casey+lauren

Now that we're home

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 05:33:52 -0500

Pai

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:35:00 -0500

From southern Thailand, we made our way up north to Chiang Mai and then further north to Pai. For me, this path was already trodden as I made the same journey (excluding Pai) while Casey was at home in Washington. However, northern Thailand is awesome so I was happy for a second visit. Plus, Pai and I had some unfinished business to consider.

I avoided driving a motorbike for the entire trip because so many people have accidents riding them and even people I know from home have had poor experiences. However, it is hard to pass up the opportunity to have your own transportation around a city—there’s really no better way to become familiar with a place than to explore it for yourself, and many places we went were just too big to walk. I knew I’d be disappointed if I didn’t drive my own motorbike before coming home, and I figured that I got seriously hurt, at least I’d be planning on going home anyway. Good logic, right?

Reputable sources said that Pai was a great drive and that we had to do it. We did, and it was awesome. The ride took about four hours each direction and the road twisted through the mountains. It was well-maintained, though, and the scenery along the way made me miss the northwest a lot. The sun was setting as we arrived so the mountains and trees were all lit up and very pretty. Driving a bike is so fun, I wish I had one at home. I also sort of wished for a tiny crash and a broken arm or something that would prevent me from flying home and give me and excuse to stay longer, but we were good drivers and had no problems on the road.

Pai itself was a weird little town with a great night market full of good desserts but no actual pie.

I had a delicious grilled black sesame pancake of sorts that was drizzled with sweetened condensed milk and sprinkled with peanuts and other spices—so good, and the pancake is hollow in the middle so when they grilled it, it inflated and reminded me of the pig’s bladder from Little House in the Big Woods. I told Casey and she got the reference, which was awesomely nerdy.

We stayed at a hostel that resembled the Lorax, if the Lorax had been built amid a rice field.

A night bus took us back to Bangkok and we checked into the seediest of seedy hotels where we shared a twin bed in a closet-sized room where someone probably died. There were actually kittens in the walls, no exaggeration. Somehow, we both managed solid sleep and after cleaning up, we played the waiting game until my airport shuttle arrived. Currently, I’m in the Bangkok airport trying to stay awake for fear of sleeping through another call over the loudspeaker. I only have an hour long connection in Taipei, which will be awesome provided that I make the connection.

It will be so weird to come home to Christmas weather and decorations. I’m not ready to end the trip at all, even just two more weeks would make me feel a lot better. I’m pretty sure I’ll be back to take on Laos and revisit my favorite places from this trip. Thanks to everyone who has been reading and to everyone who was a part of the trip, it’s been unforgettable.

And here is the last picture of the trip. It’s not a very good one.

Koh Phangan

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:24:00 -0500

After nearly sleeping through our names being called to board the plane in Hanoi, we made it back to Thailand and bused down to Koh Phangan for a full moon party, which is an income-generator for the locals and an excuse to party for foreigners. Originally, we had planned on skipping it because it didn’t sound like our scene, but we met so many people that insisted we go, so we decided to check it out.Apparently, the December 10th party was small in comparison to the crowd they expect for New Year’s Eve; I can’t even imagine how crazy that will be because the one we saw was almost too much for me. At the end of the day, I really prefer smaller gatherings where people can talk, but it was something else to be among such a huge crowd. I didn’t bring my camera out, so unfortunately (or fortunately) this is the only documentation from the night. It sums it up fairly well, but picture 10,000 people all doing the same. The rest of the photos are from the days before the actual full moon.

The nights leading up to the full moon party are almost more fun and it’s weird to feel the energy of the crowd growing in preparation for the main event. I guess I’ve never been to a huge music festival or anything of the likes before, so it was a first for me to be among so many people celebrating the same thing.

As an aside, it appeared that many foreign men spend their entire year in the gym preparing for this week when they can strut around the island shirtless with other similarly-built specimen. I don’t know a single group of guys in the U.S. who look half as intense as the majority of guys lining the beach of Haad Rin. It was an especially noticeable observation because there were considerably fewer girls period, and those who were there were just normal girls.

People-watching aside, we spent some of our time with a crazy group of South Africans and some of our time with a group of American guys who were very atypical twenty-something travelers. Both groups were entertaining in their own ways and it was nice to have some friends on the island because the anonymous mob was intimidating.

We did get to the other side of the island for an afternoon. Unlike Haad Rin, which is madness, other places are calm, clean, and peaceful.

After too many days of too little sleep and too much techno, we caught a boat to Koh Tao to relax for a couple days.

Along the way, we met some cool Canadians and a Welsh friend and together we endured the worst boat ride ever. Half the boat fed the fish and the other half desperately tried to keep breakfast down. Imagine a two hour roller coaster ride and that’s sort of how it felt. I wanted to take video, but felt I felt like a jerk recording peoples’ worst hours on camera.

We left Koh Tao on a six hour night boat (surprisingly comfortable), then caught a 12 hour bus to Bangkok, then had a two hour layover, then another 10 hour bus to Chiang Mai.

Full moon really took it out of us and we were able to sleep almost the entire distance. Upon arrival, we were looking good and winning. At 5am, we also had some time to kill before any hostels opened., From Chiang Mai, we quickly headed further north to Pai. Read on for that adventure.

Hanoi | Halong Bay

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:14:00 -0500

Hanoi

From Hoi An, we headed to Hanoi via night bus. It was a rough journey 17 hour journey with too many potholes and too much horn honking, as is the norm in Vietnam.

The very back of the night bus had five consecutive seats, rather than individual ones, so we gambled our chances and ended up sharing the back with two English girls, leaving one seat open to split among us. It was lucky because the alternative would have ended with us sandwiched between three big guys. On the bus, I met a 6’6 redheaded American guy who stood out enough to spark conversation, which led to us discovering that we have a friend in common at home. It was a fast friendship and we ended up exploring the city with him and some others later on, then sharing sidewalk BBQ and 25 cent beers later in the evening.

Halong Bay

We needed more time in Hanoi. The day after arriving, we headed straight to Halong Bay for an overnight cruise and some sunset kayaking.

Halong Bay is a natural wonder of the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s a bay full of almost 2000 limestone karsts that jet out of the water, creating a drastic and breathtaking landscape. It was incredibly beautiful, even in the fog, and the weather combined with the ship aesthetics made me feel like a pirate living in luxury, if that makes any sense.

Everyone visiting Halong Bay does a similar cruise, but they vary a lot depending on how many people and what type of people are on your boat. Our crowd, unfortunately, barely had a pulse.

The saving grace in terms of social interaction was that Julius and Hendrick, whom we met in Bali a few months ago, happened to be on the same boat as us so we were among friends. It was such a weird and happy coincidence, we hadn’t been in touch whatsoever since Bali.

Our boat envy was heightened by the fact that we could hear the Hanoi Backpackers’ Hostel boat from across the bay and wished we could swim across and join them.

Upon return, we booked at that hostel and had a really fun night there, maybe one of the most fun nights of the trip. Casey and I did well in gathering a crowd for group games and we must have done well because a few people asked if we worked in PR for the hostel. Sadly, as with all the friends we make, our friends from that night were headed south and we were flying back to southern Thailand the next morning, so our interactions were short lived.

Dalat | Nah Trang | Hoi An

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 03:56:00 -0500

Dalat

Dalat is a mountain town very different from everything else we’ve seen in Asia. It’s a honeymoon location for Vietnamese and the whole town is organized accordingly.

Buildings are painted in pastels, our room was very pink and very floral, tandem bikes are available for rent, and Casey and I ate ice cream sundaes as Celine Dion played on repeat before we took a swan boat ride around the lake.

Apart from that, we hired a motorbike driver who drove us around and showed us a few different sites.

The adventure including a house with intentionally crazy architecture and a manual roller coaster (a lever lets you control your own speed).

The most unexpected thing about Dalat was the temperature, which was a lot colder than everywhere else we’ve been. It’s chilly, but really not bad after living in Oregon for four years. This view even looked a little like the Pacific Northwest.However, the locals walk around in parkas and ear muffs and a lot of other sparkly knitted garb that makes you wonder if a snow storm might be coming.

