Author Archives: Jasvinder Khera

Langkawi, Seeing is Believing

Posted in Scuba Diving, Travel by

I know it’s hard to feel bad for me right now but I just can’t catch a break with some things! First, the rain follows me from London to Detroit, then from Detroit to Singapore, and bloody now from Singapore to Langkawi! What the funk? Granted it didn’t ruin anything in the first two places (despite my complaints at the time, I think it actually made the Detroit apple picking more fun), but Langkawi was different. My prospects for enjoying this part of the trip were looking seriously grim as so much of what I had planned was dependent on good weather. I was not happy. 

Apparently though, I WAS meant to enjoy my time in Langkawi. After about 3 hours of solid rain, the sky started clearing and eventually the sun came out :) By this point I’d got my bearings and had the lay of the land so I headed to my first beach of the island, Chenang. Beautiful doesn’t do it justice. I made a strange discovery while I was there too. All over the place, there were these elaborate patterns on the sand constructed of what looked like fish eggs. There were so many of them all along the beach and they were all completely different, different patterns, different sizes, different everything but one thing they all had in common was a small hole in the sand somewhere in the pattern. These things were seriously impressive, if a person had made them, they’d be worthy of an exhibition. So there I was, walking around, being careful not to step on any of them and trying to figure out what the hell they were, when all of a sudden, I see movement out of the corner of my eye. Damn, too slow. I keep looking for a while and eventually, I see something really small next to one of the holes, but wait, it’s moving! It’s a tiny little crab! It turns out that these cute tiny crabs had been rolling little balls of sand and fashioning them into elaborate displays around their homes, probably in an attempt to attract females (what other reason do males ever have for doing anything?) 

Later on the beach, while I was walking around looking at prices for things, I realised that everyone was not exaggerating when they told me Singapore is twice as expensive as Malaysia. Really good meals were going for as little as £2. And on the first day, for £160, I managed to arrange a day at Langkawi Canopy Adventures (zip-lining through the rainforest canopy, as well as climbing it, balancing on it and abseiling down it), half an hour of jet-skiing on a 1500cc jet ski, an amazing 6 hour, lunch inclusive, mangrove tour (which basically involved going into a series of caves that the sea feeds into and seeing bats, eagles and crocodiles in their respective natural habitats, feeding exotic fish in the sea, feeding stingray (the thought of which initially creeped me out), chilling out on a beautiful beach and swimming in secluded waters), AND a whole day scuba diving and snorkeling an hour off the coast of Langkawi. Week in Langkawi sorted! I even managed to arrange a few other cool things on the cheap but I’ll let the pictures do the talking for those.

Tuesday morning, I was all set for Langkawi Canopy Adventures, I woke up extra early, had eaten breakfast and had left more than enough time to get there. Or so I thought. It seems that free Malaysian tourists maps are not always produced the high (or even adequate) standards that one might expect. Clearly marked as Langkawi Canopy Adventures on the map, I’d have thought that the place I asked my taxi driver to go would have got me where I needed to be. Instead I ended up at the top of some mountain (Gunung Raya, fact fans) and was out both 100 ringets and an hour of my time for the round trip. I don’t need to tell you I ended up missing the Canopy Adventures people when I actually got to the right place, but thankfully, they graciously offered to let me do what I missed that morning on Friday instead. Minor crisis somewhat averted, I started thinking about what I was going to do with my day instead. I decided to start with the jet skiing and then to head off toward the Langkawi cable car and nearby Telaga Tujah waterfall (apparently the nicest waterfall of the four major ones on the island). None of them disappointed, though the waterfall was the highlight. It was dazzling and swimming in the pools at the bottom was very fun. The only downside was that I kept thinking about those amoebas from freshwater lakes that go up through your nose and eat your brain (thanks Jill!) Hopefully I’m amoeba free. 

