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i am currently in bali, indonesia. i’ve been here for about 4 nights and 5 days, and quite honestly, the first few days (well, nights really) have been absolutely crappy. i mean, AWFUL. yesterday night, i could not stop hating, i mean really HATING, kuta beach, the beach that i’ve been on until today (this afternoon, i have transported myself to ubud, a nice quiet country town a few hours to the north).
what was the problem, you ask? well, kuta beach is extremely, OUTRAGEOUSLY touristy, and is entirely full of couples, holiday-makers and schoolies. schoolies are the slimey aussie kids and 20-somethings who’ve only just finished high school and are just bumming around with a little cash to burn, surfing and clubbing around the area. the afternoons have been fine as the first two full days i learned how to surf for the first time ever, and yesterday, some people i knew and i took some scooters around to the other beaches on the island (this place called dreamland beach was just absolutely glorious – three shades of clear blue and massive killer waves). so, mainly it’s been the evenings and partly the company that haven’t been so great. the people i know are these guys (and some girls who are all right) who i met in ko phi phi and phagnan, thailand and who cause a lot of drama and are kinda crazy. anyway, this plus the club scene, which i absolutely hate hate hate were sources of extreme exasperation and agitation.
a few other things: i was quite paranoid about the security and the police here as this is indonesia and extreme intoxication is not a good state to be in in a country like this (although everyone was pretty much hammered every night and this is bali). and once again, i’m again totally annoyed of the locals street hawkers and the taxi drivers’ touts. there was literally no street, store, or corner i could go on without being hassled or harassed in some way.
this is how a ‘conversation’ normally went on kuta beach (and even in ubud) with the locals and me:
‘konichiwa, nihon mo? japanese? taxi? transport? where are you going?’
‘no thanks’
‘yes, transport? where do you need to go?’
‘no. you don’t need to know where i’m going.’
alternatively, it starts like this:
‘(whistles/cat calls) konichiwa. japanese?’
shake my head
‘chinese’
shake my head
‘where are you from?’
don’t answer
‘korean’
‘none of your business.’
every 2 minutes dude! it drives me insane. they ALWAYS all speak to me in japanese. hell, they know way more of it than i speak french now! granted, there are heaps of japanese tourists (probably the most of any asians here, and here in ubud, they’re absolutely everywhere and are apparently the largest group of expats). in thailand and bali, i cannot get away with someone not initially thinking i’m japanese, although a few times, i’ve gotten chinese/taiwanese/singaporean/even malay for being so dark now.
okay. now the surfing. trying to surf was loads of fun. but learning was insanity. not because it was hard and not because i was frustrated, but because of the freaking local surf instructor. he did not really speak english that well, he did not really teach me much of anything other than one basic form, and he could not stop hitting on me – actually to the point of harassing me. 1. he continuous said i looked japanese about 1000 fucking times, after EVERY single surf. 2. he continuously opined that i looked like the other japanese girls he taught how to surf the previous day. 3. he wouldn’t stop talking about how beautiful i was and how i looked like a japanese artist (?!), and 4. he just made me absolutely sick. digusto. awful awful awful.
so basically, the best part of kuta beach was going to the other pristine beaches nearby, flying at about 70 miles an hour on the small hilly windy roads hoping not to get killed in a motorbike crash riding behind this crazy dutch guy named sunny. yeah.
anyway, basically, bali is probably really nice for couples and vacationers, but not for the average backpacker. it’s really a mistake that i’m here. but it’s my own fault. i was supposed to go to melaka, malaysia and singapore, and/or fly to oz or back to bangkok, but decided oz was too expensive and vast to do in a couple of weeks. and again, as i LOVE to think in hindsight, i should’ve gone with my gut instinct and gone back up to chiang mai and pai in northern thailand as i longed for. but ‘course, i didn’t go with my instincts and didn’t really do my homework in advance. also, i was supposed to meet a friend here, but basically, flying all the way to another country that’s not so close is kind of a bad idea to do when plans are made so far in advance and not set in stone. basically, i kinda got ditched but again, i mostly blame myself.
in fact, the day before i left KL for bali, i met an irish guy who was just there, and he sort of forewarned me about what it would be like. i almost, just ALMOST changed my plans and wanted to cancel my ticket and fly back up to bangkok, but i didn’t take the right risk. it’s also low season here, which could be why it sucked too. bali is a big place, and i’m only going to basically 2 places, when most people spend about 2 weeks here with a week in the gili islands alone, which is the ko phagnan of indo but is really quiet right now.
that’s enough complaining. if there are a few lessons i learned from traveling, it’s: DEFINITELY go with your gut instincts even if it means having to take some small risks (like changing plane tickets at the last minute); always get advice from multiple sources and never just one person as you go along; compare notes with others; go where there are hostels or more likely to be a backpacker scene; get the latest lonely planet guide (’cause they really know what they’re talking about – and mine’s 2 years too old); if you meet someone really cool and your gut instinct is that person is really legit; don’t be shy about traveling with them (which i was a few times to do); it’s never a bad thing to go back to a place you’ve already been and liked; don’t trust too many people (which i did a few times too many); and finally, never travel too fast. that i think could be the biggest mistake a traveler makes (even the lonely planet and rough guide say so, which i initially didn’t take seriously!).