We also had our only negative language challenge. Not many people speak English and when the waiter failed to return a significant amount of change that was owed to our friend at dinner, a fairly uncomfortable situation arose. I would have just left the money, but he worked it out eventually. Voices were raised and emotions ran high.

Oh yeah, and we took a temple picture. This is obligatory for any traveler in Southeast Asia.

Nah Trang

After a couple nights in the mountains, we headed to Nah Trang for a quick stay. I didn’t care much for it, though in high season I could see that it would be decent. Overall, I was just bored and disturbed by the behavior of older western men, yet again. This time, though, it was much worse because instead of prostitutes, they were with young children. Adding to the the number of times we’ve seen unacceptable behavior, we ate dinner in a cafe where a drunk Russian man was harassing the waitress and just about everyone else in the restaurant, despite the bartender telling him off. He grabbed her, threw ice cubes at her, and was generally behind a huge jerk. He sat across from us at one point, just jeering and being rude. Seeing that sort of stuff leaves such a bad taste in my mouth. I wish people who lack social graces would at least do everyone else the favor of staying in their own country.

Hoi An

After Nah Trang, we caught a night bus to Hoi An, which was a beautiful place that sort of looked like a colonial town in Latin America. We’ve been eating pho almost every morning, too. I could get used to it.

Everything in Hoi An is painted in a marigold hue and every other shop was a tailor. We stopped there for a few nights and got suits made in preparation for joining the league of real people with real jobs. It was depressing.

The place where we had suits done was too intense of a shopping experience, so we took our business across the street for the rest of our clothing needs and ended up buying more than intended. Unfortunately, only a couple items were fun clothes and the rest will be for business. I’ll be happy not to have to shop for that stuff when I come home, though, and it is amazing how fast the clothes are made! The girl at the second shop was really cool and we enjoyed talking to her so much that she shooed us away eventually, saying that we’d never have our clothes in time unless we left so she could work.

Talking with her reminded me once again how fortunate we are to live in the western world, where we have so many freedoms and plenty of independence. She was married five months ago, is four months pregnant, isn’t sure how much she likes her husband, but said that at 24, she’s expected to be married and serve him. When he gets mad, she has to live with her mom for a week until he forgives her. That would not sit well with me.

Saigon

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:36:00 -0500

Before jumping into more depressing things, here’s some humor to lighten the mood. We had to climb about 170 stairs to the 12th floor of our hotel room, but they had this high-tech lift for our backpacks. And since the humidity and sweat from the climb upstairs work up a sweat, they even have real showers here!

Now back to business. From Phenom Phen, we went to Siagon, or Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). Our arrival was stressful because it was nighttime and a metered cab tried to charge us 75 USD for a ride that lasted all of ten minutes.

In actuality, the hotel was close, a five minute walk around the corner at most, but he drove in circles until the meter read 1,500,000 dong. I was prepared and managed to pay only a fraction of the price, but it was tricky. The driver refused to open the trunk for our bags, so I flipped the seat and pulled them from the side door before he could stop me. Casey managed to provide some distraction by knocking on the car and continuing to ask him to open the trunk. He also tried to grab my arm as we walked away, but I wasn’t too concerned and we invited him to follow us in and have a talk with the hotel manager if he thought his asking price was honest. He would have better luck conning people if he asked for 30 dollars, but of you ask for more than million of anything, most people will hesitate and crunch some numbers before paying.

After that incident, being in Vietnam got easier. Siagon is a huge city and the traffic is insane.

I learned that I can handle big city life because the seven million motorbikes didn’t phase me too much. Against all intuition, you have to walk calmly and slowly while crossing streets so that the bikes can predict and dodge your movement. It’s hard to do because all you see are walls of them zooming towards you and your instinct is to run, of course. Also, during rush hour traffic on one way streets, the bikes just create an lane in the opposite direction my mowing over sidewalks, ignoring the fact that pedestrians sometimes use them. It’s not a city for the weak at heart or for people who are easily stressed.

War Remnants Memorial Museum

I really enjoyed the War Remnants Memorial Museum and the Cu Chi Tunnels, but we must have missed something when we visited the Reunification Museum because all the tour books talk it up when in reality it was painfully dull. Regarding the war museum, it was fascinating to see war recorded from the other side. It’s worth mentioning that this museum was originally called The House for Displaying War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government (of South Vietnam). It was then changed to the Museum of American War Crimes, then War Crimes Museum, and finally War Remnants Museum. Those titles are enough to communicate the sentiments of the Vietnamese regarding Americans.

Going there, I knew what to expect and even still the hundreds of photos showing protestors around the world urging the United States to leave Vietnam provoked some weird feelings. There were preserved fetuses with deformations from Agent Orange and babies are still born damaged from chemical warfare that they had no part in. It’s upsetting that the U.S. dumped chemicals in Vietnam and while our veterans receive some benefits upon returning home (not enough, but some), Vietnamese people are left uncompensated for the suffering they continue to endure as a result of wartime activities. The top floor of the museum was dedicated to photographers and that was also interesting. Having so many friends in the photojournalism field, it was strange to imagine them in the position of the war photographers of Vietnam. Unfortunately, pictures of pictures aren’t that interesting, so I won’t post them.

Cu Chi Tunnels

The Cu Chi Tunnels were really impressive. They are a complicated and extensive network of tunnels that span long distances deep below the ground. The Viet Cong soldiers used them to maintain their position in southern Vietnam when the Americans arrived. American troops built a base right on top of the tunnels and even after discovering their existence, were unable to overcome the communist resistance. The tunnels were three levels deep and included dugout rooms that served different purposes and allowed the community to live underground for extended periods of time.

The area was also ridden with traps typically used for animals and then modified for American soldiers. Everything was well thought-out and intricate so as to cause pain and suffering. We got to crawl through a modified tunnel and hide in one of the secret traps.

I really recommend doing more reading on this site, it was fascinating. Also, it was crazy to see because tunnel networks are not only a thing of the past. They are being used today in the Gaza strip and the innovation and plans that go into a seemingly simple concept are truly remarkable.

Phenom Penh

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:17:00 -0500

Phenom Penh is a busy city and is not somewhere to linger. However, as the capital city of a recovering country, it is a place of historical interest. If you’re unaware of Cambodia’s history, do a quick Wiki read and the rest of this post will be better understood.

We only had one night in Phenom Penh, so we packed a lot of emotional information into our stay by visiting the Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng museum, better known as S-21 Prison, back to back. Here’s an article about them. It’s not the best, but it’s concise and provides a decent introduction to both places.

Killing Fields

The Killing Field outside of Phenom Penh is one of many sites where the Khmer Rouge took prisoners to be murdered in masses. Their goal was to create a communist country that would begin in Year Zero. They began by executing intellectuals—anyone educated, bilingual, etc.

In the U.S., we only really talk about the Holocaust or Rwanda when we consider genocide. Trying to wrap my head around genocide in Cambodia was a much different experience because one quarter of the country was killed between 1975 and 1979; this means that anyone about 40 years old or older has memories of the genocide and were impacted by it in some form. It’s hard to explain the feeling of walking through the streets of an industrial city that functions just like any other, knowing that an undercurrent of fear, sorrow, and hope exists silently among the routine of daily life.

Regarding details of the genocide, while the system of organization and level of control were similar to the Nazi regime, the executions in Cambodia were drawn out, crude, and involved rounds of torture instead of fast-acting gas chambers. Prisoners’ nails were pulled off, bugs and reptiles were introduced to sensitive body parts, serrated plants were used in place of knives, babies were beaten against trees, and the list goes on and on. At the Killing Fields, I stood where all this occurred and an audio tour provided information about specific areas within the field. I was there in the early evening and it was peaceful and warm, so imaging the horrific contrast that defined its past was a strange contrast. Weather in the area causes remains from the graves to be unearthed and while the grounds are maintained, you can still see teeth and scraps of clothing leftover from the people who were buried there. History in Cambodia is still very fresh.

