Day 2 to Russia: Bangkoooookkkkkkkkkk - Chiang Mai

Day 1 to Russia: Kuala Lumpur - Butterworth - Bangkok

10 Sleeps in Taiwan (Part 2)

I had to get up well before sunrise the next day to meet with an old friend who was also playing client role on this trip at the airport. He, along with his bandmates flew in from San Fran to play a few gigs in Taiwan and that was why I was there, to document their shows and their tour around Taiwan. 

It was an expected 6 hours drive down south to Kenting, the very most southern part of Taiwan for their first show. The drive down was alright, I reckon cos we were all sleeping most of the time. We made a stop halfway through for late lunch and toilet break, and the rest stop took me by complete surprise! It's not like how our NKVE's rest stop is at all, it felt like we were inside a mall. 

The rest of the journey was pretty alright, the highways in Taiwan are pretty damn good I have to say. Clean and at most part it is elevated, so scenery ain't too shabby either. Then at one point, there was slight traffic and naturally we all wanted to know why, and well, sad to say on our first day in Taiwan, we saw a dead body! Yikes! That's right. I couldn't bring myself to look at it though, turned my head away but looked out for the car which threw the victim onto the road. It was pretty numbing for all of us, I think it was all our first time seeing a dead body on the road. For some reason, the police didn't cover the body, I sure hope it's cos they didn't have body bags not just cause they don't cover them in Taiwan, because we did see the policemen laying out cones and measuring distances. I thought the first thing one would do is to cover up the body. Anyway....... let's move on from morbidness.

It felt like the WHOLE of Taiwan was under a spell of grey that weekend. Seriously, the clouds from Taiwan right up to Kenting looked all grey the whole way through. I imagine that's what it must feel like being in London? Heh. Our hotel in Kenting was pretty decent, though we spent like an hour just to get to our hotel because of the traffic. Mind you, that very weekend, the whole of Taiwan was on a break, Spring Break that is. I swear it felt like the whole of Taiwan was in Kenting that weekend. They had rave parties, foam parties and all sorts of parties. Streets were packed to the brim!!

Street food was everywhere! There were beer girls even! I kinda imagine it to be like Cancun/Miami spring break only this is in Taiwan. Flashy cars, scantily clad girls. You name it, they had it! It was kind of an experience for me, specially when I had no expectations of Taiwan. But wow, Kenting sure did take me by pleasant surprise!

We went to Spring Scream right after we checked-in the hotel cos the boys were playing that night itself. Spring Scream is an annual indie music festival in Kenting, Taiwan. It's usually a weekend event, but this year it seems that performances even started as early as Wednesday. 

It's a by the seaside event, nestled in the trees. Some would call it a hippie like event, I call it a perfect place for an event.

It wasn't too big, it felt intimate and somewhat just right. 

There's also a campsite for those who didn't want to pay for the hotels that weekend (three times the price that weekend). I remember seeing a guy in just a loin cloth, I kid you not, a loin cloth. I guess you could call it a hippie like fest. Heh.

Of course the best part is discovering new music!! The girls on the left are known as 依錚依靜 (Yi-Cheng Yi-Ching), they're identical twins. Check them out here! Then there was this other female vocalist who really drew me in, she goes by the name of Frandé. Also this other band, which somewhat had a glam/pop/rock vibe, I don't know what genre it is lah ok, but their tunes were catchy and that's Red Flower. If you have the time and don't mind some Mandarin tunes, make sure you give them a listen alright? Oh and not forgetting my friend's band of course!! Hah! Dream Rush! An American band singing Mandarin songs, what the what?! Yea, so the vocalist is Singaporean, guitarist is Malaysian, drummer is from Hong Kong and the bassist and other guitarist are Americans, talk about an international band eh?

And that my friends, is a wrap up of my weekend at Spring Scream, Kenting! 

10 sleeps in Taiwan (Part 1)

"The current temperature in Taipei is 27 degrees".

Anticipating to have an overlook of Taiwan from up above, the captain's announcement was my cue to wake up to look outside the window. Behold! What sight that met my eyes, nothing but endless mass of clouds, and by that I mean gloomy clouds. Hello, Gloomy Taiwan!

I got to Taiwan, with no expectations whatsoever. In fact, the only expectation I had for the entire trip was my first night's accommodation because I booked it personally, other than that, I left everything up to Taiwan to surprise me.  Now, you got to know that I went to a Chinese primary school. Having said that, my reading and conversational Mandarin skills was never really in the window to begin with, but whatever that was in the window went right outside after primary school.

I was first forced to put my very rusty Mandarin into use when I had to ask which bus to take into the city. Luckily for me, maps  of Taipei city was up for grabs upon collecting my luggage. All I needed to do, was point to the MRT station I wanted to get to and utter the word "有巴士去吗?" (got bus go there ar).

An hour later, there I was right smack in the city with my bags in hand. First thing I felt was the nice chilled air, then I noticed how grey and monotoned all the buildings were. It somewhat felt like a communist ran country, although the exact place I got off was filled with colourful signages and bright lights. It's been a while since I've been in a country solo and boy was I excited!

