Phone

I buy Apple everything. Aside from the fact that I am an admitted Apple bigot, I am certain I can get technical support from certified Apple technicians anywhere in the world. I have a global Apple support plan, and I had to use that support in Bangkok. Worked like a charm.

I bought the MacBook Air because it is the thinnest and lightest-weight computer I could find in the Apple lineup that would do the work I needed to do. I had an iPhone 5 that is at least 5 years old by now. I had my telecom company unlock the phone before I left so I just need to buy a new SIM card every time I go to a new country.

I debated about whether to buy an iPad or not because there are arguments, both pro and con, once you have a computer and a smartphone. In the end I did buy one and I’m glad I did. I can carry the iPad around with me on a day’s outing and use the mapping feature so I don’t get lost.  I’m building quite the eBook library on the iPad and I can read the books easily and naturally on it. It would have been a bit awkward on the computer. There are probably half a dozen applications I use regularly that just seem to fit the tablet format better than the computer or iPhone format. I would definitely recommend you pick up a tablet of some sort before you head out the door. You will find it’s worth both the extra weight and the cost. 

Back Up My Computer Files with Carbonite

When I had a home office, I backed up my files on a large, local external hard drive. There are some obvious problems doing that when traveling. So I choose to backup with Carbonite and keep my backups in the cloud. Simple, cheap and weightless. You should do that too.

Build a Growing Library of E-Books

I love to read books. On earlier trips, I bought paperback books and read them in my room. I had so many books that I had to pay overweight charges at the airport. During the last 15 months on this trip I’ve built up a library of more than 40 books on my iPad. The books are always there for me. I can read them in bed even after ‘lights out’ because the tablet screen is backlit. These books cost less than half of the cost of a paperback book and I can download them immediately – no need to hike over to the local bookstore. (Actually, I still go to the bookstore, but only to get ideas about books to buy.) As long as I travel, I’ll never plan to buy another printed book.

Never Get Lost with CityMaps2Go

On earlier trips I would buy paper city maps to help me navigate my way around cities. Then I’d throw the maps into my day bag. This was good, but not great. I still got lost.

Then I discovered CityMaps2Go. This is a free app that runs on tablets and smart phones. This app allows me to download electronic maps of the territories and cities I’m visiting. Then it tracks where I am so I never get lost. I can look for specific tourist sites or hotels. Given those two, it’s a piece of cake to navigate from where I am to where I want to be. Once I have a marker for where I am and another for where I want to go, I can walk around new cities without ever worrying about getting lost. It gives me a sense of confidence I’ve never enjoyed before.

Advise My Banks That I Am Travelling

When banks recognize that someone is making ATM withdrawals from foreign countries, it’s not unusual for them to freeze the account or, even worse, treat the card as lost or stolen. By advising my banks in writing that I would be traveling overseas, my banks did not freeze my accounts. It’s a simple step I forgot to handle during my first trip out of the country.

Collect All the Right Electronics

In addition to the computer equipment I mentioned above, I bought some other electronics that proved quite valuable.

A few months ago I bought a Plantronics 725 headset with active noise-cancelling – invaluable for phone calls with clients when I am in noisy environments. Then I bought all the software I needed. Whenever the vendor comes out with an update, I download and install it automatically. 

I bought a Sony compact camera – the HX400V. This is a top-end compact, but I would urge others to buy a smaller camera that is shock-resistant. Your travel camera will take a bit of a beating and you don’t want to have to be afraid to throw it into your day pack.

I bought a 10500 Asus battery pack. This is an external battery pack that’s sufficient for recharging an iPad or an iPhone but it won’t recharge a computer.

There is clearly a heavy overhead for maintaining and carrying these electronics. In fact, I bought the PacSafe backpack I mentioned earlier just for the electronics. It cost more than the most expensive backpack you’ll find in outdoor stores but I see it as essential to protect the investment I’ve made in the technologies that allow me to earn my living, manage my money, book travel arrangements, stay in touch with friends and get the training I need.

I have one piece of valuable technology that does not even weigh a gram: Fongo. Fongo is a Canadian-based telephone service that allows me to make free phone calls to nearly everywhere in Canada. Other places in Canada cost about 2 cents a minute. And I can call American numbers – both landlines and cell phones – for 2 cents a minute. The company offers low-cost phone calls to most of the other countries in the world.

I prefer Fongo over Skype because it is easier to connect, the prices are lower, the voice quality is better and I have not yet had a call dropped. Skype still has a few advantages over Fongo, though. For one, calls between Skype users are free. For another, Skype offers video connections.  And third, Skype has a call recorder while Fongo does now.