More unexpected delights were had on Wednesday. The mangrove tour was exceptional and it helped that I actually learned what a mangrove is! (An inland saltwater area where vegetation uniquely suited to both salt and fresh water environments can grow). This mangrove (as I understand all of them are – the one on Pulau Ubin in Singapore was very similar but much smaller), was a cross between a river and a swamp, a lot like the Everglades in Miami or the Okavango Delta in Botswana but the water in this mangrove was a lot deeper than either of those other places. Just riding through the mangrove and spotting animals on the jet boat was fun enough (the river was pretty wide in places and the boat picked up some serious speed for fun on the bumpy waves, especially later when we got to sea!) but we did so many other things on the tour as well. It was also nice that everyone else in the group was so friendly and talkative. I saw a bunch of cool stuff like the swimming, long tailed macaques (seriously not good for my dreams, I’ve got enough monkey problems as it is) and the deadly shore pit viper, and did cool things like hand feed a stingray, avoid guano in a bat cave and swim at an incredible, secluded beach on the border of Malaysia and Thailand (it was so secluded that we were the only ones there). Later, after the tour ended, I swam at an even more secluded beach (so secluded that I was the only one there!) It was postcard perfect and I can’t imagine a more faultless beach, well actually, now that I say that, there were some troublesome monkeys around… They almost walked off with the stuff I left on the beach but I (just about) managed to swim back in time and see them off before they did any real damage. I didn’t leave any energy for that swim back though, I had to use up all my reserves getting to the beach and was exhausted when I did. If those monkeys had wanted a fight I wouldn’t have been in a state to give them one.

I’m not even sure where to begin with how good scuba diving was (I must be beginning to grate with my use of superlatives in this post but there really aren’t enough for the things I’ve seen here. I’m gonna have to start making up words like Jill!) For a planet that’s over 70% water, there’s a lot of awesomeness out there that most people just don’t ever see. I always knew it was there but seeing it with my own eyes was just something else. Upon arrival at Pulau Payar (the main dive island), an hour after we’d left, the only other solo diver and I hopped onto a small boat with our divemaster to get to the dive site. I had butterflies in my stomach on the ride over and the choppy water didn’t help. This was going to be my first real dive and there was definitely some trepidation as we were gearing up on the way to the dive site. It got worse when we were about to make that first leap into the water and it didn’t get much better when I was actually on the surface. After we started to descend though, all of my worries just drifted away and everything felt right, it felt like I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. It’s difficult to explain but I just felt so at peace with myself down there, I’ve always felt comfortable in the water but this was something else, something I haven’t experienced before, not even on my training dives.

I absolutely loved it, every second. I would have lost count if I was trying to keep track of how many different species of fish I saw, I realised after about 10 seconds that that would have been a losing battle. The types of coral too, the only type I recognised was the brain coral but there were dozens or maybe hundreds of different kinds there. There were all these shoals of fish going past too and when I concentrated on them I’d spot hundreds of smaller fish swimming around and between the bigger ones, it was very cool. As were the huge, super camouflaged grouper fish we saw, we even saw a bunch of fish from Finding Nemo! There were loads of Nemos (or clown fish) and anemone around, we also saw plenty of the type of fish that Gil was and I think Dory too. None of the fish seemed to mind us being down there at all, they were swimming right up to us, going through the gaps between our arms and our diving equipment, it was like we weren’t even there. The water was really nice and warm too, I could have stayed down there for ages and completely lost track of time. I was later told that the first dive lasted 40 minutes and the second, 50. Both were to around 20 metres.

I’ve run out of space to tell you about Langkawi Canopy Adventures (Jill’s imposed a 1500 word limit per post – which I’ve already exceeded). Needless to say, flying through the rainforest canopy, high above the ground was incredible. And it doesn’t matter how many harnesses you’re in or how much gear you have on, there is something very disconcerting about being told to lean back when you’re at the top of a 30 metre tree and already have your heels hanging over the edge!

Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur couldn’t possibly live up to Langkawi, and there was so much I didn’t even have the chance to tell you!

A Night in a Singapore Hostel

Posted in Travel by

As well as discovering Singapore, I’ve also learned what hostels are like, never having stayed at one before. After I found what looked like a good one (The Little Red Dot), I went for the cheapest type of room they had (a dorm with four bunk-beds in it), so it’s cramped but at least it’s air conditioned at night! The common area is pretty sweet, I was just chilling playing video games and watching films with the main guy Jon on my first night here. The people have all been cool too, I’ve met a bunch of fantastic dudes and dudettes from all over; Australia, China, England, Germany, Singapore, Ireland, America, India, South Africa… My first experience with a hostel has definitely been a pleasant one.