hmm, i don’t know if i’ll ever be able to go on a proper vacation or holiday again. i just love the rough lifestyle of backpacking way too much!
anyway, ubud isn’t so bad. it’s picturesque and sort of reminds me of chiang mai. i’m also really digging reading “eat pray love” while i’m here as well, as a third of the book is set in this town. i’ll be able to do plenty of shopping here. indonesia’s quite cheap. the other saving grace is that it’s cheaper to fly out of here to honolulu than bangkok, and i have a stopover in osaka, japan for 12 hours! maybe i’ll try to see some of japan! i don’t know, we’ll see! that would be SAWEEEET though.
wow, this is my first post in a really long time, and for that, i’m sorry! internet’s been exorbitantly pricey and finding a good connection was even harder (this one’s not even that great, but at least it’s free at the official malay tourism office).
SO. i’ve been in malaysia for about 5 days now. i took a long-ass journey (about 18 hours) from ko tao, a beautiful island in thailand, to penang, a crappy island in malaysia; first by boat for about 7 hours, then the rest of the journey by minivan, a random sketchy black sedan, then another minivan. see, the thing about traveling in asia by bus is that sometimes, it’s really only a “bus” with quotation marks – as in you might be taking a really nice coach, or a minivan (or a minibus as they like to call it here), or occasionally, a black sedan. they also generally don’t tell you what the hell is going on, so that when you’re shuffled from vehicle to vehicle, you may tend to get nervous about what in the world is going to happen to you or where you’re really going to end up. when they shuffled me out of the minibus into the black toyota sedan with tinted windows, i kept asking the drivers from both vehicles if they were really taking me all the way to malaysia in this random sedan with random other thai/malay people, and all they could say was “yes yes get in get in,” when really, they didn’t understand a word of what i was asking at all.
shite, i am in the tourism office and i can hear the rain pouring down cats and dogs. (the whole thing about the monsoon season in southeast asia is also a bit iffy. it’s never clear when it begins or ends. i thought it was supposed to have been over in these parts ages ago except for the east coast of the malaysian peninsula.) oh, and it’s thanksgiving today! i had KFC for lunch in honor of the holiday – that was the closest thing i could get to a turkey and something american out here – well, there are a lot of mickey d’s and kfc’s, but i chose the latter to feast on a bird. (i believe i am the only american at my hostel which is a bit saddening.)
anyway, penang was pretty run-down and a bit slummy. i had heard from many other travellers not to go there, but one american guy advised that it was more interesting than langkawi island, so i took his advice and went. but that’s the last time i’m taking advice from an american traveler again! (langkawi, from what i’ve seen of pics from other traveling friends, looks a lot nicer and more like the thai islands.)
anyway, next, i went to the cameron highlands, which was a really beautiful mountainous place. it was a bit chilly, a welcome change from the 80-90 degree weather out here. i got to wear my long-sleeved shirts and sneakers for the first time in a really long time, which was exciting! we (myself and four other english people, 2 of whom i’ve known for a while) stayed at a lodge which had a really chilled out atmosphere. i went on a little hike by myself to a rather miniscule waterfall, then went to some tea plantations – immense corduroy fields of rolling greens.
after 2 nights there, chris, rachel and i went to taman negara, purportedly the oldest rainforest in the world (not sure about that one), and climbed the highest canopy bridge in the world. pretty awesome, but frankly, i was so focused on just walking ahead and not looking down that the experience passed by pretty quickly. chris and i also went on a cave exploration, and that was freakin rad! bats every, crawling through tiny holes on all fours, slipping and sliding on bat droppings, getting bitten by leeches (just outside of the caves), cave millipedes, snakes, the whole works.
but overall, my impression of malaysia hasn’t been all that great so far. maybe if i went to borneo, it’d be different. but as far as peninsular malaysia, it’s definitely a male-dominated society as it’s a muslim nation, and i do feel uncomfortable sometimes in my western summer clothes (tank tops and shorts, skirts or dresses). what’s ironic though is that it’s a pretty wealthy nation. it’s a weird dicotomy… i wanted to go into a mosque today as there was a sign that said it provided headscarves and robes, but it didn’t seem really legit, and there were a ton of men milling around outside just staring at me, so i didn’t feel comfortable stepping into the premises.
oh the other thing about malaysia is that although food and accomodations are cheap, alcohol is NOT. not in the slightest. i believe it’s almost as expensive as the west, if not more so. $3-4 for a can of beer at a 7/11 (and it’s more at a proper bar, like $5), although 350 mls of bad whiskey can be about $4 as well. bars in general are expensive here, which i guess is a good reason to detox. but it definitely makes the traveling scene and the nightlife pretty bland.
then again, thailand was pretty crazy for that. basically, southern thailand, as in the islands (ko phi phi, ko phagnan, and ko tao) was a real drunken mess of a party. i miss it already! i had a real blast, and i really hope that i’ll be able to go back to thailand again sometime in the near future (before i’m 30). it was just so much fun and just so full of people my age (not too many younger or older). all of thailand, lao, vietnam and cambodia were great, really. i miss it so so sooo much already! well, except for the prostitutes and the sex tourism part. nearly every guy traveler i’ve met has definitely slept with at least one prostitute or a local girl who sorta dubbed as a prostitute even if she didn’t ask for money. but it’s more likely that they’ve actually slept with at least one lady (or ladyboy) from each country. yeeahhh. and i’ve only met one guy who’s DEFINITELY been entirely faithful to his girlfriend, and that’s probably only because he was on his way to visiting her in tokyo.) quite honestly, i didn’t find most thai/lao/vietnamese/cambodian women to be attractive, but then again, i’m east asian, so i suppose i feel superior to them (haa, jk…).
