30.07.2007 Pulau Perhentian Kecil
After getting to Kuala Besut where I was dropped off at the travel agency, I bought the ferry ticket to Perhentian Kecil the smaller and more beautiful one of the two sister islands. (The bus ride-2.5hours) was quite pleasant since the bus didn’t have an ac and the fresh air was coming from the continuously open door while driving (this is quite common in Malaysia to leave the doors open wile driving, even if the bus is so packed that you’re stuck right in front of the open door and have to be afraid of falling out of the driving bus- the drives tend to drive really fast as well)
Anyways, on the ferry to the island I met a nice American coupe, David and Annelise, who I shared the lizard hut with on the island (but more ‘bout this later)
The ferry ride was quite nice since it was a speedboat and we were going really fast. But when we got on land with the water taxi I had o make the bad discovery that my backpack was missing s that I had to pay the taxi to get back to the ferry in hope that my backpack with all my clothes would still be on the ferry, but to my shock- I wasn’t. I was really upset about this, especially since the guy from the ferry didn’t care at all.
I didn’t have another choice other than hunting down my backpack on the bigger island, asking around at the different resorts. After asking in two different resorts I finally found it and was just glad that the annoying search was over. (Always having in mind that the later I would arrive on the island the harder it would be to find a cheap or an accommodation at all). All this boat ride in the taxi cost me 20 Ringit, which is about 5 Euros (which is even for Malaysia quite expensive) but still better than having lost my backpack.
27.07.2007 -30.07.2007 Kuala Teren Terengganu
By the time I arrived at Kuala Terengganu, a city in the north east of Malaysia it was raining really hard. Since the description on the Internet claimed that the hostel was only five minutes of a walk from the bus station I decided to make my way through the rain. Unfortunately is didn’t say where to go so that I had to ask around with my two backpacks, my laptop bag in the right hand and the umbrella in the left hand (I must have give quite the funny sight and I surely would have laughed about myself f I wasn’t concentrating on not breaking down o the way!) After 25 minutes I finally found the hostel and liked it from the beginning. It was really clean and had IKEA beds and blankets. I must say I hadn’t slept that good since I left Tianjin. The only annoying thing about I was that I was the only guest (like I had been many times during my trip). Well you might say that it is great to have the dorm all for yourself, that it must be great to be able to watch whatever you like on the TV (and it is in some way) but the fun factor is really low especially when you re traveling by yourself. So I have to say that I rather like t be in a crammed hostel than being there all by myself!
Anyways, since my way to the hostel had been rather stressful, I decided to treat myself by eating a nice Kebab. (It was so great to eat it since I hadn’t had it for over a year!)
I spent the next day trying to find out some information about Pulau Redang, one of Malaysia’s most beautiful islands, and unfortunately one of the most expensive ones as well. Anyways, I walked through town to visit all he recommended sights and was quite disappointed since I assumed that it would be much nicer after all.
In the afternoon I decided to go to the beach, which wasn’t as easy as I had expected it to be. (You have to know that the whole state Terengganu is famous for its beautiful beaches) So I got in a bus and decided to get off as soon as I would see the ocean. This kinda took forever. When I finally got of I had the chance to see the “floating mosque” which was really a beautiful sight, standing there in the sun.
But however, I didn’t get to the beach!!! The problem wasn’t that I had got off at the wrong place, no the beach was there but there was a huge fence around it so that nobody could go there. You can’t imagine how mad I was while waking along the fence trying to find a hole to slip trough.
Well after that disappointment I went back to the city and spend the rest of the night enjoying the English TV program and the wifi.
I got up early the next day to catch the ferry to Pulau Redang for a day trip and a couple of hours of sun. (The hotels where ridiculously expensive and definitely out of my budget range!)
Since I was already lat I stopped at one of the bakeries to get some bread, which was nicely wrapped in some plastic foil. When I had almost finished it I saw that there were ants crawling all over the bread! (It was just a great start in the day as you can imagine, especially since the ferry was one hour later so that I only had 3 hours on Pulau Redang)
But the day trip was totally worth it (in spite of the really expensive ferry tickets but I was quite glad that I didn’t book one of these snorkeling packages after I aw a group of about 40 people going into the water with their instructor and at least 10 women freaking out about seeing fish swimming around their legs- not really a nice sight seeing them screaming and paddling panicky in the water- I just couldn’t get myself to stop laughing which got me some wicked looks from these ladies but it was totally worth it as well;))
On the 30th I left Kuala Terengganu for Kual Besut the jumping point for the Perhentian islands.