S-21 Prison

The S-21 Prison, formerly Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, was formerly a school and then became a torture center for the Khmer Rouge. All the original tools and structures still exist and pictures of them in use are present alongside the actual relics. Only seven of about 17,000 prisoners escaped incarceration (they had skills useful to their captors). Typically, prisoners were held for a few months. They were shackled together or isolated in cells, forbidden to speak to each other, given four spoons of rice porridge and some watery soup each day, and were sometimes forced to eat human excrement.

Some Khmer Rouge cadres were also held and tortured at S-21; as the regime gained momentum, officers became increasingly paranoid and turned on each other.

A woman guided us through the prison and explained that her family was killed during the genocide, but she escaped by fleeing to Vietnam. The woman who arranged our bus tickets was married to a pilot training in Thailand, so she was able to leave the country with him and them lived in a refugee camp in southern California until she found a sponsor to bring her back home. These were just two people who shared their stories with us, but everyone has them.

Seeing the instruments used for torture and walking through the cells where blood stains can still be seen on the floor was something totally unfamiliar. Perhaps most haunting were the hundreds of pictures of prisoners staring straight into the camera. Their expressions are so varied: indignant, brave, defeated, scared, pained, empty. There were also photographs of the Khmer soldiers, most of whom were very young and some who were women. Looking at all those faces, you wonder what was going through these peoples’ minds during their incarceration.

Intermission

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:31:59 -0500

I just wanted to take a second to explain the big time between the last post and the ones to come. We flew back to the U.S. on December 20th and I had been journaling along the way because we didn’t have consistent access to an internet connection. I meant to publish these entries sooner, but they were stuck on the crappy Acer computer we brought with us and only recently did I recover them. So, without further delay…here’s the last month of our trip.

Siem Reap | Siahnouk Ville

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 07:40:00 -0500

I could have stayed twice as long in Chiang Mai because I missed cuddling tigers and visiting a town called Pai a little further north; those things are on my bucket list. However, it was time to get to Cambodia and I decided to book the trip in one painful shot rather than taking an overnight layover in Bangkok.

The first half was fine apart from having to watch Apocolypto, which is the most disturbingly violent movie I’ve ever seen. The AC also dripped water on me the whole way, but these inconveniences turned out to be nothing compared to Cambodian travel. The second half was impossibly slow. Along the way we changed buses five times and also took two tuk-tuks. Cambodian buses love to blast Asian pop and game shows to ensure that no one sleeps and that even the most hard of hearing can hear loud and clear.

The third frustration mentioned in my previous post occurred during the cross over into Cambodia. I knew from reading that the Thailand-Cambodia border is hard to cross without getting ripped off when it comes to acquiring a visa, but all the research was no help in avoiding it. So I knew as I handed over 40 dollars for a 20 dollar visa that I was getting played, but the bus driver threatened to leave behind anyone who took extra time filing a visa on arrival, so everyone had to prearrange theirs. It still makes me mad. He also told us that ATMs within Cambodia don’t accept foreign cards and that we should change money at the border, making sure to change it all into Cambodia riel, rather than dollars. That sounded like crap to me so I ignored him and of course there are ATMs in Cambodia and dollars are used everywhere. It’s crazy to realize that there is even corruption within banks at the border. The whole area is a thriving business.

Siem Reap

From the border we went to Siem Reap, which was a pretty cool little town in the middle of nowhere, just for tourists going to see Angkor Wat (which is Cambodia’s biggest point of income, though our tour guide said Vietnam controls the Cambodian economy, including business around Angkor Wat).

I met two Australian girls and an English guy on the bus and we’ve been rooming together for the past week. Our cheap room had a broken shower, so I washed myself and my hair with the toilet hose for three days (they have these things that resemble garden sprayers here and you’re supposed to use them in lieu of toilet paper, but as it turns out, they are multifunctional).

The next morning, we hired a tuk-tuk to drive us around Angkor Wat. It was as impressive as you would imagine, but it would have been nice to have a tour guide because there are a major lack of information plates within the park.

We took a guide the next day and went to some floating villages where Vietnamese fishermen have settled. We also visited a small killing field and an artisan school. It was quite the diverse tour. Our guide was really good and answered all my questions, but he should practice his math because his biggest story about running away from the Khmer Rouge as a teenage could not have been all the way true. He claimed to have been 14 in 1979 but said he was in his mid-thirties now and that’s just not possible. At best, he would have been a toddler during their occupation. Parts of the story were likely true because he had fast answers about when and what happened to different family members, etc. and details were all sharp. You never know, though.

Nightlife in Siem Reap was decent and there’s a bar called Angkor What? (clever) with a cool atmosphere; it was a good place to wind down and lighten up after visiting our first killing field. We ran into some fun company there and enjoyed a few 50 cent beers together. (Existing in Cambodia is super cheap…one dollar dorms, four dollar rooms, three dollar meals, fifty cent beers…but activities seem a little more pricey than they were in Thailand. It’s nice to be back on the dollar, but they often mix currency when giving change which is complicated and dumb).

Siahnouk Ville

From Siem Reap, it was on to Siahnouk Ville, a beach in southern Cambodia. We leave the beach tomorrow. There are an impressively gross number of old European men and prostitutes here and I’m fairly sure our hotel is 70 perfect full of them. When I went to get breakfast down the street this morning at the same place we always eat, I found it boarded up and shut down because someone drown in the pool last night. The guy traveling with us said he saw them putting the body back in the bar/pool area this morning (he assumed he was just passed out until later learning otherwise). We don’t know why they brought him back, but I’m guessing it was to take pictures of the scene in daylight. The guy was not covered or even cared for properly, Joe said his limbs were just hanging off the stretcher. I feel badly for the bar and restaurant staff because I’m sure the guy didn’t just fall in the pool surrounded by bunches of people able to sav him—he was probably taking drugs or something too and now a lot of Cambodian people are going to be out of jobs. On the topic of medical issues, we also saw a guy holding his IV drip above his head and riding on the back of a motorbike, no problem.

Tomorrow I’ll get my Vietnamese visa from the consulate here, then leave this shifty town for Phenom Phen, which is about as dodgy. There, we’ll see the big Killing Fields and meet Casey. It will be so good to be reunited, although I have gotten into the swing of solo travel and after leaving the couple-ridden Thai beaches, it’s been easy to find friends.

Next, it’s two weeks in Vietnam. There’s just a month until I come home and I think I’ll feel a little rushed because things have been going so well lately. We’ll have to make the last third of the trip the best yet.

Vientiane | Chiang Mai

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 07:22:00 -0500

The past two weeks have been among the most fun so far and consequently I haven’t made time to write until now.

I’ve spent time in three countries within the time frame and considering the distances traveled to accomplish this and itll be four countries by Tuesday. Encountering only three major frustrations along the way wasn’t so bad.

Vientiane

The first frustration was the most painful because it was self-inflicted; I took a 30 dollar, 16 hour train ride to Vientiane, Laos, paid the 35 dollar visa and had plans to travel south from there into Cambodia. However, upon arrival I had a change of heart and decided I couldn’t pass up the annual Loi Krathong festival in Chiang Mai, so the next day I went back to Thailand. I did get a Thai visa extension out of the ordeal, but in retrospect there were easier ways to go about it. Fortunately, Chiang Mai turned out to be more than worthwhile. The border between Thailand and Laos was friendly, but getting there was tricky. Vientiane was a very miss-able town and the food was the only thing going for it. I met a couple really funny guys and had dinner with them, so that was briefly enjoyable.