anyway, i had briefly considered going back up to chiang mai in northern thailand after the islands before heading south to malaysia, because it’s a wicked place and also a good place to get really nice, cheap souvenirs and clothes (i hadn’t shopped much the first time i was there, thinking i could pick up all of the same good stuff later on in my journey, but i’m now kicking myself for not having gotten tons of stuff there and shipped them home). in hindsight, what i should’ve done was go back to chiang mai right after i got back to bangkok from siem reap, cambodia, before heading down to the islands and just skipped bangkok the second time around. but i guess hindsight is always 20/20 as they say. i do wish that i had spent more time in northern thailand, because i feel like i breezed right through a lot of places because i hadn’t met any cool travelers and was afraid of being alone, or through a lack of knowledge about a place and not knowing what there was all to see. i think i spent 2 1/2 weeks in southern thailand, whereas i only spent 5 nights in northern thailand (not including bangkok, which doesn’t really count and i actually wish i’d spent less time there anyway, both times around). well, i guess there might be a next time – if there is a next time, which i’m definitely hoping for!
i say this as i’m now nearing the end of my travels and i’m already missing all of the places i’ve been. i do feel like a seasoned traveler now though. i definitely feel like if i were to do this trip again in a few years time, i would definitely know where all the good places are and where all to hit up, though i’m sure some things’ll change by then. i suppose i should check out some other countries and continents before heading back here though, huh? perhaps next on the list is europe (since i have all these new european friends i’ve made), australia (same deal), south america, india and north africa.
the other sort of depressing part of this trip right now for me is that except for bali, the last week or two have been sort of anticlimactic, either because the people i’ve met were leaving/going home, ’cause i’ve had to part ways with friends, or go to a place i didn’t really want to go and traveled with a girl who was only fun for about half the time but then pretty annoying for the other half. i’m definitely hoping bali will help end my trip on a good note, with a big bang. it’ll be a bit hard to meet people there as there aren’t any hostels on the island, but if it’s anything like ko phi phi, ko phagnan and ko tao, fun times should be had. i’ll make my own fun times if i have to!
and then it’s on to hawaii for christmas, and back home to the cold ol’ big apple! just in time for new year’s! woo hoo!
sorry for the lack of posts. internet is expensive here in the islands. since bangkok, i’ve been to ko phi phi (it’s truly paradise!), railay near krabi (for climbing), ko phagnan (for the full moon party), and i just got to ko samui this afternoon.
full moon was really all that it was cut out to be. it was basically a ridiculously big rave (my first one ever) – probably upwards of 10,000 people, maybe 15.
it was great because i basically got to catch up with so many of the people i had traveled or chilled with in the past 2 1/2 months, save for maybe one face that i really wish i could’ve seen. it was one big reunion.
basically, everyone was either really drunk or fucked up on drugs. i was only a little bit of both, but pretty lucid, which was great because i could witness it all and see all these masses of people dance their night away like zombies. (it’s what i imagined spring break would be like, except with more techno/house/electronic music and minus the girls-gone-wild stuff – the europeans and aussies are a lot classier than americans, i guess.) saw some pretty shitty things too, like drunken weirdos and people getting hurt. i guess that’s full moon for ya..
ko samui is quite a different place from it’s sister island ko phagnan. it’s most filled with vacationers rather than tourists, and this actually has made me a bit homesick. i think i’m headed to ko tao next..
i’m considering coming back either before or right after christmas. hmm.
… about liking bangkok. i appreciate being in a first-world-ish city again, but bangkok just doesn’t leave the same impression on me as it did a month and a half ago. (i will say though that my mood sways depending on who i’m with.) it’s also starting to become high season, which means LOTS AND LOTS of tourists and lots and lots of street hawkers. so much so, that it’s probably easier to get scammed. for instance, one of my friends 2 nights ago was set up by the cops in a scheme in which they took $700 from him.
last night, khao san road (the backpacker road) was packed like i’ve never seen before, with gazillions of street stalls and shops. it was a zoo, and i’m starting to get the sense that the locals here are going to start hassling for money like in vietnam and cambodia, although nowhere nearly as bad. i love that the tuk tuk drivers only hassle me like twice a day instead of like, 50 times a day. i actually miss vietnam though, because it was nowhere like i’ve ever been before. the experience was totally new and different, and definitely harder work and more of an adventure than thailand and lao (2 very friendly countries - the former being a really easy country to travel in).
that said, i think southeast asia in general is pretty easy to travel through and navigate. after having read eli b’s blog post about getting mugged in south africa, this part of asia seems like a piece of cake comparatively. knock on wood, but i haven’t yet gotten anything stolen, although i did lose a bra and a pair of underwear on two separate occasions (story to come later? there isn’t much of one though). it’s a well traversed area, and although asia seems pretty young on the backpacker circuit to most american, it really isn’t very new at all. and as i’ve said many times before, it’s so easy to run into travelers you’ve met at different points along the way in your travels since everyone generally goes to the same places and travels the same route either clockwise or counterclockwise. (for instance yesterday, i randomly ran into my american friend alex who i met a month and a half ago here in this said city. and just today, i ran into my aussie friend who i traveled with in lao.) anyway, the point is, it’s not too difficult.