It’s a shame everyone stays for such a short time though, far too few of these cool peeps were partied with for my liking. Though worry not, some epic partying was indeed done, and funnily enough, it all started with the arrival of four Irish people on Friday. There were a bunch of Indian guys in my room at first. They were MBA students studying in the Phillipines and were only here for a careers fair. After seeing them all suit up before heading out though, I quickly realised they weren’t here for fun times :( The day they left though, the four Irish people checked in and after all the obligatory introductions, promptly headed up to the roof garden to drink. I joined them after a bit and they were only too happy to spread the love and send a few beers my way! Jon headed up too and he brought a whole bottle of vodka with him! It wasn’t as good a thing as I first thought though, he was pouring these ridiculous shots that were just completely full of neat vodka, we got messed up pretty quickly.

It helped when a few more people showed up to share the love and it was brilliant that the American, Eric, and the two Germans, Phillip and Daniel, were knocking them back as quickly as Jon, I and the Irish had been. What didn’t help though was the massive beer run we went on when all the booze finished; we ended up coming back with another two bottles of vodka and probably more beer than was wise. It was really cool just chilling on the roof with such good company and stopping by downstairs every now and then to meet and drink with new arrivals at the hostel. We were all on a pretty good level by this point, Phillip had plugged his speakers into Mikey’s (one of the Irish guys) iPad and Jon was DJing, it’s incredible how much liquor that tiny Chinese man can take. I reckon he had almost half of the first vodka bottle by himself and he wasn’t even a little bit hung over the next morning. That would have been enough to make me feel terrible the next morning (and I did, especially because a hot, humid country is not condusive to hangover recovery but also because I lost my wallet, or at least thought I did for several hours after waking up. To say that would have messed up my holiday is a gross understatement but it was good because I ended up getting an expensive lesson for free. I am definitely not going to take more than a single card with me on nights out from now on!) Anyway, since we were all so merry on the roof (and because Jon apparently goes clubbing every night except Monday and Tuesday (!)), someone suggested we make movements and find somewhere to get our funk on. The Irish and the American had drank enough by then but the rest of us were all gonna go to the same place. That is, the plan was to go to the same place but then these two lovely English girls showed up at the hostel and Jon quickly headed off with them, leaving me, Phillip and Daniel with no idea where the hell to go. I later learned that Jon took the girls (who I found were great company after I sobered up the next afternoon) to this club called Attica. Some useful info and a bit of context: this place is known locally as slutica, which is probably all that needs to be said about that!

Elsewhere in Singapore, the club the Germans and I ended up at was called Grooove. It was absolutely packed and the music got us even more lively than we already were. We knew the drinks would be expensive in there, alcohol is pretty expensive in Singapore (those bottles of vodka we bought earlier were 50 Singapore dollars each), but we weren’t expecting prices quite as steep as 16 dollars per bottle. We still had an amazing time though and we partied with a lot of cool people in there, there were some very interesting characters outside afterwards too. Every good thing comes with a price though and I paid heavily the next morning. I woke up at around 1 in the afternoon and just felt like dog shit. I was worrying like crazy for hours trying to find my wallet too but in the end it wasn’t as big of a thing as I thought because I ended up finding it in my locker (well done Jaz). I definitely had it with me at the club though and didn’t remember taking it out of my jeans so I don’t know how it ended up there. Getting into the locker was a bit of a problem because one thing I did actually lose was the key to the lock I had on it, nothing a pair of bolt cutters couldn’t solve though. All in all, it was a pretty excellent night then but after how I felt the next day (I was by far the most hungover), I wasn’t looking to repeat it the next night like the English and the Germans were.

I can’t believe that it’s taken me this long to discover how awesome hostels are! This is the kind of living a guy could get used to!

Top: Shots!; Above: Me and Mikey

Welcome to the Lion City… Even though there aren’t any lions here.

Posted in Travel by

First port of call in Asia, Singapore. There’s been quite a lot going on here and I’m not really sure where to start! I still don’t think I’ve got that “traveller mentality” yet though, the first time I’d ever experienced it was last year when I spent about a month travelling in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Zambia. I hadn’t spent quite that long abroad as an adult before and I think it was the people around me that brought it on more than anything but eventually it got to the point where it felt like the only thing I knew was travelling, it sounds ridiculous, but I couldn’t really remember my life before. It’ll probably take a while for that to kick in again though because right now, it still feel like I’m going back home in a couple of weeks. It’s strange being in a place so different and ridiculously hot (my god, it’s so hot here!) and still doing normal stuff like sitting at a computer, e-mailing and Facebook stalking.

