Kota Bahru

This place is mostly a stopover place for people going to the islands and the cheap hostels are easily found online and in guidebooks. I stayed at denai lodge for rm15 per night(the place is mosquito infested).
Food is decently cheap again and the night market has a good choice, iced lemon tea is called teh o ben limau here(Ben instead of ais). The place doesn't have much to offer, but people are friendly and especially the children at the night market are awesome.

There are usually some silat events to see you have your usual fare of mosques etc.. I just spent 5 days relaxing and doing nothing. I thought I'd meet other travelers there but I had no luck for some reason the few usually arrived late and left the next morning. I supposedly was lucky seeing this big silat convention with different styles from different Asian countries. Apart from that I slept a lot.

Kemaman

I hitched my way to kemaman, and planned to stay two days, because I felt I needed some time of rest after all the camping and suspected a fungal infection because of several red itchy patches of skin. At first things looked bleak. The only place there calling itself a hostel had a room rate of rm120 ... and nobody at the reception. I didn't give up however and managed to find a cheap enough hotel with one room for rm 25. It was a tiny room, barely enough space for the double bed(but with ensuite shower) and I wondered whether they used it for 'special' guests usually(fittingly called VIP room..). It was good enough for sleeping so I took it. I was pretty much the only foreigner around and locals were quite friendly especially the Chinese. A guy called Harry decided to give me a tour of kemamans heavy industry.

The place didn't seem as conservative as I read it would be, or the Chinese just don't care. I saw a few just wearing hot pants.

Cherating

I didn't know what to expect of this place except that it was supposedly a backpacker place. However I found that it let down even the modest expectations of meeting people there.

I arrived at about 7 p.m. after hitching a ride from Kuantan, a city which I couldn't stand anymore after a few hours(mostly due to accommodation prices). I heard that accommodation in cherating was supposed to be cheap. All I saw was resorts and chalets in a mostly deserted village. Everything seems to cater to tourism and there's nothing aside of it. Since there were pretty much no tourists that means the village was dead. A few locals waiting for business that's all.

I met another traveler who had the same impressions, so we passed the days pretty much just talking in the shade drinking iced lemon tea (te o ais limau ) I was going to spend the last night in a Rm20 accommodation but that price was outdated it seems or only for long term stays, so instead I'm writing this article and stay in my tent. The only other option would be the 'dorm' the other guy had stayed in for just rm 15(cherating cottage), but since it apparently is mosquito infested, my free tent just seems way more comfortable. I guess if you just want to relax and come as a couple or have someone to share a room with, cherating may be a viable option, food is priced similarly as in most places (Activities offered don't look cheap.), however if you expect backpackers.. this is not the place.

In case you want to camp for free, just go towards the beach and then left till the houses end. I camped next to the tree there, you might want to consider walking on towards the trees, at some point you'll find a burnt down ?House?. You'll have some palm trees there, more shade and you'll be more out of view. Note you can find free showers in the toilets next to the food court kind of place at the main road.

Further note: I had no coverage with u-mobile, they sell digi here, so maybe that works, but I have been getting by with guessing hostel Wi-Fi passwords.

Meeting Singapore's homeless

Originally my plan was to leave Singapore at night with one of the last busses and pass the night at the bus station in johor bahru. A Malaysian friend however warned me that it is really not safe in johor. He even wanted to give me hundred ringgit so that I would stay in a hotel there. I declined but this made me reconsider and decide to take a bus the next morning and instead risking confrontation with the strict police of Singapore.

So at first I was sitting next to a shopping mall and thought I'd pass the night sitting there, but half an hour before midnight an old man told me I shouldn't sit there because of police and the last mrt would be at twelve. Alternatively I could stay at a branch of an evil fast food chain which is open 24h and this would have allowed me to charge my electronic devices. Alas I wouldn't want to support that chain, so instead I headed to the nearest park.

In the park, I had to pee. So headed for the toilet.
This was a place with light as well and I had my heavy backpack leaned against the wall already, so I got lost in browsing online. Meanwhile lots of Indian men entered and left the toilet. At some point one who was about to enter said he'd leave his stuff with mine. I said: "sure". When he came back he asked me in his almost non existent English about my situation. The he said he'd help me I should come with him, there wouldn't be an Ali baba men. I decided to take the risk, as sleeping seemed such an awesome idea. While we walked for a while, he apologized for the distance. Finally we crossed a tiny stream and passed between two buildings to the building of the company he worked at. We went through the building and I was a bit confused. We ended up in a staircase and he pointed at some cardboard. This was his home! This guy worked in Singapore for six years and he couldn't afford housing. So he shared his cardboard home with me. He also said maybe he could find me a job.

After a few hours of sleep I woke up early to leave first people arriving to work already I walked through the corridors of this company seeing many Indians sleeping on cardboard, hoping nobody would stop me and ask me what the heck I was doing there and thinking I had seen some of them a few hours earlier passing through the park toilet.

Cutting costs in Singapore

Long time no post, but this is a very unproductive day in Malacca, Malaysia. I'll just let the day pass, will have to change hostels soon, leaving the bed bugs to someone else. This means I actually have time to write something again. I spent way too much time in Singapore and think I managed to cut costs a bit, so maybe some of my findings can help others.

