Happy New Year

Since moving to Thailand, I have received many comments along the lines of “your life seems like vacation.” In response to that I would say two things. First —I do actually spend the majority of my time working, but I talk about it the least because people generally find it boring. It’s pretty routine, and although my co-workers and I can get each other in stitches over inside jokes about listening quizzes or book content or comical student answers,

In the middle of 7+ hours spent eating, drinking, and mostly chatting/laughing about work.

it’s usually very much a you-had-to-be-there kind of humor. Or in this case, it’s more of a you-had-to-teach-the-same-content-5-times and grade-the-same-paragraph-over-200-times kind of humor.

All that being said, the second point is that yes, my life is pretty unbelievable. Like I mentioned before, I definitely have more free time than ever. And I’m living in a great location that gives me easy access to other incredible cities and countries and experiences. So with that being said, I apologize if you thought my last blogs were obnoxious, but I must warn you that this blog is going to be a whole new level. Exams finished in late December and I spent a few weeks only traveling. Basically, this post is going to be a plug for everyone to come move to/visit SE Asia.

My first set of flights out was in and out of Bangkok, the first landing close to midnight and the next departing the next morning at 7am. Because I was traveling on an I-make-a-Thai-salary budget, I decided it would be a good idea to just sleep in the airport. As I nabbed a set of chairs with an outlet, I was overlooking a sea of chairs filled with fellow travelers trying to save a few bucks and brave the night in the airport waiting area. Beyond my new two dozen friends, I stumbled upon a whole new community: http://www.sleepinginairports.net/. My experience in Bangkok (DMK, not

Changi airport calf massage, rated best airport to sleep in in the entire world!

BKK) was….adequate, but later in my travels I was able to spend a night in Changi airport in Singapore. Between the movie theater, endless 24-hour food and free massage chairs (sadly the pool in the airport is closed at night), it was a far superior experience.

I know, I know, I traveled to 3 countries and the first story I told was about airports. But a central part of traveling through SE Asia is flying (perhaps at times on airlines with questionable safety) and dealing with everything that goes along with that. Another fun part of traveling cheaply is meeting like-minded people. When you stay in a $6 dorm hostel, you inevitably meet fellow travelers in your close quarters, and these travelers all have similar mindsets to you.

The rest (and majority) of this will post be separated into the three places I visited: Singapore, Indonesia, and Shanghai. It is mostly photo-driven, and I’d say I took at most one-third of these pictures. When I travel I actually actively do not put much effort into taking pictures — I see every person around me changing their camera settings over and over and staring at a tiny little screen instead of enjoying the life-size sunset or mountain or ocean view in front of them.

Happy Sunset! How many cameras can you count?

But all that pretentious enjoy-the-moment crap being said….every time I get back home I get extremely jealous of all my friends who did invest in a nice camera (pretty much anything is a step above me using my iPhone) and took the time to capture nice pictures. So then I steal all their photos off of Facebook (although my friends invested in photography find this appalling, since the quality is “abysmal”). I guess what I’m saying is that I’m a huge hypocrite, and if anybody with a really nice camera/good photography skills is looking to travel, please come join me.

Singapore

Singapore was a fascinating contrast to every other part of SE Asia that I have experienced. Ridiculously clean and organized, easy-to-use (and cheap) public transportation, and an intense big brother vibe. Also notoriously expensive. However, between crashing with a friend, googling “free things to do in Singapore” and eating my meals at “hawkers” (usually <$3), I was able to not break the bank. For those interested, my favorite free activities: downtown walking tour, botanic gardens, light show at marina bay hotel, nature reserve, and ion mall sky view— 55th floor, 360 degree view of the city.

Everything comes in four languages, which I thought was cool. The picture on the right is not in a really important area, it’s just a nature park.

The Merlion, the symbol of Singapore, and the famous Marina Bay Hotel. Those white balls in the water are there for New Years. People write their resolutions on them, and then on NY they were lit up and released.

Indonesia

I spent my two weeks in Indonesia with my friend Lisa from Chiang Rai and had an absolute blast. We covered a wide range of activities and what felt like a large part of Indonesia (hours of car rides, boat rides, buses and planes). Looking at a map afterwards, we only covered a minute fraction — Indonesia is HUGE and also has so many people (fourth most in the world, not much less than the US).

Bali ~ Surfing

Yes, I actually stood up on some waves! LOVED it and want to try again. On the right — renting motorbikes is a common part of traveling SE Asia, but in Bali most bikes come with these weird looking racks, which we discovered were for surf boards.

Merry Christmas: Erupting Volcanoes and Blue Flames

We took a tour from Bali to Mount Bromo and Kawah Ijen (a Crater). I was sick the first day of our trip, which actually turned out to be perfect timing — I slept through the 16 hours that we were stuck in a traffic jam.

Normally on this trip you’d hike on the crater that’s pictured here. For obvious reasons, we hiked in a different place nearby, to get this unbelievable view on Christmas morning.

The next stop was Kawah Ijen. We woke up at 11pm (yes, that is correct) to drive, then hike up the mountain, and then finally down into the crater. There were numerous signs forbidding people to walk in the craters, but there were also numerous tours of other people all doing the same thing. The crater is an active sulfur mine, so it smells horrible and is mildly toxic. We all wore gas masks, and for the most part could just walk around normally. But occasionally the wind would shift and blow the smoke into your face, at which point you had to shut your eyes, crouch down and wait for it to pass, anywhere from 10 seconds to a whole minute.

