Kuala Lumpur (again) and Singapore for a couple of days!

Philippines has been something, that the least to say.

The people, their kindness, the beaches, the underwater world, the island, the parties...

After saying goodbye to Ronnie, I found myself in another airport on my way back to KL.

In the airport I got to speak to a Malaysian that happens to have twin boys. I guess the world do connect people based on commun characteristics, you just have to find out what it is.

In Kuala Lumpur I managed to visit one of the highlights I did not have time to see the first time around: Batu's Cave.

Batu's cave is this massive stairway to a big... cave.

The site is accessible by train and welcomes you with a massive golden statue.

That day was pouring rain, which makes the whole experience unbelievable: I had the site almost on my own and the rain gave a very chaotic and dramatic note.

After the visit I went to the bus station to head to Singapore, a 6 to 12 hours ride from KL (depending on traffic). My first bus got cancelled, the second one was delayed 1 hour. I left at 11pm.

I arrived in the city state very early morning. I had made an appointment to meet my friend Florian at 8 am and I was happy to have a walk in the empty city at sunrise, wandering through the business district and chinatown on my way to the cafe we were set to meet.

It was amazingly nice to meet Flo and Jackie, get to spend time with them and get some priceless advice on what to do in the city.

Tradition meets modernism in Chinatown.

For the first time since the half marathon in Cebu I went for a run. Even if Singapore is such a humid city, this is so nice to run around the bay and this amazing skyline.

Besides spending much of my time next to Flo's apartment in Chinatown and eating Chinese food in the food court (230+ food stalls to choose from - including a Michelin star restaurant where you can have a meal for around 2 euros... no jokes!!!) I went on to visit the ArtScience Museum.

The building is amazing! It is shaped like a hand open to the sky or a blooming lotus and composed of 3 levels hosting the 3 different exhibits:

- A Space oriented exhibit that takes you back to the race to space between USSR and USA.

- A very complete M.C. Escher expo where you can almost find more of his work that in his museum in The Netherlands

- An entire study / reflexion on where Arts meets Science. This part was very interactive and recreative.

This museum is more than a must to do in Singapore. I had so much fun and inspiration. That Crystal Universe is a thing of ultimate beauty.

The bay with Marina Sands on the right and the ArtScience Museum in the back.

It eventually reflected my entire stay in Singapore. Meeting incredibly nice and talented people (Flo knows how to surrender himself with this kind of human being). I am glad I had these 3 days and couldn't be more thankful to both Jackie and Flo for sharing their lives with me during my stays. 

Cebu - Running the half marathon!!!

I collectedly race number and my singlet at the last possible moment, on the 7th at 6pm after yet again countless hours in public transportation from Panglao to Cebu.

The race starts at 4am the following morning. Thank god I did not subscribed for the full marathon that kick off at an early 3am. After a diner at the local fast food chain Jolibee I head back to the hotel for an early night. I have decided to give it a shot.

When I woke up at 3am, I am not so sure anymore of the feasibility of my objective. It is impossible to put on my socks without feeling pain in my still recovering ankle. I decided not to put any and head towards the start line.

The atmosphere is electric between the oppressive humidity and the energy of the large crowd. I am so excited. I am not sure yet I will be able to run - I have not worn shoes for almost 3 weeks and have not run for exactly as much. The finishing window for the half marathon is 4 hours which basically means I can walk the entire race and get to the finish line getting my finisher medal and kit. The start is very typical of such an event: I walk the first few hundred meters with the back of the pack evaluating the elasticity and response of my ankle. I have almost not solicited it for the last 20 days. When the runners are starting to spread around the route I eventually start to run. Running is a very big word though. I am more limping than anything. But I am happy and it feels good.
I would take it very easy throughout the all 21.1 km, taking time at the numerous water point to rehydrate myself. The humidity is quite hard to cope with and water or gatorade is very much appreciated.

2 hours and 13 minutes after starting, I was back to the initial point crossing the finish line. It is very hard for me to describe my feeling at that point of time. Even though this is far from being my first race or the longest one I have participated in (I have a couple marathons under my belt and numerous runs with my brother that were much longer that this one) I simply am overwhelmed. I have come a very long way since Xmas and my stay in the hospital.