My cousins south of the 49th parallel should look for a similar app – something like Line2.

Take the USANA ‘The Essentials’ Religiously

No, I’m not a USANA distributor, so this is not some self-serving pitch for you to buy products from me. If you want to find a dealer, I can point you to a few.

Traveling creates a whole range of stresses. I breathe polluted air in many countries and there is no getting away from it in the cities. When I change guest houses or hostels, I also change mattresses. I never know for sure how well my food has been prepared. Although I make every effort to drink bottled water, I can’t always get it. I’m facing constant uncertainty in terms of travel arrangements, sleeping arrangements and daily schedules. All of that creates a lot of stress. On top of that, travelers are vulnerable when they are traveling alone because they have no one to look after them when they get sick.

It’s vital that I stay healthy all the time. At a minimum, when I do get sick, I need to bounce back quickly. The USANA supplements I take have done wonders to help keep me healthy in spite of all the germs I come in contact with. They are so important to me that I have them air-shipped to me at a premium. Sometimes I even have to pay duty on the products. It’s worth it. I simply don’t get sick.

Learn to Teach English as a Second Language

My income on this trip has been spotty. After a year of traveling like this, I realized I needed a more stable source of income, but I didn’t want to sacrifice the travel. This led me to take the most advanced online course available to teach English as a second language. I took the course through www.myTEFL.com. The course cost $295 US but the school gave me a 40% discount, so the cost was manageable. Now I have my TEFL certificate in hand.

In April I will start teaching English to elementary and high school children in Nepal. That will give me practical experience. The combination of the TEFL certificate I earned online, practical experience in Nepal and my university degrees should set me up to get short-term teaching jobs all over the world. In fact, once I am well into teaching in Nepal, I will start applying for teaching jobs in Japan, Shanghai, Brazil, Argentina and other places that look interesting.

Teaching English does not pay a lot of money – typically something on the order of $2,000 US a month with room and board thrown in. But it provides a wonderful opportunity to learn about a new country, meet the people and see the sites. At the same time, I put a little money in the bank.

Read the Guidebooks

The guidebook I prefer is the ‘Insight’ series. This is a series of high-quality guidebooks with plenty of pictures, maps and background information on every aspect of a country. I download the books to my iPad and read them in preparation for my visit to a new country. When I go to a city or a tourist area, I take my iPad with me and carve out time to read the books while I’m at the tourist site. It helps me be sure that I know exactly what to go see – and then to understand what I’m seeing.

For macro-planning, I bought a book called ‘1,000 Places to See Before You Die.’ Wonderful book. It’s organized by country. When I’m planning to visit a country, I can quickly build a list of the top 3 to 10 places to visit. By cross-referencing the two books, I know I’m seeing the best a country has to offer a short-term visitor. (And, in an existential sense, we are all short-term visitors.)

I regret that I have not been able to learn more than a few words of the language in the countries I visit. For one thing, I’ve discovered that it’s difficult for me to learn languages. For another, I only spend a little time in each country. Third, the people I meet tell me they look forward to speaking English with foreigners.

Lynda.com Training

I work while I travel. In fact, it is essential that I earn money while traveling because my miniscule pensions are inadequate to allow me to do much more than survive. I take on billable projects that often require me to master new skills. Fortunately, I can learn those skills rapidly by taking courses on Lynda.com. This site offers a wide range of courses on photography, web development, business, software, video etc. I highly recommend that long-term travelers who expect to earn while traveling subscribe to this service.

I Never Take Offense

I’ve learned to never take offense. No one ever means to be rude.

In most countries, people ask me the same 5 questions:

Where are you from?
How old are you?
Where is your family?
What religion are you?
Are you rich?

The first question is normal. In North America, we would see the other questions as intrusive. Here, they are seen as normal questions. I have fun with the questions and use them as conversation starters.

Young children are quite direct. They ask me why my skin is so pale. They want to know why my ears stick out, why I have no hair and why my nose is so skinny. In Myanmar, a country that has only recently opened its borders to tourists, even some of the adults look at me with interest.  I have never sensed hostility or envy – I’ve only sensed curiosity.

Photo Credits
Photos are Fair Use

Buy Your Travel Clothes at Home

I thought I would buy travel clothes in various countries as I traveled through them. That is a good idea if you want to pick up a few accent or fun items here and there but a bad idea for assembling your ‘real’ travel wardrobe. When I was traveling I found it was hard to find the quality and style of clothes I wanted. I wasted a lot of time looking around. At home, I knew exactly where to go to get what I wanted.

Without question, your most important piece of clothing is your shoes. Get shoes with thick rubber soles. I bought New Balance shoes and lived in them.