The two signs are at the top of the crater, taken after we hiked out. That smoke is from the crater. So all in all, it was a really safe trip and a really good decision.

So why did we go through this crazy ordeal? Because of the sulfur being melted, there were the most incredible bright blue flames. Kawah Ijen is one of the only places in the world where they can be seen. Because it’s 4:30am and pitch black out they are extremely difficult to capture in a photo, but I guess that’s where my enjoy-the-moment attitude comes in advantage; it is certainly a sight I will never forget.

Four Day Boat Tour to Komodo Island

AKA Paradise. We met up with my friend (and fellow PiA-er) Sean to do a boat tour. I don’t know if I could have planned something more ideal. I would wake up, jump in the ocean and snorkel around (amazing coral and fish and other marine life every. single. time.). Throughout the days we would stop at uninhabited islands to hike around — one time for views, another time to a waterfall (with a really fun swimming hole). While the boat was driving we would play cards, lounge in the sun, and get to know each other. There were 18 of us on the boat from all over — Australia, Germany, UK, US, most were from Indonesia — and fortunately it was a really fun group.

Sean! Living in Yogyakara, Indonesia this year.

Me with the manta rays on the left and dinner on the right! Immediately after the photo on the right was taken, the fish started flailing.

Those are (big ass) bats! Or rather, “Flying Foxes.” Right at sunset, thousands flew by.

If you look in the bottom right corner, you can see our boat.

The two main highlights (besides, well, everything) were swimming with MANTA RAYS and visiting DRAGONS. We snorkeled with the Mantas, and if you don’t mind free diving (or if you LOVE it like me) you could dive down to get within a few feet of them. They were probably the most majestic animals I have seen in person, and I won’t try to describe the experience any more than just saying if you get the chance to swim with some, DO IT. The one caveat is that Manta Rays prefer waters with intense currents — I have never been in a body of water that I didn’t think I could navigate, and the second I got in I quickly drifted — along with everyone else — far away from the boat. When I swam as hard as I could I could barely stay in one spot, much less make any headway. The boats are all very used to it though, and they simply picked us back up, and re-dropped us in, but this time with a line to hold on to.

The Komodo dragon population is contained on a few islands (although they can swim, which Lisa would remind me when we went scuba diving nearby). Komodo bites are pretty much fatal, so you have to have a guide with you. The guide’s “defense”? A long wooden stick. Mostly the komodos were just chilling, but after the photo on the bottom was taken the komodos started sort of charging us and we had to briskly trot away.

Yep, that’s the wooden stick that the guards use to “protect” you.

Happy New Year in Flores

Our boat arrived in a small town called Labuan Bajo on New Year’s eve. Since we all got along so well on the boat (and since there really were very few other people in this town), the boat tour group all celebrated together, crushing the dance floor at the only bar in town to ring in 2016. Lisa and I were supposed to leave the next day on a flight at 1pm. We arrived (by hitch hiking — which incidentally we did a lot of in Indonesia) at the airport a little after noon to be told our flight had already departed at 10am (3 hours before schedule). Gotta love those budget Asian airlines.

Amazingly, we got a refund with no hassle and decided to just hang out in the town a little longer. It led to some AMAZING scuba diving (sharks and sea turtles and so much more) and lovely relaxation. Labuan Bajo is a small town now (on Flores Island), but in a few years will probably become much more commercialized and tourist-y (more like Bali), so I’m thrilled I got to visit it when I did.

Shanghai

Singapore is a logical stop on the way to Indonesia from Thailand, and Indonesia is a logical destination for someone on a budget, but many people got confused when they found out I was in Shanghai. I had to return briefly to the US in January, and since flights out of Indonesia usually stop over somewhere in China or Japan or South Korea, I decided to take an extended layover in Shanghai to meet up with Julia. No visa is required if you are only in China for 72 hours, so I was able to experience a little taste of Shanghai in a whirlwind 3 days.

The right is the propaganda museum. We couldn’t take pictures inside, but I just loved that it was in (the basement) of such a noncommittal building. It was absolutely fascinating seeing Chinese propaganda from the past 100 years.

Julia’s flight was delayed, so I had a few hours to fend for myself. I went out to eat with a new friend I made and we discovered a place with a little English, and thought “Noodle Chicken Soup” would be a safe bet (pictured above). It was HORRIBLE and thank god the rest of the trip Julia came and ordered every single other thing I ate. I don’t remember any names, but it was fabulous. I think the highlight was 1am street food: fried noodles and Chuanr (I hope I spelled that right), basically skewers of mushrooms and various meats and eggplant all grilled with the most delicious spices.

Me with Julia at the Bund, the best part of the Shanghai skyline! Julia was my roommate all 4 years at Princeton, is getting a Masters in Beijing, fluent in Mandarin, and along with her mom/dad/sister are my surrogate family in NYC, where I went for Thanksgiving while at school.

If you are going to find yourself in any of these locations and want any more practical or logistical information, feel free to contact me! I am not going to claim that my little experience gives me any sort of authority on traveling to any of these locations (and I know unsolicited travel advice is the worst). But I did make friends with a few more well-traveled people from all over that could maybe be helpful.

I’m now finally back in Chiang Rai, back to the grind of teaching. My tan is long faded but it feels great to be back in my little house and back with all my friends (and massages and Pad Thai). It’s crazy to look back on when I stepped off the plane in Bangkok in August compared to in January. In August I was excited and scared out of my mind for my new adventure, and six months later I was surprised to realize that I felt like I was returning home.