The second frustration was related to the first and had to do with my return trip to Thailand. I booked a government bus and there was a mix up that added three hours to the journey and put me in a van (less desirable) instead. It was mostly annoying because it was avoidable if the hotel staff had been working instead of watching T.V. And before the van there was a surprise hour-long ride in the back of a pickup truck in the pouring rain and wind. And despite my initial excitement upon learning that the van only had three passengers, the other two were (of course) French, and one of them sat right next to me. It was a 13 hour nighttime ride with a bench for everyone and he sat immediately to my left! I climbed into the back. Then, the same seat-stealer requested at least seven stops along the way and at each one he would get out, wander around, stretch, pee and chain smoke with no effort to hurry back into the van even though he was the only one outside. Every time, the driver would have to restart the engine to prompt him to get back in. Once, he took so long that the driver fell asleep for half an hour; I was stuck in the back unable to crawl over the sleeping Frenchman in the middle to wake the driver, so I set my phone alarm extra loud and got things moving again. It was so odd and so obnoxious. Finally we arrived in Chiang Mai. Normally, vans take you directly to your guest house or to a bus terminal, but this one just dumped me on a curb at a place called Same Same Guesthouse, which was full (and closed), at 6:15am with no directions, so that was a fun end to the sleepless journey of endless stops.

Chiang Mai
From there, things got easier and the five days I spent in Chiang Mai were not enough. One day was spent resting and the others were filled with Loi Krathong festivities, night markets and an overnight trek. The other travelers in the area were great and I finally got to stay in dorms which provided very welcome social opportunities. Diva Guesthouse was a good place to crash and the owner impressively speaks German, Thai, English, Spanish, and maybe French.

Loi Krathong was awesome and it was beautiful to see all the lights. I bought a bag of fireworks for $1.33. The trek was also fun and not as difficult as I expected after hearing about others’ experiences. That probably had something to do with my group being so slow and loud about their discomforts, luckily in a manner that was sort of funny. I was the only native English speaker among 11 people and everyone else came in pairs or a group and mostly spoke in their own language. The landscape was pretty, not spectacular, but being in the mountains with clean air was so so nice. On the way down, we got to white water raft and bamboo raft. The bamboo raft did not look like it would work, and it sort of didn’t/sort of did. Transportation, an elephant visit, trek accommodations and a guide, rafting, four meals and a massage upon return to the dorm cost 40 dollars and one more day would have been three dollars extra. It was a good deal. The massage was hilarious and not very relaxing, I will have to find some video demos of Thai massage to really explain why.

After returning from the trek, I hung out with a couple guys from my hostel and had a good night hanging out and exploring the Sunday market, which is even better than the already huge regular night market. Christmas shopping is especially fun this year.

Koh Tao | Bangkok

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 13:08:00 -0500

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated because for several days there was nothing much to say other than a guy in my hostel got attacked by a monkey and his bone was exposed. Casey’s surgery sounds not so bad considering the monkey incident and that we also met a guy who sat on a nail and had to have surgery and stitches where it probably really really hurt.

Work as (un)usual

There were a couple boring few days during which I worked on internship applications. I hate having to be on the computer abroad. And a week later they changed the format, so I also spent today online redoing everything and trying to update my resume which is always a pain, but an even greater pain considering it’s formatted in InDesign and I don’t even have Microsoft Word on this dreadfully slow computer. Google Docs to the rescue, and six hours later application complete.

Malaysian visa run

There was also a long day where I rode in the back of a van above the hubcap for 12 hours to Satun, Malaysia and back. If you travel over land, you can get a 15 day visa in Thailand and repeat the process up to four times. I tried to sleep but was woken by Kris Kringle offering me a dried sour plum or shrimp chip every 15 minutes—very considerate and very annoying. I’ve never had to deal with a visa before and they sure are a drag when you are on a long peninsula far from another border. The van parked in Thailand and I walked a mile to Malaysia and back in the rain. The border was confusing and looked like an abandoned military base. Despite my best efforts to look lost and confused, no one offered guidance, probably because they assumed I could read the signage. Even the border patrolman spoke to me in Thai while holding my American passport in his hand.

Open Water diving in Koh Tao

Anyways, enough griping. Apart from all those lame tasks, I have been happily busy. I decided to get my PADI Open Water certification and it was soooo cool. So cool. I went to the northernmost southeastern island, Koh Tao, to do it. I imagine that diving for the first time must be like consciously remembering being a baby and discovering your toes, or something of equal awe and wonder. It’s just that everything is totally new—the feeling, the sounds, the movement and vision, all of it. At first, you only think to look down at the reef, which is awesome, but then you realize you can flip over and look upward, which seems like a genius discovery that is equally awesome. The realization that you can contort yourself into any position and still be okay is so odd given that on land most of us are confined to sitting or standing or laying.

In a sense, diving feels simultaneously like a very natural and totally unnatural activity. It’s natural in that you are completely submerged in an ecosystem without much human interruption, but so unnatural because breathing underwater and being 30m below the sea is not what people are built for. It’s also very peaceful and exciting at the same time. And on the topic of being a visitor in another world, diving is such a clear demonstration of how well things work when people don’t interfere with them. Of course we do a ton of damage to our oceans (another discussion in itself) but we don’t live underwater and tread on that environment to the extent that we do with forests, etc. When you’re down there looking at the coral and fish and everything, its so clear how life cycles function perfectly if we allow them to do their thing. It’s just really extraordinary.

Advanced Open Water in Koh Tao

After my open water certification, I decided to stay for the advanced open water class. Advanced certification legally allows you to dive with another person of equal qualification and you don’t have to hire a guide for future dives. With regular open water certification, you learn to dive and can legally descend to 18m. After that, it’s possible to go on fun dives with a divemaster to deeper depths, but if you were to have an accident below 18m you would be out of luck in terms of insurance. With advanced certification, you can legally dive deeper and you also learn navigation skills as well as how to plan multilevel dives. Multilevel dives require you to know how long it’s safe to stay at different depths (you use more oxygen at deeper depths and nitrogen levels increase, so you need to plan depth and time intervals as well as plan the length of time you rest at the surface before diving a second time).

The advanced course consisted of five dives that each measured different skills. By the end we were given compasses and computer watches that measured our depth and time intervals, etc. and we were allowed to dive in independent pairs while our instructor stayed on the boat. I didn’t realize we’d be alone until the time came for us to jump ship, which was probably for the best because I didn’t have time to get nervous despite it being a daunting task. The diving itself is no problem, but I’m less confident in my navigational skills. The visibility on our last two days was also really terrible, so we couldn’t see a thing beyond 2m which was eery.

However, the other dives were amazing and we got to swim through a WWII battleship and play with the guns, which are still mobile. We also went on a night dive which was super super cool and not as scary as I imagined it might be. You take torches underwater but the best is when you turn them off because the moon and phosphorescent stuff are enough to illuminate the other divers. My best attempt at a description is that it feels like being an astronaut surrounded by fairy dust. The astronaut reference comes from being geared up, floating around slowly, and looking larger than life (underwater things are magnified); when you move and breath, the bubbles are silvery and the sort of sparkle and dance around so they look like fairy dust. One fun thing to do is to shine a torch on a school of fish and wait for a minute until a huge barracuda spots them and attacks in a flash. They call it feeding the fish.

All in all, diving was incredible and my only regrets are being tempted into another expensive hobby and not being able to jump in the water when an 8m whale shark was swimming right around the boat (too choppy). The same weather forced us to repeat dive sites more times that I would have liked, but c’est la vie. Anyhow, I recommend that anyone with the means to save up for a dive course do it because it is so worthwhile.

Class dynamics

And a quick note on my dive team. One of my initial motivations for diving was that it would be a great way to meet a bunch of people and spend a few days actually doing something together. Typically, the beginner dive courses on Koh Tao are overrun by twenty-somethings and classes average 15-20 people. It would be my luck that our class was five people: me and four men in their mid thirties, so those were my friends for the week. And my dive buddy’s name was Nimrod, for real. And he was not British. The upside of having a small class was that everyone understood the skills quickly so we were efficient and didn’t have to deal with any annoying freak outs. It was low season on the island and the dive boat still seemed crowded to me, so I can’t imagine it packed with four times as many divers. Fortunately our advanced class added a few younger people, but still it was me and the boys and the fish for a week. Our instructor, though, was great and was the master instructor at the facility, so we were in good hands. With an English accent, tinted yellow glasses, a Thai wife, 20 years of diving and formerly a backup dancer for Kylie Monogue, you can imagine that he was quite a character. His maximum depth diving is 294m which is crazy, more in the literal sense than the impressive sense.