Singapore is everything I was expecting it to be and more; clean, modern, HOT, HUMID, fast moving, well connected, HOT, multi-cultural and seafoody (thanks Jill, I never would have typed a terrible word like that if I hadn’t met you!) It has also surprised me though because I wasn’t expecting quite as many English speakers as there are and it reminds me a lot of Hong Kong. It’s smaller than Hong Kong but it feels like there’s a lot more to this place; it’s got more layers. Similarly to Hong Kong, the temperatures are very similar month-on-month, but this place though takes it to the next level because apparently (according to this English expat I was talking to), the highs and lows here (as well as the humidity), stay pretty much constant all year round. I’ve been sweating buckets everywhere I go and it’s even worse today because my bum’s taken a pounding,  more on that later (it’s probably not what you you’re thinking).

After getting in too early on my first day, the hostel guys started me off with a few cool suggestions to tide me over until check-in time. On the first day I ended up checking out Chinatown, which definitely lived up to its name. It was unexpectedly similar to a few different cities I’ve seen in China and there was a lot of hustle and bustle, apparently, a lot of stuff goes down in Chinatown. I also spent a while on Orchard Street, Singapore’s answer to 5th Avenue in New York or Bond Street in London, and Little India, again, very reminiscent of actual India. These Singapore people have this stuff down! After that first day just settling in and finding my bearings, I rode the cable car to Sentosa Island (very cool) and saw a giant monument to Singapore’s national symbol, the Merlion. The Merlion is a creature with the head of a lion and the body of a fish, it’s kind of cool looking and there’s a story behind it which involves the founder of ancient Singapore, Sang Nila Utama but it’s too long to include now so you can read it here if you want: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sang_Nila_Utama. The Merlion on Sentosa was huge and I took a lift up 10 stories so I could walk around in the mouth and on the head. Sentosa is the location of Universal Studios, Singapore too, I didn’t go inside but got the obligatory shots next to the massive spinning globe. The beaches on Sentosa were cool too, as was the Tiger Sky Tower, the highest viewing platform in Singapore, at 131 metres above sea level. Earlier, I specified that the Merlion on Sentosa is huge, I did that because there are a bunch of others but the only other one worth seeing is the pretty big one near the financial district. Before making it there though, my nerdy, internet meme recognising self gave me a little chuckle upon realising that I’d been rick-rolled. While chilling with my lunch in Subway, I thought I heard Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up playing in the background but wasn’t sure; turns out the radio DJ thought it was funny and actually commented afterwards that he set out to get as many people as he could that day.

Now, back to my comment about my bum. I headed out to an island called Pulau Ubin off the north-east coast of Singapore, it’s basically all rainforest but it’s too big to walk around so people tend to rent bikes to see it all (you people should get your minds out of the gutter, I told you it probably wasn’t what you were thinking!) The ferry to get there was a ridiculously cheap 2.5 Singapore dollars one-way and the bike rental was a very reasonable 12 Singapore dollars for the whole day. The island was amazing, there were all sorts of cool snakes and things like monitor lizards, strange birds, monkeys that I didn’t recognise and warthogs, but it was the forest itself that stole the show. Riding through it was absolutely brilliant and there were a few really picturesque quarries with loads of well maintained bike trails of varying difficulty. I did a few of the tougher ones but mainly stuck to the medium difficulty routes. Some were pretty steep, rocky and extreme though, I’d have thought twice about walking down them, let alone riding down. I was there for about 4 1/2 hours and I think I rode at least 40-50km. It was tough going uphill for such long stretches and like I said, it was bloody hot! I was absolutely drenched and my body was sore all over (seriously, get your minds out of the gutter, people!) I’m sure I smelled great on the MRT Metro ride back to the hostel too. Even with all that though, it was brilliant day, I saw so many amazing things and experiencing them while riding a bike was fantastic. I’d definitely recommend checking that place out if you’re ever in Singapore, there are some really nice walking routes near the Chek Jawa Wetlands part of the island too.

