Own ¢ents of Time

The Blog that allows you to follow Emma & Ahron around the world. Seeing what they do!!!

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Hello. You sent a Save the date addressed to the Snell family to my address in London. They are no longer at this address I'm afraid. Congratulations on the wedding. Dominic

Oh bugger. Well we will have to reissue them one. I appreciate you reaching out and letting us know! I love that house by the way! Congrats and enjoy Walthamstow! Ahron

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Malaysia and Georgetown

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Malaysia and getting to Penang/Georgetown

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Malaysia. Islands. Beach time. 

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West Malaysia

We had ten fast days of much moving around in Malaysia. On the plane to Singapore we met a French lady who recommended us going to the Perhentian Islands. They are up of the northern coast of Malaysia. We kind of took a gamble as going there would mean missing everything below. However, we justified the risk by imagining if a place that the French lady described really existed, how nice it would be to go there. If we would have known the trouble it would take to make this happen, we probably would have just sauntered up the coast. But we didn’t. So our first day in Malaysia, after crossing the border, was spent on a bus, albeit a nice bus, cruising up to Kuantan. Kuantan in its own right is a nice beach destination, but we wanted the best, so the next day it was off on another bus; marathon-ing our way up.  We tried to time it right to catch a ferry over to the islands, but as it often happens, we were late by one hour. We found ourselves sleeping in Jerteh for the evening, in a dingy little room that had no other guests in. They at least had hot water and a KILLER night market right around the corner. Actually I suppose it was a break-fast market as everyone there was observing Ramadan so it was their first meal of the day. Contrary to the inconvenience you might think not eating all day is, its actually quite a cool event when everyone gets together at sundown to gorge and chat and enjoy themselves. It’s a lovely experience.

We finally found ourselves on a boat the next morning headed out to the Perhintians. In our rush to get there, the only problem was that we had no time to research which of the 25+ places to stay would be the best. We only had a lonely planet to go off of that those are seldom accurate. Really by luck, or unluck, we settled on D’Lagoon, which ended up being a D’Rag. The room we were in shared plywood wall with the neighbor and wasn’t even secured at that bottom, or framed all the way along the way. If you happened to lean against it, it gave. The bed was made made opposite and was framed all along and the foam pad didn’t do much to cushion your slumber. They charged for mosquito nets in the tropical climate. The food was overpriced and under seasoned. The best part was right when we walked up, before we knew any of this some dumb ass French man asked where we are from. We reply the US, he scoffs and tells us that we do not belong here. Hey, Fuck you buddy. If we could go back that is what we would say to that le douche. He is not a good representation of the French as all we have met are great. That one is just a sonofabitch. Anyway, that kind of reception ruined it for us as well as the hosts since they were guilty by association. However, despite all the shit, there was some gold. The beaches you could get to (not the one out front that was too small and where all the coral was dead) were amazing. The water was crystal clear. There were fish everywhere when you went snorkeling. So that part was nice. But not nice enough to keep us around. We stayed one night and left at 4pm the next day. D’Umb D’Lagoon needs to get their shit D’Gether.

Once back on the mainland we did some bus chasing from Besut to Kota Bora where we hopped on a night bus for Penang/Georgetown, arriving at 5:30 in the morn. Once we gathered our senses, rubbed the sleep out of our eyes and massaged the cricks in our necks, we made it into town. First place in the LP was the first place we stopped early that morning, the Red Inn. They had a bed. We took it for the night. They kindly let us check in at 6am and we passed out to recover our sleep.

Awake at one, it was time to feed, and Georgetown is the perfect place for that. As an old British colony and port, there is a mixture of Indian, Chinese, the Local Malay today, but there used to be more when it was a colony. This combination makes for some very, very good grubbing. In the span of an hour we ate delicious grilled pork, rice, fish soup, kaya cookies and washed it down with a Tea Tarik. This meal, or set of meals you could say, made us question why we even stopped for snorkeling in the first place! Later that evening, at the cue of the night time call to prayer coming from the many minarets, we found some Hawker stalls where we again gorged ourselves eventually leading into a deep slumber.

