10%

wondercrust.

hard on the outside... (Part 1)

By Carolyn Chon

January 12^th, 2014

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”

Chris McCandless

the journey begins.

"Eh, come let's do Myanmar for a month."

Fast forward a year later.

"Eh bro, I can't believe we're actually here in Moscow."

Funny how things transpire. Jules and I were just very randomly talking about maybe checking out and traveling Myanmar. One day I got ridiculously imaginative and said to her "can you imagine if we did the trans-siberia", and that my friends, as they say is history...or in my case of cheese, destiny.

Our journey started from home where we hitched a ride with a friend to Penang. Our next point of destination was Bangkok, and the only ticket we had bought in advance for the entire trip, was this ticket from Penang to Bangkok. Onward bound to Sawadee-land on a 24hours train ride! We were well fed on the train by evangelistic caboose-mates. Ah, blessed!

We spent approximately 6 hours in Bangkok, before we took an overnight train to Chiang Mai. Yes, we were speeding our way through Thailand. Been there, done that kinda thing. Heh. Oh, but we did spend those few hours going to Chatuchak Market. What did we get? Same-same but different Casio knock-offs.

We spent a night in Chiang Mai, rented bikes and checked out the town before having some killer Thai lunch. We also ended up spending most of our time in secondhand bookshops, avoiding rain but we did get partially wet in the end. I think that was the beginning where we were determined to cycle as much as we can in all of our future stops.

From Chiang Mai we made our way into Luang Namtha, Laos where we had to spend two nights, not by choice. It worked out fine anyway, as we spent the whole day cycling around the little town, perved on young village boys playing by the river, lust over the contrast of the sky with rain clouds on one side and fluffy marshmallows on the other. The rain clouds eventually caught up with us, this time we were sheltered by a large tree in front of someone's house. I was secretly hoping they would invite us into their homes when they saw how soaked we were, ah well... I guess we weren't dressed appropriately for an unannounced house visit.

A cool summer sunset.

Night market in Luang Namtha. Oh, we also found out that the town has a curfew and yes, you're expected to be indoors by midnight. Did we comply? *shrugs*

The first two people we met, and well, really liked were Susan and Stu. We traveled together in a van from Chiang Mai to Luang Namtha, and ended up staying in the same hotel. We bonded over travel story swaps, Ron Tucker, Stu's morning till night boozy trip and of course Jules's talent for bottle cap opening.

Ah, good times.

entering motherland.

We finally entered into China on the 6th or 7th day of our trip via Luang Namtha, and into a small town called Mengla, Yunnan. We had about 6-8 hours to kill before we took our overnight bus to Kunming. So, we found ourselves a little cafe to kill time. This guy, wow this guy! He spoke perfect English, it even came with an accent. Curious to know, we asked where did he learn his English from. Lo and behold, he told us it was all through watching movies and listening to the BBC Radio!!

The time came for us to get onto the bus, I remember very clearly that right outside the bus station, there were massive banners with pictures of fatal bus accidents. They weren't pretty at all. What on earth were they trying to do putting up those pictures? Deter passengers from taking bus?! Despite what could've been perceived as a bad sign, we hopped onto the bus anyway.

Looking at the photos below, you'll see how the Chinese manage to squeeze in a gazillion people into the bus. Even as a sleeper bus, they could fit in three rows of bunk beds. In the end, the bus ride was really nice, the bus driver wasn't the reckless kind we would get back home in Malaysia. Anyway, 13 hours later...we arrived in Kunming!