referring back to eli’s post, i was wondering about the safety of south africa, because two of the guys i had been traveling with are from there. they claim there’s hardly any racism left and that it’s not very dangerous at all apart from jo-berg (they’re from cape town). i suppose i get the same questions too and answer in a similar way about the states and new york. but for some reason, i’m not totally convinced of them 100%, just because they also come from money (and as also mentioned before, they drink tons of alcohol, get wasted nearly every night, and blow money left and right) and yeah, they’re white. one is also conservative and is one of the only people i’ve met on this entire trip who’s rooting for mccain (his mom’s from nevada). screw that.
here is a motley collection of thoughts. but first, let me just update you on my location. i’m back in bangkok (after a month and a half of being away), and boy, is it good to be back in a first-world-ish country with street lights, traffic lights, orderly traffic!!! (no darting through whizzing motorbikes!), crosswalks, metered taxis, smooth paved roads, highways, billboards, skyscrapers, 7-elevens (with price tags!), and plush busses that i took for granted and thought were shitty compared to the busses in korea and the states more than a month ago.
my notions are true, it’s been confirmed. thailand IS much cheaper than most of the southeast asian countries, considering it’s 10 times more developed than its neighbors. cambodia and lao were somewhat expensive, as they tried to milk as many dollars off of backpackers and pure tourists alike as was possible. vietnam was actually pretty cheap considering that it’s developing (and having heard that it wasn’t), but that involved sharing rooms with other friends or staying at hostels which were awesome, and eating at a lot of street stalls (great food, mind you). i think i was also totally turned off by the rude hawkers, and the more they said “you buy something lady? you buy from me lady? buy here lady?” or “tuk tuk? tuk tuk? motorbike?” at every turn and step, the more i didn’t feel like buying from them. (literally, you couldn’t walk down a street with a stall, store or tuk tuk/motorbike driver in vietnam without EVERY SINGLE one of them saying at least one of those things. that was the part of that country i was disgusted with. feeling like a walking atm machine.) what wasn’t thifty was that i spent loads on getting clothes tailored (some unnecessary in hindsight) in hoi an, the town known for their tailors.
price comparisons: scarves cost a dollar more in cambodia than in thailand (but i bought 3 silk scarves anyway – probably a dollar or 2 too much, but i didn’t know if they’d have the same variety in thailand). besides, i’d like to think i’m contributing to cambodia’s economy, one of the poorest nations in the world. interesting side note: laos is supposedly poorer than cambodia and it was one of the most heavily bombed countries in the world. however, the people there seemed very content and satisfied living a pastoral lifestyle, which differs from the outlooks of cambodians it seemed, as they were all about money, money, money. i never saw a beggar in lao and very few prostitutes. in cambodia, beggars, amputees, children, and prostitutes asking for money were everywhere. bottles of water and snacks are cheaper here in thailand compared to cambodia also. so are food and fruit shakes (almost by $2) and bracelets too (was quoted $3 for a bracelet in cambodia that’s 60 cents here!).
when i’m by myself, i’m borderline ridiculous in frugality. i’d rather skip a meal or walk for 30 minutes finding a street stall rather than spend $2 or $3 (expensive by SE standards) on a meal at a western restaurant. and i’d rather walk a half-mile with my heavy pack and daypack in the boiling heat under the scorching sun than get ripped off by annoying tuk tuk drivers pestering me with “tuk tuk lady? where are you going?”
that said, i love traveling with other people i’ve met on the road and actually prefer it, although i usually can’t be as thrifty as i want to be (though i was on the same page with most girls). i’ve found that traveling with girls is much much cheaper than traveling with guys. girls are generally overly conscious of their spending, especially if it’s not on clothing and jewelry. we’re cheap with food and accomodations. we’ll skip a meal and shop around multiple stalls rather than settle for the first place we see. yet guys, who i find are actually better traveling companions in terms of conversation and humor and what not, do generally settle. if they’re hungry, they’re hungry, and they’ll go wherever there’s good food. they generally prefer comfort over thrift. they eat 3 square meals a day, if not more. just my observations.
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i arrived in bangkok last night from siem reap, cambodia. i spent 2 (or was it 3?) nights in phnom penh (creepy town), 2 in sihanoukville (a quiet beach town, though still very touristy and lined with bars and cafes with thatched roofs and deck chairs), and 2 more in siem reap. the angkor temples, needless to say, were extremely impressive. but surprisingly, i enjoyed angkor thom and the other temple where tomb raider was filmed (forget the cambodian name) much more than angkor wat itself. it rained when i got to those two temples, and they had a charm and enigma that was far greater than the super touristy, overly commercialized angkor wat. i loved that angkor thom had large contented, smiling heads carved on the temple and tiles of the dancing vishnus (or shivas?). the tomb raider temple, overgrown with trees and accessorized by monkey screeches high up above, were simply surreal. loved it.