Mersing and Pulau Tioman (east coast Malaysia)24.07.07-27.07.07
Taking the bus in Malaysia is always a great experience thanks to the comfortable busses and the beautiful landscape next to the highway. The last is the reason for me not being able or being really reluctant to fall asleep, since I’m always afraid to miss ot on some of the pretty view of the jungle.
The not so great thing about taking the bus in Malaysia is that there are sometimes ants (and I’m talking about a lot of ants here) crawling over the window or even over the seat (I have to admit that it only took two looks at them to get used to them- I mean after coping with bats and rats (and I had quite a few more rat experiences during my stay in Malaysia), ants don’t seem like something to worry or even et upset about), the other thing is the ac! I have to say that I like the ac for about the first hour of the journey but after that (when you start feeling like being back in the ice age) I usually can’t wait to get back out in the humidity and heat of the day!
On my way to Mersing it wasn’t any different from what I just described so that I was freezing while watching out of the widow so that I wouldn’t miss any of the jungle scenery. (You have to know that the landscape here is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen in my entire life- and yes all you critics out there I know that I’m still very young and it might sound weird to hear that from somebody my age- but I really have seen a lot of beautiful sceneries for somebody my age)!
After a 5 hour ride I finally arrived in Mersing a small fishing town, which is usually used as a jumping point for Pulau Tioman ( a beautiful island). I only stayed there for the night since I had already missed the last ferry to the island. So I stayed n one of the few backpacker hostels. The owner was quite the interesting guy ( a travel addict like myself) and I ended up talking to him quite some time at his bar about his traveling. I just can’t help but feeling a great amount of respect for people in their sixties or even older who ae still taking any chance they get to backpack and travel around the world.
I spent the first part of the next morning in desperate search for an ATM, since there weren’t any n the island. After being sent 3 times in different directions I finally managed to find one.
After that quite stressful event I grabbed all my luggage and dragged myself to the ferry station and was quite relaxed and happy by the time I put all my stuff on the ferry and settled down on the upper deck of the ferry. The ride to the island took about 2 hours and was really nice since the sun was shining and the view of some smaller islands was jut amazing.
When I finally arrived at Salang beach (the most beautiful one on the island) the search for an accommodation started which wasn’t pleasant at all since I finally found a bungalow but on the other end of the beach o that it took me a while to get there with al that weight on my shoulders.
I spend the next days lying on the beach enduring the short rain showers and watching the monkeys, that came to the beach from time to time, fight for the coconuts. Although the cloudy sky and the rain showers weren’t pleasant at all the worst thing though were the cruel mosquito attack (I’ve never been bitten before I came to Asia at all but since I’m here I seem to be eaten alive- 15 new mosquito bites a day, and that is with using mosquito repellent, is something I’ve found to have to deal with on my trip!) which at some point got unbearable.
Being an optimistic (which surprises me every day since there are just too many unlucky event that I have to face) I thought that it wouldn’t be a problem to leave the island on the 27th at 7.30 in the morning. And since I was feeling so sure about this great idea I decided to get up really early in the morning to pack my stuff, check out and taking my time to get to the ferry. Well, but reality it me right in the face when I woke up looked at my watch and had to realize that it was already 7 o’clock. I have to say that I’m quite proud of myself about how fast I got everything packed and at what pace I can walk carrying over 30kg of luggage with me (usually I need t least 40 minutes to get ready n the morning since I hate to rush while not being awake yet- it just messes up the whole day). Anyways I made it and I was lucky enough to get a bus ticket t get to Kuala Terengganu after arriving back to Mersing as well.
Singapore 18.07.2007- 22.07.2007
On the 18th of July I flew to Singapore where I spend a couple of awesome days. Singapore is a great city and after spending almost a whole year in China it was just a great change. The city is not only clean (thanks to the 1000 dollar fine for littering) but the people are all really helpful and very nice!