Buy most of your clothes at MEC if you live in Canada or REI if you live in the States. The clothes are a bit pricey but they will last you longer than stylish clothes and will give you a lower ‘cost per wear.’

Take the Biggest External Battery Pack You Can Find

Battery packs are heavy and I wanted to minimize my weight, so I made the mistake of discarding my battery pack that would recharge my phone, iPad and camera. In retrospect, I see that was a big mistake. In many parts of the world you simply cannot find a place to plug in your iPad or phone. Right now, I’m sitting in a Starbucks in Makati, Philippines. This is the business centre of the country. The coffee vendor offers good internet but there is absolutely no place to plug in to recharge my battery. This is not unusual outside North America.

If your electronic equipment is important to you – and they are vital to me – then buy the biggest battery pack you can you can find. Keep it charged.

Give a Friend an Irrevocable Power of Attorney

While I was in Asia, I lost my Bank of Montreal ATM card. Getting a replacement should not have been a problem – or so I thought. I called my bank, explained that I was traveling and had lost my card, and asked for a replacement. The bank agent asked me to go to my local branch in Canada to get a replacement. I tried to explain that I was on the other side of the planet and that it would be inconvenient to fly back just to get a replacement. The agent wouldn’t budge.

I could have short circuited this problem if I had given a friend an irrevocable power of attorney before I had left the country. I could have had the POA notarized in Canada and there would have been no question that it was legitimate. As it turned out, I had to turn backflips to get a replacement card. The lesson is clear: give a friend an irrevocable power of attorney. You never know when you’ll need it.

Keep Your Luggage Locked – Always

I have a couple travel locks I slip through the zipper pulls to keep my luggage locked. It’s always a bit of a hassle to put them in place and then remove them just a few minutes later. So, when I was in ‘safe’ places I didn’t bother. That proved to be a mistake. You are NEVER in a safe place.

I remember two overnight bus trips I took in Thailand. I kept my backpack close to me and slept with one eye open. An experienced thief worked his way through the bus looking for opened bags. He found mine and pulled out most, but not all, of my cash. He never touched my passport or anything else. The result was that I suffered a loss that was a major inconvenience but not a catastrophe. It wasn’t worth reporting to the police. I met a few others on the bus who suffered the same fate.

In addition to zipper locks, I also bought a loop lock. This lock has a metal cord that wraps through my luggage handles and something fairly secure such as a building pipe or a big piece of furniture. Thieves can break these locks if they really want to, but that’s not the point – 99.9% of all thefts are ‘thefts of convenience’ (I just made that number up!). If you make it the least bit inconvenient for a thief, he won’t bother stealing from you.

Don’t Cancel Your Old Phone Number

When I left Canada, I cancelled my cell phone number because I planned to be away for 5 years or more. I set up a VOIP service with Fongo and chose a new phone number. Obviously, the people who call me at my old number can no longer reach me. Recently I found that Fongo allows you to transfer your old phone number to their service. That’s a huge plus! Of course, callers can only reach you when you are in the presence of WiFi, but that does not need to be a problem. You can just roll your calls over to voice mail and play them back the next time you are near a good internet signal.

Interestingly, I’ve found that the voice quality and the number of dropped calls with Fongo is far superior than with Skype. My friends south of the 49th parallel should look for an American VOIP service such as Line2. One of my buddies recommended I check out Google Talk to make free phone calls anywhere in North America from anywhere in the world!

Don’t Buy a Good Camera!

A few months ago I bought a beautiful Sony HX400V compact camera. This little beauty is loaded with features that made me drool. I paid $500 USD for the camera in a duty free shop in Bangkok.

Then I started learning what is wrong with the camera. One day I crawled onto a boat and dropped my camera bag just a few inches; the camera hit the boat with a thud. That knocked the camera out of whack! I didn’t think the impact was great enough to cause a problem but I was wrong. Fortunately, the camera was still under warranty. I took the camera into the Sony repair depot in Bangkok along with my receipt and they did an excellent job of repairing the camera within a few days.

But there are a couple ‘gotchas.’ First, I had to pay $20 for the taxi to get out to the Sony depot to drop the camera off and another $20 a few days later to run back to pick it up. Ouch! A couple months later while I was in the Philippines, I needed another repair. The Philippine service centre would not initiate the repair without my warranty card. I had thrown that card away because I had registered my camera online. As it turns out, the Philippine service centres don’t have access to those online registrations (the Philippines operates in the dark ages in so many ways I can’t begin to explain how bad it is.) At the end of the day, I could not get my camera repaired in the Philippines and I had to wait until I returned to Bangkok. I later learned that the Philippines offers one of the worst customer support programs for all products and services in the world!

