Back to Baltics

After I came back to Finland from my New York-India-Malaysia-Singapore trip, it was back to reality. And what is reality? At that time, reality was working in a bank, working in a bar and working on my thesis. Reality was busy. Reality was also the arrival of summer in Finland. This meant four weeks of summer vacation. What do you reckon I did with these four weeks? Yes, correct, I went traveling! The plan was to hit the Baltic countries for about a week and then carry on through Poland and Germany. So off we went.

Bags packed, ready to hit the road!

We hitched a ride with my dad and his wife Anu from my tiny hometown of Vaasa to the somewhat bigger capital of Finland, Helsinki. Before we continued our trip, we had one stop to make in Helsinki. A Bruce Springsteen concert. So Matt, my travel buddy for the following weeks, me and my daddy made our way to the Olympic stadion in Helsinki where we awaited the arrival of The Boss. And oh did he play. And play. And play. The concert went on for 4 hours! Jeez... Whatever, we had fun drinking red wine out of the bottle and secretly smoking cigars when security wasn't looking.

Me and my Daddy! Love you dad! <3

On with the show, enough of Helsinki and Back to Baltics. The first stop was Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. I've been to Tallinn before. The first time around I was about 12 years old. I remember laughing at a dubbed version of "The Bold and the Beautiful". See, the Estonian language sounds somewhat like Finnish, in fact, it sounds like a Finnish person who's had a bit too much to drink. I also remember the old town of Tallinn as a quite busy but pretty place. I went to Tallinn a second time a couple of years ago, just before christmas. It was a lot busier then I remembered. The third time, it was even busier.

But first things first. We took the ferry from Helsinki across to Tallinn. It's not a long ride, but if you ever take it, be ware. Tallinn, with its cheap alcohol and close proximity to Helsinki, is know to many Finns as a place to get drunk and get drinks. People buy truckloads of alcohol from Tallinn for weddings, parties or for any given Saturday night. So a typical ferry to or fro Tallinn will most probably be full of drunk Finns. Fabulous. This ferry, however, was surprisingly clean and sober, perhaps because it left at 2 pm.

The sober ferry

After we arrived in Tallinn, we made the short walk from the ferry in to Tallinns old town. It was August, which means high season in Tallinn. The place was crawling of tourists and so we had minor difficulties in finding a room. After some walking back and forth, we settled for a dorm at an Aussie owned party hostel. We were lucky, because it was Wednesday. Wizard Wednesday! The goal was to drink enough beer to make a staff of empty beer cans longer than your own body. If you succeeded in this difficult task, you became a wizard. Unfortunately, we failed. This guy, however, succeeded with grace!

It's the Wednesday Wizard!

The night turned out to be a hard one, moving from one bar to the other and making friends with other Aussie party hostel guests.

Would you like one? Or two? Or seventeen?

As a result, we were thoroughly hungover the next day. However, we managed to visit one of my absolute favorite places in Tallinn: a restaurant called Kompressor serving pancakes. Only pancakes! The perfect hangover breakfast/lunch. The rest of the day was pissed away by strolling around town, however, managing a really nice birthday dinner. Happy birthday Matt!

So I like pancakes, who doesn't?

We stayed two nights in Tallinn. It's a nice town, but as I'd been there two times prior to this trip, it wasn't anything new, moving on. We took a bus from Tallinn to Riga, the capital of Latvia. During our quest to become Wizards, a Dutch guy told os with warmth in his voice of the women of Riga. What is so utterly special about the women of Riga? Is there something wrong with the women of, let's say Vaasa? It didn't, however, take long to realise what was special about the women in Riga. Eastern Europe, that's whats special about them. Meaning? Short skirts, tiny shirts and stilettos. That's the women of Riga.

Oh, the women of Riga!