I arrived in Singapore late at night (22.oo) due to a delay in Haikou (海口). I took a taxi to my hotel (I couldn’t find a hostel for the first night so that I had to stay in an rather expensive hotel in the red light district which I found out when I looked out of my window the other morning and only saw the prostitutes standing at the corner waiting for a job) and even the taxi ride was totally different from china. The taxi all look like mafia cars from the 70s if you ask me and they are very clean and you have a lot of space and the best thing of al you can use your credit card to ay for the ride. When I got into the car it didn’t even occur to me to use the seat belt since even the slightest attempt to do so in China ends in a rude commentary from the taxi driver who feels offended (or whatever their reasons might be, but most of the times the cars don’t even have a seatbelt). So I was already sitting in the tax for about 10 minutes until I saw the sticker which said ”buckle up” well of course I didn’t do since the driving n Singapore is rather smooth and I’m used to all of the sudden stepping on the emergency break… without even moving an eyebrow. I guess I have to get used to that when I go back to Germany, won’t I!?
Well after arriving at the hotel I decided to explore the street an was quite surprised when I saw all the altars in front of the small houses. After getting some cheap street food (I just love Asia!) I enjoyed the luxury of having an English TV program! (ESPN is such a great channel I never really noticed before, although I have to admit that I really missed the constant 加油 from CCTV5 the Chinese sports channel!;)
After exploring the red light district in daylight and staring at the prostitution scene( I have to admit it was quite shocking to see how many guys just took the opportunity) on my way to the internet shop I changed the district and the hostel. Because of the rain and my quite heavy luggage (about 30kg altogether, to get to Singapore I had to book a 10kg luggage upgrade with Tiger airways) I took a taxi again and I really enjoyed the nice atmosphere and not having to be afraid to get ripped of or driving into circles. (In this moment I really fell in love with Singapore).
In the hostel (like in a lot of places in Singapore and Malaysia- even in some museums) I had to take my shoes off which was not so easy with two backpacks and a laptop bag in my hand but hey I’m multitasking!;)
After getting checked in and everything I went to Chinatown (well what shall I say I just can’t get away from it!;)) which actually didn’t have much about the real china except for all the cheap souvenirs in Chinese style which I already bought in China though so hat t wasn’t really interesting for me o see. But after walking through Chinatown I took a stroll through the bar street which has a really nice architecture. Late in the afternoon I went to Bugis junction a huge shopping mall (although it is nothing compared to the malls at Orchard road, Singapore’s main shopping street) and to my delight I found out that the great Singapore sale took place while I was there. You can’ imagine how happy I was to se all the familiar stores like Mango, Zara, Esprit, ect. And everything was so cheap. Well as you probably already guessed I bought some stuff (although it took me along time to stop dividing everything by ten instead of two, which a couple of times almost lead me to buy some expensive stuff but in the end I always remembered the correct exchange rate. (thank god!)
I sent the following morning in Little India ( I even got hooked on a Singapore TV show which was only in chinese but really exciting, well what can I say, I just love TV shows)and was surprised by the beautiful architecture. Since I was told the wrong bus stop to get off I spend my first hours looking for Little India but after having a tasty lunch at one of the various food stalls (unfortunately I saw the poster with the rat warning after I ate there) I managed to find the right way.
After exploring Little India I was hitting the malls at Orchard Street. It was like being in a dream (ok, I have to admit I’m a shoppaholic, but what shall I do? everything was just so cheap and the quality was just so much better than in China!)
It was just really great to walk along his street at night with all the shimmering lights on, after finishing my shopping trip.
On Saturday I went on a boat cruise along Singapore’s amazing and pretty skyscrapers. Although it was quite rainy that morning the cruise was worth its money since the view was just fantastic.
After lunch I was in a quite daring mood so that I had he great idea to try Japanese favorite ice cream and you’ll never guess what flavor I chose--- Wasabi!!! Yes, there is actually an ice cream with wasabi flavor. 