I collect my finisher package consisting of a medal, a finisher shirt and couple of other goodies. It is not even 6:30 in the morning and definitely time to go back to sleep.

The final result is quite astonishing to me: 2h13m06s for a ranking of 215 out 1598 runners taking part of the half marathon. Would I have been normally fit and ran the time I had set myself, I might have finished in the top 30… but with ifs you can change the world and I am happy enough to be a finisher and to have pushed myself to compete. I’ll break my PB in the near future for sure!

A well deserved selfie :)

Krabi - Life is THE Beach

Oddly enough, I had to change the time when I arrived in Thailand. We are in the time zone UTC +7 hours. It does make a difference regarding my running. I am still going running every second day as early as possible which basically means when the sun rise. In Malaysia it was between 7 and 7:15 in the morning. In Krabi, I went for my morning run before 6:30.

The mini marathon next week will start at 5:45 in the morning... better getting use to it!!!

So I did run a little on the bank of the river... Quite a few runners out there. Interval trainings it was, trying to get some speed. It is a training that makes me very inconfortable. I am out of breath most of the time, at a pace I can't handle... but it helps apparently. My brother suggested that I do intervals of 30 seconds for 10 minutes which means 30 sec very quick and 30 sec recovery for 10 minutes... then slow pace for 10 minutes just to have your heart rate going down... and do it again.

Impossible for me today. I went to bed very late the day before as I was speaking with a couple of English and an Australia at my hotel (the first persons I have met that did not enjoy their stay in Thailand at all). I completed only half of the training set by Simon... 5 minutes intervals of 30 seconds twice with a 5 minutes recovery run in between. I did not feel the sleep was missing, I should maybe just do this more often and increase slowly the reps. We will see in the coming weeks how I can squeeze this kind of specific trainings in the travelling plans.

I had booked a last minute tour to visit some islands located in the "bay" of Krabi (which, as I learnt, is called the Andaman sea... Thank you google...). Many many many (and many more) tour options... James Bond Islands, Monkey Island, Phi Phi Islands, etc etc etc.

I went full on Leo style and choose the Phi Phi Islands tour package. Phi Phi Islands are a group of 2 main islands known for the movie the Beach starring Leonardo Dicaprio... and Virginie Ledoyen. I really though she was forgotten by international audience by now, but seeing 95% of the girl getting recorded out of the water like this I understood how wrong I was.

The tour was taking out the group to places absolutely incredible. Again, it is hard to put words on the landscapes, the color of the water, the islands, the feeling of that perfect sand on your feet... You have to see it for yourself and make yourself an opinion about these places. I am not going to lie, it was amazing and as you probably guess, incredibly busy everywhere we went. 

Here is a small summary of the day and the visits.

Departure by boat from Ao Nang, a nice little beach resort 20 km away from Krabi town.

40 minutes wandering on Bamboo Island - an island without bamboo... but a LOT of corals.

We went for short picture stop where we stayed on the boat to see the Viking Cave. This is a place known for its bird nest. Apparently a bird nest found there can be sold up to 100.000 Bahts according to our guide (2600 euros approximately)... A delicatessen in Asia were we told.

We had a swim in Pileh lagoon together with doyens of other groups from alternative tour companies.

We spent 45min on Ko Phi Phi Lee. We were dropped off Maya Bay - the Beach of "The Beach".

We spent 5 minutes off shore of Monkeys Beach snapping a few pictures... and feeding the monkeys.

We then headed to Ko Phi Phi Don for lunch. A buffet for hungry tourists with local food.

Our final stop was for snorkeling close to Nui Beach, a little creek breathtaking.

We return to Ao Nang, all absolutely exhausted. I slept most of the 30 minutes return to my hotel... and therefore was ready for yet another my egg wrapped pad thai :D

Coming back from this and since I have been wondering how such a landscape was formed I did a little research. I learnt that these seascape elements are called karst and are (surprise, surprise!!) NOT the results of millions of years of erosion but of a chemical process acting over thousands and thousands of year. More info here and here.

There are worst ways to spend a day really.