Halloween in Thailand

I feel like I didn’t see much of Koh Tao besides the dive sites because the course took up all our days. I did, however, get to celebrate Halloween which was unexpected but fun. As an American amidst crowds of people who shouldn’t really celebrate Halloween, I felt obligated to dress up, which was a big challenge given my minimal stash of clothing. It so happened that I also did laundry that night for the second time in 45 days, so that was a bummer. But those who know me know not to underestimate my creativity and determination. Using a Swiss army knife blade I cut some cat ears out of a map, taped them to a cheap headband using medical tape, and painted them black with my travel watercolors. Spit plus mascara plus eyeshadow was good enough for painting on a cat face and since my dive assistant talked to me for a bit before realizing I was his student, I think it was a successful cover. Others also had impressive costumes and the beach party that ensued was pretty fun. I am too scared to try fire jump rope, but I am actually okay at fire limbo.

Bangkok

A couple nights ago I decided it was past time to leave the islands so I bussed up to Bangkok with my Welsh friend, Andrew, from advanced diving. It was a long trip that began with bad weather and a rocky boat ride full of people barfing into plastic bags, but by the time we got off the boat it was beautiful weather. We took a couple sleeping pills on the bus and the rest of the journey was smooth.

I thought that arriving in Bangkok at 1am was probably a bad plan, but I wanted to make the bus trip with a friend and Andrew had to catch a red eye flight, so I bit the bullet and went for it. Conveniently, the backpacker’s road was in sight of the bus stop and this road never sleeps, so getting in late and finding a closet with a bed to sleep on was easy.

The past two days I have been researching travel plans and redoing internship applications, so I can’t say much in the way of Bangkok as I have yet to walk more than four roads. I know flooding remains in outlying areas since many locals are romping around in rain boots and shorts, but the show must go on so the only evidence of high waters in these parts are the sandbag barricades that are piled in front of all the shops. The backpacker strip is all neon and lights and like everywhere, it would probably be better with a friend since, for the second time, I think I was approached with the expectation that I was working. It’s funny when it’s not you and that’s all I have to say about that. You would think finding friends would be easier but it is a little tricky when you’re solo, presumably Thai, and there are no hostels and instead only guesthouses with private rooms.

Fortunately, last night I hit a stroke of luck and met a guy who went to journalism school in Arizona so we decided to do some man-on-the-street interviews and portraits of tourists on the strip. This zone is so geared toward westerners that you wonder if people just come here to drink and buy cheap stuff or if they actually have greater motivations and are self-aware as travelers, so we set off to find out. By chance, we interviewed a half-Thai girl who grew up in Portland then came to Bangkok for high school, a Kiwi who has been in Thailand since he was a baby, an African-American with a Russian girlfriend here on his third trip here to visit family (there are more Black people on these couple streets in Bangkok than there are anywhere I’ve lived in the States, I’m still trying to work that one out), and a bunch of other people…all very interesting and forthcoming. I don’t have any editing stuff here but Brandon does so maybe he’ll throw something together and if not, it was an entertaining and out of the ordinary activity.

Next

Tomorrow night I’m going to hop a night train to Laos because the roads are too for bus travel. Trains are supposed to be decent—I’ll find out soon enough. From there, I’ll head south to Cambodia and then east to southern Vietnam, where Casey and I will reunite (she’s coming back, hooray!) assuming all goes according to plan. I’ll end up having to buy two separate Laotian visas because I’ll loop back around into the northern region after moving up through Vietnam and they don’t issue multiple entry visas. It’s a small inconvenience but annoying considering a visa costs more than a 12 hour train ride and sleeping accommodations combined. Trying to make sense of economics in developing places is an impossible task.

Koh Lanta

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 03:21:00 -0400

The past week we took full advantage of Koh Lanta. It’s an island in the same Andaman coast region as Phi Phi and although it’s only an hour and a half away by boat, it had a totally different vibe that some have described as the Thailand of 10 years ago. I liked it.

We are travelling in low season—great for prices and accommodation options, but it can mean limited social opportunities in certain locations, Lanta being one of them. However, even after a month together 24/7, Casey and I still entertain each other pretty well (a little surprising, but really lucky). And truthfully, it is more satisfying to search for our own entertainment rather than simply choosing an activity off a list of options at a travel agency, but it takes a significant amount of time, energy and effort to get things done in places where the paths are less beaten. Fortunately, Koh Lanta is the type of place that makes you feel like you have all the time in the world.

Hospitality

Our hotel was the best we’ve had yet (Lanta Klongnin Resort, if anyone plans to use this blog for travel plans) and the exceptional hospitality was well worth the few extra dollars because we extracted so much information from their employees. Introducing ourselves to people early and with a lot of energy is the way to go, although it usually involves a good deal of self-deprecation. Sacrificing a bit of our dignity is worth every lame joke because hotel owners and tuk-tuk drivers pay us extra attention and are more helpful if we put in the time to bother them. If the jokes are successful across language barriers, they join in the banter. We told the Klongnin desk manager that he was our best friend in Thailand (true) and later during a discussion about Thai food, which we like when it’s a little spicy, he said “Yes, same same like Thai people, we are little but spicy” (also true).

We paid 10 USD each for this room.

Usually, though, we seem to be more entertained by our conversations than anyone else. I would post an example of an exchange, but like I said, I think they are mostly funny because of our typical state of exhaustion brinking on delirium mixed with sense of ironic humor only relative to travellers. In an effort to demonstrate what I mean, frustrated from a roundabout conversation and attempting to express urgency, Casey recently explained to a guide, “I have many problems in my life, and for this reason I need 15 minutes to go shopping for pants.” (referring to being part way through 48 hours of straight transportation, a need to change out of dirty shorts before getting on a bus to the airport and the fact that she can’t carry her own small backpack to the shopping center he suggested because it was too far away and she’s not suppost to lift her pack for 6 weeks). The fact that she was dripping in sweat, hair tangled and everywhere, dressed in the same thing she’s worn every other day for the past month, trying to figure out exactly what time the bus was scheduled to arrive and all the while standing defeated in a stuffy garage-like shop where wafts of poop and moldy garbage were drafted around the room by a rusty ceiling fan really added to the mood (and were among the many problems in her life, to be sure). I don’t know if the written summary is at all humorous, but having to sit through the ordeal and in combination with the dialouge leading up to it, the oral delivery nearly brought me to tears.

Lanta land cave

In terms of activities on Kho Lanta, my favorite was a cave excursion that was more than we bargained for, but super fun. Before beginning the tour, we repeatedly asked if it was easy enough for Casey to do since she is supposed to be recovering from her surgery. Everyone assured us that she would be fine, but when we got to the entrance to the cave, it was on the ground with a ladder leading down. Inside was huge, muddy, slippery and hard to breathe. We were lucky to share the adventure with David, a young German guy living in Bangkok, and his son, Noah, who lives in Germany with his mom but was on vacation in Thailand. David was gracious in helping us through trickier sections and guiding the army-crawl out of the cave and since meeting he has been emailing me updates about the weather in Bangkok—very kind. Anyway, the deepest section of the cave lead to a pool of water with a rope ladder for access. I don’t think I’d do it again (a little too much adrenaline and not enough air), but it was a fun swim to try. When we exited the cave we were on top of a mountain and we hiked down switchbacks and through a rubber tree forest on the descent. Rubber trees are really cool and it looks like Elmer’s glue is seeping out of them. The raw rubber feels like that gack stuff we used to make in preschool.

Moken colony, sea gypsies

A different day, we hired Mr. Bow, a tuk-tuk driver, to take us to a Moken village which was pretty interesting. The Moken people are sea gypsies and after seeing a photo essay on them a couple years ago, I’ve been fascinated. They essay was more telling because I couldn’t just ask to be taken out on a boat, but visiting the colony was still interesting and was not an advertised activity. Until recently, the Moken people lived on fishing boats and only came to land to sell fish and stock up on materials, but now they mostly live in stilt houses. I wish there were guides to tell us more about the cultural aspects of the islands, but that doesn’t seem to be part of the tourism industry here yet. On Kho Lanta, there are Moken, Muslim, Thai and Chinese people and they all live together peacefully. Typically, different cultures are known for their involvement in specific industries, but they often mix and overlap.