My advice would be to buy a smaller camera with fewer features for a lower price and ask specifically whether the camera is shock resistant (not shock proof). You want to be able to throw you camera in your knapsack and carry it around on your outings without worrying about breaking it. I need to look into lighter weight, shock resistant cameras before I can recommend one. In the meantime, I recommend you check out what Kim Komando has to say about cameras. She gives good advice about a wide range of consumer products.

Figure Out the Bare Minimum You Can travel With – Then Get Rid of a Third of It

I was planning to go to some cold countries and some warm countries so I packed for both seasons. I knew the water in India and Nepal was undrinkable so I bought a top-of-the-line Katadyn water filter and extra filters. I bought a nano-lantern because I knew that some places didn’t have electricity. And the list goes on and on.

I lugged this stuff around for six months and then realized that I wouldn’t need the water filter or some of the other stuff for at least another year. When I finally ‘got it,’ I started throwing stuff away, giving stuff away and mailing stuff home. With a bit of work, I was able to get my load down to what I could carry in my own two hands. At that point I was truly mobile.

Now, I’m planning to head off to Nepal and I need the stuff I mailed home to Canada. No problem! I just sent an email to my Canadian friend and asked her to send me the box I sent to her some 9 months ago. Sure, it cost me a few bucks to mail the stuff back and forth but it is definitely worth it because I didn’t have to carry it for those 9 months. Now, I will have the stuff I need during my trip in Nepal. When I am ready to leave Nepal, I will mail the stuff home again.

Photo Credits

Luggage from morgueFile
Luggage lock from Flickr – some rights reserved
Camera from pixabay – public domain
Man using water filter from Flickr – some rights reserved

The ‘Hobbit House’

The allure of the place is the architecture of the Hobbit House and the treehouses. Everything – and I do mean EVERYTHING – is built from rock and stone. When I say everything, I’m including the stairs, the paths, the comfort rooms (bathrooms in the rest of the world), the bar, the terrace, the kitchen, and even the boat pier. All of the stonework was put in place with meticulous attention to detail. There is nothing shoddy about the workmanship.

Two things became clear to me the moment I saw the place: the man who built it was a master craftsman in stonework, and he built the resort with love. The overall layout of the place and the design of each of the buildings is creative, even artful. The site did not lend itself to using heavy equipment. All the stone and other building materials had to be brought in on the backs of hod carriers.

Stone ‘comfort room’ or bathroom

The designer is by no means addicted to straight lines. Nearly all of the building constructions were curved. Even the facings on the bar were curved. The designer’s propensity to use curves rather than straight lines made every part of the resort far more appealing – far more human – than it would have been otherwise.

The view from the terrace was befitting for the style of the resort: vast vistas of low-slung mountains intermingling with the ocean and peppered with sailboats here and there.

Stone bar and path

Interestingly, the resort has no clear boundaries. Rather, the path just comes to an end and the overgrowth of the surrounding forest serves as a forbidding barrier to carry on. But the barrier is not impenetrable; the stout could push on if they chose to. This loose layout also suggests that the owner may elect to add more treehouses and stone hobbit houses at some point in the future. I would encourage him to do so.

The only stone pier I have seen

Having said all of this, I must admit that there are some limits to the desirability of this resort. For one thing, all of the chairs are falling apart! You are better off sitting on the benches. Second, the WiFi is terrible! The resort uses a small modem the size of a pack of cigarettes that is tied into the cell phone system. It is completely inadequate but probably the best the resort could do, given the availability of the internet in the area. And lastly, there is not much to do in the area. But that doesn’t have to be a problem. I met interesting people at the Sanctuaria I would not have met had the internet service been better or had there been activities to distract me! There was actually a benefit to having poor internet!

Is it worth a visit? Well, if you enjoy a fantasy getaway for a few days, then I would definitely go. You can hire a tricycle in Coron to take you out there for 1,200 pesos or you can join up with some others who are making the journey, hire a van and enjoy a ride that is both more comfortable and lower priced.

Here are a few more photographs from my visit to Sanctuaria Treehouses:

Photo Credits

Photos by Jan Wall – all rights reserved

The community runs half a dozen one-day tours that range from 650 pesos ($19 Canadian) to about 1,800 pesos ($52 Canadian). All of the tours include lunch. I took the el cheapo tour called Tour A. The other tours had equally romantic names – Tour B, Tour C etc. Tour A turned out to be a great one-day outing. There were about a dozen of us on this tour who piled into a narrow wooden boat stabilized by bamboo outriggers and driven by a powerful inboard motor. That puppy could really move when it had to.

