Okay, here it is. Last post. A little composition of some bits and pieces that i picked up along the way.

This is one before the last post in this blog. Or.. at least till my next journey.

Bangkok. Spent 4 days here. First day visiting the temple and learning local history. Next days passed in markets, shopping malls, more markets and visiting suit-maker.

Bangkok is full of contrast. It resembles a bit with KL, but people seem to be bit friendlier. You will find ultramodern city center with high-end fashion district, traffic jams, monorail etc etc. On the other hand you have these old school tuk-tuk drivers on the roads side by side with Lexuses and very old and dirty looking houses few hundred meters on on the opposite direction.

It is also a massive city (6-10 million people, nobody really knows ..or cares), so it’s hard to really understand this place with 4 days I had.

Bon apetit!

It’s okay to rest at noon when the temperature is around 40 and you feel like a beauty nap. Local park will do fine.

Even the dogs feel that way..

If you’re going to Chatuchak weekend market, picture like this is very common. If you see something you like, you wake up the guy. Or just take it and walk away

Overall, I liked Bangkok. All the annoyances aside.

After 24 hours on the road I reached my destination Siem Reap - the home of Angkor Wat temples. I found this town to be my favorite one in Cambodia also (compared with Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville). It’s nice and cozy, it has awesome “Bar street” in the middle of the city with 0,5$ beers and lively nightlife, good markets and friendly people.

After arrival I hooked up with a tuk tuk driver who I hired for the next two days for draging me around into the temples, silk factory and just around the city. Cost me 12$ a day. Not bad.

The entire second day was spent in the Angkor Wat temples (listed as one of world’s wonders), which is massive. The architecture is astonishing. Most built around 13th century, these guys didn’t miss any details while carving the sculptures out of stone. If you reach there yourself, then you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

Day started around 5am. With monkeys in sunrise.

It was funny. Every day few hours after noon it started raining. Lasted an hour or two, and back to normal again.

Petrol station in cambodian way.

My tuktuk driver Sam! WHo was by the way very friendly and humble. I recommend him.

After 3 nights in Siem Reap took the night bus to the famous beach town Sihanoukville. I’d heard some good things about this place. As you can see yourself from the picture below.

Unfortunately I didn’t find this town to be much. Beach wasn’t very pretty, lots of dirt, too touristy, bad weather!

In here was probably my dodgiest place to spend the night. 3$ a night got me this cardboard shack (notice how the walls let through the light) with moskito nets around the beds cause. It was nice and cozy, that if you could not think about the possibly infected malaria moskitos flying inside at night.

And my last stop. Phnom Penh, the capital.

Airport, here I come. Off to Bangkok. To stack up my racksack with souvenirs, clothes and everything that can be bought with ridiculous price.

Thailand welcomed me with their ‘hospitality’ already in Phuket Airport. First I discovered that Estonia is for some reason left out from the list where you can get a 30 day visa for free and left you with a 15 day one time entry visa worth 30$. Secondly, as expected, the hassle starts already in the airport official counters where they insist me going on these expensive taxis and get a shity exchange rate for my money saying they have the best one. Having avoided all that, decided to sit down to the bench outside and started waiting for my bus to the city. Letting the real South-East Asia experience begin!

Welcome to Patong - the heart of Phuket. Glowing of lights, people, bars, pubs, restaurants, tuk-tuks, tourists, ladyboys, people selling you all kinds of stuff, constant hassling etc.

Our bartenders.

This would be the best example to describe the nightlife in Patang.

And here’s mr Escobar on the left again, who I met randomly on the street here. And Chris on the right.

But I can tell you this - you don’t wanna spend more than one night in that place!

Next day - the beaches (and sunburnes, again!). Followed by a trip through the whole peninsula with our hired motos.

So, as expected, Phuket was touristy and overcrowded in certain areas.

Next stop: Phi Phi islands. There’s a ferry going there. And of course you meet fellow travelers on it who become your companions for a few days or maybe more. There’s a great thing about these ‘friends’ you get. Although the time you spend together isn’t much, but maybe some day when you decide you want to visit South-Africa for example, you have a contact in Facebook who you have met somewhere on the road and who lives there and is kindly ready to show you around saving you the trouble of reading through few lonely planet’s chapters.

So this was our crew in Phi Phi.

I’d say this is a place for a perfect vacation in Thailand - Phi Phi islands. Go there!

This is Estonia!

After sunset, things start happening in the beach.