after one day at angkor, i walked around the city of siem reap alone the following day, having seen mark, my dutch travel companion of more than a week, off. i was slightly disturbed by cambodia though, and find that i couldn’t think clearly. i don’t know what it was. maybe it was phnom penh, visiting the s-21 prison museum and having had nightmares for a few nights afterwards, or maybe it was all the beggars and desperate people i saw on the streets, or the high tourist prices everywhere. or maybe, even, it was the slow internet connection that i couldn’t bare! or still yet, maybe it was the slight sadness i felt after breaks and goodbyes with friends leaving, traveling elsewhere or on a different schedule and feeling cerebral traveling alone with so much time to myself. but the point is, i really wanted to leave cambodia. and now i kind of regret it! i wish i could’ve done another day at angkor too. well, i suppose it’s a good thing that i’m in want of having seen and done more. you can’t do everything everywhere, i know. and even the days that were a waste were still better than not having done them at all…
but the biggest reason for this regret actually is that i wanted to volunteer in cambodia (which i knew i might’ve wanted to do even before getting there) either at an orphanage, hospital or school. but because of my personal selfishness to get out of the depressive poverty and to meet up with people in bangkok, i left early. i say this now after feeling relief last night at getting back to bangkok (as my first paragraph in this post tells). but now that the consumerism, materialism and commercial mini-culture shock has set in, i’m longing to do something productive. i’m not sure that i can find any good opportunities in thailand. regrets man, they suck.
anyway, after bangkok, i’m headed south to the islands of ko phi phi, krabi (not an island), ko phagnan and ko samui (these last two for the full and half moon party). then after, i think i’ll head to malaysia and indonesia i think, where perhaps i’ll find volunteer work. but if i can afford it and have the time, i’m actually considering going back up to cambodia to fulfill that guilty desire i have… not sure if i will, but it would be nice.
i’m currently in phnom penh, cambodia, headed for sihanoukville tomorrow. good ol’ eli b. brings up a good point in his comment on my last post, so i’ll dedicate this post to my experiences with the locals which i’ve been remiss about as of late.
truth be told, i wasn’t very fond of the vietnamese, although i love thais and laos (i think i mentioned this in a previous post). let me explain why. these are generalizations, but for the most part, the vietnamese are very rude and basically only care for your money. they will talk to you and approach you only to offer you a motorbike or cyclo ride. “motorbike miss? motorbike madam?” are encountered at every corner a thousand times a day. it gets immensely annoying after a while. it’s hard to simply ignore them when they also follow you down the block. (also imagine being a solo girl with a huge pack when you’ve just gotten off a bus and have to look for the right guesthouse or hostel, and you’re basically just being bombarded by a chaotic mass of motorbike drivers thirsting for your money). so you’re either compelled to be rude back at them or pretend they don’t exist.
here’s a solid example of rude behavior in vietnam (also bear in mind that my image of the vietnamese was tainted by the hellish 29-hour bus ride and the incident at the food stall – go back a few posts for that story): you cannot simply browse or window shop in vietnam. if you touch something, the saleswomen will scurry over to you and say “very nice, i give you very good price.” and whether you intended to bargain and buy it or not, if you don’t end up purchasing it, they’ll hastily and roughly snatch the item right out of your hands, turn away with a loud “hmph,” speak loud insults in vietnamese, and turn abruptly to another customer.
in another instance, i bargained really well for myself for some fruit, and the lady just snatched the money right out of my hands because she wasn’t satisfied with how much she was getting. (and another thing is more often than not, you need exact change or they will simply take all the money for themselves.) there are countless, COUNTLESS stories of these things happening in vietnam. also bear in mind that i almost didn’t go to vietnam because of all the bad reviews i’ve heard about the country. many fellow travelers have said they would never go back to vietnam again because of all the brusque and unappetizing attitude of the locals. and this is not taking into account just the general loudness, ill/strangely-mannered behavior of the people there (particularly men, who’ll just whip out their members on the side of the road in more rural areas and just take a piss right in front of you). and YES, i realize that’s part of being immersed in a different culture, and i take all of these sights with a grain of salt and understand that this is how the people here live, but it’s something that’s hard for a lot of westerners to digest – even for any open-minded person.
to be fair, the people in the north were much more abrasive than the southern vietnamese. still, i got the sense that they all only really cared for you money. you essentially feel like a walking atm machine. they don’t care to get to know you at all, which is also a fairly big contrast from the laos and thais. even when we went on a small excursion up a river known as the fairy stream in mui ne, little boys (9 and 14 years old, who really looked more about 6 and 
walked beside our group. but we rarely spoke back to them as we all knew what they intentions were: money. i finally caved a bit and talked briefly to the boys, and they told stories of how their parents had passed away and that they were very poor (but one of the boys had dyed hair – hm, how could he afford that?). at the end of our little trip up the stream, they demanded “MONEY MONEY MONEY!,” and started screaming and throwing huge tantrums. this is my general perception of the vietnamese. they won’t hesitate to cheat you for more money – not in the slightest.
the vietnamese are a hardy people. even their landscape is really rough. they’ve been through a lot for sure, but so have the laos and the cambodians. i’ve only been in cambodia for a day, and i haven’t encountered the same kind of rudeness i did in vietnam. sure, they still want your money here, but they’re never short of a smile back at you. i feel i’ve rarely seen the vietnamese smile other than to make fun of something.