This was the most un-guided guided tour I’d ever been on. That’s not a complaint; there was no need for a guide. Everything we saw was natural and self-evident.

A small, pristine beach on an uninhabited island

Our first stop was in a beautiful bay surrounded by cliffs that soared nearly vertically and were covered with a tropical forest. The forest was part of a nature preserve and was untouched. I just sat on the boat and gazed at the mountains and the blue-green turning blue water. If I hadn’t been on the boat, I would have sworn I was watching a travelogue. Then, when I thought about the $19 I had shelled out, I was all the more pleased. Like everyone else, I hopped off the side of the boat and swam a bit in the warm water. I used my snorkeling mask but didn’t see much to delight me under the surface.

A few shacks on the beach

Our second stop was a small beach you could only reach by boat. No one lived on the island and there were no roads. One end of the beach ended with the forest, the other was book-ended by a small mangrove woods. There were no facilities there. A few people tied a tarp to some branches to create a bit of shade from the sun, but that was it.

Beach on an island where we had lunch

Our third stop was a long white beach with a few shacks thrown up here and there. They were fit-for-purpose and nothing more. This was a place built for Filipinos but it welcomed foreigners as well. I loved it. This is where we had lunch – a wonderful spread of rice, vegetables and fish. I told our Filipino chef that I was delighted with his handiwork and then worried that his face would split from the ear-to-ear grin of happiness he gave me. I’d seen similar meals in town for 250 pesos. That meant that the tour itself (sans lunch) would only be 400 pesos or $11.75 Canadian. You can’t begin to touch a day’s outing like this in Canada for that price!

A raft on Kayangan Lake

Our fourth stop was mind blowing – Kayangan Lake. After lunch we strolled down the beach and started climbing the stairs. Most of the steps were proper stairs but sometimes they gave way to the rock that served more or less as steps. There were about 300 steps but the climb up the hill and the descent on the other side was not onerous. When I saw the lake, I realized I was in one of those ‘better pinch yourself to make sure it’s real’ moments. The water was perfectly clear and warm. One end of the lake was bordered by a wooden walkway that was entirely adequate if you kept your eyes on your feet rather than the scenery (as I did). This lake is absolutely stunning. I realized only later that it was the poster lake for the Coron Islands.

Kayangan Lake high above sea level on an island

The ‘poster child’ picture of Coron

Travel and Accommodations

It is easy to get to Coron. I booked deck passage on a ship from Manila to Coron with ‘2GO Travel.’ You could fly there, but that would be expensive. When I bought my ticket for the ship, I showed my old-fogey identification and got a senior citizen’s discount. It cost me less than $50 each way.

Once in Coron, I took a room at RB Transient House. The room was quite spacious, shared a bath and boasted an excellent kitchen. Interestingly, the house was built on stilts over the floodwater plains. I walked on a wooden elevated path from dry land out to the house. Cost? Are you sitting down? 500 pesos a day or about $15 Canadian ($10 US)!

If you book online, almost all the accommodations cost $40 a day and up. But once you get to Coron and stroll down the side streets, you can find a lot of places that are far more reasonably priced. Budget travelers and backpackers will find Coron to be a haven.

Photo Credits

Photos by Jan Wall – all rights reserved

An air-conditioned skywalk connecting a transportation hub and the Petronas Towers

KL is home to the Petronas Towers. Petronas is short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad, Malaysia’s fully-integrated oil and gas multinational ranked among the largest corporations on FORTUNE Global 500. It is the custodian for Malaysia’s national oil and gas resources. The Petronas Towers make a very clear statement about the importance Petronas plays in the everyday life of the country.

The Petronas Towers were the tallest towers in the world from 1998 to 2004. Taipei 101 (in Taipei, Taiwan) surpassed the towers in 2004, but is only a single tower, which left the Petronas Towers to continue to hold the title of the world’s tallest twin towers. They continue to do so to this day. The towers are 88 stories tall and have a skybridge connecting them above the half-way point. The steel and glass façade is designed to resemble Islamic motifs, since Islam is the predominant religion in Malaysia. The bottom six floors are allocated to a shopping complex featuring the preeminent brand names in clothing, shoes, watches and jewelry in the world. Of course, it has the usual assortment of mid-range and upscale restaurants. I wandered around in the shopping area for a few hours – remarkable, because I have had my fill of shopping and generally don’t feel attracted to shopping centres in the least.

The shopping centres in this Muslim city have all the Christmas glitter and more
that we’ve come to expect in Christian countries

The Petronas Towers is the flagship of the Kuala Lumpur City Center or KLCC. Its developers call it ‘a city within a city.’ KLCC offers a myriad of interesting attractions, including plenty of nightlife, dining and shopping options. KLCC is readily accessible via public transport, with many buses operating on various routes within the area and a few train stations nearby. There are dozens of impressive skyscrapers in the KLCC complex. Although it would be easy for such a large and imposing complex to be overwhelming, it wasn’t. In fact, it was quite manageable.