There is, however, more to Riga then short skirts and high heels. For example, driving in to Riga, the depressing signs of Soviet become evident in the form of concrete boxes, trying their best to look like apartment buildings. For you who don't know the history of Latvia, let me enlighten you a bit on the recent history, as the old historian I am. In 1944 there was heavy fighting in Latvia between German and Soviet troops, ending in German defeat. Part of Latvia, once more, was under Soviet control and after the German surrender it became evident that Soviet forces were there to stay. Latvia was, as the Beatles would have put it, Back in the U.S.S.R. In 1989, approximately two million people joined hands to form a human chain spanning over 600 kilometers across the Baltic states, at that point republics of the Soviet Union, to draw attention globally to their desire for independence. It illustrated solidarity among the three nations and has been described as "emotionally captivating" and a "visually stunning scene". Within six months after, what was named the Baltic Way (also called the Chain of Freedom), Lithuania was the first to declare independence, Latvia following in August 1991.

"Chain of Freedom"

Very impressive. Enough history, back to present. As any other European capital, also Riga has an old town. I suppose as in any other European capital, this is where you will want to stay. And so we did. After a slight miscalculation on exchange rates, we thought we were Rich in Riga, and so got a private room and got ourselves a mighty Latvian dinner of cabbage, cabbage, potatoes and cabbage. Delicious. After discovering we weren't Rich in Riga after all, we moped around what became Rainy Riga. Thankfully we found a band of guys dressed up like old ladies singing and dancing on a square to cheer us up. Appropriately, they were performing Rihanna's Umbrella. Oh the irony.

Under my umbrella,
ella ella eh eh eh...

Riga was not all bad, though. The next day the sun swopped places with the rain and we decided to go explore. First stop, Riga Central Market. I have a secret love for markets. Let me explain why. Regardless of the country you are in, markets are always filled with people selling weird shit you won't find anywhere else. There you find the local foods, drinks and people mixing and mingling. When I was at at a market in Bangalore, the stall keeper gave me a discount because I had come all the way from Finland to buy, whatever I was buying, from his stall. Very cool! At the market in Riga we tried our first (and last) Kvass. It is a fermented beverage that is made from black or regular rye bread. Interestingly, Wikipedia cites that Kvass is "classified as a non-alcoholic drink by Russian standards". By Russian standards, excuse me, but is that supposed to calm me in some way? It sounds to me more like a warning... Well, non-alcoholic or not, I would describe the taste as an old coke that someone left a piece of bread in. I don't think I would be fooling anyone if I said I particularly liked it.

"Yes, I think this Kvass is delicious"

Moving on. Do you know the old proverb "after every Kvass comes a beer"? Well I do, and so we had one. Except for concrete boxes, Riga also has some more charming buildings. There is a block filled with magnificent art nouveau architecture and so we went to see it. I always find it interesting when Magnificence sits next to Nasty, like for example a pile of trash next to the Taj Mahal. Conclusively, this block was interesting. Next to Magnificent art nouveau sat Nasty crack house. Crack house? Yes, I nicknamed the houses crack houses because of the many cracks they had. Nonetheless, the area is definitely worth a visit.

Meet Magnificent...

...and Nasty

We spent our last of two nights in Riga listening to yelling and bottles braking, this city knows how to party! We woke up early the next morning, sleepy from the nights jangle, and took a bus to the third of the Baltic countries: Lithuania. Moving through the Baltics is easy, each capital are only around a 4-5 hour busdrive from each other.

Our itinerary for the Baltics, took us about a week

Rolling in to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, was a different deal then Riga. This place looked more put together with less concrete and cracks. Even though we knew it was high season in the Baltics, and even we had troubles finding rooms before, we still didn't prebook anything for Vilnius. We thought everything worked out pretty well when we found a nice hostel that gave us their last room. Sweet! I took a shower and walked back to the common room, only to find our hungover French hostel host explaning how he had made a mistake. The hostel was fully booked, we had to go. What is the Britts say again, "don't trust the French"?

This may not seem like a big deal, but it is. You have to pack the bag you just unpacked, throw it on your already aching shoulders, get all sweaty again walking in the hot sun on streets you don't know to a place you hope will have room for you. And even more so, you have to give up a nice room you were planning on enjoying. Fortunately we found something almost as nice, or what do you think?

Sleep tight in you little box!