Post Scriptum: It is hard to pick a few pictures from all these places. There are 2 that I really like: one from "the back of The Beach" on Ko Phi Phi Lee (everybody stays on the Beach while 2 minutes of walking takes you to a no man's land with that view) and one from the snorkeling. What do you think?

Island in the back of Maya Bay.

Fishes photo-bombing my selfie.

Langkawi - Life is a Beach

2 buses, 1 ferry, 1 taxi... 10 hours...

We - 2 german girls making the same trip and I - left Cameron Highlands at 8am, and for to Cenang Beach at 6pm. The first bus took us to Butterworth in Penang, the second to Kuala Perlis where the ferry was making the short trip to the island of Langkawi.

10 hours... this is what it takes to reach this paradisiac place. The first island on the trip :)

First things first on arrival: find an accommodation for the night. On the way there, I received good word for couple of options: the Cottage and the Gecko. I went first to the Cottage but it was fully booked. Gecko it was! 100m away from the beach. Very close to the main street with all the restaurants and souvenirs shops. Very nice place it turned out to be. Full of cats, roosters, chicken and guess what... geckos. Very happy as well to be able to buy fresh fruits from the nearby night market... Maaaaaan these mangos and bananas :)

I started the day after a nice sleep the same way I did in the previous stops: going out for a sunrise run. That 3rd run of the trip was so different from the ones in Kuala Lumpur (big city) and Cameron Highlands (mountains) not only because of the nearby beach but specifically for the wild life...

I got uber-scared seeing 3 buffalos peacefully drinking from a ditch right next to the road and a family of a dozen monkeys looking for food in the garbage of one of the hotels. My last encounter with a monkey had been epic some months ago in Cambodia and I didn't want to have the same experience again. The weather was punishing. 27 degrees and 85% humidity at 7am. Standing still in the shade is enough to start sweating... Running was hell of challenge. I am starting to hope for rain in the races of Bangkok and Cebu... 

End of the road for my morning run.

I went for a typical breakfast - food here has a big Chinese and Indian influence - and eventually headed to the beach for a swim and in order to finish the book I had started in the bus the day before.

It was only a few minutes... an hour max... but enough to get sunburn. Unfortunately there were not so much shade on the beach so I went walking around instead. It seems like there are quite some things to do on the island, however none of it will be for me for now.

I want to get to Thailand fast as I must be in Bangkok on the 24th. So tomorrow morning, I will get a ferry to Thailand and a bus to Krabi. I will be in for another long day of transportation.

That also means there will be more island in the coming days and more pieces of paradise :)

Selfie in Cenang Beach.

Cameron Highlands - Tea, Forest, Run

I finally got on the road and arrived from KL to the Cameron Highlands region in the center of continental Malaysia (the other half of the country is sharing Borneo with Brunei and Indonesia).

Tanah Rata is my host city for 2 nights before following my route towards Bangkok.

I have been meeting again a lot of new faces but funnily enough I got reminded just how small the world is. The first night I shared a 6 beds dorm with 2 French girls that graduated from the same school as I did (IAE Grenoble) but 9 years after... and a Canadian girl that had cross path during her travels with the American guy I was with at the roof top bar the night before. We had a good laugh telling each other how random this all was.

Anyway, on arrival I had booked a tour for early this morning and went discovering the region with my guide and... 10 tourists from China. It was a lot of fun for most of the tour... An intensely noisy experience but somehow fun. The kids were dabbing all the time (imagine 4 little Chinese Pogba doing the Dab, every 2 minutes).

The tour started with a visit of the tea plantation in the area.
A few facts from what I could hear and understand (these Chinese...):
- A British "discovered" the potential of the region while mapping the area. Not sure when.
- It took a Scot to develop and manage a 1200+ hectares black tea plantation.
- The 3rd generation of that Scottish family still owns the plantation.
- The tea leafs are harvested every 3 to 4 weeks.

The place is absolutely breath taking and no pictures can do justice to the beauty of these hills.
I took a bit more than a 700 pictures today just in that area with both my phone and my GoPro.
I deleted most to keep just 52. And here are a couple for you :)

Tea plantation (black tea)

Green is the new black

I am trying as much as possible to organise the picture on the go, otherwise I am pretty sure it will never be done. I have to admit that I am adapting quickly to my MacBook air. The software developed by Apple are making it so easy for you to arrange organise and edit your pictures (no they are not paying me to write that ...).