Skyscrapers of this grandeur spread out for several kilometres around the city centre

The wealth in KL is palpable. Even the older buildings are maintained in good repair. Although I rarely saw a uniformed policeman, I always felt the presence of a commitment to law and order without a sense that it was repressive. Even though Malaysia is a Muslim country and most women dressed with the hijab covering their hair, very few wore the niqab covering their faces except for their eyes. As far as I could tell, women held a wide range of professional positions with considerable authority, although it was difficult to tell for sure as a tourist.

The view from the Petronas Towers shows that it is a giant among giants

In the West, we hear far too much about Muslim extremists and the hatred Muslims have for Westerners. Based on my personal experience, I can say for certain that there is no basis for that fear whatsoever in Malaysia. It is a total myth. I was welcomed everywhere and treated with respect. I got into debates with taxi drivers about taxi fares, but it was no different than a debate in a Western city.

A man enjoys a quiet phone call in the heart of the city centre surrounded by
the most sophisticated sky scrapers in the city

I saw billboards at colleges and universities that made it clear that a mastery of English is essential to integrating effectively into the international community. I was stunned to read that, over the last decade, 200,000 health care professionals had finished their studies, but 50,000 never received their professional designations because they failed to master English. This is hardly a sign of a country that rejects the West. Instead, I saw it as a sign that modern-day Malaysia is committed to integrating its historical traditions and values with the demands of the modern, international community.

I travelled from Johor Bahru in the south of the peninsula to Langkawi in the far north. Everywhere throughout this country I was well-received and safe. I was also impressed with how modern the country is everywhere, not just the major cities, as is the case in the Philippines and Vietnam.

Photo Credits

Photos by Jan Wall – all rights reserved

Last week I was accepted to volunteer to teach English to elementary and high school children in the foothills of the Himalayas in Annapurna, Nepal. I’ll be working with a non-profit organization committed to raising the educational standards of school age children in this part of the world: “Trek To Teach.” This organization has already established teaching programs in 6 communities and will kick off programs in several more communities in 2016. It’s also raising money to rebuild schools that were devastated by the earthquake in Nepal last April.

But I can’t handle this teaching venture on my own, I need your help. I need to raise $9,000 US to fund my three-month journey. This money will pay for my teaching expenses. It will go to pay for my travel to Kathmandu and Annapurna. It will pay for my basic living expenses during my stay in Nepal. “Trek To Teach” will use some of this money to pay for curriculum materials and teaching supplies.

I’m asking you to contribute whatever you can to help cover my out-of-pocket expenses. You can be assured that your contribution is helping to make a material difference in the lives of hundreds of school age children who simply would not have the opportunity to learn English from a native English speaker otherwise. And, of course, it will help me have one of the most thrilling experiences in my life.

Please watch this short video to learn more!

Thanks in advance for your help.

Jan

Photo Credit

Photo is from Trek To Teach – All Rights Reserved

Cameron Hills has verdant, undulating tea hills that stretch over an area the size of Singapore

My girlfriend and I visited the small town of Tanah Rata which is THE tourist destination for the area. We showed up without reservations and just wandered around looking for a place to stay. It took about 20 minutes to land a good, clean place for two for about $20 Canadian a night. It was only later that I realized the tour agencies were selling the same sort of room for about 3X this price. The message is clear – if you decide to go, just hop on a bus and go. You can find good restaurants and hotels without paying the huge prices the agencies charge.

The town of Tanah Rata is smaller than I imagined; it is two blocks long and two blocks wide. The main street is given over to shops selling a wide assortment of packaged teas to the tourists, a few restaurants and a few hotels. We signed up for a tour of the area and were very pleased we did. The price was reasonable and the tour was complete. We saw broad, undulating tea fields being tended by workers who were dedicated to the job, as their families had for at least three generations before them. We saw a processing plant that stripped the tea leaves from the branches and packaged them for shipment to Kuala Lumpur where they would go through even more processing. We had a chance to drink the tea and pastry of our choice in a modern tea house cantilevered over a hill that afforded excellent views of some of the tea fields. And, of course, we bought lots of teas in various flavors to take back to friends and family.

We had tea and pastry in this modern teahouse that was cantilevered over a hill
and offered excellent views of the tea gardens

Probably more interesting than the tea fields, however, was our side-trip through a remnant of the primeval forest that was on land too steep, rocky and uneven to be suitable for tea farming. We wandered along a rough path through a forest that dated back a million years.