The Red Inn had been nice and convenient, but it wasn’t what we had in mind and since we learned what food was available the day before, we were convinced us to stay longer; thus needing better accommodations. But before we packed for relocation we had to phone home. Emma’s sister Abby and her husband George had had a baby the day before, on July 8th! The new wee one’s name would be Thomas! It was awesome to be able to Facetime with the fam and see everyone. What marvelous technological times we live in. If we would have been where we were 30 years before, it would have been many a long month before we received a letter with the news.

We stayed in Georgetown with its mixed up history, districts of different diets, for four days. We consumed all food insight that we could fit into our bellies and saw all the sights our feet would take us to. The best food experience came on the night of the 10th, we found a food hall that only opened after the late night call to prayer where they had a rack of food set up. The rack was three levels high by 10 sections long and in every spot there was a pile of something: yellow rice, beef in green sauce, crabs, shrimps, chicken, potatoes, stewed vegetables, stewed leafy greens, just so many things it was hard to know what to get. Our strategy was divide and conquer so Emma went right and Ahron went left. When it was time to pay, you payed by item, so it was beneficial to get less, but we didn’t know and it all looked so good so we had mountains of food on our plates. We sat to eat on the street under umbrellas and on top of plastic chairs. Just like the look of the food, it all tasted delicious and we were there for about two hours trying to get it all down. We succeeded in the end.

The other big event that happened right before we left was we got $80 stolen out of our bags that were in our hotel room. Long story short, we noticed money was missing out of our billfold when we were packing the night before we were set to leave. Of course no one with authority was on duty, but Ahron went down to tell the night receptionist. At first the guy didn’t believe him, but after repeating the story a few times, we convinced him to watch the CCTV. When we did so, we watched a maid come back to our room, after she had already cleaned it, open the door, go into the next door room which shares an inside door. Five minutes later she reemerges, closes the neighbors door, then closes ours and leaves. Now this doesn’t prove a thing, but it looks damn suspicious. The night reception agreed and promised to tell his boss in the AM. We left the next day, taking a bus to Kuala Lampur, then another bus to the airport. Over the next few days we were in email correspondence with the hotel manager and after he told us that the women in the video denied any wrong doing when they confronted her with the tape,  they offered to pay back our money.  After asking for bank details, and us refusing to hand that over, they figured out how to use Paypal and we got our $80 bones back. But that took a good couple weeks. By that time we were in Indonesia. More on that coming up next.

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Final Day in Singapore

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Singa-not-pore. You got to be rich.

On the 2nd of July we finally had to part ways with Vietnam. We didn’t have much longer left on our visa’s and, well, there was more to see. There is always more to see. Next stop for us was to the cheapest destination we could find a flight to: Singapore, the Island Country. In case you had been asleep recently, we will inform you now that Singapore was named the world’s most expensive city to live in last year. These costs usually translate down to travelers and we can vouch for a room and the price of a beer being way higher than what we had just come from in Vietnam. The prices coupled with the actual size of the place forced us to only stay for two days, and one night; and boy what a day and night it was.

We had one mission to accomplish in our limited time there. We had to, with or without getting caught, swim in the Marina Bay Sands Sky Park. You don’t know it? Look it up! It is a hotel that consists of three towers with a bridge that looks like a boat connecting them together. At the far end of this “boat” you will find the world’s longest elevated swimming pool perched 191-meters above the ground. That is the Sky Park. So we set off that morning with this one goal in mind and not having a CLUE as to how to accomplish it! First step though was getting to the hotel. After wondering there through Little India and China Town we found ourselves at the base of a massive building. We heard that there is a bar up at the top, named Ku De Ta. We also heard that the elevator to this place was located in the tower to the far left and that you needed a key to get to it. We decided that we would take a gamble and just get on the elevator and see what would happen. So that is what we did. We got on. The doors closed. We waited. Luck would have it that some other folks were headed to the top at the same time as us! They opened the doors to find us twiddling our thumbs. When they asked if we were going up, we told them of course! Seconds later we were rocketing to the top! We exited and went to the bar, our mules went to have a swim. Step two accomplished! We were at the Ku De Ta! Right next to the pool! We could see it! All that was separating us was a three foot high glass wall. All that was separating us from the ground was a few hundred feet. We found a seat under the shade, relaxed as we had made it this far and ordered a cocktail to look like we knew what we were doing. About $50 bucks later we were a bit hungry so we ordered some chips and a few beers, as they were cheaper. $100 bucks later a couple of dudes walked into the Ku De Ta. Phase three was about to commence.