so this is why my posts in vietnam lacked anything much about the people there.
it’s also tricky business being a female traveler in these countries. in lao, my aussie friend and i befriended a 25-year old local guy who worked at the bar we were chilling at, and although he was very friendly, extremely nice and probably totally harmless, he was clearly talking to hit on us and flirt with us, particularly my white aussie friend.
in thailand, i had befriended a few locals through couchsurfing (i think i’ve mentioned this before, but it’s a super awesome networking sight for travelers) and they were great. but the problem i had with them was that i couldn’t ever get them to talk about anything serious. they didn’t really want or care to talk about the real conditions and situation in their country. they also liked to drink LOADSSSSS of alcohol, and i couldn’t keep up with them and really couldn’t handle hanging out with them much more towards the end of my stay in bangkok and chiang mai as they wanted to get drunk literally every night!
so far, here in cambodia, i’ve met one nice 19 year old guy. i sat next to him at a food stall yesterday in the late afternoon, and he just started talking to me. he spoke great english for a guy who didn’t learn the language in school. i learned that he was a car driver (i don’t believe they have real taxis here, so he just picks up anyone who wants a ride for a small fee). that was nice, but we didn’t get very far in our conversation. i think he mentioned something about being poor and still living with his parents (which is very typical here even as adults). still though, this conversation was a nice reprieve from the quite literal animosity i felt in vietnam. i can already tell the cambodians are friendlier than their eastern neighbors.
speaking of cambodia though, it’s definitely a very poor country. i don’t know if it’s supposed to be one of the poorest or not.. however, phnom penh seems to be rapidly developing (with the help of korean construction companies it seems, as i see korean construction, restaurant and store signs everywhere. in fact, it was also like that in saigon. i think korea must be doing a lot of development work in this region). anyway, the biggest difference i notice from cambodia and vietnam or thailand is that although the main road is paved, the side roads are not at all. and although lao was quite poor, it was mostly that the entire country seemed rather underdeveloped and pastoral. i didn’t see so many beggers even in their biggest city of vietiane like i’ve already seen here in phnom penh. for some reason, although lao has been through a lot, the people there always seemed happy. here, i get a slightly mixed sense. i guess the people are still trying to recover from the khmer rouge days.
speaking of this, i went to the s-21 museum today, the prison where they used to confine, torture and execute thousands of people during the khmer rouge revolution. really gruesome stuff. it really dampened my afternoon, and i have decided i don’t want to go to the killing fields. i think today was enough.
as far as the war remnants museum in saigon, there was a lot of terrible stuff there as well. america did a lot of horrible things for sure, agent orange, napalm and the whole “burn all, destroy all, kill all” policy. and although there was one exhibit about the american soldiers who died sponsored by some american foundation and another exhibit about the war protests around the world, it was quite one sided, as was the cuchi tunnel tour and the hanoi hilton museum. i suppose it’s all propaganda and that’s just how it is… it got me thinking though, does america have a substantial exhibit or museum dedicated to slavery? i know there are native american museums, but i haven’t yet been to one solely dedicated slavery, and i’m quite curious to see what’s shown and exhibited.
oh, i get stared a lot here! like, a LOT! i got stared at in vietnam (in hanoi and saigon especially) and most thais and laos assumed i was japanese or korean. but MAN, i can’t avoid it here at all! and i’m not even white! i was walking with my dutch friend mark today and i felt that they were staring more at me than at him.
anyway, off i go to take a much needed shower – it’s boiling here! contemplating eating a ‘happy’ pizza tonight. can you guess what that is? hmmm…
i’m nursing a pretty bad hangover from a pretty riotous night out. this usually happens when we order buckets, which are literally small buckets full of something like jungle juice. apparently, i hit my head really hard while dancing, but i don’t recall it! i tell ya, the saffy (south african) boys are ridiculous drinkers. i don’t understand how they do it nearly every night, but i’m guaranteed a wild, fun night out every time i hang out with them. they start the party at whatever bar they go, sometimes to their detriment.
i’m leaving tomorrow for a 2-day mekong delta tour, then taking the slowboat to phnom penh, cambodia. should be fun times. well, minus the killing fields.. but i’m certain cambodia will be an interesting country to visit. i’ll probably be there for about a week or so.. 2 or 1 day in phnom penh, 2 or 3 days in sinoukville (a beach town), and 2 days in siem reap for ankor wat.
my previous concern that i’d have to meet a whole slew of new people has been thrown out the window. besides the handful of friends i keep bumping into and/or traveling with, i’ve also run into doug, an american guy from dc/virginia i first met in chiang mai, the israeli woman i was previously traveling with in northern vietnam, an irish girl from my bus trip from laos who doesn’t like beer (poor excuse for an irishman!), and a few others. the sad thing about hcmc though, is that this is either the last leg or the start of most backpackers’ trips, so i’ll have to say goodbye to most of these guys soon…
i’m still considering meeting up with some people in indonesia as well as australia… we’ll see.
having been in vietnam since sept 27th, i’m quite glad i came (i almost didn’t, due to the poor reviews some previous travelers gave of the country). the only regret i have is not having gone to sapa, a mountain village up in the north where the hmong tribes live…
a brief note: this post has no coherence whatsoever, i’m just writing whatever comes to mind.. i wish i could write more about some of the adventures i’ve had and my friends’ have had, but that takes time, so i’ll save it for another day.