And as you can see on the picture it’s really green and it was really, really spicy and quite disgusting actually. Well but how many people on earth (except for Japanese people of course) can actually claim to have eaten wasabi ice cream before? ;)
At night I went to a night safari with Bruce, a guy from South Africa that I met I the hostel. The safari was pretty cool actually and it prepared me quite a lot for my bat incident in Malaysia but I will tell you later about that!;)
We saw a lot of wild animals and amongst them a humongous elephant. I think we spent 4-5 hours there in total and we had an awesome time.
After getting back to the hostel we had a quite interesting Singapore meal at one of the street restaurants. Sinaporean food is just really good.
China- a summary
It’s been quite a long time since I updated my blog and I’m sorry for keeping you waiting but in the end of my time in china everything that was new and exciting in the beginning went to be normal and wasn’t out of the ordinary anymore. Now that I have left china I’m thinking back at the great time I had that I wouldn’t want to miss because although the time is over now the memories and friends I made will stay with me for a lifetime and although all the struggles and annoyances I sometimes had to face it was an awesome year.
I’ll give a summary of the things that happened to me since my last entry since it’s been a long time ago and a lot has happened since. I got some visits from home and they somehow opened my eyes again for what I was already used to and which was part of my everyday life without me even thinking about it anymore. For example the constant spiting in the restaurants, on the train rides (and unfortunately it doesn’t just stay with the spiting because I had a 16hours train ride on a hard seat which is bad enough but the guy opposite from myself was throwing up every five minutes and nobody did anything and it didn’t even occur to the guy to go to the bathroom even once so that people eventually threw their garbage on top of the puke which didn’t really help but that’s part of China and was quite the experience which I hope I’ll never have again) and on the streets of course, the sometimes dangerous taxi rides since nobody is driving according to the rules, it’s actually more of a Darwinism, only the strongest will survive, the haggle to get everything (clothes, tours, taxi rides…) for the same price as Chinese people since almost everybody tries to rip of foreigners ( some restaurants have English menus on which the prices are doubled or even more than they are on the Chinese card, hen you ask for the price they will tell you a ridiculous overprices price just because you are a foreigner- e.g. when I went on my Yangtze river cruise with Anny we both ask for the prices for some souvenirs but since she’s an oversea Chinese they gave her the Chinese price but gave me ten times the price and when we told them how rude their behavior was they just smiled and said that they thought that I didn’t understand Chinese which can’t count as an excuse at all! But that’s how it is most of he times). I didn’t realize how much I was already used to this before I met people hat just came to china and pointed it out to me. I mean these things are really annoying and I got mad a couple of times about almost getting ripped of but I accepted that fact ad it was nothing special to me anymore. (Which somehow is quite sad but if I hadn’t been used to this I probably would have had a really hard year).
Well, during that year I did a lot of traveling and I saw the most amazing things ever. Going to Tibet following the pilgrims to the holy temples and palaces which I did together with my dad when he came visiting, climbing through the mountains in Kunming and almost getting killed by towards us coming cows and goats (the path was really small and just one wrong step between life and falling into the gorge and the wild river and the sure death), relaxing on a bamboo raft on a beautiful river in which reflected the mountains on the side of it in Lijiang (once we lost our boat driver because he wasn’t fast enough jumping on the raft again after pushing Min and I down the rocks), going to the beach in Xiamen and enjoying the beautiful island on the opposite side of Xiamen, seeing beautiful Buddhist caves in Datong with my Japanese friend Shanming, spending New year in Shanghai with Hannah, Max and Min…
I could go on and on about this but no words could describe all the great things that I saw and experiences while traveling through this awesome country.
But going traveling aren’t the only precious memories that I will take home with me.
Having all the great parties at Min’s and my apartment (which in the end got so wild that even the neighbors complained) where I met the people that became really great friends and sort of a family away from family to me. All the Cubans who taught me or tried to teach me how to dance Salsa, who cooked great Cuban meals for almost every party that was going on and who I already miss so much, Felix and Miguel that never gave up to teach me more salsa steps and that always encouraged me to never give up and Alex who was always fun talking to and a real good drinking partner (I think he gave me my first real Mexican tequila, thanks for that)!