We were hungry, we were tired and we were not happy, I won't deny. Traveling can have its setbacks. And when it has, there's only one thing to do: go eat a good meal and drink an even better beer. So we did. Naturally, also Vilnius has an old town, so we headed there and had ourselves some comfort food. And it helped. We got our spirit back and decided to go explore what Vilnius had to offer. Being a European city, there are churches. There are so many churches I don't know who goes to them all. I don't much care for churches, so we didn't go see any. Instead, we decided to walk up a small hill. As we were still in eastern Europe, walking up the cobble stone path we saw a women walking up in her skirt and stilettos. I took a look at my dirty sneakers and came to the conclusion I could never live here.

Definitely worth the walk up. In high heels? Wouldn't recommend it.
See the white church in the background? Yes, that's one of the many churches we didn't go to.

One of the nicest things with traveling is just sitting down and waiting for things to happen. You can sit down at in an Indian coffe shop and all of a sudden you have the kids of the owner messing around with you, or you sit on a beach in Malaysia enjoying a beer and all of a sudden you're enjoying the biggest party on the island. We were walking in a park, after enjoying what might have been the best ice cream of my entire life, and saw two girls and a guy rehearsing a dance routine. They didn't have music. We walked a little further and all of a sudden a funky band started playing some funky tunes.

The funky band

What happened next makes me believe there is a god after all. The three dancers, joined by a fourth dancer, a waiter who worked at a cafe near by, started dancing to the funky tunes of the funky band.

The happy youth of Lithuania rocking it out!

It was a perfect moment of an American band coming together with Lithuanian youth, playing and dancing for an audience of spontaneous by passers.

Vilnius was saved. A hill, a good meal and a cool moment of music and dance. The next day, our last day in Vilnius as we had tickets for an overnight bus taking us all the way to Warsaw, started off in an interesting way. We had lunch at a restaurant serving traditional Lithuanian food. This is what we had

This is Cepelinai. Say what? Cepelinai, a Lithuanian national dish. A type of dumplings stuffed with minced meat, or whatever. I know my mama taught me to always finish my plate, but really, I couldn't. Sorry mom. After horrid cepelinai lunch, we headed for a cafe to sit down and recover from the experience. Ok, so it was a bar, so what? But because of the name, we just had to go in.

Welcome to Gringo!

Why is this so special? As I mentioned in the beginning of the post, I work at a bar. Actually, I work at a bar and a pub. The pub is called El Gringo. Many customers simply call it "my living room".

Serving beer at El Gringo. One of my favorite things to do, believe it or not!

So sitting in Gringo felt comfy and homy. As we let the beer erase the memory of the cepelinai, the day grew darker and it was time for us to head to the busstation for our next stop. Thank you Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius, next stop Warsaw!

A few good men

There's been an outrage in India during the last few weeks since the gang rape last month. My college was travelling in India just after the tragic incident where a young girl was brutally raped and thrown out of a moving bus and reported that discussions were heated both on the streets and in media. I lived in India for three months in New Delhi, were the girl was raped, and perhaps the story hits me harder because of that. Or perhaps it's because, even though never getting any where near as tragic an incident, I too had some problems walking the streets of Delhi. In respects of that young girl, I'd like to share my own views and stories of my time in India. Unlike many of my earlier posts, this is a big one, so don't even start if you're in a rush.

For more information on the incident, I found an interesting article in Time World Magazine that includes some statistics as well.

The "white girl"

Have you ever dropped a plate in a busy lunch restaurant? The shatters fly loudly and, for a few seconds, the room goes silent and everyone turns to look at you. The stares are burning and you feel uncomfortable. Now picture this situation, without the broken plate and replace the lunch restaurang by a street and then replace the stares of harmless lunch eaters with a group of men. Why are they staring? Because you are woman. In my case, even more so because I'm white. And blond. This was everyday life in Delhi.