on an entirely different note, being american really does kinda suck sometimes while traveling. you get the feeling that everyone hates the american gov’t. you can’t believe the countless conversations i’ve had in which we’ve all (myself included) endlessly bashed american foreign policy and just the general backwardness of some things about america. EVERYONE, seriously EVERYONE in the world (except for one of the south africans whose mom is an american from nevada) wants Obama to win. the world wants Obama to win, and it will be VERY disappointed if he doesn’t. they probably pay attention to the debates and the ongoing news about the presidential race than the average American. go Obama!
well, right now, i’m off to the war remembrance museum, which used to be called the american atrocities museum. lovely! should make me feel great about being american.
i’ve posted a select few photos on facebook. check it out. there will be more to come soon.
So I’m currently in Mui Ne, Vietnam, another beach town (if you can really call it a town, because it’s so small) in the south. To be honest, I wish I’d stayed in Nha Trang a bit longer. This place has better beaches, but there’s essentially no town – there’s only something that resembles a small resort strip.. Nha Trang had a good nightlife (i.e. rowdy, boisterous backpackers’ bars), and some of my travel friends since my slowboat trip in Lao are still there.. In any case, there are two new developments since my last Vietnam update.
The first is that I’m now traveling with a HOTTT (and i mean, excessively super HOTTT) Swedish medical student named Staffan. I met him and his other Swedish friend Anders (actually met this guy first) at the hotel myself and my two English friends (two girls who I’ve also known since my Lao slowboat trip) were staying at. Don’t get any ideas, it’s strictly platonic. But MAN, the first day we were traveling together, I could not look at him in the eye for fear of fainting from his hotness. I’ve been sharing hotel rooms with him along the way too (separate beds, mind you), which does NOT help one bit. It does NOT help that we’re also on the beach all the time. Literally, the first day we were together by ourselves, I think I went into the bathroom just to pace around and think in my head, “Shit, fuck, goddamnit man!” This has made traveling with him a bit difficult, but I think I’m slowly getting over it. At least he’s not super funny, or else, I don’t know what I’d do – I might have shot myself by now. Plus, tomorrow, I think we’re splitting up and going our separate ways. (Parting ways is always so sad, man… That’s the one thing I dislike about traveling!)
Anyway, this first development was made further difficult by a second new development I’ve had. I’ve developed a terrible rash all over my arms and legs. It’s turned out to be a really really bad heat rash (they look like boils really), but for about a half day, Staffan (who, as I said, is a med student) thought it could’ve been scabies. Thankfully, his medical contact back in Sweden thinks it’s not, which is a relief since there are no hospitals in this town. Plus I’m with a hot Swedish guy, and that would suck if I actually had something serious and contagious like scabies. Hopefully, it’ll go away in a few days because it’s terribly unbecoming.
Oh, another scare was that I thought I lost most of my travel pics, but I’m hoping I still have them – it’s a bit uncertain at this point, but I’m not going to freak out about it just this minute and I’ll wait till I get to a bigger town with better computers.. While traveling, you learn that your camera and flash drives are your life, possibly as or more important than your passport. And I don’t mean the physical camera itself, but the pictures in them, because truly, they are priceless.
I think I’m headed to Ho Chi Minh City tomorrow, probably by myself… Most of my travel friends are either still behind me or long ahead of me headed towards home. I presume I’ll be by myself at HCMC, which’ll probably be a source of boredom and loneliness but I’m hoping I won’t be alone for too long and will meet some good people again..
I’m still thinking a lot about home – both the people and places back home, and also what I need/want to do once I’m back. Again, I think I’ll be home in the relatively near future. It’s gonna suck to miss Halloween and possibly Homecoming though. I’d really not prefer to miss Thanksgiving also…
Currently in Hoi An, Vietnam.
The below is most of an email I wrote to a friend, copied and pasted. Some wild times were had.
The drinking’s decreased a bit, which I’m partly thankful for but partly not! It adds madness to things which can be fun.. But I suppose it’s better for my health.
Also, since when was UWisconsin such a great school? I mean, I know it’s not bad, especially for a public university, but um, to compare it to Harvard? This American girl I’m traveling with is cool, but she can be so f-ing pretentious at times. Comparing UWis to Harvard? I mean, come on! It’s put out more CEOS than Harvard, she says. Well, for 1, it’s a freakin huge school, and 2, what caliber are these CEOS really? Anyway, that pissed me off. Americans are bound to piss me off though at some point without fail, it kinda sucks..
A few other things. The Vietnamese love to holler. I hear they’re ruder in China and India though..
My previous presumption that Aussies are the coolest travelers still holds true. However, Israeli travelers are often quite haughty, cocky and rude than not. Believe me, this has nothing to do with Judiasm as nearly three quarters of my friends back home are Jewish. But these Israelis act like they own the freaking place, and so I generally dislike them. Some Brits can be asshole too, but they’re usually pretty cool. Germans are awesome as well.
I still dislike how people try to put me in a box, as far as my appearance/nationality is concerned.