The two guys who sat opposite the deck as us were dressed fairly well, but were in board shorts, ball caps and seemed a little too bit excited to be there. There was a chance they were strapped with cash, but they seemed to be about our age and something about them just seemed like they didn’t have millions of dollars. After much speculation and debate whether they were loaded, their parents were or they were just like us we decided to send Emma over to investigate further. She was there for 15 minutes before she came back with two keys. It turns out, they were cool dudes who just happened to have found a good deal online and decided to spring $400 bucks for a one night stay to have access to the pool. Little did we know that at that moment they suspected us of being some swindling international scamming couple who convinces people to give them rooms to their keys only to rob them; we didn’t learn that until later that evening over beers but it seemed plausible since Ahron stayed where he was the whole time, never introducing himself or making eye contact. In our defense we felt we had to be spy-like to get in, so all precautions we took were done so to keep attention off of us. In hindsight, we probably looked more suspicious but that is a debate for another day. So we had a key, packed our stuff, told Ben and Danny (from Brisbane) we would be back in twenty minutes and went off to change. We rendezvoused at the check in gate passing the key to the security lady. After she swipes the one she asked why we don’t have two.  We replied that we must have left it in the room since we were together, thinking we only needed one and then told her our last name: Stenhouse. Well, we must have convinced her as she hit the button, the gate rotated and we entered the Sky Park Pool. Phase Three complete.

Phase Four consisted of two things and two things only: swimming in the pool and taking as many photos at the edge of the giant, high up monster as possible. With this complete we snagged some complementary towels, dried off, changed back into our old clothes and went back into Ku De Ta to return our keys to our new pals and buy them a few drinks as a thank you. It just goes to show you two things; the first being you can never judge a book by its cover. Just because these dudes were up, way up at the top didn’t exactly mean that they lived there. They were travelers just like us, just taking a day to spoil themselves. We do that often as well. The second thing you can never do is underestimate the kindness of strangers. We asked them for a crazy request: for their keys, name and room number to get in to the pool that they had paid for. If we would have been caught, who knows, they might have got booted and we surely would have! But we didn’t get caught. We had a dip and we did as we told them we would and returned the keys and were very grateful. When you go up to strangers and start talking to them, and even make crazy requests, you never know what you will get.

After our successful swim, we said see you later to Ben and Dan, but not before making plans to meet up later that night. We went out to find some food and rest up a little. It turns out we needed that rest as we found a drinks buffet over by the river. We met up with Ben and Danny and tried to match each other rum for rum as we attempted to cram as many drinks into our guts in the 1.5 hour allotted time limit. For $16.66 Singapore Dollars per hour, these were the cheapest drinks we found ANYWHERE in town. Later when it ended and we had meandered down the river to find a bridge where people where hanging out having a good time we bought a couple cans of beer from a corner store. The price tag on the beer was $8. It was a good thing for that buffet.

We paid the price for our stellar day the next morning. Not getting out of bed until check-out time and then dragging the packs all the way to the bus station, we were worthless. However, after we crossed possibly the fanciest boarder on our trip and got to the JB bus station in Malaysia, we were rewarded with possibly the fanciest bus we had on our trip. This thing came equipped with reclining La-Z-Boy recliners, personal TV’s, snacks and a water, oh and don’t forget aircon. It was exactly what we needed at that moment. We cruised all the way to Kuantan without complaint or concern.

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Second and final adventure day in Saigon. Food and  a haircut: 10 cents.

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Saigon Food Day

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Saigon/Ho Chi Minh

Again our traveler of the year pal, Shannon (Alittleadrift.com) was a huge help. She put us on to yet another food blog, this one by her good pal Jodie (legalnomads.com). From her very start in Saigon, Jodie was on a food mission. She lists all of her favorite food palces all over the city and even has a map with their locations. We knew it would be a little while before we got back to Vietnam, the country with the best food in the world and one that we began to really love, so we made a plan to follow Jodies recommendations and have a One day eating spectacular! This plan was set, a map was drawn and the next morning the Eating Marathon was initiated.