After the tea plantation a short visit to the tea factory. Interesting stuffs again. The process seems to be both easy and quick. From the tea tree to the tea bag there is less than a day of work. The leaves are being processed in some big machinery, dry with hot air and that's it really...

A couple of extra visits were scheduled:
- the Mossy Forest. A rain forest as there are a lot in the region.
- the Mt Brinchang (2032m above see level).

Very interesting explanations from the guide but towards the end of the tour I was not as entertained as in the beginning. The Chinese had won their battle against my patience and tolerance... I decided to step back a little rather than screaming at the adults that kept throwing garbage everywhere in the forest and on the roads... and there were unfortunately nothing I could do to make it stop. I tried to tell them twice, they pretended not to understand. To add to my disappointment the guide did not seem to care so much either.

I went back to the Hotel for a small nape. The day had been intense up until now. I had woke up at 6am, run through the hills for an hour and had an intense tour.

Tomorrow will be another day. For the first time I will set foot on an island in Asia as I will take a ferry from Kuala Perlis to Langkawi. The bus going north will leave at 8am and go for 6 or 7 hours depending on the traffic. After 2 nights in the mountain at 1500m above see level, it will be nice to finally get to the sea :)

Kuala Lumpur - getting in and first night

Here I am!

The journey was long and almost sleepless.

30 minutes in the plane to Istanbul (3 hours total) and twice an hour en route to Malaysia (on a 10 hours flight). As usual I could watch a few movies: the last Bourne, the Intern, Angry Bird, Point Break, Joy.

Arriving in Kuala Lumpur international airport, there are many ways to reach the center of the city. The quickest (and the one that cost more) is the express train that reach the central station in 30 min for 55 MYR (around 12 euros). This is the option I went for. I couldn't be bothered to look for the right bus and spend hours in traffic before eventually getting somewhere in the center where I would have had to find my way to the hostel.

From KL Sentral arriving with the express train, I knew I had to take the Green MonoRail until AsiaAir - Bukit Bintang stop. Easy but it still took me 1h30 to reach the final destination for the day. After a quick check in, a well deserved shower, I went in the surrounding streets to grab water and food. It is quite amazing how the main street (with their McDonalds, KFC, Starbucks and Irish Pubs) can differ from the side street (with a lot of nice local restaurants and their "terrasses" virtually tourist free).

My diner - Pad Thai and a cold Tiger

Soon enough, it was time to go to bed.

The night turned out to be very short. Someone in my dorm got back from partying at 4am. Impossible for me to go back to sleep.  I took the opportunity to make some researches and plan the day, watch the last 30 minutes of PSG against Nice, check out on Saint Etienne results and sports in general (nothing different from my daily routine :D). Outside it is pouring rain, one of these nice and warm tropical rain. I have identify what I want to do/visit during the day... It is naturally time for a run :D.

It felt amazing. There were no one in the city, the skyscrapers for company and the park right below the Petronas Twin Towers for playground. Arriving in the city yesterday I was doubtful it would be a runners friendly city. I was so wrong. The park I went to had a 1 km athletic track making it a perfect place for a little workout. After a few loops I went back towards the hotel trying to run under the Menara Kuala Lumpur - another tower looking like a mix between Vancouver's Lookout and Berlin's TV Tower. I eventually got lost... When I found my way back and got to the hotel, I had ran for 14km approximatively with 410m of ascent Kuala Lumpur is NOT flat at all but the 5.09min/km suggest I am in a decent shape (not sure if it is public data - try to click here to check the workout otherwise see below).

1st morning run including 8 loops around KLCC park

I can't wait for coming races I registered myself into:
- a mini marathon on Xmas in Bangkok (10.5km)
- a half marathon on the 8th of January in Cebu - Philippines.

No more blabla for now.
Time to actually visit the city and try to take some pictures.
The visiting tour should take me to the National Mosque, the Islamic Arts Museum of Malaysia, Chinatown and couple of temples (Sin Sze Si Ya and Sri Mahamariamman Temples).