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Currently, I’m a bit stressed about when I need to come back to the States… The whole American pressure to advance (and it IS American, and perhaps a bit East Asian) is getting to me. I’m traveling with a 34 year old Israeli woman and another 24 year old American girl (the UWis grad), and although I like them overall, it can be annoying to be with them 24/7, for different reasons with each… Being with another American reminds me of the pressures to DO THINGS and to MAKE SOMETHING of myself and think about what I want to do next constantly, because that’s what we’re often talking about a lot of times. But then again, that’s about all she and I have in common so I’ve been continuously submerged (it does feel like I’m submerged) in this pressure, since a few days ago at least… What do I want to do? Law, film, international stuff? I still haven’t figured it out. I think the rents also want me home soon, which is a whole another issue that I don’t even want to get into. Apparently the Brits and Aussies don’t feel this pressure for which I commend greatly..
Other than that, I’m having a blast. I’m in Hoi An, Vietnam right now. It’s a nice, lovely old town, definitely a reprieve from the madness of Hanoi. You have to literally dodge and dart between motorbikes, bikes and cars left and right when crossing the street, as there are no lane markings on most streets – neither markings for lanes on the same side nor oncoming traffic. Also, very few streets have traffic lights.. People don’t ever seem to use turn signals, but honk to alert neighboring vehicles and people.. No road rules whatsoever. It is insane!
I had a couple of wild adventures my first few days in Hanoi actually. I was nearly held hostage at the Lao-Vietnam border for not giving a dollar (yes, $1, but it goes a long way here) to this one random Vietnamese guy on my bus. There were only three foreigners on the bus: myself, an Aussie guy and an Irish girl. I was actually sort of getting ready to pay up (most people do when they cross the border) until the Aussie guy asked why we need to. That got all of our gears rolling, so the Vietnamese guy started shouting at us and demanding money without any explanation, and actually had the nerve to hike up this no-name fee to $2. So we started mildly arguing with him and saying that we’d pay the border officials but not to him. We spoke to the border official who didn’t speak a lick of English (we were at an unofficial border that foreigners generally can’t cross because there was a land slide by the official one) who also concurred with this random guy and said we needed to give him the dollar. We still refused and finally after about a half hour, the guy gave up. BUT not without telling the entire bus full of Vietnamese people and turning them all against us. By this point, the Aussie guy paid up (what a wuss for starting this whole thing but paying in the end), while the Irish girl and I still hadn’t, and so they were pretty pissed. They pulled the bus over about 100 meter down from the border crossing, and I thought shit was gonna go down. They all got off the bus and sat at the curb for about 3 HOURS (part of which was their lunch) in protest of our not giving the money. I didn’t get off the bus for fear that they’d just leave us there or steal my stuff. When they all got back on and the bus finally started going again, Jesus Christ, I thought they were going to drop us off in the middle of nowhere so I got no sleep the rest of the ride, and was delayed about 6 hours from when we were originally supposed to get to Hanoi (I was supposed to get in at 5 pm, but didn’t make it till midnight, ruining plans to meet up with travel buddies). I am however proud to say I didn’t give the dollar. Much trouble for a dollar though. I don’t know if I’d do the same thing again if it happened again, I probably wouldn’t. The problem was that I didn’t want to pay up as soon as the guy started yelling, as I don’t deal well with people coercing me to do something I don’t want to do. Once we started arguing, it was also hard to back down. Plus, by the time the third hour of waiting rolled around, we’d pretty much resigned ourselves to whatever fate was ahead of us. Bus ride from hell, really. And this doesn’t even compare to the breakdowns we had on the minibuses in Lao…
Another time in Hanoi, this woman at a food stall started yelling at a German friend and me for not giving her enough money for our food, which we paid for but she wanted double. As soon as we got up to go, fifteen of them surrounded us and we were thinking, fuck, shit, this is gonna be bad. I let my German friend do most of the talking, though I did my share.. They were literally blocking us from walking even a foot forward. As I’m trying to walk away, the owner, this older 50-something year old woman who was about 4 foot 9, suddenly grabbed my right upper arm really hard. I was jerked back, and at this point, I was suddenly boiling mad, just extremely pissed off, the do-not-tamper seal was broken, the jar was dropped and shattered. (Poor analogies? Perhaps..) Anyway, I turned around and started yelling at her at the top of my lungs – I think I said, “Don’t you fucking touch me, you fucking bitch!” It was her finally crossing the line and touching me that did it. At this point, I was standing over her and nearly about to punch her teeth out. Yes, I was enraged. She was still yelling at us, but we finally broke through the crowd and walked away at a brisk pace. And it’s suffice to say we avoided that street until we left Hanoi the next night!
Anyway, just a few adventures. I’ve heard of even more horrorific stories from friends and fellow travelers. The Vietnamese, especially in the North, definitely aren’t as friendly as Thais and Laos, and in fact, can be downright hostile. Currently, I’m in this small town called Hoi An fairly close to the coast and also on a river. I think I’m headed out of this town tomorrow for Nha Trang, another coastal-ish town, then Dalat, Mui Ne, and then Ho Chi Minh City. But yeah, I’m seriously considering coming back to the states relatively soon, maybe after Cambodia and southern Thailand. Like late Oct/early November-ish. Which would mean I’d cut out Malaysia, Singapore and Australia, maybe even Hawaii. Which would suck, because I always meant to end up in Oz towards the end of my trip. But I don’t know… Too many unknowns! Ahh!
Any suggestions?