On the 1st of July we hit seven of Jodie’s recommended places (http://www.legalnomads.com/2014/06/saigon-street-food.html#books), trying for about 10 and  covering about 10 miles on foot. We ate at  a place that serves Banh Khot, Bahn Xeo, Banh Tam Bi, Canh Chua, Bun Mam and the classic Pho Bo. It was a glorious time. We dropped some postcards off at the giant post office to friends and family then went back for a digestion session. After this we trekked out to dinner, and after reviewing her blog once more, we had one last ditch effort to find, locate and consume the #19, or locally known as Bun Thit Nuong Cha Gio. The #19 as some of you who frequent Pho 777 in Reno may know is delicious. It consists of vermicelli noodles, pickled veg, shredded lettuce, BBQ Pork, three shrimp and an egg roll topped with peanuts and a sauce concocted of carrots and magic juice. It is our favorite dish to eat in the summer and competes with the #7 in the winter. We had yet to find one over the three week period in Vietnam and we were desperately craving it. Compound this desire with the fact we were leaving the next day and we were going to do anything to get it. We located Chi Thong on the map and made our way.  Once at the shop, we took a seat at the two top amongst the glass and stainless steel lined walls, checked our notes on how to say the thing we wanted, then rechecked them. When the kid working came to take our order, we let loose and fired our best rendition of “Two Bun Thit Nuong Cha Gio  Please and one Bia Siagon Too!” With the hard part over we tucked in for the wait. When we saw the BBQ lady stoke the fire and saw the flames licking the grill, we gained some confidence that what we had wanted was on the way. After what seemed like an eternity and what was most likely ten minutes, two steaming bowls were placed in front of us with the sauce on the side: SUCCESS! THE ELUSIVE #19!!! We had found it and once we dove in we found it every bit delicious that we could have imagined. We were smiles ear to ear. Vietnam, you had been so good to us. We forgive you for the Halong experience and know it really is not your fault. The food, the people, the atmosphere and the nature of this country are top notch. Although we plowed through our meal we left feeling a little lighter on our walk home. To top it all off, we passed a Baskin & Robbins Ice Cream and stopped for a quick night cap; they even had Chocolate Mousse Royal.

Our final day in Saigon consisted of one action item: getting Emma’s haircut. After much searching and scanning and calling and bargaining, we found her a spot based on trip advisor. We took the long bus way out of town and walked mile down the road to finally find the spot, and when we arrived there was water aroebics going on, but nonetheless at the conclusion of lesson, they plopped her down and started trimming. We supplemented this with some more food of course, taking a few more suggestions from Jodie’s blog.

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A day and night in Nha Trang

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- - Nha Trang - -

We weren’t long in Nha Trang. One whole day. That was it. On our arrival the very first thing we did was catch a cab over to the train station to reserve tickets for the next day, thus eliminating the overnight bus option to Ho Chi Minh. That was the best move we had made in a long while.

Wandering the streets we found a wee shop, this one was special, they made tops. Ones for swimming and bottoms too, for only twelve bucks you could get a custom swim suit. Russians were seen on the streets here and there, walking in speedos, the women with their big hair. We ate sushi for lunch after taking a nap, then went to the beach to watch the waves slap, the sand that was covered with people so full, watching and screaming for the football. We met some acquaintances, the yanks from Hoi An, that night we were the USA’s biggest fans. After two beers, we all parted ways, wished them good luck and to have a nice day. Back to the hotel we left to rest our heads, for about eight hours we just played dead. Woke up in the morn, with hours to spare, too bad they were wasted on the train that hadn’t neared. Delayed again, oh our mighty train, delayed again then it started to rain. It finally arrived, and we hopped aboard dodging the rain drops while crossing the platform. Seats were found, seats were took, we tucked in tight and opened our books; six hours later did we arrive to old Ho Chi Minh; The Swarming Hive.

That was an attempt at poetry. We hope you liked it. Nha Trang was just the end of a long bus for us, but the next time we go back we will investigate its white sand beaches mush closer. Onward to Saigon and to a food extravaganza!