Just across the street from my school is a little coffe shop. I go there regularly to buy coffe, sweets and what not. Nothing special. Late february, finally the spring arrives in Delhi. For a Finnish girl even spring feels fairly hot and I put on shorts and a tanktop. Normal clothes for any summer day back home. I go with my friend to the little coffe shop and we sit in the sun and drink our coffees. When we walk back, my friend says "you should get a discount for all the customers you bring that place!" I'm clueless and like a naive idiot I respond "huh?" He explained how people working in the are were walking over to check out the "white girl".  Wow, I didn't know I was a celebrity. I look down at what I'm wearing and ask "should I not wear shorts?" At the same time I realise I now have to wear shorts. In a culture where cows are holy, but women can be raped on a public bus, I will not be pressured in to wearing anything else than what I would normally wear. About a month later, in Varanasi a young boy told me that I should cover up because it makes the men uncomfortable. Right, because thats my problem.

My coffe shop, view from my balcony.

Close to my school there is a big forest with nice trails that I used to explore on my morning runs. I was advised not to go running alone in the forest, but how could I not. There were peacocks and parrots and pigs and monkeys, it felt like taking a run in a zoo! So I went running anyway. One morning there was a middle aged man running in front of me. After I passed him it didn't take too long before he, in turn, passed me. He proceeded and was perhaps 50 meters in front of me when he turned around and started walking backwards. I don't know anyone who walks backwards on their morning runs, but perhaps you do. Could you please enlighten me why a middle aged man would walk backwards in a forest in south Delhi? After I passed him (again) it didn't take long before I could hear him running again. "That's it" I thought and took a turn to get me out of the forest. I didn't feel threatened, but I'm sweating and wearing a jumper and baggy pants, I'm not really anything to look at. And if you do want to stare, please do it openly like everyone else, don't try to hide it by walking backwards.

Little monkeys in my forest.

These incidents weren't too bad and the staring I got used to. It wasn't before I took the metro to the airport one day that I got really angry. A young man came and sat next to me and struck up a conversation. I could see him staring at my breasts, but still I tried to keep my cool and be polite. When we were closing in on my stop I asked the young gentleman if he could kindly get up so that I could get my bag and myself towards the doors. He moved about an inch and told me to proceed. I asked him once more if he could get up, my bag was heavy and I couldn't get out. He moved another inch. Fine, I took my bag and pressed myself past the idiot and just as I did, I felt him touching me in an unpleasant way. I was infuriated and told him to fuck off.

Another incident was at Holi, a yearly festival in India where people throw colours on each other. One reason for covering each other in colour, or so I was told, is that the colours make people invisible to the gods. I experienced this festival on the beautiful Andaman Islands. I guess the colours do make, at least the men, invisible to the gods as they obviously felt it would be totally acceptable to grope western girls in the act of covering them in green and yellow. One guy got under my shirt and under my bikini with his purple hand. I told him to fuck off too.

Holi action.

The problem, as I see it, is the lack of sex. Movies are censored, not even kissing is allowed most of the time. In a Bollywood movie, typically the young beautiful woman and the handsome young man will get closer and closer to each other, but just before they kiss, or even touch, the scene is brutally cut off, leaving the audience wondering and imagining what happened next. Women cover up in their beautiful saris, god forbid they would show a knee or a shoulder, while the men dress in hideous shirts and pants. It is not appropriate for a man and woman to kiss in public, but it is okay for two guys to walk hand in hand. Nobody talks about it and I bet no one is getting any. No wonder Indian guys are frustrated. And then what? I'm guessing the only thing they know about western women is what they learn from the internet porn they watch. Well I have news for you. Not all western women are porn stars. In fact, most of us aren't. We like to consider our bodies to be more then a peace of meat. I guess to them, I'm just a walking peace of ass. Nothing more. Nothing less. I admit I don't like the over sexed western style with 8-year olds dressing like adults and Christina Aguilera singing

Ah, dirrty

Filthy

Nasty, you nasty

Too dirrty to clean my act up

If you ain't dirrty

You ain't here to party

Ah, the poetry of the 21st century. But I truly believe India is under sexing it. Talk about it. Make it open. Get kids condoms, teach them about sex and perhaps, at some point, they won't have the urge to gang rape a woman.