Wednesday, the day after Pulau Ubin, I checked out the National Museum of Singapore and the Bukit Timah nature reserve. The museum was very good and definitely something I would recommend to others. There weren’t that many different galleries or sections to it but what they did have I was very impressed by. Because my grandfather served in the Singapore army many years ago, it was emotional seeing a video about the creation of the army and the discussions about the people that signed up at the very beginning. I was unexpectedly moved watching a video of the independence day celebrations too. The nature reserve was everything I wanted it to be, it’s basically a rainforest in the middle of the city and I saw all sorts of animals while I was hiking in there for a few hours. One group of animals I was not happy to see though was the monkeys. After having had a wild monkey jump on my head in India and almost being attacked by a pack of baboons in Zambia I think it’s fair to say I’ve developed somewhat of a dislike for them. On Thursday, I headed to the Singapore Botanic Gardens which, with its lakes and very cool large areas of exotic trees and plants, was definitely a great way to spend a few hours. Also on Thursday I checked out Fort Canning, an old military fort. It was very picturesque and two separate couples were actually having what looked like engagement photos taken while I was there.

With my bus ticket to the ferry port for Langkawi booked, it’s almost time for me say goodbye to this fantastic country. I’ve loved my time here and I think I’ll have to visit again with Jill in the future. Singapore has been everything it could have been for me and I’m sad to be leaving. It’s also annoying that after finally getting used to the weird tasting bread, butter and milk here that I’m going to have to get used to completely different stuff in Malaysia now! C’est la vie!

First Stop: Motor City

Posted in Travel by

Leaving home was tough, but the unofficial start of my trip has been a good one! Chilling with Jill was excellent even though Detroit is as much of a hole as it was last time! Karla’s definitely making me see the light in realising that Chicago is the way to go. Speaking of which, meeting Karla, Jill’s best friend, was as great as I’d hoped it would be. She brought her main dude, Matt down from the city with her and the two of them spent a few nights with Jill and I. It was brilliant spending time with them, Jill’s taste in friends is just as excellent as her taste in boyfriends! It was good finally being able to thank Karla in person for the secret missions she’s helped me with too. I loved seeing Jill’s parents again and even got to meet her brother, sisters, nephews and nieces this time around. The days relaxing with Jill’s parents at the lake side house were definitely a highlight. We got a surprising amount done there and good times riding on the pontoon and barbequing were had by all. Libby and Mocha (Jill’s parents’ dogs) had an especially good time and were slobbering all over everybody. Playing with the dogs (and seeing how good Matt was with them) really made me want a pet someday, I know that my brother and at least one of my sisters share my disappointment in not having had a real pet when we were growing up. After being told (repeatedly) by Jill, I’ve come to agree with her in thinking that a goldfish was not a real pet.

During the week, seeing some of Jill’s best buds, Marcie, Adam and Amanda was just as much fun as last time but I’m kinda bummed I didn’t have more time to hang out with them. I’m even more bummed because it’s mainly my fault! I was sick when I headed out to see Jill (that’s the last bloody time I go to a music festival right before I’m supposed to go on holiday!) and I ended up making her sick too. I’m glad we were well enough to do something with them but the whole thing still sucks ass. The sickness thing meant we ended up missing out on meeting Jill’s grandma too.

Even with all that, like I was saying before, the trip out to Detroit was excellent. Seeing Jill’s dad again was great and his partner Carol was lovely. That night was brilliant for another reason too, I finally got to eat my favourite dish that isn’t cooked by my mum again, Jill’s chicken pot pie! I was joking a few days ago that this pie is the real reason I love Jill so much but when I thought about it later I wasn’t sure how much I was actually joking! The world would be a better place if everyone had access to Jill’s chicken pot pie!

The trip also included the first anniversary of the day Jill and I started dating. It was a day to remember. We went apple picking in an unfortunately wet, muddy orchard with Jill’s mum and step-dad. The orchard was really nice and the rain ended up reminding me of home so I was happy, though I’m not so sure everyone else was! Everybody agreed that the cider was good though! The restaurant Jill picked for our dinner that evening was an unexpected delight. Never having had fondue before I wasn’t really sure what to expect but The Melting Pot in Troy was fantastic! The food was incredible and our waiter really helped make the night special, nice work Mike Payne!

All in all, a great trip then. I’m even more excited for Singapore than I was when I left home, I’m expecting very good things, I’ll let you know all about it.

Top: The chicken pot pie; Above: At The Melting Pot