After I settled in my room, charged up my phone I headed out to the streets for a walk and to get myself sorted out for dinner. It was drizzling very lightly, but it was still very walkable without an umbrella. The lights from signages was overwhelming to say the least, but I liked it. I don't know why, but I feel Taipei is like a less busy, less expensive Tokyo, though I've not ever been there.

I walked around for about an hour plus before I started feeling hungry. Now, one of the first comments I got from my friends whose been to Taiwan was the food! How great it was and what not. So, naturally being a pescatarian (one who doesn't eat meat except fish), my easiest choice was to go Japanese! Unfortunately for me, the restaurant I walked into didn't have an English menu and that was when I sort of panicked. I got the waiter to kind of tell me bout their choices, I didn't even know all the names of the fishes until he mentioned something that sounded like Salmon!!

With my belly full, it was time to head back for some good shut eye because the next 9 sleeps in Taiwan was all about work.

Till the next post...! More photos then too :)

Carol

Postponed

So, we had to postpone our trip due to visa applications to a week...and then our dear old, trustworthy PM announced that elections will be on the 5th, so being the good citizens that we are...

Naturally we're staying back to vote first. So, that another whole week that we're pushing back before we leave.

:)

Visa Tales

Apologies to all our fans and ardent readers, all 3 of you, for our 1 week absence. The fact of the matter is that we were busy tanning ourselves, living it up and generally just consuming a lot of crazy shakes.

But the absolute truth is that both Carol and I have been so busy with work that we've not had the time to do much for our upcoming trip. Some interesting things did happen from when we went to get our Chinese visas done last week though:

1. We got them done. 

For Malaysians, it costs RM30 for 30 days, but plus processing and Chinese employee English lessons fund contribution fees, it amounts up to RM58. The application process now requires you to provide proof of your flight in and out of China plus your hotel booking but if you do not have that, you can declare your reasons on a form which was what we did. Fill up forms and make an appointment here. 5 days to process visa, or you can pay more for same day collection (approx RM300) at the consulate (Plaza OSK, Jalan Ampang).

2. Managed to finally get in touch with the Kazakhstan embassy (115, Jalan Ampang Hilir)! It's not too complicated for this, just show up at the embassy during operating hours - 9 - 11am on Monday, Wednesday, Friday - to submit in your application. Process takes 5 working days, proof of travel and hotel also required. Forms available here.

3. Russian visa....haiihhhhhhh....

We've been told that this would be a lengthy process. And we were correctly informed. It wasn't the easiest thing to get info from the consulate in the first place so right after we were done at China, we just hopped on a cab and nipped down to Russia. Got into the consulate office; it's a tiny office almost full of people and one little old Indian lady behind a counter. We got there in time to hear her say "Okay everyone. If you're not flying this or next week, please go home and come back again next week. I won't be processing any more applications today." This, before 11am.

Anyways. We stepped out of the office to discuss our next step of action when a girl standing outside must've overheard us, and asked "Hey, are you guys going to Russia for work or tourism?" From there our conversation led us to find out that she and her boyfriend are doing almost the exact same thing as us! Ivan and Lyvonne are headed back to London to maintain their PR and you can find out more about them and their trip on their (much more colourful and better looking) blog here.

Update: Russian visa for Malaysians costs RM165. You have to be very careful about stating your dates of entry and departure; once approved you're only allowed in within that duration of time. But before all that, you would first need to get a letter of invitation/visa support letter. Now details on this part is a little bit unclear. Some online sites offer you this letter for as low as USD$20 but if you do it with our Malaysian consulate, you can get it done for RM375. This on top of the standard visa fee. Carol enquired with a tour agency and it would set us back RM650+ to have it done with them. Interestingly, at our point of meeting, Ivan and Lyvonne were about to check out an agency down at KL Sentral who claimed they could do the whole thing for RM300++. 

So while Carol is away shooting in Taiwan this week, I will be making my way down to the Kazakhstan embassy to get my visa done first. This week we'll also be deciding how to move forward with our Russian visas. Hopefully our next post will have more fruitful and ball wrenching stories. Till then, here're the pictures we're using for our modeling applications I mean visas.

Tip: Keep in mind that when you go get your visa done, you will have to leave your passport at the consulate/embassy till it's time for collection. So don't plan to get all visas done in one day. Not that we thought we could.

Should we cross into China in a cargo boat?

We found a fast cheaper way to get to China direct from the north of Thailand! It involves

1. a Chinese cargo boat

2. us having to register as "boat crew"
3. this toilet

Shall we do it?!

What to (ex)pack when you're (ex)packing...

Travel light.

I remember when Fly FM used to tell us to always unpack half the stuff we pack, because majority always over pack. Actually, most girls would. Luckily, we're not most girls.

My last backpack trip, about 5 years ago saw me wearing my pagoda shirt several times without washing. All I did was air dry em', unless we were in a place long enough for me to simply rinse and dry it out. As for Jules? Well, she apologised in advance, telling me not to be disgusted. I guess we're pretty much on the same page in this.