I feel Indian men sometimes have the emotional intelligence of a puppy. A friend of a friend, a middle-aged man with wife and kids, wanted to take me for a tee because he wanted to learn about my culture. I thought this was nice, because that's why I love traveling, getting a glimpse of how other people eat and breath. After about an hour of chatting and drinking chai he left and I went home. A couple of days later he called me. He told me about a four letter word. "Do you know which word I'm talking about?" Oh god, you have got to be kidding me. "I'm talking about L O V E! I think I'm in L O V E with you Cecilia". Nope, not kidding. Also, in my class there was a guy I befriended, let's call him Jomet. At a school party one of his friends came up to me and said "Jomet likes you!"  Well then Jomet, could you please grow up and tell me this yourself. What are we, in high school?

An Indian Man.

That was not the only time I was disappointed by people (men) I thought were my friends. Obviously they weren't interested in my friendship. But, and here is the famous but, there were some rays of sunlight in my hatred towards Indian men. A few good men give me hope that India do have descent young men in its reservoar. They know who they are and to them I would like to say: thank you! If it wasn't for them, I would have left India cursing all of its men to the lower levels of hell, preferably a place with no women. Reading about the brutal raping of a 23-year old who is then left half naked in the street where people walk past her and do NOTHING! Her companion tried to ask the police for help, but at first they ignored them. Later, the girl died.

They raped the girl to death.

I still L O V E India, so I hope with all my heart that India can get its shit together and start showing their women the respect that they deserve.

How about that Singapore Sling

Our three weeks in Malaysia was over and we got ourselves bustickets to Johor Bahru, where we learned there are buses to Singapore every few minutes. It should have been an easy transit, but wait, we left Tioman early in the morning, took the bus to Johor Bahru, took the bus to Singapore, enjoyed some minor hassle at the boarder and found ourselves in a guesthouse around 11 pm. Great, another 13 hour transit day. When traveling in Asia, don't be fooled by short distances. They may still take forever, as I learned the hard when traveling in India.

Back to Singapore, everyone knows Singapore. The odd little city-state south of Malaysia that is known for being on time when every other nation in southeast Asia is late. Before we left Malaysia, we learned that it is illegal to bring more then one pack of cigarettes in to Singapore. We also learned that a pack of cigarettes in Singapore is three times the price in Malaysia. As this was the last stop on my five month journey, I was running low on cash, and so was my travel buddy Niina. We decided to do the unthinkable and smuggle in some cigarettes. We didn't go crazy, we simply doubled up bought two packs each.

My partner in crime.

At the boarder, we both felt like criminals, our illegal cigarettes burning in our pockets. I had hid one of my packs in my guitar case, Niina had both of hers in her backpack . A middle-aged man checked my bag and after going through most of my belongings (except my guitar case) he was satisfied and let me through. Phew! Heart beating I picked up my bags and proceeded to the door, when I realised Niina was being led to a small room by security. I waited outside for her for about 30 minutes, that's how long they kept her inside. They interrogated my criminal friend and told her she was to pay a fine of 200 Singapore dollars. Luckily, she was able to convince the border security that she had no idea of this rule and, finally, they cut her cigarettes in two and let her go without a fine. Niina now has a five-year record in Singapore. Apparently, if she tries to smuggle cigarettes in to the country again, something very, very terrible awaits her. Lesson learned. A couple of cigarette packs poorer and a criminal record richer, we made our way to Little India in hope of finding a cheapish guesthouse, now that our cigarettes were gone.

Marina Bay Sands

If you ride in style, the Marina Bay Sands hotel with its famous Infinity Pool may be your choice of accommodation. If you ride with me, you will settle for a 14 bed dorm for 15 euros. (By the way, the hotel cost 8 billion Singapore dollars, about 5 billion euros, to build. I don't even want to think about how much a room would set me back.) Happy with our dorm and happy hour beer, we crashed in our cheap sheets.

The next day was dedicated to the zoo, as it's known to be one of the best zoos in Asia. Unfortunately, a public holiday ment us entering the zoo together with the rest of the population. The zoo is indeed impressive, with some animals lacking cages and big, lush areas for all animals to roam around.

White tiger or not,
I still like the turtles!

A white tiger.

