South East Asia on a Hamstring Travel Articles

South East Asia on a Hamstring – February 9

Bangkok, Thailand – February 9, 2000 Today was going to be errand day: drop off laundry, get my old clothes taken in to fit my new, lean travel frame, check up with Intrepid, and visit the salon. The salon turned out to be an unusual experience. I highly recommend getting haircuts in countries where the [...]

South East Asia on a Hamstring – February 8

Alone at last – but in Bangkok?? February 8, 2000 At 5:30am, the VIP bus stopped. No one stirred. My busload of backpackers was sound asleep. A Thai man boarded the bus with his wake-up call. “This is Bangkok! Wake up, you are in Bangkok!” Dubiously, I looked out the window. It looked very plain. [...]

South East Asia on a Hamstring – February 7

February 7, 2000 The five of us convened in the restaurant for a goodbye lunch. It was crowded with other travelers. A young, attractive woman went from table to table, conversing with each table and handing out two-sided pieces of paper to the diners. “Excuse me,” I said, “what group are you with?” I thought [...]

South East Asia on a Hamstring – February 6

Dawn of Happiness Resort, near Krabi, ThailandFebruary 6, 2000 I woke up to the flavor of raspberry codeine. I could barely speak. I walked to breakfast in my sleeping shorts and t-shirt and told Peter that today’s snorkelling expedition would have to go on without me. I went back to sleep. Late in the afternoon, [...]

South East Asia on a Hamstring – February 5

On to Thailand – February 5, 2000 Our 4:30am wakeup call turned out to be a brutal door-pounding. Jo dragged herself out of door to find the Chinese hotel proprietor standing there. “Wake-up call,” he said, almost evilly. We were at reception by 5am and all eleven of us, our packs, and one driver crammed [...]

South East Asia on a Hamstring – February 4

Georgetown, Malaysia – February 4, 2000 Our morning rickshaw tour was uneventful and disappointing. Intrepid supplied this but apparently no one was in charge – it was a trip around the historic Georgetown area in bicycle rickshaws. The drivers took us around, sporadically pointing out sites. We struggled to follow, from our tourist maps, but [...]

South East Asia on a Hamstring – February 2

Suka Suka, Malaysia – February 2, 2000 Our morning meal was consisted of roti, pink spongy cake, knock-off Tang, and a variety of fried curry things. Aziz took us to a nearby village built on stilts and walked us through the village and into the woods. He showed us a variety of medicinal plants and [...]

South East Asia on a Hamstring – February 1

Suka Suka, Malaysia – February 1, 2000 We put our packs on our back and walked in a line to the bus station. It was a short walk, and there was a Dunkin’ Donuts at the bus station ready to reward us. We found the bus and all piled our bags into the baggage compartments. [...]

South East Asia on a Hamstring – January 31

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – January 31, 2000 Our train was either an hour late or we just didn’t know the actual arrival time. It was 7:30am when we all carefully lowered ourselves from our berths and carried our bags into Kuala Lumpur. We took taxis to the Hotel Furama. It was a short drive but [...]

South East Asia on a Hamstring – January 30

Sleeper train from Singapore to Malaysia – January 30, 2000 We took three separate taxis to the Singapore train station. The station was pretty low-rent compared to the rest of Singapore because Singapore has no trains of its own and the whole train system is Malaysian. I was relieved to see a bit of dirt [...]