Emerald Cave

Another cool thing we did was visit Emerald Cave, which is an offshore cave in the ocean that leads to a beach. Pirates used to use it to hide treasure (really). We took a boat out to the cave, swam through long tunnels that pirates could navigate during low tide, then arrived at a tiny beach. More accurately, I swam on my back and Casey floated on top of me like a baby otter because she still can’t swim independently (involves core muscles). From the beach, it looked like we were standing inside a volcano because there was no where else to walk and the sky was visible overhead. It was like a real-life Disneyland creation.

Practicing Spanish

By the fourth day on the island, we were still getting along great, but were inventing games for five-year-olds using a pool floaty and Casey got to experience the extensiveness of my Disney soundtrack knowledge, so we knew it was time for some outside company. After entertaining ourselves for too long trying to guess the nationality of two dark and mysterious travellers at the pool, we finally mustered the courage to ask: Argentine, but living in Spain.

For the next two nights, we brushed up on Spanish with Cesar and Mauricio and on the second night, they chauffeured us to a hotel’s opening event where we were 4 of about 20 non-Thai guests. Despite initial hesitation with regards to our new friends (Argentine men come with a few stereotypes, rude, high egos, etc. but ask them about their mothers or girlfriends and you’ll see a different person) everyone warmed up to each other and the boys turned out to be great company, looking after us at the hotel and making sure we all went home together. One of them commented that I seemed a little preoccupied and I said I was having a good time but that it’s important to maintain a sense of self-awareness. ”Por supuesto, pero cuando estamos juntos, eres mi hermana.” Of course, but when we are together you are my sister. Very sweet. They also welcomed us to Argentina and Spain should we find ourselves in either place, even if they are not there. Latin hospitality gives southern hospitality a solid run for its money and I might meet them again in a few days now that Casey has gone home.

Casey left

That’s the last bit of news. Three weeks after surgery, Casey’s wound has yet to fully close, so she has returned to the States to have it checked out and let it recover. I will continue travelling and am in the process of scouting out new friends. The flooding in Bangkok is not bothering anything here, but is complicating my intended plans to head north. Instead, I’m thinking of heading to the southeastern coast of Thailand to get scuba certified. It wasn’t on my list of things to do here, but people travel to this area specifically to dive, so it seems like a worthy investment. Stay tuned.

Koh Phi Phi

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 06:06:00 -0400

We were more than ready to get to the Phi Phi islands after three nights in Karon. And for the first time, we took a real boat not made out of weathered wood and rusty metal. A free croissant with instant coffee and a video of Josh Groban in concert and it was practically a cruise ship.Julie and I quickly opted for the top deck, which turned out to be a good source of entertainment as we were seated in front of the Manchester version of Jersey Shore characters. Primitive is a good word to describe them. At 9am they were starting their second round of drinks and bobbing to whatever music was coming through padded headsets. Within 15 minutes, one of them had acquired a Thai girl. At 10am, we knew what songs were on their playlists because they were singing along loudly while eating spoonfuls of peanut butter from a jar. And their group photo in front of Maya Bay (from The Beach) is of the boys tattooed, shirtless and first pumping while the Thai girl flips off the camera. My type of people.

Our new best friends.

Long Beach

From the pier in Phi Phi, we took a water taxi to Long Beach where the water is much nicer but everyone turns in early. The best thing about Long Beach was the curry. We ordered it for dinner and breakfast, it was so good. After dinner and seemingly eager for any company past 9pm, a group of British guys invited us to play a card game called Shithead, which is more strategic than it sounds and is actually a fun game. After days of the hospital and then days of recovery, we were slowly reintegrating into the travelers’ social scene.

I could get used to eating breakfast here.

Ton Sai Bay

The next day we returned to the pier area, which is where we are now. Our side of the island is on Ton Sai Bay, but only a thin stretch of land separates this bay from another and it takes five minutes to walk between beaches. Headed straight, it’s simple, but if you duck into an ally and get distracted by the many shops, food carts, mini-marts, or markets, it’s easy to get disoriented.

Literally, fish on a stick.

Full Moon Party

Our first night in Ton Sai Bay fell on a full moon; full and half moons are traditionally celebrated with massive parties on certain islands and this island hosts a smaller version. Conveniently, it was also Casey’s first day off antibiotics. Given my ten-day virus and then the hospital ordeal, I think I’ve had two beers over the past three weeks and mistakenly, we decided to try Thai rum. It was really, really, really bad and consequently it is still in the fridge.

Before the beach party, we went to see a Mui Thai boxing match—culturally interesting, but not my opinion of great entertainment. The beach party, though, was other-worldly. There are a string of tiki-esque bars that line the beach opposite ours and at night they come alive with fire shows, sand dance floors, laser lights, fireworks, small beach fires and colorful billowing flags. The music can only be described as random; we heard House, Thai pop, American pop, Screamo, Techno, Dubb-step, Reggae and a mix from the Grease soundtrack to top it off. To get away from the noise, you can walk far out on the beach because the tide is so low during the full moon. It was a really good time and it felt safe, no drugs or swimming and the crowd was a manageable size.

The fire show was probably the most dangerous part. At one point a performer threw a flame across the crowd to his friend, but it landed short and hit a pair of spectators and on his second try, the flame got caught on a tree branch and had to be knocked down with a bamboo chute. In contrast, the seven-year-old baton twirler and the Italian performer whose poi balls kept spraying me with gasoline were no big deal.

Viewpoint

While walking out on the beach during the party, I met the nicest pair of Irish travellers and ended up talking to one of them for awhile afterward. He recommended a steep 20 minute walk up to a viewpoint on the island, so the next day I set off to check it out. The view was amazing, as he promised, but he must have meant 20 minutes after the initial 40 minutes it takes to walk uphill on the paved road. The road takes you out of town, so I got to see where people who live here actually reside, as well as where the waste-water treatment center is. Despite being a little unprepared for what turned out to be more of a climb than a hike or a walk, it was worthwhile and good exercise. And the boxers run the trail both directions, so I can’t really complain.

Phi Phi is famous for its two beaches and this small trip of land that divides them.

Snorkeling

Before hiking yesterday, we went on a half-day snorkeling trip from a longtail boat. It was the first time I really felt seasick and continued to feel a rocking sensation after deboarding. The snorkeling was nothing fantastic but we visited a lot of small islands that were very cool. We also got to walk on Maya Bay, which has the most perfect sand I’ve ever felt. Normally the ocean floor is something I avoid, but there it felt awesome. Getting there was a tricky because the boat dropped us off in a cove opposite the beach and we swam from the boat to a wooden ladder supported by rope, then walked through a jungle path to the beach. It would have been easy except Casey isn’t supposed to use her stomach muscles so she got a PFD (apparently sized for Thai people and children) and I pulled her a good distance through choppy water and up to the rope/ladder, which was beaten by more waves. I’m sure we looked really cool.

I didn’t edit the color of this water.

Next

Tomorrow I think we’ll head to another island. Casey has yet to decide if she’ll continue on or go home to recover, so for now we are indefinitely biding time in southern Thailand. In past travels I’ve always remained inland so this island and peninsula lifestyle is new to me and I have to say, there are worse places to wait.

The one thing that really bothers me about this whole area is how much traffic there is; there is no motorized land traffic on the island, but there are so many boats. The longtail boats don’t pollute the water (rather, they’re bad for the air) but the bigger ones can’t be good for the ocean. As I mentioned, The Beach was filmed here, as was Hangover 2 and people who visited 10 years ago have said that this entire area is totally different than when they came in the past.

As we wait to see what’s going on with Casey, I’ve been eavesdropping and trying to find other people with travel itineraries similar to mine in case I need a new partner. We’ve met a lot of people on really extended trips and notably a lot of young people from many countries who are well-educated but are travelling because they are waiting for the economy to change.