Singapore is a very clean place. After spending over three months stepping in cow shit and being surrounded by insanity in India, Singapore feels a little lame. One reason why I don't mind sleeping in rooms where the roof is leaking or there's a cockroach or two is that they bring a little insanity to my travels. I don't travel to see things I can see at home (like a clean bed), I travel to learn and experience things that would never be possible in my organised home country of Finland. I'm not saying that you can't stay at the Marina Bay Sands if you like, I'm saying that I don't need to. That's why Singapore doesn't strike a chord with me. It's too clean, too organised, too polished for my liking. However, that doesn't mean it was uneventful. Let me tell you some fun facts.

How about that cigarette? The expensive ones that you buy in Singapore or the cheap ones you smuggle in you guitar case. If you light one up, be sure to do it in the right place. The guesthouse we stayed at, The Prince of Wales, asks its guests to please smoke in the yellow box. Do you see the yellow box? The town is full of yellow boxes, painted on the ground to tell you where you can smoke and where you cannot.

And what about durian. The "king of fruits" that smells like your worst nightmare. Whatever you do, don't eat it at the airport. I guess the fine for carrying a durian at the airport is too big to even write it out. I also heard there is an escalator in a park, if you do not wish to exhaust yourself by walking. So Singapore is not boring, in fact, I find the yellow boxes, rules and fines quite amusing.

No durian!

Another thing Singapore is famous for is shopping. There are shopping malls that look like spaceships and the streets are lined with all imaginable luxurious brands. We soon realised that we should have done our shopping elsewhere. My wallet couldn't afford the Cartier, Bosses and Rolexes. As a result, we spotted a H&M and bought a couple of shirts we could just as well have bought at home.

"Shopping" in Marina Bay Sands.
(I didn't actually go in, they would have probably thrown my dirty traveling ass out the door.)

On our last day in Singapore, our last day traveling, we thought it would be fun to go see the famous boat hotel and see what all the fuzz is about. There's a rooftop bar and we wanted to have ourselves a Singapore Sling, no matter what! So we took the clean metro and found our way to the ticket office. I must say, I was a little surprised the elevator ride up was priced at S$ 20, but our mind was made up. We emptied our empty wallets and bought two tickets. For a second there, I thought this was the worst money ever spent, but oh no. It got worse. The view is nice, of course, but thanks to the bars and security wires it doesn't look very romantic.

Great.

We also thought we could see the famous pool. Unfortunately, it's closed off, except for two guided tours a day. I don't know who wants to go on a guided tour to se a pool, we were getting frustrated with the place. Now, how about that drink? The unimpressive bar served us our overpriced cocktails, we drank them and we left. We couldn't help but laugh at the insanity of it all. We just had ourselves the most expensive drinks of our lives, and it wasn't even a good one!

Enjoying that Singapore Sling.

After spending 30 euros a piece to have one drink we were done with Singapore. We were also done with our Singapore dollars. When we arrived at the airport, we were literally penniless and ready to go home. And so five months of traveling came to an end at the airport in Singapore. New York, India, Malaysia and Singapore, ahead of us only a ten hour flight to Helsinki. Penniless or not, the many experiences of my trip will bring me joy for years to come. If you haven't packed your bags yet, do it now, after all, you never know what yellow boxed you may find!

Islands, beaches, islands, beaches

Langkawi is probably the most well-known beach destination in Malaysia, so why did we decide we didn't want to go there? Because Lankawi is probably the most well-known beach destination in Malaysia. Therefore, after spending a night in an idyllic little village, we headed for something entirely different. A Beach. From Kota Bharu we took a bus to Kuala Besut from where you can take a ferry to the Perenthian Islands.

Traveling with a family? Perenthian Besar it is. Travel with a backpack?
Perenthian Kecil will probably be your destination.

We chose what should be the backpacker island and picked Long Beach as our destination. According to the Lonely Planet, the "quiet islands" are a "tropical paradise". I wouldn't agree. Perhaps my stay at the Andaman Islands in India had spoiled me, because the beach didn't impress me and I wouldn't call the islands quiet at all (even though it was no where near a Thai-style party scene).

Well, it wasn't all bad.