This was our path through the primeval forest. It’s not shown on tourist maps!

We saw one of the ugliest plants I had ever seen…if anyone knows what this plant is called, please leave me a comment!

This is unquestionably the ugliest plant I have ever seen

We saw a plant shaped like a deep saucer with a lid; the plant was designed to attract insects with its sweet nectar. Then, once the insect was inside, it closed its lid and digested the hapless insect.

This plant is shaped like a tea cup. It traps insects inside with its lid and then digests them alive!

Cameron Hills is well worth the journey. You can take a tour from Kuala Lumpur or you can make your own way to Ipoh and take a local bus to Cameron Hills. The trip from Ipoh only takes a few hours and will deliver you in Tanah Rata in the early afternoon. Aside from the sights mentioned here, you will also enjoy some cool relief from the incessant heat at sea level.

Photo Credits

Photos by Jan Wall – all rights reserved

The view from the top: Langkawi and an archipelago scattered across the Andaman Sea

Langkawi is a medium-sized island in the far northwest of Malaysia. It’s a couple hours from the mainland by high-speed boat. You can see Thailand from the top of its prehistoric mountains. That is exactly where I went – to the top of the prehistoric mountains!

Up until about 15 years ago, Langkawi was a sleepy backwater island with little to attract visitors who wanted something more than a beach shack. That’s when the government recognized its huge tourism opportunity and started developing the island. One of its biggest investments had to be in building a bridge in the clouds between two mountains. It is a pure delight.

A cable car hauls people and supplies more than 700 metres up from the base to the peak of Mount Mat Cincang. The ride is exhilarating for several reasons. First, it rides far higher above the ground than most cable cars do. Second, one of the spans between two posts is the longest in the world. Third, and most important, the ride affords a bird’s-eye view of one of the oldest forests in the world. The view is stunning. My fellow passengers in the cable car said nothing during our ride – they were gawking just as I was.

The cable car provides a remarkable
view of the mountains and forest

There is a viewing station at the top of the mountain that offered a superb view of the island and sea for 30 km. I spent half an hour there admiring the mountains, small islands, the forest and the sea. The viewing station also offered some overpriced drinks and food and an assortment of souvenirs that didn’t interest me at all. I was focused on getting to the bridge.

Surprisingly, I had to pay another fee and sign an injury-release form to walk on the bridge! Both were telltale signs that this was going to be something special. Once I was cleared for the bridge, it took another 20 minutes walking through the ancient forest itself to reach the bridge.

The Sky Bridge is recognized as one of the engineering marvels of the world. It is 125 metres long and 8 metres wide. Its ends are anchored on two different mountains. The middle of the span is supported by a pylon that leans far more than the Tower of Pisa. I looked down over the side of the bridge to find the base of the support; I never saw it. It just disappeared down below in the clouds. The pylon is a record-breaking 82 metres tall and it looks far taller.

When the clouds rolled in, they hid the far end of the bridge

The bridge is curved; the support pylon is on the convex side of the bridge. It is built nearly 700 metres above sea level with no access roads.  There is only a footpath from the top of the cable car to the start of the footbridge. I was amazed to learn that the entire bridge was fabricated on the ground below and then lifted into the mountains by helicopter where it was fitted to the pylon! The bridge serves no other purpose than to be admired and provide another viewing platform for the mountains, islands, forests and sea. It does that superbly well.

When I walked across the bridge, the sky was clear and the views were magnificent. When I wandered back only moments later, the clouds had rolled in. The pictures here show the bridge in the clouds.

Cloudy bridge

Anyone who prepares their ‘bucket list’ of places to visit should, without question, visit the Langkawi Sky Bridge. Although the trip up the mountain in the cable car, the walk across the bridge and the trip back down the mountain can be handled easily in an afternoon, the memory will last a lifetime.

Here are two more photos from my visit to the Langkawi Sky Bridge:

Photo Credits

Photos by Jan Wall – all rights reserved

The Phi Phi islands in southern Thailand are part of the Krabi Administrative District. These islands have been booming with tourists over the last decade – and with good reason. I first visited Phi Phi about 4 years ago and enjoyed open spaces and grand views. Today, those open spaces are covered with hotels, guesthouses, hostels, restaurants, bars, and shops with lots of useless stuff. In other words, the place is booming. On this visit, I had to wander down to the beach to see the views.

On my first visit I remember paying 30 Baht for a smoothie; today the going price is 50 Baht!