And there was a bar in these small narrow streets here called Reggae Bar. In the middle of it, there was a traditional Thai boxing arena. And as you can see, a guy with that poster.

So after an hour. Or two. After our drinks were close to finish, me and Andrew decided to get some free drinks in the reggae-bar-way:

Fight was real. 3 rounds. Finished all. Sport won. No visible bruises. Estonian flag was held high again!

And every night usually ends in beach here. Together with fireshows, music, good food and fine drinks.

This is the island, where The Beach was filmed. Unfortunately my camera got jammed for some reason and this is as close as I’m able to bring it to you this time. Luckily I got it working again in the evening.

About this ‘magical beach’. Can be way way over touristy as we experienced it - lots of people in really small strip of sand. But then again, half of us went there late afternoon with a ’storm approaching’ weather and they said it was completely blank and not a soul there. Must have been awesome. I can already imagine the dark stormclouds, windy ocean and the view from that beach..

Next stop: Krabi.

I didn’t find much else do here, but rock climbing. And I think I’ve found my new hobby! If only we had these rocks now here in Estonia also.

After 5 or 6 days, heading to Bangkok with a nightbus, to take regular bus to the Cambodia border to take a taxi to Siem Riep (read: 24hrs on the road)

Ceiling of my transport from Krabi to bus-station. Seems like this pickup truck has seen quite a fewbackpackers in its life..

First stop in South-East Asia - Singapore.

1) Technology comes from here. Wifi is literally everywhere and it’s free. Electronic gadgets are cheap and best you can find from the market. Everyone you see in the streets have the latest cell phone model or a PSP to play around with.

2) It’s an ultra modern city. They have touch-screen everything. Nice public transport. Very clean streets. Lots of skyscrapers. Not a single car is older than 10 years. Electronic gadgets for everything that makes their lives easier.

3) Although ethnically it’s mainly chinese, a bit of india, malay and bit of everything else, the first language here is english. Which makes things actually complicated. Why? First off, their accent can be terrible to understand (but I guess you can get the same shock when first arriving in Australia also). Secondly, they have developed their own language called senglish which is like a mix of all the languages they speak around here (whichever chinese dialect, malay, english mixed into one pot) and it’s like.. impossible! Luckily they use it accordingly how they speak with

4) Architecture is great. A fascinating mix of modern and asian that combines into something completely different.

5) Every single person I met and talked more than few words was friendly, open-minded and kind. They didn’t have this superficial shade that I encountered in US and Australia. They actually look into your eyes while you talk to them.

6) They value their green culture which can be measured in enormous taxes for cars (can you imagine paying $60k for a new Toyota?) and seemed like they had set up a minimum number of trees or bushes to be planted on every street, cause there were a lot of them, everywhere.

7) Chewing gum is illegal

Shopping-malls. Everywhere. That’s their biggest hobby - shopping.

9) If you spend a bit more time here and observe these different details then you get the feeling that they’re playing safe on everything - lots of rules and regulations for everything. They might check your trunk when entering into parking lot. Or have these safety videos playing in metro that tells them to report ’suspicious people’ to the staff (I mean, this is clearly discrimination - how can you determine if a person classifies as a ’suspicious?). Or have marked lines and arrows in the subway telling people to go straight from left side and come back from right side (to avoid the mess of people struggling against each other).

10) It’s very safe here. Not a worry in a world when walking in streets.

10) I love Singapore!

Streets on daylight.

Shopping street on night time

Clearly I’m too tall for this country

Night Safari.

Underwater world in Sentosa island

Probably the only negative side of it all. 360 degree radius sea full of ships, ships and more ships.

Overlooking the city area. Continuous construction, cranes, something new being built in every corner. I guess I like their views on progress and creating something new all the time. Constant change is what it seemed like.

And person who made my time in Singapore a worthwhile - ms Foo.

2nd stop - Kuala Lumpur.

1) After Singapore, KL didn’t seem that much anymore. It’s like Singapore, but poorer, less maintained and just not that of a city as it wants to be.

2) But nevertheless, it has it’s own character

Totally random place and you get this sculpture. ???

Sitting in this small chinese food court where people had their morning coffee or breakfast.

Monorail! Monorail!

The famous Petronas twin towers.

And view from somewhere in the middle of it.

On the left, mr Escobar from Chili who promised to visit Eesti in winter. Lets hope he makes it.

And airconditioners are the main thing here.

Next stop - Thailand.