She accompanied us to our boat leaving the island.

Karon

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 05:43:00 -0400

After four nights in the hospital, we were cleared to leave and Casey, Julie, Jeanne and I headed to Karon, a nearby town with a beach. It was a sleepy place where people quickly recognize each other from passing down the main street time after time.I think most people were twice our age, too. It was a good spot for seafood and the beach was clean, so all in all it worked as layover destination while we waited for Casey’s check-up appointment to roll around.

The most eventful thing that happened while we were there was a comically exhausting language mix up in a restaurant. The conversation went something like this:

“Is it hot or cold?”

“Liiiittle bit spicy.”

“Okay, that’s fine, but hot or cold…like…temperature?”

“Just little spicy. You want not spicy? That good I make not spicy.”

“No no spicey is okay. I want to know is it cold? Like this?” (Touching a cold drink with sweat dripping down it).

“Yes okay I bring you Coke.”

“No, thanks. Glass noodle salad…in fridge or in oven?”

“I cook noodle.”

“Alright, um…I’ll have ginger chicken. Spicy is good.”

During this time, the help of three empolyees was involved but I never did find out if glass noodle salad is served hot or cold.

Food, overall, is an interesting experience here and I don’t think I’ll ever be impressed by a foreign menu item again after my time here. Minimart hampurgers come sandwiched between sticky rice patties instead of buns, you can purchase a vegan pork bun (not sure how that works), reef sharks on ice outside restaurants are not unusual, pizza flavored dried shrimp snacks are in every corner store, the grocery store features a huge island devoted to various hot-dog-on-a-stick products, mentos come in more flavors than I knew existed and menus with 200 items are common because, for example, every noodle or meat option is listed separately instead of as a ”choice of glass, yellow, or thai noodle” and “choice of pork, chicken, shrimp, or seafood”. It’s also strange because often corn flakes with fruit or a veggie omlette cost more than a stir fry or curry, and a crepe with nutella and banana or a fruit smoothy are the cheapest of any option. It’s weird when ordering shrimp is a safer bet than ordering chicken, and on a final note…french fries only exist in the past tense, “french fried”, here.

Yum?

Oh, and we found the cutest puppies. Here’s evidence:

Phuket International Hospital

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 11:20:00 -0400

Casey, Julie and I have been in close contact since splitting up for a few days. After a great night of beach volleyball, I was looking forward to telling Casey about it (she plays too) so I got online to write her a message and check for updates regarding our reunion, which was scheduled for the following day.

Instead, I had an email from her mom, Jeanne, explaining that Casey was in the hospital having surgery to remove her appendix.

I had known she was under the weather, but prior to her mom’s email we had figured she came down with whatever bug I had (symptoms were the same). She was with Julie, so there was no cause for great concern. When the stomach pain worsened, they headed for Phuket International Hospital. It was extremely fortunate that they were within close range of clean and professional care. She had the operation last night and is currently hurting, but in recovery and expected to be out of the hospital in a few days. Jeanne is flying out to help comfort and care for her late tomorrow night.

After receiving the email yesterday evening, it was a bit of a trek to reach Casey and Julie because the weather was so bad today. First, it was another wade out to a boat and this time in the pouring rain. Some sort of aquatic tractor lugs all the resort guests out to the boat, but backpackers aren’t so fortunate. Two bus rides, a stop at the wrong hospital and a taxi later and we are all reunited. Our separation was brief but its so nice to be back among friends.

The aquatic tractor delivering lucky passengers.

It was a wet ride to the mainland.

And more rain-ridden transportation.

Casey has been such a trooper from braving Thai surgery to interacting with the nurses who are very competent but brief in their patient care. For the most part, her spirits have been high and she has forbidden Julie and me from making her laugh because it upsets her stomach. Julie has been wonderful in comforting and caring for her and hopefully tonight she can get some rest as I take over the night shift she fulfilled last night.

We are hoping for a quick recovery and it is possible that Casey will be able to finish the trip as we had planned, but for now she is playing it by ear.

It is safe to say we’ve had our share of troubles in southeast Asia these past two weeks, but between times it really has been amazing and we are optimistic that our luck will improve from here on out.

Rai Lay

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:28:00 -0400

A quick boat ride found me in Rai Lay, my favorite of all our destinations thus far. Casey stayed behind with our friend Julie and we planned to reconvene in Ko Phi Phi (where The Beach was filmed) a few days later. Approaching Rai Lay made me giddy and the limestone monoliths that emerge from the blue waters are as dramatic as they look in postcards and movies.

These wooden boats are used for any sort of short distance trip around the islands.

Rai Lay is particularly known as a rock climber’s haven. I scrambled up a few long routes with spectacular views and spent the rest of the time admiring the technique and finesse of more experienced climbers. There were some truly impressive athletes around and seeing them in action is like watching art. It’s common for climbers to post up for months on the island because there are so many routes—overhangs, ceilings, flat walls, multi-pitches and open water solo sights. I befriended a few girls and we hung out with some serious climbers whose passion and enthusiasm for climbing and talking about the sport was similar to listening to my photographer friends talk about their profession.

It was a little rainy the day I went climbing, but that view is hard to beat.

My climbing guide kept this little guy on a leash strapped to his chalk bag.

Chalk spots dot the rock walls all over the island.

Another thing I found on Rai Lay were good volleyball players. In Oregon, we played with a guy from Thailand who was so good and it seemed to come out of nowhere, but now I understand. After two days of watching them on the beach, I mustered the courage to ask if I could play and it turned out to be a ton of fun. I played on a team of all Thai boys, one perhaps a ladyboy. They were really generous in including me and since mine is a difficult name for Asian people to pronounce, every pass in my direction was accompanied by exclamations of “Miss! Miss!” which sounded more like “MEEEIIISS! MEEEIIISS!”

Sunset volleyball game.

One of many beautiful beaches on this island.

Here’s a cave full of phallic stuff. They’re gifts to a princess who will protect fisherman.

Prior to meeting said climbing friends, I had a less positive experience in socializing. I was caught in a rainstorm and took cover in a bar where there were no empty tables. An employee ushered me to take one of the open mats at someone else’s table and all but one was occupied by a couple, so I invited myself to sit with two guys who I figured would mind my forced company less than the the other parties. However, the guys were French and it in accordance with the stereotype, they did not really speak English and I do not really speak French. I couldn’t very well excuse myself from their company because the torrential rains were still falling.

One of the two could get by so we chatted for a bit and after awhile he said, “You’re beautiful.” I said, “Thank you.” A few silent minutes passed before he said, “I told you you’re beautiful and you didn’t say it back.” I said, “I saw a pet otter earlier, do you want to see a picture?” He left for the bar, leaving me with his totally Frech-speaking friend. Still confined by the rain, I pulled out a paper and pen and initiated a game in which two people take turns adding to a drawing while concealing their respective additions so that the end product is a quirky and humerous illustration. The first drawing went alright but when I motioned for him to initiate the second, he kept the paper for awhile and eventually returned a fully completed picture. Clearly the point of the activity was lost. My next idea was the 100 dot game. It was successful and seemed to be a nice platonic exchange until he mumbled something about “French kiss” and planted one on me before I saw what was coming. Considering that our bodies were facing opposite directions and that there hadn’t been so much as a friendly touch of the arm all night, the gesture was completely unexpected and I pulled back. Still unable to leave and quite frankly too surprised to think of my next move, I just sat there avoiding eye contact as I put the game away. I motioned that it was late and I needed to sleep, at which point he managed the only full sentence of the night, “Would you like to sleep with me?” And with that I decided getting wet was worth getting home alone.

Patong | Krabi

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:25:00 -0400

Patong

From the Phuket airport I caught a shuttle to Patong, the only destination offered at the late afternoon hour. Still recovering from my bug, I looked as bad as I felt—my hair on its way to becoming one dread (I found my baggage claim sticker in it) and wearing salt-crusted shorts from wading out to the boat earlier that day. The hotel room looked as tired as I did.

Tired and greasy

I passed the time studying “English with enjoy” from the comfort of my room.