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Hoi An  - Food, Clothes and Beaches

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Hoi An - Trivia Winners and Kiwi Friends 

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- - Hoi An - -

The next stop on our Vietnamese adventure was to Hoi An: the custom garment capitol of the country. Or so we heard. We had met countless people before getting to Hoi An who raved about all the clothes they got made for the low prices. This excited us a bit, not that we really needed anything more but the idea of cheap custom clothes is always nice. After checking into our hotel, we rode into town on the free bikes that the hotel had on offer. We found a place that we had been recommended for leather jacket construction and got Emma measured up and placed an order for one jacket to be completed in three days. After this we peddled over to the 3 Dragons bar to watch some rugby. If we remember correctly, Rugby Championship matches were either on replay or were being played live. But we had a few cool beers and enjoyed. We left and rode back home, washed the sweat and humidity off ourselves, found some dinner and went back around to the 3 Dragons for trivia night. It had already started when we arrived and teams had already been selected. The announcer asked if anyone would take us on and it was at that point that a group of four Kiwi’s, who had coincidentally been watching rugby earlier, said they would have us. It was Brent and Tracey, a couple about the age of our parents, and Gary (Brents older brother) and Gary’s son John and we instantly got on with this group of Kiwi’s. After a few rounds of beers and trivia, we were neck and neck with the other teams for the lead. It turned out Gary and John were almost like walking encyclopedias. The rest of us would put forth an answer on some random questions when they came around, but we were mostly carried by Gary and John’s strong shoulders. It came up a little later that we had our WHV’s for New Zealand, and we asked where the best place to find jobs for an engineer and a nurse were. They of course said Christchurch, the city they were from and the city that four years before had been demolished by an earthquake. It seemed like the right choice. After we had a few more beers and played a few more rounds, we ended up winning trivia night. This was especially great for Emma and I since we came after the game started, but since we put into the pot we got to split it. With the winnings, we were able to celebrate all night! As we became better friends numbers and emails were exchanged for when we got to New Zealand. Thinking that it was always good to have a contact in an unknown land we were pumped; little did we know that in a few more months’ time we would be staying at Brent and Tracey’s house in New Zealand when we got there! We continued to hang out at the bar after our new friends left. We ended up meeting a Canadian couple, Charlie and Joel. They recommended some places to eat which turned out to be some of the best food intel we had received since the upstairs coffee shop in Hanoi. If you find yourself in Hoi An go to Pho Xua and Bahn Mi Phuong, you will not be disappointed.

The rest of our time in Hoi An was spent riding around. We rode to the beach one day and hung out there. We met back up with our Kiwi pals for another beer and talked about the glorious win. We went to watch the USA v. Germany soccer match one night, the one we should have won. We met some cool Yanks while there and met up with them later on for some cheap beers at a backpackers.

On our 300th day on the road, our 300th day of being pretty much each other’s only company, we got our new custom made clothes. Yes we both had stuff made. Emma with her badass leather jacket with the slanty zip front and small pin size holes on the shoulders from the tailors messing up. Worth their mistakes for the price of $190. Ahron with some button up shirts; two in 55total with crazy patterns printed on them. They came in at a total of $24. Not bad at all for custom clothes, plus this time they were almost perfect, unlike the previous time in Dar where the tailor attached Emma’s dress backwarads.

On the 301st day, after thoroughly enjoying our time in Hoi An, it was time to leave. Not before riding our bikes around a bit more and stuffing our faces with Bahn Mi and Bun Cha. We made sure to get some extra bags of each in preparation for the grueling bus ride. With a quick dip in the pool complete, we waited for the shuttle to pick us up. When they did, we crammed in with the dozen other backpackers and were swept off to the waiting night bus. Like the previous one, this one had two levels of “fully” reclining seats. Learning from our mistakes we hustled to the way way back were there was three seats together, making a thing almost resembling a bed. We flagged it and claimed it as our own thinking that we would have this sucker whipped this time with a giant space such as the one we just acquired. We did not calculate that the bus would be full however. So instead of being able to stretch out and cuddle up with eachother, some girl was crammed into the extra space: typical. And that was how we spent the next 12 hours on our way to Nha Trang, sleeping next to some random stinky backpacker chick.

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