Oh, but we are going through different climates, thankfully no where near winter though. Phew!

A friend recently commented and advised us to bring rain jackets and waterproof shoes. Man, shoes are the weight of the world when you're trying to pack light! Don't think we have much of a choice though, better to carry weights than to have drenched feet. I experienced that in autumn before, not fun at all.

Damn, I'm tryna minimize on costing on pre-travel stuff, after all we are traveling responsibly ya' know. Leaving as little carbon footprint as we can, buying new gear sure ain't helping. Let's see how we can go around it! Speaking of trying not to buy new stuff, there is an item I actually can't not buy.

Remember I asked for tips on peeing in China? Well, I went and got myself an apparatus that would allow me to pee standing up, just like you boys. hah!

 I surely can't be using a recycled peeing apparatus now, can I? Of course, I didn't get it in bright pink!! Actually, maybe China will surprise me and have doors and super clean public loos. Hah!

How else can a girl pack light? How do you pack light?

Our route.

4 Weeks And Counting

As we scramble to get ourselves together for our first trip, we also realize that the clock is ticking hard and fast as we've not even got our passport photos done, let alone apply for the necessary visas. I guess we are true blue Malaysians, leaving things to the last minute.

In this week we found out that with the Russian visa, you got to know exactly what date you are entering the country, no two ways about it, as told to me by the staff in the embassy. What?! You mean we can't decide to extend our stay in Kazakhstan prior to Moscow last minute? You also need to identify which exact airport you are leaving from! I guess we gots no choice but to adhere, after all...it is back in old country. 

4 weeks and counting, and we've got nothing prepared yet. Well, except maybe this blog. We've not even check on the weather situation on our ETA to all the northern countries. Heck, I've not even cover up this grammatically wrong Russian tattoo I got on my ankle. Though I doubt that we'd be wearing shorts in Russia. Still, I don't want Russians to see it and think of me as a stupid fool as I do with people getting weirdly wrong Chinese/Kanji tattoos. Ah well, what goes around comes around.

If any of you have gone on the route that we are taking, feel free to tell us what not to eat and what to see, where to go and how to cover ourselves when we take a piss (in China of cos), what to say or whether we should smile at single men or even shake their hand. As China is also a big part of our route, we know we're going to be in for a really inneresting ride! After all, we are Chinese Virgins. You know what we mean!

~ Carol

Why friends are bad influence, travelling sucks, and Russia is but a train ride away.

Finally, we have our blog up and running. And by up and running we mean we've actually only registered for fifteenfings.blogspot.com. So while Carol challenges her age by trying to work out the customization process of our new blog, I shall sneakily bang out a few words...

Late last year we both were feeling a little jaded about life and things in general; Carol and her husband's full time photography was taking off which meant massive commitment to their studio. I found myself tied hands and feet to a new job with an exciting boutique events/concert promoter agency. It wasn't that we were complaining about how things were going - on the business side, Carol had a lot of creative freedom with her shoots and I was working on pulling off the biggest music festival in South East Asia. Even we acknowledged that we were fortunate to be doing for a living what most others only dream of doing...but one of us made the mistake of asking the other: is this it?

You see, Carol and I both have a terrible terrible infliction. We like travelling extensively over long periods of time, and at a leisurely pace. Separately, we've travelled across India, South East Asia, Europe, South America and as people with itchy feet will know, the travelling never stops. And how could it? How can you read an article about the 7 different Machu Picchu treks without wishing to be on one of them? Who never had the longing to work for a travel magazine even to just review hotel rooms? How many times do you watch TLC thinking that you too, can make a good travel host? (Actually that last bit is true; you probably can make a good travel host compared to the kind of dubious people who appear on TV nowadays.)

But hang on. Stop here for a second. Before you go on reading, we would like to make it clear that we will not be held responsible for sudden impulses to quit your job/relationship/kids/life to drive from the tip of Argentina to the ends of North America. Neither will we take the blame for you deciding to spend your life savings on a 3 month trip exploring the Amazonian jungles of South America. In fact, we would like to take back everything we just said about travelling. Don't do it. Travelling sucks. It's shit. Only meant for no life losers. 

Even worse, do not even attempt to think about doing what Carol and I are planning to do on April 21st. And that is to ride various trains from Kuala Lumpur, across Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Western China, Kazakhstan, right up to Moscow, Russia. It will take more or less 5 weeks, we will cover more or less 15,000 km, and we will shoot/record more or less 1 tera of footage.

Friends ask, WHY?! We say, we like trains. We say, Russia is a cool destination. We say, we want you to be jealous. But actually, we dunno. We no can give good answer. You see now? No one should adopt the appetite of travelling. It's ridiculous, wastes time & money, and is ridiculous. Not to mention a possible factor in the breakdown of jobs/relationships/kids/life.

But all the same, if you want to wish us good luck, we'll take it anyway. We have exactly 4 weeks left to go before we take the first train out of Malaysia and man, are we excited! And hopefully when we come back a month later, we will be able to put our rail adventures into a coffee table book. All for the love of travelling of course, because we're no life losers like that.