The great allure of the islands is the karst limestone islands and cliffs. These cliffs drop directly from heights of 100 to 200 meters directly into the sea. The views are dramatic, stunning, and awe-inspiring. The first time I visited the islands I sat on the beach, mesmerized by the cliffs, for an hour. This time I took a full day-trip around the islands to see them up close. It was a day well spent.

When you sign up for the day tour, you need to be forewarned: Not all the vendors who sell the island tour tickets will tell you that there is an additional charge to visit the national park. The fee is not big but it can come as a shock when you’ve been sold a package that is “all inclusive.”

In addition to the cliffs which are visible from the distant horizon, the islands have over-sized limestone mountains, caves, and long, white sandy beaches. These islands are so special and fragile, the Thai government has established a national park on the islands that covers nearly 40,000 hectares.

In addition to these natural attractions, I enjoyed the view of the bay from a restaurant half way up the mountain. You can see that same view in the picture here.

There is even a hippy quarter to the island – although the hippy area is not advertised on any of the tourist brochures I came across. If you show up on the island with a pack on your back, little money in your pocket, and the willingness to ask where the budget accommodations are, someone will point you up the side of one of the mountains to an area that suits your traveling style and budget. The construction and painting styles come straight out of the 1960s! Interestingly, the views of the islands are far more dramatic from the hippy area than they are from the mid-range and up-scale areas on the lowlands.

The beaches are lined with long tail boats. These long, narrow boats acquired this designation because they have poles on their sterns that are 5 to 8 meters long. These sturdy poles have automobile engines at one end and rugged propellers on the other end. The pilots keep the propellers only about 80% submerged when they are cruising. This creates a big rooster tail wave that trails behind the boats at high speed.

Gold Finger and The Beach

Movie buffs will certainly remember the 2000 movie The Beach as well as the James Bond movie Gold Finger. Both were filmed here in the Phi Phi islands. In fact, the island where Gold Finger was filmed has been unofficially renamed “James Bond Island” and is on every boat tour of the islands.

It was these movies that sparked the initial interest in the islands. Tourists wanted to see the places where these movies were filmed and walk the beaches themselves. This led to a booming tourist trade that has been soaring every year.

Pollution is Becoming a Problem

Hotels and guesthouses are required to treat their own waste water. However, the processing requirements are based on the permanent population – not the transient population that is several times as large as the permanent population at any point in time. This, of course, is leading to a dramatic increase in pollution. I’ve come across this same problem – a direct result of poor government planning – in other tourist sites in Thailand. It is not clear how the solution is going to play out.

Here are a few more photographs from my visit to Koh Phi Phi.

Photo Credits

All photos by Jan Wall – All Rights Reserved

Inle Lake in central Myanmar is a place where you feel like time stands still, the extraordinary is ordinary, and all is right with the world. It is a lake with 70,000 tribal people who live on the shores and fish and farm for a living. It is a lake with 48 square miles of serene surface. It is a lake with a market that travels from one village to another throughout the week. It is a place with nearly 1,000 stupas and nearly 100 kyaung or monasteries. It is a place where I felt at peace even though my flat bottom boat was vibrating rapidly from the high powered engine that pushed us at near hydroplaning speeds over the surface.

A collection of Buddhist stupas at the lake’s edge

The communities are built on stilts that keep homes, temples, shops, schools, and government offices well off the surface of this shallow lake. When I saw the green crops on the shores and fields nearby, I knew immediately that the grass would not be greener anywhere else.

People commute in boats that are 10 times as long as they are wide. Some boats are paddled by hand and others have motors.

A woman running her errands

The fishermen have a unique way of propelling their boats. They wrap one leg around an oar and move it in a circular motion. This leaves their hands free to fish with their conical nets. The picture here shows how they do it.

A fisherman with his net and pole

This place is so special that the government charges foreigners a hefty fee just to be there for a week – and the foreigners pay without objection.

Inle Lake is caught in a time warp. You feel nothing has changed in years and that nothing will change for years to come. It is idyllic.

There is no need to read plaques to understand the history of the place. Everything is obvious. This is a place where “what you see is what you get.”

Boats coming ashore near a farmer’s market

I came across only two community issues. One was a question about whether the oil residue from the occasional tourist boat would threaten the lake. The other question was concerned with whether the local tribes people were benefiting enough from the growing tourist influx.

All the tourist hotels were located in one village – there was no sprawl around the lake at all. The shores were pristine. I had heard that the hotel and restaurant costs in Inle Lake would be exorbitant. I found them quite reasonable even though I was traveling on a budget.

I made one mistake at Inle Lake: I went there for a day when I should have stayed for three. I won’t make that mistake the next time. Here are a few more photographs from my visit to Inle Lake.

Photo Credits

All photos by Jan Wall – All Rights Reserved