Resting and flipping through frames from the trip, I realized I hadn’t cleared my memory card and a few tears might have escaped me when photos of Oregon popped up unexpectedly. After a quick moment of weakness, I pulled myself together and set out in search of dinner. Dining alongside tables of old white men with lovely young Thai girls was uncomfortable but I didn’t feel bad staring—I almost hoped the men noticed. As it got darker, more of the mismatched pairs began to appear. The existence of such a scene didn’t surprise me, but the scale of it did and I expected that it would be more covert than it was. The streets were full of signs that said things like “Husband Daycare Center” and the bars were enormous and littered with girls dancing on tabletops. A brief look around was all I had the energy for after an exhausting few days.

Signs like these are a dime a dozen.

No Happy Ending massages offered here, so they say.

Krabi

The next morning I redeemed my lame tendencies from the previous days by successfully navigating three forms of public transportation and arriving in Krabi at a refreshingly clean hostel run by an amiable Muslim woman. Few things make me feel more accomplished than using public transportation without hiccups, so I was already feeling good and on top of that, the woman was so accommodating and helpful. With all the minor daily frustrations, simple gestures of kindness feel especially significant and her presence was comforting.

That evening I was using a hostel computer and noticed an elderly Ukranian man hoovering around the desk where I was sitting with a German friend. We asked if he needed something and eventually detected that a friend had made him an email account and he wanted to check it, but didn’t know how. It was a very challenging situation given that he only spoke Russian. Google Translate was good for a one-sided conversation, but without a Russian keyboard he couldn’t talk back. Things were made more complicated because he wasn’t familiar with using a computer. Eventually we cracked through the security questions Gmail imposes to protect accounts being accessed from foreign locations and got into his email. From there, a keyboarding lesson ensued and three hours later, a five-sentence phonetic Russian email was composed. We ended up spending the evening looking up maps and pictures of our respective homes and he taught me a little about Ukraine and its struggles. In all it was a rewarding experience. When I meet people like him, a retired Soviet engineer traveling alone on his pension at such an old age, I think that’s pretty inspiring.

The nicest hostel I’ve seen. I just wanted to show that there isn’t really a typical building in Krabi.

Krabi’s best feature is its night market. Plates start around 1.50 USD.

Meat on a stick craze.

Pad Kee Mow, I think.

I wasn’t brave enough to try this drink. I think it’s grass jelly.

Kuta | Ubud | Lembongan

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 13:55:00 -0400

From Jakarta, we flew to Denpasar (Bali). We visited three cities, spending two nights in each.

Kuta

Kuta, the main tourist hub, was totally underwhelming and was a blatant example of how tourism and globalization can destroy everything good about a place. Seeing it and having studied this very cycle almost makes it difficult to justify being a tourist. From the shore we used McDonald’s and KFC as landmarks from which to locate our guest house. Every western comfort from Polo Ralph Lauren down to Circle K is available to be found and the beach and streets are full of trash.

By night, the town is even more crowded and it can be fun to grab a beer and listen to some music. Most people are just out for a normal party, but a crazier time is easily available. Despite drug possession being punishable by death according to Indonesian law, men sell viles of “energy” outside of most bars and a long fingernail on some one’s pinky finger is not an uncommon observance.

A main street in Kuta during a weekday afternoon. The beach is right across the street and filled with tent vendors.

Ubud

Fortunately, Ubud redeemed much of the disappointment leftover from Kuta. We stayed in the guestroom of a local family in a dwelling that looked like a set from Legend of the Hidden Temple—awesome. Overall, Ubud was a pretty romantic little town.

It did have one very unromantic feature, though. A walk through the Ubud monkey forest was easily one the the scariest things I’ve done voluntarily. The monkeys drop from trees and scramble inches from peoples’ feet and the babies are cute in an ugly-but-cute way, but the adults are nasty and rodent-like with their hairless tails, barred teeth and chattering noises.

I have some awesome pictures of monkeys, but this slightly out of focus shot better sums up the park experience.

Riding past rice terraces and visiting a Hindu temple, Tirtha Empul, known for its Holy water, was one of my favorite activities so far. Two local boys showed us these places on bikes and both were really beautiful. I was especially interested in Tirtha Empul because it was such a lively, welcoming religious place whereas many expect visitors to be quiet and solemn. The docent was also telling us all about the significance of each bath and I was soaking it all up until he began to creep me out and we left hastily. Bummer.

Ironically one of the baths is said to have healing powers and after wading in it during the day, I woke up in the night with a fever. It was a stubborn one, too, because it hung on all night then came and went through a shuttle ride, a slow boat journey to Lembongan, and into the following days.

This is a flat rice field and the photo was taken from an open-air restaurant, which are common.

The three baths are said to represent emotion, Chakra and healing. People visit each spout consecutively to pray and be renewed.

Lembongan

Before getting into that, I should mention the joy of the slow boat. There’s not much to complain about yet because it was a fairly short ride and I know we’ll encounter much worse, but we had to wade out with packs to board and it didn’t go very smoothly. The crew signals when to approach and Casey hopped aboard no problem, but my turn was not very successful and I spent the ride wet up to my waist.

I wish I could say more about our actual stay on Lembongan, but I spent 80 percent of it in bed. I don’t get sick very often and when I do, I make it count. Our first night on the island I passed out around 5pm and Casey brought me something that was indistinguishable between a cracker and a cookie, but it was called “Digestive”. It tasted gross, go figure. I woke up in the middle of the night miserable and disoriented and dizzy and the morning was not much better. Casey made me wobble down to breakfast, though, where we reunited with Maya (a friend we met in Jakarta). She had just been sick, so she shared some leftover medicine with me. The fever broke but the “Digestive” was a cruel foreshadowing and next I was sick to my stomach. Casey, Maya and a couple other girls spent the day exploring and I spent the day trying to hydrate while my body tried to do the opposite. Re-hydration salts taste as bad as they sound and somehow they make water thick.

Fortunately, I was in half-decent condition for the boat departure from Lembongan to Sanur. And the van from Sanur to Denpasar. And the plane to Phuket. Travel days and nausea are a bad combination for attempts at food, though, which culminated in a moment of I-might-pass-out by the time I reached the airport in Thailand and got through all the international hoopla to the novelty shops with snacks. I have never been so glad to see sour cream and onion chips, especially since previous options have been between chili-beef chips and seaweed chips (which have a picture of sushi on them).

Once again functional, I got on a shuttle to Patong and from the window saw how gorgeous southern Thailand is. After three awful days, the mountains and jungle are a sight for sore everything.

Kelp farms are all over Lembongan. At high tide, they look like a patchwork of sunspots on the water and at low tide they look like this. I was told the kelp is used in Japanese cosmetics and in ice cream.

Jakarta

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 13:54:00 -0400

Hi all, it’s taken a rainy afternoon and a day spent recovering from illness for me to find enough time to write, so here it is. I’m dividing posts by locations and I’ll try to be more frequent from now on.

We began this trip in Jakarta with a college friend, Patrick, who is from Indonesia. The plane descended through a thick smog that blankets the sky and lingers. The traffic is truly something to behold; it never rests and is a defining feature of the city. Having Pat’s guidance was a saving grace because Jakarta is an overwhelming mess of people and vehicles and businesses and garbage.

We went out a couple times and oddly, a lot of nightlife can be found in shopping malls. You can choose a restaurant as you would a department store and head downstairs afterwards to go clubbing. Clubs are sleek and flashy and the bathroom was full of girls tending bloody feet from heels that were too high. I, on the other hand, was denied entrance the first night because I was wearing sandals.

One day, Pat took us to Bogor where we visited a botanical garden that is home to world’s largest flower. It blooms every three years and in June it looked like this, but in September it looked like this:

Anticlimactic was an understatement. However, the garden backs up to the presidential palace and a field full of imported deer, so the sightseeing was not all in vain.

Starting off in Jakarta certainly forced us to hit the ground running. Hanging out with Patrick and his friends was awesome, but I am glad to live in a less hectic place and three days of craziness was enough for me.