“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” – Gustave Flaubert
Sapa, North Vietnam
December 31, 2014
I was actually riding aimlessly on a rented e-bike at the Old Bagan – trying to find my way over to Mount Popa – when I happened to reach a small village at the riverside of Ayeyarwady River. I decided to ride further down the muddy road and that was when I came upon this group of kids who was playing on the muddy riverside. Upon seeing me, they left whatever they were holding down there and ran right over to me and before I knew they were all over me, pulling at the seat and bike handles and trying to reach for my camera. I was quite too taken aback I didn’t even know what to do other than snapping pictures. I was beginning to get quite worried when they wouldn’t go away. In fact one of them had jumped onto the passenger seat and was dragging one of his buddies – probably his lil brother – to join him on whatever lil space available behind him. I was beginning to get really really worried when a lady – probably the mother of one of two of them – came out of a house nearby and shouted at them, sending them scurrying away in a haste. I gave her a thank you smile before speeding away. Phew. Kids can be scary at times but always entertaining.
Just in case that you’re curious, I actually didn’t manage to go to Mount Popa, following an advice from a guy that I met at a coffee shop over lunch. It was way past lunchtime and he told me how it wasn’t safe to go to Mount Popa on an e-bike (solar-powered mini-bike) when it was already late because it might get dark by the time I was returning back to my guesthouse in Bagan – meaning – the mini-bike would run out of power and I’d be stuck in the middle of nowhere, a risk that I decided not to take.
The world of traveling at least in Malaysia is going abuzz with the ever declining rate of Malaysian ringgit – not only against the US Dollar but also to most other currencies in the region. Of course, every time it happens (Ringgit weakening), travelers would be some of the very first ones to get their share of the impact. Most of them would be forced to reconsider their travel plans. Just imagine, it was about MYR 3.3 against USD1 at about the same time last year and now it has ballooned up to MYR 4.3 with very little signs of bouncing back. That is like 30% increase in travel expenses! Other currencies such as IDR, THB, PHP and CNY seem to be weakening too but somehow – and very sadly – MYR seems to be doing the worse. I don’t even want to start talking about how bad(ly) we are going against our neighbour Singapore but who wants to go there anyway? LOL. Kidding.
There is no denying that the effects of the weakening Ringgit are very instant when we are talking about traveling. When I went to Cambodia recently, the Malaysian Ringgit was already nearing what was first thought to be highly unlikely – the most feared MYR 4 mark against USD 1 so I knew it wasn’t the best of time to travel. It was even worsened by the fact that Cambodia still relies so much on USD (like seriously, when can this country ever be able to stand on its own? Grrrr!) to keep things going at least in the tourism industry so we were in for a little bit of shit. Quite expectedly, my budget went ballooning and I had to revise a lot of things in my itinerary.
I remember how we were forced to eat at a restaurant while we were on our way to Siem Reap after spending 2 nights in Phnom Penh. Being foreigners, we were given the foreigner price rate which easily set us at some USD5 for each bowl of noodles that we ordered. And it was more like some instant noodles plus all kinds of raw vege that they just threw in to make them look worthier that they actually were. In the end, we paid like USD20 for all the 4 bowls of that stupid Maggi-like noodle which – if converted – was almost MYR80! I mean, I am OK if it was worth it but seriously it was very bad that I couldn’t help but wailing at the hard-earned money that I wasted on them (no way I could let my family go hungry for more than 8 hours if you may ask). I mean again, where are all the KFC outlets when we need them most kan? LOL.
To tell the truth, I haven’t really got any solid travel plan for this year yet – or at least for the remainder of the year – because there seems to be a lot of uncertainties regarding my study and all, but that burning desire (ahaks! the ayat) of traveling and ticking something off the bucketlist has always been tugging at me – so violently at times that I wish I could just leave everything behind, head for the airport and fly to somewhere totally foreign. LOL. For now, I’ll just continue eyeing on the development of our local currency as well as other currencies because they could well be the deciding factor too.
May be this is the best time to travel to all the places in the Malaysia that I had long wanted to go to. I’ve got quite a long list of them but then there’s no way I can go to all of them in one go so it has to be one place after another. While Sabah and Sarawak might dominate the list (and it’s not cheap to go to most of them unfortunately), I’ve got places in the Peninsular that I’ve put some thoughts on too. I’ve heard about some little-known island off the coast of Johor, then a place called Betong (not Bentong!) in the far corner of Perak, then a train trip to Kluang to check out the original Kluang Cafe (very soon!), and then those lakes such as the Lake Temenggor, Royal Belum Park etc etc. I haven’t even been to Teluk Intan yet. I heard they have their own version of Leaning Tower of Pisa there. Then Kuala Kangsar and probably Grik. There are quite a number actually and I know I will never run out of places to go to while waiting for the Malaysian Ringgit to regain its strength.
I can only cross my fingers. 🙂