The islands did, however, have another sort of paradise to offer in the wonderful world beneath the surface. Snorkeling in the cristal clear water with sharks and giant sea turtles, I gave a little peace of my heart to the islands. Swimming next to a sea turtle as big as me, I was ecstatic!

If a sea turtle isn't your cup of tee, how about this fellow? Mind I tell you, this guy is huge. Very big.
I hadn't seen one of these before. Don't need to see one again. Ever.

Moving on, we spent a few days exploring the islands, the animals, the beer and the beach before it was time to pack our bags and leave for yet another beach. Another bus ride away lay Cherating and I instantly dig the place. Unfortunately we arrive too late to hit the waves, the surfing season is over, but there's still some cool things going on. There are more locals then travellers, there's art and music and the vibe is relaxed and hip. There's really not anything to see here, people come to surf and surf only. The beach is dull and the main street quiet, but nonetheless Cherating is my favorite stop in Malaysia. Why, I think to myself. Because it's real. It's not a tourist drag, it's a real place with real people.

Locals take on Adele's hit Someone Like You.

Unfortunately, we only have time to stay a couple of nights and just when we have bought our bustickets, a local with a guitar in hand approaches us. It's his birthday and he and some friends are going to the beach to drink Jack Daniels. Would we like to come along? Busticket in hand we have no choice but to wish him happy birthday and get on the bus. What a shame. We hook up with two german girls for the bus ride, heading for Tioman Island.

Now, for the less traveled, traveling is not always fun. It's not always a holiday. It can be ruff, exhausting and sometimes you may even question your sanity. This was one of those times.

Arriving in the middle of the night, tired and hungry, we somehow find our way to the ferry station.
Hardly any sleep on the comfortable tables I try to remind myself, why is it I love traveling again?

We don't see much of Mersing, the ferry town taking backpackers to and fro the island. The first ferry that leaves in the morning, we're on it. When we arrive on the island, we realise there is a problem. Almost every room is full. There's a public holiday coming up and we are not the only ones to celebrate it on Tioman. Fortunately, we find an affordable little hut. Would we have arrived a day or two later, there would have been no room, people were even sleeping on the beach! (Not a bad option I suppose.)

Next it's time to do what we came here for. Diving. I've been waiting to take my diving license and explore the big blue sea for a long time and we have heard that diving in Tioman is good. Really good. What I hadn't accounted for is that the asthma I have makes diving dangerous.

One of the many boats taking people diving. Unfortunately, I'm not taking that boat.

I could lie and say I don't have asthma, but do I really want to take the risk before consulting a doctor? No, I don't. I'm bummed, but realistically I can't do anything about this and so, instead, we hit the beach, go snorkeling and drink cheap beer.

It's hard to be bummed when you have this!

Thought getting a drink would be hard in muslim Malaysia? Think again!

Okay, so you get a fine equivalent to about 1200 euro or get whipped (no more then 6 strokes) for selling, buying or drinking alcohol. I guess that's the price you pay for destroying your liver.

Tioman is different. There are countless little diving shops on the one street we walk up and down during our stay and we quickly become part of the little community on the island, mostly consisting of all the dive instructors that live on the island. It's relaxed, it's small and it's fun. It's the perfect place to end our stay in Malaysia.




On our last night, there's a big party. Everyone (probably everyone on the entire island) gather in a tiny little bar. There's a man with a guitar, there's beer, there's an australian woman talking about how people in Finland are either trolls or elves, there's more beer, there's a fight, there's laughing, there's crying, there's everything we could've ever hoped for.



The next day we reluctantly pack our bags. The party has taken it's toll, we're tired and we don't want to leave the little island.

However, our three weeks in Malaysia is up and we are planning to take a bus to Singapore the same day. We drag ourselves, and our bags, to the pier and as the boat leaves, we wave goodbye to the beaches, the sand, the snorkeling, the sleeping in the sun, the wading in the sea. Singapore will be our last stop before flying home, so it is with a bit of sadness that we navigate around the busstation to find a bus that will take us just a little bit closer to home. Next up, Singapore!

Goodbye Tioman!