And I will never forget the nights at scarlet which were always fun as we danced all night long to salsa music and house (the last especially mi hermana Leysi and me) and drank tequila and loads of beer only to get the great street food (most of the times 串儿s) or a breakfast at the 24h McDonalds on Baidilu. These nights were awesome and I sometimes couldn’t wait for it to be weekend just to go back to scarlet although we occasionally went during the week as well, for the numerous birthdays at which we always had to wait for the Cubans who were late most of the times (hehe;))!
Some of the best times I had in China were in liuyuan, especially in agent Miguel’s room where we always hung out, watching TV shows (LOST, Alias, Doremi, Heroes, Ghost whisperer…), movies, cooked, Min and I slept on mattresses on the floor after some really drunken nights in scarlet or we had our famous move marathons. I don’t remember exactly how many times we tried to do the 24h marathon but although we never accomplished to say awake for 24h it was always a lot of fun with all the snack food (chips with spicy Mexican sauce), great Mexican coffee and loads of take away (Korean, pizza, McDonald’s, Georgean, Chinese food…)
And classes were also a lot of fun since the teachers were great and real fun to be with. Nankai also organized a class trip for all the students once every semester and especially the two-day trip to Beijing last semester was just a blast. We went to less touristy part of the Great Wall (it was my third time climbing the wall) where we were the only visitors that day and spending the night in the luxurious hotel, which had phones in the bathroom
and sometimes radios in the showers, where we had great parties 
that night with a lot of beer involved ;) (But since my Japanese roommate Shanming made me coffee in the morning before I even got out of the bed I didn’t have a problem getting up at all!
Well I could go on and on about all the fun stuff I experienced through my year but it would take ages and probably scare you away from reading so I just skip to the end of my stay in China.
The last week I had n Tianjin was actually really stressful since I wanted to spend as much time with all of my friends as possible and had to pack and organize things with the apartment and all my stuff (which was a lot!!!)
I went to the Korean sauna a couple of times (which is really interesting since you have to wear clothes and afterwards sleep in these clothes since it is common to spend the night there. I also got a body scrub in which the lady tried to get of my tanned skin color which in china is considered as really ugly, ( in Hainan, after my day at the beach, a girl that saw me in a bookstore offered to take me to her house to give me some whitening cream because of my sun tan!!!!!!!) so that my body as a result was red as a lobster after the treatment but really clean as well ;)), had trouble with my landlord so that I had to meet with him almost everyday (in the end we had to pay a lot more than we expected since we had to pay to paint 3 rooms as a result to our Christmas lights on the wall which we changed to “happy birthday” a couple of months after Christmas and since we didn’t have the receipts for the gas and water we had to pay that all over again), and I had to ship back about 30 more kilos of stuff back to Germany but since the guys from the post office came to my place with the boxes, the scale and everything it was ok.
The funniest and saddest thing about me moving out of my apartment were my neighbors though who first went trough all my garbage and old clothes that I trough out just to take it back to their apartment (so now my neighbors are probably walking around in my old clothes and are using my old towels…).
The saddest thing about leaving Tianjin though was to say goodbye to all of my friends. I really have a hard time saying goodbye anyways so that this was a really hard time since I might not be able to see some of them ever again in my whole life which makes it even
harder.
After leaving Tianjin I went to Guangzhou to see Anny where I spend a couple of nice days one even
in Macau which was really beautiful and awesome (we took the free shuttle bus to a casino from immigration so that we wouldn’t have to pay. We did this twice so that it was a cheap way to see the town) before flying to Hainan where my actual relaxing vacation began with lying on the beach and relaxing in the sun. I spent 3 days in the hostel where I was about the only guest so that I had a 6er dorm for myself which would have been nice if they would have turned the ac on (it was about 38 degrees Celsius every night) but they only would turn it on for two or more people so that I just had a little fan which wasn’t much of a help.
One day I went to coconut island which is just about 2 hours away from Haikou(海口). The whole island is covered with coconut trees and it has fantastic beaches. I just couldn't resist to lay down on the beach of a a private, really expansive beach resort. The staff just assumed that I was staying there since I'm a foreigner. (sometimes it's great to be a foreigner in China;)hehe)
I only spend there one day since I couldn't afford the great, luxurous beach resorts. But it was just awesome.
Having to leave China made me sad as well although it sometimes was really annoying and drove me up the wall I really fell in love with this amazing country and its interesting people.