Accommodation
This is the first big item everywhere and in Singapore it bites a little more than in other Asian countries, there are hostels which are not too expensive(apparently in the red light district), but they still were too expensive for me and I had no luck with CS.
In a crazy moment I remembered I carry a tent and found that it is possible to camp for free in some of the parks for a few days. All you need is a permit which as a foreigner you have to get manually by contacting nparks or going to the relevant park office. You should probably do that in advance which I didn't.. luckily I met a semi-homeless guy in the park who told me how to avoid problems with the police and that checks during weekends ( I arrived on a Saturday night and didn't know yet how the manual application process would work [and it'd] have been too late]) are rare, still I opted for not pitching the tent and go for the homeless way of sleeping (fine for illegal camping is 2000$ iirc).

Camping in the parks has some perks, like showers and drinking water for free (Singaporean tap water is drinkable, and I found a water dispenser in the park I stayed in)

Monday then I finally got the permit sorted out and could sleep in my tent unfortunately according to the permit I wasn't allowed to leave the tent unattended. So I spent some more time camping in the park and then found out about Pulau ubin a small island, where you can camp without permit. The ferry there costs S$ 2.5 one way. The ferry terminal is at changi beach and you have to go there by bus. Food there is expensive at the restaurants, but you can find coconuts and mangos(if in season). The cheapest rice with seafood meal I found was S$4 so not cheap but an option. Further a small supermarket sold overpriced instant noodles and they offer free hot water along with it, to let you get away even cheaper. ( I think it was S$1.8 for the Instant noodles)

The downsides are unlike the park you don't have showers and the tap water is not acceptable for drinking. It's probably advisable to bring cooking equipment (if you have it) and food, same for drinking water, the price for water in the small supermarket was S$ 1.8 as well. 

Food

Food is a little more expensive than in other parts of Asia, but you can get pretty close to the prices in other countries. You can get "chicken rice" for $S2, or find one of those places where you can put together your own meal where you usually end up between S$2 and S$3 when getting rice, 2 choices of vegetable and meat. Or you can get free vegetarian meals at some temples.

(If you want to go for one big shopping trip where you spend more than $S100 you can check out the Mustafa center at Farrer park, you can get a tax refund if you spend more than S$100)

Transport

I haven't found a way around the steep transport costs in Singapore, even though I managed to get ahold of an ezlink card for free, which would only be viable for someone who stays longer term, as it costs S$ 15, with S$10 credit. You can't use sums smaller than S$ 3 on the card and the minimum top up is S$10. The tourist tickets are probably not worth it either, so I think the best strategy is to keep use of transport at a minimum.. which is difficult.

This is it for now, if anyone has some more tricks and hints on cheaper stays in SP, please comment and I'll update.

Work in progress

I haven't posted here for a while. Amusingly this is not due to lack of me writing but more because every time I tried to upload the articles it failed. Probably because of the bad connection. Now I'm hoping that at least this short article will make it through until I'll resolve the problem.

Kinloch Lodge

I had planned to go out at to party at least one night, for the in depth Queenstown experience. However in the end I couldn't be bothered, sleeping is just too awesome. I then headed off in the direction of paradise. There were a lot of of tracks I wanted to do in that area.

My first ride was an Australian expat. He worked in all the adrenaline related tourism activities, at the time in canyoning and said his job was a joke, pure fun. He was on his way to a fishing spot and left me in Glenorchy("gateway to paradise"). Back in Invercargill a crazy religious nut German woman told me the Kinloch Lodge was awesome. It was pricey too, but I thought if it's really that nice, I'll afford the luxury. So I hitched another ride with an old British couple on the way to a campground. This campground was conveniently located right next to the lodge.

The lodge had advertised that they sold trampers supplies. However when I asked they didn't really have much decent food. In the end I only bought a pack of deep frozen toast for 6$ that was going to be my breakfast along with the jar of peanut butter I had brought.
For dinner I ate at their expensive restaurant. I also joined the yha to get the "free" WiFi, thinking that it might pay off one day.
The next day I got up late and the Japanese guy who had the plan as I had and a car, had already left. Just like everyone else. Oh well tomorrow I thought. So instead I checked out the immediate surroundings and studied the wall maps for tracks. I saw that in theory I could walk up to the start of the Routeburn.
In the evening I tried the spa pool.. it definitely stunk, with the water having a greenish colour. I thought that probably must be super healthy, so I endured it for half an hour, then shower and bed.

Same thing, I got up late but this time decided to try and get to the routeburn. After a bit of walking a car passed, and somehow I just didn't feel like hitching, so just walked on. After leaving the protection of the trees I found myself in the middle of a silt storm. I continued down the road and put on Sun glasses to protect my eyes..just not from the sun. After walking against the storm for a while I saw a track sign and thought: " It goes into the forest. Forest means protection from storm".
The decision was made I started the glacier burn track. Some cars were parked there and the first hurdle was a small stream. I saw two girls who were just walking through. I smugly sandalized the river and walked past them. They told me there was another guy ahead. The girls were Israelis from the accent.

I was in the forest just a few moments later and after a few more minutes passed an old man. I kept walking until I passed the tree line. I looked up the snowy saddle and was quite tempted to climb up in the snow. Instead however I stopped about halfway between tree and snow line, then turned around and sat down to watch the storm from above. I sat there for a small eternity, thinking. I thought it was time to write an article titled broken.

Then I slowly headed down to encounter the Israeli girls again. They told me the old man had told them some guy had "run" past him. So we chatted a bit until I left them behind. I never met the old man again.
When I was back at the road the storm had settled a bit but I still was covered in dust when I was back at the hostel.
The next day I decided to head back to glenorchy to get some food. A woman who was having breakfast at the same time as I gave me a lift.